The Kill Artist

pretty Austrian shopgirl who was found in the Danube the night of the bombing with half her throat missing.
    "Let's assume you're right, Gabriel. Let's assume Tariq suspects Jacqueline is working for the Office. Let's assume he's setting a trap for us to walk into. Even if that is the case, we'll still have the upper hand. We decide when to force the action. We pick the time and place, not Tariq."
    "With Jacqueline's life hanging in the balance. I'm not prepared to take that chance. I don't want her to end up like all the others."
    "She won't. She's a professional, and we'll be with her every step of the way."
    "Two weeks ago she was working as a model. She hasn't been in the field in years. She may be a professional, but she's not prepared for something like this."
    "Allow me to let you in on a little secret, Gabriel. No one is ever completely prepared for something like this. But Jacqueline can look after herself."
    "I don't like their ground rules either. We're supposed to let her go to Charles de Gaulle and get on a plane, but we don't know where the plane is going. We'll be playing catch-up from the moment the game begins."
    "We'll know where they're going the moment they go to the gate, and we'll be watching them the moment they step off the plane at the other end. She won't be out of our sight for a minute."
    "And then?"
    "When the moment presents itself, you'll take Tariq down, and it will be over."
    "Let's arrest him at Charles de Gaulle."
    Shamron pursed his lips and shook his head.
    Gabriel said, "Why not?"
    Shamron held up a thick forefinger. "Number one, because it would require involving the French, something I'm not prepared to do. Number two, no one has managed to build a case against Tariq that's going to stand up in a courtroom. Number three, if we tell the French and our friends in Langley that we know where Tariq is going to be on a certain day, they're going to want to know how we came by this information. It would also mean confessing to our brethren in London that we've been running an operation on their soil and neglected to tell them about it. They're not going to be pleased about that. Finally, the last thing we need is Tariq behind bars, a symbol for all those who would like to see the peace process destroyed. I would rather he disappear quietly."
    "How about a snatch job?"
    "Do you really think we could take Tariq from the middle of a crowded terminal at Charles de Gaulle? Of course not. If we want Tariq, we're going to have to play by his rules for a few hours."
    Shamron lit a cigarette and violently waved out the match. "It's up to you, Gabriel. An operation like this requires the direct approval of the prime minister. He's in his office right now, waiting to hear whether you're prepared to go through with it. What should I tell him?"
    THIRTY-TWO
    St. James's, London
    The middle afternoon, Julian Isherwood had decided, was the cruelest part of the day. What was it exactly? The fatigue of a good lunch? The early dark of London in winter? The sleepy rhythm of the rain rattling against his windows? This nether region of the day had become Isherwood's personal purgatory, a heartless space of time wedged between the sentimental hope he felt each morning when he arrived at the gallery and the cold reality of decline he felt each evening as he made his way back home to South Kensington. Three o'clock, the hour of death: too early to close up-that would feel like complete capitulation-too many hours to fill with too little meaningful work.
    So he was seated at his desk, his left hand wrapped around the comforting shape of a warm mug of tea, his right flipping morosely through a stack of papers: bills he could not pay, notices of good pictures coming onto the market he could not afford to buy.
    He lifted his head and peered through the doorway separating his office from the anteroom, toward the creature seated behind the headmasterly little desk. A striking figure, this girl who called herself Dominique: a real work of art, that one. At least she had made things at the gallery more interesting, whoever she was.
    In the past he had insisted on keeping the doorway separating the two offices tightly closed. He was an important man, he liked to believe-a man who had important discussions with important people-and he had wanted a rampart between himself and his secretary. Now he found he preferred to keep it open. Oh, that he were twenty years younger, at the height of his powers. He could have had