The Kill Artist

means: signal sights and other forms of impersonal communication. To detect that, Gabriel would have to mount a full-scale round-the-clock surveillance operation. It would require multiple teams, at least a dozen officers-safe flats, vehicles, radios… An operation like that would be difficult to conceal from MI5, the British security service.
    But there was one other possibility that troubled Gabriel most: the possibility that the operation was already blown. Perhaps his surveillance had turned up nothing because Yusef already suspected he was being watched. Perhaps he suspected that his flat was bugged and his telephones tapped. And perhaps he suspected that the beautiful French girl from the art gallery was actually an Israeli agent.
    Gabriel decided it was time for another face-to-face meeting with Shamron in Paris.
    He met Shamron the following morning in a tea shop on the rue Mouffetard. Shamron paid his tab, and they walked slowly up the hill through the markets and street vendors. "I want to pull her out," Gabriel said.
    Shamron paused at a fruit stand, picked up an orange, studied it for a moment before placing it gently back in the bin. Then he said, "Tell me you didn't bring me all the way to Paris for this insanity."
    "Something doesn't feel right. I want her out before it's too late."
    "She's not blown, and the answer is still no." Shamron looked at Gabriel carefully and added, "Why is your face fallen, Gabriel? Are you listening to the tapes before you send them to me?"
    "Of course I am."
    "Can't you hear what's going on? The endless lectures on the suffering of the Palestinians? The ruthlessness of the Israelis? The recitation of Palestinian poetry? All the old folklore about how beautiful life was in Palestine before the Jews?"
    "What's your point?"
    "Either the boy is in love, or he has something else on his mind."
    "It's the second possibility that concerns me."
    "Has it ever occurred to you that maybe Yusef thinks of her as more than just a pretty girl? Has it ever occurred to you that he thinks of her as an impressionable girl who might be useful to Tariq and his organization?"
    "It has, but she's not prepared for that kind of operation. And frankly, neither are we."
    "So you want to fold up your tent and go home?"
    "No, I just want to pull Jacqueline out."
    "And then what happens? Yusef gets nervous. Yusef gets suspicious and tears apart his flat. If he's disciplined, he throws out every electrical appliance in the place. And your microphones go with them."
    "If we handle her departure skillfully, he'll never suspect a thing. Besides, when I hired her, I promised her a short-term job. You know she has other commitments."
    "None more important than this. Pay her wages, full price. She stays, Gabriel. End of discussion."
    "If she stays, I go."
    "Then go!" Shamron snapped. "Go back to Cornwall and bury your head in your Vecellio. I'll send in someone to take over for you."
    "You know I'm not going to leave her in your hands."
    Shamron quickly moved for appeasement. "You've been working around the clock for a long time. You don't look so good. I haven't forgotten what it's like. Forget about Yusef for a few hours. He's not going anywhere. Take a drive. Do something to clear your head. I need you at your best."
    On the train back to London, Gabriel entered the lavatory and locked the door. He stood for a long time in front of the mirror. There were new lines around his eyes, a sudden tightness at the corners of his mouth, a knife edge to his cheekbones. Beneath his eyes were dark circles, like smudges of charcoal.
    "I haven't forgotten what it's like."
    The Black September operation… They had all come down with something: heart problems, high blood pressure, skin rashes, chronic colds. The assassins suffered the worst. After the first job in Rome, Gabriel found it impossible to sleep. Every time he closed his eyes he heard bullets tearing through flesh and shattering bone, saw fig wine mingling with blood on a marble floor. Shamron found a doctor in Paris, a sayan, who gave Gabriel a bottle of powerful tranquilizers. Within a few weeks he was addicted to them.
    The pills and the stress made Gabriel look shockingly older. His skin hardened, the corners of his mouth turned down, his eyes turned the color of ash. His black hair went gray at the temples. He was twenty-two at the time but looked at least forty. When he went home, Leah barely recognized him. When they made love she said it was like