Gabriel Hunt - Hunt Through Napoleon's Web

The man—Darif—stood and gestured toward the door.

“He wants to know if you’re ready to go,” Lucy said.

Gabriel hauled himself to his feet, ignoring the dull pain in his legs, his side, his chest. “Always,” he said.

Reza Arif parked the BMW near the Djemaa el Fna and came around to Sammi’s side to open the door for her. It struck her as an exaggerated gesture, a caricature of Middle Eastern courtliness, but she let him indulge himelf. Anything that kept her on his good side.

Arif led her to the heart of the busy square, pointing out buildings and regaling her with their history as they went. She tried to keep her eyes out for Gabriel or for either of the men she’d seen hustling him into the black car back in Cairo, but the crowd was too dense, too constantly in motion—a sea of heads and bodies and outstretched arms, every third one attempting to press something into her hands: a brass cup, a folded shawl, a painted vase. She shook her head at each offer and kept moving.

“There, do you see?” Arif said, pointing. “In that very building the famous British film director Alfred Hitchcock stood while making—” He turned in place, noticing that Sammi was no longer beside him. An old man with a yellowish beard trailing down the front of his robe had seized her wrist and, with his other hand, had begun to inscribe the outlines of a henna tattoo on her forearm.

“I don’t want—” Sammi was saying, but the man was shaking his head and intently ignoring her.

“The lady said she does not want,” Arif said, his voice suddenly cold, and the old man, looking to the side, saw the narrow blade of a stiletto by his throat. He dropped Sammi’s wrist and backed off. The stiletto vanished again into Arif’s sleeve.

“Stay close,” he said. “Not every old man is harmless here.”

Nor every young man, Sammi wanted to say. But she held her tongue and stayed by Arif’s side.

They spent the next hour entering carpet shops, of which there were any number in and around the square. The eighth—or was it the ninth?—had a sign identifying the proprietor as Nizan. The couple entered and was greeted warmly by the owner himself, who took note of Reza Arif’s expensive suit and immediately turned on the hard-sell reserved for tourists he believed to be wealthy. Arif answered him in Arabic while Sammi wandered around the shop, looking for any sign that Gabriel might have been here. She saw nothing to indicate one way or the other. The other seven—or was it eight?—shops had been the same. Sammi was starting to wonder if she’d even recognize a sign if she saw one. But she’d have ample opportunity to find out—there were half a dozen more shops to go.

Unseen by her, a man with a badly bruised jaw peered through a partly closed curtain and watched as Sammi walked the aisles. He smiled to himself, but it was a bitter smile with nothing of pleasure to it.

It was her—the French woman, the one who had shot his brother in cold blood. His fist clenched around the fabric of the curtain. He would have his revenge. He turned to the man beside him and explained in a few words who he’d seen.

“But, Naeem,” the other man said, his voice low, “Amun clearly said we are not to kill this one if we should see her—”

“Kill her?” Naeem stroked the bruise along his jaw. “I said nothing about killing her.”

“Let’s go,” Sammi said, taking hold of Arif’s sleeve. Through the fabric she could feel the handle of the stiletto. “I don’t see anything I like here.”

Arif shrugged at Nizan, as if to apologize. “My brother’s wife,” he said. “She has very particular tastes.”

“Of course,” Nizan said, his face not betraying a hint of disappointment as he bowed them out.

“Nothing,” Sammi said, once they were out in the street once more.

“Are you certain?”

“Of course not. I don’t even know what I’m looking for. But whatever it is, I didn’t see it.”

Arif looked at his wristwatch, a Patek Philippe boasting separate dials for the times in various cities around the world. In Marrakesh, the afternoon was waning, something Sammi hardly needed an expensive watch to tell her. “Maybe we should split up,” Arif said. “It will be faster. You do three, I do three.”

“All right. Point me in the right direction.”

Arif pulled out a map and showed her three locations on it.

As he did so, Naeem and his cohort appeared behind them in the doorway of Nizan’s shop. Amun joined them a moment later. The three of them watched as Arif headed off to the east, Sammi to the northwest.

“Follow the woman,” Amun ordered. “She will lead us to Gabriel Hunt.”

Chapter 17

Darif drove Gabriel and Lucy the thirty miles to Menara International. It was a long drive, made longer by an overturned truck that snarled traffic in both directions on the N8 highway—but at least this time they got to ride in the cab rather than in the trailer. Gabriel even managed a brief catnap on the way.

Lucy accepted Darif’s profuse farewells and followed Gabriel to the airport’s courtesy desk, where a young woman nodded sympathetically while Gabriel explained the situation. She turned the heavy black-painted telephone on the counter around to face him and he lost no time in putting a collect call through to New York.

“Let’s get you a ride back home,” he said to Lucy while he waited for Michael to answer.

“Do you really think it’s safe for me to go back to Nice?”

“No, of course not,” Gabriel said. “I mean home home. New York.”

“New York? Gabriel, I’m not—”

Michael picked up at that moment. “Michael,” Gabriel said. “Guess who I found.”

“I’m not going to New York!”

Michael’s voice sounded shallow and tinny through the ancient phone equipment. “Gabriel?” he said. “Is that—”

But he got no further, since Lucy reached over and depressed the button in the handset cradle to disconnect the call.

“Now, is that any way to treat your brother?” Gabriel said. “Either of your brothers?”

“I am not going to New York,” she said.

“Well, you’re not staying here.”

“No, and I’m not going back to Nice,” Lucy said. “Aren’t we fortunate that there are more than three cities in the world?”

“What’s wrong with New York? You could stay at the Foundation. The security there is top-notch. Michael would love to take care of you, make sure nothing bad happens.”

“That,” Lucy said, “is what’s wrong with New York.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Gabriel. But I’m just not ready to see him again.”

“It’s been nine years,” Gabriel said. “When are you going to be ready?”

“Give me another nine,” Lucy said, “and we’ll talk.”

Gabriel threw his hands up. “So where do you want to go?”

“I’ll go to Paris. Or back to Arezzo. Or, hell, I can crash with Devrim in Istanbul—”

“I don’t know.”

“Look. Paris is a big place. They won’t find me there. I’ll disappear. I’ve done it before. I’ll send you e-mail and you can let me know when it’s safe to go back to Nice. Meanwhile maybe I can turn Sammi up, find out what’s happened to her.”

“In Paris?”

“It’s where she’d go if she couldn’t stay in Nice.”

Assuming she’s even alive, Gabriel thought.

“All right,” he said. “Paris—but you promise you’ll stay out of sight? You won’t contact anyone but me or Michael? Just till this thing is over.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Lucy said. “You just worry about yourself. You don’t need any more scars.”

“You’re telling me,” Gabriel said, and reached out a knuckle to brush her chin.