The Secret Servant

nap.”
    Gabriel turned and peered out the rear window of the limousine. The chase car was following closely behind them. He looked at Shamron and asked whether there had been any news from London about Elizabeth Halton.
    “Still nothing from her captors,” Shamron said. “And nothing from the British, at least nothing they’re willing to say in public. But it is possible that we might be coming into some useful intelligence.”
    “From where?”
    “Egypt,” said Shamron. “Our most important asset inside the SSI sent us a signal early this morning that he had something for us.”
    The full name of the SSI was the General Directorate of State Security Investigations, a polite way of saying the Egyptian secret police.
    “Who is he?” Gabriel asked.
    “Wazir al-Zayyat, chief of the Department for Combatting Religious Activity. Wazir has one of the toughest jobs in the Middle East: making certain Egypt’s homegrown Islamic extremists don’t bring down the regime. Egypt is the spiritual heartland of Islamic fundamentalism, and of course the Egyptian Islamists are a major component of al-Qaeda. Wazir knows more about the state of the global jihadist movement than anyone in the world. He keeps us apprised of the stability of the Mubarak regime and passes along any intelligence that suggests Egyptian terrorists are targeting us.”
    “What does he have for us?”
    “We won’t know until we sit down with him,” Shamron said. “We meet with him outside the country.”
    “Where?”
    “Cyprus.”
    “Who’s his case officer?”
    “Shimon Pazner.”
    Pazner was the chief of station in Rome, which doubled as the headquarters for Office operations throughout the Mediterranean.
    “When is Pazner going to Cyprus?”
    “He leaves in the morning.”
    “Tell him to stay put in Rome.”
    “Why would I do that?”
    “Because I’m going to Cyprus to meet with the Egyptian.”
    Shamron greeted Gabriel’s declaration with an obstinate silence. “Your involvement in this affair is officially over,” he said finally. “This is an American and British problem now. We have enough of our own to worry about.”
    Gabriel pushed back. “I was there when it happened, Ari. I want us to do anything we can to find her.”
    “And we will. Shimon Pazner has been handling Wazir for three years now. He’s more than capable of going to Cyprus and conducting a crash debriefing.”
    “I’m sure he is, but I’m going to go to Cyprus for him.”
    Shamron’s old stainless steel lighter flared in the darkness. “You’re not the Memuneh yet, my son. Besides, have you forgotten that your picture is in all the newspapers?”
    “I’m not going behind the Iron Curtain, Ari.”
    Shamron touched his cigarette to the flame and extinguished it with a flick of his sturdy wrist. “You use my own words against me,” he said. “Go ahead, Gabriel, go to Cyprus tomorrow. Just make sure Identity does something about that face of yours. You made yourself another enemy with your actions in Hyde Park.”
    “Graham Seymour said the same thing.”
    “Well,” Shamron said reflectively, “at least he was right about something.”
     
     
     
    When Gabriel entered his apartment twenty minutes later, he found lights burning in the sitting room and a faint trace of vanilla on the air. He tossed his bag onto the new couch and walked into the bedroom. Chiara was perched at the end of the bed, scrutinizing her toes with considerable interest. Her body was wrapped in bath towels, and her skin was very dark from the sun. She looked up at Gabriel and smiled. It was as if it had been several minutes since they had seen each other last and not several weeks.
    “You’re here,” she said in mock surprise.
    “Shamron didn’t mention that I was coming home tonight?”
    “He may have.”
    Gabriel walked over and removed the towel from her hair. Heavy and wet, it tumbled riotously onto her dark shoulders. She lifted her face to be kissed and loosened the towel around her body. Maybe Shamron was right, Gabriel thought as she pulled him onto the bed. Maybe he would let Pazner go to Cyprus to meet with the Egyptian after all.
     
     
     
    They were both famished after making love. Gabriel sat at the small table in the kitchen, watching the news on television, while Chiara made fettuccine and mushrooms. She was wearing one of Gabriel’s dress shirts, unbuttoned to her abdomen, and nothing else.
    “How did you find out that I’d been