The Secret Servant

motorists stranded on the road on Christmas morning?”
    Ishaq responded by shoving Gabriel hard to the floor. Gabriel’s view was now limited to the soles of Ishaq’s shoes—and the base of the six barrels filled with explosives—and the wiring leading to the detonator switch on the console. Ishaq, in his rush to reach London on schedule, had inadvertently thwarted the first rescue attempt. The second, Gabriel knew, would involve no subterfuge. He closed his eyes and listened for the sound of the motorcycle.
     
     
     
    Navot ordered Yossi and Yaakov back into the smashed cars and looked one final time at Shamron for guidance. “I’m afraid this has gone on long enough,” Shamron said. “Put them down in a field where no one else gets hurt. And get him out in one piece.”
     
     
     
    Ishaq was reading quietly from a copy of the Quran when Gabriel heard the drone of the approaching bike. He focused his gaze on the gun, which lay in Ishaq’s lap, and coiled his bound legs for a single strike. The engine note rose steadily in volume for several more seconds, then went suddenly silent. Ishaq looked up from his Quran and peered out the windshield. When the bike didn’t appear, he looked at Gabriel in alarm, as though he had a premonition of what would come next. As he grabbed for the gun, there was an explosion of glass and blood in the front seat. The driver, hit several times in the head, slumped to the left and with a spasm of his lifeless hand took the wheel with him. Ishaq tried to level the gun at Gabriel as the van hurtled from the roadway, but Gabriel lifted his bound legs and kicked the weapon from Ishaq’s grasp. Ishaq made one last desperate lunge for it. And then the van began to roll.

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    H e came to rest in wet earth, blinded with pain, struggling for breath. A woman was shouting into his face and pulling at the packing tape that bound him. Her voice was muffled by the helmet and her face invisible behind the dark visor. “Are you all right, Gabriel?” she was saying. “Can you hear me? Answer me, Gabriel! Can you hear me? Damn you, Gabriel! You promised me you wouldn’t die! Don’t die! ”

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    R UNSELL G REEN, E NGLAND : 6:42 A.M. , C HRISTMAS D AY
     
    T here had been a fine old hedgerow along the side of the road. They had burst through it, like the tip of a pencil through tissue paper, and plunged into a farmer’s field. The van had come to rest on its roof and its contents were now strewn over the muddy ground like children’s toys on the floor of a nursery. Not fifty yards away from the van’s final resting spot, a gathering of fat pheasant were pulling at the earth as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. At the edge of the field, lights were coming on in a limestone cottage, the first moments of a Christmas morning the occupants would not soon forget.
    “Where’s Ishaq?” asked Gabriel as Chiara cut away the last of the packing tape.
    “Inside the van.”
    “Is he alive?”
    “Yes.”
    “Is he conscious?”
    “Barely,” she said. “You were thrown from the van early. He wasn’t so lucky.”
    “Put me on my feet.”
    “Just stay down, Gabriel. You’re hurt badly.”
    “Do what I say, Chiara. Put me on my feet.”
    Gabriel groaned in pain as she lifted him upright. He took a step forward and staggered. Chiara seized hold of his arm and kept him from falling.
    “Lie down, Gabriel. Wait for the ambulance.”
    “No ambulances. Help me walk.”
    Mikhail came over at an awkward trot, gun still in his hand, and together with Chiara helped Gabriel slowly toward the van. The driver hung upside down from his seat belt, blood flowing freely from his burst skull. Ishaq lay in the back, bleeding from his nose and mouth, left leg snapped above the knee like a broken matchstick. Gabriel looked at Mikhail.
    “Pull him out by the leg,” he said in Hebrew. “The broken leg.”
    “Don’t do this,” Chiara said.
    “Walk away.” Gabriel looked at Mikhail. “Do what I tell you or I’ll do it myself.”
    Mikhail ducked into the van through the open cargo doors and seized hold of the shattered leg. A moment later Ishaq lay writhing on the ground at Gabriel’s feet. Chiara, unable to bear the sight, walked away across the field. Gabriel looked down at Ishaq and asked, “Where’s my girl?”
    “She’s already dead,” Ishaq spat through the blood.
    Gabriel held out his hand to Mikhail. “Give me your gun.”
    Mikhail handed it over. Gabriel pointed