The Kill Artist

by Daniel Silva

  He was about to stand when suddenly she reached out and touched the side of his face. Gabriel tried not to recoil at the sensation of the scar tissue sliding along the skin at the corner of his eye. She smiled sadly and lowered her hand. She placed it in her lap, covered it with the other, resumed the frozen pose Gabriel had found her in.

  He stood and walked away. Avery was waiting for him outside. He walked Gabriel to his car. Gabriel sat behind the wheel for a long time before starting the engine, thinking about her hand on his face. So unlike Leah, touching him like that. What did she see there? The strain of the operation? Or the shadow of Jacqueline Delacroix?

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Lisbon

  Tariq appeared in the doorway of the fado house. Once again he was dressed like a dockworker. Ghostly pale, hand trembling as he lit his cigarette. He crossed the room and sat down next to Kemel. “What brings you back to Lisbon?”

  “It turns out we have a rather serious bottleneck in our Iberian distribution chain. I may be forced to spend a great deal of time in Lisbon over the next few days.”

  “That’s all?”

  “And this.” Kemel laid a large color photograph on the table. “Meet Dominique Bonard.”

  Tariq picked up the photograph, studied it carefully. “Come with me,” he said calmly. “I want to show you something that I think you’ll find interesting.”

  * * *

  Tariq’s flat was high in the Alfama. Two rooms, sagging wooden floors, a tiny veranda overlooking a quiet courtyard. He fixed tea Arab style, strong and sweet, and they sat near the open door of the veranda, rain smacking on the stones of the courtyard.

  Tariq said, “Do you remember how we found Allon in Vienna?”

  “It was a long time ago. You’ll have to refresh my memory.”

  “My brother was in bed when he was killed. He had a girl with him—a German student, a radical. She wrote a letter to my parents a few weeks after Mahmoud was killed and told them how it happened. She said she would never forget the face of the assassin as long as she lived. My father took the letter to the PLO security officer in the camp. The security officer turned it over to PLO intelligence.”

  “This all sounds vaguely familiar,” Kemel said.

  “After Abu Jihad was murdered in Tunis, PLO security conducted an investigation. They worked from a simple prem-ise. The killer seemed to know the villa well, inside and out. Therefore he must have spent time around the villa conducting surveillance and planning the attack.”

  “A brilliant piece of detective work,” Kemel said sarcastically. “If PLO security had been doing their job right to begin with, Abu Jihad would still be alive.”

  Tariq went into the bedroom, returned a moment later holding a large manila envelope. “They began reviewing all the videotape from the surveillance cameras and found several shots of a small, dark-haired man.” Tariq opened the envelope and handed Kemel several grainy prints. “Over the years PLO intelligence had kept track of the German girl. They showed her these photographs. She said it was the same man who had killed Mahmoud. No doubt about it. So we started looking for him.”

  “And you found him in Vienna?”

  “That’s right.”

  Kemel held out the photographs to Tariq. “What does this have to do with Dominique Bonard?”

  “It goes back to the investigation of the Tunis affair. PLO security wanted to find out where the assassin had stayed in Tunis while he was planning the attack. They knew from past experience that Israeli agents tend to pose as Europeans during jobs like this. They assumed that a man posing as a European had probably stayed in a hotel. They started calling on their spies and informants. They showed the photographs of the assassin to a concierge at one of the beachfront hotels. The concierge said the man had stayed in the hotel with his French girlfriend. PLO security went back to the tapes and began looking for a girl. They found one and showed her to the concierge.”

  “Same girl?”

  “Same girl.”

  Then Tariq reached into the envelope and removed one more surveillance photograph: this one of a beautiful dark-haired girl. He handed it to Kemel, who compared it with the photograph of the woman in London.

  “I could be mistaken,” Tariq said. “But it looks to me like Yusef’s new girlfriend has worked with Gabriel Allon before.”

  They reviewed the plan one last time as they walked through the twisting alleys of the Alfama.

  “The prime minister and Arafat leave for the United States in five days,” Kemel said. “They’re going to Washington first for a meeting at the White House, then it’s off to New York for the signing ceremony at the United Nations. Everything is in place in New York.”

  “Now I just need a traveling companion,” Tariq said. “I think I’d like a beautiful French woman—the type of woman who would look good on the arm of a successful entrepreneur.”

  “I think I know where I can find a woman like that.”

  “Imagine, killing the peace process and Gabriel Allon in one final moment of glory. We’re going to shake the world, Kemel. And then I’m going to leave it.”

  “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

  “You’re not concerned about my safety at this point?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “Why? You know what’s happening to me.”

  “Actually, I try not to think about it.”

  At the bottom of the hill they came to a taxi stand. Tariq kissed Kemel’s cheeks, then gripped his shoulders. “No tears, my brother. I’ve been fighting for a long time. I’m tired. It’s best this way.”

  Kemel released his grip and opened the door to the waiting taxi.

  Tariq said, “He should have killed the girl.”

  Kemel turned around. “What?”

  “Allon should have killed the German girl who was with my brother. It would all have ended there.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  “It was a stupid mistake,” Tariq said. “I wouldn’t have made a mistake like that.”

  Then he turned and walked slowly up the hill into the Alfama.

  TWENTY-NINE

  St. James’s, London

  When the security buzzer sounded, Jacqueline turned and peered into the monitor: a bicycle courier. She looked at her watch: six-fifteen. She pressed the buzzer to let him in, then walked from her desk into the hallway to sign for the package. A large manila envelope. She went back to her office, sat down at the desk, sliced open the envelope with the tip of her forefinger. Inside was a single piece of executive-sized letter paper, light gray in color, folded crisply in half. The letterhead bore the name Randolph Stewart, private art dealer. She read the handwritten note: Just back from Paris… Very good trip… No problems with the acquisition… Continue with sale as planned. She placed the letter in Isherwood’s shredder and watched it turn to paper linguine.

  She stood up, pulled on her coat, then walked into Isherwood’s office. He was hunched over a ledger book, chewing on the end of a pencil. He looked up as she entered the room and gave her a weak smile. “Leaving so soon, my love?”

  “I’m afraid I must.”

  “I shall count the hours until I see you again.”

  “And I shall do the same.”

  As she walked out she realized that she would miss Isherwood when it was all over. He was a decent man. She wondered how he had become entangled with the likes of Ari Shamron and Gabriel. She hurried across Mason’s Yard through windblown rain, then walked up Duke Street toward Piccadilly, thinking about the letter. It depressed her. She could picture the rest of the evening. She would meet Yusef at his flat. They would go to dinner, then return to his flat and make love. Then two hours of Middle East history. The injustices heaped upon the defenseless Palestinians. The crimes of the Jews. The inequity of the two-state solution on the negotiating table. It was getting harder and harder for her to pretend that she was enjoying herself.

  Gabriel had promised her a short assignment: seduce him,
get into his flat, get his keys and his telephone, and get out again. She had not signed up for a long-term romance. She found the idea of sleeping with Yusef again repulsive. But there was something else. She had agreed to come to London because she thought working with Gabriel would rekindle their romance. If anything it had driven them farther apart. She rarely saw him—he communicated through letters—and the few times they had been together he had been cold and distant. She had been a fool to think things could ever be the way they had been in Tunis.

  She entered the Piccadilly Underground station and walked to the crowded platform. She thought of her villa; of cycling through the sun-drenched hillsides around Valbonne. For a moment she imagined Gabriel riding next to her, his legs pumping rhythmically. Then she felt silly for allowing herself to think about such things. When the train came, she squeezed her way into the packed carriage and clung to a metal handhold. As the car lurched forward, she decided this would be the last night. In the morning, she would tell Gabriel she wanted out.

  Gabriel paced the carpet of the listening post, casually dribbling a lime-green tennis ball with his stocking feet. It was shortly before midnight. Jacqueline and Yusef had just finished making love. He listened to their mutual declarations of physical pleasure. He listened to Yusef using the toilet. He listened to Jacqueline padding into the kitchen for something to drink. He heard her ask Yusef where he had hidden her cigarettes.

  Gabriel lay on the couch and tossed the ball toward the ceiling while he waited for Yusef to begin tonight’s seminar. He wondered what the topic would be. What was it last night?—the myth that only the Jews made the desert bloom. No, that was the night before. Last night had been the betrayal of the Palestinians by the rest of the Arab world. He switched off the lamp and continued tossing the ball and catching it in the dark to test his reflexes and sensory perception.

  A door opening, the snap of a light switch.

  Yusef said somberly: “We need to talk. I misled you about something. I need to tell you the truth now.”

  Gabriel snatched the tennis ball out of the darkness and held it very still in the palm of his hand. He thought of Leah, the night she used those same words before telling him that she had retaliated for his infidelity by taking lovers of her own.

  Jacqueline said lightheartedly, “Sounds awfully serious.”

  Gabriel sent the ball floating upward through the darkness with a subtle flick of his wrist.

  “It’s about the scar on my back.”

  Gabriel got to his feet and switched on the lamp. Then he checked his tape decks to make certain they were recording properly.

  Jacqueline said, “What about the scar on your back?”

  “How it got there.”

  Yusef sat down on the end of the bed. “I lied to you about how I got the scar. I need to tell you the truth now.”

  He took a deep breath, let the air out slowly, began speaking, slowly and softly.

  “Our family stayed in Shatila after the PLO was driven out of Lebanon. Maybe you remember that day, Dominique; the day Arafat and his guerrillas pulled out while the Israelis and the Americans waved good-bye to them from the waterfront. With the PLO gone we had no protection. Lebanon was in shambles. Christians, Sunnis, Shütes, the Druse—everyone was fighting everyone else, and the Palestinians were caught in the middle of it. We lived in fear that something terrible might happen. Do you remember now?”

  “I was young, but I think I remember.”

  “The situation was a powder keg. It would take just one spark to set off a holocaust. That spark turned out to be the assassination of Bashir Gemayel. He was the leader of Lebanon’s Maronite Christians and the president-elect of the country. He was killed in a car bomb explosion at the headquarters of the Christian Phalange party.

  “That night half of Beirut was screaming for vengeance, while the other half was cowering in fear. No one was sure who had planted the bomb. It could have been anyone, but the Phalangists were convinced the Palestinians were to blame. They loathed us. The Christians never wanted us in Lebanon, and now that the PLO was gone, they wanted to eliminate the Palestinian problem from Lebanon once and for all. Before his death Gemayel had said it very clearly: ”There is one people too many: the Palestinian people.“

  “After the assassination the Israelis moved into West Beirut and took up positions overlooking Sabra and Shatila. They wanted to cleanse the camps of the remaining PLO fighters, and in order to prevent Israeli casualties they sent in the Phalange militiamen to do the job for them. Everyone knew what would happen once the militiamen were let loose on the camps. Gemayel was dead, and we were the ones who were going to pay the price. It would be a bloodbath, but the Israeli army let them in anyway.

  “The Israelis let the first Phalangists into Shatila at sunset, one hundred and fifty of them. They had guns, of course, but most of them had knives and axes as well. The slaughter lasted forty-eight hours. The lucky ones were shot. Those who weren’t so lucky died more gruesome deaths. They chopped people to bits. They disemboweled people and left them to die. They skinned people alive. They gouged out eyes and left people to wander the carnage blindly until they were shot. They tied people to trucks and dragged them through the streets until they were dead.

  “Children weren’t spared. A child could grow up to be a terrorist, according to the Phalangists, so they killed all the children. Women weren’t spared, because a woman could give birth to a terrorist. They made a point of ritualistically slicing off the breasts of the Palestinian women. Breasts give milk. Breasts nourish a people that the Phalangists wanted to exterminate. All through the night they broke into homes and slaughtered everyone inside. When darkness fell, the Israelis lit up the sky with flares so the Phalangists could go about their work more easily.”

  Jacqueline made a steeple of her fingers and pressed them against her lips. Yusef continued with his account.

  “The Israelis knew exactly what was going on. Their headquarters was located just two hundred yards from the edge of Shatila. From the rooftop they could see directly into the camp. They could overhear the Phalangists talking on their radios. But they didn’t lift a finger to stop it. And why did they stand by and do nothing? Because it was exactly what they wanted to happen.

  “I was just seven at the time. My father was dead. He was killed that summer when the Israelis shelled the camps during the Battle of Beirut. I lived in Shatila with my mother and my sister. She was just a year and a half old at the time. We hid beneath our bed, listening to the screaming and the gunfire, watching the shadows of the flares dancing on the walls. We prayed that the Phalangists would somehow miss our house. Sometimes we could hear them outside our window. They were laughing. They were slaughtering everyone in sight, but they were laughing. My mother covered our mouths whenever they came near to keep us quiet. She nearly smothered my sister.

  “Finally they broke down our door. I wriggled out of my mother’s grasp and went to them. They asked where my family was, and I told them everyone was dead. They laughed and told me that I would soon be with them. One of the Phalangists had a knife. He grabbed me by the hair and dragged me outside. He stripped off my shirt and sliced away the skin on the center of my back. Then they tied me to a truck and dragged me through the streets. At some point I went unconscious, but before I blacked out I remember the Phalangists shooting at me. They were using me for target practice.

  “Somehow, I survived. Maybe they thought I was dead, I don’t know. When I regained consciousness the rope they had used for the dragging was still wrapped around my right ankle. I crawled beneath a pile of rubble and waited. I stayed there for a day and a half. Finally, the massacre was over, and the Phalangists withdrew from the camps. I came out of my hiding place and found my way back to our family’s house. I found my mother’s body in our bed. She was naked, and she had been raped. Her breasts had been sliced off. I looked for my sister. I found her on the kitchen table. They had cut her into pieces and laid her out in a circle with her head in th
e center.”

  Jacqueline tumbled out of bed, crawled into the bathroom, and was violently sick. Yusef knelt beside her and placed a hand on her back as her body wretched.

  When she finished he said, “You ask me why I hate the Israelis so much. I hate them because they sent the Phalangists to massacre us. I hate them because they stood by and did nothing while Christians, their great friends in Lebanon, raped and killed my mother and chopped my sister to bits and laid her body out in a circle. Now you know why I’m a rejectionist when it comes to this so-called peace process. How can I trust these people?”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you really understand, Dominique? Is it possible?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Now, I’ve been completely honest with you about everything. Is there anything you wish to tell me about yourself? Any secrets you’ve been keeping from me?”

  “Nothing of any consequence.”

  “You’re telling me the truth, Dominique?”

  “Yes.”

  * * *

  The call came at four-fifteen that morning. It woke Yusef, though not Gabriel. He had been sitting up all morning, listening to Yusef’s account of Sabra and Shatila over and over again. It rang just once. Yusef, his voice heavy with sleep, said, “Hello.”

  “Lancaster Gate, tomorrow, two o’clock.”

  Click.

  Jacqueline said, “What was that?”

  “A wrong number. Go back to sleep.”

  Maida Vale in morning. A gang of schoolboys teasing a pretty girl. Jacqueline imagined they were Phalangist militiamen armed with knives and axes. A lorry roared past, belching diesel fumes. Jacqueline saw a man tied to the bumper being dragged to death. Her block of flats loomed in front of her. She looked up and imagined Israeli soldiers standing on the roof, watching the slaughter below through binoculars, firing flares so the killers could better see their victims. She entered the building, climbed the stairs, and slipped into the flat. Gabriel was sitting on the couch.