Emily backpedaled until she was pressed against the parapet. She turned and looked down at the black river gliding slowly beneath her.

“You’re a monster!” she screamed in English, because in her panic her French had abandoned her. “You’re a fucking monster! Who the fuck are you?”

“Don’t try to get away from me,” he said in the same language. “It will only make things worse.”

Then he raised his gun and fired several shots into her heart. The force of the bullets drove her over the edge of the parapet. She felt herself falling toward the river. Her hands reached out, and she saw the bracelet on her wrist. The bracelet René, her lover, had given her just moments before. Such a beautiful bracelet. Such a terrible shame.

She collided with the river and slipped below the surface. She opened her mouth, and her lungs filled with frigid water. She could taste her own blood. She saw a flash of brilliant white, heard her mother calling her name. Then there was only darkness. A vast, silent darkness. And the cold.

THREE

Tiberias, Israel

Despite the events in Paris, the stranger might have managed to remain in seclusion but for the resurrection of the legendary spymaster Ari Shamron. It was not necessary to awaken Shamron that night, for he had long ago lost the gift of sleep. Indeed, he was so restless at night that Rami, the young head of his personal security detail, had christened him the Phantom of Tiberias. At first Shamron suspected it was age. He had turned sixty-five recently and for the first time had contemplated the possibility that someday he might actually die. During a grudging annual physical his doctor had had the audacity to suggest-“And this is just a suggestion, Ari, because God knows I’d never try to actually give you an order”-that Shamron reduce his daily intake of caffeine and tobacco: twelve cups of black coffee and sixty strong Turkish cigarettes. Shamron had found these suggestions mildly amusing.