The Cellist by Daniel Silva
25Tiberias, Israel
Twenty-five kilometers south of Rosh Pina, rising from the depths of the Jordan Rift Valley, stands Mount Arbel. The ancient Jews who inhabited the mountain during the brutal Roman occupation of Palestine dwelled in fortified caves carved into its sheer cliffs. Now they resided in three tidy agricultural settlements on the tabletop summit. One of the settlements, Kfar Hittim, stood on the scalding plain where Saladin, on a blazing summer afternoon in 1187, defeated the thirst-crazed armies of the Crusaders in a climactic battle that would leave Jerusalem once again in Muslim hands. Ari Shamron claimed that, when the winds were right, he could still hear the clashing of swords and the screams of the dying.
His honey-colored villa stood on the outskirts of Kfar Hittim, atop a rocky escarpment overlooking the Sea of Galilee and the ancient holy city of Tiberias. Gilah, his long-suffering wife, greeted Gabriel in the entrance hall. With her melancholy eyes and wild gray hair, she bore an uncanny resemblance to Golda Meir. She spread her arms wide and demanded to be embraced.
Masked, Gabriel kept his distance. “It’s not safe, Gilah. I’ve been traveling.”
She threw her arms around him nonetheless. “We were beginning to think we would never see you again. My God, how long has it been?”
“Don’t make me say it aloud. It’s too depressing.”
“Why didn’t you tell us you were coming?”
“I happened to be in the neighborhood. I wanted to surprise you.”
She squeezed him tightly. “You’re too thin.”
“You always say that, Gilah.”
“I’ll bring you some dinner. Ari is working on a new radio. The isolation has been very hard on him.” She laid her hand on Gabriel’s cheek. “So has your absence.”
She drew away without another word and disappeared into the kitchen. Steeling himself for the worst, Gabriel headed downstairs to the room that doubled as Shamron’s study and workshop. The shelves were lined with the memorabilia of a secret life, including a small glass case containing eleven .22-caliber shell casings. Eli Lavon had collected them from the lobby of an apartment building in Rome’s Piazza Annibaliano a few minutes after Gabriel killed a Palestinian named Wadal Abdel Zwaiter.
“You really have to get rid of these things, Ari.”
“I’m saving them for you.”
“I told you, I don’t want them.”
“One of the American networks is preparing a major new documentary. The producers would like to interview me while I am still among the living. I suggested that they might want to speak to you as well.”
“Why on earth would I want to talk about it now, after all these years? It will only reopen old wounds.”
“It’s not exactly a secret that you were the primary gunman for Operation Wrath of God. In fact, I have it on good authority that you have finally told your children about the things you did to defend your country and your people.”
“Is there anything you don’t know about my life?”
Shamron smiled. “I don’t believe so.”
He was perched atop a tall stool at his worktable, dressed in neatly pressed khaki trousers and an oxford-cloth shirt. Before him was a Philco rosewood radio. There was no sign of his old olive-wood cane, only an aluminum walker that shone coldly in the glare of his work lamp. With a tremulous right hand—the same hand he had clamped over the mouth of Adolf Eichmann on a darkened street in Argentina—he reached for his packet of Maltepe cigarettes.
“Don’t even think about it, Ari.”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because you don’t want to spend your final days on earth attached to a ventilator.”
“I resigned myself to such a fate a long time ago, my son.” Shamron extracted a cigarette from the packet and ignited it with his old Zippo lighter. “Will you at least take off that mask? You look like one of my doctors.”
“It’s for your own good.”
“My doctors tell me the same thing every time they impale me with something sharp.” He squinted at the radio’s exposed innards through a cloud of smoke. “What brings you all the way to Tiberias?”
“You, Abba.”
“I might be old, but I’m not senile.”
“I needed to have a word with Sergei Morosov.”
“About our old friend Viktor Orlov?”
Gabriel nodded.
“I assume Viktor’s death had something to do with money.”
“Wherever did you get an idea like that?”
“The luxury villa you acquired on the shore of Lake Zurich.” Shamron frowned. “A steal at a mere forty thousand Swiss francs a month. Last evening, when you should have been celebrating Shabbat with your wife and children, you were given a dossier by a young woman who works at the Zurich office of RhineBank, home of the so-called Russian Laundromat. The dossier in question was prepared by a British investigator with an impressive track record when it comes to revealing Russian secrets. It suggests that a businessman named Arkady Akimov is the primary keeper of the Russian president’s immense wealth.”
“Have you placed a transmitter in the Nahalal safe house?”
“A mole,” replied Shamron. “Apparently, several of Arkady’s employees are former SVR and GRU officers. They work for a subsidiary of his oil trading firm known as the Haydn Group. The British investigator was unable to determine the nature of the unit’s work.”
“Active measures directed against the West.”
“A page from the old Soviet playbook,” said Shamron.
“They’re nothing if not consistent.”
“Is it your intention to put Arkady Akimov out of business?”
“With extreme prejudice. RhineBank, too.”
“Given the firm’s deplorable history, nothing would make me happier. But an operation of that scale will consume the final precious months of your term.” Shamron paused. “Unless, of course, you’re planning to stay for a second.”
“I learned how to walk and chew gum a long time ago. As for a second term, it hasn’t been offered.”
“And if it were?”
“I have other plans.”
“Haaretz seems to think you’d make a fine prime minister.”
“Can you imagine?”
“I can, actually. But there’s a rumor going around that you plan to take your retirement in a palazzo overlooking the Grand Canal in Venice.” Shamron glared at Gabriel with reproach. “I know it was Chiara’s idea, but you could have put your foot down.”
“My authority ends at the threshold of my home.”
“Your country needs you.” Shamron lowered his voice. “And so do I.”
“I have a year and a half left in my term.”
“With any luck, I’ll be dead by then.” Shamron sighed in resignation. “Have you given any thought to your successor?”
“I was hoping I could talk you into taking the job.”
“I’m too young,” said Shamron. “Too inexperienced.”
“That leaves Yaakov Rossman or Yossi Gavish. The fact that Yaakov is the chief of Special Operations gives him the edge. But Yossi has plenty of operational experience and would make a fine chief.”
“Neither of them is your caliber.”
“In that case,” said Gabriel, “perhaps we should make history.”
“How?”
“By appointing the first female director-general of the Office.”
Shamron was intrigued by the idea. “Do you have any candidates in mind?”
“Only one.”
“Rimona?”
Gabriel smiled. “She’s the head of Collections, which means she’s responsible for recruiting and running a worldwide network of agents. She also happens to be your niece.”
“Perhaps I am eternal after all.” Shamron’s gaze was suddenly clouded by a memory. “Do you remember the day she fell off her scooter outside in the drive and tore the skin from her hip? The poor child was screaming with pain, but I was so distraught by the sight of all that blood I couldn’t comfort her. You were the one who applied the field dressing to her wound.”
“She still has the scar.”
“You were always good at fixing people, Gabriel.” Shamron indicated the circuits and vacuum tubes scattered across his worktable. “I can only make old radios sound like new again.”
“You built a country, Ari.”
“And an intelligence service,” he pointed out. “You would be wise to accept my advice every now and again.”
“What advice would you give me about Arkady Akimov?”
“Let someone else handle him.”
“Like who?”
“The Swiss or the British.”
“They’ve agreed to let me run the operation.”
“How generous of them.”
“I thought so.”
“And if things get messy?”
“The Swiss gave me a get-out-of-jail-free card.”
“What are you going to do about the Russian journalist who delivered the contaminated documents to Viktor?”
“By way of deception,” said Gabriel, reciting the first four words of the Office’s motto.
Shamron crushed out his cigarette. “That leaves Arkady.”
“I’m thinking about going into business with him.”
“What kind of business?”
“Money laundering, Ari. What else?”
“I thought Arkady did his laundry at RhineBank.”
“He does.”
“So why would he need you?”
“I’m still working on that.”
“There is a rather simple solution, you know.”
“What’s that?”
Shamron lit a fresh cigarette. “Close the Russian Laundromat.”