The Messenger

the entrance of the track leading to the chalet. It read PRIVATE . The security gate was three hundred yards into the trees. Gabriel and Navot moved on one side of the track, Mikhail and Yaakov on the other. The snow had been deep along the edge of road coming up the gorge, but in the trees there was much less. Seen through the night-vision goggles, it glowed ghostly luminous green while the trunks of the pine and fir were dark and distinct. Gabriel crept forward, careful to avoid fallen limbs that might have cracked beneath the weight of his step. It was deathly silent in the forest. He was aware of his own heart banging against his rib cage and the sound of Navot’s footfalls behind him. He held his Beretta in both hands. He wore no gloves.
    Fifteen minutes after entering the trees, he glimpsed the house for the first time. There were lights burning in the ground-floor windows, and a single window was illuminated on the second story. The guards were sheltering in the warmth of one of the jeeps. The engine was running and the headlights were doused. The gate was open.
    “Do you have a clean shot, Mikhail?”
    “Yes.”
    “Which one is best from your angle?”
    “The driver.”
    “It’s nearly fifty yards, Mikhail. Can you get him cleanly?”
    “I can get him.”
    “A head shot, Mikhail. We need to do it quietly.”
    “I have the shot.”
    “Line it up and wait for my signal. We shoot together. And God help us if we miss.”

    “S O A LLON asked you to help him?”
    “Yes.”
    “And you agreed?”
    “Yes.”
    “Instantly?”
    “Yes.”
    “No hesitation.”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because you’re evil. And I hate you.”
    “Watch your mouth.”
    “You wanted the truth.”
    “What happened next?”
    “I quit my job at the Phillips Collection and moved to London.”

    G ABRIEL TOOK careful aim at the man in the passenger seat.
    “Are you ready, Mikhail?”
    “Ready.”
    “Two shots, on my mark, in five, four, three, two… ”
    Gabriel squeezed the trigger twice. Four holes appeared almost simultaneously in the windshield of the jeep. He sprinted up the track through the knee-deep snow, Navot at his heels, and approached the jeep cautiously with the Beretta in his outstretched hands. Mikhail had managed two fatal head shots on the driver, but Gabriel’s man had been hit in the cheek and upper chest and was still semiconscious.
    Gabriel shot him twice through the passenger-side window, then stood motionless for an instant, scanning the terrain for any sign their presence had been detected. It was Navot who noticed the guard coming out of the trees at the left side of the house and Mikhail who dropped him with a single head shot that sprayed blood and brain tissue across the virgin snow. Gabriel turned and headed across the clearing toward the chalet, with the other three men at his back.

    “T ELL ME ABOUT this man Julian Isherwood.”
    “Julian is a dear sweet man.”
    “He is a Jew?”
    “Never came up.”
    “Julian Isherwood is a longtime agent of Israeli intelligence?”
    “I wouldn’t know.”
    “So after leaving the Phillips Collection you went immediately to work as Julian Isherwood’s assistant director?”
    “That’s correct.”
    “But you were a complete amateur. When were you trained?”
    “At night.”
    “Where?”
    “At a country house south of London.”
    “Where was this country house?”
    “Surrey, I think. I never caught the name of the village.”
    “It was a permanent Israeli safe house?”
    “A rental. Very temporary.”
    “There were other people there besides Allon?”
    “Yes.”
    “They used other people to help train you?”
    “Yes.”
    “Give me some of their names.”
    “The people who came from Tel Aviv never gave me their names.”
    “And what about the other members of Allon’s London team?”
    “What about them?”
    “Give me their names.”
    “Please don’t make me do this.”
    “Give me their names, Sarah.”
    “Please, don’t.”
    He hit her hard enough to knock her from her chair. She hung there a moment, the handcuffs carving into her wrists, while he screamed at her for names.
    “Tell me their names, Sarah. All of them.”
    “There was a man named Yaakov.”
    “Who else?”
    “Yossi.”
    “Give me another name, Sarah.”
    “Eli.”
    “Another.”
    “Dina.”
    “Another.”
    “Rimona.”
    “And these were the same people who followed you in Saint Bart’s?”
    “Yes.”
    “Who was the man who first