The Kill Artist

in the Caribbean. Authorities believe Stone fell overboard from his luxury yacht sometime during the night."
    Gabriel closed the newspaper.
    "How's Benjamin Stone?"
    "Relaxing in the Caribbean aboard his yacht."
    When the food arrived he folded his newspaper and dropped it onto the extra chair. He looked up and spotted a man outside on the sidewalk: slender, good looking, black curly hair, blond Israeli girl on his arm. Gabriel laid down his fork, stared directly at him, throwing all discretion and tradecraft to the wind.
    There was no doubt about it: Yusef al-Tawfiki.
    Gabriel left money on the table and walked out. For thirty minutes he followed him. Along Sheinkin, then Allenby, then down to the Promenade. A face can be deceiving, but sometimes a man's walk is as unique as his fingerprints. Gabriel had followed Yusef for weeks in London. His walk was imprinted on Gabriel's memory. The flow of his hips. The line of his back. The way he always seemed to be on the balls of his feet, ready to pounce.
    Gabriel tried to remember whether he was left-handed or right. He pictured him standing in his window, wearing nothing but his briefs, a thick silver watch on his left wrist. He's right-handed. If he was trained by the Office, he'd wear his gun on his left hip.
    Gabriel increased his pace, closing the distance between them, and drew his Beretta. He pressed the barrel of the gun against Yusef's lower back, then in one quick movement reached beneath his jacket and snatched the gun from the holster on his hip.
    Yusef started to swivel.
    Gabriel shoved the gun into his back even harder. "Don't move again, or I'll leave a bullet in your spine. And keep walking." Gabriel spoke Hebrew. Yusef stood very still. "Tell your girlfriend to take a walk."
    Yusef nodded to the girl; she walked quickly away.
    "Move," Gabriel said.
    "Where?"
    "Down to the beach."
    They crossed the Promenade, Yusef leading, Gabriel behind him, gun pressed against Yusef's kidney. They descended a flight of steps and walked across the beach until the lights of the Promenade grew faint.
    "Who are you?"
    "Fuck you! Who do you think you are, grabbing me like that!"
    "You're lucky I didn't kill you. For all I know you're a member of Tariq's organization. You might have come to Israel to plant a bomb or shoot up a market. I still might kill you unless you tell me who you are."
    "You have no right to talk to me like that!"
    "Who ran you?"
    "Who do you think?"
    "Shamron?"
    "Very good. Everyone always said you were smart."
    "Why?"
    "You want to know why, you talk to Shamron. I just did what I was told. But let me tell you one thing. If you ever come near me again, I'll kill you. I don't care who you used to be."
    He held out his hand, palm up. Gabriel gave him the gun. He slipped it back into his holster. Then he turned and walked across the darkened beach toward the bright lights of the Promenade.
    Lightning flickered over the hills of the Upper Galilee as Gabriel drove along the shore of the lake toward Shamron's villa. Rami waited at the gate. When Gabriel lowered the window, Rami poked his head inside and looked quickly around the interior. "He's on the terrace. Park here. Walk up to the house."
    Rami held out his hand.
    "You don't actually believe I'd shoot the bastard?"
    "Just give me your fucking gun, Allon, or you can't go up to the house."
    Gabriel handed over his Beretta and walked up the drive. Lightning exploded over the hills, illuminating the swirling clouds, wind tossing up whitecaps on the surface of the lake. The screams of waterbirds filled the air. He looked up toward the terrace and saw Shamron, lit by the swirling gas lamps.
    When Gabriel reached the terrace, he found Shamron in the same position, but instead of looking down at the drive his gaze was fixed on the storm over the mountains. Just then the lightning ceased and the wind died. The lake went still and the birds stopped their screaming. There was not a sound. Only the hiss of Shamron's gas lamps, burning brightly.
    Yes, Shamron began, there was a real Yusef al-Tawfiki, but he was dead-killed in Shatila, the night of the Phalangist massacre, along with the rest of his family. One of Shamron's agents went into the house after the killing and cleaned out the family's personal papers. The al-Tawfikis had no other relatives in Lebanon. Only an uncle in London-a maternal uncle who had never seen his young nephew. A few days later a boy turns up in a hospital in West Beirut. Gravely wounded,