The English Assassin

Rolfe knows that Gabriel is coming the next day, but he’s concerned enough to write a letter and leave it in his secret account. He tries to throw off a false trail. Using a telephone he knows is tapped, he makes an appointment to be in Geneva the next morning. Then he makes arrangements for Gabriel to let himself into the villa and he waits.

But at 3A.M., the security system at the villa suddenly goes down. Peterson’s team enters the house. Rolfe is killed, the paintings are taken. Six hours later, Gabriel arrives at the villa and discovers Rolfe’s body. During the interrogation, Peterson realizes how the old man pla

A

Gabriel wondered how long he had been silent, how many miles he had driven.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “But perhaps it went something like this.”

“DOyou really think it’s possible, Gabriel?”

“Actually, it’s the onlylogical explanation.”

“My God, I think I’m going to be sick. I want to get out of this country.”

“So do I.”

“So if your theory is correct, there’s still one more question to be answered.”

“What’s that?”

“Where are the paintings now?”

“The same place they’ve always been.”

“Where, Gabriel?”

“Here in Switzerland.”

31

THREE MILES from the German border, at the end of a narrow valley dotted with logging villages, stands drab little Bargen, famous in Switzerland if for no other reason than that it is the northernmost town in the country. Just off the motorway is a gas station and a market with a gravel parking lot. Gabriel shut down the car engine, and there they waited in the steel afternoon light.

“How long before they get here?”

“I don’t know.”

“I have to pee.”

“You have to hold it.”

“I always wondered how I would react in a situation like this, and now I have my answer. Faced with danger, a life-and-death situation, I’m overcome by an uncontrollable need to urinate.”

“You have incredible powers of concentration. Use them.”

“Is that what you would do?”

“I never urinate.”

She swatted his arm, gently, so as not to hurt his damaged hand.

“I heard you in the bathroom in Vie

“Why don’t you smoke a cigarette? Maybe that will help you think of something else.”

“How did it feel to kill those men in my father’s house?”

Gabriel thought of Eli Lavon. “I didn’t have much time to consider the morality or the consequences of my actions. If I hadn’t killed them, they would have killed me.”

“I suppose it’s possible they were the ones who killed my father.”

“Yes, it’s possible.”

“Then I’m glad you killed them. Is that wrong for me to think that way?”

“No, it’s perfectly natural.”

She took his advice and lit a cigarette. “So now you know all the dirty secrets of my family. But today I realized that I really don’t know a thing about you.”

“You know more about me than most people do.”

“I know a little about what you do -but nothing about you. ”

“That’s as it should be.”

“Oh, come on, Gabriel. Are you really as cold and distant as you pretend to be?”

“I’ve been told I have a problem with preoccupation.”

“Ah! That’s a start. Tell me something else.”

“What do you want to know?”

“You wear a wedding ring. Are you married?”

“Yes.”

“Do you live in Israel?”

“I live in England.”

“Do you have children?”

“We had a son, but he was killed by a terrorist’s bomb.” He looked at her coldly. “Is there anything else you’d like to know about me, A

HE supposed he did owe her something, after everything she had surrendered about herself and her father. But there was something else. He suddenly found that he actuallywanted her to know. And so he told her about a night in Vie

It had happened after di

After di

When he turned and walked away, the car engine tried to turn over and hesitated, because the bomb Tariq had placed there was drawing its power from the battery. He turned and shouted for Leah to stop, but she must not have heard him, because she turned the key a second time.

Some primeval instinct to protect the young made him rush to Dani first, but he was already dead, his body blown to pieces. So he went to Leah and pulled her from the flaming wreckage. She would survive, though it might have been better had she not. Now she lived in a psychiatric hospital in the south of England, afflicted with a combination of post-traumatic stress syndrome and psychotic depression. She had never spoken to Gabriel since that night in Vie

This he didn’t tell A

“IT must have been difficult for you-being back in Vie

“It was the first time.”

“Where did you meet her?”

“At school.”

“Was she an artist too?”

“She was much better than I am.”

“Was she beautiful?”

“She was very beautiful. Now she has scars.”

“We all have scars, Gabriel.”

“Not like Leah.”

“Why did the Palestinian plant the bomb beneath the car?”

“Because I killed his brother.”

Before she could ask another question, a Volvo truck pulled into the parking lot and flashed its lights. Gabriel started the car and followed it to the edge of a pine grove outside the town. The driver hopped down from the cab and quickly pulled open the rear door. Gabriel and A

The container of the truck was filled with office furniture: desks, chairs, bookshelves, file cabinets. The driver said, “Go to the front of the cabin, lie down on the floor, and cover yourself with those extra freight blankets.”

Gabriel went first, clambering over the furniture, the deposit box in his arms. A

The truck teetered onto the road, and for several minutes they sped along the motorway. Gabriel could feel the tire spray on the undercarriage. A