Prince of Fire

"[ Prince of Fire ] goes places readers can't predict and then goes further. [Silva's] plotting is ingenious." Detroit Free Press "[A] tense cat-and-mouse plot." The New Yorker "An intricate web of deceit and double-cross." USA Today "A story that seems ripped from the headlines...chilling suspense." Booklist "Silva keeps getting better." Library Journal Informationen zum Autor Daniel Silva Klappentext #1 New York Times bestselling author Daniel Silva presents "a first-rate thriller" (Rocky Mountain News) featuring art restorer-and reluctant spy-Gabriel Allon. After an explosion in Rome destroys the Israeli embassy, Gabriel Allon makes a disturbing discovery-the existence of a dossier in terrorist hands that strips away his secrets, and lays bare his history. Drawn into the heart of a service he'd once forsaken, Allon finds himself stalking a master terrorist across a bloody landscape generations in the making. But soon, Allon will wonder who is stalking whom. When the final showdown comes, it won't be Allon alone who is threatened with destruction. For it is not his history alone that has been exposed... Chapter 1 ROME: MARCH 4 THERE HAD BEEN WARNING SIGNSTHE SHABBAT bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that left eighty-seven people dead; the bombing of an Istanbul synagogue, precisely one year later, that killed another twenty-eightbut Rome would be his coming-out party, and Rome would be the place where he left his calling card. Afterward, within the corridors and executive suites of Israel's vaunted intelligence service, there was considerable and sometimes belligerent debate over the time and place of the conspiracy's genesis. Lev Ahroni, the ever-cautious director of the service, would claim that the plot was hatched not long after the Israeli army knocked down Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah and stole his secret files. Ari Shamron, the legendary Israeli master spy, would find this almost laughable, though Shamron often disagreed with Lev simply as a matter of sport. Only Shamron, who had fought with the Palmach during the War of Independence and who tended to view the conflict as a continuum, understood intuitively that the outrage in Rome had been inspired by deeds dating back more than a half century. Eventually, evidence would prove both Lev and Shamron correct. In the meantime, in order to achieve peaceful working conditions, they agreed on a new starting point: the day a certain Monsieur Jean-Luc arrived in the hills of Lazio and settled himself in a rather handsome eighteenth-century villa on the shore of Lake Bracciano. As for the exact date and time of his arrival, there was no doubt. The owner of the villa, a dubious Belgian aristocrat called Monsieur Laval, said the tenant appeared at two-thirty in the afternoon on the final Friday of March. The courteous but intense young Israeli who called on Monsieur Laval at his home in Brussels wondered how it was possible to recall the date so clearly. The Belgian produced his lavish leather-bound personal calendar and pointed to the date in question. There, penciled on the line designated for 2:30 P.M., were the words: Meet M. Jean-Luc at Bracciano villa. Why did you write Bracciano villa instead of just villa? asked the Israeli visitor, his pen hovering over his open notebook. To differentiate it from our St. Tropez villa, our Portuguese villa, and the chalet we own in the Swiss Alps. I see, said the Israeli, though the Belgian found that his visitor's tone lacked the humility adopted by most civil servants when confronted by men of great wealth. And what else did Monsieur Laval remember of the man who rented his villa? That he was punctual, intelligent, and extremely well-mannered. That he was strikingly good-looking, that his scent was noticeable but not o...

"[Prince of Fire] goes places readers can’t predict and then goes further. [Silva’s] plotting is ingenious."—Detroit Free Press

"[A] tense cat-and-mouse plot."—The New Yorker

"An intricate web of deceit and double-cross."—USA Today

"A story that seems ripped from the headlines...chilling suspense."—Booklist

"Silva keeps getting better."—Library Journal

Autorentext

Daniel Silva

Klappentext

#1 New York Times bestselling author Daniel Silva presents "a first-rate thriller" (Rocky Mountain News) featuring art restorer-and reluctant spy-Gabriel Allon.

After an explosion in Rome destroys the Israeli embassy, Gabriel Allon makes a disturbing discovery-the existence of a dossier in terrorist hands that strips away his secrets, and lays bare his history. Drawn into the heart of a service he'd once forsaken, Allon finds himself stalking a master terrorist across a bloody landscape generations in the making. But soon, Allon will wonder who is stalking whom.

When the final showdown comes, it won't be Allon alone who is threatened with destruction. For it is not his history alone that has been exposed...

Zusammenfassung
#1 New York Times bestselling author Daniel Silva presents "a first-rate thriller" (Rocky Mountain News) featuring art restorer—and reluctant spy—Gabriel Allon.

After an explosion in Rome destroys the Israeli embassy, Gabriel Allon makes a disturbing discovery—the existence of a dossier in terrorist hands that strips away his secrets, and lays bare his history. Drawn into the heart of a service he’d once forsaken, Allon finds himself stalking a master terrorist across a bloody landscape generations in the making. But soon, Allon will wonder who is stalking whom.

When the final showdown comes, it won’t be Allon alone who is threatened with destruction. For it is not his history alone that has been exposed...

Leseprobe
** Chapter 1

ROME: MARCH 4 ** THERE HAD BEEN WARNING SIGNS—THE SHABBAT bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that left eighty-seven people dead; the bombing of an Istanbul synagogue, precisely one year later, that killed another twenty-eight—but Rome would be his coming-out party, and Rome would be the place where he left his calling card.

Afterward, within the corridors and executive suites of Israel’s vaunted intelligence service, there was considerable and sometimes belligerent debate over the time and place of the conspiracy’s genesis. Lev Ahroni, the ever-cautious director of the service, would claim that the plot was hatched not long after the Israeli army knocked down Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah and stole his secret files. Ari Shamron, the legendary Israeli master spy, would find this almost laughable, though Shamron often disagreed with Lev simply as a matter of sport. Only Shamron, who had fought with the Palmach during the War of Independence and who tended to view the conflict as a continuum, understood intuitively that the outrage in Rome had been inspired by deeds dating back more than a half century. Eventually, evidence would prove both Lev and Shamron correct. In the meantime, in order to achieve peaceful working conditions, they agreed on a new starting point: the day a certain Monsieur Jean-Luc arrived in the hills of Lazio and settled himself in a rather handsome eighteenth-century villa on the shore of Lake Bracciano.

As for the exact date and time of his arrival, there was no doubt. The owner of the villa, a dubious Belgian aristocrat called Monsieur Laval, said the tenant appeared at two-thirty in the afternoon on the final Friday of March. The courteous but intense young Israeli who called on Monsieur Laval at his home in Brussels wondered how it was possible to recall the date so clearly. The Belgian produced his lavish leather-bound personal calendar and pointed to the date in question. There, penciled on the line designated for 2:30 P.M., were the words: Meet M. Jean-Luc at Bracciano villa.

“Why did you write Bracciano vi…