Gabriel Allon 01 - The Kill Artist Read online

  “Let me worry about Lev. You were just doing what I told you to do.”

  “Just following orders—right, boss?”

  Yadin’s cell phone chirped softly. He flipped open the mouthpiece and brought it to his ear. “Yes?”

  A pause.

  “When?”

  Another pause.

  “Where?”

  Another pause, slightly longer.

  “Stay with them. But remember who you’re dealing with. Keep a safe distance.”

  He severed the connection and tossed the phone onto the dash.

  “What is it?” asked Shamron.

  “He’s on the move.”

  “What about Jacqueline?”

  “They’re together.”

  “Where?”

  “Look’s like they’ve gone shopping.”

  “Get me a picture, Zvi. I need to make sure it’s him.”

  There are two Montreals. There is the Montreal of the surface. In winter it becomes a snowbound tundra. Icy Arctic winds roar between the skyscrapers and prowl the winding alleyways of the Old City down by the river. Then there is underground Montreal: a labyrinth of gleaming shops, cafés, bars, markets, and designer clothing stores that snakes its way beneath much of downtown, making it possible to travel for blocks without ever setting foot outside.

  A fitting spot for it to end, thought Jacqueline; two worlds, two layers, two realities. I’m Jacqueline Delacroix, the model. I’m Dominique Bonard, the secretary from Isherwood Fine Arts in London. I’m Sarah Halévy, the Jewish girl from Marseilles, the agent from the Office. She had more layers than Montreal.

  She was walking at his side. His hand was resting lightly on her shoulder, and he was using it to guide her through the crowds of evening shoppers. Jacqueline studied the kaleidoscope of faces streaming past her: pretty French boys and girls, Arabs, Africans, Jews—the ethnic patchwork quilt that is Montreal. She might have forgotten she had ever left Paris except for the blunt edge of their French accents.

  He was checking to see if they were being followed— Jacqueline could see that. Pausing in storefronts, making abrupt changes in direction, inventing excuses to double back. She hoped Shamron’s team was good. If they weren’t, Tariq was going to spot them.

  They walked through the exclusive shops beneath the rue St-Catherine. In one she picked out a full-length down-lined coat. In another a fur hat. In a third two pairs of jeans and several pairs of long underwear. Finally, in a shop specializing in outdoor goods, she picked out a pair of insulated boots. He hung at her side the entire time. When she went into a changing room to try on the jeans he waited just outside the door and smiled pleasantly at the salesgirls. He paid for everything with a credit card in the name of Lucien Daveau.

  When they were finished they walked back toward the hotel. She thought: What are you waiting for? Do it now. Take him down. But they couldn’t do it here—not in underground Montreal. The entire network of shopping malls could be sealed off in a matter of minutes. Gabriel and the rest of the team would be trapped inside. They would be arrested and questioned. The police would establish a link to the Office, and the whole thing would blow up in Shamron’s face.

  He suggested a coffee before dinner, so they stopped in an espresso bar a short distance from the hotel. Jacqueline flipped idly through a tourist guide while he sipped his drink. At one point he removed a prescription bottle from his pocket and swallowed two tablets. Five minutes later—she knew the exact time because she had been playing Shamron’s awareness games throughout the excursion—a man in a gray business suit sat down at the next table. He placed his briefcase on the ground: black leather, soft sides, gold combination latches. The man stayed for a few minutes, then stood and walked away, leaving the bag behind. When Tariq had finished his coffee, he nonchalantly picked up the bag along with Jacqueline’s parcels.

  Two Montreals, two realities, thought Jacqueline as they walked back to the hotel. In one reality they had just gone shopping. In the other Tariq had spent an hour checking to see if he was being followed, and Tariq had taken possession of his gun.

  Gabriel appeared at the concierge desk and asked directions to a good restaurant. The concierge was called Jean—small and neat, with the thin mustache and frozen smile of an accomplished hotelier. Gabriel spoke rapid French. The concierge answered him in the same language. He told Gabriel about an excellent Parisian-style bistro called the Alexandre; then he handed him a folded tourist map and told him the address. Gabriel tucked the map into the inside breast pocket of his jacket, thanked the concierge, and walked away. But instead of heading toward the street entrance, he strode across the lobby, boarded an elevator, and rode it to the fourteenth floor.

  He walked quickly along the corridor. In his right hand was a plastic shopping bag from one of the boutiques in the lobby, and inside the bag was a hotel telephone, wrapped in tissue paper. As he approached the door he removed the map from his breast pocket and unfolded it. Inside was the credit card-style key to Tariq’s room. A Do Not Disturb sign hung from the latch. Gabriel slipped the card key in and out of the door slot, then stepped into the room and quietly closed the door.

  For their command post Yadin had taken a suite at the Sheraton, a few blocks up the boulevard René Lévesque from the Queen Elizabeth. When Gabriel entered the suite, Shamron was there, along with Yadin and a black-haired girl whom Yadin introduced as Deborah. She reminded Gabriel a great deal of Leah, more than he might have wished at that moment. A large-scale street map of Montreal was spread over the bed. Shamron had shoved his glasses onto his forehead and was rubbing the bridge of his nose as he paced. Gabriel poured himself a cup of coffee and held it tightly to warm his hands.

  Yadin said, “They’re back in the room. The glass is picking up their conversation perfectly. Nice work, Gabriel.”

  “What are they saying?”

  “Small talk, mostly. I’ll send a man over to collect the tapes. If there’s anything urgent, the boy in the room will call.”

  “Where’d they go while they were out?”

  “Shopping, mainly, but we think Tariq may have a gun.”

  Gabriel lowered his coffee cup and looked up sharply.

  “Deborah was following them at the time,” Yadin said. “She saw the whole thing.”

  She quickly described the scene at the coffee bar. She spoke English with an American accent.

  “How’s Jacqueline holding up?”

  “She looked good. A little tired but fine.”

  The telephone rang. Yadin picked it up before it could ring a second time. He listened for a moment without speaking, then set down the receiver and looked up at Shamron. “He just booked a table at a restaurant on the rue St-Denis.”

  “What’s the area like?”

  “Cafés, shops, bars, discos, that sort of thing,” said Yadin. “Very busy, very bohemian.”

  “The kind of place we could mount a surveillance operation?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “The kind of place where a kidon might be able to get close to a target?”

  “No problem.”

  Gabriel said, “What about escape routes?”

  “We’d have several,” Yadin said. “You could head north into Outremont or Mont-Royal or go south, straight to the expressway. The rest of the team could melt into the Old City.”

  There was a soft knock outside. Yadin murmured a few words through the closed door, then opened it. A boyish-looking man with fair hair and blue eyes entered the room.

  “I’ve got them on videotape.”

  Shamron said, “Let’s see it.”

  The young man connected the handheld recorder to the television set and played the tape: Jacqueline and the man called Lucien Daveau, moving through the underground mall. It had been shot from a balustrade one level up.

  Shamron smiled. “It’s him. No question.”

  Gabriel said, “How can you tell from that angle?”

  “Look at him. Look at the photographs. It’s the sa
me man.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Yes, I’m certain!” Shamron shut off the television. “What’s wrong with you, Gabriel?”

  “I just don’t want to kill the wrong man.”

  “It’s Tariq. Trust me.” Shamron looked down at the street map of Montreal. “Zvi, show me the rue St-Denis. I want to end this thing tonight and go home.”

  39

  MONTREAL

  They left the hotel room at eight o’clock, rode the elevator down to the lobby. The evening check-in rush had ended. A Japanese couple was having their picture taken by a stranger. Tariq paused, turned around, and theatrically beat his pockets as if he were missing something important. When the photo session ended he resumed walking. A roar rose from the hotel bar: Americans watching a football game on television. They rode an escalator down to underground Montreal, then walked a short distance to a Metro station. He made a point of keeping her to his right. She remembered he was left-handed—obviously he didn’t want her in a position to grab his arm if he had to go for his gun. She tried to remember what kind of gun he preferred. A Makarov; that was it. Tariq liked the Makarov.

  He moved through the station as if he knew the way. They boarded a train and rode east to the rue St-Denis. When they stepped outside on the crowded boulevard, the bitter cold nearly took her breath away.

  It may happen someplace quiet, completely out of sight, or it may happen in the middle of a busy street. . . .

  She kept her eyes down and resisted the impulse to look for him.

  You may see me coming, you may not. If you do see me, you’re not to look at me. You’re not to flinch or call out my name. You’re not to make a sound. . . .

  “Is something wrong?” He spoke without looking at her.

  “I’m just freezing to death.”

  “The restaurant isn’t far.”

  They walked past a row of bars. The ragged sound of a blues band spilled from a cellar tavern. A used-record store. A vegetarian restaurant. A tattoo parlor. A gang of skinhead boys walked past them. One of them said something crude to Jacqueline. Tariq eyed him coldly; the boy shut his mouth and walked away.

  They arrived at the restaurant. It was in an old Victorian house, set slightly back from the street. He guided her up the steps. The maître d’ helped them off with their coats and showed them upstairs to a table by the window. Tariq sat facing out. She could see his eyes scanning the street below. When the waiter appeared, Jacqueline ordered a glass of Bordeaux.

  “Monsieur Daveau?”

  “Just some sparkling water, please,” he said. “I’m afraid I have a bit of a headache tonight.”

  The Italian restaurant was a half block to the north, on the opposite side of the rue St-Denis. To reach it Gabriel and Deborah had to descend a short flight of icy steps. The tables next to the window were all filled, but they were seated close enough so that Gabriel could see Jacqueline’s long black hair in the window across the street. Shamron and Zvi Yadin were outside in a rented van. At the southern end of the block, closer to the edge of the Old City, one of Yadin’s men sat behind the wheel of the getaway car. Another man waited in a car one block to the west on the rue Sanguinet. Tariq was in a box.

  Gabriel ordered wine but drank none of it. He ordered a salad and a bowl of pasta, but the odor of food nauseated him. The girl was well schooled in Office doctrine. She was carrying him. She flirted with the waiter. She talked to a couple at another table. She devoured her food and part of Gabriel’s. She held his hand. Once again Gabriel found uncomfortable comparisons with Leah. Her scent. The flecks of gold in her nearly black eyes. The way her long hands floated when she spoke. Gabriel looked out the window at the pavement of the rue St-Denis, but in his mind he was back in Vienna, sitting with Leah and Dani in the trattoria in the Jewish Quarter.

  He was sweating. He could feel cold water running down the groove at the center of his back, sweat running over his ribs. The Beretta was in the front pocket of his parka, the parka hanging over the back of his chair, so that Gabriel could feel the comforting weight of the gun pressing against his thigh. The girl was talking—“Maybe we should get away,” she was saying. “The Caribbean, St. Bart’s, someplace warm with good food and wine.” Gabriel was listening to her with one corner of his mind—he was nodding at appropriate times and even managed a few words now and again—but for the most part he was visualizing how he would kill Tariq. He took no pleasure from these thoughts. He engaged in them not out of rage or a desire to inflict punishment but in the same way he might plot a tacking maneuver through a particularly difficult stretch of wind and water; or the way he might mend a bare spot in a five-hundred-year-old canvas.

  He visualized what would happen after Tariq was down. Deborah would look after herself. Gabriel was responsible for Jacqueline. He would grab her and move away from the body as quickly as possible. One of Yadin’s men would pick them up on the rue St-Denis in a rental car, a green Ford, and they would head toward the airport. They would switch cars once along the way. At the airport they would go directly to the private aviation terminal and board Benjamin Stone’s jet. If things went according to plan, he would be back in Israel by the following afternoon.

  If they didn’t . . .

  Gabriel pushed the image of failure from his mind.

  Just then his cell phone chirped softly. He brought it to his ear, listened without speaking. He severed the connection, handed the telephone to the girl, stood up, pulled on his coat. The Beretta banged against his hip. He reached into the pocket of the parka, held the gun by its grip.

  He had paid the check ahead of time so he wouldn’t cause a scene when the time came to leave. The girl led the way through the restaurant. Gabriel was burning. Outside, he slipped and nearly fell climbing the stairs. The girl caught his arm and steadied him. When they reached the sidewalk there was no sign of Tariq and Jacqueline. Gabriel turned and faced the girl. He kissed her on the cheek, then brought his mouth close to her ear. “Tell me when you see them.”

  He buried his face against the side of the girl’s neck. Her hair covered his face. She smelled shockingly of Leah. He held her with his left hand. His right was still in his coat pocket, wrapped around the grip of the Beretta.

  He rehearsed it one last time. It played out in his head like an Academy lecture. Turn around, walk directly toward him. Don’t hesitate or loiter, just walk. Get close, draw the gun with your right hand, start shooting. Don’t think about the bystanders, think only of the target. Become the terrorist. Cease being the terrorist only when he is dead. The spare clip is in your left pocket if you need it. Don’t get caught. You are a prince. You are more valuable than anyone else. Do anything to avoid capture. If a policeman challenges you, kill the policeman. Under no circumstances are you to allow yourself to be arrested.

  “There they are.”

  She gave him a slight push to separate their bodies. Gabriel turned and started across the street, taking his eyes off Tariq just long enough to make certain he wasn’t walking into the path of a car. His hand was making the gun wet. He could hear nothing except his own breathing and the hiss of blood rushing through his inner ears. Jacqueline looked up. Their eyes met for a fraction of a second; then she abruptly looked away. Tariq took her by the elbow.

  As Gabriel pulled the Beretta from his pocket, a car careened around the corner and accelerated toward him. He had no choice but to quickly step out of the way. Then the car skidded to a halt, with Gabriel on one side and Tariq and Jacqueline on the other.

  The rear door facing Tariq flew open. He pulled Jacqueline forward and forced her into the car. Her handbag fell from her shoulder and tumbled into the street. Tariq smiled wolfishly at Gabriel and climbed into the backseat next to Jacqueline.

  The car sped away. Gabriel crossed the street and picked up Jacqueline’s purse. Then he went back to the restaurant and collected the girl. Together they walked up the rue St-Denis. Gabriel opened Jacqueline’s purse and thumbed through the contents. Inside
was her wallet, her passport, some makeup, and the gold lighter Shamron had given her at the gallery.

  “You should have taken the shot, Gabriel!”

  “I didn’t have a shot!”

  “You had a shot over the roof of that car!”

  “Bullshit!”

  “You had a shot, but you hesitated!”

  “I hesitated because if I had missed that shot over the roof of the car, the bullet would have ended up in the restaurant across the street, and you might have a dead bystander on your hands.”

  “You never used to consider the possibility of missing.”

  The van accelerated away from the curb. Gabriel was seated on the floor of the rear cargo bay, the girl opposite him, knees beneath her chin, eyeing him intently. Gabriel closed his eyes and tried to think calmly for a moment. It was a complete disaster. Jacqueline was gone. She had no passport, no identification, and, more important, no tracking beacon. They’d had one major advantage over Tariq: the ability to know where she was all the time. Now that advantage had vanished.

  He pictured the sequence of events: Tariq and Jacqueline leaving the restaurant; the car appearing out of nowhere; Tariq pushing Jacqueline into the backseat; Tariq’s wolfish smile.

  Gabriel closed his eyes and saw the ghostly image of Tariq beckoning him forward with a Van Dyck hand. He knew all along, thought Gabriel. He knew it was me coming for him on the rue St-Denis. He led me there.

  Shamron was talking again. “Your first responsibility was to Jacqueline. Not to someone in a bistro behind her. You should have taken the shot, regardless of the consequences!”

  “Even if I’d managed to hit him, Jacqueline still would be gone. She was in the car, the engine was running. They were going to take her, and there was nothing I could have done to stop it.”

  “You should have fired at the car. We might have been able to trap them on that street.”

  “Is that what you wanted? A gunfight in the middle of Montreal? A shoot-out? You would have had another Lillehammer on your hands. Another Amman. Another disaster for the Office.”