The novel’s primary antagonist, Tariq al-Hourani, is a dark mirror to Gabriel Allon. A brilliant and ruthless terrorist, Tariq is not a one-dimensional villain. Rather, the novel presents him as a product of immense personal and historical trauma due to his Palestinian identity. His motivations are deeply rooted in the theme of Trauma and Vengeance as Unending Cycles. His family was displaced from the Upper Galilee during the 1948 war, an event the Palestinians call “al-Nakba” or “The Catastrophe,” and his older brother, Mahmoud, was assassinated by Gabriel during the Black September operations. This history fuels a lifelong, single-minded quest for revenge against both the state of Israel and the man who killed his brother, a dual mission that illustrates the institutional and personal stakes of his campaign. His tragic background provides a rationale for his actions, presenting his terrorism as a continuation of a multigenerational conflict rather than senseless violence.

Tariq’s professionalism and meticulous planning make him a formidable adversary, a worthy opponent for the similarly skilled Gabriel. He is disciplined, intelligent, and a master of disguise and deception, able to blend in seamlessly whether in Paris, Amsterdam, or New York. He is also utterly ruthless, as demonstrated by his cold-blooded murder of his lover, Emily Parker, in Paris simply to maintain his cover. This pattern—of seducing women and using them as disposable cover stories for his violence—is repeated throughout the novel, illustrating Tariq’s emotional detachment from those around him. This pattern establishes his capacity to sacrifice anyone for his mission, turning living humans into pawns in his greater mission. However, his character is complicated by a fatal brain tumor. This diagnosis makes him a desperate and even more dangerous figure, a young man who is dying and wants to settle accounts before he leaves. His impending death removes any fear of consequences and focuses his energy on one final, monumental act of terror that he hopes will destroy the peace process and settle his personal score with Gabriel, bringing together his large and small scale aspirations together in the same grandiose act.

Ultimately, Tariq is a tragic figure, trapped by the past and his own quest for vengeance. He understands the art of intelligence as well as his Israeli counterparts, using their own methods against them by setting an elaborate trap for Gabriel using Jacqueline. His final confrontation is not with the prime minister or Arafat; it is with his own history. Following his intense discussion with Arafat, in which he opts against killing the Palestinian leader, he chooses to die in a final, violent confrontation rather than succumb to his illness, ensuring his life ends as it was lived: in a state of war. He represents the seemingly unbreakable cycle of violence, a man so consumed by past grievances that he is incapable of imagining a future that does not involve bloodshed. At the same time, however, a tragic hint of empathy and depth is shown through the way in which Arafat dissuades him from his original goal. Were Tariq able to live long enough, the exchange suggests, he may have been able to break from the pattern of violence that shaped his life. The brain tumor and the confrontation with Gabriel, however, mean that this possibility is drawn to an immediate and bloody end.

Jacqueline Delacroix, whose birth name is Sarah Halévy, is the deuteragonist of the novel. She navigates the conflicting demands of her multiple identities: She is an internationally famous model, a French citizen, a Jew whose grandparents were murdered at Sobibor, and a covert agent for the Israeli Office, all at the same time. The overlapping and occasionally covert nature of these identities means that Jacqueline is often caught in a struggle to truly understand herself or her place in the world. Initially recruited by Shamron for her beauty and non-Israeli passport, she is a skilled operative who is drawn back into service by her unresolved feelings for Gabriel Allon. Love, rather than duty, is what motivates her, since she hopes that her unresolved feelings for Gabriel—much like her unresolved conflicting identities—can find some kind of clarity. Her cover as Dominique Bonard, a secretary at an art gallery, places her in a world of deception where her primary role is to serve as a honey trap for the target, Yusef al-Tawfiki. However, Jacqueline proves to be more than just bait; she is resourceful, intelligent, and courageous, emerging as a fully-fledged character in her own right rather than just an agent of other people’s desires.

Jacqueline’s character arc is defined by her growing agency and her struggle with the moral complexities of espionage. She is deeply affected by Yusef’s story of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, which forces her to confront the human cost of the conflict and question the black-and-white morality of her mission, particularly as she feels a sense of loyalty to the same state that was heavily involved in the massacre, as confirmed to her by Gabriel. This moment of empathy is a turning point, as she begins to act as more than just an instrument of the Office. She starts to become a woman with her own conscience, forming an opinion of the world for herself rather than adopting one given to her by Shamron or Gabriel. Her decision to continue with the operation stems from her loyalty to Gabriel and her desire to prevent further violence, rather than her sense of duty. This culminates in her killing Leila and another operative in self-defense, a brutal series of acts that transforms her from a passive operative into a survivor who takes control of her own fate.

Her relationship with Gabriel is central to her motivation. The memory of their affair in Tunis provides a powerful emotional undercurrent to the entire operation. She agrees to the dangerous mission partly in the hope of rekindling their connection, only to find him more distant and haunted than ever. Her journey is one of disillusionment, both with the romantic notion of espionage and with Gabriel himself. By the end, she has been irrevocably changed by the violence she has witnessed and committed. Unable to return to her old life as a model, she finds a new home in Israel, her identity as Sarah Halévy finally taking precedence over the glamorous facade of Jacqueline Delacroix. At the same time, this return to Israel and escape from the world of modelling is a moment of self-acceptance and self-understanding for a woman who has felt compelled to hide her Jewish identity for so long. She may not have found happiness with Gabriel and she may have become more cynical in her world view, but she finds solace in better understanding herself, living under her own name and identity for the first time.

Ari Shamron is the archetypal spymaster and Gabriel’s mentor. He is the ruthless, brilliant, and manipulative head of the Office, Israel’s intelligence service. Pulled out of retirement to restore the agency’s tarnished reputation, Shamron orchestrates the entire operation to hunt down Tariq, employing a level of control and deception that is not even understood by his most trusted confidants until the very end. His character is defined by his absolute dedication to the security of Israel, a cause for which he is willing to sacrifice individuals, bend moral rules, and deceive his closest allies. Importantly, Shamron has a subjective understanding of what the security of Israel entails, filtering everything through his hyper-specific and confrontational view of the world. His personal history is rooted in the early struggles of the state, and he views the conflict with the Palestinians as an unending, existential war. This subjective perspective influences everything he does, ironically propagating violence because he views violence as essential to making peace for his country. His chronic insomnia is a physical manifestation of The Psychological Toll of State Violence, representing the burden of a lifetime of secrets, lies, and state-sanctioned killings. Shamron lives with this burden, however, and he is proud of the sacrifices that he has made—and the people that he has sacrificed—in the name of his country.

Shamron’s primary method is deception, primarily against his enemies but also against his own agents. The final plot twist, that Yusef is his deep-cover agent, reveals the depth of his strategic thinking and his willingness to use anyone, including Gabriel, as a pawn in a larger game. He correctly assesses that the only way to lure Gabriel back is to appeal to his personal need for vengeance against Tariq, hiding the fact that the entire operation is a carefully constructed trap. In this sense, he is guilty of the exact kind of risk and manipulation that Tariq employs to lure Gabriel into a trap. In this way, the novel presents Shamron and Tariq as mirrored versions of the same moral character, with both doing what they believe is necessary for their own state. Furthermore, Shamron is a master of psychological manipulation, understanding his agents’ weaknesses and loyalties and exploiting them to achieve his objectives. His relationship with Gabriel is a complex mix of paternal affection and professional exploitation; he calls Gabriel his “prince of fire” but has no qualms about putting him and Jacqueline in mortal danger (335).

Despite his morally ambiguous methods, Shamron is portrayed as a necessary, if unsettling, figure. He believes that the survival of Israel depends on a willingness to be as ruthless as its enemies. His final conversation with Gabriel, where he defends his actions by stating, “someone has to do these things” (482), encapsulates his worldview. He is the guardian at the gate, a man who willingly sacrifices his own peace of mind and moral clarity to protect his nation. He is neither a hero nor a villain but a pragmatist hardened by a lifetime of secret war. In this sense, the novel portrays Shamron as a conflicted and hubristic figure. He is someone who is so invested in his own particular understanding of state security that he has sacrificed his own contentment on the altar of his worldview. He is willing to sacrifice others for the same cause, but his life is defined by his view in the essential nature of suffering, including his own, as a means of securing safety.

Initially presented as a committed Palestinian radical, Yusef al-Tawfiki is a complex character who is a critical plot device. His supposed backstory, that of a survivor of the Sabra and Shatila massacre whose family was brutally murdered, gives him a powerful and sympathetic motivation for his hatred of Israel and his involvement with Tariq’s organization. The sincerity of his motivation is evident in the effect that it has on Jacqueline: When she hears him tell the story, she is physically sick. He appears to be an intelligent, charming, and deeply wounded man who succeeds in gaining Jacqueline’s sympathy and complicating her understanding of a conflict in which she has already played a significant role. Jacqueline has been involved in political assassinations, acts that become more complex in her mind due to her introduction to Yusef’s point of view. He is a human face for the Palestinian cause, articulating the historical grievances that fuel the cycle of violence.

The final revelation that Yusef is, in fact, a deep-cover agent for the Office, placed in his role by Shamron as a child, is a shocking twist that emphasizes the novel’s themes of deception and moral ambiguity. His entire identity is a construct, a lie so deep that it has defined his life. This makes him a tragic figure, a man robbed of a genuine past and forced to live as the enemy in order to serve his true masters. He has dedicated his entire existence to a lie constructed by Shamron. His brief, tense confrontation with Gabriel on the beach in Tel Aviv reveals the immense personal cost of this lifelong deception: They are two similar figures, both pawns in Shamron’s games of state security. Ironically for Gabriel, the man who he has spent so long observing and targeting is much more like himself than he would care to admit. Yusef’s role is, ultimately, to reveal to Gabriel to paucity of his own agency. Yusef is the ultimate secret servant, a living weapon forged by Shamron whose true self has been completely subsumed by his mission. This revelation forces Gabriel to reflect on whether his life has been turned into something similar.

Julian Isherwood is an art dealer in London and one of the sayanim, a Jewish civilian who provides logistical support to the Office. He acts as Gabriel’s primary link to the legitimate world of art, providing him with restoration work that serves as his professional cover. Isherwood is a mercurial and somewhat dramatic figure, perpetually on the verge of financial ruin and lamenting the commercialization of the art world. Despite his frequent complaints, he is fiercely loyal to Gabriel, viewing him with a mixture of professional respect and paternal concern, as well as believing that Gabriel is his only means of professional survival. His character provides a touch of humor and humanity, grounding the high-stakes world of espionage in the more relatable anxieties of running a small business. He also is a moral compass, expressing genuine distress over the danger Jacqueline is in and the emotional toll Gabriel’s work takes on him.