Gabriel Allon 01 - Kill Artist Page 33

  She thought of the day Gabriel had come for her, remembered the bicycle ride she had taken through the hills around Valbonne, the fire in her thighs as she had pushed herself to a new record.

  Do it again!

  She reached the bottom of the stairwell. There was a metal fire door, and it was slowly closing.

  Tariq was right in front of her!

  She ripped open the door and sprinted through it. Ahead of her stretched a corridor about fifty feet long, with another door at the opposite end. Halfway down the corridor was Tariq.

  He was clearly exhausted. His pace was beginning to flag, his strides short and uncoordinated. He turned and looked over his shoulder, his face a mask of pain from the run down the stairs. Jacqueline raised the gun and fired two shots in quick succession. The first appeared to sail harmlessly over his head, but the second struck him high in the left shoulder, knocking him from his feet. As he landed on the ground, his gun fell from his grasp and slid along the corridor until it rattled against the door at the other end. Jacqueline moved forward and fired again, and again, and again, until the gun contained no more bullets and she was quite certain Tariq al-Hourani was dead.

  Then the door at the end of the corridor opened. She leveled the gun at the man coming through, but it was only Ari Shamron. He stepped forward, loosened her grip on the gun, and slipped it into his coat pocket.

  “Where’s Gabriel?”

  “Upstairs.”

  “Is it bad?”

  “I think so.”

  “Take me to him.”

  Jacqueline looked at the body of Tariq. “What about him?”

  “Let him lie there,” said Shamron. “Let the dogs lap up his blood. Take me to Gabriel. I want to see Gabriel.”

  FORTY-SIX

  Jerusalem: March

  Gabriel awakened. He looked at the luminous face of his watch, closed his eyes: five-fifteen. He lay there trying to calculate how long he had slept. Trying to remember when he had lifted himself from the couch and dragged himself into bed—how long after that had it taken to slip into unconsciousness? Had he really slept? His mind had been so alive with dreams it felt as though he hadn’t.

  He lay very still, waiting to see if sleep would take him again, but it was no good. Then came the sounds: the cry of a muezzin, drifting over the Hinnom Valley from Silwan. A church bell tolling in the Armenian Quarter. The faithful had awakened. The faithless and the damaged had little choice but to join them.

  He probed his chest with his fingertips, testing for pain. Not as bad as yesterday. Each day was a little better. He rolled gingerly out of bed, walked into the kitchen, brewed coffee, toasted some bread. He was a prisoner, and like any prisoner he took comfort in the ritual of routine.

  His cell was not a cell at all, but a pleasant safe flat overlooking Zion Gate: cool tile floors, white throw rugs, white furniture. It reminded Gabriel of a hospital, which in many respects it was. He pulled on a sweater, a gray cotton pullover with a stretched neck, and carried his breakfast through the French doors to the small table on the balcony.

  As he waited for daybreak he sifted through the individual scents that combine to create the unique fragrance of Jerusalem: sage and jasmine, honey and coffee, leather and tobacco, cypress and eucalyptus. Then dawn came. In the absence of his restoration work, Jerusalem at sunrise had become Gabriel’s art. The last stars melted, the sun peeked over the backbone of mountain separating Jerusalem from the desert of the West Bank. The first light seeped down the chalk-colored slope of the Mount of Olives, then ignited a golden fire on the Dome of the Rock. Then the rays fell upon the Church of the Dormition, turning the east-facing surfaces of the church to scarlet and leaving the rest deep in shadow.

  Gabriel finished his breakfast, carried the dishes into the kitchen, washed them fastidiously in the sink, placed them on the basin to dry. What now? Some mornings he stayed indoors and read. Lately he had taken to walking, a little farther on each occasion. Yesterday he’d walked all the way up the slope of Mount Scopus. He found it helped him to think, to sort through the wreckage of the case.

  He showered, dressed, and walked downstairs. As he stepped out of the apartment building and entered the street, he heard a series of sounds: a hoarse stage whisper, a car door closing, a motor turning over. Shamron’s watchers. Gabriel ignored them, zipped his coat against the morning chill, started walking.

  He moved along the Khativat Yerushalayim, entered the Old City through the Jaffa Gate. He wandered through the hectic markets of El Bazaar: piles of chickpeas and lentils, stacks of flatbread, sacks overflowing with aromatic spices and roasted coffee beans, boys hawking silver trinkets and coffee-pots. An Arab boy pressed an olive wood statue of Jesus into Gabriel’s hand and named an exorbitant price. He had Tariq’s sharp brown eyes. Gabriel gave the statue back to the boy and in flawless Arabic told him it was too much.

  Once free of the noisy market, he meandered through the quiet, twisting alleyways, making his way gradually eastward, toward the Temple Mount. The air warmed slowly. It was nearly spring. Overhead was a sky of cloudless azure, but the sun was still too low to penetrate the labyrinth of the Old City. Gabriel floated among the shadows, a skeptic among the believers in this place where devotion and hatred collided. He supposed like everyone else he was looking for answers. Different answers, but answers nonetheless.

  He wandered for a long time, thinking. He followed the dark, cool passageways wherever they led him. Sometimes he would find himself at a locked gate or an impenetrable wall of Herodian stone. Sometimes he would come upon a courtyard bathed in warm sunlight. For an instant things would seem clear to him. Then he would embark down another twisting passage, the shadows would close in, and he would realize he was still no closer to the truth.

  He came to an alley leading to the Via Dolorosa. A few feet ahead of him a shaft of light fell upon the stones of the path. He watched as two men, a Hasid in a black shtreimel and an Arab in a flowing white kaffiyeh, approached each other. They passed sightlessly, without a nod or glance, and continued their separate ways. Gabriel walked to the Beit ha-Bad and left the Old City through the Damascus Gate.

  Shamron summoned Gabriel to Tiberias that evening for supper. They ate on the terrace beneath a pair of hissing gas heaters. Gabriel didn’t want to be there, but he played the role of gracious guest—listened to the old man’s stories, told a few of his own.

  “Lev gave me his resignation today. He said he can no longer serve in an organization in which the director of Operations is kept in the dark about a major operation.”

  “He has a point. Did you accept it?”

  “I had no choice.” Shamron smiled. “Poor little Lev’s position had become untenable. We had crushed the serpent. We had beheaded Tariq’s organization and rounded up his foot soldiers. Yet Lev was completely out of the loop. I explained my reasons for running the operation the way I did. I told him the prime minister needed ironclad deniability and, unfortunately, that required deceiving my own deputy. Lev wasn’t mollified.”

  “And the rest of your problem children?”

  “They’ll be gone soon.” Shamron set down his fork and looked up at Gabriel. “There’ll be several vacancies in the executive suite at King Saul Boulevard. Can I tempt you back? How does chief of Operations sound?”

  “Not interested. Besides, I was never much of a headquarters man.”

  “I didn’t think so, but I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t try.”

  “What about the Americans? Have you managed to get back into their good graces?”

  “Slowly, but surely. They seem to have accepted our version of the story: That we’d run an agent into Tariq’s organization and that the agent had been exposed. That we had no choice but to take appropriate steps to safeguard the agent’s life. They’re still furious that we didn’t bring them into the picture earlier.”

  “That’s quite understandable, considering the way it ended. What did you tell them?”

  “I told them we h
ad no idea Tariq was in New York until Jacqueline freed herself and alerted us.”

  “And they believed this?”

  “Even I believe it now.”

  “My name ever come up?”

  “From time to time. Adrian Carter would like another go at you.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to let him talk to you again.”

  Before Gabriel had been allowed to leave the United States, he was forced to endure eight hours of questioning: CIA, FBI, New York City police. Shamron had been at his side, like a good defense attorney at a deposition—objecting, stonewalling, impeding every step of the way. In the end it disintegrated into a shouting match. A full account of the operation against Tariq, based on anonymous “Western and Middle Eastern intelligence sources,” appeared in The New York Times two days later. Gabriel’s name made it into print. So did Jacqueline’s.

  “I’m convinced it was Carter who leaked everything to the Times.” Gabriel detected a hint of admiration in the old man’s voice. He’d used the press to eviscerate an enemy once or twice himself over the years. “I suppose he had a right to be angry with me. I lied to his face about our knowledge of Tariq’s involvement in Paris.”

  “Lev must have talked too.”

  “Of course he did. Carter’s beyond my reach. Little Lev will pay dearly.” Shamron pushed his plate away a few inches, rested his stubby elbows on the table, and covered his mouth with his fist. “At least our reputation as a bold action service has been restored. After all, we did take down Tariq in the middle of Manhattan and save Arafat’s life.”

  “No thanks to me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Tariq nearly killed me. And he could have killed Arafat if he hadn’t gotten cold feet at the last minute. Why did he let him live?”

  “Arafat is being very tight-lipped about what transpired in that room. Obviously, he said something that made Tariq change his mind.”

  “Any sign of Yusef?”

  Shamron shook his head. “We’ll keep looking for him, of course, but I doubt we’ll ever find him again. He’s probably deep in the mountains of Afghanistan by now.”

  “And Benjamin Stone?”

  “Relaxing in the Caribbean aboard his yacht.” Shamron abruptly changed course. “I stopped in on Jacqueline today.”

  “How is she?”

  “Why don’t you ask her yourself? She wants to see you.”

  “I have to get back to Jerusalem.”

  “Why, Gabriel? So you can waste more time wandering the Old City with the crazies? Go see the girl. Spend some time with her. Who knows? You might actually enjoy yourself.”

  “When do I get to leave?”

  “In my professional opinion it will never be safe for you to leave Israel.”

  “I want to go home.”

  “This is your home, Gabriel!”

  But Gabriel just shook his head slowly.

  “What have I done to you, Gabriel? Why do you hate your people and your country so?”

  “I don’t hate anyone. I just have no peace here.”

  “So you want to run back to Europe? Back to your paintings? Do me a favor. Get out of Jerusalem for a few days. Take a car and travel this country of yours. Get to know her again. You might like what you see.”

  “I’m not up to it. I’d rather stay in Jerusalem until you set me free.”

  “Damn you, Gabriel!” Shamron slammed his fist onto the table, rattling dishes. “You’ve spent the last years of your life fixing everything and everyone but yourself. You restore paintings and old sailboats. You restored the Office. You restored Jacqueline and Julian Isherwood. You even managed to restore Tariq in a strange way—you made certain we buried him in the Upper Galilee. But now it’s time to restore yourself. Get out of that flat. Live life, before you wake up one day and discover you’re an old man. Like me.”

  “What about your watchers?”

  “I put them there for your own good.”

  “Get rid of them.”

  Shamron stuck out his jaw. “Fine, you’re on your own.”

  As Gabriel rode back to Jerusalem that night, he thought how well things had worked out for the old man. Lev and the others were gone, Tariq was dead, and the reputation of the Office had been restored. Not bad for a few weeks’ work, Ari. Not bad at all.

  Gabriel went south first, down through the barren escarpments and craters of the Negev to Eilat and the Red Sea. He spent a day sunning himself on the beach but soon grew restless and set out toward the north, taking the fast road up the western Negev to Beersheba, then the black ribbon of highway through the Wilderness of Judea and the West Bank.

  Something made him scale the punishing Snake Path up the eastern face of Masada and roam the ruins of the ancient fortress. He avoided the tourist kitsch of the Dead Sea, spent an afternoon wandering the Arab markets of Hebron and Jenin. He wished he could have seen Shamron’s face, watching him as he haggled with the merchants in their white kaffiyehs under the steady gaze of dark-eyed veterans of the intifada.

  He drove through the Jezreel Valley and paused beyond the gates of the farming settlement, just outside Afula on the road to Nazareth, where he had lived as a boy. He considered going in. To do what? To see what? His parents were long dead, and if by some miracle he actually came across someone he knew, he could only lie.

  He kept driving, kept moving north. Wildflowers burned on the hillsides as he headed into the Galilee. He drove around the shores of the lake. Then up to the ancient hill city of Safed. Then into the Golan. He parked beside the road near a Druse shepherd tending his flock, watched the sunset over the Finger of Galilee. For the first time in many years he felt something like contentment. Something like peace.

  He got back into the car, drove down the Golan to a kibbutz outside Qiryat Shemona. It was a Friday night. He went to the dining hall for Shabbat meal, sat with a group of adults from the kibbutz: farmworkers with sunburned faces and callused hands. They ignored him for a time. Then one of them, an older man, asked his name and where he was from. He told them he was Gabriel. That he was from the Jezreel Valley but had been away for a long time.

  In the morning he crossed the fertile flatlands of the coastal plain and drove south along the Mediterranean—through Akko, Haifa, Caesarea, and Netanya—until finally he found himself on the beach at Herzliya.

  She was leaning against the balustrade, arms folded, looking out to sea at the setting sun, wind pushing strands of hair across her face. She wore a loose-fitting white blouse and the sunglasses of a woman in hiding.

  Gabriel waited for her to notice him. Eventually she would. She had been trained by Ari Shamron, and no pupil of the great Shamron would ever fail to take notice of a man standing below her terrace. When she finally saw him a smile flared, then faded. She lifted her hand, the reluctant wave of someone who had been burned by the secret fire. Gabriel lowered his head and started walking.

  They drank icy white wine on her terrace and made small talk, avoiding the operation or Shamron or Gabriel’s wounds. Gabriel told her about his journey. Jacqueline said she would have liked to come. Then she apologized for saying such a thing—she had no right.

  “So why did you come here after all these weeks, Gabriel? You never do anything without a reason.”

  He wanted to hear it one more time: Tariq’s version of the story. The way he had told it to her that night during the drive from the border to New York. He looked out to sea as she spoke, watching the wind tossing the sand about, the moonlight on the waves, but he was listening fiercely. When she was done, he still couldn’t put the final pieces into place. It was like an unfinished painting or a series of musical notes with no resolution. She invited him to stay for dinner. He lied and said he had pressing matters in Jerusalem.

  “Ari tells me you want to leave. What are your plans?”

  “I have a man named Vecellio waiting for me in England.”

  “Are you sure it’s safe to go back?
”

  “I’ll be fine. What about you?”

  “My story has been splashed across newspapers and television screens around the world. I’ll never be able to return to my old life. I have no choice but to stay here.”

  “I’m sorry I got you mixed up in this business, Jacqueline. I hope you can forgive me.”

  “Forgive you? No, Gabriel—quite the opposite, actually. I thank you. I got exactly what I wanted.” A second’s hesitation. “Well, almost everything.”

  She walked him down to the beach. He kissed her softly on the mouth, touched her hair. Then he turned and walked to his car. He paused once to look over his shoulder at her, but she had already gone.

  He was hungry, so instead of going straight to Jerusalem he stopped in Tel Aviv for dinner. He parked in Balfour Street, walked to Sheinkin, wandered past trendy cafés and avant-garde shops, thinking of the rue St-Denis in Montreal. He had the sense he was being followed. Nothing specific, just the flash of a familiar face too many times—a color, a hat.

  He purchased a newspaper from a kiosk, sat down in a restaurant with small round tables spilling onto the side-walk. It was a warm evening, sidewalks filled with people. He ordered falafel and beer, then opened the newspaper and read the lead article on the front page: “Benjamin Stone, the maverick publisher and entrepreneur, is missing and feared drowned off St. Martin in the Caribbean. Authorities believe Stone fell overboard from his luxury yacht sometime during the night.”

  Gabriel closed the newspaper.

  “How’s Benjamin Stone?”

  “Relaxing in the Caribbean aboard his yacht.”

  When the food arrived he folded his newspaper and dropped it onto the extra chair. He looked up and spotted a man outside on the sidewalk: slender, good looking, black curly hair, blond Israeli girl on his arm. Gabriel laid down his fork, stared directly at him, throwing all discretion and tradecraft to the wind.