The Black Widow (Gabriel Allon #16) - Daniel Silva Page 0,49

her hand. “No hard feelings?”

“None whatsoever.” Gabriel stood and reluctantly accepted her hand. “It was an honor almost working with you, Natalie. Please make no mention of this conversation to anyone, not even your parents.”

“You have my word.”

“Good.” He released her. “Dina will take you back to Jerusalem.”

20

NAHALAL, ISRAEL

NATALIE FOLLOWED HER ACROSS the shadowed garden and through a pair of French doors that led into the sitting room of the bungalow. It was sparsely furnished, more office than home, and upon its whitewashed walls hung several outsize black-and-white photographs of Palestinian suffering—the long dusty walk into exile, the wretched camps, the weathered faces of the old ones dreaming of paradise lost.

“This is where we would have trained you,” explained Dina. “This is where we would have turned you into one of them.”

“Where are my things?”

“Upstairs.” Then Dina added, “In your room.”

More photos lined the staircase and on the bedside table of a tidy little room rested a volume of verse by Mahmoud Darwish, the semi-official poet of Palestinian nationalism. Natalie’s suitcase lay at the foot of the bed, empty.

“We took the liberty of unpacking for you,” explained Dina.

“I guess no one ever turns him down.”

“You’re the first.”

Natalie watched her limp across the room and open the top drawer of a wicker dresser.

You see, Natalie, Dina is grieving, too. And she is very serious about her work . . .

“What happened?” asked Natalie quietly.

“You said no, and now you’re leaving.”

“To your leg.”

“It’s not important.”

“It is to me.”

“Because you’re a doctor?” Dina removed a handful of clothing from the drawer and placed it in the suitcase. “I am an employee of the secret intelligence service of the State of Israel. You don’t get to know what happened to my leg. You aren’t allowed to know. It’s classified. I’m classified.”

Natalie sat on the edge of the bed while Dina removed the rest of the clothing from the dresser.

“It was a bombing,” said Dina finally. “Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv. The Number Five bus.” She closed the dresser drawer with more force than necessary. “Do you know this attack?”

Natalie nodded. The date was October 1994, long before she and her family had moved to Israel, but she had seen the small gray memorial at the base of a chinaberry tree along the pavement and, by chance, had once eaten in the quaint café directly adjacent.

“Were you on the bus?”

“No. I was standing on the pavement. But my mother and two of my sisters were. And I saw him before the bomb exploded.”

“Who?”

“Abdel Rahim al-Souwi,” Dina replied, as though reading the name from one of her thick files. “He was sitting on the left side behind the driver. There was a bag at his feet. It contained twenty kilos of military-grade TNT and bolts and nails soaked in rat poison. It was built by Yahya Ayyash, the one they called the Engineer. It was one of his best, or so he said. I didn’t know that then, of course. I didn’t know anything. I was just a girl. I was innocent.”

“And when the bomb exploded?”

“The bus rose several feet into the air and then crashed to the street again. I was knocked to the ground. I could see people screaming all around me, but I couldn’t hear anything—the blast wave had damaged my eardrums. I noticed a human leg lying next to me. I assumed it was mine, but then I saw that both my legs were still attached. The blood and the smell of burning flesh sickened the first police officers who arrived on the scene. There were limbs in the cafés and strips of flesh hanging from the trees. Blood dripped on me as I lay helpless on the pavement. It rained blood that morning on Dizengoff Street.”

“And your mother and sisters?”

“They were killed instantly. I watched while the rabbis collected their remains with tweezers and placed them in plastic bags. That’s what we buried. Scraps. Remnants.”

Natalie said nothing, for there was nothing to say.

“And so you will forgive me,” Dina continued after a moment, “if I find your behavior today puzzling. We don’t do this because we want to. We do it because we have to. We do it because we have no other choice. It’s the only way we’re going to survive in this land.”

“I wish I could help you, but I can’t.”

“Too bad,” said Dina, “because you’re perfect. And, yes,” she added, “I would do anything to be in your place right now. I’ve listened to them, I’ve watched them,