The Kill Artist

are following you. Meet me at Café Tamar in thirty minutes."
    "Where's Café Tamar?"
    But Shamron turned and melted into the flow of pedestrians. Half an hour later, having located the chic Café Tamar on Sheinkin Street, she joined him once again.
    "The girl with the dog, the boy with the headphones and the Springsteen shirt, the kid from the kibbutz with the Uzi."
    Shamron smiled. "Very good. Just one more test tonight. See that man sitting alone over there?"
    Jacqueline nodded.
    "Strike up a conversation with him, learn everything you can, and then entice him back to your flat. When you get to the lobby, find some way of unsnarling yourself from the situation without making a scene."
    Shamron got up and walked away. Jacqueline made eye contact with the man, and after a few minutes he joined her. He said his name was Mark, that he was from Boston and worked for a computer firm doing business in Israel. They talked for an hour and began to flirt. But when she invited him back to her apartment, he confessed that he was married.
    "Too bad," she said. "We could have had a very nice time."
    He quickly changed his mind. Jacqueline excused herself to use the bathroom, went to a public telephone instead. She dialed the front desk at the Opera Tower and left a message for herself. Then she went back to the table and said, "Let's go."
    They walked to her flat. Before going upstairs she checked with the front desk. "Your sister called from Herzliya," the clerk said. "She tried your apartment, but there was no answer, so she called here and left a message."
    "What is it?"
    "Your father has had a heart attack."
    "Oh, my God!"
    "They've taken him to the hospital. She says he's going to be all right, but she wants you to come right away."
    Jacqueline turned to the American. "I'm so sorry, but I have to go."
    The American kissed her cheek and walked away, crestfallen. Shamron, who was watching the entire scene from across the lobby, came forward, grinning like a schoolboy. "That was pure poetry. Sarah Halévy, you're a natural."
    Her first assignment didn't require her to leave Paris. The Office was trying to recruit an Iraqi nuclear weapons scientist who lived in Paris and worked with Iraq's French suppliers. Shamron decided to set a "honey trap" and gave the job to Jacqueline. She met the Iraqi in a bar, seduced him, and began spending the night at his apartment. He fell head over heels in love. Jacqueline told her lover that if he wanted to continue seeing her, he would have to meet with a friend of hers who had a business proposition. The friend turned out to be Ari Shamron, the proposition simple: work for us or we will tell your wife and Saddam's security thugs you've been fucking an Israeli agent. The Iraqi agreed to work for Shamron.
    Jacqueline had been given her first taste of intelligence work. She found it exhilarating. She had played a small role in an operation that had dealt a blow to Iraq's nuclear ambitions. She had helped protect the State of Israel from an enemy that would do anything to destroy it. And in a small way she had avenged the deaths of her grandparents.
    She had to wait another year for her next assignment: seducing and blackmailing a Syrian intelligence officer in London. It was another stunning success. Nine months later she was sent to Cyprus to seduce a German chemical company executive who was selling his wares to Libya. This time there was a twist. Shamron wanted her to drug the German and photograph the documents in his briefcase while he was unconscious. Once again she pulled off the job without a hitch.
    After the operation Shamron flew her to Tel Aviv, presented her with a secret citation, told her she was finished. It didn't take long for things to circulate through the intelligence underground. Her next target might suspect that the pretty French model was more than she appeared to be. And she might very well end up dead.
    She begged him for one more job. Shamron reluctantly agreed.
    Three months later he sent her to Tunis.
    Jacqueline had thought it was strange that Shamron instructed her to meet Gabriel Allon in a church in Turin. She found him standing atop a platform, restoring a fresco depicting the Ascension. She worked with good-looking men every day in her overt life, but there was something about Gabriel that took her breath away. It was the intense concentration in his eyes. Jacqueline wanted him to look at her the way he was looking at the fresco. She decided she was going to