The Black Widow (Gabriel Allon #16) - Daniel Silva Page 0,21
attack on the Weinberg Center.
“ISIS must be enjoying this,” said Gabriel.
“The rioting?”
“It doesn’t look like rioting to me. It looks like . . .”
“What, darling?”
“An intifada.”
Chiara switched off the television and turned up the volume on the baby monitor. Designed by the Office’s Technology department, it had a heavily encrypted signal so that Israel’s enemies could not eavesdrop on the domestic life of its spy chief. For the moment it emitted only a low electrical hum.
“So what are you going to do?” she asked.
“I’m going to eat every bite of this delicious food. And then I’m going to soak up every last drop of juice in that pot.”
“I was talking about Paris.”
“Obviously, we have two choices.”
“You have two choices, darling. I have two children.”
Gabriel laid down his fork and stared levelly at his beautiful young wife. “Either way,” he said after a conciliatory silence, “my paternity leave is over. I can assume my duties as chief, or I can work with the French.”
“And thus take possession of a van Gogh painting worth at least a hundred million dollars.”
“There is that,” said Gabriel, picking up his fork again.
“Why do you suppose she decided to leave it to you?”
“Because she knew I would never do anything foolish with it.”
“Like what?”
“Put it up for sale.”
Chiara made a face.
“Don’t even think about it.”
“One can dream, can’t one?”
“Only about osso buco and risotto.”
Rising, Gabriel went to the counter and helped himself to another portion. Then he doused both rice and meat in juice, until his plate was in jeopardy of brimming over. Behind his back, Chiara hissed in disapproval.
“There’s one more,” he said, gesturing toward the casserole.
“I still have five kilos to lose.”
“I like you the way you are.”
“Spoken like a true Italian husband.”
“I’m not Italian.”
“What language are you speaking to me right now?”
“It’s the food talking.”
Gabriel sat down again and laid siege to the veal. From the monitor came the short cry of a child. Chiara cocked a vigilant ear toward the device and listened intently, as if to the footsteps of an intruder. Then, after a satisfactory interlude of silence, she relaxed again.
“So you intend to take the case—is that what you’re saying?”
“I’m inclined to,” answered Gabriel judiciously.
Chiara shook her head slowly.
“What have I done now?”
“You’ll do anything to avoid taking over the Office, won’t you?”
“Not anything.”
“Running an operation isn’t exactly a nine-to-five job.”
“Neither is running the Office.”
“But the Office is in Tel Aviv. The operation is in Paris.”
“Paris is a four-hour flight.”
“Four and a half,” she corrected him.
“Besides,” Gabriel plowed on, “just because the operation starts in Paris, that doesn’t mean it will end there.”
“Where will it end?”
Gabriel tilted his head to the left.
“In Mrs. Lieberman’s apartment?”
“Syria.”
“Ever been?”
“Only to Majdal Shams.”
“That doesn’t count.”
Majdal Shams was a Druze town in the Golan Heights. Along its northern edge was a fence topped by swirls of razor wire, and beyond the fence was Syria. Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda affiliate, controlled the territory along the border, but a two-hour car ride to the northeast was ISIS and the caliphate. Gabriel wondered how the American president would feel if ISIS were two hours from Indiana.
“I thought,” said Chiara, “that we were going to stay out of the Syrian civil war. I thought we were going to sit by and do nothing while all our enemies killed each other.”
“The next chief of the Office feels that policy would be unwise in the long term.”
“Does he?”
“Have you ever heard of a man named Arnold Toynbee?”
“I have a master’s degree in history. Toynbee was a British historian and economist, one of the giants of his day.”
“And Toynbee,” said Gabriel, “believed there were two great pivot points in the world that influenced events far beyond their borders. One was the Oxus-Jaxartes Basin in modern-day Pakistan and Afghanistan, or Af-Pak as our friends in America are fond of calling it.”
“And the other?”
Again, Gabriel tilted his head to the left. “We hoped the problems of Syria would remain in Syria, but I’m afraid hope is not an acceptable strategy when it comes to national security. While we’ve been twiddling our thumbs, ISIS has been developing a sophisticated terror network with the ability to strike in the heart of the West. Maybe it’s led by a man who calls himself Saladin. Maybe it’s someone else. Either way, I’m going to tear the network to pieces, hopefully before they can strike again.”
Chiara started to respond but was interrupted by the cry of an infant. It was Irene; her two-note wail was as familiar to Gabriel