Daniel Silva - The Kill Artist

He removed the Makarov, placed the barrel beneath her chin. “If you are a good girl, if you behave yourself, you will be allowed to live. Once Leila makes that telephone call, she will have to leave this place. It’s up to her whether Ari Shamron finds a dead body chained to this bed. Do you understand me?”

Jacqueline stared back at him with a cold insolence. He pressed the barrel of the gun into the soft flesh of her throat until she groaned through the gag.

“Do you understand me?”

She nodded.

He stood up, slipped the Makarov into the waistband of his trousers. Then he walked into the living room, pulled on an overcoat and a pair of gloves, and went out.

A clear, cold afternoon, the sun shining brightly. Tariq slipped on a pair of sunglasses, turned up the collar of his overcoat. He walked to Coney Island Avenue, strolled along a row of shops until he found a grocer specializing in Middle Eastern goods. He entered the cramped market, accompanied by the tinkle of a small bell on the door, and was immediately overwhelmed by the scents of home. Coffee and spices, roasting lamb, honey and tobacco.

A teenage boy stood behind the counter. He wore a Yankees sweatshirt and was speaking rapid, Moroccan-accented Arabic on a cordless telephone.

“Dates,” Tariq said in English. “I’m looking for dried dates.”

The boy paused for a moment. “Back row on the left.”

Tariq picked his way through the narrow aisles until he arrived at the back of the store. The dates were on the top shelf. As Tariq reached up to grasp them, he could feel the Makarov digging into the small of his back. He pulled down the dates and looked at the label. Tunisia. Perfect.

He paid and went out. From Coney Island Avenue he walked east through quieter residential streets, past small apartment houses and tiny brick homes, until he arrived at the Newkirk Avenue subway stop. He purchased a token, then walked down the stairs to the small exposed platform. Two minutes later he boarded a Q train bound for Manhattan.

Gabriel was beginning to think he would never find Tariq. At that moment he was speeding up Park Avenue in the front seat of a black minivan, surrounded by the rest of the prime minister’s security detail. A few feet ahead of them was the prime minister’s limousine. To their right, a motorcycle outrider. Gabriel wore a gray suit he had borrowed from one of the other bodyguards. The jacket was too big, the pants too short. He felt like a damned fool-like someone who comes to an expensive restaurant without proper attire and has to borrow the house blazer. It was no matter; he had more important things to worry about.

So far the day had gone off without a problem. The prime minister had had coffee with a group of high-powered investment bankers to discuss business opportunities in Israel. Then he had toured the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Gabriel had been at his side the entire time. He left nothing to chance. He stared at every face-the bankers, the traders, the janitors, people on the street-looking for Tariq. He remembered Tariq’s face from the rue St-Denis in Montreal: the mocking smile as he pushed Jacqueline into the car and drove away.

He wondered whether she was even still alive. He thought about the string of dead women Tariq had left in his wake: the American in Paris, the hooker in Amsterdam, the shopgirl in Vienna.

He borrowed a cell phone from one of the other security officers and checked in with Shamron at the mission. Shamron had heard nothing. Gabriel severed the connection, swore softly. It was beginning to feel hopeless. It seemed Tariq had beaten them again.

The motorcade pulled into the parking garage at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The prime minister bounded out of his limousine and shook a few hands before he was escorted to the grand ballroom. Gabriel followed a few paces behind him. As the prime minister entered the ballroom, a thousand people stood up and began to applaud. The noise was thunderous. It could easily cover the sound of a gunshot. The prime minister walked to the podium, basked in the warm reception. Gabriel slowly circled the ballroom, looking for Tariq.

Tariq left the Q train at the Broadway-Lafayette Street station and boarded an uptown Number 5 train. He got off at East Eighty-sixth Street and strolled from Lexington Avenue across town to Fifth Avenue, taking in the grand old apartment houses and brownstones. Then he walked uptown two blocks to Eighty-eighth Street. He stopped in front of an apartment house overlooking the park. An Elite Catering truck was double-parked on Eighty-eighth Street; white-jacketed waiters were carrying trays and food and cases of liquor through the service entrance. He looked at his watch. It wouldn’t be long now. He crossed Fifth Avenue, sat down on a bench in a patch of sunlight, and waited.

Jacqueline closed her eyes, tried to think. Tariq was going to use the resources and technology of the Office to lure Gabriel into a trap. She pictured him in his new disguise; even she barely recognized him, and they had been together every minute for the past eighteen hours. It would be difficult, if not impossible, for Gabriel to spot him. Tariq was right: he would hold every advantage. Gabriel would never see him coming.

The girl came into the room, a mug of tea in her hands, gun shoved down the front of her jeans. She paced slowly, looking at Jacqueline, drinking the tea. Then she sat on the edge of the bed. “Tell me something, Dominique. Did you make love to Tariq while you were in Montreal?”

Jacqueline stared back at the girl, wondering what possible relevance this question could have now. The girl lifted the bottom of Jacqueline’s blouse, exposing her abdomen, and poured the scalding tea over her skin.

The gag muffled Jacqueline’s scream. The girl tenderly blew air over the burned skin and covered it with Jacqueline’s blouse. Even the sensation of the light cotton lying on her flesh caused pain. She closed her eyes and felt hot tears running over her cheeks.

Leila said, “Let’s try again. Did you ever make love to Tariq?”

Jacqueline shook her head, eyes still closed.

“Too bad for you,” she said. “I hear he’s a wonderful lover. The girl in Paris told me everything in explicit detail. In a way I suppose she’s lucky Tariq killed her in the end. No man would have ever made love to her the way he did. Her love life would have been a series of disappointments.”

Jacqueline realized that she was never going to set foot outside this room alive. Leila was a psychopath who had no intention of allowing her to live. Indeed, she would probably take pleasure in Jacqueline’s death. No, she thought, if she were going to die, she would die on her own terms. She would die trying to save Gabriel.

But how?

She had to create an opportunity to get away. To do that she had to convince Leila to let her out of the bed.

Through her gag Jacqueline managed to mumble, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

“What did you say?”

Jacqueline repeated her words, more forcefully.

Leila said, “If you have to go, go.”

“Please,” said Jacqueline.

Leila set the empty mug on the floor and removed the gun from the waistband of her trousers. “Remember, we don’t need you for anything. If you try to get away I’ll shoot you in that beautiful face of yours. Do you understand me?”

Jacqueline nodded.

Leila unlocked the cuffs, starting with Jacqueline’s hands and ending with her feet.

“Stand up,” said Leila. “Slowly. And walk, slowly, into the bathroom with your hands behind your head.”

Jacqueline did as she was told. She entered the bathroom, turned around, started to close the door. Leila put her hand on it and aimed the gun at Jacqueline’s face. “What do you think you’re doing?”