Daniel Silva - The Kill Artist

He got back into the car, drove down the Golan to a kibbutz outside Qiryat Shemona. It was a Friday night. He went to the dining hall for Shabbat meal, sat with a group of adults from the kibbutz: farmworkers with sunburned faces and callused hands. They ignored him for a time. Then one of them, an older man, asked his name and where he was from. He told them he was Gabriel. That he was from the Jezreel Valley but had been away for a long time.

In the morning he crossed the fertile flatlands of the coastal plain and drove south along the Mediterranean-through Akko, Haifa, Caesarea, and Netanya-until finally he found himself on the beach at Herzliya.

She was leaning against the balustrade, arms folded, looking out to sea at the setting sun, wind pushing strands of hair across her face. She wore a loose-fitting white blouse and the sunglasses of a woman in hiding.

Gabriel waited for her to notice him. Eventually she would. She had been trained by Ari Shamron, and no pupil of the great Shamron would ever fail to take notice of a man standing below her terrace. When she finally saw him a smile flared, then faded. She lifted her hand, the reluctant wave of someone who had been burned by the secret fire. Gabriel lowered his head and started walking.

They drank icy white wine on her terrace and made small talk, avoiding the operation or Shamron or Gabriel’s wounds. Gabriel told her about his journey. Jacqueline said she would have liked to come. Then she apologized for saying such a thing-she had no right.

“So why did you come here after all these weeks, Gabriel? You never do anything without a reason.”

He wanted to hear it one more time: Tariq’s version of the story. The way he had told it to her that night during the drive from the border to New York. He looked out to sea as she spoke, watching the wind tossing the sand about, the moonlight on the waves, but he was listening fiercely. When she was done, he still couldn’t put the final pieces into place. It was like an unfinished painting or a series of musical notes with no resolution. She invited him to stay for dinner. He lied and said he had pressing matters in Jerusalem.

“Ari tells me you want to leave. What are your plans?”

“I have a man named Vecellio waiting for me in England.”

“Are you sure it’s safe to go back?”

“I’ll be fine. What about you?”

“My story has been splashed across newspapers and television screens around the world. I’ll never be able to return to my old life. I have no choice but to stay here.”

“I’m sorry I got you mixed up in this business, Jacqueline. I hope you can forgive me.”

“Forgive you? No, Gabriel-quite the opposite, actually. I thank you. I got exactly what I wanted.” A second’s hesitation. “Well, almost everything.”

She walked him down to the beach. He kissed her softly on the mouth, touched her hair. Then he turned and walked to his car. He paused once to look over his shoulder at her, but she had already gone.

He was hungry, so instead of going straight to Jerusalem he stopped in Tel Aviv for dinner. He parked in Balfour Street, walked to Sheinkin, wandered past trendy cafés and avant-garde shops, thinking of the rue St-Denis in Montreal. He had the sense he was being followed. Nothing specific, just the flash of a familiar face too many times-a color, a hat.

He purchased a newspaper from a kiosk, sat down in a restaurant with small round tables spilling onto the side-walk. It was a warm evening, sidewalks filled with people. He ordered falafel and beer, then opened the newspaper and read the lead article on the front page: “Benjamin Stone, the maverick publisher and entrepreneur, is missing and feared drowned off St. Martin in the Caribbean. Authorities believe Stone fell overboard from his luxury yacht sometime during the night.”

Gabriel closed the newspaper.

“How’s Benjamin Stone?”

“Relaxing in the Caribbean aboard his yacht.”

When the food arrived he folded his newspaper and dropped it onto the extra chair. He looked up and spotted a man outside on the sidewalk: slender, good looking, black curly hair, blond Israeli girl on his arm. Gabriel laid down his fork, stared directly at him, throwing all discretion and tradecraft to the wind.

There was no doubt about it: Yusef al-Tawfiki.

Gabriel left money on the table and walked out. For thirty minutes he followed him. Along Sheinkin, then Allenby, then down to the Promenade. A face can be deceiving, but sometimes a man’s walk is as unique as his fingerprints. Gabriel had followed Yusef for weeks in London. His walk was imprinted on Gabriel’s memory. The flow of his hips. The line of his back. The way he always seemed to be on the balls of his feet, ready to pounce.

Gabriel tried to remember whether he was left-handed or right. He pictured him standing in his window, wearing nothing but his briefs, a thick silver watch on his left wrist. He’s right-handed. If he was trained by the Office, he’d wear his gun on his left hip.

Gabriel increased his pace, closing the distance between them, and drew his Beretta. He pressed the barrel of the gun against Yusef’s lower back, then in one quick movement reached beneath his jacket and snatched the gun from the holster on his hip.

Yusef started to swivel.

Gabriel shoved the gun into his back even harder. “Don’t move again, or I’ll leave a bullet in your spine. And keep walking.” Gabriel spoke Hebrew. Yusef stood very still. “Tell your girlfriend to take a walk.”

Yusef nodded to the girl; she walked quickly away.

“Move,” Gabriel said.

“Where?”

“Down to the beach.”

They crossed the Promenade, Yusef leading, Gabriel behind him, gun pressed against Yusef’s kidney. They descended a flight of steps and walked across the beach until the lights of the Promenade grew faint.

“Who are you?”

“Fuck you! Who do you think you are, grabbing me like that!”

“You’re lucky I didn’t kill you. For all I know you’re a member of Tariq’s organization. You might have come to Israel to plant a bomb or shoot up a market. I still might kill you unless you tell me who you are.”

“You have no right to talk to me like that!”

“Who ran you?”

“Who do you think?”

“Shamron?”

“Very good. Everyone always said you were smart.”

“Why?”

“You want to know why, you talk to Shamron. I just did what I was told. But let me tell you one thing. If you ever come near me again, I’ll kill you. I don’t care who you used to be.”

He held out his hand, palm up. Gabriel gave him the gun. He slipped it back into his holster. Then he turned and walked across the darkened beach toward the bright lights of the Promenade.

Lightning flickered over the hills of the Upper Galilee as Gabriel drove along the shore of the lake toward Shamron’s villa. Rami waited at the gate. When Gabriel lowered the window, Rami poked his head inside and looked quickly around the interior. “He’s on the terrace. Park here. Walk up to the house.”

Rami held out his hand.

“You don’t actually believe I’d shoot the bastard?”

“Just give me your fucking gun, Allon, or you can’t go up to the house.”

Gabriel handed over his Beretta and walked up the drive. Lightning exploded over the hills, illuminating the swirling clouds, wind tossing up whitecaps on the surface of the lake. The screams of waterbirds filled the air. He looked up toward the terrace and saw Shamron, lit by the swirling gas lamps.

When Gabriel reached the terrace, he found Shamron in the same position, but instead of looking down at the drive his gaze was fixed on the storm over the mountains. Just then the lightning ceased and the wind died. The lake went still and the birds stopped their screaming. There was not a sound. Only the hiss of Shamron’s gas lamps, burning brightly.