The Kill Artist

“You’re full of shit, Yusef.”

  “And you’re very tired. Close your eyes. Get some rest.”

  She leaned her head against the window. “Where are we going?”

  “Someplace safe.”

  “Yes, you’ve told me that, but how about telling me where?”

  “You’ll see it when we arrive.”

  “Why would we need someplace safe? What’s wrong with your flat? What’s wrong with my flat?”

  “This place belongs to a friend of mine. It’s close to Heathrow.”

  “Is your friend going to be there?”

  “No.”

  “Are you going to stay the night?”

  “Of course. And in the morning I’ll fly with you to Paris.”

  “And after that?”

  “After that you’ll be in the company of our Palestinian official, and your journey will begin. I wish I could be in your shoes. It would be such an honor to be with this man on this trip. You have no idea how lucky you are, Dominique.”

  “What’s his name, this great man? Maybe I know him.”

  “I doubt you know him, but I still can’t tell you his name. You will refer to him only by his cover name.”

  “And that is?”

  “Lucien. Lucien Daveau.”

  “Lucien,” she said softly. “I’ve always liked the name Lucien. Where are we going, Yusef?”

  “Close your eyes. It won’t be long now.”

  * * *

  Shamron answered the telephone in the listening post before it could ring a second time. He listened without speaking, then gently replaced the receiver as if he had just been informed of the death of an old adversary. “It looks as though they’ve settled for the night,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “A council estate in Hounslow near the airport.”

  “And the team?”

  “In place, well hidden. They’ll spend the night with her.”

  “I’d feel better if I were there.”

  “You have a long day ahead of you tomorrow. I suggest you get a few hours’ sleep.”

  But Gabriel went into the bedroom and returned a moment later, jacket on, nylon rucksack over his shoulder.

  Shamron said, “Where are you going?”

  “I need to take care of something personal.”

  “Where are you going? When will you be back?”

  But Gabriel walked out without another word and followed the stairs down to the street. As he walked past the front of the building, he thought he saw Shamron eyeing him through a slit in the blinds. And as he moved closer to the Edgware Road, he had the uncomfortable feeling that Shamron had one of his teams watching him too.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Hounslow, England

  The Toyota dropped them and then sped away. A car park bathed in yellow sodium light, a colony of stout redbrick council flats that looked like an industrial complex fallen on hard times. Jacqueline offered to carry her own bag, but Yusef wouldn’t hear of it. He took her hand and led her across the car park, then across a common strewn with crushed beer cans and bits of broken toys. A red wagon with no front wheels. A headless baby with no clothing. A plastic pistol. Gabriel’s pistol, thought Jacqueline, remembering the night in the hills of Provence, when he had tested her ability to shoot. Seemed like ages ago. A lifetime ago. A cat spit at them from the shadows. Jacqueline grabbed Yusef’s elbow and nearly screamed. Then a dog began to bark, and the cat scampered along the sidewalk and slithered beneath a fence.

  “This is lovely, Yusef. Why didn’t you tell me you kept a place in the country?”

  “Please don’t talk until we’re inside.”

  He led her into a stairwell. Dead leaves and old newspaper in the corners, lime green walls, yellow light fixture overhead. The collision of color made them both look nauseated. They climbed two flights, then passed through a connecting door and walked the length of a long corridor. A cacophony of disharmonious sounds greeted them. A child screaming for its mother. A couple quarreling in Caribbean-accented English. A crackling radio blaring a play on the BBC, Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing. Yusef stopped in front of a doorway with the number 23 mounted below a security peephole. He unlocked the door, led her inside, switched on a small parchment-shaded lamp.

  The living room was empty except for one molting armchair and a television set. Its cord wound across the linoleum like a dead garden snake. Through a half-open door she could see a bedroom with a mattress on the floor. Through another doorway a small kitchen, a bag of groceries resting on the counter. Despite the absence of furnishings, the flat was impeccably clean and smelled of lemon air deodorizer.

  She opened the window; cold air poured in. Below the window ran a fence, and beyond the fence lay a football pitch. A half-dozen young men, dressed in colorful warm-up suits and woolen caps, kicked a ball about in the headlights of a car parked along the sideline. Their long shadows played over brick walls below Jacqueline’s window. In the distance she could hear the soggy grumble of the motorway. An empty train rattled past on an elevated track. A jetliner screamed overhead.

  “I like what your friend’s done with the place, Yusef, but it’s not really my style. Why don’t we check into one of the hotels at the airport? Someplace with room service and a decent bar.”

  Yusef was in the kitchen, unpacking the bag of groceries. “If you’re hungry I can make you something. There’s some bread, cheese, eggs, a bottle of wine, and coffee and milk for the morning.”

  Jacqueline walked into the kitchen. There was barely enough room for the two of them in the cramped space. “Don’t be so literal. But this is a shithole. Why is it empty?”

  “My friend just got the place. He hasn’t had a chance to move his things. He’s been living with his parents.”

  “He must be very happy, but I still don’t know why we have to stay here tonight.”

  “I told you, Dominique. We came here for reasons of security.”

  “Security from who? Security from what?”

  “Perhaps you’ve heard of the British security service, better known as MI5. They make it their business to infiltrate exile and dissident communities. They watch people like us.”

  “Like us?”

  “Like me. And then there are the guys from Tel Aviv.”

  “You lost me there, Yusef. Who are the guys from Tel Aviv?”

  Yusef looked up and stared at her incredulously. “Who are the guys from Tel Aviv? The most ruthless, murderous intelligence service in the world. A gang of hired killers might be a more appropriate description.”

  “And why would the Israelis be a threat here in Britain?”

  “The Israelis are everywhere that we are. National boundaries are of no concern to them.”

  Yusef emptied the bag and used it to line the wastebasket. “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  “No, just extremely tired. It’s late.”

  “Go to bed. I have some business to take care of.”

  “You’re not leaving me here alone, are you?”

  He held up a mobile phone. “I just have to make a couple of calls.”

  Jacqueline put her arms around his waist. Yusef drew her forehead to his lips and kissed her softly.

  “I wish you wouldn’t make me do this.”

  “It’ll just be for a few days. And when you come back, we can be together.”

  “I wish I could believe you, but I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

  He kissed her again, then placed a finger beneath her chin and lifted her face so he could look into her eyes. “I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it. Go to bed. Try to get some sleep.”

  She entered the bedroom. She didn’t bother to turn on the light; it would feel less depressing if she had only a vague sense of her surroundings. She reached down, grabbed a handful of the bedding, and sniffed. Newly laundered. Still, she decided to sleep in her clothing. She lay down and carefully placed her head on the pillow so that it touched no portion of her face or neck. She left on her shoes. S
he smoked a last cigarette to cover up the overpowering smell of the disinfectant. She thought of Gabriel, her dance school in Valbonne. She listened to the jetliners and the trains and the resounding thump of a foot making solid contact with a leather ball out on the football pitch. She watched the shadows of high-stepping athletes dancing on her wall like marionettes.

  Then she heard Yusef, speaking in a low murmur over his mobile phone. She couldn’t quite make out what he was saying. She didn’t care. Indeed, her last thought before drifting into a feverish sleep was that Yusef, her Palestinian lover, probably did not have long to live.

  * * *

  Isherwood opened the door of his home in Onslow Gardens a few inches and eyed Gabriel malevolently through the security chain. “Do you have any idea what time it is?” He unchained the door. “Come inside before we both get pneumonia.”

  Isherwood wore pajamas, leather slippers, a silk dressing gown. He led Gabriel into the drawing room, then disappeared into the kitchen. He returned a moment later with a pot of coffee and a couple of mugs. “I hope you take your coffee black, because I’m afraid the milk in the fridge was purchased during the Thatcher government.”

  “Black is fine.”

  “So, Gabriel, my love. What brings you here at”—he paused to look at his watch and grimaced—“Christ, at two forty-five in the morning.”

  “You’re going to lose Dominique.”

  “I guessed that when Ari Shamron rolled into my gallery like a poisonous cloud. Where’s she off to? Lebanon? Libya? Iran? What was her real name, by the way?”

  Gabriel just sipped his coffee and said nothing.

  “Hate to see her go, actually. An angel, that one. And not a bad secretary once she got the hang of things.”

  “She won’t be coming back.”

  “They never do. I have a way of driving away women. Always have.”

  “I hear you’re in final negotiations with Oliver Dimbleby to sell the gallery.”

  “One doesn’t really negotiate when one is tied to the railroad tracks, Gabriel. One grovels. One begs.”

  “Don’t do it.”

  “How dare you sit there and tell me how to run my affairs? I wouldn’t be in this mess if it weren’t for you and your friend Herr Heller.”

  “The operation may be over sooner than we expected.”

  “And?”

  “And I can get back to work on the Vecellio.”

  “There’s no way you can finish it in time to save my neck. I am now officially insolvent, which is why I’m negotiating with Oliver Dimbleby.”

  “Dimbleby’s a hack. He’ll ruin the gallery.”

  “Frankly, Gabriel, I’m too tired to give a shit at this point. I need something stronger than coffee. You?”

  Gabriel shook his head. Isherwood shuffled over to the sideboard and dumped an inch of gin into a tumbler. “What’s in the bag?”

  “An insurance policy.”

  “Insurance on what?”

  “Against the possibility that I’m unable to complete work on the Vecellio in time.” Gabriel handed the bag to Isherwood. “Open it.”

  Isherwood set down his drink and unzipped the bag. “My God, Gabriel. How much is it?”

  “A hundred thousand.”

  “I can’t take your money.”

  “It’s not mine. It’s Shamron’s, via Benjamin Stone.”

  “The Benjamin Stone?”

  “In all his glory.”

  “What the hell are you doing with a hundred thousand pounds of Benjamin Stone’s money?”

  “Just take it and don’t ask any more questions.”

  “If it’s really Benjamin Stone’s, I think I will.” Isherwood raised his glass of gin. “Cheers, Gabriel. I’m sorry for all the miserable things I’ve thought about you during the past few weeks.”

  “I deserved it. I should have never run out on you.”

  “All is forgiven.” Isherwood stared into his drink for a long moment. “So where is she? Gone for good?”

  “The operation has moved into its final stages.”

  “You’ve not put that poor girl in any danger, have you?”

  “I hope not.”

  “So do I, for her sake and yours.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know, I’ve been in this lousy racket for almost forty years, and in all that time, no one’s ever managed to sell me a forgery. Dimbleby’s had his fingers burned. Even the great Giles Pittaway has managed to buy a fake or two in his time. But not me. I have the gift, you see. I may be a lousy businessman, but I can always tell a fraud from the real thing.”

  “Are you coming to the point of this?”

  “She’s the real thing, Gabriel. She’s golden. You may never get another chance like this. Hang on to her, because if you don’t, it will be the biggest mistake of your life.”

  Part III

  Restoration

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Before the Catastrophe, Daoud al-Hourani lived in the Upper Galilee. He was a muktar and the richest man in the village. He owned livestock—several head of cattle, many goats, and a large flock of sheep—as well as a grove of lemon, orange, and olive trees. When it was time to pick the fruit, he and the other village elders organized a communal harvest. The family lived in a whitewashed house with cool tile floors and fine rugs and cushions. His wife bore him five daughters but only one son, Mahmoud.

  Daoud al-Hourani kept up good relations with the Jews who had settled on land near the village. When the Jews’ well became fouled, he drafted men from the village to help them dig a new one. When several Arabs in the village fell sick with malaria, Jews from the settlement came and drained a nearby swamp. Daoud al-Hourani learned to speak Hebrew. When one of his daughters fell in love with a Jewish man from the settlement, he permitted them to marry.

  Then came the war, and then the Catastrophe. The al-Hourani clan, along with most of the Arabs of the Upper Galilee, fled across the border into Lebanon and settled in a refugee camp near Sidon. The camp itself was organized much like the villages of the Upper Galilee, and Daoud al-Hourani retained his status as an elder and a respected man, even though his land had been taken and his animals lost. His large whitewashed home was replaced by a cramped tent, broiling in the heat of summer, freezing and porous in the cold rains of winter. In the evenings, the men sat outside the tents and told stories of Palestine. Daoud al-Hourani assured his people that the exile would only be temporary—that the Arab armies would gather themselves and hurl the Jews into the sea.

  But the Arab armies didn’t gather themselves, and they didn’t try to hurl the Jews into the sea. At the camp in Sidon, the tents turned to tattered rags, only to be replaced by crude huts, with open sewers. Slowly, as the years passed, Daoud al-Hourani began to lose influence over his villagers. He had told them to be patient, but their patience had gone unrewarded. Indeed, the plight of the Palestinians seemed only to worsen.

  During those first awful years in the camp, there was only one piece of joyous news. Daoud al-Hourani’s wife became pregnant, even though she had reached the age when most women can no longer bear children. In the spring of that year, five years to the day after the al-Hourani clan fled its home in the Upper Galilee, she gave birth to a son in the infirmary of the camp. Daoud al-Hourani called the boy Tariq.

  Branches of the al-Hourani clan were scattered throughout the diaspora. Some were across the border in Syria, some in camps in Jordan. A few, including al-Hourani’s brother, had managed to make it to Cairo. A few years after the birth of Tariq, Daoud al-Hourani’s brother died. He wished to attend his brother’s funeral, so he traveled to Beirut and obtained the necessary visas and permits to make the journey. Because he was a Palestinian, he had no passport. The following day he boarded a flight for Cairo but was turned back at the airport by a customs official who declared his papers were not in order. He returned to Beirut, but an immigration official denied him permission to reenter Lebanon. He was locked in a detention room at the air
port, with no food or water.

  A few hours later a dog was placed in the room. It had arrived unaccompanied on a flight from London, and, like Daoud al-Hourani, its papers had been challenged by Lebanese immigration officials. But one hour later a senior customs officer appeared and led the dog away. The animal had been granted special dispensation to enter the country.

  Finally, after a week, Daoud al-Hourani was allowed to leave the airport and return to the camp at Sidon. That night, as the men sat around the fires, he gathered his sons to his side and told them of his ordeal.

  “I asked our people to be patient. I promised them that the Arabs would come to our rescue, but here we are, many years later, and we are still in the camps. The Arabs treat us worse than the Jews. The Arabs treat us worse than dogs. The time for patience has ended. It is time to fight.”

  Tariq was too young to fight; he was still just a boy. But Mahmoud was nearly twenty now, and he was ready to take up arms against the Jews. That night he joined the feyadeen. It was the last time Tariq would see him alive.

  Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris

  Yusef slipped his hand into Jacqueline’s and guided her through the crowded terminal. She was exhausted. She had slept miserably and shortly before dawn had been awakened by a nightmare in which Gabriel assassinated Yusef while Yusef was making love to her. Her ears were ringing, and there was a flickering in the periphery of her vision, like flash-bulbs popping on a runway. They passed through the transit lounge, cleared a security check, and entered the depar-ture terminal. Yusef released her hand, then kissed her cheek and placed his lips close to her ear. When he spoke, it reminded her of the way Gabriel had spoken to her the previous night in the gallery—softly, as if he were telling her a bedtime story.

  “You’re to wait in that café. You’re to order a cup of coffee and read the newspaper that I’ve slipped into the flap of your bag. You’re not to leave the café for any reason. He’ll come for you unless he thinks there’s a problem. If he doesn’t appear within an hour—”

  “—Get on the next available flight for London, and don’t try to contact you when I arrive,” Jacqueline said, finishing his sentence for him. “I remember everything you’ve told me.”