Prince of Fire

to move. Travel saw to his arrangements. Larnaca is a popular Israeli tourist destination, and so it was not necessary to travel on a forged foreign passport. Traveling under his real name was not possible, though, so Travel issued him an Israeli document under the rather unexceptional name of Michael Neumann. The day before his departure, Operations let him spend an hour perusing Nabil Azouri’s file in a secure reading room. When he had finished, they gave him an envelope with ten thousand dollars in cash and wished him luck. The next morning, at seven, he boarded an El Al plane at Ben-Gurion Airport for the one-hour flight to Cyprus. Upon arriving he rented a car at the airport and drove a short distance up the coast to a resort called the Palm Beach Hotel. A message from King Saul Boulevard awaited him. Nabil Azouri was coming that afternoon. Gabriel spent the remainder of the morning in his room, then, a short time after one o’clock, he went down to the poolside restaurant for lunch. Azouri already had a table. A bottle of expensive French champagne, drunk below the label, lay chilling in a silver bucket.
    He had dark curly hair, frosted with the first strands of gray, and a thick mustache. When he removed his sunglasses, Gabriel found himself gazing into a pair of large sleepy brown eyes. On his left wrist was the obligatory gold watch; on his right, several gold bracelets that chimed when he lifted his champagne glass to his lips. His cotton shirt was cream-colored, his poplin trousers wrinkled from the flight from Beirut. He lit an American cigarette with a gold lighter and listened to Gabriel’s proposition.
    “Ein al-Hilweh? Are you out of your fucking mind?”
    Gabriel had anticipated this reaction. Azouri treated his relationship with Israeli intelligence as though it were just another one of his business enterprises. He was the bazaar merchant, the Office was the customer. Haggling over the price was part of the process. The Lebanese leaned forward and fixed Gabriel in his sleepy stare.
    “Have you been down there lately? It’s like the Wild West, Khomeini style. It’s gone to hell since you boys pulled out. Men in black, praise be to Allah the most merciful. Outsiders don’t stand a chance. Fuck it, Mike. Have some champagne and forget about it.”
    “You’re not an outsider, Nabil. You know everyone, you can go everywhere. That’s why we pay you so lucratively.”
    “Tip money, Mike, that’s all I get from your outfit—cigarettes and champagne and a few bucks to waste on the girls.”
    “You must have expensive taste in girls, Nabil, because I’ve seen your pay stubs. You’ve made a rather large sum of money from your relationship with my firm.”
    Azouri raised his glass in Gabriel’s direction. “We’ve made good business together, Mike. I won’t deny that. I’d like to continue working for you. That’s why someone else needs to run down to Ein al-Hilweh for you. It’s too rich for my blood. Too dangerous.”
    Azouri signaled the waiter and ordered another bottle of the French champagne. Refusing an offer of work wasn’t going to keep him from having a good meal on the Office tab. Gabriel tossed an envelope onto the table. Azouri eyed it thoughtfully but made no move for it.
    “How much is in there, Mike?”
    “Two thousand.”
    “What flavor?”
    “Dollars.”
    “So what’s the deal? Half now, half on delivery? I’m just a dumb Arab, but two thousand and two thousand add up to four thousand, and I’m not going into Ein al-Hilweh for four thousand dollars.”
    “Two thousand is only the retainer.”
    “And how much for delivery of the information?”
    “Another five.”
    Azouri shook his head. “No, another ten.”
    “Six.”
    Another shake of the head. “Nine.”
    “Seven.”
    “Eight.”
    “Done,” said Gabriel. “Two thousand in advance, another eight on delivery. Not bad for an afternoon’s work. If you behave yourself we’ll even throw in gas money.”
    “Oh, you’ll pay for the gas, Mike. My expenses are always separate from my fee.” The waiter brought the second bottle of champagne. When he was gone again, Azouri said, “So what do you want to know?”
    “I want you to find someone.”
    “There are forty-five thousand refugees in that camp, Mike. Help me out a little bit.”
    “He’s an old man named al-Tamari.”
    “First name?”
    “We don’t know it.”
    Azouri sipped his wine. “It’s not a terribly common name. It shouldn’t be