The Messenger

He might come as a real estate developer or a pharmaceutical executive. He might come in a month. He might come in a year. He might never come. But if he does come, you can be certain he’ll be well mannered and worldly and seem like anything but a professional terrorist. Don’t look for a terrorist or someone who acts like a terrorist. Just look for a man.”
    He gathered up the photo illustrations. “We want to know about everyone who moves in and out of Zizi’s orbit. We want you to gather as many names as you can. But this is the man we’re looking for.” Gabriel placed a photograph on the table in front of her. “This is the man we want.” Another photograph. “This is the man we’re after.” Another . “He’s the reason we’re all here instead of being home with our families and our children.” Another . “He’s the reason we asked you to give up your life and join us.” Another . “If you see him, you’re to get us the name he’s using and the company he’s working for. Get the country of his passport if you can.” Another photograph. “If you’re not sure it’s him, it doesn’t matter. Tell us. If it doesn’t turn out to be him, it doesn’t matter. Tell us. Nothing happens based on your word alone. No one gets hurt because of you, Sarah. You’re only the messenger.”
    “And if I give you a name?” she asked. “What happens then?”
    Gabriel looked at his watch. “I think it’s time Sarah and I had a word in private. Would you all excuse us?”

    H E LED HER upstairs to his studio and switched on the halogen lamps. Marguerite Gachet glowed seductively under the intense white light. Sarah sat down in an ancient wingchair; Gabriel slipped on his magnifying visor and prepared his palette.
    “How much longer?” she asked.
    It was the same question Shamron had posed to him that windswept afternoon in October, when he had come to Narkiss Street to haul Gabriel out of exile. A year , he should have said to Shamron that day. And then he wouldn’t be here, in a safe house in Surrey, about to send a beautiful American girl into the heart of Jihad Incorporated.
    “I’ve removed the surface dirt and pressed the creases back into place with a warm, damp spatula,” Gabriel said. “Now I have to finish the inpainting and apply a light coat of varnish—just enough to bring out the warmth of Vincent’s original colors.”
    “I wasn’t talking about the painting.”
    He looked up from his palette. “I suppose that depends entirely on you.”
    “I’m ready when you are,” she said.
    “Not quite.”
    “What happens if Zizi doesn’t bite? What happens if he doesn’t like the painting—or me?”
    “No serious collector with money like Zizi is going to turn down a newly discovered van Gogh. And as for you, he won’t have much choice in the matter. We’re going to make you irresistible.”
    “How?”
    “There are some things it’s better you not know.”
    “Like what happens to Ahmed bin Shafiq if I see him?”
    He added pigment to a puddle of medium and mixed it with a brush. “You know what happens to Ahmed bin Shafiq. I made that very clear to you in Washington the night we met.”
    “Tell me everything,” she said. “I need to know.”
    Gabriel lowered his visor and lifted his brush to the canvas. When he spoke again, he spoke not to Sarah but to Marguerite. “We’ll watch him. We’ll listen to him if we can. We’ll take his photograph and get his voice on tape and send it to our experts for analysis.”
    “And if your experts determine it’s him?”
    “At a time and place of our choosing, we’ll put him down.”
    “Put him down?”
    “Assassinate him. Kill him. Liquidate him. You choose the word that makes you most comfortable, Sarah. I’ve never found one.”
    “How many times have you done this?”
    He put his face close to the painting and murmured, “Many times, Sarah.”
    “How many have you killed? Ten? Twenty? Has it solved the problem of terrorism? Or has it just made things worse? If you find Ahmed bin Shafiq and kill him, what will it accomplish? Will it end, or will another man step forward and take his place?”
    “Eventually another murderer will take his place. In the meantime, lives will be saved. And justice will be done.”
    “Is it really justice? Can justice really be done with a silenced pistol or a booby-trapped car?”
    He lifted the visor and turned around, his green eyes flashing in the glare of the lamps. “Are you