Daniel Silva - The Kill Artist

He followed the Herengracht westward across the city. For a moment he considered aborting the attack, going directly to Centraalstation, and fleeing the country. The Morgenthaus were soft targets and of minimal political value. Kemel had selected them because killing them would be easy and because it would allow Tariq to keep up the pressure on the peace process. But now the risk of capture had increased dramatically because of the fiasco on the boat. Perhaps it was best to forget the whole thing.

Ahead of him a pair of seabirds lifted from the surface of the canal and broke into flight, their cries echoing off the facades of the canal houses, and for a moment Tariq was a boy of eight again, running barefoot through the camp at Sidon.

The letter arrived in the late afternoon. It was addressed to Tariq’s mother and father. It said that Mahmoud al-Hourani had been killed in Cologne because he was a terrorist-that if Tariq, the youngest child of the al-Hourani family, became a terrorist, he would be killed too. Tariq’s father told him to run up to the PLO office and ask if the letter spoke the truth. Tariq found a PLO officer and showed it to him. The PLO man read it once, handed it back to Tariq, ordered him to go home and tell his father that it was true. Tariq ran through the squalid camp toward his home, tears blurring his vision. He worshiped Mahmoud. He couldn’t imagine living without him.

By the time he arrived home, word of the letter had spread throughout the camp-other families had received similar letters over the years. Women gathered outside Tariq’s home. The sound of their wailing and the fluttering of their tongues rose over the camp with the smoke from the evening fires. Tariq thought it sounded like birds from the marshes. He found his father and told him that the letter was true-Mahmoud was dead. His father tossed the letter into the fire. Tariq would never forget the pain on his father’s face, the unspeakable shame that he had been told of the death of his eldest son by the very men who had killed him.

No, Tariq thought now as he walked along the Herengracht. He would not call off the attack and run because he was afraid of being arrested. He had come too far. He had too little time left.

Tariq arrived at the house. He climbed the front steps, reached out, and pressed the bell. A moment later the door was opened by a young girl in a maid’s uniform.

He held out the flower arrangement and said in Dutch, “A gift for the Morgenthaus.”

“Oh, how lovely.”

“It’s quite heavy. Shall I bring it inside for you?”

“Dank u.”

The girl stepped aside so Tariq could pass. She closed the door to keep out the cold and waited with one hand on the latch for Tariq to place the box on a table in the entrance hall and leave. He set down the package and drew the Makarov while turning around. This time the silencer was screwed into place.

The girl opened her mouth to scream. Tariq shot her twice in the throat.

He dragged the body out of the entrance hall and used a towel from the bathroom to wipe up the trail of blood. Then he sat in the darkened dining room and waited for David and Cynthia Morgenthau to come home.

Paris

Shamron summoned Gabriel to the Tuileries gardens the following morning for a crash meeting. Gabriel found him seated on a bench next to a gravel footpath, surrounded by a gang of pigeons. He wore a slate-gray silk scarf around his neck with the ends tucked neatly beneath the lapels of his black overcoat so that his bald head seemed to be mounted atop a pedestal. He stood up, removed a black leather glove from his right hand, and stuck it out like a trench knife. Gabriel found his palm unusually warm and damp. Shamron blew into the throat of the glove and quickly put it back on. He was not accustomed to cold climates, and Paris in winter depressed him.

They walked quickly, not like two men talking in a park but like two men going somewhere in a hurry-along the footpaths of the Tuileries, across the windswept place de la Concorde. Dead leaves rattled at their feet as they marched along the tree-lined sidewalk next to the Champs-Élysées.

“We received a report this morning from a sayan in the Dutch security service,” Shamron said. “It was Tariq who killed David Morgenthau and his wife in Amsterdam.”

“How can they be so certain?”

“They’re not certain, but I am. The Amsterdam police discovered a dead girl on a houseboat in the Amstel. She had overdosed on heroin. Her brother was dead too.”

“Heroin?”

“A single bullet through the eye.”

“What happened?”

“According to the girl’s neighbors, an Arab woman moved into the houseboat a couple of weeks ago. She left a couple of days ago and a man took her place. A Frenchman who called himself Paul.”

“So Tariq sent an agent to Amsterdam ahead of time to secure safe lodging and a girl for cover.”

“And when he was finished with her, he fed her enough heroin to kill a camel. The police say the girl had a history of drug use and prostitution. Obviously, he thought he could make it look like an accidental overdose.”

“How did the brother end up dead?”

“The houseboat is registered in his name. According to the police, he’s been working in Rotterdam on a construction project. Maybe he appeared on the scene unannounced while Tariq was killing his sister.”

“Makes sense.”

“Actually, there’s evidence to support that theory. A couple of the neighbors heard the gunshot. If Tariq had been planning to kill the brother, he would have used a quieter method of execution. Maybe he was surprised.”

“Have they compared the slug from the brother with the slugs taken from the Morgenthaus and the maid?”

“It’s a perfect match. Same gun killed all four people.”

A young Swedish couple was posing for a photograph. Gabriel and Shamron turned abruptly and walked the other way.

Gabriel said, “Any other news?”

“I want you to watch your step in London. A man from Langley paid a courtesy call on me last week. The Americans have been told by their sources that Tariq was involved in Paris. They want him arrested and prosecuted in the United States.”

“The last thing we need now is to be tripping over the CIA.”

“It gets worse, I’m afraid. The man from Langley also dropped a not-so-subtle warning about the pitfalls of operating in certain countries without permission.”

“Do they know anything?”

“I doubt it, but I wouldn’t rule it out completely.”

“I was hoping that my return to the Office wouldn’t land me in a British jail.”

“It won’t as long as you stay disciplined.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Did you find her?” Shamron asked, changing the subject.

Gabriel nodded.

“And she’s willing to do it?”

“It took me a while to convince her, but she agreed.”

“Why are all my children so reluctant to come home again? Was I such an errant father?”

“Just an overly demanding one.”

Gabriel stopped in front of a café on the Champs-Élysées. Jacqueline was seated in the window, wearing large sunglasses and reading a magazine. She glanced up as they approached, then turned her gaze to her magazine once more.

Shamron said, “It’s nice to see you two working together again. Just don’t break her heart this time. She’s a good girl.”

“I know.”

“You’ll need a cover job for her in London. I know someone who’s looking for a secretary.”

“I’m one step ahead of you.”

Shamron smiled and walked away. He melted into the crowds along the Champs-Élysées and a moment later was gone.

Julian Isherwood made his way across the wet bricks of Mason’s Yard. It was three-thirty, and he was just returning to the gallery from lunch. He was drunk. He hadn’t noticed that he was drunk until he stepped out the door of Green’s and took a few deep breaths of the freezing, damp air. The oxygen had resuscitated his brain, and his brain had alerted his body that once again he had poured too much wine into it. His lunch mate had been the tubby Oliver Dimbleby, and once again the topic of conversation had been Oliver’s proposal to buy out Isherwood Fine Arts. This time Isherwood had managed to maintain his composure and discuss the situation somewhat rationally-though not without the assistance of two bottles of superb Sancerre. When one is discussing the dismemberment of one’s business-one’s very soul, he thought-one is allowed to dull the pain with good French wine.