The English Girl: A Novel (Gabriel Allon) Read online

  “I’d offer you lunch,” Keller said in his clipped English accent, “but I hear you’ve already dined at Chez Orsati.”

  When Keller extended his hand toward Gabriel, the muscles of his arm coiled and bunched beneath his white pullover. Gabriel hesitated for an instant before finally grasping it. Everything about Christopher Keller, from his hatchet-like hands to his powerful spring-loaded legs, seemed to have been expressly designed for the purpose of killing.

  “How much did the don tell you?” asked Gabriel.

  “Enough to know that you have no business approaching a man like Marcel Lacroix without backup.”

  “I take it you know him?”

  “He gave me a ride once.”

  “Before or after?”

  “Both,” said Keller. “Lacroix did a stretch in the French army. He’s also spent time in some of the toughest prisons in the country.”

  “Am I supposed to be impressed?”

  “ ‘If you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.’ ”

  “Sun Tzu,” said Gabriel.

  “You cited that passage during your lecture in Tel Aviv.”

  “So you were listening after all.”

  Gabriel slipped past Keller and entered the large great room of the villa. The furnishings were rustic and, like Keller, covered in white fabric. Piles of books stood on every flat surface, and on the walls hung several quality paintings, including lesser works by Cézanne, Matisse, and Monet.

  “No security system?” asked Gabriel, looking around the room.

  “None needed.”

  Gabriel walked over to the Cézanne, a landscape painted in the hills near Aix-en-Provence, and ran his fingertip gently over the surface.

  “You’ve done very well for yourself, Keller.”

  “It pays the bills.”

  Gabriel said nothing.

  “You disapprove of the way I earn my living?”

  “You kill people for money.”

  “So do you.”

  “I kill for my country,” replied Gabriel. “And only as a last resort.”

  “Is that why you blew Ivan Kharkov’s brains all over that street in Saint-Tropez? For your country?”

  Gabriel turned from the Cézanne and stared directly into Keller’s eyes. Any other man would have wilted under the intensity of Gabriel’s gaze, but not Keller. His powerful arms were folded casually across his chest, and one corner of his mouth was lifted into a half smile.

  “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all,” said Gabriel.

  “I know the players and I know the terrain. You’d be a fool not to use me.”

  Gabriel made no reply. Keller was right; he was the perfect guide to the French criminal underground. And his physical and tactical skills would surely prove valuable before this affair was over.

  “I can’t pay you,” said Gabriel.

  “I don’t need money,” replied Keller, looking around the beautiful villa. “But I do need you to answer a few questions before we leave.”

  “We have five days to find her, or she dies.”

  “Five days is an eternity for men like us.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Who are you working for?”

  “The British prime minister.”

  “I didn’t realize you were on speaking terms.”

  “I was retained by someone inside British intelligence.”

  “On the prime minister’s behalf?”

  Gabriel nodded.

  “What’s the prime minister’s connection to this girl?”

  “Use your imagination.”

  “My goodness.”

  “Goodness has very little to do with this.”

  “Who’s the prime minister’s friend inside British intelligence?”

  Gabriel hesitated and then answered the question truthfully. Keller smiled.

  “You know him?” asked Gabriel.

  “I worked with Graham in Northern Ireland. He’s a pro’s pro. But like everyone else in England,” Keller added quickly, “Graham Seymour thinks I’m dead. Which means he can never know that I’m working with you.”

  “You have my word.”

  “There’s something else I want.”

  Keller held out his hand. Gabriel surrendered the talisman.

  “I’m surprised you kept it,” Keller said.

  “It has sentimental value.”

  Keller slipped the talisman around his neck. “Let’s go,” he said, smiling. “I know where we can get you another.”

  The signadora lived in a crooked house in the center of the village, not far from the church. Keller arrived without an appointment, but the old woman did not seem surprised to see him. She wore a black frock and a black scarf over her tinder-dry hair. With a worried smile, she touched Keller’s cheek softly. Then, fingering the heavy cross around her neck, she turned her gaze toward Gabriel. Her task was to care for those afflicted with the evil eye. It was obvious she feared Keller had brought the very incarnation of the evil one into her home.

  “Who is this man?” she asked.

  “A friend,” replied Keller.

  “Is he a believer?”

  “Not like us.”

  “Tell me his name, Christopher—his real name.”

  “His name is Gabriel.”

  “Like the archangel?”

  “Yes,” said Keller.

  She studied Gabriel’s face carefully. “He is an Israelite, yes?”

  When Keller nodded his head, the old woman gave a mild frown of disapproval. Doctrinally, she regarded the Jews as heretics, but personally she had no quarrel with them. She opened the front of Keller’s shirt and touched the talisman hanging around his neck.

  “Isn’t this the one you lost several years ago?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did you find it?”

  “In the bottom of a very crowded drawer.”

  The signadora shook her head reproachfully. “You’re lying to me, Christopher,” she said. “When will you learn that I can always tell when you’re lying?”

  Keller smiled but said nothing. The old woman released her hold on the talisman and again touched Keller’s cheek.

  “You’re leaving the island, Christopher?”

  “Tonight.”

  The signadora did not ask why; she knew exactly what Keller did for a living. In fact, she had once hired a young taddunaghiu named Anton Orsati to avenge the murder of her husband.

  With a movement of her hand, she invited Keller and Gabriel to sit at the small wooden table in her parlor. Before them she placed a plate filled with water and a vessel of olive oil. Keller dipped his forefinger in the oil; then he held it over the plate and allowed three drops to fall onto the water. By the laws of physics, the oil should have gathered into a single gobbet. Instead, it shattered into a thousand droplets and soon there was no trace of it.

  “The evil has returned, Christopher.”

  “I’m afraid it’s an occupational hazard.”

  “Don’t make jokes, my dearest. The danger is very real.”

  “What do you see?”

  She gazed intently into the liquid, as if in a trance. After a moment she asked quietly, “Are you looking for the English girl?”

  Keller nodded, then asked, “Is she alive?”

  “Yes,” the old woman answered. “She’s alive.”

  “Where is she?”

  “It is not in my power to tell you that.”

  “Will we find her?”

  “When she is dead,” the old woman said. “Then you will know the truth.”

  “What can you see?”

  She closed her eyes. “Water . . . mountains . . . an old enemy . . .”

  “Of mine?�
�

  “No.” She opened her eyes and looked directly at Gabriel. “Of his.”

  Without another word, she took hold of the Englishman’s hand and prayed. After a moment she began to weep, a sign the evil had passed from Keller’s body into hers. Then she closed her eyes and appeared to be sleeping. When she awoke she instructed Keller to repeat the trial of the oil and the water. This time the oil coalesced into a single drop.

  “The evil is gone from your soul, Christopher.” Then, turning to Gabriel, she said, “Now him.”

  “I’m not a believer,” said Gabriel.

  “Please,” the old woman said. “If not for you, for Christopher.”

  Reluctantly, Gabriel dipped his forefinger into the oil and allowed three drops to fall onto the surface of the water. When the oil shattered into a thousand pieces, the woman closed her eyes and began to tremble.

  “What do you see?” asked Keller.

  “Fire,” she said softly. “I see fire.”

  There was a five o’clock ferry from Ajaccio. Gabriel eased his Peugeot into the car deck at half past four and then watched, ten minutes later, as Keller came aboard behind the wheel of a battered Renault hatchback. Their compartments were on the same deck, directly across the corridor. Gabriel’s was the size of a prison cell and equally inviting. He left his bag on the cot-size bed and headed upstairs to the bar. By the time he arrived, Keller was seated at a table near the window, a glass of beer raised to his lips, a cigarette smoldering in the ashtray. Gabriel shook his head slowly. Forty-eight hours earlier, he had been standing before a canvas in Jerusalem. Now he was searching for a woman he did not know, accompanied by a man who had once accepted a contract to kill him.

  He ordered black coffee from the barman and stepped outside onto the aft deck. The ferry was beyond the outer reaches of the harbor and the evening air was suddenly cold. Gabriel turned up the collar of his coat and wrapped his hands around the cardboard coffee cup for warmth. The eastern stars shone brightly in the cloudless sky, and the sea, turquoise a moment earlier, was the color of India ink. Gabriel thought he could smell the macchia on the wind. Then, a moment later, he heard the voice of the signadora. When she is dead, the old woman was saying. Then you will know the truth.

  10

  MARSEILLES

  When Gabriel and Keller arrived in Marseilles early the next morning, Moondance, forty-two feet of seagoing smuggling power, was tied up in its usual slip in the Old Port. Its owner, however, was nowhere to be seen. Keller established a static observation post on the north side, Gabriel on the east, outside a pizzeria that inexplicably bore the name of a trendy Manhattan neighborhood. They moved to new positions at the top and bottom of each hour, but by late afternoon there was still no sign of Lacroix. Finally, anxious over the prospect of a lost day, Gabriel walked around the perimeter of the harbor, past the fishmongers at their metal tables, and joined Keller in the Renault. The weather was deteriorating: heavy rain, a cold mistral howling out of the hills. Keller flipped the wipers every few seconds to keep the windshield clear. The defroster panted weakly against the fogged glass.

  “Are you sure he doesn’t keep an apartment in town?” asked Gabriel.

  “He lives on the boat.”

  “What about a woman?”

  “He has several, but none can tolerate his presence for long.” Keller wiped the windshield with the back of his hand. “Maybe we should get a hotel room.”

  “It’s a bit soon for that, don’t you think? After all, we’ve only just met.”

  “Do you always make stupid wisecracks during operations?”

  “It’s a cultural affliction.”

  “Stupid wisecracks or operations?”

  “Both.”

  Keller dug a paper napkin from the glove box and did his best to rectify the mess he had made of the windshield. “My grandmother was Jewish,” he said casually, as though admitting that his grandmother had enjoyed playing bridge.

  “Congratulations.”

  “Another wisecrack?”

  “What am I supposed to say?”

  “You don’t find it interesting that I have a Jewish ancestor?”

  “In my experience, most Europeans have a Jewish relative hidden somewhere in the woodpile.”

  “Mine was hidden in plain sight.”

  “Where was she born?”

  “Germany.”

  “She came to Britain during the war?”

  “Right before,” said Keller. “She was taken in by a distant uncle who no longer considered himself Jewish. He gave her a proper Christian name and sent her to church. My mother didn’t know she had a Jewish past until she was in her mid-thirties.”

  “I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” Gabriel said, “but in my book, you’re Jewish.”

  “To be honest with you, I’ve always felt a little Jewish.”

  “You have an aversion to shellfish and German opera?”

  “I was speaking in a spiritual sense.”

  “You’re a professional assassin, Keller.”

  “That doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in God,” Keller protested. “In fact, I suspect I know more about your history and scripture than you do.”

  “So why are you hanging around with that crazy mystic?”

  “She isn’t crazy.”

  “Don’t tell me you believe all that nonsense.”

  “How did she know we were looking for the girl?”

  “I suppose the don must have told her.”

  “No,” Keller said, shaking his head. “She saw it. She sees everything.”

  “Like the water and the mountains?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’re in the south of France, Keller. I see water and mountains, too. In fact, I see them almost everywhere I look.”

  “She obviously made you nervous with that talk about an old enemy.”

  “I don’t get nervous,” said Gabriel. “As for old enemies, I can’t seem to walk out my front door without running into one.”

  “Then perhaps you should move your front door.”

  “Is that a Corsican proverb?”

  “Just a friendly piece of advice.”

  “We’re not exactly friends yet.”

  Keller shrugged his square shoulders to convey indifference, injury, or something in between. “What did you do with the talisman she gave you?” he asked after a sulky silence.

  Gabriel patted the front of his shirt to indicate that the talisman, which was identical to Keller’s, was hanging around his neck.

  “If you don’t believe,” asked Keller, “why are you wearing it?”

  “I like the way it accents my outfit.”

  “Whatever you do, don’t ever take it off. It keeps the evil at bay.”

  “I have a few people in my life I’d like to keep at bay.”

  “Like Ari Shamron?”

  Gabriel managed to hide his surprise. “How do you know about Shamron?” he asked.

  “I met him when I came to Israel to train. Besides,” Keller added quickly, “everyone in the trade knows about Shamron. And everyone knows he wanted you to be the chief instead of Uzi Navot.”

  “You shouldn’t believe everything you read in the papers, Keller.”

  “I have good sources,” said Keller. “And they tell me the job was yours for the taking but you turned it down.”

  “You might find this hard to believe,” said Gabriel, staring wearily through the rain-spattered glass, “but I’m really not in the mood to take a stroll down memory lane with you.”

  “I was just trying to help pass the time.”

  “Perhaps we should enjoy a comfortable silence.”

  “Another wisecrack?”

  “You’d understand if you were Jewish.”

  “Technically, I am Jewish.”

  �
��Who do you prefer? Puccini or Wagner?”

  “Wagner, of course.”

  “Then you can’t possibly be Jewish.”

  Keller lit a cigarette and waved out the match. A gust of wind hurled rain against the windshield, obscuring the view of the harbor. Gabriel lowered his own window a few inches to vent Keller’s smoke.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Maybe we should get a hotel room after all.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to be necessary.”

  “Why not?”

  Keller flipped the wipers and pointed through the glass.

  “Because Marcel Lacroix is headed our way.”

  He wore a black tracksuit and neon-green trainers, and carried a Puma sports bag over one shoulder. Obviously, he had spent a good portion of the afternoon at the gym. Not that he needed it; Lacroix was at least six-foot-two and weighed well over two hundred pounds. His dark hair was oiled and pulled back into a short ponytail. He had studs in both ears and Chinese characters tattooed on the side of his thick neck, evidence he was a student of the Asian martial arts. His eyes never stopped moving, though they failed to register the two men seated in the battered Renault hatchback with fogged windows. Watching him, Gabriel sighed heavily. Lacroix would surely be a worthy opponent, especially within the tight confines of Moondance. Regardless of what anyone said, size mattered.

  “No wisecracks?” asked Keller.

  “I’m working on one.”

  “Why don’t you let me handle it?”

  “Somehow I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he knows you work for the don. And if you show up and start asking questions about Madeline Hart, he’ll know the don betrayed him, which will be detrimental to the don’s interests.”