The Kill Artist

kaffiyehs under the steady gaze of dark-eyed veterans of the intifada.
    He drove through the Jezreel Valley and paused beyond the gates of the farming settlement, just outside Afula on the road to Nazareth, where he had lived as a boy. He considered going in. To do what? To see what? His parents were long dead, and if by some miracle he actually came across someone he knew, he could only lie.
    He kept driving, kept moving north. Wildflowers burned on the hillsides as he headed into the Galilee. He drove around the shores of the lake. Then up to the ancient hill city of Safed. Then into the Golan. He parked beside the road near a Druse shepherd tending his flock, watched the sunset over the Finger of Galilee. For the first time in many years he felt something like contentment. Something like peace.
    He got back into the car, drove down the Golan to a kibbutz outside Qiryat Shemona. It was a Friday night. He went to the dining hall for Shabbat meal, sat with a group of adults from the kibbutz: farmworkers with sunburned faces and callused hands. They ignored him for a time. Then one of them, an older man, asked his name and where he was from. He told them he was Gabriel. That he was from the Jezreel Valley but had been away for a long time.
    In the morning he crossed the fertile flatlands of the coastal plain and drove south along the Mediterranean-through Akko, Haifa, Caesarea, and Netanya-until finally he found himself on the beach at Herzliya.
    She was leaning against the balustrade, arms folded, looking out to sea at the setting sun, wind pushing strands of hair across her face. She wore a loose-fitting white blouse and the sunglasses of a woman in hiding.
    Gabriel waited for her to notice him. Eventually she would. She had been trained by Ari Shamron, and no pupil of the great Shamron would ever fail to take notice of a man standing below her terrace. When she finally saw him a smile flared, then faded. She lifted her hand, the reluctant wave of someone who had been burned by the secret fire. Gabriel lowered his head and started walking.
    They drank icy white wine on her terrace and made small talk, avoiding the operation or Shamron or Gabriel's wounds. Gabriel told her about his journey. Jacqueline said she would have liked to come. Then she apologized for saying such a thing-she had no right.
    "So why did you come here after all these weeks, Gabriel? You never do anything without a reason."
    He wanted to hear it one more time: Tariq's version of the story. The way he had told it to her that night during the drive from the border to New York. He looked out to sea as she spoke, watching the wind tossing the sand about, the moonlight on the waves, but he was listening fiercely. When she was done, he still couldn't put the final pieces into place. It was like an unfinished painting or a series of musical notes with no resolution. She invited him to stay for dinner. He lied and said he had pressing matters in Jerusalem.
    "Ari tells me you want to leave. What are your plans?"
    "I have a man named Vecellio waiting for me in England."
    "Are you sure it's safe to go back?"
    "I'll be fine. What about you?"
    "My story has been splashed across newspapers and television screens around the world. I'll never be able to return to my old life. I have no choice but to stay here."
    "I'm sorry I got you mixed up in this business, Jacqueline. I hope you can forgive me."
    "Forgive you? No, Gabriel-quite the opposite, actually. I thank you. I got exactly what I wanted." A second's hesitation. "Well, almost everything."
    She walked him down to the beach. He kissed her softly on the mouth, touched her hair. Then he turned and walked to his car. He paused once to look over his shoulder at her, but she had already gone.
    He was hungry, so instead of going straight to Jerusalem he stopped in Tel Aviv for dinner. He parked in Balfour Street, walked to Sheinkin, wandered past trendy cafés and avant-garde shops, thinking of the rue St-Denis in Montreal. He had the sense he was being followed. Nothing specific, just the flash of a familiar face too many times-a color, a hat.
    He purchased a newspaper from a kiosk, sat down in a restaurant with small round tables spilling onto the side-walk. It was a warm evening, sidewalks filled with people. He ordered falafel and beer, then opened the newspaper and read the lead article on the front page: "Benjamin Stone, the maverick publisher and entrepreneur, is missing and feared drowned off St. Martin