The Messenger

handed him the key.
    How long he remained inside is also a matter of some dispute. Estimates range from two minutes to five, and wild theories have been spun as to exactly what he was doing in there. The poor couple seated at the table rejected by Monsieur and Madame al-Nasser later described his piss as one for the ages and said it was followed by much flushing and running of water into the basin. When finally he emerged he was pulling at the fly of his khaki shorts and smiling like a man relieved of a great burden. He started back toward the bar, with his gaze targeted squarely upon the waiting Heineken. And then the trouble began.
    Denise had just finished refilling Madame al-Nasser’s glass of wine. Madame was raising it for a drink but lowered it in disgust as Claude came out of the toilet tugging at his crotch. Unfortunately, she placed the glass on the table and released it in order to lean forward and tell Monsieur al-Nasser about the spectacle. As Claude teetered past, his hand knocked against the glass, spilling its contents into the lap of Madame al-Nasser.
    Accounts of what transpired next vary according to who is telling the story. All agree Claude made what appeared to be a good-faith attempt to apologize, and all agree that it was Monsieur al-Nasser who chose the path of escalation. Harsh words were exchanged, as were threats of violence. The incident might have been resolved peacefully had not Claude offered to pay the dry-cleaning bill. When the offer was hotly refused, he reached into the pocket of his soiled khaki shorts and hurled a few wrinkled euro notes into Monsieur al-Nasser’s face. Denise managed to get out of the way just before Monsieur al-Nasser seized Claude by the throat and pushed him toward the exit. He held him there for a moment, shouting more insults into his face, then pushed him down the steps into the street.
    There was a smattering of applause from the other patrons and much concern about the wretched state of Madame al-Nasser’s garments. Only Étienne bothered to tend to the figure sprawled on the pavement. He helped the man to his feet and, with serious reservations, watched as he mounted his motorbike and wobbled down the coast road. To this day Étienne harbors doubts about the authenticity of that evening’s events. A black belt in karate, he saw something in the drunkard’s carriage that told him he was a fellow student of the arts. Had the little man in the glasses and golf hat chosen to fight back, Étienne says with the conviction of one who knows, he could have torn Monsieur al-Nasser’s arm from the socket and served it to him for dinner with his Bordeaux.
    “It wasn’t Bordeaux,” Denise will tell you. “It was Côtes du Rhône.”
    “Côtes du Rhône, Bordeaux—it doesn’t matter. And I’ll tell you something else. When that little bastard drove away, he was grinning from ear to ear. Like he just won the lotto.”

    E LI L AVON had watched Gabriel’s performance from the parking lot, and so it was Lavon who described it for the rest of the team that evening at the villa. Gabriel was slowly pacing the tiled floor, nursing a club soda for his hangover and holding a bag of ice to a swollen left elbow. His thoughts were on the scene now taking place half a world away in Tel Aviv, where a team of specialists in the science of voice identification was deciding whether the man known as Alain al-Nasser would live or die. Gabriel knew what the answer would be. He had known it the instant his quarry had risen from his table in a killing rage. And he had seen proof of it a few seconds later, when he’d managed to lift the right sleeve of his quarry’s shirt and sneak a glance at the ugly shrapnel scar on his forearm. At 11:30 the lights came on in the villa across the inlet. Gabriel went out onto the terrace, and on the opposite point Ahmed bin Shafiq did the same. To Mikhail it seemed that the two men were staring at each other over the darkened divide. At 11:35 the satellite phone purred softly. Yaakov answered it, listened a moment in silence, then rang off and called Gabriel inside.

26.

Pointe Mangin, Saint-Barthélemy

    T HEY GATHERED IN THE open-air living room of the villa and sprawled on the sailcloth couches and wicker chairs. Dina made the first pot of coffee, while Lavon taped a large-scale map of the island onto the wall. Gabriel stared at it gloomily for a long time in silence. When finally he spoke, he uttered a single word: “Zwaiter.”