The Kill Artist Page 5

  Kemel Azouri gathered up his things and slipped out. He was a tall man with a lean, aristocratic build, narrow features, and pale green eyes. He stood out at the Schloss empire, not only because of his appearance but because of his remarkable story. Born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, he had studied medicine briefly at Beirut University before coming to Europe in search of work. He was hired by Schloss and given a low-level job in the sales department. He proved so successful that within five years he was placed in charge of the company’s Middle East sales division. The job kept him on the road constantly, leaving him no time for a family, or a personal life of any kind. But Kemel was not troubled by the fact that he had never found the time to marry and have children. He had been rewarded in many other ways. A year ago he had been promoted to chief of the company’s sales division. Martin Schloss had made him a millionaire. He lived in a grand house overlooking the Limmat River and rode around Zürich in a chauffeured company Mercedes.

  He entered his office: a large room, high ceiling, Persian rugs, pale Danish furniture, a magnificent view of the Zürichsee. He sat down at his desk and reviewed his notes of the meeting.

  His secretary entered the room. “Good morning, Herr Azouri. I hope your meeting went well.”

  She spoke to him in German, and he answered flawlessly in the same language. “Very well, Margarite. Any messages?”

  “I left them on your desk, Herr Azouri. Your train tickets are there too, along with your hotel information for Prague. You should hurry, though. Your train leaves in half an hour.”

  He flipped through the pile of telephone messages. There was nothing that couldn’t wait. He pulled on an overcoat, placed a fedora on his head, and tied a silk scarf around his throat. Margarite handed him his briefcase and a small overnight bag.

  Kemel said, “I’d like to use the time on the train to catch up on some paperwork.”

  “I won’t bother you unless it’s a crisis. Your driver is waiting downstairs.”

  “Tell him to take the rest of the afternoon off. I’ll walk to Hauptbahnhof. I need the exercise.”

  Snow drifted over the Bahnhofstrasse as Kemel made his way past the glittering shops. He entered a bank and quietly withdrew a large sum of cash from a personal numbered account. Five minutes later he was outside again, money tucked in a hidden compartment of his briefcase.

  He entered the Hauptbahnhof and walked across the main hall, pausing to check his tail. Then he walked to a newsstand and bought a stack of papers for the ride. As he gave money to the clerk, he glanced around the terminal to see if anyone was watching him. Nothing.

  He walked to the platform. The train was nearly finished boarding. Kemel stepped into the carriage and picked his way along the corridor toward his first-class compartment. It was empty. He hung up his coat and sat down as the train pulled out of the station. He reached into his briefcase and got out his newspapers. He started with the European edition of The Wall Street Journal, then the Financial Times, The Times of London, and finally Le Monde.

  Forty-five minutes later the steward brought him coffee. Kemel started working his way through a batch of quarterly sales figures from the South American division—just another successful business executive, too driven to relax even for a moment. Kemel smiled; it was so far from the truth.

  For years he had lived a double life, working for Schloss Pharmaceuticals while at the same time serving as an agent of the PLO. His job and respectable front had provided him an airtight cover, allowing him to travel the Middle East and Europe without raising the suspicion of security and intelligence services. The ultimate wolf in sheep’s clothing, he moved among the most elite and cultured circles of Europe, worked with the Continent’s most powerful business leaders, socialized with the rich and famous. Yet all the while he was working for the PLO—maintaining networks, recruiting agents, planning operations, carrying messages, collecting money from donors across the Middle East. He used the shipping and distribution systems of Schloss to move weaponry and explosives into place for operations. Indeed, it always gave him a rather morbid sense of pleasure to think that packed among life-giving medicines were the instruments of murder and terror.

  Now his situation was even more complicated. When Yasir Arafat agreed to renounce violence and enter into negotiations with the Zionists, Kemel became enraged and secretly joined forces with his old comrade Tariq al-Hourani. Kemel served as the chief of operations and planning for Tariq’s organization. He saw to the finances, ran the communications networks, secured the weaponry and explosives, and handled operational planning—all from his office in Zürich. They formed a rather unique partnership: Tariq, the ruthless terrorist and cold-blooded killer; Kemel, the refined and respectable front man who provided him the tools of terror.

  Kemel closed his sales reports and looked up. Damn! Where is he? Perhaps something had gone wrong.

  Just then the compartment door opened and a man stepped inside: long blond hair, sunglasses, Yankees baseball hat, rock music blaring from his headphones. Kemel thought: Christ! Who is this idiot? Now Tariq will never dare to show.

  He said, “I’m sorry, but you’re in the wrong compartment. These seats are all taken.”

  The man lifted one earpiece of his headphones and said, “I can’t hear you.” He spoke English like an American.

  “These seats are taken,” Kemel repeated impatiently. “Leave, or I’ll call a steward.”

  But the man just sat down and removed his sunglasses. “Peace be with you, my brother,” Tariq said softly in Arabic.

  Kemel smiled in spite of himself. “Tariq, you bastard.”

  “I was worried when Achmed failed to check in after I sent him to Greece,” Kemel said. “Then I heard a body had been found in the villa on Samos, and I knew you two must have spoken.”

  Tariq closed his eyes, tilted his head slightly to one side. “He was sloppy. You should choose your messengers more carefully.”

  “But did you really have to kill him?”

  “You’ll find another—better, I hope.”

  Kemel looked at him carefully for a moment. “How are you feeling, Tariq? You don’t—”

  “Fine,” Tariq said, cutting him off. “How are things proceeding in Amsterdam?”

  “Quite nicely, actually. Leila has arrived. She’s found you a woman and a place to stay.”

  Tariq said, “Tell me about her.”

  “She works in a bar in the red-light district. Lives alone on a houseboat on the Amstel. It’s perfect.”

  “When do I go?”

  “About a week.”

  “I need money.”

  Kemel reached into his briefcase and handed Tariq the envelope of cash. Tariq slipped it into his coat pocket. Then his pale gray eyes settled on Kemel. As always Kemel had the uncomfortable feeling that Tariq was deciding how best to kill him if he needed to.

  “Surely you didn’t drag me all the way here to criticize me for killing Achmed and to ask about my health. What else do you have?”

  “Some interesting news.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “The men from King Saul Boulevard are convinced you were behind the attack in Paris.”

  “How brilliant of them.”

  “Ari Shamron wants you dead, and the prime minister has given him the green light.”

  “Ari Shamron has wanted me dead for years. Why is this so important now?”

  “Because he’s going to give the job to an old friend of yours.”

  “Who?”

  Kemel smiled and leaned forward.

  SEVEN

  St. James’s, London

  The sometimes-solvent firm of Isherwood Fine Arts resided in a crumbling Victorian warehouse in a quiet backwater of St. James’s called Mason’s Yard. It was wedged between the offices of a minor shipping company and a pub that always seemed to be filled with pretty office girls who rode motor scooters. The formal sign in the first-floor window stated that the gallery specialized in the works of the old mas
ters, that the owner, Julian Isherwood, was a member in good standing of the Society of London Art Dealers, and that his collection could be seen by appointment only. Galleries in Venice and New York were also promised, though they had closed a long time ago—Isherwood simply hadn’t the heart, or the spare cash, to update the sign to reflect the shrinking fortunes of his empire.

  Shamron arrived at twelve-thirty. His bomber jacket and khaki trousers had given way to a double-breasted suit, a silk shirt and tie of matching dark blue, and a gray cashmere overcoat. The steel-rimmed goggles had been replaced by fashionable tortoiseshell spectacles. On his wrist was a gold Rolex watch, on the last finger of his right hand a signet ring. The absence of a wedding band bespoke sexual availability. He moved with an easy, cosmopolitan saunter instead of his usual death charge.

  Shamron pressed the cracked buzzer next to the ground-floor entrance. A moment later the sultry voice of Heather, Isherwood’s latest in a series of young and unhelpful personal assistants, came over the intercom.

  “My name is Rudolf Heller,” Shamron said in German-accented English. “I’m here to see Mr. Isherwood.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t, but Julian and I are very old friends.”

  “One moment, please.”

  A moment turned to two, then three. Finally the automatic door lock snapped back. Shamron went inside and mounted a short flight of groaning stairs. There was a large brown stain in the carpet on the landing. Heather was seated in the anteroom behind an empty desk and a silent telephone. Isherwood’s girls all followed a familiar pattern: pretty art school graduates seduced into his service with promises of apprenticeship and adventure. Most quit after a month or two when they became hopelessly bored or when Isherwood couldn’t seem to scrape together the cash to pay them.

  Heather was flipping through a copy of Loot. She smiled and pointed into Isherwood’s office with the end of a chewed pink pencil. Isherwood flashed past the open door, all pinstripe and silk, speaking rapid Italian into a cordless telephone.

  “Go inside if you dare,” said Heather in a lazy Mayfair drawl that secretly set Shamron’s teeth on edge. “He’ll be off in a minute. Can I get you anything to drink?”

  Shamron shook his head and went inside. He sat down and surveyed the room. Bookshelves filled with monographs on artists, cloth-bound ledgers, old catalogs, a pedestal covered in black velvet for showing paintings to prospective buyers. Isherwood was pacing before a window overlooking Mason’s Yard. He paused once to glare at Shamron, then again to coax a groaning fax machine into action. Isherwood was in trouble—Shamron could sense it. But then he was always in trouble.

  Julian Isherwood was very selective about the paintings he bought and even more selective about whom he sold them to. He slipped into a state of melancholia each time he watched one of his paintings walk out the door. As a result he was an art dealer who did not sell a great deal of art—fifteen pictures in a normal year, twenty in a good one. He had made a fortune in the eighties, when anyone with a few feet of gallery space and half a brain had made money, but now that fortune was gone.

  He tossed the telephone onto his chaotic desk. “Whatever it is you want, the answer is no.”

  “How are you, Julian?”

  “Go to hell! Why are you here?”

  “Get rid of the girl for a few minutes.”

  “The answer will still be no, whether the girl’s here or not.”

  “I need Gabriel,” Shamron said quietly.

  “Well, I need him more, and therefore you can’t have him.”

  “Just tell me where he is. I need to talk to him.”

  “Sod off!” Isherwood snapped. “Who the hell do you think you are, barging in here like this and giving me orders? Now, if you’re interested in purchasing a painting, perhaps I can be of some assistance. If it’s not art that brings you here, then Helen will show you the door.”

  “Her name is Heather.”

  “Oh, Christ.” Isherwood sat down heavily into the chair behind his desk. “Helen was last month’s girl. I can’t keep them straight anymore.”

  “Things aren’t going well, Julian?”

  “Things haven’t been going well, but all that’s about to change, which is why I need you to crawl back under your rock and leave me, and Gabriel, in peace.”

  “How about lunch?” Shamron suggested. “You can tell me your problems, and perhaps we can come to some mutually beneficial solution.”

  “You never struck me as someone who was terribly interested in compromise.”

  “Get your coat.”

  Shamron had taken the precaution of booking a quiet corner table at Green’s restaurant in Duke Street. Isherwood ordered the cold boiled Canadian lobster and the most expensive bottle of Sancerre on the wine list. Shamron’s jaw clenched briefly. He was notoriously tightfisted when it came to Office funds, but he needed Isherwood’s help. If that required a pricey lunch at Green’s, Shamron would tickle his expense account.

  In the lexicon of the Office, men like Julian Isherwood were known as the sayanim: the helpers. They were the bankers who tipped Shamron whenever certain Arabs made large transactions or who could be called upon in the dead of night when a katsa was in trouble and needed money. They were the concierges who opened hotel rooms when Shamron wanted a look inside. They were the car rental clerks who provided Shamron’s field agents with clean transport. They were the sympathetic officers in unsympathetic security services. They were the journalists who allowed themselves to be used as conduits for Shamron’s lies. No other intelligence service in the world could claim such a legion of committed acolytes. To Ari Shamron they were the secret fruit of the Diaspora.

  Julian Isherwood was a special member of the sayanim. Shamron had recruited him to service just one very important katsa, which was why Shamron always displayed uncharacteristic patience in the face of Isherwood’s volatile mood swings.

  “Let me tell you why you can’t have Gabriel right now,” Isherwood began. “Last August a very dirty, very damaged painting appeared in a sale room in Hull—sixteenth-century Italian altarpiece, oil on wood panel, Adoration of the Shepherds, artist unknown. That’s the most important part of the story, artist unknown. Do I have your full attention, Herr Heller?”

  Shamron nodded and Isherwood sailed on.

  “I had a hunch about the picture, so I piled a load of books into my car and ran up to Yorkshire to have a look at it. Based on a brief visual inspection of the work, I was satisfied my hunch was correct. So when this same very dirty, very damaged painting, artist unknown, came up for sale at the venerable Christie’s auction house, I was able to pick it up for a song.”

  Isherwood licked his lips and leaned conspiratorially across the table. “I took the painting to Gabriel, and he ran several tests on it for me. X ray, infrared photography, the usual lot. His more careful inspection confirmed my hunch. The very dirty, very damaged work from the sale room in Hull is actually a missing altarpiece from the Church of San Salvatore in Venice, painted by none other than Francesco Vecellio, brother of the great Titian. That’s why I need Gabriel, and that’s why I’m not going to tell you where he is.”

  The sommelier appeared. Shamron picked at a loose thread in the tablecloth while Isherwood engaged in the elaborate ritual of inspection, sniffing, sipping, and pondering. After a dramatic moment of uncertainty, he pronounced the wine suitable. He drank a glass very fast, then poured another.

  When he resumed, his voice had turned wistful, his eyes damp. “Remember the old days, Ari? I used to have a gallery in New Bond Strasse, right next to Richard Green. I can’t afford New Bond Strasse these days. It’s all Gucci and Ralph Lauren, Tiffany and Miki-Bloody-Moto. And you know who’s taken over my old space? The putrid Giles Pittaway! He’s already got two galleries in Bond Street alone, and he’s planning to open two more within the year. Christ, but he’s spreading like the Ebola virus—mutating, getting stronger, killing everything decent in his wa
ke.”

  A chubby art dealer with a pink shirt and a pretty girl on his arm walked past their table. Isherwood paused long enough to say, “Hullo, Oliver,” and blow him a kiss.

  “This Vecellio is a real coup. I need a coup once every couple of years. The coups are what keep me in business. The coups support all the dead stock and all the small sales that earn me next to nothing.” Isherwood paused and took a long drink of wine. “We all need coups now and again, right, Herr Heller? I suspect that even someone in your line of work needs a big success every now and again to make up for all the failures. Cheers.”

  “Cheers,” said Shamron, tipping his glass a fraction of an inch.

  “Giles Pittaway could’ve bought the Vecellio, but he passed. He passed because he and his boys didn’t bother to do their homework. They couldn’t authenticate it. I was the only one who knew what it was, because I was the only one who did my homework. Giles Pittaway wouldn’t know a Vecellio from vermicelli. He sells crap. High-gloss crap. Have you seen his stuff? Total crap! Complete and utter greeting card crap!”

  Shamron, playing the part of Herr Heller, said it had been some time since he had visited the galleries of the infamous Giles Pittaway.

  Isherwood leaned forward across the table, eyes wide, lips damp. “I need this Vecellio cleaned and ready for sale by the spring,” he said, sotto voce. “If it’s not ready, I’ll lose my buyer. Buyers don’t grow on trees these days, especially for a Vecellio altarpiece. I can count the number of potential buyers for a piece like this on the fingers of one hand. If my buyer gets cold feet, I may never find another. And if I can’t find another, my Vecellio becomes just another piece of dead stock. Burned, as we say in the trade. You burn agents, we burn our paintings. A picture gets snatched up, or it turns to dust in some art dealer’s storeroom. And once a painting’s been burned it’s worthless, just like your agents.”