Daniel Silva - The Kill Artist

“According to museum security, Eliyahu and his party got into the car at ten twenty-seven,” Navot said. “As you can see from the time code on the screen, the Arab makes his telephone call at exactly ten twenty-six.”

Shamron said nothing, just jabbed at his remote control, rewound the tape, and watched it yet again.

“Look at his hand,” Navot said breathlessly. “The number has been stored into the mobile phone. He just hits the keypad a couple of times with his thumb and starts talking.”

If Shamron found this scrap of insight interesting or even remotely relevant he gave no sign of it.

“Maybe we could get the records from the telephone company,” Navot said, pressing on. “Maybe we could find out the number he dialed. That phone might lead us to Tariq.”

Shamron, had he chosen to speak, would have informed young Navot that there were probably a half-dozen operatives between Tariq and the French cellular telephone company. Such an inquiry, while admirable, would surely lead to a dead end.

“Tell me something, Uzi,” Shamron said at last. “What kind of food did that boy have on his silver platter?”

“What, boss?”

“The food, the hors d’oeuvres, on his platter. What were they?”

“Chicken, boss.”

“What kind of chicken, Uzi?”

“I don’t know, boss. Just chicken.”

Shamron shook his head in disappointment. “It was tandoori chicken, Uzi. Tandoori chicken, from India.”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

“Tandoori chicken,” Shamron repeated. “That’s interesting. You should have known that, Uzi.”

Navot signed out an Office car and drove dangerously fast up the coast road to Caesarea. He had just pulled off a very nice piece of work-he had stolen a copy of the videotape from the Musée d’Orsay-but the only thing the old man cared about was the chicken. What difference did it make if it was tandoori chicken or Kentucky Fried Chicken? Maybe Lev was right. Maybe Shamron was past his prime. To hell with the old man.

There was a saying inside the Office these days: the further we are from our last disaster, the closer we are to our next. Shamron would step into the shit too. Then they’d shove him out again, this time for good.

But Navot realized he did care what the old man thought about him. In fact he cared too much. Like most officers his age, he revered the great Shamron. He’d done a lot of jobs for the old man over the years-dirty jobs no one else wanted. Things that had to be kept secret from Lev and the others. He’d do almost anything to get back in his good graces.

He entered Caesarea and parked outside an apartment house a few blocks from the sea. He slipped inside the foyer, rode the lift up to the fourth floor. He still had a key but chose to knock instead. He hadn’t called to say he was coming. She might have another man there. Bella had many men.

She answered the door dressed in faded jeans and a torn shirt. She had a long body and a beautiful face that seemed perpetually in mourning. She regarded Navot with a look of thinly veiled malice, then stepped aside and allowed him to enter. Her flat had the air of a secondhand bookstore and smelled of incense. She was a writer and a historian, an expert in Arab affairs, a sometime consultant to the Office on Syrian and Iraqi politics. They had been lovers before the Office sent Navot to Europe, and she despised him a little for choosing the field over her. Navot kissed her and pulled her gently toward the bedroom. She resisted, only for a moment.

Afterward, she said, “What are you thinking about?”

“Shamron.”

“What now?”

He told her as much as he could, no specifics, just the essence.

“You know how Shamron works,” she said. “He beats you down when he wants something. You have one of two choices. You can go back to Paris and forget about it, or you can drive up to Tiberias tonight and see what the old fucker has in mind for you now.”

“Maybe I don’t want to know.”

“Bullshit, Uzi. Of course you want to know. If I told you I never wanted to see you again, you wouldn’t give it a second thought. But if the old man looks at you cross-eyed, you fall to pieces.”

“You’re wrong, Bella.”

“About which part?”

“The first. If you told me you never wanted to see me again, I’d quit the Office and beg you to marry me.”

She kissed his lips and said, “I never want to see you again.”

Navot smiled and closed his eyes.

Bella said, “My God, but you’re a horrible liar, Uzi Navot.”

“Is there an Indian restaurant in Caesarea?”

“A very good one, actually, not far from here.”

“Does it serve tandoori chicken?”

“That’s like asking if an Italian restaurant serves spaghetti.”

“Get dressed. We’re going.”

“I’ll make something for us here. I don’t want to go out.”

But Navot was already pulling on his trousers.

“Get dressed. I need tandoori chicken.”

For the next seventy-two hours Ari Shamron acted like a man who smelled smoke and was frantically looking for fire. The mere rumor of his approach could empty a room as surely as if an antipersonnel grenade had been rolled along the carpet. He prowled the halls of King Saul Boulevard, barging unannounced into meetings, exhorting the staff to look harder, listen more carefully. What was the last confirmed sighting of Tariq? What had happened to the other members of the Paris hit team? Had there been any interesting electronic intercepts? Were they talking to one another? Were they planning to strike again? Shamron had the fever, Lev told Mordecai over a late supper in the canteen. The bloodlust. Best to keep him isolated from the uninfected. Send him into the desert. Let him howl at the moon until it’s passed.

The second break in the case came twenty-four hours after Navot delivered the videotape. It was the wispy Shimon of Research who made the discovery. He raced up to Shamron’s office in his sweatshirt and bare feet, clutching a file in his gnawed fingertips. “It’s Mohammed Azziz, boss. He used to be a member of the Popular Front, but when the Front signed on with the peace process, Azziz joined Tariq’s outfit.”

“Who’s Mohammed Azziz?” asked Shamron, squinting at Shimon curiously through a cloud of smoke.

“The boy from the Musée d’Orsay. I had the technicians in the photo lab digitally enhance the surveillance videotape. Then I ran that through the database. There’s no doubt about it. The waiter with the cell phone was Mohammed Azziz.”

“You’re certain it’s Azziz?”

“Positive, boss.”

“And you’re certain Azziz is now working for Tariq?”

“I’d stake my life on it.”

“Choose your words carefully, Shimon.”

Shimon left the file on his desk and went out. Shamron now had what he wanted: proof that Tariq’s fingerprints were all over the attack in Paris. Later that same evening, a bleary-eyed Yossi appeared at Shamron’s door. “I just heard something interesting, boss.”

“Speak, Yossi.”

“A friend of ours from the Greek service just passed a message to Athens station. A Palestinian named Achmed Natour was murdered a couple of days ago on the Greek island of Samos. Shot through the head twice and left in a villa.”

“Who’s Achmed Natour?”

“We’re not sure. Shimon is having a look around.”

“Who owns the villa?”

“That’s the most interesting thing, boss. The villa was rented to an Englishman named Patrick Reynolds. The Greek police are trying to find him.”

“And?”

“There’s no Patrick Reynolds at the London address on the rental agreement. There’s no Patrick Reynolds at the London telephone number either. As far as the British and Greek authorities can figure, Patrick Reynolds doesn’t exist.”