The Kill Artist

that gun somewhere else?"
    "I would, actually. How do I know you were really sent here by Kemel? Maybe your real name is Yitzhak or Jonathan. Maybe you're an Israeli. Maybe you work for the CIA. Maybe Kemel has been compromised, and you've come here to kill me."
    The young man sighed heavily and began to speak. "Kemel wants to meet with you three days from now in a first-class compartment of a train between Zürich and Prague. You're to join him there at any point during the journey when you feel it's safe."
    "You have a ticket?"
    "Yes."
    "Give it to me."
    Achmed reached into the pocket of his blazer.
    Tariq lifted the Makarov. "Slowly."
    Achmed removed the ticket, held it up for Tariq to see, and dropped it onto the table. Tariq looked at the ticket briefly, then turned his gaze back on the boy seated in front of him. "How long have you been waiting at the villa?"
    "Most of the day."
    "Most of the day?"
    "I went into the village in the afternoon."
    "Whatever for?"
    "I was hungry and I wanted to have a look around."
    "Do you speak Greek?"
    "A little."
    How perfect, thought Tariq derisively. A young man who speaks a few words of Greek with an Arabic accent had been hanging around the port all afternoon. Tariq imagined a scenario: a busybody Greek shopkeeper gets suspicious about an Arab loitering in the village and calls the police. A policeman comes down to have a look for himself. Maybe he has a friend or a cousin who works in the Greek security service. Damn! It was a miracle he hadn't been picked up the moment he stepped off the ferry. He asked, "Where are you planning to spend the night?"
    "I thought I might stay here."
    "Out of the question. Go to the Taverna Petrino. It's near the harbor. You can get a room there at a reasonable price. In the morning take the first ferry to Turkey."
    "Fine."
    Achmed leaned forward to pick up the gun. Tariq shot him twice in the top of the head.
    Blood spread over the stone floor. Tariq looked at the body and felt nothing more than a vague sense of disappointment. He had been looking forward to a few days of recuperation on the island before the next operation. He was tired, his nerves were frayed, and the headaches were getting worse. Now he would have to be on the move again, all because the goddamned ferry had been held up by high seas and Kemel had sent a bumbling idiot to deliver an important message.
    He slipped the Makarov into the waistband of his trousers, picked up the train ticket, and went out.
    FIVE
    Tel Aviv
    Uzi Navot traveled to Tel Aviv the following morning. He came to Shamron's office "black," which meant that neither Lev nor any other member of the senior staff witnessed his arrival. Hanging from the end of his bricklayer's arm was a sleek metal attaché case, the kind carried by businessmen the world over who believe their papers are too valuable to be entrusted to mere leather. Unlike the other passengers aboard the El Al flight from Paris that morning, Navot had not been asked to open the case for inspection. Nor had he been forced to endure the maddening ritualistic interrogation by the suntanned boys and girls from El Al security. Once he was safely inside Shamron's office, he worked the combination on the attaché case and opened it for the first time since leaving the embassy in Paris. He reached inside and produced a single item: a videotape.
    * * *
    Navot lost count of how many times the old man watched the tape. Twenty times, thirty, maybe even fifty. He smoked so many of his vile Turkish cigarettes that Navot could barely see the screen through the fog. Shamron was entranced. He sat in his chair, arms folded, head tilted back so he could peer through the black-rimmed reading glasses perched at the end of his daggerlike nose. Navot offered the occasional piece of narrative background, but Shamron was listening to his own voices.
    "According to museum security, Eliyahu and his party got into the car at ten twenty-seven," Navot said. "As you can see from the time code on the screen, the Arab makes his telephone call at exactly ten twenty-six."
    Shamron said nothing, just jabbed at his remote control, rewound the tape, and watched it yet again.
    "Look at his hand," Navot said breathlessly. "The number has been stored into the mobile phone. He just hits the keypad a couple of times with his thumb and starts talking."
    If Shamron found this scrap of insight interesting or even remotely relevant he gave no sign of it.
    "Maybe we could get the records from