Daniel Silva - The Kill Artist

Tariq stood on the landing below, feet apart, the Makarov in his outstretched hands.

Gabriel saw the muzzle flashes in the dim light, felt the first bullet tearing into his chest. He thought how fitting it was that it should end like this. He had killed his first man in the stairwell of an apartment house, and now he would die the same way. There was a circular quality about it, like a good piece of music. He wondered if Tariq had planned it this way all along.

He could hear Tariq running down the stairs. Then he saw Jacqueline’s face leaning over him-Jacqueline’s beautiful face. Then her face turned to water, only to be replaced by the face of the woman in the lost Van Dyck. And then he blacked out.

As Gabriel slipped into unconsciousness, Jacqueline screamed, “Call an ambulance!” Then she stood and started running down the stairs.

Above her she heard one of the security officers scream, “Stop!” She ignored him.

She could hear the pounding of Tariq’s feet echoing up the stairwell toward her. She reached into her pocket and removed the gun she had taken from the apartment in Brooklyn. She thought: I’ve done this twice today. I can do it again.

She ran. The stairs seemed to go on forever. She tried to remember what floor the apartment had been on. Seventeen-yes, that was it; she was sure of it. She passed a door that said eighth floor.

She thought: Keep going, Jacqueline. Don’t slow down. He’s sick. He’s dying. You can catch him. Move!

She thought of Gabriel, his life draining out of him on the landing above her. She forced herself to run even faster. She propelled herself down the stairs so quickly that her feet struggled to stay beneath her body. She imagined that by catching up with Tariq and killing him she might save Gabriel’s life.

She thought of the day Gabriel had come for her, remembered the bicycle ride she had taken through the hills around Valbonne, the fire in her thighs as she had pushed herself to a new record.

Do it again!

She reached the bottom of the stairwell. There was a metal fire door, and it was slowly closing.

Tariq was right in front of her!

She ripped open the door and sprinted through it. Ahead of her stretched a corridor about fifty feet long, with another door at the opposite end. Halfway down the corridor was Tariq.

He was clearly exhausted. His pace was beginning to flag, his strides short and uncoordinated. He turned and looked over his shoulder, his face a mask of pain from the run down the stairs. Jacqueline raised the gun and fired two shots in quick succession. The first appeared to sail harmlessly over his head, but the second struck him high in the left shoulder, knocking him from his feet. As he landed on the ground, his gun fell from his grasp and slid along the corridor until it rattled against the door at the other end. Jacqueline moved forward and fired again, and again, and again, until the gun contained no more bullets and she was quite certain Tariq al-Hourani was dead.

Then the door at the end of the corridor opened. She leveled the gun at the man coming through, but it was only Ari Shamron. He stepped forward, loosened her grip on the gun, and slipped it into his coat pocket.

“Where’s Gabriel?”

“Upstairs.”

“Is it bad?”

“I think so.”

“Take me to him.”

Jacqueline looked at the body of Tariq. “What about him?”

“Let him lie there,” said Shamron. “Let the dogs lap up his blood. Take me to Gabriel. I want to see Gabriel.”

Jerusalem: March

Gabriel awakened. He looked at the luminous face of his watch, closed his eyes: five-fifteen. He lay there trying to calculate how long he had slept. Trying to remember when he had lifted himself from the couch and dragged himself into bed-how long after that had it taken to slip into unconsciousness? Had he really slept? His mind had been so alive with dreams it felt as though he hadn’t.

He lay very still, waiting to see if sleep would take him again, but it was no good. Then came the sounds: the cry of a muezzin, drifting over the Hinnom Valley from Silwan. A church bell tolling in the Armenian Quarter. The faithful had awakened. The faithless and the damaged had little choice but to join them.

He probed his chest with his fingertips, testing for pain. Not as bad as yesterday. Each day was a little better. He rolled gingerly out of bed, walked into the kitchen, brewed coffee, toasted some bread. He was a prisoner, and like any prisoner he took comfort in the ritual of routine.

His cell was not a cell at all, but a pleasant safe flat overlooking Zion Gate: cool tile floors, white throw rugs, white furniture. It reminded Gabriel of a hospital, which in many respects it was. He pulled on a sweater, a gray cotton pullover with a stretched neck, and carried his breakfast through the French doors to the small table on the balcony.

As he waited for daybreak he sifted through the individual scents that combine to create the unique fragrance of Jerusalem: sage and jasmine, honey and coffee, leather and tobacco, cypress and eucalyptus. Then dawn came. In the absence of his restoration work, Jerusalem at sunrise had become Gabriel’s art. The last stars melted, the sun peeked over the backbone of mountain separating Jerusalem from the desert of the West Bank. The first light seeped down the chalk-colored slope of the Mount of Olives, then ignited a golden fire on the Dome of the Rock. Then the rays fell upon the Church of the Dormition, turning the east-facing surfaces of the church to scarlet and leaving the rest deep in shadow.

Gabriel finished his breakfast, carried the dishes into the kitchen, washed them fastidiously in the sink, placed them on the basin to dry. What now? Some mornings he stayed indoors and read. Lately he had taken to walking, a little farther on each occasion. Yesterday he’d walked all the way up the slope of Mount Scopus. He found it helped him to think, to sort through the wreckage of the case.

He showered, dressed, and walked downstairs. As he stepped out of the apartment building and entered the street, he heard a series of sounds: a hoarse stage whisper, a car door closing, a motor turning over. Shamron’s watchers. Gabriel ignored them, zipped his coat against the morning chill, started walking.

He moved along the Khativat Yerushalayim, entered the Old City through the Jaffa Gate. He wandered through the hectic markets of El Bazaar: piles of chickpeas and lentils, stacks of flatbread, sacks overflowing with aromatic spices and roasted coffee beans, boys hawking silver trinkets and coffee-pots. An Arab boy pressed an olive wood statue of Jesus into Gabriel’s hand and named an exorbitant price. He had Tariq’s sharp brown eyes. Gabriel gave the statue back to the boy and in flawless Arabic told him it was too much.

Once free of the noisy market, he meandered through the quiet, twisting alleyways, making his way gradually eastward, toward the Temple Mount. The air warmed slowly. It was nearly spring. Overhead was a sky of cloudless azure, but the sun was still too low to penetrate the labyrinth of the Old City. Gabriel floated among the shadows, a skeptic among the believers in this place where devotion and hatred collided. He supposed like everyone else he was looking for answers. Different answers, but answers nonetheless.

He wandered for a long time, thinking. He followed the dark, cool passageways wherever they led him. Sometimes he would find himself at a locked gate or an impenetrable wall of Herodian stone. Sometimes he would come upon a courtyard bathed in warm sunlight. For an instant things would seem clear to him. Then he would embark down another twisting passage, the shadows would close in, and he would realize he was still no closer to the truth.