Daniel Silva - The Kill Artist

“Trust me, Gabe, there’s nothing sinister going on. It’s two guys talking about getting a drink and maybe finding a girl and getting laid. You remember getting laid, don’t you?”

But Gabriel was initiating the next phase of the operation-he was sending Jacqueline into hostile territory-and he wanted to be certain he wasn’t sending her into a trap. So he listened again:

“We still on for tonight?”

“Absolutely. Where?”

“All Bar One, Leicester Square, nine o’clock.”

“I’ll be there.”

STOP. REWIND. PLAY.

“We still on for tonight?”

“Absolutely. Where?”

“All Bar One, Leicester Square, nine o’clock.”

“I’ll be there.”

STOP. REWIND. PLAY.

“All Bar One, Leicester Square, nine o’clock.”

STOP. PLAY.

“I’ll be there.”

Gabriel picked up the telephone and punched in the number for Isherwood Fine Arts.

Leicester Square, London

All Bar One stood on the southwest corner of Leicester Square. It had two floors and large windows, so that Gabriel, seated outside on a cold wooden bench, could see the action inside as though it were a play on a multilevel stage. Crowds of tourists and filmgoers streamed past him. The street performers were out too. On one side of the square a German sang Jimi Hendrix through a crackling microphone, accompanied by an amplified acoustic guitar. On the other a group of Peruvians played the music of the mountains to a disconsolate-looking gang of urban punks with purple hair. A few feet from the entrance of the bar a human statue stood frozen atop a pedestal, face painted the color of titanium, eyeing Gabriel malevolently.

Yusef arrived five minutes later, accompanied by a trim, sandy-haired man. They negotiated the short line at the door by bribing the muscled ape who was standing guard. A moment later they appeared in the window on the second level. Yusef said hello to a lanky blonde. Gabriel removed a mobile phone from his coat pocket, dialed a number, murmured a few words, then pressed the END button.

Jacqueline, when she arrived five minutes later, wore the same clothes she had worn to Isherwood’s gallery that morning, but she had let down her long hair. She presented herself to the doorman and inquired about the wait. The doorman promptly stepped aside, much to the annoyance of the other patrons gathered outside. As Jacqueline disappeared into the bar, Gabriel heard someone mutter, “French bitch.”

She went upstairs, bought herself a glass of wine, and sat down in the window a few feet from Yusef and his friend. Yusef was still talking to the blonde, but after a few moments Gabriel could see his eyes wandering to the tall, dark-haired girl seated to his right.

Twenty minutes later, neither Gabriel nor the statue had moved, but Yusef had disengaged himself from the blonde and was sitting next to Jacqueline. She was feeding on him with her eyes, as though whatever he was saying was the most fascinating thing she had heard in years.

Gabriel stared at the statue, and the statue stared back.

At midnight they left the bar and walked across the square through a swirling wind. Jacqueline shivered and folded her arms beneath her breasts. Yusef put an arm around her waist and pulled her against him. She could feel the wine. She had found that judicious use of alcohol helped in situations like these. She had drunk just enough to lose any inhibitions about sleeping with a complete stranger-inhibitions that might betray her-but not enough to dull her senses or instincts of self-preservation.

They climbed into a taxi on the Charing Cross Road.

Jacqueline said, “Where do you live?” She knew the answer, but Dominique Bonard did not.

“I have a flat in Bayswater. Sussex Gardens. Shall we go there?”

She nodded. They rode up the Charing Cross Road, past darkened shops, then west along Oxford Street toward Marble Arch and the Park. Sometimes they would pass a lighted shop or slip beneath a street lamp and she would see his face for an instant, like a photograph flashed on a screen and then taken away. She studied him in profile. The hinge of his jaw was a perfect right angle, his nose long and slender with crisp lines along the bridge, his lips full. Long eyelashes, wide eyebrows. He had shaved carefully. He wore no cologne.

Based on what Gabriel had told her, she had expected Yusef to be cocky and overly confident. But instead he displayed a pleasant, somewhat shy intelligence. She thought about the German chemical executive she had seduced in Cyprus. He was bald and had foul breath. Over dinner he had told her how much he hated Jews. Later, in bed, he had asked her to do things that made her feel sick.

They headed up the Edgware Road and turned into Sussex Gardens. She wanted to look up and find the flat where Gabriel had established his listening post. She forced herself to look at Yusef instead. She traced her finger along his jaw. “You’re quite beautiful, you know.”

He smiled. She thought: He’s used to compliments from women.

The taxi arrived in front of his building. It was a charmless place, a flat-fronted postwar block house with an air of institutional decay. He helped her out of the taxi, paid off the driver, led her up a short flight of steps to the front entrance. He walked on the balls of his feet-like Gabriel, she thought-as if he were perpetually prepared to lunge or pounce. She wondered if Gabriel was watching them.

He removed his keys, singled out one for the front door-Yale model, she noted-and inserted it into the chamber. He led her across a small lobby of checkered linoleum, then up a dimly lit flight of stairs. She wondered how he would make his move. Would he open a bottle of wine, play soft music, or light candles? Or would he be straightforward and businesslike? If they talked she might learn something about him that could be helpful to Gabriel. She decided she would try to stretch the seduction a little longer.

At the door of his flat he used a second Yale to unlock the dead bolt, then an old-fashioned skeleton for the latch. Three locks, three separate keys. No problem.

They entered the flat. The room was in darkness. Yusef closed the door. Then he kissed her for the first time.

Jacqueline said, “I’ve wanted you to do that all night. You have beautiful lips.”

“I’ve wanted to do other things all night.” He kissed her again. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“A glass of wine would be nice if you have any.”

“I think so. Let me check.”

He switched on a light, a cheap standing lamp with the beam focused on the ceiling, and left his keys on a small table next to the door. Jacqueline placed her handbag beside them. Shamron’s training took over. She quickly surveyed the room. It was the flat of an intellectual revolutionary, a sparse, utilitarian base camp. Three cheap Oriental carpets covered the linoleum floor. The coffee table was a large, square piece of pressboard propped on four gray cinder blocks surrounded by a foursome of mismatched chairs. In the center of the table was an ashtray the size of a dinner plate containing several brands of cigarette butts. A few were smudged with lipstick, two different shades. Around the ashtray were a half-dozen small cups, stained, like Rorschach test patterns, with Turkish coffee grounds.

She turned her attention to the walls. There were posters of Bob Marley and Che Guevara, another of Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their gloved fists at the Mexico City Olympics in 1968. There was a black, green, and red Palestinian flag and a print of a painting depicting a village girl being bathed by other women on the night before her wedding. She recognized the painting as one of Ibrahim Ghannan’s. Everywhere there were books, some stacked, some in piles, as if they were awaiting gasoline and a match-volumes of Middle East history, histories of the Middle East wars, biographies of Arafat, Sadat, Ben-Gurion, Rabin.