by Daniel Silva
He opened Malone’s documents folder and inspected the dates and times of the latest entries. In the final hour of his life, the reporter had created two new documents, one entitled ISRAELI ASSASSIN, the second labeled BENJAMIN STERN MURDER. Lange felt a lightness in his fingertips. Outside, the wind of the Channel storm sounded like a passing bullet train.
He opened the first file. It was a remarkable document. Shortly before Lange had entered Malone’s flat, the investigative journalist had interviewed a man who claimed to be an Israeli assassin. Lange read the file with a certain professional admiration. The man had had quite a colorful and productive career: Black September, a couple of Libyans, an Iraqi nuclear scientist.
Abu Jihad . . .
Lange stopped reading and looked out the French doors at the trees twisting in the storm. Abu Jihad? Had the killer of Abu Jihad truly been in Malone’s apartment a few hours before Lange? If it was true, what on earth was he doing there? Lange was not a man who put much stock in coincidence. The answer, he suspected, could be found in the second document. He opened it and started to read.
Five minutes later, Lange looked up. It was worse than he had feared. The Israeli agent who had calmly walked into Abu Jihad’s villa in Tunis and killed him was now investigating the murder of Professor Benjamin Stern. Lange wondered why the Jewish professor’s death would be of interest to Israeli intelligence. The answer seemed simple: The professor must have been an agent of some sort.
He was furious with Carlo Casagrande. If Casagrande had told him that Benjamin Stern was connected to Israeli intelligence, he might very well have refused the contract. The Israelis unnerved him. They played the game differently than the Western Europeans and the Americans. They came from a tough neighborhood, and the shadow of the Holocaust hung over their every decision. It led them to deal with their adversaries in a ruthless and pitiless fashion. They had pursued Lange once before, after a kidnapping and ransom operation he had carried out on behalf of Abu Jihad. He had managed to slip through their fingers by taking the rather draconian step of killing all his accomplices.
Lange wondered whether Carlo Casagrande was aware of the Israeli’s involvement—and if he was, why he hadn’t hired Lange to deal with it. Perhaps Casagrande didn’t know how to find the Israeli. Thanks to the documents on Peter Malone’s computer, Lange did know how to find him, and he had no intention of waiting for orders from Casagrande to act. He had a slight advantage, a brief window of opportunity, but he had to move swiftly or the window would close.
He copied the two files onto a disk, then erased them from the hard drive. Katrine, wrapped in the duvet from her bed, came into the room and sat down at the other end of the couch. Lange closed the computer.
“You promised to cook for me,” she said. “I’m famished.”
“I have to go to Paris.”
“Now?”
Lange nodded.
“Can’t it wait until morning?”
He shook his head.
“What’s so important in Paris?”
Lange looked out the window. “I need to find a man.”
RASHID HUSSEINI did not look much like a professional terrorist. He had a round fleshy face and large brown eyes heavy with fatigue. His wrinkled tweed jacket and turtleneck sweater gave him the appearance of a doctoral student at work on a dissertation he could not quite finish. It wasn’t far from the truth. Husseini lived in France on a student visa, though he rarely found time to attend his courses at the Sorbonne. He taught English at a language center in a dreary Muslim suburb north of Paris, did the odd bit of translation work, and occasionally wrote incendiary commentary for various left-wing French journals. Eric Lange was aware of the true source of Husseini’s income. He worked for a branch of the Palestinian Authority few people knew about. Rashid Husseini—student, translator, journalist—was chief of European operations for the PLO’s foreign intelligence service. Husseini was the reason Eric Lange had come to Paris.
Lange telephoned the Palestinian at his apartment on the rue de Tournon. An hour later, they met in a deserted brasserie in the Luxembourg Quarter. Husseini, a secular Palestinian nationalist of the old school, drank red wine. Alcohol made him talkative. He lectured Lange on the suffering of the Palestinian people. It was virtually identical to the diatribe he had inflicted on Lange in Tunis twenty years ago, when he and Abu Jihad were trying to seduce Lange into working for the Palestinian cause. The land and the olive trees, the injustice and the humiliation. “The Jews are the world’s new Nazis,” Husseini opined. “In the West Bank and Gaza, they operate like the Gestapo and the SS. The Israeli prime minister? He’s a war criminal who deserves the justice of Nuremberg.” Lange bided his time, stirring his coffee with a tiny silver spoon and nodding sagely at appropriate moments. He couldn’t help but feel sorry for Husseini. The war had passed him by. Once it had been waged by men like Rashid Husseini, intellectuals who read Camus in French and screwed stupid German girls on the beaches of St-Tropez. Now the old fighters had grown fat on handouts from the Europeans and Americans while children, the precious fruit of Palestine, were blowing themselves up in the cafés and markets of Israel.
Finally, Husseini threw his hands up in a helpless gesture, like an old man who knows he has become a bore. “Forgive me, Eric, but my passion always gets the better of me. I know you didn’t come here tonight to talk about the suffering of my people. What is it? Are you looking for work?”
Lange leaned forward over the table. “I was wondering whether you might be interested in helping me find the man who killed our friend in Tunis.”
Husseini’s tired eyes came suddenly to life. “Abu Jihad? I was there that night. I was the first one to enter the study after that Israeli monster had done his evil work. I can still hear the screaming of Abu Jihad’s wife and children. If I had the opportunity, I’d kill him myself.”
“What do you know about him?”
“His real name is Allon—Gabriel Allon—but he’s used dozens of aliases. He’s an art restorer. Used his job as cover for his killings in Europe. An old comrade of mine named Tariq al-Hourani put a bomb beneath Allon’s car in Vienna about twelve years back and blew up his wife and son. The boy was killed. We were never sure what happened to the wife. Allon took his revenge against Tariq a couple of years ago in Manhattan.”
“I remember,” Lange said. “That affair with Arafat.”
Husseini nodded. “You know where he is?”
“No, but I think I know where he’s going.”
“Where?”
Lange told him.
“Rome? Rome is a big city, my friend. You’re going to have to give me more than that.”
“He’s investigating the murder of an old friend. He’s going to Rome to find an Italian detective named Alessio Rossi. Follow Rossi and the Israeli will fall into your lap.”
Husseini jotted the name in a small, leather-bound notebook and looked up. “Carabinieri? Polizia di Stato?”
“The latter,” said Lange, and Husseini wrote PS in the book.
The Palestinian sipped his wine and studied Lange a long moment without speaking. Lange knew the questions running through Husseini’s mind. How did Eric Lange know where the Israeli assassin was going? And why did he want him dead? Lange decided to answer the questions before Husseini could ask them.
“He’s after me. It’s a personal matter. I want him dead, and so do you. In that respect, we have common interests. If we work together, the matter can be resolved in a way that suits us both.”
A smile spread over Husseini’s face. “You were always a very cool customer, weren’t you, Eric? Never one to let your emotions get the better of you. I would have enjoyed working with you.”
“Do you have the resources in Rome to mount a surveillance operation against a police officer?”
“I could follow the Pope himself. If the Israeli is in Rome, we’ll find him. But that’s all we’re going to do. The last thing the movement needs at the moment is to engage in extracurri
cular activity on European soil.” He winked. “Remember, we’ve renounced terrorism. Besides, the Europeans are the best friends we have.”
“Just find him,” said Lange. “Leave the killing to me.”
PART THREE
A PENSIONE IN ROME
16
ROME
THE ABRUZZI HAD FALLEN on hard times. Located in the San Lorenzo Quarter, between Stazione Termini train station and the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, its mustard-colored façade looked as though it had been raked by machine-gun fire, and the lobby smelled of cat litter. Despite its tumbledown appearance, the little pensione suited Gabriel’s needs perfectly. The headquarters of the Polizia di Stato was a short walk away, and unlike most pensiones in Rome, this one had a telephone in each room. Most importantly, if Crux Vera was searching for him, the last place they would look was the Abruzzi.
The night manager was an overweight man with round shoulders and a florid face. Gabriel checked in under the name Heinrich Siedler and spoke to him in labored Italian with a murderous German accent. The manager appraised Gabriel with a pair of melancholy eyes, then jotted down his name and passport number in the hotel registry.
Gabriel crossed a cluttered common room, where a pair of Croatian teenagers was engaged in a ferocious Ping-Pong match. He trod silently up the soiled staircase, let himself into his room, and locked the door. He entered the bathroom. The rust stains in the sink looked like dried blood. He washed his face, then removed his shoes and collapsed onto the bed. He tried to close his eyes but could not. Too exhausted to sleep, he lay on his back, listening to the TAP-a-TAP-a-TAP of the table-tennis match downstairs, reliving the last twenty-four hours.
He had been traveling since dawn. Instead of flying directly from London to Rome, which would have required him to clear customs at Fiumicino Airport, he had flown to Nice. At the airport there he had paid a visit to the Hertz outlet, where a friend of the Office called Monsieur Henri had rented him a Renault sedan in such a way that it could never be traced back to him. From Nice, he drove toward Italy along the A8 autoroute. Near Monaco, he switched on the English-language Radio Riviera to catch a bit of news on the war in the territories and learned instead that Peter Malone had been found shot to death in his London home.
Parked at the side of the motorway, traffic hurtling past, Gabriel had listened to the rest of the report with his hands strangling the steering wheel and his heart banging against his ribs. Like a chess grand master, he had played out the moves and saw disaster looming. He had spent two hours inside the reporter’s home. Malone had taken copious notes. Surely the Metropolitan Police had discovered those notes. Because of the intelligence connection, they had probably briefed MI5. There was a very good chance every major police force and security service in Europe was looking for the Israeli assassin code-named Sword. The safe thing to do? Call Shamron on an emergency line, arrange a bolt-hole, and sit on the beach in Netanya until things cooled down. But that would entail surrendering the search for Benjamin’s killers. And Malone’s. He pulled back onto the autoroute and accelerated toward Italy. At the border, a drowsy guard admitted him into the country with a languid wave of his hand.
And now, after an interminable drive down the Italian peninsula, he found himself here, in his sour-smelling room at the Abruzzi. Downstairs, the table-tennis match had deteriorated into something of a new Balkan war. The shouts of the aggrieved party filled Gabriel’s room. He thought of Peter Malone and wondered whether he was responsible for his death. Had he led the killers to him, or had Malone already been marked for elimination? Was Gabriel next on the list? As he drifted toward sleep, he heard Malone’s warning careening about his memory: “If they think you pose a threat, they won’t hesitate to kill you.”
Tomorrow he would find Alessio Rossi. Then he would get out of Rome as quickly as possible.
GABRIEL SLEPT poorly and was awakened early by the ringing of church bells. He opened his eyes and blinked in the severe sunlight. He showered and changed into fresh clothing, then went downstairs to the dining room for breakfast. The Croatians were nowhere to be seen, only a pair of churchy American pilgrims and a band of noisy college students from Barcelona. There was a sense of excitement in the air, and Gabriel remembered that it was a Wednesday, the day the Holy Father greeted pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square.
At nine o’clock, Gabriel returned to his room and placed his first call to Inspector Alessio Rossi of the Polizia di Stato. A switchboard operator put him through to the detective’s voice mail. “My name is Heinrich Siedler,” Gabriel said. “I have information regarding Father Felici and Father Manzini. You can reach me at the Pensione Abruzzi.”
He hung up. Now what? He had no choice but to wait and hope the detective called him back. There was no television in the room. The bedside table had a built-in radio, but the tuning knob was broken.
After one hour of paralyzing boredom, he dialed the number a second time. Once again the switchboard officer transferred him straight to Rossi’s voice mail. Gabriel left a second message, identical to the first, but with a faint note of urgency in his voice.
At eleven-thirty, he placed a third call to Rossi’s number. This time he was put through to a colleague who explained that the inspector was on assignment and would not be back in the office until late afternoon. Gabriel left a third message and hung up.
He decided to use the opportunity to get out of the room. In the streets around the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore he checked his tail for signs of surveillance and saw nothing. Then he walked down the Via Napoleone III. The March air was crisp and clear and scented with wood smoke. He ate pasta in a restaurant near the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II. After lunch, he walked along the looming western façade of the Stazione Termini, then wandered among the classical edifices of Rome’s government quarter until he found the headquarters of the Polizia di Stato. In a café across the street, he drank espresso and watched officers and secretaries filing in and out, wondering whether Rossi was among them.
At three o’clock, he started back toward the Pensione Abruzzi. As he was crossing the Piazza di Repubblica, a crowd of about five hundred students entered the square from the direction of the Università Romana. At the head of the procession was an unshaven boy wearing a white headband. Around his waist were sticks of mock dynamite. Behind him a group of pseudomourners carried a coffin fashioned of cardboard. As they drew closer Gabriel could see that most of the demonstrators were Italian, including the boy dressed as a suicide bomber. They chanted “Liberate the land of Palestine!” and “Death to the Jews!”—not in Arabic but in Italian. A young Italian girl, no more than twenty, thrust a leaflet into Gabriel’s hand. It depicted the Israeli prime minister dressed in the uniform of the SS with a Hitlerian toothbrush mustache, the heel of his jackboot crushing the skull of a Palestinian girl. Gabriel squeezed the leaflet into a ball and dropped it onto the square.
He passed a flower stall. A pair of carabinieri were flirting shamelessly with the girl who worked there. They looked up briefly as Gabriel strode by and stared at him with undisguised interest before turning their attention once more to the girl. It could have been nothing, but something about the way they looked at him made sweat run over Gabriel’s ribs.
He took his time walking back to the hotel, careful to make sure no one was following him. Along the way, he passed a bored carabiniere on a motorcycle, parked in a patch of sunlight, watching the madness of a traffic circle with little interest. Gabriel seemed to intrigue him even less.
He entered the Pensione Abruzzi. The Spaniards had returned from the Wednesday audience in a state of great excitement. It seemed that one of them, a girl with a spiked haircut, had managed to touch the Pope’s hand.
Upstairs in his room, Gabriel dialed Rossi’s number.
“Pronto.”
“Inspector Rossi?”
“Si.”
“My name is Heinrich Siedler. I called earlier today.”
“Are you still at the Pensione Abruzzi?”<
br />
“Yes.”
“Don’t call here again.”
Click.
NIGHT FELL and with it came a Mediterranean storm. Gabriel lay on his bed with the window open, listening to the rain smacking against the paving stones in the street below while the conversation with Alessio Rossi played over and over in his head like a loop of audio tape.
“Are you still at the Pensione Abruzzi?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t call here again.”
Clearly the Italian detective wished to speak with him. It was also clear that he wanted no more contact with Herr Siedler on his office telephone. Gabriel had no choice but to wait him out and hope Rossi would make the next move.
At nine o’clock the telephone finally rang. It was the night manager.
“There’s a man here to see you.”
“What’s his name?”
“He didn’t say. Shall I send him away?”
“No, I’ll be down in a minute.”
Gabriel hung up the phone and stepped into the corridor, locking the door behind him. Downstairs, he found the night manager seated behind the front desk. No one else was there. Gabriel looked at him and shrugged. The night manager pointed a sausagelike forefinger toward the common room. Gabriel entered but found the room deserted, except for the Croatian table-tennis players.
He went back to the front desk. The Italian threw his hands up in a gesture of surrender and turned his attention to a miniature black-and-white television. Gabriel climbed the stairs to his room. He unlocked the door and stepped inside.
