The Messenger

approached you on the beach at Saline?”
    “Yaakov.”
    “Who was the woman who left the message in the bathroom for you at the restaurant in Saline?”
    “Rimona.”
    “Who was girl with the limp who came to Le Tetou restaurant right before you went to the restroom?”
    “Dina.”
    “They’re all Jews, these people.”
    “Would that come as a surprise to you?”
    “And what about you, Sarah? Are you a Jew?”
    “No, I’m not a Jew.”
    “Then why did you help them?”
    “Because I hate you.”
    “Yes, and look what it’s gotten you.”

    T HEY ENCOUNTERED one more guard before reaching the chalet. He came from their right, around the corner of the house, and foolishly stepped into the open with his weapon still at his side. Gabriel and Mikhail fired together. The shots were muffled by the silencers, but the guard emitted a single piercing scream as the volley of rounds tore into his chest. Two faces, like figures in a shooting gallery, appeared suddenly in the illuminated windows of the house—one in a ground-floor window directly in front of Gabriel, a second on the upper floor at the peak of the roof. Gabriel took out the man in the first-floor window while Mikhail saw to the one on the second.
    They had now lost any remaining element of surprise. Gabriel and Mikhail both reloaded as they sprinted the final thirty yards toward the front door. Yaakov had much experience entering terrorist hideouts in the West Bank and Gaza and led the way. He didn’t bother trying the latch. Instead he sprayed a volley of rounds through the center of the door to take out anyone standing on the other side, then shot away the lock and the surrounding wood of the doorjamb. Navot, the largest of the four men, hurled his thick body against the door, and it collapsed inward like a falling domino.
    The other three stepped quickly into the small entrance hall. Gabriel covered the space to the left, Yaakov the center, and Mikhail the right. Gabriel, still wearing the night-vision goggles, saw the man he shot though the window lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Yaakov and Mikhail each fired immediately, and Gabriel heard the screams of two more dying men. They moved forward into the chalet, found the steps to the cellar, and headed down. We’ll start there, Gabriel had said. Torturers always like to do their work belowground .

    S HE WAS DESCRIBING for him the day of the sale, when there came from the floor above the sound of a disturbance. He silenced her with a brutal slap across her face, then stood up and, with the gun in his hand, moved quickly to the door. A few seconds later she heard shouts and screams and heavy footfalls on the steps. Muhammad turned and leveled the gun at her face. Sarah, still handcuffed to the table, reflexively lowered her head between her arms as he squeezed the trigger twice. In the tiny chamber the gun sounded like artillery. The rounds scorched the air above her head and embedded themselves in the wall at her back.
    He screamed at her in rage for having the indecency of choosing life over death and moved a step closer to fire again. Then the door came crashing inward as though it had been blown away by the concussion of a bomb blast. It slammed against Muhammad’s back and knocked him to the ground. The gun was still in his hand. He rose onto one knee and leveled it at her once more as two men came flashing through the doorway, their faces hidden by balaclavas and night-vision goggles. They shot Muhammad. They kept shooting him until they had no more rounds to fire.

    T HEY CUT AWAY the handcuffs and the shackles and spirited her past the tattered bodies of the dead. Outside she climbed childlike into Gabriel’s arms. He bore her across the snowy clearing and down the track to the road, where Lavon and Moshe were waiting with the cars. The silence of the forest was shattered by her wailing.
    “I had to tell them things.”
    “I know.”
    “They hit me. They told me they were going to kill me.”
    “I know, Sarah. I saw the room.”
    “They know about you, Gabriel. I tried to—”
    “It’s all right, Sarah. It’s our fault. We let you down.”
    “I’m sorry, Gabriel. I’m so sorry.”
    “Please, Sarah. Don’t.”
    “I saw him again.”
    “Who?”
    “Bin Shafiq.”
    “Where was he?”
    “In Zurich. He’s not finished, Gabriel.”
    “What did he say?”
    “He’s going to hit the Vatican again.”

36.

Zug, Switzerland

    T WO OF N AVOT’S WATCHERS managed to make