Daniel Silva - The Kill Artist

He stood up and pulled on his jacket.

Jacqueline said, “I want out.”

“You can’t leave now.”

“Yes, I can. I don’t want to sleep with Yusef anymore.”

“Why?”

“Why? You have the nerve to ask me why?”

“I’m sorry, Jacqueline. That didn’t come out-”

“You think of me as a whore, don’t you, Gabriel! You think it doesn’t bother me to sleep with a man I don’t care for.”

“That’s not true.”

“Is that what I was to you in Tunis? Just a whore?”

“You know that’s not true.”

“Then tell me what I was.”

“What are you going to do? Are you going back to France? Back to your villa in Valbonne? Back to your Parisian parties and your photo shoots and your fashion shows, where the most difficult question is deciding what shade of lipstick to wear?”

She slapped him across the left side of his face. He stared back at her, eyes cold, color rising in the skin over his cheekbone. She drew back her hand to slap him again, but he casually lifted his left hand and deflected her blow.

“Can’t you hear what’s going on?” Gabriel said. “He told you the story of what happened to him at Shatila for a reason. He’s testing you. He wants you for something.”

“I don’t care.”

“I thought you were someone I could depend on. Not someone who was going to fall apart in the middle of the game.”

“Shut up, Gabriel!”

“I’ll contact Shamron-tell him we’re out of business.”

He reached out for the door. She grabbed his hand. “Killing Tariq won’t make it right. That’s just an illusion. You think it will be like fixing a painting: you find the damage, retouch it, and everything is fine again. But it’s not like that for a human being. In fact it’s not even like that for a painting. If you look carefully you can always see where it’s been retouched. The scars never go away. The restorer doesn’t heal a painting. He just hides the wounds.”

“I need to know if you’re willing to continue.”

“And I want to know if I was just your whore in Tunis.”

Gabriel reached out and touched her cheek. “You were my lover in Tunis.” His hand fell to his side. “And my family was destroyed because of it.”

“I can’t change the past.”

“I know.”

“Did you care for me?”

He hesitated a moment, then said, “Yes, very much.”

“Do you care for me now?”

He closed his eyes. “I need to know whether you can go on.”

Hyde Park, London

Karp said, “Your friend picked a damned lousy place for a meeting.”

They were sitting in the back of a white Ford van on the Bayswater Road a few yards from Lancaster Gate, Karp hunched over a console of audio equipment, adjusting his levels. Gabriel could scarcely hear himself think over the riotous din of cars, taxis, lorries, and double-decker buses. Overhead the trees lining the northern edge of the park writhed in the wind. Through Karp’s microphones the air rushing through the branches sounded like white water. Beyond Lancaster Gate the fountains of the Italian Gardens splashed and danced. Through the microphones it sounded like a monsoonal downpour.

Gabriel said, “How many listeners do you have out there?”

“Three,” Karp said. “The guy on the bench who looks like a banker, the pretty girl tossing bread to the ducks, and the guy selling ice cream just inside the gate.”

“Not bad,” Gabriel said.

“Under these conditions don’t expect any miracles.”

Gabriel looked at his wristwatch: three minutes past two. He thought: He’s not going to show. They’ve spotted Karp’s team, and they’re aborting. He said, “Where the fuck is he?”

“Be patient, Gabe.”

A moment later Gabriel saw Yusef emerge from Westbourne Street and dart across the road in front of a charging delivery truck. Karp snapped a couple of photographs as Yusef entered the park and strolled around the fountains. During the middle of his second circuit, he was joined by a man wearing a gray woolen overcoat, face obscured by sunglasses and a felt hat. Karp switched to a longer lens, took several more photographs.

They circled the fountains once in silence, then during the second circuit began to speak softly in English. Because of the noise from the wind and the fountains, Gabriel could make out only every third or fourth word.

Karp swore softly.

They circled the fountains for a few minutes, then walked up a small rise to a playground. The girl who had been feeding the ducks walked slowly after them. After a moment the surveillance van was filled with the joyous screams of children at play.

Karp pressed his fists against his eyes and shook his head.

Karp delivered the tape to Gabriel at the listening post three hours later with the resigned air of a surgeon who had done all he could to save the patient. “I fed it through the computers, filtered out the background noise, and enhanced the good stuff. But I’m afraid we got only about ten percent, and even that sounds like shit.”

Gabriel held out his hand and accepted the cassette. He slipped it into the deck, pressed play, and listened while he paced the length of the room.

“… needs someone… next assignment…”

A sound, like static turned up full blast, obliterated the rest of the sentence. Gabriel paused the tape and looked at Karp.

“It’s the fountain,” Karp said. “There’s nothing I can do with it.”

Gabriel restarted the tape.

“… check out her… in Paris… problems… thing’s fine.”

Gabriel stopped the tape, pressed REWIND, then PLAY.

“… check out her… in Paris… problems… thing’s fine.”

“… not sure… right person for… sort of…”

“… be persuasive… if you explain the importance…”

“… what am I… tell her exactly?”

“… vital diplomatic mission… cause of true peace in the Middle East… routine security precaution…”

“… it supposed to work…”

The audio level dropped sharply. Karp said, “They’re walking toward the playground right now. We’ll get coverage in a moment when the girl moves into position.”

“… meet him… de Gaulle… from there… to the final destination…”

“… where…”

An injured child cries out for its mother, obliterating the response.

“… do with her after…”

“… up to him…”

“… what if… says no…”

“Don’t worry, Yusef. Your girlfriend won’t say no to you.”

STOP. REWIND. PLAY.

“Don’t worry, Yusef. Your girlfriend won’t say no to you.”

And the next thing Gabriel heard was a mother berating her son for scraping a lump of chewing gum off the bottom of the seesaw and putting it into his mouth.

That evening Jacqueline picked up curry after work and brought it to Yusef’s flat. While they ate they watched an American film on television about a German terrorist on the loose in Manhattan. Gabriel watched along with them. He muted his own television and listened to Yusef’s instead. When the film was over Yusef pronounced it “total crap” and shut off the television.

Then he said, “We need to talk about something, Dominique. I need to ask you something important.”

Gabriel closed his eyes and listened.

Next morning Jacqueline stepped off the carriage at the Piccadilly Underground station and floated along with the crowd across the platform. As she rode up the escalator she looked around her. They had to be following her: Yusef’s watchers. He wouldn’t let her loose on the streets of London without a secret escort, not after what he had asked her to do last night. A black-haired man was staring at her from a parallel escalator. When he caught her eye he smiled and tried to hold her gaze. She realized he was only a lecher. She turned and looked straight ahead.