The Secret Servant

I can be whoever you want me to be: CIA, FBI, DIA, an agency so fucking secret you've never heard of it before." -Gabriel Allon

To Pakistan? Or Afghanistan? Or Wherever-the-fuck-istan?

But I’ve come to realize that this continent is dying a slow death. Europe is receding quietly into history. It’s old and tired, and its young are so pessimistic about the prospects of the future they refuse to have enough children to ensure their own survival. They believe in nothing but their thirty-five-hour workweek and their August vacation.

The Europeans thought they could take in millions of immigrants from the poorest regions of the Muslim world and turn them into good little social democrats in a single generation. And look at the results. For the most part the Muslims of Europe are ghettoized and seething with anger.

...Where are these so-called moderate Muslims one always hears about in the press? Do they exist or are they merely figments of our imagination? If one insults the Prophet Muhammad, our Muslim countrymen pour into the streets in a sacred rage and threaten us with beheading. But when one of them commits murder in the Prophet's name..." "The silence is deafening.

We dare to fight back, and the terrorists accuse us of being the real terrorists.” “It’s their secret weapon, Mikhail. Get used to it.

Look at the snow, the woman was saying to the child. The snow absolves Vienna of its sins. The snow falls on Vienna while the missiles rain on Tel Aviv.

...The barbarians are at the gates." "The barbarians broke down the gates a long time ago... They're living among us now and devouring our children.

Islamic extremism is just the latest virus to thrive in Europe’s nurturing environment. - Gabriel Allon

No one intervened—hardly surprising, thought Rosner, for intervention would have been intolerant—and no one thought to comfort him as he lay dying.

.” “We dare to fight back, and the terrorists accuse us of being the real terrorists.

Yaakov had taken up a post hundred yards from the warehouse

It was Professor Solomon Rosner who sounded the first alarm, though his name would never be linked to the affair except in the secure rooms of a drab office building in downtown Tel Aviv. Gabriel Allon, the legendary but wayward son of Israeli intelligence, would later observe that Rosner was the first asset in the annals of Office history to have proven more useful to them dead than alive. Those who overheard the remark found it uncharacteristically callous but in keeping with the bleak mood that by then had settled over them all.

When we are wronged, we must seek revenge. It is in our culture, our bloodstream. Each time you kill or torture us, you are creating an extended family of enemies that is honor bound to take retribution. - Ibrahim Fawaz

Done properly (use of extreme violent methods), by trained professionals, placing physical and emotional stress on captured terrorists very often produces actionable intelligence that saves lives. - Gabriel Allon

The CIA program known as “extraordinary rendition,” the practice of clandestinely transferring suspected terrorists from one country to another for the purposes of incarceration or interrogation, has been well documented. It was put into place not by President George W. Bush but by his predecessor, Bill Clinton.

He felt suddenly like Winston Smith in Room 101 of the Ministry of Love.