Gabriel Allon 01 - The Kill Artist Read online

  “What do you want?” snapped Derek.

  “I heard noises. I thought there might be a problem.”

  Peel realized this was the first time he had ever heard the stranger speak. His English was perfect, but there was a trace of an accent to it. His diction was like his body: hard, compact, concise, no fat.

  “No problem,” Derek said. “Just a boy who’s someplace he shouldn’t be.”

  “Maybe you should treat him like a boy and not a dog.”

  “And maybe you should mind your own fucking business.”

  Derek released Peel and stared hard at the smaller man. For a moment Peel feared Derek was going to try to hit the stranger. He remembered the man’s taut, hard muscles, the impression that he was a man who knew how to fight. Derek seemed to sense it too, for he simply took Peel by the elbow and led him back toward the cottage. Along the way Peel glanced over his shoulder and caught sight of the stranger still standing in the lane, arms crossed like a silent sentinel. But by the time Peel returned to his room and peered out his window, the stranger was gone. Only the light remained, clean and searing white.

  By the late autumn Peel was frustrated. He had not learned even the most basic facts about the stranger. He still had no name—oh, he had heard a couple of possible names whispered around the village, both vaguely Latin—nor had he discovered the nature of his nocturnal work. He decided a crash operation was in order.

  The following morning, when the stranger climbed into his MG and sped toward the center of the village, Peel hurried along the quay and slipped into the cottage through an open garden window.

  The first thing he noticed was that the stranger was using the drawing room as a bedroom.

  He quickly climbed the stairs. A chill ran over him.

  Most of the walls had been knocked down to create a spacious open room. In the center was a large white table. Mounted on the side was a microscope with a long retractable arm. On another table were clear flasks of chemicals, which Peel reckoned were the source of the strange odor, and two strange visors with powerful magnifying glasses built into them. Atop a tall, adjustable stand was a bank of fluorescent lights, the source of the cottage’s peculiar glow.

  There were other instruments Peel could not identify, but these things were not the source of his alarm. Mounted on a pair of heavy wooden easels were two paintings. One was large, very old-looking, a religious scene of some sort. Parts had flaked away. On the second easel was a painting of an old man, a young woman, and a child. Peel examined the signature in the bottom righthand corner: Rembrandt.

  He turned to leave and found himself face-to-face with the stranger.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m s-s-sorry,” Peel stammered. “I thought you were here.”

  “No you didn’t. You knew I was away, because you were watching me from your bedroom window when I left. In fact, you’ve been watching me since the summer.”

  “I thought you might be a smuggler.”

  “Whatever gave you that idea?”

  “The boat,” Peel lied.

  The stranger smiled briefly. “Now you know the truth.”

  “Not really,” said Peel.

  “I’m an art restorer. Paintings are old objects. Sometimes they need a little fixing up, like a cottage, for example.”

  “Or a boat,” said Peel.

  “Exactly. Some paintings, like these, are very valuable.”

  “More than a sailboat?”

  “Much more. But now that you know what’s in here, we have a problem.”

  “I won’t tell anyone,” Peel pleaded. “Honest.”

  The stranger ran a hand over his short, brittle hair. “I could use a helper,” he said softly. “Someone to keep an eye on the place while I’m away. Would you like a job like that?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going sailing. Would you like to join me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you need to ask your parents?”

  “He’s not my father, and my mum won’t care.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Positive.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “I’m Peel. What’s yours?”

  But the stranger just looked around the room to make certain Peel hadn’t disturbed any of his things.

  2

  PARIS

  The stranger’s restless Cornish quarantine might have gone undisturbed if Emily Parker had not met a man called René at a drunken dinner party, which was thrown by a Jordanian student named Leila Khalifa on a wet night in late October. Like the stranger, Emily Parker was living in self-imposed exile: she had moved to Paris after graduation in the hope that it would help mend a broken heart. She possessed none of his physical attributes. Her gait was loose-limbed and chaotic. Her legs were too long, her hips too wide, her breasts too heavy, so that when she moved, each part of her anatomy seemed in conflict with the rest. Her wardrobe varied little: faded jeans, fashionably ripped at the knees, a quilted jacket that made her look rather like a large throw pillow. And then there was the face—the face of a Polish peasant, her mother had always said: rounded cheeks, a thick mouth, a heavy jaw, dull brown eyes set too closely together. “I’m afraid you have your father’s face,” her mother had said. “Your father’s face and your father’s fragile heart.”

  Emily met Leila in mid-October at the Musée de Montmartre. She was a student at the Sorbonne, a stunningly attractive woman with lustrous black hair and wide brown eyes. She had been raised in Amman, Rome, and London, and spoke a half-dozen languages fluently. She was everything that Emily was not: beautiful, confident, cosmopolitan. Gradually, Emily unburdened all her secrets to Leila: the way her mother had made her feel so terribly ugly; the pain she felt over being abandoned by her fiancé; her deep-rooted fear that no one would ever love her again. Leila promised to fix everything. Leila promised to introduce Emily to a man who would make her forget all about the boy she had foolishly fallen for in college.

  It happened at Leila’s dinner party. She had invited twenty guests to her cramped little flat in Montparnasse. They ate wherever they could find space: on the couch, on the floor, on the bed. All very Parisian bohemian: roast chicken from the corner rotisserie, a heaping salade verte, cheese, and entirely too much inexpensive Bordeaux. There were other students from the Sorbonne: an artist, a young German essayist of note, the son of an Italian count, a pretty Englishman with flowing blond hair called Lord Reggie, and a jazz musician who played the guitar like Al DiMeola. The room sounded like the Tower of Babel. The conversation moved from French to English, then from English to Italian, then from Italian to Spanish. Emily watched Leila moving about the flat, kissing cheeks, lighting cigarettes. She marveled at the ease with which Leila made friends and brought them together.

  “He’s here, you know, Emily—the man you’re going to fall in love with.”

  René. René from the south somewhere, a village Emily had never heard of, somewhere in the hills above Nice. René who had a bit of family money and had never had the time, or the inclination, to work. René who traveled. René who read many books. René who disdained politics—“Politics is an exercise for the feebleminded, Emily. Politics has nothing to do with real life.” René who had a face you might pass in a crowd and never notice, but if you looked carefully was rather good-looking. René whose eyes were lit by some secret source of heat that Emily could not fathom. René who took her to bed the night of Leila’s dinner party and made her feel things she had never thought possible. René who said he wanted to remain in Paris for a few weeks—“Would it be possible for me to crash at your place, Emily? Leila has no room for me. You know Leila. Too many clothes, too many things. Too many men.” René who had made her happy again. René who was eventually going to break the heart he had healed.

  He was already slipping away; she could feel him growing slightly more distant every day. He was spending more time on his own, disappearing for several hours each day, reappearing with n
o warning. When she asked him where he had been, his answers were vague. She feared he was seeing another woman. A skinny French girl, she imagined. A girl who didn’t have to be taught how to make love.

  That afternoon Emily wound her way through the narrow streets of Montmartre to the rue Norvins. She stood beneath the crimson awning of a bistro and peered through the window. René was seated at a table near the door. Funny how he always insisted on sitting near the doorway. There was a man with him: dark hair, a few years younger. When Emily entered the bistro, the man stood and quickly walked out. Emily removed her coat and sat down. René poured wine for her.

  She asked, “Who was that man?”

  “Just someone I used to know.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Jean,” he said. “Would you like—”

  “Your friend left his backpack.”

  “It’s mine,” René said, putting a hand on it.

  “Really? I’ve never seen you carry it before.”

  “Trust me, Emily. It’s mine. Are you hungry?”

  And you’re changing the subject again. She said, “I’m famished, actually. I’ve been walking around in the cold all afternoon.”

  “Have you really? Whatever for?”

  “Just doing some thinking. Nothing serious.”

  He removed the backpack from the chair and placed it on the floor at his feet. “What have you been thinking about?”

  “Really, René—it was nothing important.”

  “You used to tell me all your secrets.”

  “Yes, but you’ve never really told me yours.”

  “Are you still upset about this bag?”

  “I’m not upset about it. Just curious, that’s all.”

  “All right, if you must know, it’s a surprise.”

  “For who?”

  “For you!” He smiled. “I was going to give it to you later.”

  “You bought me a backpack? How very thoughtful, René. How romantic.”

  “The surprise is inside the backpack.”

  “I don’t like surprises.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s been my experience that the surprise itself never quite lives up to the anticipation of the surprise. I’ve been let down too many times. I don’t want to be let down again.”

  “Emily, I’ll never let you down. I love you too much.”

  “Oh, René, I wish you hadn’t said that.”

  “It happens to be the truth. Let’s eat something, shall we? Then we’ll take a walk.”

  Ambassador Zev Eliyahu stood in the grand center hall of the Musée d’Orsay, using every diplomatic skill he possessed to hide the fact that he was bored to tears. Trim, athletic, deeply tanned in spite of the dreary Parisian fall, he crackled with a brash energy. Gatherings like this annoyed him. Eliyahu had nothing against art; he simply didn’t have time for it. He still had the work ethic of a kibbutznik, and between ambassadorial postings he had made millions in investment banking.

  He had been talked into attending the reception tonight for one reason: it would give him an opportunity to have an unofficial moment or two with the French foreign minister. Relations between France and Israel were icy at the moment. The French were angry because a pair of Israeli intelligence officers had been caught trying to recruit an official from the Defense Ministry. The Israelis were angry because the French had recently agreed to sell jet fighters and nuclear reactor technology to one of Israel’s Arab enemies. But when Eliyahu approached the French foreign minister for a word, the minister virtually ignored him, then pointedly engaged the Egyptian ambassador in a lively conversation about the Middle East peace process.

  Eliyahu was angry—angry and bored silly. He was leaving for Israel the following night. Ostensibly, it was for a meeting at the Foreign Ministry, but he also planned to spend a few days in Eilat on the Red Sea. He was looking forward to the trip. He missed Israel, the cacophony of it, the hustle, the scent of pine and dust on the road to Jerusalem, the winter rains over the Galilee.

  A waiter in a white tunic offered him champagne. Eliyahu shook his head. “Bring me some coffee, please.” He looked over the heads of the shimmering crowd for his wife, Hannah, and spotted her standing next to the chargé d’affaires from the embassy, Moshe Savir. Savir was a professional diplomat: supercilious, arrogant, the perfect temperament for the posting in Paris.

  The waiter returned, bearing a silver tray with a single cup of black coffee on it.

  “Never mind,” Eliyahu said, and he sliced his way through the crowd.

  Savir asked, “How did it go with the foreign minister?”

  “He turned his back on me.”

  “Bastard.”

  The ambassador reached out his hand for his wife. “Let’s go. I’ve had enough of this nonsense.”

  “Don’t forget tomorrow morning,” Savir said. “Breakfast with the editorial staff of Le Monde at eight o’clock.”

  “I’d rather have a tooth pulled.”

  “It’s important, Zev.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be my usual charming self.”

  Savir shook his head. “See you then.”

  The Pont Alexandre III was Emily’s favorite spot in Paris. She loved to stand in the center of the graceful span at night and gaze down the Seine toward Notre-Dame, with the gilded Église du Dôme to her right, floating above Les Invalides, and the Grand Palais on her left.

  René took Emily to the bridge after dinner for her surprise. They walked along the parapet, past the ornate lamps and the cherubs and nymphs, until they reached the center of the span. René removed a small rectangular, gift-wrapped box from the backpack and handed it to her.

  “For me?”

  “Of course it’s for you!”

  Emily tore away the wrapping paper like a child and opened the leather case. Inside was a bracelet of pearls, diamonds, and emeralds. It must have cost him a small fortune. “René, my God! It’s gorgeous!”

  “Let me help you put it on.”

  She put out her arm and pulled up the sleeve of her coat. René slipped the bracelet around her wrist and closed the clasp. Emily held it up in the lamplight. Then she turned around, leaned her back against his chest, and gazed at the river. “I want to die just like this.”

  But René was no longer listening. His face was expressionless, brown eyes fixed on the Musée d’Orsay.

  The waiter with the platter of tandoori chicken had been assigned to watch the ambassador. He removed the cellular phone from the pocket of his tunic and pressed a button that dialed a stored number. Two rings, a man’s voice, the drone of Parisian traffic in the background. “Oui.”

  “He’s leaving.”

  Click.

  Ambassador Eliyahu took Hannah by the hand and led her through the crowd, pausing occasionally to bid good night to one of the other guests. At the entrance of the museum, a pair of bodyguards joined them. They looked like mere boys, but Eliyahu took comfort in the fact that they were trained killers who would do anything to protect his life.

  They stepped into the cold night air. The limousine was waiting, engine running. One bodyguard sat in front with the driver; the second joined the ambassador and his wife in back. The car pulled away, turned onto the rue de Bellechasse, then sped along the bank of the Seine.

  Eliyahu leaned back and closed his eyes. “Wake me when we get home, Hannah.”

  “Who was that, René?”

  “No one. Wrong number.”

  Emily closed her eyes again, but a moment later came another sound: two cars colliding on the bridge. A minivan had smashed into the rear end of a Peugeot sedan, the asphalt littered with shattered glass, traffic at a standstill. The drivers jumped out and began screaming at each other in rapid French. Emily could tell they weren’t French—Arabs, North Africans perhaps. René snatched up his backpack and walked into the roadway, picking his way through the motionless cars.

  “René! What are you doing?”

  But he acted as though he h
adn’t heard her. He kept walking, not toward the wrecked cars but toward a long black limousine caught in the traffic jam. Along the way he unzipped the bag and pulled something out of it: a small submachine gun.

  Emily couldn’t believe what she was seeing. René, her lover, the man who had slipped into her life and stolen her heart, walking across the Pont Alexandre III with a machine gun in his hand. Then the pieces began falling into place. The nagging suspicion that René was keeping something from her. The long, unexplained absences. The dark-haired stranger at the bistro that afternoon. Leila?

  The rest of it she saw as slow-moving half images, as though it were taking place beneath murky water. René running across the bridge. René tossing his backpack beneath the limousine. A flash of blinding light, a gust of fiercely hot air. Gunfire, screams. Someone on a motorbike. Black ski mask, two pools of black staring coldly through the eyeholes, damp lips glistening behind the slit for the mouth. A gloved hand nervously revving the throttle. But it was the eyes that captured Emily’s attention. They were the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen.

  Finally, in the distance, she could hear the two-note song of a Paris police siren. She looked away from the motorcyclist and saw René advancing slowly toward her through the carnage. He expelled the spent magazine from his weapon, casually inserted another, pulled the slide.

  Emily backpedaled until she was pressed against the parapet. She turned and looked down at the black river gliding slowly beneath her.

  “You’re a monster!” she screamed in English, because in her panic her French had abandoned her. “You’re a fucking monster! Who the fuck are you?”

  “Don’t try to get away from me,” he said in the same language. “It will only make things worse.”

  Then he raised his gun and fired several shots into her heart. The force of the bullets drove her over the edge of the parapet. She felt herself falling toward the river. Her hands reached out, and she saw the bracelet on her wrist. The bracelet René, her lover, had given her just moments before. Such a beautiful bracelet. Such a terrible shame.