Daniel Silva - The Kill Artist

He found Lev seated in his cheerless office, hunched forward, elbows resting on the desk, long hands folded at the last knuckle and pressed against his temples. With his bald head, protruding eyes, and tentaclelike fingers, he looked very much like a praying mantis. As Mordecai moved closer, he could see that it was not a case file or field report that held Lev’s attention but a large volume on the beetles of the Amazon Basin. Lev closed the book deliberately and pushed it aside.

“Is there something going on in Canada I should know about?” Mordecai asked.

“What are you talking about?”

“I was reviewing the expense reports from Ottawa station, and there was a minor discrepancy in the payouts for the support staff. I thought I’d save a few minutes and deal with it by telephone rather than cable. It really is just a minor thing. I thought that Zvi and I could clear it up in a moment or two.”

Lev drummed his fingers impatiently on the desk. “What does this have to do with Operations?”

“I couldn’t find Zvi. In fact I couldn’t find anyone. It seems your entire Ottawa station is missing.”

“What do you mean missing?”

“I mean nowhere to be found. Gone without explanation.”

“Who did you speak to?”

“A girl from the code room.”

“What did she say?”

“That Zvi and all his field personnel took off in a hurry a few hours ago.”

“Where’s the old man?”

“Somewhere in Europe.”

“He just came back from Europe. Why did he go this time?”

Mordecai frowned. “You think the old man tells me anything? That old bastard is so secretive that half the time I don’t think he even knows where he’s going.”

“Find him,” Lev said.

Montreal

Leila rented a car at the airport. She drove very fast along an elevated motorway. To their right lay an icy river, to their left freezing fog drifted over a vast rail yard like the smoke of battle. The lights of downtown Montreal floated in front of them, obscured by a veil of low cloud and falling snow. Leila drove as if she knew the way.

“You’ve been here before?” Leila asked. It was the first time she had spoken to Jacqueline since the café at Charles de Gaulle in Paris.

“No, never. How about you?”

“No.”

Jacqueline folded her arms against her body and shivered. The heater was roaring, but it was still so cold in the car she could see her breath. “I don’t have clothes for this kind of cold,” she said.

“Lucien will buy you whatever you need.”

So, Lucien was meeting her here in Montreal. Jacqueline blew on her hands. “It’s too cold to go shopping.”

“All the best boutiques in Montreal are underground. You’ll never have to set foot outside.”

“I thought you said you’ve never been here.”

“I haven’t.”

Jacqueline leaned her head against the window and briefly closed her eyes. They had sat in business class, Leila across the aisle and one row behind. An hour before landing, Leila had gone to the lavatory. On the way back to her seat she’d handed Jacqueline a note: Go through immigration and customs alone and meet me at the Hertz counter.

Leila turned off the motorway and turned onto the boulevard René Lévesque. Wind howled through the canyons of high-rise office buildings and hotels. The snowbound sidewalks seemed to have been depopulated. She drove a few blocks, stopped in front of a large hotel. A porter rushed out and opened Jacqueline’s door. “Welcome to the Queen Elizabeth. Checking in?”

“Yes,” said Leila. “We can manage the bags, thank you.”

The porter gave her a claim check for the car and climbed behind the wheel. Leila led Jacqueline into the large, noisy lobby. It was filled with Japanese tourists. Jacqueline wondered what on earth could bring them to Montreal in the dead of winter. Leila deliberately switched her bag from her right hand to her left. Jacqueline forced herself to look the other way. She had been trained in the art of impersonal communication; she knew a good piece of body talk when she saw it. The next act was about to begin.

Tariq watched them from the hotel bar. His appearance had changed since Lisbon: charcoal-gray wool trousers, a cream-colored pullover, Italian blazer. He was neatly shaved and wore small gold-rimmed eyeglasses with clear lenses. He had added a touch of gray to his hair.

He had seen the photograph of the woman called Dominique Bonard, but he was still taken aback by her appearance. He wondered how Shamron and Gabriel Allon could justify putting a woman like that into such danger.

He glanced around the lobby. He knew that they were here, somewhere, hidden among the tourists and the businessmen and the hotel employees: Shamron’s watchers. Tariq had stretched their resources by taking the woman from London to Paris and then Montreal. But surely they had regrouped and moved their assets into place. He knew that the moment he approached the woman he would be revealing himself to his enemies for the first time.

He found that he was actually looking forward to it. Finally, after all these years in the shadows, he was about to step into the light. He wanted to shout: Here I am. See, I’m a man like you, flesh and blood, not a monster. He was not ashamed of his life’s work. Quite the opposite. He was proud of it. He wondered if Allon could say the same thing.

Tariq knew that he had one major advantage over Allon. He knew he was about to die. His life was over. He had survived on the knife edge of danger to be betrayed in the end not by his enemies but by his own body. He would use the knowledge of his impending death like a weapon, the most powerful he had ever possessed.

Tariq stood up, smoothed the front of his blazer, and crossed the lobby.

They rode an elevator to the fourteenth floor, walked along a quiet corridor, stopped at room 1417. He opened the door with a electronic card key, then slipped the card into his pocket. When Jacqueline entered the room, Shamron’s awareness and memory drills took over: small suite, separate bedroom and sitting room. On the coffee table was a room service tray with a half-eaten salad. A garment bag lay on the floor, open, still packed.

He held out his hand. “Lucien Daveau.”

“Dominique Bonard.”

He smiled: warm, confident. “I was told by my associates that you were a very beautiful woman, but I’m afraid their descriptions did not do you justice.”

His mannerisms and speech were all very French. If she had not known he was a Palestinian, she would have assumed he was a well-to-do Parisian.

“You’re not what I expected,” she said truthfully.

“Oh really? What did you expect?” He was already testing her-she could sense it.

“Yusef said you were an intellectual. I suppose I was expecting someone with long hair and blue jeans and a sweater with holes in it.”

“Someone more professorial?”

“Yes, that’s the word.” She managed a smile. “You don’t look terribly professorial.”

“That’s because I’m not a professor.”

“I’d ask what you are, but Yusef told me not to ask too many questions, so I suppose we’ll just have to make pleasant small talk.”

“It’s been a long time since I made pleasant small talk with a beautiful woman. I think I’m going to enjoy the next few days immensely.”

“Have you been in Montreal long?”

“You just asked me a question, Dominique.”

“I’m sorry, I just-”

“Don’t apologize. I was just joking. I arrived this morning. As you can see, I haven’t had a chance to unpack.”

She walked from the sitting room into the bedroom.

He said, “Don’t worry, I intend to sleep on the couch tonight.”