The prime minister looked up at the bank of video monitors and waited for an answer. In one of the monitors was Lev’s image. The director-general of Shabak, Moshe Yariv, occupied the second; General Amos Sharret, chief of Aman, the third.
“There’s no doubt whatsoever,” replied Lev. “The man in the photo given to us by Mahmoud Arwish is the same man who just walked into the apartment building in Marseilles. All we need now is your approval for the final phase of the operation to commence.”
“You have it. Give the order to Fidelity.”
“Yes, Prime Minister.”
“I assume you’ll be able to hear the radio traffic?”
“Fidelity will send it to us via the secure link. We’ll maintain operational control until the final second.”
“Send it here, too,” the prime minister said. “I don’t want to be the last to know.”
Then he pressed a button on his desk, and the three screens turned to black.
THE MOTORBIKE WAS a Piaggio X9 Evolution, charcoal gray, with a twist-and-go throttle and a listed top speed of 160 kilometers per hour-though Yaakov, on a practice escape run the previous day, had topped out at 190. The saddle sloped severely downward from back to front so that the passenger sat several inches above the driver, which made it a perfect bike for an assassin, though surely its designers had not had that in mind when they’d conceived it. The engine, as usual, fired without hesitation. Yaakov headed toward the spot along the quay where the helmeted figure of Gabriel awaited him. Gabriel climbed onto the passenger seat and settled in.
“Take me to the boulevard St-Rémy.”
“You sure?”
“One pass,” he said. “I want to see it.”
Yaakov banked hard to the left and raced up the hill.
IT WAS A GOOD BUILDING on the Corniche, with a marble floor in the lobby and an elevator that worked most of the time. The flats facing the street had a fine view of the Nile. The ones on the back looked down into the walled grounds of the American embassy. It was a building for foreigners and rich Egyptians, another world from the drab cinder-block tenement in Heliopolis where Zubair lived, but then being a policeman in Egypt didn’t pay much, even if you were a secret policeman working for the Mukhabarat.
He took the stairs. They were wide and curved, with a faded runner held in place by tarnished brass fittings. The apartment was on the top floor, the tenth. Zubair cursed silently as he trod upward. Two packs of Cleopatra cigarettes a day had ravaged his lungs. Three times he had to pause on a landing to catch his breath. It took him a good five minutes to reach the flat.
He pressed his ear to the door and heard no sound from within. Hardly surprising. Zubair had followed the Englishman last night during a liquor-soaked excursion through the hotel bars and nightclubs along the river. Zubair was confident he was still sleeping.
He reached into his pocket and came out with the key. The Mukhabarat had a fine collection: diplomats, dissidents, Islamists, and especially foreign journalists. He inserted the key into the lock and turned, then pushed open the door and stepped inside.
The flat was cool and dark, the curtains tightly drawn against the early-morning sun. Zubair had been in the flat many times and found his way to the bedroom without bothering to switch on the lights. Quinnell slept soundly in sheets soaked with sweat. On the stagnant air hung the overpowering stench of whiskey. Zubair drew his gun and walked slowly across the room toward the foot of the bed. After a few paces his right foot fell upon something small and hard. Before he could relieve the downward pressure something snapped, emitting a sharp crack. In the deep silence of the room it sounded like a splintering tree limb. Zubair looked down and saw that he’d stepped on Quinnell’s wristwatch. The Englishman, in spite of his drunkenness, sat bolt-upright in bed. Shit, thought Zubair. He was not a professional assassin. He’d hoped to kill Quinnell in his sleep.
“What the devil are you doing in here?”
“I bring a message from our friend,” Zubair said calmly.
“I don’t want anything more to do with him.”
“The feeling is mutual.”
“So then what in God’s name are you doing in my flat?”
Zubair raised the gun. A moment later he let himself out of the flat and started back down the stairs. Halfway down he was breathing like a marathoner and sweating hard. He stopped and leaned against the balustrade. The damned Cleopatras. If he didn’t quit soon they’d be the death of him.
MARSEILLES: 5:22 A.M. The door of the apartment house swings open. A figure steps into the street. Dina’s verbal alert is heard in the Operations Center of King Saul Boulevard and in Jerusalem by Shamron and the prime minister. And it is also heard in the dirty esplanade along the cours Belsunce, where Gabriel and Yaakov are sitting on the edge of a stagnant fountain, surrounded by drug addicts and immigrants with nowhere else to sleep.
“Who is it?” Gabriel asks.
“The girl,” Dina says, then she adds quickly: “Khaled’s girl.”
“Which way is she going?”
“North, toward the Place de la Préfecture.”
There follows several empty seconds of dead air. In Jerusalem, Shamron is pacing the carpet in front of the prime minister’s desk and waiting anxiously for Gabriel’s order. “Don’t try it,” he murmurs. “If she spots the watcher, she’ll warn Khaled, and you’ll lose him. Let her go.”
Ten more seconds pass before Gabriel’s voice comes back on the air.
“It’s too risky,” he whispers. “Let her go.”
IN RAMALLAH THE MEETING broke up at dawn. Yasir Arafat was in high good humor. To those in attendance he seemed a bit like the Arafat of old, the Arafat who could argue ideology and strategy all night with his closest comrades, then sit down for a meeting with a head of state. As his lieutenants filed out of the room, Arafat motioned for Mahmoud Arwish to remain.
“It’s begun,” Arafat said. “Now we can only hope that Allah has blessed Khaled’s sacred endeavor.”
“It is your endeavor, too, Abu Amar.”
“True,” said Arafat, “and it wouldn’t have been possible without you, Mahmoud.”
Arwish nodded cautiously. Arafat held him in his gaze.
“You played your role well,” said Arafat. “Your clever deception of the Israelis almost makes up for your betrayal of me and the rest of the Palestinian people. I’m tempted to overlook your crime, but I cannot.”
Arwish felt his chest tighten. Arafat smiled.
“Did you really think your treachery would ever be forgiven?”
“My wife,” Arwish stammered. “The Jews made me-”
Arafat waved his hand dismissively. “You sound like a child, Mahmoud. Don’t compound your humiliation by begging for your life.”
Just then the door swung open, and two uniformed security men stepped into the room, guns at the ready. Arwish tried to get his sidearm out of its holster, but a rifle butt slammed into his kidney, and a burst of blinding pain sent him to the floor.
“Today you die the death of a collaborator,” Arafat said. “A death fit for a dog.”
The security men hauled Arwish to his feet and frogmarched him out of the office and down the stairs. Arafat went to the window and looked down into the courtyard as Arwish and the security men emerged into view. Another rifle butt to the kidney drove Arwish to the ground for a second time. Then the firing began. Slow and rhythmic, they started with the feet and worked their way slowly upward. The Mukata echoed with the popping of the Kalashnikovs and the screams of the dying traitor. To Arafat it was a most satisfying sound-the sound of a revolution. The sound of revenge.
When the screaming stopped there was one final shot to the head. Arafat drew the blind. One enemy had been dealt with. Soon another would meet with a similar fate. He switched off the lamp and sat there in the half-light, waiting for the next update.