The Fallen Angel

plucked it from his lips before sitting.
    “You really have to stop, Ari.”
    “Why?”
    “Because they’re killing you.”
    “I’d rather die from smoking than by the hand of one of my enemies.”
    “There are other options, you know.” Frowning, Gabriel crushed out the cigarette and handed Shamron a glass of wine. “Drink it, Ari. They say it’s good for the heart.”
    “I put mine in storage when I joined the Office. And now that I’m in possession of it again, it’s giving me no end of grief.” He drank some of the wine as a breath of wind moved in the eucalyptus tree. “Do you remember what I said to you when I gave you this flat?”
    “You told me to fill it with children.”
    “You have a good memory.”
    “Not as good as yours.”
    “Mine isn’t what it once was, which I suppose is fortuitous. I’ve done many things in my life I’d rather forget, most of them involving you.” He looked at Gabriel seriously and asked, “Did it help at all?”
    “What?”
    “Vienna.”
    “I didn’t do it for myself. I did it so someone else wouldn’t have to bury a child or visit a loved one in a psychiatric hospital.”
    “You just answered my question in the affirmative,” Shamron said. “I’m only sorry we had to send Massoud back to Tehran. He deserved to die an ignoble death.”
    “We did the next best thing by burning him.”
    “I only wish the flames could have been real instead of allegorical.” Shamron drank some of his wine and asked Gabriel what it was like being on the Temple Mount.
    “It’s changed since my last visit.”
    “Did you feel close to God?”
    “Too close.”
    Shamron smiled. “The visit didn’t go exactly as planned, at least from the mufti’s point of view. But from ours . . .” Shamron’s voice trailed off. “The pope’s words of support couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. And we have you to thank for it.”
    “They were his words, Ari, not mine.”
    “But I’m not sure he would have spoken them if it wasn’t for your friendship. I just hope he stands by us when the inevitable becomes a reality.”
    “You mean an attack on Iran?”
    Shamron nodded.
    “How much longer do we have?”
    “Your friend Uzi will have to make that decision. But if I had to guess, it will be some time in the next year. In my opinion,” Shamron added, “we’ve waited too long already.”
    “But even you’re not sure whether an attack on their facilities will be successful.”
    “But I am certain of what will happen if we do nothing,” Shamron said. “It’s not a nuclear attack that I fear the most. It’s that our enemies will use the protection of an Iranian nuclear umbrella to make our daily lives unlivable. Rockets from Gaza, rockets from Lebanon, entire sections of the country left uninhabitable. Then what? People get nervous. They slowly start to leave. And then the beautiful country that I helped to create and defend collapses.”
    “It’s possible you’re being too pessimistic.”
    “Actually,” Shamron said, “I was giving you my best-case scenario.”
    “And the worst case?”
    He turned his head a few degrees and gazed in the direction of the Old City. “It could all go up in a ball of fire, like the night Titus laid siege to the Second Temple.”
    The sound of Chiara’s laughter filtered from the kitchen onto the terrace. It softened Shamron’s dark mood.
    “Have there been any developments on the child front?”
    “The pope is praying for us.”
    “So am I,” Shamron said. “I read an interesting article about infertility not long ago. It said frequent travel can sometimes interfere with conception. It also said that the couple should remain at home as often as possible, surrounded by family and loved ones.”
    “Have you no shame?”
    “None whatsoever.” Shamron smiled and placed a hand on Gabriel’s arm. “Are you happy, my son?”
    “I will be as soon as I put His Holiness back on his airplane.”
    “I assume you’re planning to accompany him?”
    Gabriel nodded. “I need to have a word with Carlo Marchese. I also have to finish that Caravaggio.”
    “Never a dull moment.”
    “Actually, I’d kill for one.”
    “And when you’re finished in Rome? What then?”
    Gabriel smiled. “Drink your wine, Ari. They say it’s good for the heart.”
     
     
    As Shamron predicted, the pope’s remarks during his visit to the Temple Mount did not go over well in the Muslim world. On Al Jazeera that evening, one