Prince of fire ga-5

by Daniel Silva

  The sound of gunfire in the vast echo chamber of the station had the effect Gabriel had expected. Across the platform, people crouched or dropped to the ground. Twenty feet away, the two soldiers were pulling their submachine guns off their shoulders. And at either end of the platform the last two shaheeds, Bashir and Naji, were still standing, their eyes fixed on the clock. There wasn’t time for both.

  Gabriel, in French, shouted: “Bomber! Get down! Get down!”

  A firing lane opened as Gabriel aimed the Tanfolgio at the one called Naji. The French soldiers, confused by what they were witnessing, hesitated. He squeezed the trigger, saw a flash of pink, then watched as Naji spiraled lifelessly to the floor.

  He ran toward Track D, toward the spot where Leah sat exposed to the coming blast wave. He clung to Palestina’s handbag, for it contained the keys to his escape. He glanced once over his shoulder. Bashir, the last of the shaheeds, was heading toward the center of the station. He must have seen his two comrades fall; now he was trying to increase the killing power of his single bomb by placing it in the center of the platform where it was still most crowded.

  To stop now meant almost certain death for himself and for Leah, so Gabriel kept running. He reached the entrance to Track D and turned to the right. The platform was empty; the gunfire and Gabriel’s warnings had driven the passengers into the trains or toward the exit of the station. Only Leah remained, helpless and immobile.

  The clock rolled over: 7:00:00

  Gabriel seized Leah by the shoulders and lifted her unresisting body from the chair, then made one final lunge toward the doorway of the waiting train as the suitcase detonated. A flash of brilliant light, a thunderclap, a searing blast wave that seemed to press the very life out of him. Poison bolts and nails. Shattered glass and blood.

  Black smoke, an unbearable silence. Gabriel looked into Leah’s eyes. She looked directly back at him, her gaze strangely serene. He slipped the Tanfolgio into the handbag, then cradled Leah in his arms and stood. She seemed weightless to him.

  From outside the shattered carriage came the first screams. Gabriel looked around him. The windows on both sides were blown out. Those passengers who had been in their seats had been cut by the flying glass. Gabriel saw at least six who looked fatally wounded.

  He climbed down the steps and made his way toward the platform. What had been there just a few seconds earlier was now unrecognizable. He looked up and saw that a large portion of the roof was gone. Had all three bombs exploded simultaneously, the entire station would likely have come down.

  He slipped and fell hard to the ground. The platform was drenched with blood. All around him were severed limbs and pieces of human flesh. He got to his feet, lifted Leah, and stumbled forward. What was he stepping on? He couldn’t bear to look. He slipped a second time, near the telephone kiosk, and found himself staring into the lifeless eyes of Palestina. Was it Gabriel’s blow that had killed her or the shrapnel of Tayyib’s bomb? Gabriel didn’t much care.

  He got to his feet again. The station exits were jammed: terrified passengers trying to get out, police forcing their way in. If Gabriel tried to go that way, there was a good chance someone would identify him as the man who had been firing a gun before the bomb went off. He had to find some other way out. He remembered the walk from the car to the station, waiting for the light to change at the intersection of the rue de Lyon and the boulevard Diderot. There had been an entrance to the Metro there.

  He carried Leah toward the escalator. It was no longer running. He stepped over two dead bodies and started downward. The Metro station was in tumult, passengers screaming, startled attendants trying in vain to keep the situation calm, but at least there was no more smoke, and the floors were no longer wet with blood. Gabriel followed the signs through the arched passageways toward the rue de Lyon. Twice he was asked whether he needed help, and twice he shook his head and kept walking. The lights flickered and dimmed, then by some miracle came back to life again.

  Two minutes later he came to a flight of steps. He mounted them and climbed steadily upward, emerging into a thin, chill rain. He’d come out on the rue de Lyon. He looked back over his shoulder toward the station. The traffic circle was ablaze with emergency lights, and smoke was pouring from the roof. He turned and started walking.

  Another offer of help: “Are you all right, monsieur? Does that person need a doctor?”

  No, thank you, he thought. Just please get out of my way, and please let that Mercedes be waiting for me.

  He rounded the corner into the rue Parrot. The car was still there: Khaled’s only mistake. He carried Leah across the street. For an instant she clung anxiously to his neck. Did she know it was him, or did she think him an orderly in her hospital in England? A moment later she was seated in the front passenger seat, staring calmly out the window as Gabriel pulled away from the curb and rolled up to the corner of the rue de Lyon. He glanced once to the left, toward the burning station, then turned right and sped up the wide avenue toward the Bastille. He reached into the girl’s handbag again and pulled out her satellite phone. By the time he rounded the traffic circle in the Place de la Bastille, King Saul Boulevard had come on the line.

  PART FOUR

  SUMAYRIYYA

  30

  PARIS

  The thin rain that had greeted Gabriel upon his emergence from the Gare de Lyon had turned to a spring downpour. It was dark now, and for that he was grateful. He had parked in a quiet leafy street near the Place de Colombie and shut down the engine. Because of the darkness, and the drenching rain, he was confident no one could see into the car. He rubbed a porthole in the fogged front windshield and peered through it. The building that contained the safe flat was on the opposite side of the street and a few doors up. Gabriel knew the flat well. He knew it was apartment 4B and that the nameplate on the buzzer read Guzman in faded blue script. He also knew that there was no place to safely hide a key, which meant that it had to be opened in advance by someone from the Paris station. Usually such tasks were handled by a bodel, the Office terminology for local hires who do the spadework required to keep a foreign station running. But ten minutes later Gabriel was relieved to see the familiar figure of Uzi Navot, the Paris katsa, pounding past his window with his strawberry blond hair plastered to his large round skull and a key to the flat in his hand.

  Navot entered the apartment building and a moment later lights came on in the fourth-floor window. Leah stirred. Gabriel turned and looked at her, and for an instant her gaze seemed to connect with his. He reached out and took what remained of her hand. The hard scar tissue, as always, made Gabriel feel violently cold. She’d been agitated during the drive. Now she seemed calm, the way she always looked when Gabriel visited her in the solarium. He peered through his porthole again, toward the window on the fourth floor.

  “Is it you?”

  Gabriel, startled by the sound of Leah’s voice, looked up sharply-too sharply, he feared, because her eyes seemed suddenly panicked.

  “Yes, it’s me, Leah,” he said calmly. “It’s Gabriel.”

  “Where are we?” Her voice was thin and dry, like the rustling of leaves. It was nothing like he remembered it. “This feels like Paris to me. Are we in Paris?”

  “Yes, we’re in Paris.”

  “That woman brought me here, didn’t she? My nurse. I tried to tell Dr. Avery-” She cut herself off in mid-sentence. “I want to go home.”

  “I’m taking you home.”

  “To the hospital?”

  “To Israel.”

  A flicker of a smile, a gentle squeeze of his hand. “Your skin is burning. Are you feeling all right?”

  “I’m fine, Leah.”

  She lapsed into silence and looked out the window.

  “Look at the snow,” she said. “God, how I hate this city, but the snow makes it beautiful. The snow absolves Vienna of its sins.”

  Gabriel searched his memory for the first time he’d heard those words and then remembered. They’d been wa
lking from the restaurant to the car. Dani had been sitting atop his shoulders. The snow absolves Vienna of its sins. Snow falls on Vienna while the missiles rain down on Tel Aviv.

  “It’s beautiful,” he agreed, trying to prevent a note of despondency from creeping into his voice. “But we’re not in Vienna. We’re in Paris. Do you remember? The girl brought you to Paris.”

  She was no longer listening to him. “Hurry, Gabriel,” she said. “I want to talk to my mother. I want to hear the sound of my mother’s voice.”

  Please, Leah, he thought. Turn back. Don’t do this to yourself.

  “We’ll call her right away,” he said.

  “Make sure Dani is buckled into his seat tightly. The streets are slippery.”

  He’s fine, Leah, Gabriel had said that night. Be careful driving home.

  “I’ll be careful,” she said. “Give me a kiss.”

  He leaned over and pressed his lips against Leah’s ruined cheek.

  “One last kiss,” she whispered.

  Then her eyes opened wide. Gabriel held her scarred hand and looked away.

  Madame Touzet poked her head from her apartment as Martineau entered the foyer.

  “Professor Martineau, thank God it’s you. I was worried to death. Were you there? Was it terrible?”

  He had been a few hundred meters away from the station at the time of the explosion, he told her truthfully. And yes, it was terrible, though not as terrible as he had hoped. The station should have been demolished by the destructive force of three suitcase bombs. Obviously something had gone wrong.

  “I’ve just made some chocolate. Will you sit with me and watch the television? I do hate to watch such a horrible business alone.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve had a terribly long day, Madame Touzet. I’m going to turn in early.”

  “A Paris landmark, in ruins. What’s next, Professor? Who could do such a thing?”

  “Muslims, I suppose, although one never knows the motivations of someone who could commit an act as barbaric as this. I suspect we may never know the truth.”

  “Do you think it might have been a conspiracy?”

  “Drink your chocolate, Madame Touzet. If you need anything, I’ll be upstairs.”

  “Good night, Professor Martineau.”

  The Bodel, a fawn-eyed Moroccan Jew from the Marais named Moshe, arrived at the safe flat an hour later. He carried two bags. One contained a change of clothing for Gabriel, the other groceries for the pantry. Gabriel went into the bedroom and stripped off the clothing the girl had given him in the house in Martigues, then stood for a long time beneath the showerhead and watched the blood of Khaled’s victims swirling down the drain. He changed into the fresh clothing and placed the old things into the bag. The living room, when he went out again, was in semidarkness. Leah was asleep on the couch. Gabriel adjusted the flowered quilt that covered her body, then went into the kitchen. Navot was standing in front of the stove, with a spatula in one hand and a tea cloth tucked into the waistband of his trousers. The bodel was sitting at the table, contemplating a glass of red wine. Gabriel handed him the bag of dirty clothing.

  “Get rid of these things,” he said. “Someplace where no one’s going to find them.”

  The bodel nodded, then slipped out of the safe flat. Gabriel took his place at the table and looked at Navot. The Paris katsa was a compact man, no taller than Gabriel, with a wrestler’s heavy shoulders and thick arms. Gabriel had always seen something of Shamron in Navot, and he suspected that Shamron did, too. They’d clashed in the past, Gabriel and Navot, but Gabriel had come to regard the younger officer as a thoroughly competent field man. They’d worked together most recently on the Radek case.

  “There’s going to be a shit storm over this.” Navot handed Gabriel a glass of wine. “We might as well break out the hip-waders now.”

  “How much warning did we give them?”

  “The French? Two hours. The prime minister called Grey Poupon directly. Grey Poupon had a few choice words, then he raised the terror alert status to Level Red. You didn’t hear any of it?”

  Gabriel told Navot about the disabled car radio. “The first time I sensed any increase in security was the moment I was walking into the station.” He swallowed some of the wine. “How much did the prime minister tell them?”

  Navot relayed to Gabriel what details of the conversation he knew.

  “How did they explain my presence in Marseilles?”

  “They said you were looking for someone in connection with the Rome bombing.”

  “Khaled?”

  “I don’t think they went into specifics.”

  “Something tells me we need to get our stories straight. Why did they wait so long to alert the French?”

  “They were hoping you’d turn up, obviously. They also needed to make sure all the members of the Marseilles team had left French soil.”

  “Had they?”

  Navot nodded.

  “I suppose we could consider ourselves lucky the prime minister went on the record with Elysee Palace.”

  “Why is that?”

  Gabriel told Navot about the three shaheeds. “We were at the same table in Cairo together. I’m sure someone made a very nice photograph of the occasion.”

  “A setup?”

  “Designed to make it look as though I was somehow involved in the conspiracy.”

  Navot inclined his head in the direction of the living room. “Will she eat anything?”

  “Let her sleep.”

  Navot slid an omelet onto a plate and placed it in front of Gabriel.

  “Specialty of the house: mushrooms, Gruyere, fresh herbs.”

  “I haven’t eaten in thirty-six hours. When I’m finished with the eggs, I plan on eating the plate.”

  Navot began breaking more eggs into his mixing bowl. His work was interrupted by the flashing red light atop the telephone. He snatched up the receiver, listened for a moment, then murmured a few words in Hebrew and rang off. Gabriel looked up from his food.

  “What was that?”

  “King Saul Boulevard. The escape plan will be ready in an hour.”

  As it turned out, they had only forty minutes to wait for the plan. It was transmitted to the safe flat by way of secure fax-three sheets of Hebrew text, composed in Naka, the field code of the Office. Navot, seated next to Gabriel at the kitchen table, handled the decryption.

  “There’s an El Al charter on the ground in Warsaw right now,” Navot said.

  “Polish Jews visiting the old country?”

  “Actually, visiting the scene of the crime. It’s a packaged tour of the death camps.” Navot shook his head. He had been at Treblinka that night with Gabriel and Radek and had walked among the ashes at the side of the murderer. “Why anyone would want to go to such a place is beyond me.”

  “When does the flight depart?”

  “Tomorrow night. One of the passengers will be asked to volunteer for a rather special assignment-traveling home on a false Israeli passport from a different point of departure.”

  “And Leah will take her place on the charter?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Does King Saul Boulevard have a candidate?”

  “Three, actually. They’re making the final decision now.”

  “How will they explain Leah’s condition?”

  “Illness.”

  “How will we get her to Warsaw?”

  “We?” Navot shook his head. “You’re going home by a different route: overland to Italy, then a nighttime pickup on the beach at Fiumicino. Apparently you’re familiar with that spot?”

  Gabriel nodded. He knew the beach well. “So how does Leah get to Warsaw?”

  “I’ll take her.” Navot saw the reluctance in Gabriel’s eyes. “Don’t worry, I won’t let anything happen to your wife. I’ll accompany her home on the flight. Three doctors are on the tour. She’ll be in good hands.”

  “And when she gets to Israel?”

  “A team from the Mount He
rzl Psychiatric Hospital will be ready to receive her.”

  Gabriel spent a moment thinking it over. He was in no position to raise objections to the plan.

  “How will I get over the border?”

  “Do you remember the Volkswagen van we used in the Radek affair?”

  Gabriel did. It had a hidden compartment beneath the rear foldout bed. Radek, drugged and unconscious, had been concealed there when Chiara had driven him over the Austrian-Czech border.

  “I brought it back to Paris after the operation,” Navot said. “It’s stored in a garage over in the seventeenth.”

  “Did you delouse it?”

  Navot laughed. “It’s clean,” he said. “More important, it’ll get you over the border and down to Fiumicino.”

  “Who’s taking me to Italy?”

  “Moshe can handle it.”

  “Him? He’s a kid.”

  “He knows how to handle himself,” Navot said. “Besides, who better than Moses to lead you home to the Promised Land?”

  31

  FIUMICINO, ITALY

  “There’s the signal. Two short flashes followed by a long one.”

  Moshe flicked the wipers and leaned forward over the wheel of the Volkswagen. Gabriel sat placidly in the passenger seat. He was tempted to tell the kid to relax but decided instead to let him enjoy the moment. Moshe’s previous assignments had involved stocking the pantries of safe flats and cleaning up the mess after the agents had left town. A midnight rendezvous on a rainswept Italian beach was going to be the highlight of his association with the Office.

  “There it is again,” the bodel said. “Two short flashes-”

  “-followed by a long one. I heard you the first time.” Gabriel clapped the kid on the back. “Sorry, it’s been a long couple of days. Thanks for the ride. Be careful on the way home, and use-”

  “-a different border crossing,” he said. “I heard you the first four times.”