Daniel Silva - The Kill Artist

Kemel closed his sales reports and looked up. Damn! Where is he? Perhaps something had gone wrong.

Just then the compartment door opened and a man stepped inside: long blond hair, sunglasses, Yankees baseball hat, rock music blaring from his headphones. Kemel thought: Christ! Who is this idiot? Now Tariq will never dare to show.

He said, “I’m sorry, but you’re in the wrong compartment. These seats are all taken.”

The man lifted one earpiece of his headphones and said, “I can’t hear you.” He spoke English like an American.

“These seats are taken,” Kemel repeated impatiently. “Leave, or I’ll call a steward.”

But the man just sat down and removed his sunglasses. “Peace be with you, my brother,” Tariq said softly in Arabic.

Kemel smiled in spite of himself. “Tariq, you bastard.”

“I was worried when Achmed failed to check in after I sent him to Greece,” Kemel said. “Then I heard a body had been found in the villa on Samos, and I knew you two must have spoken.”

Tariq closed his eyes, tilted his head slightly to one side. “He was sloppy. You should choose your messengers more carefully.”

“But did you really have to kill him?”

“You’ll find another-better, I hope.”

Kemel looked at him carefully for a moment. “How are you feeling, Tariq? You don’t-”

“Fine,” Tariq said, cutting him off. “How are things proceeding in Amsterdam?”

“Quite nicely, actually. Leila has arrived. She’s found you a woman and a place to stay.”

Tariq said, “Tell me about her.”

“She works in a bar in the red-light district. Lives alone on a houseboat on the Amstel. It’s perfect.”

“When do I go?”

“About a week.”

“I need money.”

Kemel reached into his briefcase and handed Tariq the envelope of cash. Tariq slipped it into his coat pocket. Then his pale gray eyes settled on Kemel. As always Kemel had the uncomfortable feeling that Tariq was deciding how best to kill him if he needed to.

“Surely you didn’t drag me all the way here to criticize me for killing Achmed and to ask about my health. What else do you have?”

“Some interesting news.”

“I’m listening.”

“The men from King Saul Boulevard are convinced you were behind the attack in Paris.”

“How brilliant of them.”

“Ari Shamron wants you dead, and the prime minister has given him the green light.”

“Ari Shamron has wanted me dead for years. Why is this so important now?”

“Because he’s going to give the job to an old friend of yours.”

“Who?”

Kemel smiled and leaned forward.

St. James’s, London

The sometimes-solvent firm of Isherwood Fine Arts resided in a crumbling Victorian warehouse in a quiet backwater of St. James’s called Mason’s Yard. It was wedged between the offices of a minor shipping company and a pub that always seemed to be filled with pretty office girls who rode motor scooters. The formal sign in the first-floor window stated that the gallery specialized in the works of the old masters, that the owner, Julian Isherwood, was a member in good standing of the Society of London Art Dealers, and that his collection could be seen by appointment only. Galleries in Venice and New York were also promised, though they had closed a long time ago-Isherwood simply hadn’t the heart, or the spare cash, to update the sign to reflect the shrinking fortunes of his empire.

Shamron arrived at twelve-thirty. His bomber jacket and khaki trousers had given way to a double-breasted suit, a silk shirt and tie of matching dark blue, and a gray cashmere overcoat. The steel-rimmed goggles had been replaced by fashionable tortoiseshell spectacles. On his wrist was a gold Rolex watch, on the last finger of his right hand a signet ring. The absence of a wedding band bespoke sexual availability. He moved with an easy, cosmopolitan saunter instead of his usual death charge.

Shamron pressed the cracked buzzer next to the ground-floor entrance. A moment later the sultry voice of Heather, Isherwood’s latest in a series of young and unhelpful personal assistants, came over the intercom.

“My name is Rudolf Heller,” Shamron said in German-accented English. “I’m here to see Mr. Isherwood.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“I’m afraid I don’t, but Julian and I are very old friends.”

“One moment, please.”

A moment turned to two, then three. Finally the automatic door lock snapped back. Shamron went inside and mounted a short flight of groaning stairs. There was a large brown stain in the carpet on the landing. Heather was seated in the anteroom behind an empty desk and a silent telephone. Isherwood’s girls all followed a familiar pattern: pretty art school graduates seduced into his service with promises of apprenticeship and adventure. Most quit after a month or two when they became hopelessly bored or when Isherwood couldn’t seem to scrape together the cash to pay them.

Heather was flipping through a copy of Loot. She smiled and pointed into Isherwood’s office with the end of a chewed pink pencil. Isherwood flashed past the open door, all pinstripe and silk, speaking rapid Italian into a cordless telephone.

“Go inside if you dare,” said Heather in a lazy Mayfair drawl that secretly set Shamron’s teeth on edge. “He’ll be off in a minute. Can I get you anything to drink?”

Shamron shook his head and went inside. He sat down and surveyed the room. Bookshelves filled with monographs on artists, cloth-bound ledgers, old catalogs, a pedestal covered in black velvet for showing paintings to prospective buyers. Isherwood was pacing before a window overlooking Mason’s Yard. He paused once to glare at Shamron, then again to coax a groaning fax machine into action. Isherwood was in trouble-Shamron could sense it. But then he was always in trouble.

Julian Isherwood was very selective about the paintings he bought and even more selective about whom he sold them to. He slipped into a state of melancholia each time he watched one of his paintings walk out the door. As a result he was an art dealer who did not sell a great deal of art-fifteen pictures in a normal year, twenty in a good one. He had made a fortune in the eighties, when anyone with a few feet of gallery space and half a brain had made money, but now that fortune was gone.

He tossed the telephone onto his chaotic desk. “Whatever it is you want, the answer is no.”

“How are you, Julian?”

“Go to hell! Why are you here?”

“Get rid of the girl for a few minutes.”

“The answer will still be no, whether the girl’s here or not.”

“I need Gabriel,” Shamron said quietly.

“Well, I need him more, and therefore you can’t have him.”

“Just tell me where he is. I need to talk to him.”

“Sod off!” Isherwood snapped. “Who the hell do you think you are, barging in here like this and giving me orders? Now, if you’re interested in purchasing a painting, perhaps I can be of some assistance. If it’s not art that brings you here, then Helen will show you the door.”

“Her name is Heather.”

“Oh, Christ.” Isherwood sat down heavily into the chair behind his desk. “Helen was last month’s girl. I can’t keep them straight anymore.”

“Things aren’t going well, Julian?”

“Things haven’t been going well, but all that’s about to change, which is why I need you to crawl back under your rock and leave me, and Gabriel, in peace.”

“How about lunch?” Shamron suggested. “You can tell me your problems, and perhaps we can come to some mutually beneficial solution.”

“You never struck me as someone who was terribly interested in compromise.”