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angry.”
    And though Gabriel did not realize it at the time, those words had sealed Shamron’s commitment to him, and the seduction was begun.
    “You speak languages, yes?”
    “A few.”
    “A few?”
    “My parents didn’t like Hebrew, so they spoke the languages from Europe.”
    “Which ones?”
    “You know already. You know all about me. Don’t play games with me.”

    And so Shamron decided to play his pickup line. Golda had ordered Shamron to “send forth the boys” to take down the Black September bastards who had carried out this bloodbath. The operation was to be called Wrath of God. It was not about justice, Shamron had said. It was about taking an eye for an eye. It was about revenge, pure and simple.
    “Sorry, not interested.”
    “Not interested? Do you know how many boys in this country would give anything to be part of this team?”
    “Go ask them.”
    “I don’t want them. I want you.”
    “Why me?”
    “Because you have gifts. You have languages. You have a clear head. You don’t drink, and you don’t smoke hash. You’re not a crazy who’s going to go off half-cocked.”
    And because you have the emotional coldness of a killer, Shamron thought, although he didn’t say these words to Gabriel then. Instead, he told him a story, the story of a young intelligence officer who had been chosen for a special mission because he had a gift, an unusually powerful grip for so small a man. The story of a night in a Buenos Aires suburb, when this young intelligence officer had seen a man waiting at a bus stop. Waiting like an ordinary man, Gabriel. An ordinary pathetic little man. And how this young intelligence officer had leapt from a car and grabbed the man by the throat and how he had sat on him as the car drove away and how he had smelled the stink of fear on his breath. The same stink the Jews had emitted as this pathetic little man sent them off to the gas chambers. And the story worked, as Shamron had known it would. Because Gabriel was the only son of two Auschwitz survivors, and their scars were his.
    He was suddenly very tired. Imagine, all those years, all those killings, and now he was behind bars for the first time, for a murder he did not commit. Thou shalt not get caught! Shamron’s Eleventh Commandment. Thou shalt do anything to avoid being arrested. Thou shalt shed the blood of innocents if necessary. No, thought Gabriel. Thou shalt not shed innocent blood.
    He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to sleep but it was no good: Peterson’s incessant light. The lights were surely burning on King Saul Boulevard too. And a call would go out. Don’t wake him, thought Gabriel, because I don’t ever want to see his lying face again. Let him sleep. Let the old man sleep.
     
    ITwas a few minutes after 8A .M . when Peterson entered Gabriel’s cell. Gabriel knew this not because Peterson bothered to tell him but because he managed a glance at the face of Peterson’s big diver’s watch as Peterson tipped coffee into his mouth.
    “I’ve spoken to your chief.”
    He paused to see if his words provoked any response, but Gabriel remained silent. His position was that he was an art restorer, nothing more, and that Herr Peterson was suffering from a case of temporary insanity.
    “He did me the professional courtesy of not trying to lie his way out of this situation. I appreciate the way he handled things. But it seems Bern has no appetite to pursue this matter further.”
    “Which matter is that?”
    “The matter of your involvement in the murder of Ali Hamidi,” Peterson said coldly. Gabriel had the impression he was struggling to control violent thoughts. “Since prosecuting you for your role in the Rolfe affair would inevitably reveal your sordid past, we have no choice but to drop charges against you in that matter as well.”
    Peterson clearly disagreed with the decision of his masters in Bern.
    “Your government has assured us that you are no longer a member of any branch of Israeli