The English Assassin

his tourist guide and had his fingers wrapped tightly around the butt of his Beretta.
     
    ANDforty yards behind them all was the Englishman. Two questions played in his thoughts. Why was the girl who had been feeding the pigeons in San Marco now walking five paces behind Gabriel Allon? And why was the man who had been seated near Allon at Caffé Florian walking five paces ahead of her?
    The Englishman was well-versed in the art of countersurveillance. Anna Rolfe was under the protection of a skilled and professional service. But then that’s the way Allon would play it. The Englishman had studied at his feet; knew the way he thought. The Gabriel Allon that the Englishman met in Tel Aviv would never go out for a stroll without a purpose, and the purpose of this one was to expose the Englishman.
    On the Riva degli Schiavoni, the Englishman bought a postcard from a tourist kiosk and watched Allon and Anna Rolfe disappear into the streets of Castello. Then he turned in the other direction and spent the next two hours walking slowly back to his hotel.
     
    VENICEis a city where the usual rules of street surveillance and countersurveillance do not apply. It is a virtuoso piece requiring a virtuoso’s sure hand. There are no motorcars, no buses or streetcars. There are few places to establish a worthwhile fixed post. There are streets that lead to nowhere—into a canal or an enclosed courtyard with no means of escape. It is a city where the man being pursued holds all the advantages.
    They were very good, Team Giorgione. They had been trained by the surveillance artists of the Office, and they had honed their skills on the streets of Europe and the Middle East. They communicated silently, drifting in and out of Gabriel’s orbit, appearing and reappearing from different directions. Only Jonathan remained constantly in the same position, five paces from Gabriel’s back, like a satellite in stationary orbit.

    They moved north through a series of church squares, until finally they settled in a small café on the edge of the broad Campo Santa Maria della Formosa. Gabriel and Anna took a table, while Jonathan remained standing at the bar with a group of men. Through the windows, Gabriel caught momentary glimpses of the team: Shimon and Ilana buying gelato from a vendor at the center of the square. Yitzhak and Moshe admiring the plain exterior of the church of the Santa Maria Formosa. And Deborah, in a flash of her old spirit, playing football with a group of Italian schoolboys.
    This time it was Jonathan who checked in with the team members by secure cell phone. When he was finished, he turned toward Gabriel and mouthed two words: She’s clean.
     
    LATEthat evening, when Team Giorgione had finished its debriefing and its members had decamped back to their hotel rooms, Gabriel lingered in the half-light of the sitting room, staring at the photographs of Christopher Keller. Upstairs, in the bedroom, Anna’s violin fell silent. Gabriel listened as she placed it back in its case and snapped the latches. A moment later, she descended the staircase. Gabriel gathered up the photographs and slipped them into a file folder. Anna sat down and lit a cigarette.
    Gabriel said, “Are you going to try it?”
    “ ‘The Devil’s Trill’?”
    “Yes.”
    “I haven’t decided yet.”
    “What will you do if you think you can’t pull it off?”
    “I’ll substitute a series of unaccompanied sonatas by Bach. They’re quite beautiful, but they’re not the ‘Trill.’ The critics will wonder why I chose not to play it. They’ll speculate that I returned too quickly. It will be great fun.”
    “Whatever you decide to play, it’s going to be marvelous.”
    Her gaze fell upon the manila folder on the coffee table.
    “Why did you do that?”
    “Do what?”
    “Why did you hide the photographs of him when I came into the room? Why don’t you want me to see him?”
    “You worry about ‘The Devil’s Trill,’ and I’ll worry about the man with the gun.”
    “Tell me about him.”
    “There are some things you don’t need to know.”
    “He may very well try to kill me tomorrow night. I have a right to know something about him.”
    Gabriel could not argue with this, and so he told her everything he knew.
    “Is he really out there?”
    “We have to assume he is.”
    “Rather interesting, don’t you think?”
    “What’s that?”
    “He can change his voice and appearance at will and he vanished amid fire and blood in the