Free Moscow Rules by Daniel Silva

was underfoot.”
    Shamron closed his hooded eyes for a moment and gave a ghost of a smile. His loved ones, like his
    power and influence, had slowly slipped through his fingers. His son was a brigadier general in the IDF’s
    Northern Command and used almost any excuse to avoid spending time with his famous father, as did his
    daughter, who had finally returned to Israel after spending years abroad. Only Gilah, his long-suffering
    wife, remained faithfully by his side, but now that Shamron had no formal role in the affairs of state, even
    Gilah, a woman of infinite patience, found his constant presence a burden. His real family were men like
    Gabriel, Navot, and Lavon-men whom he had recruited and trained, men who operated by a creed, even
    spoke a language, written by him. They were the secret guardians of the State, and Ari Shamron was their
    overbearing, tyrannical father.
    “I made a foolish wager a long time ago,” Shamron said. “I devoted my life to building and
    protecting this country and I assumed that my wife and children would forgive my sins of absence and
    neglect. I was wrong, of course.”
    “And now you want to inflict the same outcome on my life.”
    “You’re referring to the fact I’ve interrupted your honeymoon?”
    “I am.”
    “Your wife is still on the Office payroll. She understands the demands of your work. Besides,
    you’ve been gone for over a month.”
    “We agreed my stay in Italy would be indefinite.”
    “ We agreed to no such thing, Gabriel. You issued a demand and at the time I was in no position to
    turn it down-not after what you’d just gone through in London.” Shamron squeezed his deeply lined face
    into a heavy frown. “Do you know what I did for my honeymoon?”
    “Of course I know what you did for your honeymoon. The whole country knows what you did for
    your honeymoon.”
    Shamron smiled. It was an exaggeration, of course, but only a slight one. Within the corridors and
    conference rooms of the Israeli intelligence and security services, Ari Shamron was a legend. He had
    penetrated the courts of kings, stolen the secrets of tyrants, and killed the enemies of Israel, sometimes
    with his bare hands. His crowning achievement had come on a rainy night in May 1960, in a squalid
    suburb north of Buenos Aires, when he had leapt from the back of a car and seized Adolf Eichmann,
    architect of the Holocaust. Even now, Shamron could not go out in public in Israel without being
    approached by aging survivors who simply wanted to touch the hands that had clamped around the neck of
    the monster.
    “Gilah and I were married in April of ’forty-seven, at the height of the War of Independence. I put
    my foot on a glass, our friends and family shouted ‘Mazel tov,’ then I kissed my new wife and went back
    to join my Palmach unit.”
    “They were different times, Ari.”
    “Not so different. We were fighting for survival then and we fight for survival now.” Shamron
    scrutinized Gabriel for a long moment through his spectacles. “But you already know that, don’t you,
    Gabriel? That explains why you simply didn’t ignore my message and return to your villa in Umbria.”
    “I should have ignored your original summons. Then I wouldn’t be back here.” He made a show of
    looking around the dreary furnishings. “Back in this room.”
    “I wasn’t the one who summoned you. Boris Ostrovsky did. Then he had the terrible misfortune of
    dying in your arms. And now you’re going to find out who killed him and why. Under the circumstances, it
    is the least you can do for him.”
    Gabriel glanced at his wristwatch. “Did Eli make it in all right?”
    They had traveled on separate planes and by different routes. Lavon had taken the direct flight from
    Fiumicino to Ben-Gurion; Gabriel had flown first to Frankfurt, where he had spent three hours waiting for
    a connecting flight. He had put the time to good use by walking several miles through Frankfurt ’s endless
    terminals,