The Kill Artist

keep an eye on the listening post. He answered the phone before it could ring a second time.
    Karp said, "Get the fuck out of there! We have company."
    Gabriel crossed the room toward the window and looked out.
    Jacqueline and Yusef were getting out of a taxi. What happened to dinner?
    He turned around. Now he had a serious problem. He had unplugged Yusef's clock radio. He had to plug it back in and reprogram it before leaving. Otherwise Yusef would suspect someone had been in the flat.
    He calculated how long it would take them to come upstairs. A few seconds to open the front entrance… a few more seconds to cross the lobby… about forty-five seconds to climb the stairs and walk down the hallway to the door. He had nearly a minute.
    He decided to do it.
    He took the duplicate clock radio from the rucksack and plugged it in. The red display lights flashed 12:00… 12:00… 12:00… He almost had to laugh at the absurdity of the situation. The future of the operation depended on whether he could set an alarm clock quickly enough to avoid being caught. Ari Shamron had persuaded him to come back and help restore the glory of the Office, but now it was going to be just another fiasco!
    He began pressing the hour-setting button. The numbers advanced, but his fingers were trembling from the adrenaline, and he mistakenly set it for nine o'clock instead of eight. Shit! He had to go through the entire twenty-four-hour cycle again. The second time he got it right. He set the current time, then switched on the radio, tuned it to Radio Five, and adjusted the volume.
    He had no idea how long it had taken.
    He snatched up the rucksack, killed the flashlight, moved from the bedroom to the front door. As he walked he pulled his Beretta from the waistband of his trousers and slipped it into the front pocket of his coat.
    He paused at the front door and pressed his ear against it. The corridor was quiet. He had to try to get out. There was noplace in the flat where he could hide and reasonably expect to slip out again. He pulled open the door and stepped into the corridor.
    He could hear footfalls in the stairwell.
    He placed his hand around the grip of the Beretta and started walking.
    In the taxi Jacqueline had forced herself to calm down. Her job had been to keep Yusef away from the flat, but if she had objected to his idea of eating dinner at home, he might have become suspicious. The chances of Gabriel being in the flat the moment they returned were next to nothing. The entire job would take only minutes. The odds were good that he had already planted the bugs and was gone. There was another, more reassuring possibility: Gabriel had expected Yusef to meet her at the gallery at six-thirty and then take her to dinner. Perhaps he hadn't even entered the flat yet. He would notice that they had returned early, and he would call it off and try another time.
    They crossed the lobby, started up the stairs. A man passed them on the second-floor landing: Gabriel, head down, rucksack over his shoulder.
    Jacqueline flinched involuntarily. She regained her composure, but not before Yusef noticed that she was rattled. He stopped and watched Gabriel walking down the stairs, then looked at Jacqueline. He took her by the arm and led her to the door. When they entered the flat, he looked around the room quickly, then walked to the window and watched Gabriel walking away through the darkness.
    TWENTY-SIX
    Lisbon
    A dense Atlantic fog rolled up the Rio Tejo as Kemel picked his way through the teeming streets of the Bairro Alto. Early evening, workers streaming home from jobs, bars and cafés filling up, Lisboans lining the counters of the cervejarias for an evening meal. Kemel crossed a small square: old men drinking red wine in the chill night air; varinas, the fishwives, washing sea bass in their big baskets. He negotiated a narrow alley lined with vendors selling cheap clothing and trinkets. A blind beggar asked him for money. Kemel dropped a few escudos in the black wooden box around his neck. A gypsy offered to tell his fortune. Kemel politely declined and kept walking. The Bairro Alto reminded him of Beirut in the old days-Beirut and the refugee camps, he thought. By comparison, Zürich seemed cold and sterile. No wonder Tariq liked Lisbon so much.
    He entered a crowded fado house and sat down. A waiter placed a green-tinted bottle of house wine in front of him along with a glass. He lit a cigarette, poured himself a glass of the wine.