Daniel Silva - Prince of fire

Illness softened Herr Klemp’s demeanor. He was pleasant to Mr. Katubi and even apologetic to the maids who had to clean his appalling bathroom. Sometimes, when Mr. Katubi entered the room, he would find Herr Klemp seated in the armchair next to the window, gazing wearily toward the river. He spent most of his time, though, stretched listlessly on the bed. To relieve the boredom of captivity he listened to music and German-language news on his shortwave radio, on tiny earphones so as not to disturb the other guests. Mr. Katubi found himself missing the old Johannes Klemp. Sometimes he would look up from his outpost in the lobby and long to see the cantankerous German pounding across the marble floor with his coattails flapping and his jaw steeled for confrontation.

One morning, a week to the day after Herr Klemp had first taken ill, Mr. Katubi knocked on Herr Klemp’s door and was surprised by the vigorous voice that ordered him to come in. He slipped his passkey into the lock and entered. Herr Klemp was packing his bags.

“The storm has ended, Katubi.”

“Are you certain?”

“As certain as one can be in a situation like this.”

“I’m sorry Cairo treated you so badly, Herr Klemp. I suppose the decision to extend your stay turned out to be a mistake.”

“Perhaps, Katubi, but then I’ve never been one to dwell on the past, and neither should you.”

“It is the Arab disease, Herr Klemp.”

“I suffer from no such affliction, Katubi.” Herr Klemp placed his shortwave radio into his bag and closed the zipper. “Tomorrow is another day.”

It was raining in Frankfurt that evening-the Lufthansa pilot had made that abundantly clear. He’d spoken of the rain while they were still on the ground in Cairo, and twice during the flight he’d provided them tedious updates. Gabriel had latched onto the pilot’s plodding voice, for it had given him something to do besides stare at his wristwatch and calculate the hours until Khaled’s next massacre of innocents. As they neared Frankfurt he leaned his head against the glass and looked out, hoping to glimpse the first lights of the south German plain, but instead he saw only blackness. The jetliner plunged into the cloud, and his window was awash with horizontal streaks of rainwater-and Gabriel, in the scampering droplets, saw Khaled’s teams moving into position for their next strike. Then suddenly the runway appeared, a sheet of polished black marble rising slowly to receive them, and they were down.

In the terminal he went to a telephone kiosk and dialed the number for a freight forwarding company in Brussels. He identified himself as Stevens, one of his many telephone names, and asked to speak to a Mr. Parsons. He heard a series of clicks and hums, then a female voice, distant and with a slight echo. The girl, Gabriel knew, was at that moment seated on the Operations Control desk at King Saul Boulevard.

“What do you require?” she asked.

“Voice identification.”

“You have a recording?”

“Yes.”

“Quality?”

Gabriel, using Hebrew terms no listener could comprehend, tersely relayed to the girl the technical means with which he had captured and recorded the subject’s voice.

“Play the recording, please.”

Gabriel pressed PLAY and held his recorder up to the mouthpiece of the receiver. Male voice, perfect French.

“It’s me. Give me a ring when you have a chance. Nothing urgent. Ciao.”

He lowered the tape player and placed the receiver against his ear.

“No match on file,” said the woman.

“Compare to unidentified voiceprint 698/D.”

“Stand by.” Then, a moment later: “It’s a match.”

“I need a telephone number ID.”

Gabriel located the second intercept, then pressed PLAY and held the recorder up to the phone again. It was the sound of Mimi Ferrere making an international call from the phone in her office. When the last number had been dialed, Gabriel pressed PAUSE.

The woman at the other end of the line recited the number: 00 33 91 54 67 98. Gabriel knew that 33 was the country code for France and that 91 was the city code for Marseilles.

“Run it,” he said.

“Stand by.”

Two minutes later the woman said: “The telephone is registered to a Monsieur Paul Veran, 56 boulevard St-Remy, Marseilles.”

“I need another voice identification.”

“Quality?”

“Same as before.”

“Play the recording.”

Gabriel pressed PLAY, but this time the voice was drowned out by the sound of a security announcement, in German, blaring from the speaker above his head: Achtung! Achtung! When it was over, he pressed PLAY again. This time the voice, a woman’s, was clearly audible.

“It’s me. Where are you? Call me when you can. Much love.”

STOP.

“No match on file.”

“Compare to unidentified voiceprint 572/B.”

“Stand by.” Then: “It’s a match.”

“Please note, subject goes by the name Mimi Ferrere. Her address is 24 Brazil Street, apartment 6A, Cairo.”

“I’ve added it to the file. Elapsed time of this call four minutes, thirty-two seconds. Anything else?”

“I need you to pass a message to Ezekiel.”

Ezekiel was the telephone code word for the Operations directorate.

“Message?”

“Our friend is spending time in Marseilles, at the address you gave me.”

“Number 56 boulevard St-Remy?”

“That’s right,” Gabriel said. “I need instructions from Ezekiel on where to proceed.”

“You’re calling from Frankfurt airport?”

“Yes.”

“I’m terminating this call. Move to another location and call back in five minutes. I’ll have instructions for you then.”

Gabriel hung up the phone. He went to a newsstand, bought a German magazine, then walked a short distance through the terminal to another kiosk of telephones. Same number, same patter, same girl in Tel Aviv.

“Ezekiel wants you to go to Rome.”

“Rome? Why Rome?”

“You know I can’t answer that.”

It was no matter. Gabriel knew the answer.

“Where should I go?”

“The apartment near the Piazza di Spagna. Do you know it?”

Gabriel did. It was a lovely safe flat at the top of the Spanish Steps, not far from the Church of the Trinita dei Monti.

“There’s a flight from Frankfurt to Rome in two hours. We’re booking a seat for you.”

“Do you want my frequent-flyer number?”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“Have a safe trip,” said the girl, and the line went dead.

For the second time in ten days Paul Martineau made the drive from Aix-en-Provence to Marseilles. Once again he entered the coffeehouse on the small street off the rue des Convalescents and climbed the narrow stairs to the flat on the first floor, and once again he was greeted on the landing by the gowned figure who spoke to him quietly in Arabic. They sat, propped on silk pillows, on the floor of the tiny living room. The man slowly loaded hashish into a hubble-bubble and touched a lighted match to the bowl. In Marseilles he was known as Hakim el-Bakri, a recent immigrant from Algiers. Martineau knew him by another name, Abu Saddiq. Martineau did not refer to him by that name, just as Abu Saddiq did not call Martineau by the name he’d been given by his real father.

Abu Saddiq drew heavily on the mouthpiece of the pipe, then inclined it in Martineau’s direction. Martineau took a long pull at the hashish and allowed the smoke to drift out his nostrils. Then he finished the last of his coffee. A veiled woman took away his empty cup and offered him another. When Martineau shook his head, the woman slipped silently from the room.