A moment later Gabriel saw Yusef emerge from Westbourne Street and dart across the road in front of a charging delivery truck. Karp snapped a couple of photographs as Yusef entered the park and strolled around the fountains. During the middle of his second circuit, he was joined by a man wearing a gray woolen overcoat, face obscured by sunglasses and a felt hat. Karp switched to a longer lens, took several more photographs.
They circled the fountains once in silence, then during the second circuit began to speak softly in English. Because of the noise from the wind and the fountains, Gabriel could make out only every third or fourth word.
Karp swore softly.
They circled the fountains for a few minutes, then walked up a small rise to a playground. The girl who had been feeding the ducks walked slowly after them. After a moment the surveillance van was filled with the joyous screams of children at play.
Karp pressed his fists against his eyes and shook his head.
Karp delivered the tape to Gabriel at the listening post three hours later with the resigned air of a surgeon who had done all he could to save the patient. “I fed it through the computers, filtered out the background noise, and enhanced the good stuff. But I’m afraid we got only about ten percent, and even that sounds like shit.”
Gabriel held out his hand and accepted the cassette. He slipped it into the deck, pressed play, and listened while he paced the length of the room.
“… needs someone… next assignment…”
A sound, like static turned up full blast, obliterated the rest of the sentence. Gabriel paused the tape and looked at Karp.
“It’s the fountain,” Karp said. “There’s nothing I can do with it.”
Gabriel restarted the tape.
“… check out her… in Paris… problems… thing’s fine.”
Gabriel stopped the tape, pressed REWIND, then PLAY.
“… check out her… in Paris… problems… thing’s fine.”
“… not sure… right person for… sort of…”
“… be persuasive… if you explain the importance…”
“… what am I… tell her exactly?”
“… vital diplomatic mission… cause of true peace in the Middle East… routine security precaution…”
“… it supposed to work…”
The audio level dropped sharply. Karp said, “They’re walking toward the playground right now. We’ll get coverage in a moment when the girl moves into position.”
“… meet him… de Gaulle… from there… to the final destination…”
“… where…”
An injured child cries out for its mother, obliterating the response.
“… do with her after…”
“… up to him…”
“… what if… says no…”
“Don’t worry, Yusef. Your girlfriend won’t say no to you.”
STOP. REWIND. PLAY.
“Don’t worry, Yusef. Your girlfriend won’t say no to you.”
And the next thing Gabriel heard was a mother berating her son for scraping a lump of chewing gum off the bottom of the seesaw and putting it into his mouth.
That evening Jacqueline picked up curry after work and brought it to Yusef’s flat. While they ate they watched an American film on television about a German terrorist on the loose in Manhattan. Gabriel watched along with them. He muted his own television and listened to Yusef’s instead. When the film was over Yusef pronounced it “total crap” and shut off the television.
Then he said, “We need to talk about something, Dominique. I need to ask you something important.”
Gabriel closed his eyes and listened.
Next morning Jacqueline stepped off the carriage at the Piccadilly Underground station and floated along with the crowd across the platform. As she rode up the escalator she looked around her. They had to be following her: Yusef’s watchers. He wouldn’t let her loose on the streets of London without a secret escort, not after what he had asked her to do last night. A black-haired man was staring at her from a parallel escalator. When he caught her eye he smiled and tried to hold her gaze. She realized he was only a lecher. She turned and looked straight ahead.
Outside, as she walked along Piccadilly, she thought she spotted Gabriel using a public telephone, but it was only a Gabriel look-alike. She thought she saw him again stepping out of a taxi, but it was only Gabriel’s nonexistent younger brother. She realized there were versions of Gabriel all around her. Boys in leather jackets. Young men in stylish business suits. Artists, students, delivery boys-with minor alterations Gabriel could pass for any of them.
Isherwood had arrived early. He was seated behind his desk, speaking Italian over the telephone and looking hung-over. He placed his hand over the receiver and mouthed the words “Coffee, please.”
She hung up her coat and sat down at her desk. Isherwood could survive a few more minutes without his coffee. The morning mail lay on the desk, along with a manila envelope. She tore open the flap, removed the letter from inside. I’m going to Paris. Don’t set foot outside the gallery until you hear from me. She squeezed it into a tight ball.
THIRTY-ONE
Paris
Gabriel hadn’t touched his breakfast. He sat in the first-class carriage of the Eurostar train, headphones on, listening to tapes on a small portable player. The first encounters between Yusef and Jacqueline. Yusef telling Jacqueline the story of the massacre at Shatila. Yusef’s conversation with Jacqueline the previous night. He removed that tape, inserted one more: Yusef’s meeting with his contact in Hyde Park. He had lost track of how many times he had heard it by now. Ten times? Twenty? Each time it disturbed him more. He pressed the rewind button and used the digital tape counter to stop at precisely the spot he wanted to hear.
“… check out her… in Paris… problems… thing’s fine.”
STOP.
He pulled off the headphones, removed a small spiral notebook from his pocket, turned to a blank page. He wrote: check out her… in Paris… problems… thing’s fine. Between the staccato phrases he left blank spaces corresponding approximately to the times of the dropouts on the tape.
Then he wrote: We sent a man to check out her story in Paris. There were no problems. Everything’s fine.
It was possible that’s what he had said, or it could have been this: We sent a man to check out her story in Paris. There were big problems with it. But everything’s fine.
That made no sense. Gabriel crossed it out, then slipped on the headphones and listened to the section of the tape yet again. Wait a minute, he thought. Was Yusef’s contact saying thing’s fine or other side?
This time he wrote: We sent a man to check out her story in Paris. There were big problems with it. We think she may be working for the other side.
But if that were the case, why would they ask her to accompany an operative on a mission?
Gabriel pressed the fast-forward button, then STOP, then PLAY.
“Don’t worry, Yusef. Your girlfriend won’t say no to you.”
STOP. REWIND. PLAY.
“Don’t worry, Yusef. Your girlfriend won’t say no to you.”
Gabriel caught a taxi at the train station and gave the driver an address on the avenue Foch. Five minutes later he announced he had changed his mind, handed the driver some francs, and got out. He found another taxi. In the accent of an Italian, he asked to be taken to Notre-Dame. From there he walked across the river to the St- Michel Metro station. When he was confident he was not being followed, he flagged down a taxi and gave the
