The Kill Artist

you might have a dead bystander on your hands."
    "You never used to consider the possibility of missing."
    The van accelerated away from the curb. Gabriel was seated on the floor of the rear cargo bay, the girl opposite him, knees beneath her chin, eyeing him intently. Gabriel closed his eyes and tried to think calmly for a moment. It was a complete disaster. Jacqueline was gone. She had no passport, no identification, and, more important, no tracking beacon. They'd had one major advantage over Tariq: the ability to know where she was all the time. Now that advantage had vanished.
    He pictured the sequence of events. Tariq and Jacqueline leaving the restaurant. The car appearing out of nowhere. Tariq pushing Jacqueline into the backseat. Tariq's wolfish smile.
    Gabriel closed his eyes and saw the ghostly image of Tariq beckoning him forward with a Van Dyck hand. He knew all along, thought Gabriel. He knew it was me coming for him on the rue St-Denis. He led me there.
    Shamron was talking again. "Your first responsibility was to Jacqueline. Not to someone in a bistro behind her. You should have taken the shot, regardless of the consequences!"
    "Even if I'd managed to hit him, Jacqueline still would be gone. She was in the car, the engine was running. They were going to take her, and there was nothing I could have done to stop it."
    "You should have fired at the car. We might have been able to trap them on that street."
    "Is that what you wanted? A gunfight in the middle of Montreal? A shoot-out? You would have had another Lillehammer on your hands. Another Amman. Another disaster for the Office."
    Shamron turned around, glared at Gabriel, then stared straight ahead.
    Gabriel said, "What now, Ari?"
    "We find them."
    "How?"
    "We have a very good idea where they're going."
    "We can't find Tariq in the States alone."
    "What are you suggesting, Gabriel?"
    "We need to alert the Americans that he's probably coming their way. We need to tell the Canadians too. Maybe they can prevent him from taking her across the border. If we get lucky they might be able to stop them before they reach the border."
    "Tell the Americans and the Canadians? Tell them what exactly? Tell them that we intended to assassinate a Palestinian on Canadian soil? Tell them that we botched the job, and now we'd like their help cleaning up the mess? I don't think that would go over very well in Ottawa or Washington."
    "So what do we do? Sit on our hands and wait?"
    "No, we go to America, and we tighten security around the prime minister. Tariq didn't come all this way for nothing. Eventually he has to make his move."
    "And what if his target isn't the prime minister?"
    "The security of the prime minister is my only concern at this point."
    "I'm sure Jacqueline would be pleased to know this."
    "You know what I mean, Gabriel. Don't play word games with me."
    "You've forgotten one thing, Ari. She doesn't have a passport any longer." Gabriel held up her handbag. "It's here. How are they going to get her across the border without a passport?"
    "Obviously, Tariq's made other arrangements."
    "Or maybe he doesn't intend to take her across the border. Maybe he's going to kill her first."
    "That's why you should have taken the shot, Gabriel."
    FORTY
    Sabrevois, Quebec
    Jacqueline had tried to follow the road signs. Route 40 through Montreal. Route 10 across the river. Route 35 into the countryside. Now this: Route 133, a two-lane provincial road stretching across the tabletop of southern Quebec. Strange how quickly cosmopolitan Montreal had given way to this vast empty space. A brittle moon floated above the horizon, ringed by a halo of ice. Wind-driven snow swirled across the asphalt like a sandstorm. Occasionally an object floated out of the gloom. A grain silo poking above the snow cover. A dimly lit farmhouse. A blacked-out agricultural sup-ply store. Ahead she saw neon lights. As they drew closer she could see that the lights formed the outlines of women with enormous breasts: a strip joint in the middle of no-where. She wondered where they got the girls. Maybe they enjoyed watching their sisters and girlfriends dance topless. Desolation, she thought. This is why the word was created.
    After an hour of driving they were just a few miles from the U.S. border. She thought: How's he going to take me across when my passport and the rest of my things are laying back on the rue St-Denis in Montreal?
    My passport and the cigarette lighter with the beacon…
    It had all