The Confessor ga-3 Read online

  A mile before St-Pierre, he turned onto a narrow local road and followed it inland through apple orchards and fields of flax. Just beyond the village of Valmont, he turned onto a narrow track lined with beech trees and followed it for a kilometer or so, until it dead-ended at a wooden gate. Beyond the gate stood a stone villa, concealed in the shadows of tall beech and elm. Katrine's red jeep was parked in the gravel drive. She would still be asleep. Katrine rarely found a reason to get out of bed before noon.

  Lange climbed out, opened the gate, then drove onto the grounds. Without knocking, he tried the front door and found it locked. He had two options: bang until Katrine woke up or begin his visit with a bit of fun. He chose the latter.

  The villa was shaped like a U and surrounded by a tangled garden. In summer it was a riot of color. Now, in the last days of winter, it was somber green. Beyond the garden rose the outer edges of the forest. The trees were bare, and the limbs lay motionless in the still of the morning. In the center of the house was a stone courtyard. Lange picked his way through a minefield of broken flowerpots, careful to make no sound, and started trying the latches on each of the six sets of French doors. The fifth was unlocked. Silly Katrine, thought Lange. He would teach her a lesson she wouldn't soon forget.

  He let himself inside and padded across the shadowed sitting room to the staircase, then climbed up to Katrine's room. He peered inside. The curtains were drawn. Lange could see Katrine in the half-light, her hair strewn across the pillow, her bare shoulders poking from the top of a white duvet. She had the olive skin of a southerner and the blue eyes and blond hair of a Norman girl. The red highlights were a gift from a Breton grandmother, as was her explosive temper.

  Lange eased forward, hand reaching for the spot beneath the blanket where her foot appeared to be. Just as he was about to seize her ankle, Katrine sat bolt-upright in bed, eyes wide, hands wrapped around a Browning nine-millimeter pistol. She squeezed off two quick shots, just as Lange had taught her. In the confines of the bedroom, the explosions sounded like cannon fire. Lange fell to the floor. The rounds sailed overhead, shattering the mirror in Katrine's stunning two-hundred-year-old armoire.

  "Don't shoot, Katrine," Lange said, laughing helplessly. "It's me."

  "Stand up! Let me see you!"

  Lange slowly got to his feet, hands in plain sight. Katrine switched on the bedside lamp and gave him a long, fiery look. Then she drew back her arm and threw the gun at his head. Lange ducked and the gun fell harmlessly onto the pile of glass shards.

  "You fucking bastard! You're lucky I didn't blow your head off."

  "I wouldn't have been the first."

  "I loved that mirror!"

  "It was old."

  "It was an antique, you asshole!"

  "I'll buy you a new one."

  "I don't want a new one. I want that one!"

  "So we'll get it fixed."

  "And how will I explain the bullet holes?"

  Lange put his hand on his chin and made a show of thought. "Actually, that might be a problem."

  "Of course it's a problem. Asshole!" She pulled the duvet over her breasts, as if aware of her nudity for the first time, and her anger at him began to soften.

  "What are you doing here, anyway?"

  "I was in the neighborhood."

  She gazed at his face for a moment. "You've killed again. I can see it in your eyes."

  Lange picked up the Browning, set the safety, and dropped the Sun on the end of the bed. "I was working nearby," he said. "I need a day or two of rest."

  What makes you think you can drop in here whenever you Please? I might have had another man here."

  You might have, but the odds were in my favor. You see, I

  am aware that, with few exceptions, most men bore you to tears---intellectually and in that grand bed of yours. I am also aware that any man you bring here isn't likely to last long. Therefore, I felt it was well worth the gamble."

  Katrine was trying desperately not to smile. "Why should I let you stay here?"

  "Because I'll cook for you."

  "Well, in that case, we should work up an appetite. Come to bed. It's too early to get up."

  KATRINE Boussard was quite possibly the most dangerous woman in France. After earning degrees in literature and philosophy from the Sorbonne, she had joined the French left-wing extremist group Action Directe. While the political aims of the group may have fluctuated wildly, its tactics remained consistent. Throughout the eighties, it carried out a blood-soaked rampage of assassinations, kidnappings, and bombings that left scores dead and a nation terrorized. Thanks to the instruction she received from Eric Lange, Katrine Boussard was one of the group's most accomplished killers. Lange had worked with her on two occasions: the 1985 assassination of a senior official in the French Ministry of Defense, and the 1986 assassination of a French auto executive. In each case, it was Katrine Boussard who applied the coup de grace to the victims.

  Lange usually worked alone, but in the case of Katrine, he made an exception. She was a skilled operative, cold and pitiless in the field, and highly disciplined. She and Lange suffered from a similar affliction. Operational stress increased their desire for sex, and they had used each other's bodies to great effect. They were not lovers--they had both seen too much to believe in something as pedestrian as love. They were more like skilled craftsmen in pursuit of perfection.

  Katrine had been blessed with a body that provided her inordinate pleasure in any number of places. As always, she responded readily to Lange's touch. Only when she was completely satiated did she turn her considerable skills upon Lange. She was a torturous lover, so in tune with Lange's body that each time he was about to lose control, she released him and left him to suffer without absolution. When he could stand no more, Lange took matters into his own hands, grasping Katrine by the hips and thrusting himself inside her from behind. It was closer to conquest than he would have preferred, but it was exactly how Katrine had planned it. As Lange reached his climax, his head rolled back and he shouted like a madman at the ceiling. Katrine was looking over her shoulder at him, watching him with a look of deep satisfaction, for she had beaten him once again.

  When it was over, she lay with her head on his chest and her hair strewn across his stomach. Lange looked out the French doors at the trees on the edge of the forest. A storm had moved in from the channel, and the trees were bent by the wind. Lange toyed with Katrine's hair, but she did not stir. Because they had killed together, Lange could make love to her without inhibition and without the latent fear that he might reveal something of himself. He did not love Katrine, but he was fond of her. In fact, she was the only woman he truly cared for at all.

  I miss it so," she murmured.

  "What's that, Katrine?"

  The fight." She turned her face to him. "Now I sit here in Val-niont, living on the trust fund of a father I despise, and wait to grow 'd. I don't want to grow old. I want to fight."

  "We were foolish children. Now we're wiser."

  "And you kill for anyone, as long as the price is right, of course."

  Lange put a finger on her lips. "I never had the benefit of a trust fund, Katrine."

  "Is that why you're a professional assassin?"

  "I have certain skills--skills that the marketplace demands."

  "You sound like such a proper capitalist."

  "Haven't you heard? The capitalists won. The forces of good have been crushed beneath the heel of profit and greed. Now you can eat at McDonald's and visit Euro Disney whenever you please. You've earned your quiet life and your beautiful villa. Sit back and enjoy the satisfaction of a noble defeat."

  "You're such a hypocrite," she said.

  "I prefer to think of myself as a realist."

  "Who are you killing for?"

  Men we once despised, he thought. Then he said: "You know the rules, Katrine. Close your eyes."

  When Katrine was asleep, Lange slipped from the bed, dressed quietly, and went outside. He opened the tr
unk of the Peugeot and removed Peter Malone's laptop computer, then tucked it beneath his coat and trotted back into the villa through the rain. Inside, he made a fire of apple wood and settled himself on the comfortable couch in Katrine's sitting room. He lifted the computer's cover, switched on the power, and waited for it to boot up. Under his agreement with Carlo Casagrande, Lange was obliged to deliver the computer and the other things he had taken from Malone's office to a safe-deposit box in Zurich. While the computer was still in his possession, he had no qualms about taking a look for himself.

  He opened Malone's documents folder and inspected the dates and times of the latest entries. In the final hour of his life, the reporter had created two new documents, one entitled Israeli Assassin, the second labeled Benjamin Stern Murder. Lange felt a lightness in his fingertips. Outside, the wind of the Channel storm sounded like a passing bullet train.

  He opened the first file. It was a remarkable document. Shortly before Lange had entered Malone's flat, the investigative journalist had interviewed a man who claimed to be an Israeli assassin. Lange read the file with a certain professional admiration. The man had had quite a colorful and productive career: Black September, a couple of Libyans, an Iraqi nuclear scientist. Abu Jihad. ..

  Lange stopped reading and looked out the French doors at the trees twisting in the storm. Abu Jihad? Had the killer of Abu Jihad truly been in Malone's apartment a few hours before Lange? If it was true, what on earth was he doing there? Lange was not a man who put much stock in coincidence. The answer, he suspected, could be found in the second document. He opened it and started to read.

  Five minutes later, Lange looked up. It was worse than he had feared. The Israeli agent who had calmly walked into Abu Jihad's villa in Tunis and killed him was now investigating the murder of Professor Benjamin Stern. Lange wondered why the Jewish professor's death would be of interest to Israeli intelligence. The answer seemed simple: The professor must have been an agent of some sort.

  He was furious with Carlo Casagrande. If Casagrande had told him that Benjamin Stern was connected to Israeli intelligence, he might very well have refused the contract. The Israelis unnerved him. They played the game differently than the Western Europeans and the Americans. They came from a tough neighborhood, and the shadow of the Holocaust hung over their every decision. It led them to deal with their adversaries in a ruthless and pitiless fashion. They had pursued Lange once before, after a kidnapping and ransom operation he had carried out on behalf of Abu Jihad. He had managed to slip through their fingers by taking the rather draconian step of killing all his accomplices.

  Lange wondered whether Carlo Casagrande was aware of the Israeli's involvement--and if he was, why he hadn't hired Lange to deal with it. Perhaps Casagrande didn't know how to find the Israeli. Thanks to the documents on Peter Malone's computer, Lange did know how to find him, and he had no intention of waiting for orders from Casagrande to act. He had a slight advantage, a brief window of opportunity, but he had to move swiftly or the window would close.

  He copied the two files onto a disk, then erased them from the hard drive. Katrine, wrapped in the duvet from her bed, came into the room and sat down at the other end of the couch. Lange closed the computer.

  "You promised to cook for me," she said. "I'm famished."

  "I have to go to Paris."

  "Now?"

  Lange nodded.

  "Can't it wait until morning?"

  He shook his head.

  "What's so important in Paris?"

  Lange looked out the window. "I need to find a man."

  Rashid Husseini did not look much like a professional terrorist. He had a round fleshy face and large brown eyes heavy with fatigue. His wrinkled tweed jacket and turtleneck sweater gave him the appearance of a doctoral student at work on a dissertation he could not quite finish. It wasn't far from the truth. Husseini lived in France on a student visa, though he rarely found time to attend his courses at the Sorbonne. He taught English at a language center in a dreary Muslim suburb north of Paris, did the odd bit of translation work, and occasionally wrote incendiary commentary for various left-wing French journals. Eric Lange was aware of the true source of Husseini's income. He worked for a branch of the Palestinian Authority few people knew about. Rashid Husseini-- student, translator, journalist--was chief of European operations for the PLO's foreign intelligence service. Husseini was the reason Eric Lange had come to Paris.

  Lange telephoned the Palestinian at his apartment on the rue de Tournon. An hour later, they met in a deserted brasserie in the Luxembourg Quarter. Husseini, a secular Palestinian nationalist of the old school, drank red wine. Alcohol made him talkative. He lectured Lange on the suffering of the Palestinian people. It was virtually identical to the diatribe he had inflicted on Lange in Tunis twenty years ago, when he and Abu Jihad were trying to seduce Lange into working for the Palestinian cause. The land and the olive trees, the injustice and the humiliation. "The Jews are the world's new Nazis," Husseini opined. "In the West Bank and Gaza, they operate like the Gestapo and the SS. The Israeli prime minister? He's a war criminal who deserves the justice of Nuremberg." Lange bided his time, stirring his coffee with a tiny silver spoon and nodding sagely at appropriate moments. He couldn't help but feel sorry for Husseini. The war had passed him by. Once it had been waged by men like Rashid Husseini, intellectuals who read Camus in French and screwed stupid German girls on the beaches of St. Tropez.

  Now the old fighters had grown fat on handouts from the Europeans and Americans while children, the precious fruit of Palestine were blowing themselves up in the cafes and markets of Israel.

  Finally, Husseini threw his hands up in a helpless gesture, like an old man who knows he has become a bore. "Forgive me, Eric, but my passion always gets the better of me. I know you didn't come here tonight to talk about the suffering of my people. What is it? Are you looking for work?"

  Lange leaned forward over the table. "I was wondering whether you might be interested in helping me find the man who killed our friend in Tunis."

  Husseini's tired eyes came suddenly to life. "Abu Jihad? I was there that night. I was the first one to enter the study after that Israeli monster had done his evil work. I can still hear the screaming of Abu Jihad's wife and children. If I had the opportunity, I'd kill him myself."

  "What do you know about him?"

  "His real name is Allon--Gabriel Allon--but he's used dozens of aliases. He's an art restorer. Used his job as cover for his killings in Europe. An old comrade of mine named Tariq al-Hourani put a bomb beneath Allon's car in Vienna about twelve years back and blew up his wife and son. The boy was killed. We were never sure what happened to the wife. Allon took his revenge against Tariq a couple of years ago in Manhattan."

  "I remember," Lange said. "That affair with Arafat."

  Husseini nodded. "You know where he is?"

  "No, but I think I know where he's going."

  "Where?"

  Lange told him.

  "Rome} Rome is a big city, my friend. You're going to have to give me more than that."

  "He's investigating the murder of an old friend. He's going to Rome to find an Italian detective named Alessio Rossi. Follow Rossi and the Israeli will fall into your lap."

  Husseini jotted the name in a small, leather-bound notebook and looked up. "Carabinieri? Polizia di Stato?"

  "The latter," said Lange, and Husseini wrote PS in the book.

  The Palestinian sipped his wine and studied Lange a long moment without speaking. Lange knew the questions running through Husseini's mind. How did Eric Lange know where the Israeli assassin was going? And why did he want him dead? Lange decided to answer the questions before Husseini could ask them.

  "He's after me. It's a personal matter. I want him dead, and so do you. In that respect, we have common interests. If we work together, the matter can be resolved in a way that suits us both."

  A smile spread over Husseini's face. "You were always a very cool customer, weren't yo
u, Eric? Never one to let your emotions get the better of you. I would have enjoyed working with you."

  "Do you have the resources in Rome to mount a surveillance operation against a police officer?"

  "I could follow the Pope himself. If the Israeli is in Rome, we'll find him. But that's all we're going to do. The last thing the movement needs at the moment is to engage in extracurricular activity on European soil." He winked. "Remember, we've renounced terrorism. Besides, the Europeans are the best friends we have."

  "Just find him," said Lange. "Leave the killing to me."

  PART THREE

  A PENSIONE IN ROME

  ROME

  The Abruzzi had fallen on hard times. Located in the San Lorenzo Quarter, between Stazione Termini train station and the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, its mustard-colored facade looked as though it had been raked by machine-gun fire, and the lobby smelled of cat litter. Despite its tumbledown appearance, the little pensione suited Gabriel's needs perfectly. The headquarters of the Polizia di Stato was a short walk away, and unlike most pensiones in Rome each room in this one had a telephone. Most importantly, if Crux Vera was searching for him, the last place they would look was the Abruzzi.

  The night manager was an overweight man with round shoulders and a florid face. Gabriel checked in under the name Heinrich Siedler and spoke to him in labored Italian with a murderous German accent. The manager appraised Gabriel with a pair of melancholy eyes, then jotted down his name and passport number in the hotel registry.

  Gabriel crossed a cluttered common room, where a pair of Croatian teenagers was engaged in a ferocious ping-pong match. He trod silently up the soiled staircase, let himself into his room, and locked the door. He entered the bathroom. The rust stains in the sink looked like dried blood. He washed his face, then removed his shoes and collapsed onto the bed. He tried to close his eyes but could not. Too exhausted to sleep, he lay on his back, listening to the TAP-a-TAP-a-TAP of the table-tennis match downstairs, reliving the last twenty-four hours.