Isherwood stopped himself. It was a typical reaction after an attack, thought Gabriel. The living always sought to find some connection, however tenuous, to the dead.

“The bomber in Copenhagen killed children,” Isherwood said. “Will you please explain to me what cause is served by the murder of innocent children?”

“Fear,” said Gabriel. “They want us to be afraid.”

“When is this going to end?” Isherwood asked, shaking his head in disgust. “When in God’s name is this madness going to end?”

“You should know better than to ask a question like that, Julian.” Gabriel lowered his voice and added, “After all, you’ve had a ringside seat at this war for a very long time.”

Isherwood gave a melancholy smile. His backbone-of-England surname and English scale concealed the fact that he was not, at least technically, English at all. British by nationality and passport, yes, but German by birth, French by upbringing, and Jewish by religion. Only a handful of trusted friends knew that Isherwood had staggered into London as a child refugee in 1942 after being carried across the snowbound Pyrenees by a pair of Basque shepherds. Or that his father, the renowned Paris art dealer Samuel Isakowitz, had been murdered at the Sobibor death camp along with Isherwood’s mother. Though Isherwood had carefully guarded the secrets of his past, the story of his dramatic escape from Nazi-occupied Europe had reached the ears of Israel’s secret intelligence service. And in the mid-1970s, during a wave of Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israeli targets in Europe, he was recruited as a sayan, a volunteer helper. Isherwood had but one assignment—to assist in building and maintaining the operational cover of an art restorer and assassin named Gabriel Allon.