Daniel Silva - The Kill Artist

“It’s perfect,” he said to the window.

“When would you like it?”

Gabriel closed the blind. “Right now.”

For two days Gabriel watched him.

On the first day he saw him just once-when he rose shortly after noon and appeared briefly in the window wearing only a pair of black underpants. He had dark, curly hair, angular cheekbones, and full lips. His body was lean and lightly muscled. Gabriel pulled open Shamron’s file and compared the face in the window with the photograph clipped to the manila cover.

Same man.

Gabriel could feel an operational coldness spreading over him as he studied the figure in the window. Suddenly everything seemed brighter and sharper in contrast. Noises seemed louder and more distinct-a car door closing, lovers quarreling in the next flat, a telephone ringing unanswered, his teakettle screaming in the kitchen. One by one he tuned out these intrusions and focused all his attention on the man in the window across the street.

Yusef al-Tawfiki, part-time Palestinian nationalist poet, part-time student at University College London, part-time waiter at a Lebanese restaurant called the Kebab Factory on the Edgware Road, full-time action agent for Tariq’s secret army.

A hand appeared on Yusef’s abdomen: pale skin, luminous against his dark complexion. A woman’s hand. Gabriel saw a flash of short blond hair. Then Yusef vanished behind the curtains.

The girl left an hour later. Before climbing into the taxi, she looked up toward the flat to see if her lover was watching. The window was empty and the curtains drawn. She closed the door, a little harder than necessary, and the taxi drove away.

Gabriel made his first operational assessment: Yusef didn’t treat his women well.

The next day Gabriel decided to mount a loose physical surveillance.

Yusef left the flat at midday. He wore a white shirt, black trousers, and a black leather jacket. As he stepped onto the pavement, he paused to light a cigarette and scan the parked cars for any sign of surveillance. He waved out the match and started walking toward the Edgware Road. After about a hundred yards he stopped suddenly, turned around, and walked back to the entrance of the block of flats.

Standard countersurveillance move, thought Gabriel. He’s a professional.

Five minutes later Yusef was back outside and walking in the direction of the Edgware Road. Gabriel went into the bathroom, rubbed styling oil into his short hair, and slipped on a pair of red-tinted spectacles. Then he pulled on his coat and went out.

Across the street from the Kebab Factory was a small Italian restaurant. Gabriel went inside and sat down at a table next to the window. He remembered the lectures at the Academy. If you’re watching a target from a café, don’t do things that make you look like you’re watching a target from a café, such as sitting alone for hours pretending to read a newspaper. Too obvious.

Gabriel transformed himself. He became Cedric, a writer for an upstart Paris cultural magazine. He spoke English with a nearly impenetrable French accent. He claimed to be working on a story about why London was so exciting these days and Paris so dreary. He smoked Gitane cigarettes and drank a great deal of wine. He carried on a tiresome conversation with a pair of Swedish girls at the next table. He invited one of them to his hotel room. When she refused he asked the other. When she refused he asked them both. He spilled a glass of Chianti. The manager, Signor Andriotti, appeared at the table and warned Cedric to keep quiet or he would have to leave.

Yet all the while Gabriel was watching Yusef across the street. He watched him while he skillfully handled the lunch crowd. Watched him when he left the restaurant briefly and walked up the road to a newsstand that stocked Arabic-language newspapers. Watched while a pretty dark-haired girl jotted her telephone number on the back of a napkin and slipped it into his shirt pocket for safekeeping. Watched while he carried on a long conversation with a vigilant-looking Arab. In fact, at the moment Gabriel was spilling his Chianti, he was memorizing the make and registration number of the Arab’s Nissan car. And while he was fending off the exasperated Signor Andriotti, he was watching Yusef talking on the telephone. Who was he talking to? A woman? A cousin in Ramallah? His control officer?

After an hour Gabriel decided it was no longer wise to remain in the café. He paid his check, left a generous tip, and apologized for his boorish behavior. Signor Andriotti guided him to the door and cast him gently out to sea.

That evening Gabriel sat in the chair next to his window, waiting for Yusef to return home. The street shone with the night rain. A motorcycle sped past, boy driving, girl on the back, pleading with him to slow down. Probably nothing, but he made a note of it in his logbook, along with the time: eleven-fifteen.

He had a headache from the wine. Already the flat was beginning to depress him. How many nights had he spent like this? Sitting in a sterile Office safe flat or a shabby rented room, watching, waiting. He craved something beautiful, so he slipped a compact disc of La Bohème into the portable stereo at his feet and lowered the volume to a whisper. Intelligence work is patience, Shamron always said. Intelligence work is tedium.

He got up, went into the kitchen, took aspirin for his headache. Next door a mother and a daughter began to quarrel in Lebanese-accented Arabic. A glass shattered, then another, a door slamming, running outside in the corridor.

Gabriel sat down again and closed his eyes, and after a moment he was back in North Africa, twelve years earlier.

The rubber dinghies came ashore with the gentle surf at Rouad. Gabriel climbed out into warm shin-deep water and pulled the dinghy onto the sand. The team of Sayaret commandos followed him across the beach, weapons at their sides. Somewhere a dog was barking. The scent of woodsmoke and grilling meat hung on the air. The girl waited behind the wheel of the Volkswagen mini-bus. Four of the commandos climbed into the Volkswagen with Gabriel. The rest slipped into a pair of Peugeot station wagons parked behind the minibus. A few seconds later the engines started in unison, and they sped off through the cool April evening.

Gabriel wore a lip microphone connected to a small transmitter in his jacket pocket. The radio broadcast over a secure wavelength to a specially equipped Boeing 707 flying just off the Tunisian coastline in a civilian air corridor, masquerading as an El Al charter. If anything went wrong, they could abort the mission within seconds.

“Mother has arrived safely,” Gabriel murmured. He released the talk button and heard the words “Proceed to Mother’s house.”

Gabriel held his Beretta between his knees during the drive, smoked for his nerves. The girl kept both hands on the wheel, eyes fixed on the darkened streets. She was tall, taller than Leah, with black eyes and a mane of dark hair held in place by a simple silver clasp at the nape of her neck. She knew the route as well as Gabriel. When Shamron dispatched Gabriel to Tunis to study the target, the girl had gone with him and posed as his wife. Gabriel reached out and gently squeezed her shoulder as she drove. Her muscles were rigid. “Relax,” he said softly, and she smiled briefly and let out a long breath. “You’re doing fine.”

They entered Sidi Boussaid, a wealthy Tunis suburb not far from the sea, and parked outside the villa. The Peugeots pulled in behind them. The girl killed the engine. Twelve-fifteen. Exactly on schedule.

Gabriel knew the villa as well as he knew his own home. He had studied it and photographed it from every conceivable vantage point during the surveillance operation. They had built a perfect duplicate in the Negev, where he and the rest of the team rehearsed the assault countless times. During the final session they had managed to carry out the mission in twenty-two seconds.