Daniel Silva - The Kill Artist

He removed the backpack from the chair and placed it on the floor at his feet. “What have you been thinking about?”

“Really, René-it was nothing important.”

“You used to tell me all your secrets.”

“Yes, but you’ve never really told me yours.”

“Are you still upset about this bag?”

“I’m not upset about it. Just curious, that’s all.”

“All right, if you must know, it’s a surprise.”

“For who?”

“For you!” He smiled. “I was going to give it to you later.”

“You bought me a backpack? How very thoughtful, René. How romantic.”

“The surprise is inside the backpack.”

“I don’t like surprises.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s been my experience that the surprise itself never quite lives up to the anticipation of the surprise. I’ve been let down too many times. I don’t want to be let down again.”

“Emily, I’ll never let you down. I love you too much.”

“Oh, René, I wish you hadn’t said that.”

“It happens to be the truth. Let’s eat something, shall we? Then we’ll take a walk.”

Ambassador Zev Eliyahu stood in the grand center hall of the Musée d’Orsay, using every diplomatic skill he possessed to hide the fact that he was bored to tears. Trim, athletic, deeply tanned in spite of the dreary Parisian fall, he crackled with a brash energy. Gatherings like this annoyed him. Eliyahu had nothing against art; he simply didn’t have time for it. He still had the work ethic of a kibbutznik, and between ambassadorial postings he had made millions in investment banking.

He had been talked into attending the reception tonight for one reason: it would give him an opportunity to have an unofficial moment or two with the French foreign minister. Relations between France and Israel were icy at the moment. The French were angry because a pair of Israeli intelligence officers had been caught trying to recruit an official from the Defense Ministry. The Israelis were angry because the French had recently agreed to sell jet fighters and nuclear reactor technology to one of Israel ’s Arab enemies. But when Eliyahu approached the French foreign minister for a word, the minister virtually ignored him, then pointedly engaged the Egyptian ambassador in a lively conversation about the Middle East peace process.

Eliyahu was angry-angry and bored silly. He was leaving for Israel the following night. Ostensibly, it was for a meeting at the Foreign Ministry, but he also planned to spend a few days in Eilat on the Red Sea. He was looking forward to the trip. He missed Israel, the cacophony of it, the hustle, the scent of pine and dust on the road to Jerusalem, the winter rains over the Galilee.

A waiter in a white tunic offered him champagne. Eliyahu shook his head. “Bring me some coffee, please.” He looked over the heads of the shimmering crowd for his wife, Hannah, and spotted her standing next to the chargé d’affaires from the embassy, Moshe Savir. Savir was a professional diplomat: supercilious, arrogant, the perfect temperament for the posting in Paris.

The waiter returned, bearing a silver tray with a single cup of black coffee on it.

“Never mind,” Eliyahu said, and he sliced his way through the crowd.

Savir asked, “How did it go with the foreign minister?”

“He turned his back on me.”

“Bastard.”

The ambassador reached out his hand for his wife. “Let’s go. I’ve had enough of this nonsense.”

“Don’t forget tomorrow morning,” Savir said. “Breakfast with the editorial staff of Le Monde at eight o’clock.”

“I’d rather have a tooth pulled.”

“It’s important, Zev.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be my usual charming self.”

Savir shook his head. “See you then.”

The Pont Alexandre III was Emily’s favorite spot in Paris. She loved to stand in the center of the graceful span at night and gaze down the Seine toward Notre-Dame, with the gilded église du Dôme to her right, floating above Les Invalides, and the Grand Palais on her left.

René took Emily to the bridge after dinner for her surprise. They walked along the parapet, past the ornate lamps and the cherubs and nymphs, until they reached the center of the span. René removed a small rectangular, gift-wrapped box from the backpack and handed it to her.

“For me?”

“Of course it’s for you!”

Emily tore away the wrapping paper like a child and opened the leather case. Inside was a bracelet of pearls, diamonds, and emeralds. It must have cost him a small fortune. “René, my God! It’s gorgeous!”

“Let me help you put it on.”

She put out her arm and pulled up the sleeve of her coat. René slipped the bracelet around her wrist and closed the clasp. Emily held it up in the lamplight. Then she turned around, leaned her back against his chest, and gazed at the river. “I want to die just like this.”

But René was no longer listening. His face was expressionless, brown eyes fixed on the Musée d’Orsay.

The waiter with the platter of tandoori chicken had been assigned to watch the ambassador. He removed the cellular phone from the pocket of his tunic and pressed a button that dialed a stored number. Two rings, a man’s voice, the drone of Parisian traffic in the background. “Oui.”

“He’s leaving.”

Click.

Ambassador Eliyahu took Hannah by the hand and led her through the crowd, pausing occasionally to bid good night to one of the other guests. At the entrance of the museum, a pair of bodyguards joined them. They looked like mere boys, but Eliyahu took comfort in the fact that they were trained killers who would do anything to protect his life.

They stepped into the cold night air. The limousine was waiting, engine running. One bodyguard sat in front with the driver; the second joined the ambassador and his wife in back. The car pulled away, turned onto the rue de Bellechasse, then sped along the bank of the Seine.

Eliyahu leaned back and closed his eyes. “Wake me when we get home, Hannah.”

“Who was that, René?”

“No one. Wrong number.”

Emily closed her eyes again, but a moment later came another sound: two cars colliding on the bridge. A minivan had smashed into the rear end of a Peugeot sedan, the asphalt littered with shattered glass, traffic at a standstill. The drivers jumped out and began screaming at each other in rapid French. Emily could tell they weren’t French-Arabs, North Africans perhaps. René snatched up his backpack and walked into the roadway, picking his way through the motionless cars.

“René! What are you doing?”

But he acted as though he hadn’t heard her. He kept walking, not toward the wrecked cars but toward a long black limousine caught in the traffic jam. Along the way he unzipped the bag and pulled something out of it: a small sub-machine gun.

Emily couldn’t believe what she was seeing. René, her lover, the man who had slipped into her life and stolen her heart, walking across the Pont Alexandre III with a machine gun in his hand. Then the pieces began falling into place. The nagging suspicion that René was keeping something from her. The long, unexplained absences. The dark-haired stranger at the bistro that afternoon. Leila?

The rest of it she saw as slow-moving half images, as though it were taking place beneath murky water. René running across the bridge. René tossing his backpack beneath the limousine. A flash of blinding light, a gust of fiercely hot air. Gunfire, screams. Someone on a motorbike. Black ski mask, two pools of black staring coldly through the eyeholes, damp lips glistening behind the slit for the mouth. A gloved hand nervously revving the throttle. But it was the eyes that captured Emily’s attention. They were the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen.