Page 113 of The Other Woman

He was staring directly into Rebecca’s wild blue eyes, down the barrel of the smoking Barak. In the quiet of the trees, the four gunshots had sounded like cannon fire, but as yet no cars had stopped along the parkway to investigate. Rebecca was still holding Eva by the hair. She had pulled her close to her body and was screwing the muzzle of the SIG Sauer into the side of her neck, just below the hinge of her jaw.

“Go ahead and kill her,” said Gabriel calmly. “Another dead SVR agent matters nothing to me. And it will give me an excuse to kill you, too.”

Fortunately, he spoke these words in French, a language Eva did not comprehend.

“Sheusedto be an SVR agent,” said Rebecca. “Now she’s yours.”

“If you say so.”

“She was working for you when she went into the coffee shop.”

“If that were true, why did she help you escape?”

“I didn’t give her much of a choice, Allon.”

Gabriel’s smile was genuine. “You’re the closest thing to royalty we have in our business, Rebecca. I’m flattered you know my name.”

“Don’t be.”

“You have your father’s eyes,” said Gabriel, “but your mother’s mouth.”

“How did you find her?”

“It wasn’t hard, actually. She was Sasha’s one mistake. He should have brought her to Moscow a long time ago.”

“Kim wouldn’t allow it.”

“Is that what you called him?”

She ignored the question. “He was remarried to Rufina,” she explained. “He didn’t want to make a mess of his personal life yet again by having an old flame living in the neighborhood.”

“So he left her in the hills of Andalusia,” said Gabriel contemptuously. “Alone in the world.”

“It wasn’t so bad there.”

“You knew where she was?”

“Of course.”

“And you never tried to see her?”

“I couldn’t.”

“Because Sasha wouldn’t allow it? Or because it would have been too painful?”

“Painful for whom?”

“You, of course. She was your mother.”

“I have nothing but scorn for her.”

“Do you really?”

“She gave me away rather easily, didn’t she? And she never once tried to contact me or see me.”

“She did once, actually.”

The blue eyes brightened, childlike. “When?”