The Kill Artist

  “Shoot her in the face.”

  Jacqueline shoved the clip into the butt of the Beretta, tapped the base of the grip against the heel of her palm to make certain it was firmly in place. She stepped forward, raised the gun, bent her knees slightly, turned her body a few degrees to reduce her target profile for the imaginary enemy. She fired without hesitation, rhythmically and steadily, until the clip was empty.

  Gabriel, listening to the popping of the little hand-gun, was suddenly back in the stairwell of the apartment house in Rome. Jacqueline lowered the Beretta, removed the clip, and inspected the chamber to make certain it was empty. She tossed the gun to Gabriel and said, “Let’s see you try it now.”

  Gabriel just slipped the Beretta into his coat pocket and walked over to the tree to examine her results. Only one shot had missed; the hits were grouped tightly in the upper right. He ripped down the front cover, hung the back cover in its place, gave the Beretta back to Jacqueline. “Do it again, but this time, move forward while you’re firing.”

  She rammed the second clip into the Beretta, pulled the slide, and advanced on the target, firing as she went. The last shot was from almost point-blank range. She pulled down the target, turned, and held it up so that the headlamps shone through the bullet holes in the paper. Each shot had found the mark. She walked back to Gabriel and gave him the Beretta and the magazine cover.

  He said, “Pick up your brass.”

  While Jacqueline gathered the spent cartridges, he quickly disassembled the Beretta. He removed the tire iron from the trunk and pounded the gun components until they were inoperable. They got back into the Peugeot, and Gabriel left the way he had come. Along the way he hurled the magazine covers and the broken bits of the Beretta into the darkness. After they had passed through the village, he opened the window once more and scattered the cartridges.

  Jacqueline lit another cigarette. “How did I do?”

  “You passed.”

  NINETEEN

  Amsterdam

  Tariq spent the afternoon running errands. He walked from the houseboat to Centraalstation, where he purchased a first-class ticket for the evening train to Antwerp. From the train station he walked to the red-light district, wandering the labyrinth of narrow alleys, past the sex shops and brothels and dreary bars, until a drug dealer pulled him aside and offered him heroin. Tariq haggled over the price, then asked for enough for three people to trip. Tariq gave him the money, slipped the drugs into his pocket, walked away.

  In Dam Square, he hopped onto a streetcar and rode south through the city to the Bloemenmarkt, a floating outdoor flower market on the Singel canal. He went to the largest stall and asked the florist for an elaborate bouquet of traditional Dutch flowers. When the florist asked how much he was willing to spend, Tariq assured him money was no object. The florist smiled and told him to come back in twenty minutes.

  Tariq wandered through the market, past tulips and irises, lilies and sunflowers exploding with color, until he came upon a man painting. Short-cropped black hair, pale skin, and ice-blue eyes. His work depicted the Bloemenmarkt, framed by the canal and a terrace of gabled houses. It was dreamlike, an eruption of liquid color and light.

  Tariq paused for a moment and watched him work. “Do you speak French?”

  “Oui,” said the painter without looking up from his canvas.

  “I admire your work.”

  The painter smiled and said, “And I admire yours.”

  Tariq nodded and walked away, wondering what in the hell the crazy painter was talking about.

  He collected the flowers and returned to the houseboat. The girl was asleep. Tariq knelt beside her bed and gently shook her shoulder. She opened her eyes and looked at him as though he were mad. She closed her eyes. “What time is it?”

  “Time for work.”

  “Come to bed.”

  “Actually, I might have something you’ll enjoy more.”

  She opened her eyes and saw the flowers. She smiled. “For me? What’s the occasion?”

  “Just my way of thanking you for being such a gracious host.”

  “I like you better than flowers. Take off your clothes and come to bed.”

  “I have something else.”

  He held up the bags of white powder.

  Inge quickly pulled on some clothes while Tariq went into the galley. He dug a spoon from the drawer and lit a candle. He heated the drug over the flame, but instead of diluting one bag of heroin into the mixture, he used all three. When he finished, he drew the liquid into a syringe and carried it back into the forward cabin.

  Inge was sitting on the edge of the bed. She had tied a length of rubber above her elbow and was probing the bruises along the inside of her forearm, looking for a suitable vein.

  “That one looks like it will do,” Tariq said, handing her the syringe. She held it in the palm of her hand and calmly inserted the needle into her arm. Tariq looked away as she drew back the plunger with the tip of her thumb and the liquid heroin clouded with her blood. Then she pressed the plunger and loosened the elastic, sending the drug coursing through her body.

  She looked up suddenly, eyes wide. “Hey, Paul, man… what’s going—”

  She fell backward onto the bed, body shuddering with violent convulsions, the empty needle dangling from her arm. Tariq walked calmly to the galley and made coffee while he waited for the girl to finish dying.

  Five minutes later, as he was packing his things into a small overnight bag, he felt the boat rock sharply. He looked up, stunned. Someone was on the deck! Within seconds the door opened and a large, powerfully built man entered the salon. He had blond hair and studs in both ears. Tariq thought he bore a vague resemblance to Inge. Instinctively he felt for his Makarov pistol, which was tucked inside his trousers at the small of his back.

  The man looked at Tariq. “Who are you?”

  “I’m a friend of Inge’s. I’ve been staying here for a few days.” He spoke calmly, trying to gather his thoughts. The suddenness of the man’s appearance had thrown him completely off guard. Five minutes ago he had quietly dispensed with the girl. Now he was confronted with someone who could wreck everything. Then he thought: If I’m truly Inge’s friend, I have nothing to fear. He forced himself to smile and hold out his hand. “My name is Paul.”

  The intruder ignored Tariq’s hand. “I’m Maarten, Inge’s brother. Where is she?”

  Tariq motioned toward the bedroom. “You know how Inge can be. Still sleeping.” He realized he had left the door open. “Let me close her door so we don’t wake her. I’ve just made coffee. Would you like a cup?”

  But Maarten walked past him and entered Inge’s room. Tariq thought, Damn it! He was shocked at how quickly things had spun out of control. He realized he had about five seconds to decide how he was going to kill him.

  The easiest thing to do, of course, was to shoot him. But that would have consequences. Murder by handgun was almost unheard of in the Netherlands. A dead girl with a syringe sticking from her arm was one thing. But two dead bodies—one of them filled with 9mm rounds—was quite another. There would be a major investigation. The police would question the occupants of the surrounding houseboats. Someone might remember his face. They would give a description to the police, the police would give a description to Interpol, Interpol would give a description to the Jews. Every policeman and security official in western Europe would be looking for him. Shooting Maarten would be quick, but it would cost him in the long run.

  He looked over his shoulder into the kitchen. He remembered that in the drawer next to the propane stove was a large knife. If he killed Inge’s brother with a knife it might look like a crime of passion or an ordinary street crime. But Tariq found the idea of killing someone with a knife utterly repulsive. And there was another, more serious problem. There was a good chance he might not kill him with the first blow. The illness had already begun to take a toll on him. He had lost strength and stamina. The last thing he wanted to do was find himself in a life
-or-death struggle with a bigger, stronger opponent. He saw his dreams—of destroying the peace process and finally evening the score with Gabriel Allon—evaporating, all because Inge’s big brother had come home at an inopportune moment. Leila should have chosen more carefully.

  Tariq heard Maarten scream. He decided to shoot him.

  He drew the Makarov from his waistband. He realized the gun had no silencer attached to it. Where is it? In the pocket of his coat, and the coat was on the chair in the salon. Shit! How could I have become so complacent?

  Maarten charged out of the bedroom, face ashen. “She’s dead!”

  “What are you talking about?” Tariq asked, doing his best to stall.

  “She’s dead! That’s what I’m talking about! She overdosed!”

  “Drugs?”

  Tariq inched closer to his jacket. If he could pull the silencer from the pocket and screw it into the barrel, then he could at least kill him quietly…

  “She has a needle hanging from her arm. Her body is still warm. She probably shot up only a few minutes ago. Did you give her the fucking drugs, man?”

  “I don’t know anything about drugs.” Tariq realized that he sounded too calm for the situation. He had tried to appear unfazed by Maarten’s arrival, and now he seemed too casual about his little sister’s death. Maarten clearly didn’t believe him. He screamed in rage and charged across the salon, arms raised, fists clenched.

  Tariq gave up on trying to get the silencer. He gripped the Makarov, pulled the slide, leveled it at Maarten’s face, shot him through the eye.

  Tariq worked quickly. He had managed to kill Maarten with a single shot, but he had to assume that someone on one of the neighboring houseboats or along the embankment had heard the pop. The police might be on their way right now. He slipped the Makarov back into his waistband, then grabbed his suitcase, the flowers, and the spent cartridge, and stepped out of the salon onto the aft deck. Dusk had fallen; snow was drifting over the Amstel. The dark would help him. He looked down and noticed he was leaving footprints on the deck. He dragged his feet as he walked, obscuring the impressions, and leaped onto the embankment.

  He walked quickly but calmly. In a darkened spot along the embankment he dropped his suitcase into the river. The splash was nearly inaudible. Even if the police discovered the bag, there was nothing in it that could be traced to him. He would purchase a change of clothing and a new case when he arrived in Antwerp. Then he thought: If I arrive in Antwerp.

  He followed the Herengracht westward across the city. For a moment he considered aborting the attack, going directly to Centraalstation, and fleeing the country. The Morgenthaus were soft targets and of minimal political value. Kemel had selected them because killing them would be easy and because it would allow Tariq to keep up the pressure on the peace process. But now the risk of capture had increased dramatically because of the fiasco on the boat. Perhaps it was best to forget the whole thing.

  Ahead of him a pair of seabirds lifted from the surface of the canal and broke into flight, their cries echoing off the facades of the canal houses, and for a moment Tariq was a boy of eight again, running barefoot through the camp at Sidon.

  The letter arrived in the late afternoon. It was addressed to Tariq’s mother and father. It said that Mahmoud al-Hourani had been killed in Cologne because he was a terrorist—that if Tariq, the youngest child of the al-Hourani family, became a terrorist, he would be killed too. Tariq’s father told him to run up to the PLO office and ask if the letter spoke the truth. Tariq found a PLO officer and showed it to him. The PLO man read it once, handed it back to Tariq, ordered him to go home and tell his father that it was true. Tariq ran through the squalid camp toward his home, tears blurring his vision. He worshiped Mahmoud. He couldn’t imagine living without him.

  By the time he arrived home, word of the letter had spread throughout the camp—other families had received similar letters over the years. Women gathered outside Tariq’s home. The sound of their wailing and the fluttering of their tongues rose over the camp with the smoke from the evening fires. Tariq thought it sounded like birds from the marshes. He found his father and told him that the letter was true—Mahmoud was dead. His father tossed the letter into the fire. Tariq would never forget the pain on his father’s face, the unspeakable shame that he had been told of the death of his eldest son by the very men who had killed him.

  No, Tariq thought now as he walked along the Herengracht. He would not call off the attack and run because he was afraid of being arrested. He had come too far. He had too little time left.

  Tariq arrived at the house. He climbed the front steps, reached out, and pressed the bell. A moment later the door was opened by a young girl in a maid’s uniform.

  He held out the flower arrangement and said in Dutch, “A gift for the Morgenthaus.”

  “Oh, how lovely.”

  “It’s quite heavy. Shall I bring it inside for you?”

  “Dank u.”

  The girl stepped aside so Tariq could pass. She closed the door to keep out the cold and waited with one hand on the latch for Tariq to place the box on a table in the entrance hall and leave. He set down the package and drew the Makarov while turning around. This time the silencer was screwed into place.

  The girl opened her mouth to scream. Tariq shot her twice in the throat.

  He dragged the body out of the entrance hall and used a towel from the bathroom to wipe up the trail of blood. Then he sat in the darkened dining room and waited for David and Cynthia Morgenthau to come home.

  TWENTY

  Paris

  Shamron summoned Gabriel to the Tuileries gardens the following morning for a crash meeting. Gabriel found him seated on a bench next to a gravel footpath, surrounded by a gang of pigeons. He wore a slate-gray silk scarf around his neck with the ends tucked neatly beneath the lapels of his black overcoat so that his bald head seemed to be mounted atop a pedestal. He stood up, removed a black leather glove from his right hand, and stuck it out like a trench knife. Gabriel found his palm unusually warm and damp. Shamron blew into the throat of the glove and quickly put it back on. He was not accustomed to cold climates, and Paris in winter depressed him.

  They walked quickly, not like two men talking in a park but like two men going somewhere in a hurry—along the footpaths of the Tuileries, across the windswept place de la Concorde. Dead leaves rattled at their feet as they marched along the tree-lined sidewalk next to the Champs-Élysées.

  “We received a report this morning from a sayan in the Dutch security service,” Shamron said. “It was Tariq who killed David Morgenthau and his wife in Amsterdam.”

  “How can they be so certain?”

  “They’re not certain, but I am. The Amsterdam police discovered a dead girl on a houseboat in the Amstel. She had overdosed on heroin. Her brother was dead too.”

  “Heroin?”

  “A single bullet through the eye.”

  “What happened?”

  “According to the girl’s neighbors, an Arab woman moved into the houseboat a couple of weeks ago. She left a couple of days ago and a man took her place. A Frenchman who called himself Paul.”

  “So Tariq sent an agent to Amsterdam ahead of time to secure safe lodging and a girl for cover.”

  “And when he was finished with her, he fed her enough heroin to kill a camel. The police say the girl had a history of drug use and prostitution. Obviously, he thought he could make it look like an accidental overdose.”

  “How did the brother end up dead?”

  “The houseboat is registered in his name. According to the police, he’s been working in Rotterdam on a construction project. Maybe he appeared on the scene unannounced while Tariq was killing his sister.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “Actually, there’s evidence to support that theory. A couple of the neighbors heard the gunshot. If Tariq had been planning to kill the brother, he would have used a quieter method of execution. Maybe he was surprised.”

&n
bsp; “Have they compared the slug from the brother with the slugs taken from the Morgenthaus and the maid?”

  “It’s a perfect match. Same gun killed all four people.”

  A young Swedish couple was posing for a photograph. Gabriel and Shamron turned abruptly and walked the other way.

  Gabriel said, “Any other news?”

  “I want you to watch your step in London. A man from Langley paid a courtesy call on me last week. The Americans have been told by their sources that Tariq was involved in Paris. They want him arrested and prosecuted in the United States.”

  “The last thing we need now is to be tripping over the CIA.”

  “It gets worse, I’m afraid. The man from Langley also dropped a not-so-subtle warning about the pitfalls of operating in certain countries without permission.”

  “Do they know anything?”

  “I doubt it, but I wouldn’t rule it out completely.”

  “I was hoping that my return to the Office wouldn’t land me in a British jail.”

  “It won’t as long as you stay disciplined.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “Did you find her?” Shamron asked, changing the subject.

  Gabriel nodded.

  “And she’s willing to do it?”

  “It took me a while to convince her, but she agreed.”

  “Why are all my children so reluctant to come home again? Was I such an errant father?”

  “Just an overly demanding one.”

  Gabriel stopped in front of a café on the Champs-Élysées. Jacqueline was seated in the window, wearing large sunglasses and reading a magazine. She glanced up as they approached, then turned her gaze to her magazine once more.

  Shamron said, “It’s nice to see you two working together again. Just don’t break her heart this time. She’s a good girl.”

  “I know.”

  “You’ll need a cover job for her in London. I know someone who’s looking for a secretary.”

  “I’m one step ahead of you.”

  Shamron smiled and walked away. He melted into the crowds along the Champs-Élysées and a moment later was gone.