child to her breast. For an instant, Gabriel saw Issa, leader of the Black September team, his face covered in boot polish, swaggering about in his safari suit and golf hat.
The woman looked at Gabriel as though she was used to strangers standing outside her home with disbelieving expressions on their faces. Yes, she seemed to be saying. Yes, this is the place where it happened. But now it's my home, so please go. She seemed to sense
something else in his gaze--something that unnerved her--and she quickly strapped the child into the stroller and headed toward a playground.
Gabriel climbed a grassy hillock and sat in the cool grass. Usually when the memories came, he tried desperately to push them away, but now he unchained the door and allowed them to enter. Romano . .. Springer... Spitzer... Slavin ... the faces of the dead flashed through his memory. Eleven in all. Two killed in the takeover. Nine more during the bungled German rescue attempt at Fiirsten-feldbruck. Golda Meir wanted revenge of Biblical proportions-- an eye for an eye--and she ordered the Office to "send forth the boys" to hunt down the members of Black September who had plotted the attack. A brash operations officer named Ari Shamron was placed in charge of the mission, and one of the boys he came for was a promising young student at Jerusalem's Betsal'el School of Art named Gabriel Allon.
Somehow, Shamron had come across the file from Gabriel's unhappy compulsory service in the army. The child of Auschwitz survivors, Gabriel was found arrogant and selfish by his superiors; prone to periods of melancholia, but also highly intelligent and capable of taking independent action without waiting for guidance from commanding officers. He was also multilingual, an attribute that had little value in a frontline infantry unit but was much sought after by Ari Shamron. His war would not be fought in the Golan or the Sinai. It would be a secret war waged in the shadows of Europe. Gabriel had tried to resist him. Shamron left him no choice.
"Once again, Jews are dying on German soil with their hands tied behind their backs," Shamron had said. "Your parents survived, but how many didn't? Their brothers and sisters? Their aunts and uncles?
tGrandparents? They're all gone, aren't they? Are you really going to sit here in Tel Aviv with your brushes and your paints and do nothing? You have gifts. Let me borrow them for a few months. Then you can do whatever you want with your life."
The mission was code-named Operation Wrath of God. In the lexicon of the unit, Gabriel was an aleph, an assassin. The agents who tracked Black Septembrists and learned their habits were code-named ayin. A qoph was a communications officer. Benjamin Stern had been a heth, a logistician. His job was to procure transport and lodging in ways that could never be traced to the Office. Sometimes he doubled as a getaway driver. Indeed, Benjamin had been behind the wheel of the green Fiat that carried Gabriel away from the Piazza Annibaliano the night he assassinated Black September's chief in Italy. On the way to the airport, Gabriel had forced Benjamin to pull to the side of the road so he could be sick. Even now, he could hear Benjamin shouting at him to get back into the car.
"Give me a minute."
"You'll miss your flight."
"I said give me a minute!"
"What's wrong with you? That bastard deserved to die!"
"You didn't see his face, Beni. You didn't see his fucking face."
Over the next eighteen months, Shamron's team assassinated a dozen members of Black September. Gabriel personally killed six men. When it was over, Benjamin resumed his academic career. Gabriel tried to go back to Betsal'el and do the same, but his ability to paint had been chased away by the ghosts of the men he had killed, so he left Leah behind in Israel and moved to Venice to study restoration with Umberto Conti. In restoration, he found healing, who knew nothing of Gabriel's past, seemed to understand
this. Late at night
The woman looked at Gabriel as though she was used to strangers standing outside her home with disbelieving expressions on their faces. Yes, she seemed to be saying. Yes, this is the place where it happened. But now it's my home, so please go. She seemed to sense
something else in his gaze--something that unnerved her--and she quickly strapped the child into the stroller and headed toward a playground.
Gabriel climbed a grassy hillock and sat in the cool grass. Usually when the memories came, he tried desperately to push them away, but now he unchained the door and allowed them to enter. Romano . .. Springer... Spitzer... Slavin ... the faces of the dead flashed through his memory. Eleven in all. Two killed in the takeover. Nine more during the bungled German rescue attempt at Fiirsten-feldbruck. Golda Meir wanted revenge of Biblical proportions-- an eye for an eye--and she ordered the Office to "send forth the boys" to hunt down the members of Black September who had plotted the attack. A brash operations officer named Ari Shamron was placed in charge of the mission, and one of the boys he came for was a promising young student at Jerusalem's Betsal'el School of Art named Gabriel Allon.
Somehow, Shamron had come across the file from Gabriel's unhappy compulsory service in the army. The child of Auschwitz survivors, Gabriel was found arrogant and selfish by his superiors; prone to periods of melancholia, but also highly intelligent and capable of taking independent action without waiting for guidance from commanding officers. He was also multilingual, an attribute that had little value in a frontline infantry unit but was much sought after by Ari Shamron. His war would not be fought in the Golan or the Sinai. It would be a secret war waged in the shadows of Europe. Gabriel had tried to resist him. Shamron left him no choice.
"Once again, Jews are dying on German soil with their hands tied behind their backs," Shamron had said. "Your parents survived, but how many didn't? Their brothers and sisters? Their aunts and uncles?
tGrandparents? They're all gone, aren't they? Are you really going to sit here in Tel Aviv with your brushes and your paints and do nothing? You have gifts. Let me borrow them for a few months. Then you can do whatever you want with your life."
The mission was code-named Operation Wrath of God. In the lexicon of the unit, Gabriel was an aleph, an assassin. The agents who tracked Black Septembrists and learned their habits were code-named ayin. A qoph was a communications officer. Benjamin Stern had been a heth, a logistician. His job was to procure transport and lodging in ways that could never be traced to the Office. Sometimes he doubled as a getaway driver. Indeed, Benjamin had been behind the wheel of the green Fiat that carried Gabriel away from the Piazza Annibaliano the night he assassinated Black September's chief in Italy. On the way to the airport, Gabriel had forced Benjamin to pull to the side of the road so he could be sick. Even now, he could hear Benjamin shouting at him to get back into the car.
"Give me a minute."
"You'll miss your flight."
"I said give me a minute!"
"What's wrong with you? That bastard deserved to die!"
"You didn't see his face, Beni. You didn't see his fucking face."
Over the next eighteen months, Shamron's team assassinated a dozen members of Black September. Gabriel personally killed six men. When it was over, Benjamin resumed his academic career. Gabriel tried to go back to Betsal'el and do the same, but his ability to paint had been chased away by the ghosts of the men he had killed, so he left Leah behind in Israel and moved to Venice to study restoration with Umberto Conti. In restoration, he found healing, who knew nothing of Gabriel's past, seemed to understand
this. Late at night
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