Daniel Silva - The Kill Artist

Another blow: harder.

“My name is Dominique Bonard! I work for-”

Another blow: harder still. She felt as though she was going to lose consciousness.

“You bastard,” she said, weeping. She pressed her fingers against the wound. “Where are you taking me? What are you going to do to me?”

Once again he ignored her. If he was trying to drive her mad, it was working. When he spoke there was an edge of pity to his voice, as if he felt sorry for her. She knew what he was trying to do. He was trying to tear down the last of her resistance, to make her believe she had been betrayed and was completely alone.

“You went to Tunis with Gabriel Allon and posed as his lover while he planned the murder of Abu Jihad.”

“I’ve never been to Tunis in my life, let alone with someone named Gabriel Allon!”

He lifted the gun to hit her again, but this time she saw the blow coming and raised her hands in defense. “Please,” she cried. “Don’t hit me again.”

He lowered the gun. Even he seemed to have no stomach for it.

“He’s aged a bit since I saw him last. I suppose he has a right, considering everything he’s been through.”

Jacqueline felt her will to resist crumble. The reality of intelligence work set in. Before it had been an adventure, something she did to make herself feel that she was more than just a face and a body. But this was the true nature of Ari Shamron’s secret war. It was dirty and violent, and now she was caught in the middle of it. She had to think of some way to gain control of the situation. Perhaps she could discover his plans. Maybe she could find some way to warn Gabriel and Shamron. Maybe I can find some way to survive.

“They’ll come for you,” she said. “Half the police in Canada and America are probably looking for us right now. You’ll never get to New York.”

“Actually, I doubt anyone’s looking for us but your friends Gabriel Allon and Shamron. I suspect they can’t ask the Canadians for help, because the Canadians and Americans probably don’t know they’re here. If they found out now, it could prove very embarrassing to your service.”

He reached into his pocket and handed her a handkerchief for her head. “By the way, we knew you were working for the Office the moment you walked into Yusef’s life.”

“How?”

“Do you really want to know this?”

“Yes.”

“All right, but first you have to answer a few questions for me. Are you really French?”

So, she thought, he doesn’t know everything. She said, “Yes, I’m French.”

“Are you also Jewish?”

“Yes.”

“Is Dominique Bonard your true name?”

“No.”

“What is your real name?”

She thought: What is my real name? Am I really Jacqueline Delacroix? No, that was just the name Marcel Lambert gave to a pretty young girl from Marseilles. If I’m going to die, I’m going to die with the name I was born with.

“My name is Sarah,” she said. “Sarah Halévy.”

“Such a beautiful name. Well, Sarah Halévy, I suppose you’re entitled to know how you ended up in a mess like this.” He looked at her to see her reaction, but she stared back at him with icy hostility. “By the way, if you wish, you may call me Tariq.”

He spoke for nearly an hour without stopping. He was clearly enjoying himself. After all, he had outmaneuvered one of the most feared intelligence services in the world. He told her how they had learned Gabriel had been brought back to the Office to find him. He told her about the security alert they had issued to all their operatives in the field. He told her how Yusef had immediately informed his control officer about the contact with the attractive French woman.

“We told Yusef to continue seeing you while we checked out your cover story in Paris. We discovered a flaw; a minor flaw, but a flaw nonetheless. We made photographs of you in London and compared them with photographs of a woman who worked with Gabriel Allon in Tunis. We told Yusef to deepen his relationship with this Dominique Bonard. We told him to develop an emotional bond with her: a bond of trust.”

She thought of their long conversations. His lectures about the suffering of the Palestinian people. His confession about the scars on his back and the horrible night in Shatila. All the while she had believed that she was controlling the game-that she was the deceiver and the manipulator-when in reality it was Yusef.

“When we felt your relationship had progressed to that point, we told Yusef to ask a very special favor of you: Would you be willing to accompany a Palestinian dignitary on an important secret mission? You put up a very convincing argument, but in the end you said yes, of course, because you’re not Dominique Bonard, a secretary from a London art gallery, but Sarah Halévy, an agent of Israeli intelligence. Ari Shamron and Gabriel Allon assumed correctly that this Palestinian dignitary was in reality me, since I have a history of using unsuspecting women in my operations. They placed you in this extremely dangerous situation because they wanted me. But now I’m going to turn the game against them. I’m going to use you to bring Allon to me.”

“Leave him,” she said. “He’s suffered enough because of you.”

“Allon has suffered? Gabriel Allon murdered my brother. His suffering is nothing compared to the suffering he inflicted on my family.”

“Your brother was a terrorist! Your brother deserved to die!”

“My brother fought for his people. He didn’t deserve to be shot like a dog as he lay in bed.”

“It was a long time ago. It’s over now. Take me instead of Gabriel.”

“That’s very noble of you, Sarah, but your friend Gabriel is not going to lose another woman to me without a fight. Close your eyes and get some rest. We have a long way to go tonight.”

It was nearly dawn as Tariq sped across the Whitestone Bridge and entered Queens. The traffic began to thicken as he passed La Guardia Airport. To the east the sky had turned light gray with the coming dawn. He switched on the radio, listened to a traffic report, then turned down the volume and concentrated on his driving. After a few minutes the East River appeared. Jacqueline could see the first rays of sunlight reflected on the skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan.

He exited the expressway and drove along the surface streets of Brooklyn. Now that it was light she could see him clearly for the first time since the previous afternoon. The long night of driving had taken its toll. He was pale, his eyes bloodshot and strained. He drove with his right hand. His left hand lay in his lap, clutching the Makarov.

She looked at the street signs: Coney Island Avenue. The neighborhood had turned markedly Middle Eastern and Asian. Colorful Pakistani markets with fruit stands spilling onto the sidewalk. Lebanese and Afghan restaurants. Middle East travel companies. A carpet and tile store. A mosque with a false green-and-white marble facade mounted on the brick exterior of an old commercial property.

He turned into a quiet residential street called Parkville Avenue and drove slowly for one block, stopping outside a square three-story brick building on the corner of East Eighth Street. On the ground floor was a boarded-up delicatessen. He shut off the engine, gave two short beeps of the horn. A light flared briefly in the second-floor apartment.

“Wait for me to walk around the car,” he said calmly. “Don’t open the door. If you open the door, I’ll kill you. When we get out of the car, walk straight inside and up the stairs. If you make a sound, if you try to run, I’ll kill you. Do you understand?”

She nodded. He slipped the Makarov into the front of his coat and climbed out. Then he walked around the back of the car, opened her door, and pulled her out by the hand. He closed the door, and together they walked quickly across the street. The ground-floor door was slightly ajar. They stepped inside and crossed a small foyer littered with flyers. The frame of a rusting bicycle with no tires leaned against the flaking woodwork.