The Confessor

via "the convent route"--a chain of monasteries and Church properties stretching from Germany to the Italian port of Genoa. In Genoa he had been given shelter by Franciscans and, through the auspices of Church charitable organizations was provided with false papers describing him as a refugee. On June 14, 1950, he emerged from the shelter of the Franciscan convent long enough to board the Giovanna C, bound for Buenos Aires. Bound for a new life in the New World, thought Shamron. The leader of the Church had not been able to find the words to condemn the murder of six million, but his bishops and priests had given comfort and sanctuary to the greatest mass killer in history. This was a fact that Shamron could never comprehend, a sin for which there was no absolution.
    He thought of Lev's voice screeching down the secure line from Tel Aviv. No, thought Shamron, I will not help Lev find Gabriel. Quite the opposite, he was going to help him discover what happened in that convent by the lake--and who killed Benjamin Stern.
    He walked back into the house, his step crisp and surefooted, and went to his bedroom. Ge'ulah was lying in bed watching television. Shamron packed a suitcase. Every few seconds, she would glance up from the screen and look at him, but she did not speak. It had been this way for more than forty years. When his bag was packed, Shamron sat on the bed next to her and held her hand.
    "You'll be careful, won't you, Ari?"
    "Of course, my love."
    "You won't smoke cigarettes, will you?"
    "Never!"
    "Come home soon."
    "Soon," Shamron said, and he kissed her forehead.
    There was an indignity to his visits to King Saul Boulevard that Shamron found deeply depressing. He had to sign the logbook at the security station in the lobby and attach a laminated tag to his shirt pocket. No longer could he use his old private elevator--that was reserved for Lev now. Instead, he crowded into an ordinary lift filled with desk officers and boys and girls from the file rooms.
    He rode up to the fourth floor. His ritual humiliation did not end there, for Lev still had a few more ounces of flesh to extract. There was no one to bring him coffee, so he was forced to fend for himself in the canteen, coaxing a cup of weak brew from an automated machine. Then he walked down the hall to his "office"--a bare room, not much larger than a storage closet, with a pine table, a folding steel chair, and a chipped telephone that smelled of disinfectant.
    Shamron sat down, opened his briefcase, and removed the surveillance photograph from London--the one snapped by Mordecai outside Peter Malone's home. Shamron sat over it for several minutes, elbows on the table, knuckles pressed to his temples. Every few seconds, a head would poke around the edge of the door and a pair of eyes would stare at him as if he were some exotic beast. Yes, its true. The old man is roaming the halls of Headquarters once more. Shamron saw none of it. He had eyes only for the man in the photograph.
    Finally, he picked up the telephone and dialed the extension for Research. It was answered by a girl who sounded as though she was barely out of high school. This is Shamron."
    "Who?"
    "Sham-RON," he said irritably. "I need the file on the Cyprus kidnapping case. It was 1986, if I remember correctly. That's probably before you were born, but do your best."
    He slammed down the phone and waited. Five minutes later a bleary-eyed boy called Yossi appeared in Shamron's ignoble door "Sorry, boss. The girl is new." He held up a bound file. "You wanted to see this?"
    Shamron held out his hand, like a beggar.
    IT HAD not been one of Shamron's prouder moments. In the summer of 1986, Israeli Justice Minister Meir Ben-David set sail from Tel Aviv for a three-week Mediterranean cruise aboard a private yacht along with twelve other guests and a crew of five. On day nine of their holiday, in the harbor at Larnaca, the yacht was seized by a team of terrorists claiming to represent a group called the Fighting Palestinian Cells. A rescue attempt was ruled out, and the Cypriots wanted the messiness resolved as quickly and as quietly as possible. That left the Israeli government with no choice but to negotiate, and Shamron opened a channel of communication with the German-speaking team leader. Three days later, the siege ended. The hostages were released, the terrorists were granted safe passage, and a month later a dozen hardcore PLO killers were released from Israeli jails.
    Publicly, Israel