The Black Widow (Gabriel Allon #16) - Daniel Silva Page 0,153

on Wisconsin Avenue, or so claimed the woman who had been seated at the next table. He had even been seen having dinner at the Four Seasons on M Street, as if the great Gabriel Allon, with his endless list of deadly enemies, would ever dream of eating in public. There was also a report that, like Paul Rousseau, he had been inside the National Counterterrorism Center at the time of the attack. The Israeli ambassador, who was almost never at a loss for words, failed to return phone calls and text messages, as did his spokeswoman. No one bothered to ask the NCTC for comment. Its press officer had died in the bombing, as had its director. For all intents and purposes, there was no NCTC anymore.

And there the matter might have faded into the void were it not for an enterprising reporter from the Washington Post. Many years earlier, not long after 9/11, she had revealed the existence of a chain of secret CIA detention centers—the so-called black sites—where al-Qaeda terrorists were subjected to harsh interrogations. Now she sought to answer the many unanswered questions surrounding the attack on Washington. Who was Dr. Leila Hadawi? Who had killed the four terrorists in Café Milano and the five terrorists at the cottage in Hume? And why had a dead man, a legend, been inside the NCTC when a thousand-pound truck bomb leveled it?

The reporter’s story appeared one week to the day after the attack. It stated that the woman known as Dr. Leila Hadawi was in fact an agent of Israeli intelligence who had penetrated the network of a mysterious ISIS terror mastermind called Saladin. He had been in Washington at the time of the attack but had managed to escape. He was now assumed to be back in the caliphate, hiding from the American and coalition air bombardment. Gabriel Allon, she wrote, was in hiding, too—and very much alive. Israel’s prime minister, when asked for a comment, managed only a crooked smile. Then, cryptically, he suggested he would have more to say about the matter soon. Very soon.

In the old central Jerusalem neighborhood of Nachlaot, there had been doubts about the circumstances surrounding Allon’s death for some time, especially on leafy Narkiss Street, where he was known to reside in a limestone apartment house with a drooping eucalyptus tree in the front garden. On the evening the story appeared on the Post’s Web site, he and his family were seen dining at Focaccia on Rabbi Akiva Street—or so claimed the couple who had been seated at the next table. Allon, they said, had ordered the chicken livers and mashed potatoes, while his wife, an Italian by birth, had opted for pasta. The children, a few weeks shy of their first birthday, had displayed exemplary behavior. Mother and father appeared relaxed and happy, though their bodyguards were clearly on edge. The entire city was. Earlier that afternoon, near Damascus Gate, three Jews had been stabbed to death. Their killer, a young Palestinian from East Jerusalem, had been shot several times by police. He had died in the trauma center at Hadassah Medical Center, despite heroic efforts to preserve his life.

The following afternoon Allon was seen lunching with an old friend, the noted biblical archaeologist Eli Lavon, in a café along the Mamilla Mall, and at four o’clock he was spotted on the tarmac at Ben Gurion Airport, where he met the daily Air France flight from Paris. Documents were signed, and a large wooden crate, flat and rectangular, was placed carefully in the back of his personal armored SUV. Inside the crate was payment in full for an unfinished job: Marguerite Gachet at Her Dressing Table, oil on canvas, by Vincent van Gogh. One hour later, after a high-speed journey up the Bab al-Wad, the canvas was propped upon an easel in the conservation lab of the Israel Museum. Gabriel stood before it, one hand to his chin, his head tilted slightly to one side. Ephraim Cohen stood next to him. For a long time, neither spoke.

“You know,” said Cohen at last, “it’s not too late to change your mind.”

“Why would I want to do something like that?”

“Because she wanted you to have it.” After a pause, Cohen added, “And it’s worth more than a hundred million dollars.”

“Give me the papers, Ephraim.”

They were contained in a formal leather folio case, embossed with the museum’s logo. The agreement was brief and straightforward. Henceforth, Gabriel Allon renounced any and all claim