by Daniel Silva
“Where are you going, by the way?”
“We’re going to need an airplane tomorrow. I thought I’d book a reservation on Air Stone.”
“Ari, you’re not drinking! Unfair!”
“Sorry, Benjamin, but I have a long night ahead of me.”
“Work?”
Shamron inclined his head slightly to indicate the affirmative.
“So what brings you here?”
“I need a favor.”
“Course you need a favor. Wouldn’t be here otherwise. Hope you haven’t come looking for money, because the Bank of Stone is temporarily closed, and your account is badly overdrawn. Besides, money’s gone. Creditors are singing a bloody aria. They want what’s rightfully theirs. Funny how creditors can be. And as for my lenders, well, let’s just say they’re heading for calmer waters. What I’m trying to say to you, Ari, my old stick, is that I am in serious fucking financial trouble.”
“It’s not about money.”
“So what is it? Speak, Ari!”
“I need to borrow your jet. Actually, I need to borrow you and your jet.”
“I’m listening. You have my attention now.”
“Tomorrow an enemy of the State of Israel is going to board a flight at Charles de Gaulle. Unfortunately we don’t know what flight or what his destination is. And we won’t know until he gets on the plane. It’s imperative that we follow rapidly and that we arrive with some degree of secrecy. An unscheduled El Al charter, for example, might raise eyebrows. You, however, have a reputation for impetuous travel and last-minute changes in your schedule and itinerary.”
“Damn right, Ari. Come and go like the wind. Keeps people on their fucking toes. It’s that business in Paris, isn’t it? That’s why you took my money before. I must say I’m intrigued. It sounds as though I’m going to be involved in a real operation. Front lines, heavy stuff. How can I possibly say no?”
Stone snatched up the telephone. “Get the plane ready. Paris, one hour, usual suite at the Ritz, usual girl. One with the diamond stud in her tongue. A dream, that one. Have her waiting in the room. Ciao.”
He rang off, refilled his glass of champagne, and raised it in Shamron’s direction.
“I can’t thank you enough, Benjamin.”
“You owe me, Ari. Someday I’m going to need a favor. Someday, all debts come due.”
33
ST. JAMES’S, LONDON
Jacqueline had hoped a brief walk alone would settle her nerves. It was a mistake. She should have taken a taxi straight to Yusef’s door, because now she felt like turning around and telling Shamron and Gabriel to go to hell. She had just a few seconds to pull herself together. She realized she was not used to fear, at least not the kind of fear that made it nearly impossible to breathe. She had felt fear like this only once in her life—the night of the raid in Tunis—but that night Gabriel had been at her side. Now she was alone. She thought of her grandparents and the fear they must have felt while they were waiting to die at Sobibor. If they could face death at the hands of the Nazis, I can face this, she thought.
But there was something else she was feeling: love. Intense, unbearable, intolerable love. Perfect love. Love that had survived twelve years, meaningless relationships with other men. It was the promise of Gabriel that finally pushed her forward toward Yusef’s door. She thought of something Shamron had said to her the night he recruited her: “You must believe in what you are doing.” Oh, yes, Ari, she thought. I definitely believe in what I’m doing now.
She pressed the buzzer for Yusef’s flat. A moment. Nothing. Pressed it again, waited, looked at her watch. He had told her to come at nine. She was so nervous about arriving late that she had managed to come five minutes early. So what should I do, Gabriel? Stay? Walk around the block? If she left she might never come back. She lit a cigarette, stamped her feet against the cold, waited.
A moment later a Ford van braked to a halt in the street in front of her. The side door slid open, and Yusef leaped onto the wet asphalt. He walked toward her, hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, head swiveling from side to side. “How long have you been standing here?”
“I don’t know. Three minutes, five minutes. Where the hell have you been?”
“I told you to come at nine. I didn’t say five minutes before nine. I said nine.”
“So I was a few minutes early. What’s the big deal?”
“Because the rules have changed.”
She remembered what Gabriel had said to her: You have no reason to be afraid. If they push you, push back.
“Listen, the rules haven’t changed until I say they’ve changed. I haven’t decided whether I’m going. This is crazy, Yusef. You won’t tell me where I’m going. You won’t tell me when I’ll be back. I love you, Yusef. I want to help you. But you have to put yourself in my shoes.”
His demeanor softened immediately. “I’m sorry, Dominique. I’m just a little tense. Everything has to go right. I didn’t mean to take it out on you. Come inside. We’ll talk. But we don’t have much time.”
Gabriel had never seen the Ford van till now. He wrote down the registration number as it vanished into the darkness. Shamron joined him in the window. Together they watched Yusef and Jacqueline disappear into the lobby. A moment later lights burned in Yusef’s flat. Gabriel could hear two voices. Yusef, calm and reassuring; Jacqueline, edgy, stressed. Shamron made a base camp at the end of the couch and watched the scene across the street as though it were being played out on a movie screen. Gabriel closed his eyes and listened. They were stalking each other, circling the room like prizefighters. Gabriel didn’t have to watch it. He could hear it in the way the audio level rose each time one of them passed by the telephone.
“What is it, Yusef? Drugs? A bomb? Tell me, you bastard!”
So convincing was her performance that Gabriel feared Yusef would change his mind. Shamron seemed to be enjoying the show. When Jacqueline finally agreed to go, he looked up at Gabriel. “That was marvelous. A nice touch. Well done. Bravo.”
Five minutes later Gabriel watched them climb into the back of a dark blue Vauxhall. A few seconds after the Vauxhall drove away, a car passed beneath Gabriel’s window: Shamron’s watchers. There was nothing to do now but wait. To fill the time he rewound the tape and listened to their conversation again. “Tell me something,” Jacqueline had said. “When this is over will I ever see you again?” Gabriel stopped the tape and wondered whether she was speaking to Yusef or to him.
The Cromwell Road at midnight: the dreary corridor connecting Central London to the western suburbs had never looked so beautiful to Jacqueline. The bleak Edwardian hotels with their flickering neon vacancy signs seemed enchanting to her. She watched the changing patterns of traffic lights reflected in the wet pavement and saw an urban masterpiece. She lowered her window a few inches and smelled the air: diesel fumes, damp, cheap fried food cooking somewhere. London at night. Spectacular.
They had switched cars, the blue Vauxhall for a gray Toyota with a cracked windshield. The Vauxhall had been driven by a good-looking boy with his hair drawn back into a ponytail. Sitting behind the wheel now was an older man—at least forty, she guessed—with a narrow face and nervous black eyes. He drove slowly.
Yusef murmured a few words to him in Arabic.
Jacqueline said, “Speak French or English or nothing at all.”
“We are Palestinians,” Yusef said. “Arabic is our language.”
“I don’t give a shit! I don’t speak Arabic. I can’t understand what you’re saying, and it’s making me uncomfortable, so please speak fucking English, or you can find someone else.”
“I was only telling him to slow down a little.”
Actually, Yusef, you were telling him to make certain we aren’t being followed, but let’s not get hung up on the details.
On the seat between them lay a small suitcase. Yusef had taken her to her flat and helped her pack. “There won’t be time to go to baggage claim,” he had said. “If you n
eed more clothing you’ll be given money to buy more clothing.” He had watched her pack carefully, inspecting each item she placed in the bag. “How should I dress?” she had asked sarcastically. “Warm climate or cold? Are we going to Norway or New Zealand? Sweden or Swaziland? What’s the dress code? Formal or casual?”
She lit a cigarette. Yusef took one out too and held out his hand for Jacqueline’s lighter. She gave it to him and watched him light his cigarette. He was about to hand it back when something made him stop and inspect the lighter more carefully.
Jacqueline felt as if she had forgotten how to breathe.
“This is very nice.” He turned it over and read the inscription. “ ‘To Dominique, with affection and fond memories. ’ Where did you get this cigarette lighter?”
“I’ve had it for about a hundred years.”
“Answer my question.”
“It was a gift from a man. A man who didn’t send me off with a complete stranger.”
“He must have been very kind, this man. Why have I never seen this?”
“You haven’t seen a lot of things. That doesn’t mean anything.”
“Should I be jealous?”
“Look at the date, you idiot.”
“ ‘June nineteen ninety-five,’ ” he recited. “Is this man still in the picture?”
“If he was, I wouldn’t be with you.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“June nineteen ninety-five, with affection and fond memories.”
“He must have been very important to you. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have kept his lighter.”
“It’s not his lighter—it’s my lighter. And I kept it because it’s a good lighter.”
She thought: Gabriel was right. He suspects something. I’m going to die. He’s going to kill me tonight. She looked out her window and wondered whether the Cromwell Road on a wet winter’s night was going to be her last snapshot of the world. She should have written a letter to her mother and locked it in a safety deposit box. She wondered how Shamron would break it to her. Would he explain that she had been working for the Office? Or would they cover up her death in some other way? Would she have to read about it in the newspapers? Jacqueline Delacroix, the Marseilles schoolgirl who rose to the peak of European modeling before a precipitous decline, died under mysterious circumstances. . . . She wondered if the journalists she had treated with such contempt while she was alive would rise up en masse and savage her in death. At least Rémy would write well of her. They had always been cordial. Maybe she could get something nice out of Jacques. Perhaps even Gilles—No, wait. Remember the party in Milan, the argument over the coke. Christ, Gilles was going to rip her to shreds.
Yusef handed her the lighter. She dropped it back into her purse. The silence was appalling. She wanted to keep him talking; somehow talking made her feel safe, even if it was lies. “You never answered my question,” she said.
“Which question is that? You’ve had so many tonight.”
“When this is all over, am I going to see you again?”
“That’s entirely up to you.”
“And you’re still not answering my question.”
“I always answer your questions.”
“Do you? If you’d told me the truth in the beginning, I doubt I’d be flying off with a complete stranger in the morning.”
“I had to keep some things from you. And what about you, Dominique? Have you been completely honest with me? Have you told me everything about yourself ?”
“Everything of consequence.”
“That’s a very convenient answer. You use it very effectively when you want to avoid talking anymore.”
“It also happens to be the truth. Answer my question. Am I ever going to see you again?”
“I certainly hope so.”
“You’re full of shit, Yusef.”
“And you’re very tired. Close your eyes. Get some rest.”
She leaned her head against the window. “Where are we going?”
“Someplace safe.”
“Yes, you’ve told me that, but how about telling me where?”
“You’ll see it when we arrive.”
“Why would we need someplace safe? What’s wrong with your flat? What’s wrong with my flat?”
“This place belongs to a friend of mine. It’s close to Heathrow.”
“Is your friend going to be there?”
“No.”
“Are you going to stay the night?”
“Of course. And in the morning I’ll fly with you to Paris.”
“And after that?”
“After that you’ll be in the company of our Palestinian official, and your journey will begin. I wish I could be in your shoes. It would be such an honor to be with this man on this trip. You have no idea how lucky you are, Dominique.”
“What’s his name, this great man? Maybe I know him.”
“I doubt you know him, but I still can’t tell you his name. You will refer to him only by his cover name.”
“And that is?”
“Lucien. Lucien Daveau.”
“Lucien,” she said softly. “I’ve always liked the name Lucien. Where are we going, Yusef ?”
“Close your eyes. It won’t be long now.”
Shamron answered the telephone in the listening post before it could ring a second time. He listened without speaking, then gently replaced the receiver as if he had just been informed of the death of an old adversary. “It looks as though they’ve settled for the night,” he said.
“Where?”
“A council estate in Hounslow near the airport.”
“And the team?”
“In place, well hidden. They’ll spend the night with her.”
“I’d feel better if I were there.”
“You have a long day ahead of you tomorrow. I suggest you get a few hours’ sleep.”
But Gabriel went into the bedroom and returned a moment later, jacket on, nylon rucksack over his shoulder.
Shamron said, “Where are you going?”
“I need to take care of something personal.”
“Where are you going? When will you be back?”
But Gabriel walked out without another word and followed the stairs down to the street. As he walked past the front of the building, he thought he saw Shamron eyeing him through a slit in the blinds. And as he moved closer to the Edgware Road, he had the uncomfortable feeling that Shamron had one of his teams watching him too.
34
HOUNSLOW, ENGLAND
The Toyota dropped them and then sped away. A car park bathed in yellow sodium light, a colony of stout redbrick council flats that looked like an industrial complex fallen on hard times. Jacqueline offered to carry her own bag, but Yusef wouldn’t hear of it. He took her hand and led her across the car park, then across a common strewn with crushed beer cans and bits of broken toys. A red wagon with no front wheels. A headless baby with no clothing. A plastic pistol. Gabriel’s pistol, thought Jacqueline, remembering the night in the hills of Provence, when he had tested her ability to shoot. Seemed like ages ago. A lifetime ago. A cat spit at them from the shadows. Jacqueline grabbed Yusef’s elbow and nearly screamed. Then a dog began to bark, and the cat scampered along the sidewalk and slithered beneath a fence.
“This is lovely, Yusef. Why didn’t you tell me you kept a place in the country?”
“Please don’t talk until we’re inside.”
He led her into a stairwell. Dead leaves and old newspaper in the corners, lime green walls, yellow light fixture overhead. The collision of color made them both look nauseated. They climbed two flights, then passed through a connecting door and walked the length of a long corridor. A cacophony of disharmonious sounds greeted them. A child screaming for its mother. A couple quarreling in Caribbean-accented English. A crackling radio blaring a play on the BBC, Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing. Yusef stopped in front of a doorway with the number 27 mounted below a security peephole. He unlocked the door,
led her inside, switched on a small parchment-shaded lamp.
The living room was empty except for one molting armchair and a television set. Its cord wound across the linoleum like a dead garden snake. Through a half-open door she could see a bedroom with a mattress on the floor. Through another doorway a small kitchen, a bag of groceries resting on the counter. Despite the absence of furnishings, the flat was impeccably clean and smelled of lemon air deodorizer.
She opened the window; cold air poured in. Below the window ran a fence, and beyond the fence lay a football pitch. A half-dozen young men, dressed in colorful warm-up suits and woolen caps, kicked a ball about in the headlights of a car parked along the sideline. Their long shadows played over brick walls below Jacqueline’s window. In the distance she could hear the soggy grumble of the motorway. An empty train rattled past on an elevated track. A jetliner screamed overhead.
“I like what your friend’s done with the place, Yusef, but it’s not really my style. Why don’t we check into one of the hotels at the airport? Someplace with room service and a decent bar.”
Yusef was in the kitchen, unpacking the bag of groceries. “If you’re hungry I can make you something. There’s some bread, cheese, eggs, a bottle of wine, and coffee and milk for the morning.”
Jacqueline walked into the kitchen. There was barely enough room for the two of them in the cramped space. “Don’t be so literal. But this is a shithole. Why is it empty?”
“My friend just got the place. He hasn’t had a chance to move his things. He’s been living with his parents.”
“He must be very happy, but I still don’t know why we have to stay here tonight.”
“I told you, Dominique. We came here for reasons of security.”