Prince of Fire

lowered his voice.
    “You told me if I came, you’d let her live. Now, where is she?”
    “Everything will be clear to you in just a few seconds.”
    The voice: he latched on to it. It drew him back to Cairo, back to the evening he’d spent at the wine bar in Zamalek. He’d been lured to Cairo for a reason—to plant a bug on Mimi’s telephone, so he could overhear a conversation with a man named Tony and capture the telephone number for an apartment in Marseilles. But had he been brought to Cairo for another reason?
    She started to speak again, but the sound of her voice was drowned out by the blare of a station announcement: Train number 765 for Marseilles is now boarding on Track D. . . . Gabriel covered the mouthpiece of the receiver. Train number 765 for Marseilles is now boarding on Track D. . . . He could hear it through the telephone—he was sure of it. Mimi was somewhere in the station. He spun around and glimpsed her girlish hips flowing calmly toward the exit. Walking on her left, with his hand in the back pocket of her trousers, was a man with square shoulders and dark curly hair. Gabriel had seen the same walk earlier that morning in Marseilles. Khaled had come to the Gare de Lyon to witness Gabriel’s death.
    He watched them slip through the exit.
    Train number 765 for Marseilles is now boarding on Track D.
    He glanced at Palestina. She was looking at the clock. Judging from her expression, she knew now that Gabriel had told her the truth. She was a few seconds away from becoming a shaheed in Khaled’s jihad of revenge.
    “Are you listening to me, Gabriel?”
    Traffic noise: Mimi and Khaled were moving hastily away from the station.
    “I’m listening,” he said —and I’m wondering why you seated me with three Arabs in your nightclub.
    Train number 765 for Marseilles is now boarding on Track D.
    Track D . . . Track Dalet . . . Tochnit Dalet . . .
    “Where is she, Mimi? Tell me what—”
    And then he saw him, standing at a newspaper rack at the Relay newsstand at the east end of the station. His suitcase, a rolling rectangular bag of black nylon, identical to Gabriel’s, stood upright next to him. They’d called him Bashir that night in Cairo. Bashir liked Johnnie Walker Red on the rocks and smoked Silk Cut cigarettes. Bashir wore a gold TAG Heuer watch on his right wrist and had a thing for one of Mimi’s waitresses. Bashir was also a shaheed. In a few seconds Bashir’s bag would explode, and so would several dozen people around him.
    Gabriel looked to his left, toward the opposite side of the platform: another Relay newsstand, another shaheed with a bag identical to Gabriel’s. He’d been called Naji that night. Naji: survivor. Not tonight, Naji.
    A few feet away from Gabriel, purchasing a sandwich he would never eat, was Tayyib. Same suitcase, same glassy look of death in his eyes. He was close enough for Gabriel to see the configuration of the bomb. A black wire had been run along the inside of one arm of the pull handle. Gabriel reckoned that the release button on the handle itself was the trigger. Press the button, and it would strike the contact plate. That meant that the three shaheeds had to press their buttons simultaneously. But how were they to be signaled? The time, of course. Gabriel looked at Tayyib’s eyes and saw they were now focused on the digital clock of the departure board. 6:59:28 . . .
    “Where is she, Mimi?”
    The soldiers sauntered past again, chatting casually. Three Arabs had entered the station with suitcases packed with explosives, but the security forces hadn’t seemed to notice. How long would it take the soldiers to get their automatics off their shoulders and into firing position? If they were Israelis? Two seconds at most. But these French boys? Their reaction time would be slower.
    He glanced at Palestina. She was growing more anxious. Her eyes were damp and she was pulling on the strap of her shoulder bag. Gabriel’s eyes flickered about the station, calculating angles and lines of fire.
    Mimi intruded on his thoughts. “Are you listening to me?”
    “I’m listening.”
    “As you’ve probably guessed by now, the station is about to explode. By my calculation, you’ll have fifteen seconds. You have two choices. You can warn the people around you and try to save as many lives as possible, or you can selfishly save the life of your wife. But you cannot possibly do both, because if you warn the people, there will be pandemonium, and