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overcoat against the cold, while scanning the street for signs of surveillance. It was deserted except for a single bundled soul, perched on a public bench on the opposite bank of the canal. He wore a threadbare woolen overcoat and a black-and-white checkered kaffiyeh for a scarf. His gray beard was unkempt and atop his head was the white kufi skullcap of a devout Muslim. Gabriel descended the steps and walked to the drawbridge at the end of the street. As he turned into the Staalstraat, he could hear footfalls on the cobblestones behind him. He swiveled his head deliberately and took a long, highly unprofessional look over his shoulder. The Muslim man who had been seated on the bench was now thirty yards behind and walking in the same direction. Two minutes later, as Gabriel passed Rosner’s memorial outside Café de Doelen, he looked over his shoulder a second time and saw that the man with the kufi and the kaffiyeh had cut the distance between them in half. He thought of the words Lavon had spoken to him earlier that afternoon at the Hotel Europa. Just try not to kill anyone while we’re in Amsterdam , Lavon had said. Gabriel had no intention of killing the man. He just wanted answers to two simple questions. Why had a devout Muslim spent the better part of the evening sitting outside Solomon Rosner’s house? And why was he now following Gabriel through the dark streets of Amsterdam?
     
     
     
    The restaurant where Sophie Vanderhaus had placed the takeaway order was in the Leidsestraat, not far from the Koningsplein. Gabriel, after crossing the Amstel, should have gone to the right. He went left instead, into a narrow pedestrian lane lined with sex shops, American fast-food restaurants, and tiny Middle Eastern cafés. It was crowded in spite of the hour; even so, Gabriel had no trouble keeping track of his pursuer in the garish neon light.
    The street emptied into the Rembrandtplein, but twenty yards before the busy square Gabriel turned into a darkened shoulder-width alley that led back to the river. The man with the kaffiyeh and the kufi paused at the mouth of the alley, as though reluctant to enter, then followed after him.
    Gabriel removed the Beretta from its resting place at the small of his back and chambered a round. As he did so, he could almost hear Shamron’s voice echoing in his head: We do not wave our guns around in public like gangsters and make idle threats. When we take out our weapons we do so for one reason and one reason only. We start shooting. And we keep shooting until the target is dead . He slipped the gun into the pocket of his overcoat and walked on.
    At the midpoint of the alley, the darkness was nearly impenetrable. Gabriel turned into a bisecting passageway and waited there with his hand wrapped around the butt of the Beretta. As the bearded man came past, Gabriel stepped from the alley and delivered a knifelike blow to his left kidney. The man’s legs buckled instantly, but before he could crumple to the ground, Gabriel seized hold of the kaffiyeh and hurled him hard against a graffiti-spattered brick wall. The look in the man’s eyes was one of genuine terror. Gabriel struck him again, this time in the solar plexus. As the man doubled over, Gabriel quickly searched him for weapons but found only a billfold and a small copy of the Quran.
    “What do you want with me?” Gabriel asked in rapid Arabic.
    The man managed only a single, wet cough.
    “Answer me,” Gabriel said, “or I’ll keep hitting you until you do.”
    The man lifted his hand and pleaded with Gabriel not to strike him again. Gabriel let go of him and took a step back. The man leaned against the wall and fought for breath.
    “Who are you?” Gabriel asked. “And why are you following me?”
    “I’m the person you’re looking for in Solomon Rosner’s files,” he said. “And I’ve come to help you.”

5
     
    A MSTERDAM
     
    M y name is Ibrahim.”
    “Ibrahim what?”
    “Ibrahim Fawaz.”
    “You were a fool