The English Assassin

firm with offices in London, Paris, Berlin, Bern, and Nassau. His multitude of critics might have said that Heller Enterprises specialized in murder and mayhem, blackmail and betrayal. Heller Enterprises was an Old Economy firm, the critics said. What King Saul Boulevard needed to shake off its long winter of despair was a New Economy chief for the New Economy world. But Herr Heller clung to the keys of the executive suite with one of his patented vise grips, and few in Israel, prime ministers included, could muster the courage to wrest them away from him.
    To his brotherhood of devoted acolytes, Shamron was a legend. Once Gabriel had been among them. But Shamron was also a liar, an unrepentant, unreconstructed liar. He lied as a matter of course, lied because he knew no other way, and he had lied to Gabriel time and time again. For a time their relationship had been like that of a father and a son. But the father became like a man who gambles or drinks or sleeps with many women and is forced to lie to his children, and now Gabriel hated him the way only a son can hate his father.
    “What are you doing here? Why didn’t you just send someone from Bern station to pick me up?”
    “Because you’re too important to entrust to someone from the station.” Shamron lit another one of his vile Turkish cigarettes and violently snapped the lighter closed. “Besides, Herr Peterson and his friends from the Foreign Ministry made my appearance here a condition of your release. The Swiss love to yell at me when one of our agents gets in trouble. I’m not sure why. I suppose it reinforces their superiority complex—makes them feel better for their past sins.”
    “Who’s Peterson?”
    “ Gerhardt Peterson works for the Division of Analysis and Protection.”
    “What the hell is that?”
    “The new name for Switzerland’s internal security service. It has responsibility for national security matters, counterintelligence, and investigating Swiss citizens suspected of treason. Peterson is the number-two man in the division. He oversees all operations.”
    “How did you convince him to let me go?”
    “I played the subservient Jew. I gave them the usual promises that we would not operate on Swiss soil without first consulting Herr Peterson and his superiors in the Swiss security service. I also told them about a certain Swiss arms-maker who’s flogging bomb triggers to terrorists on the open market. I suggested that they see to the situation themselves before someone takes matters into their own hands.”
    “You always have an ace in the hole.”
    “It’s been my experience that one can never be too prepared.”
    “I thought your term was over.”
    “It was supposed to end six months ago, but the prime minister asked me to stay on. Given the current situation in the territories, we both agreed that now was not the time for a change of leadership at King Saul Boulevard.”
    Shamron had probably engineered the uprising himself, thought Gabriel. What better way to make himself indispensable? No, that was beyond even Shamron.
    “My offer still stands.”
    “Which offer is that?”
    “Deputy director for operations.”
    “No, thank you.”
    Shamron shrugged. “Tell me what happened. I want to hear it all, from beginning to end.”
    Gabriel so mistrusted Shamron that he considered giving him an abridged account of the affair, based on the theory that the less Shamron knew about anything, the better. But at least it would give them something new to talk about instead of refighting old wars, so Gabriel told him everything, starting with his arrival on the overnight train from Paris and ending with his arrest and interrogation. Shamron looked out the window as Gabriel spoke, turning over his lighter in his fingers: clockwise, counterclockwise, clockwise, counterclockwise . . .
    “Did you see the body?”
    “Very professional, one shot through the eye. He was probably dead before he hit the ground. A coup de grâce wasn’t necessary.”
    “Did the police ever hit you?”
    “No.”
    Shamron seemed disappointed by this.
    Gabriel said, “Peterson told me the case was dropped because of pressure from Bern.”
    “Perhaps, but there was no way Peterson was ever going to hang the Ali Hamidi job on you. Prosecuting anyone on a twenty-five-year-old murder is hard enough. Prosecuting a professional—” He shrugged his shoulders, as if to say such things are just not done. “The Hamidi job was a work of art. No