The Kill Artist

head. Isherwood shuffled over to the sideboard and dumped an inch of gin into a tumbler. "What's in the bag?"
    "An insurance policy."
    "Insurance on what?"
    "Against the possibility that I'm unable to complete work on the Vecellio in time." Gabriel handed the bag to Isherwood. "Open it."
    Isherwood set down his drink and unzipped the bag. "My God, Gabriel. How much is it?"
    "A hundred thousand."
    "I can't take your money."
    "It's not mine. It's Shamron's, via Benjamin Stone."
    "The Benjamin Stone?"
    "In all his glory."
    "What the hell are you doing with a hundred thousand pounds of Benjamin Stone's money?"
    "Just take it and don't ask any more questions."
    "If it's really Benjamin Stone's, I think I will." Isherwood raised his glass of gin. "Cheers, Gabriel. I'm sorry for all the miserable things I've thought about you during the past few weeks."
    "I deserved it. I should have never run out on you."
    "All is forgiven." Isherwood stared into his drink for a long moment. "So where is she? Gone for good?"
    "The operation has moved into its final stages."
    "You've not put that poor girl in any danger, have you?"
    "I hope not."
    "So do I, for her sake and yours."
    "What are you talking about?"
    "You know, I've been in this lousy racket for almost forty years, and in all that time, no one's ever managed to sell me a forgery. Dimbleby's had his fingers burned. Even the great Giles Pittaway has managed to buy a fake or two in his time. But not me. I have the gift, you see. I may be a lousy businessman, but I can always tell a fraud from the real thing."
    "Are you coming to the point of this?"
    "She's the real thing, Gabriel. She's golden. You may never get another chance like this. Hang on to her, because if you don't, it will be the biggest mistake of your life."
    Part III
    Restoration
    THIRTY-FIVE
    Before the Catastrophe, Daoud al-Hourani lived in the Upper Galilee. He was a muktar and the richest man in the village. He owned livestock-several head of cattle, many goats, and a large flock of sheep-as well as a grove of lemon, orange, and olive trees. When it was time to pick the fruit, he and the other village elders organized a communal harvest. The family lived in a whitewashed house with cool tile floors and fine rugs and cushions. His wife bore him five daughters but only one son, Mahmoud.
    Daoud al-Hourani kept up good relations with the Jews who had settled on land near the village. When the Jews' well became fouled, he drafted men from the village to help them dig a new one. When several Arabs in the village fell sick with malaria, Jews from the settlement came and drained a nearby swamp. Daoud al-Hourani learned to speak Hebrew. When one of his daughters fell in love with a Jewish man from the settlement, he permitted them to marry.
    Then came the war, and then the Catastrophe. The al-Hourani clan, along with most of the Arabs of the Upper Galilee, fled across the border into Lebanon and settled in a refugee camp near Sidon. The camp itself was organized much like the villages of the Upper Galilee, and Daoud al-Hourani retained his status as an elder and a respected man, even though his land had been taken and his animals lost. His large whitewashed home was replaced by a cramped tent, broiling in the heat of summer, freezing and porous in the cold rains of winter. In the evenings, the men sat outside the tents and told stories of Palestine. Daoud al-Hourani assured his people that the exile would only be temporary-that the Arab armies would gather themselves and hurl the Jews into the sea.
    But the Arab armies didn't gather themselves, and they didn't try to hurl the Jews into the sea. At the camp in Sidon, the tents turned to tattered rags, only to be replaced by crude huts, with open sewers. Slowly, as the years passed, Daoud al-Hourani began to lose influence over his villagers. He had told them to be patient, but their patience had gone unrewarded. Indeed, the plight of the Palestinians seemed only to worsen.
    During those first awful years in the camp, there was only one piece of joyous news. Daoud al-Hourani's wife became pregnant, even though she had reached the age when most women can no longer bear children. In the spring of that year, five years to the day after the al-Hourani clan fled its home in the Upper Galilee, she gave birth to a son in the infirmary of the camp. Daoud al-Hourani called the boy Tariq.
    Branches of the al-Hourani clan were scattered throughout the diaspora. Some were across the