‘I’m not thinking of killing him,’ said the Russian, ‘just removing him.’
‘Could you do it? So that it would create a problem, I mean?’ asked Sulafeh, feeling that coveted excitement stir again.
‘Yes,’ said Zenin. ‘I could do it. But I’ll need your help.’
‘It would be a pleasure,’ she said, a remark as much for her own benefit as to reassure him.
Zenin’s earlier street-by-street movement about the city well equipped him to know best where to look. He wanted narrow roads as little used at night-time as possible, so it had to be the old part of the city. It meant crossing the river so they took a taxi to the Pont de l’Ile, where Zenin paid it off to go the rest of the way on foot. They went slowly along the Rue de la Corraterie towards the Place Neuve, Sulafeh contentedly holding on to Zenin’s arm with no idea of the purpose for the reconnaissance but blissfully content just to be with him. The need was for a meeting place with only one possible approach and Zenin had actually to go beyond the Place, near the university park, to find it, a narrow, winding cul-de-sac with alleyways off and a striped-awning bistro at its top. The length of possible vision was important, so while he remained out of sight in the shadows Zenin sent Sulafeh right up to the bistro, ostensibly to study the menu, while he edged back to the last point from which the necessary signal would be discernible. He was completely concealed in one of the bordering alleys when she returned and he set the test, pleased that she obviously could not see him until he reached out to stop her.
‘I don’t understand what I am supposed to be doing,’ Sulafeh protested.
‘You will,’ assured Zenin. ‘It’s perfect.’
‘What do I do now?’
‘You telephone your hotel and speak to Dajani,’ instructed Zenin. ‘You say that you’re sorry about your rudeness last night. That you want properly to apologize and that you’d very much like to explore the city with him.’
‘What!’
Zenin ignored her surprise. ‘Tell him that you’ve found a discreet bistro …’ Zenin stopped, nodding beyond her. ‘Arrange to meet him there and be precise about the time.’ Zenin looked at his watch. ‘Two hours from now. You arrive early to get one of those outside seats, with a view of this road. I don’t know what the bastard looks like, so I’ll need a signal to go with the physical description you’re going to give me. I shall be concentrating entirely upon you. The moment that you see him, put your napkin to your lips; that’ll be the signal.’
‘What then?’
‘You wait for five minutes, then pay for your drink and walk back along this cul-de-sac. I’ll pick you up, as you pass.’
‘What are you going to do to him!’
Zenin detected the thickness of anticipation in her voice and looked at her curiously. He said: ‘Remove him as a problem, like I said.’
‘Can I see you do it!’
‘Of course not: you can’t be involved.’
‘Afterwards then!’
‘No,’ he refused.
‘Please!’
‘I said no.’
‘Tell me about it later then, at the apartment?’
Zenin hesitated and said: ‘In all the detail that you want.’ He’d never known a woman excited in this way before.
They went back out on to the busier Place Neuve and Sulafeh called the Barthelemy-Menn hotel from a brightly lit bar. Zenin stayed against the bar, drinking the pastis he’d bought to justify their use of the telephone, apprehensively aware of the uncertainty of Dajani being there and not even relaxing when he saw her obviously in conversation because it could have been with another member of the delegation.
She was smiling when she came back towards him and he said: ‘Well?’
‘He promised not to be late.’
He relaxed then, answering her smile. ‘I hope he won’t be,’ he said.
He offered dinner but she said she was too tense to relax over a meal so they had another drink and left with an hour to spare before the arranged meeting. To avoid being conspicuous in the confined cul-de-sac Zenin led her into the park and she pulled herself closer to him and asked him if he could guess what she wanted to do, here and now on the grass, and he said he could but they would have to wait until later, back at the apartment. Instead he took her again through everything he wanted her to do and made her repeat it, to ensure that she completely understood. Then he had Sulafeh provide as detailed a description as she could manage of Mohammed Dajani, querying and probing to add to it when she protested there was no more to describe because he knew there would be under questioning, which there was.
Sulafeh got a kerbside seat in the bistro half an hour before Dajani was due to arrive and carefully following his instructions she dabbed her lips with her red-checked napkin after the first sip of her wine, as an insurance that the signal was still visible now that it had become darker and a rehearsal for later. Zenin saw it perfectly. He pulled into the blackened alleyway, vaguely aware of distant sounds, a radio and a child crying. The crying went on for a long time and became more and more distressed and the assassin thought how cruel it was to abandon a child like that. The cul-de-sac was comparatively busy but the alleyway in which he waited remained deserted and Zenin decided again it was an excellent choice.
Tonight would be the last night she would be able to return with him to the apartment, Zenin realized: the last night they would make love, in fact. The following day he had to retrieve the rifle from the Bern garage and set it up in the Colombettes apartment to carry out the full rehearsal, strapped into the harness. He didn’t want her back there, once he’d assembled everything. She’d been an interlude, an enjoyable way of filling in the time, but after tonight it would be over. A pity, in some ways; she really had been incredible in bed. Possibly the best he had ever known.
He remained constantly alert to the time, clearing his mind of any outside reflection and concentrating entirely upon Sulafeh Nabulsi fifteen minutes before the Palestinian was due to arrive. Which was fortunate because the man was early.
Warned of the approach by the napkin signal Zenin turned away, looking directly into the cul-de-sac, recognizing Dajani at once. Dajani was as fat and unattractive as the woman had described him, a wobbling, oddly shaped figure of a man. Zenin’s attention went immediately beyond, to anyone around his victim, seeing at once that his luck was holding: at that moment the cul-de-sac was deserted.
Dajani went to hurry by and Zenin guessed the man would be able to see Sulafeh, apparently waiting. As the Palestinian drew level Zenin snatched out, the trained attack perfectly co-ordinated. He grabbed the man at the shoulder and jerked him abruptly off balance, and pulled downwards, so that Dajani spun into the mouth of the alley. Zenin saw the man’s mouth open, the beginning of a cry, and cracked upwards with the heel of his left hand but not hard enough to kill, as he’d killed Bara-banov in that final test. All it did was drive Dajani’s mouth closed and jarred his head backwards. Zenin had the man’s coat lapels in both hands now, hauling him into the darkness and bringing his knee up into the man’s groin in the same movement. Dajani stumbled at the moment of contact and Zenin missed. He still caught the man in the groin, so the breath grunted from him in agony, but not at the breaking point so Zenin hauled him upwards and kneed him again, this time conscious of the pelvis cracking. As Dajani doubled up, Zenin chopped against the carotid artery in his neck, once more not hard enough to kill but sufficient to render him deeply unconscious.
There was a dip in the alley wall to accommodate some drainage pipes, and Zenin dragged the slumped man into the alcove. He pulled the heavy gold watch from the man’s wrist and went quickly through his pockets, to make it appear the robbery he intended the police to record. There was some accreditation identification for the conference and this Zenin was careful to throw down nearby, the action of a thief frightened to discover whom he had mugged.
He was at the entrance when Sulafeh reached it.
‘Where?’ she said, trying still.
‘Come on!’ the Russian insisted, urging her away.
‘Let’s get back to the apartment then, quickly!’
‘We’re not finished yet,’ cautioned Zenin.
