A moment later a Ford van braked to a halt in the street in front of her. The side door slid open, and Yusef leapt onto the wet asphalt. He walked toward her, hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, head swiveling from side to side. “How long have you been standing here?”
“I don’t know. Three minutes, five minutes. Where the hell have you been?”
“I told you to come at nine. I didn’t say five minutes before nine. I said nine.”
“So I was a few minutes early. What’s the big deal?”
“Because the rules have changed.”
She remembered what Gabriel had said to her: You have no reason to be afraid. If they push you, push back.
“Listen, the rules haven’t changed until I say they’ve changed. I haven’t decided whether I’m going. This is crazy, Yusef. You won’t tell me where I’m going. You won’t tell me when I’ll be back. I love you, Yusef. I want to help you. But you have to put yourself in my shoes.”
His demeanor softened immediately. “I’m sorry, Dominique. I’m just a little tense. Everything has to go right. I didn’t mean to take it out on you. Come inside. We’ll talk. But we don’t have much time.”
Gabriel had never seen the Ford van till now. He wrote down the registration number as it vanished into the darkness. Shamron joined him in the window. Together they watched Yusef and Jacqueline disappear into the lobby. A moment later lights burned in Yusef’s flat. Gabriel could hear two voices. Yusef, calm and reassuring; Jacqueline, edgy, stressed. Shamron made a base camp at the end of the couch and watched the scene across the street as though it were being played out on a movie screen. Gabriel closed his eyes and listened. They were stalking each other, circling the room like prizefighters. Gabriel didn’t have to watch it. He could hear it in the way the audio level rose each time one of them passed by the telephone.
“What is it, Yusef? Drugs? A bomb? Tell me, you bastard!”
So convincing was her performance that Gabriel feared Yusef would change his mind. Shamron seemed to be enjoying the show. When Jacqueline finally agreed to go, he looked up at Gabriel. “That was marvelous. A nice touch. Well done. Bravo.”
Five minutes later Gabriel watched them climb into the back of a dark blue Vauxhall. A few seconds after the Vauxhall drove away, a car passed beneath Gabriel’s window: Shamron’s watchers. There was nothing to do now but wait. To fill the time he rewound the tape and listened to their conversation again. “Tell me something,” Jacqueline had said. “When this is over will I ever see you again?” Gabriel stopped the tape and wondered whether she was speaking to Yusef or to him.
The Cromwell Road at midnight: the dreary corridor connecting Central London to the western suburbs had never looked so beautiful to Jacqueline. The bleak Edwardian hotels with their flickering neon vacancy signs seemed enchanting to her. She watched the changing patterns of traffic lights reflected in the wet pavement and saw an urban masterpiece. She lowered her window a few inches and smelled the air: diesel fumes, damp, cheap fried food cooking somewhere. London at night. Spectacular.
They had switched cars, the blue Vauxhall for a gray Toyota with a cracked windshield. The Vauxhall had been driven by a good-looking boy with his hair drawn back into a ponytail. Sitting behind the wheel now was an older man-at least forty, she guessed-with a narrow face and nervous black eyes. He drove slowly.
Yusef murmured a few words to him in Arabic.
Jacqueline said, “Speak French or English or nothing at all.”
“We are Palestinians,” Yusef said. “Arabic is our language.”
“I don’t give a shit! I don’t speak Arabic. I can’t understand what you’re saying, and it’s making me uncomfortable, so please speak fucking English, or you can find someone else.”
“I was only telling him to slow down a little.”
Actually, Yusef, you were telling him to make certain we aren’t being followed, but let’s not get hung up on the details.
On the seat between them lay a small suitcase. Yusef had taken her to her flat and helped her pack. “There won’t be time to go to baggage claim,” he had said. “If you need more clothing you’ll be given money to buy more clothing.” He had watched her pack carefully, inspecting each item she placed in the bag. “How should I dress?” she had asked sarcastically. “Warm climate or cold? Are we going to Norway or New Zealand? Sweden or Swaziland? What’s the dress code? Formal or casual?”
She lit a cigarette. Yusef took one out too and held out his hand for Jacqueline’s lighter. She gave it to him and watched him light his cigarette. He was about to hand it back when something made him stop and inspect the lighter more carefully.
Jacqueline felt as if she had forgotten how to breathe.
“This is very nice.” He turned it over and read the inscription. “ ”To Dominique, with affection and fond memories.‘ Where did you get this cigarette lighter?“
“I’ve had it for about a hundred years.”
“Answer my question.”
“It was a gift from a man. A man who didn’t send me off with a complete stranger.”
“He must have been very kind, this man. Why have I never seen this?”
“You haven’t seen a lot of things. That doesn’t mean anything.”
“Should I be jealous?”
“Look at the date, you idiot.”
“ ”June nineteen ninety-five,“ ” he recited. “Is this man still in the picture?”
“If he was, I wouldn’t be with you.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“June nineteen ninety-five, with affection and fond memories.”
“He must have been very important to you. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have kept his lighter.”
“It’s not his lighter, it’s my lighter. And I kept it because it’s a good lighter.”
She thought: Gabriel was right. He suspects something. I’m going to die. He’s going to kill me tonight. She looked out her window and wondered whether the Cromwell Road on a wet winter’s night was going to be her last snapshot of the world. She should have written a letter to her mother and locked it in a safety deposit box. She wondered how Shamron would break it to her. Would he explain that she had been working for the Office? Or would they cover up her death in some other way? Would she have to read about it in the newspapers? Jacqueline Delacroix, the Marseilles schoolgirl who rose to the peak of European modeling before a precipitous decline, died under mysterious circumstances… She wondered if the journalists she had treated with such contempt while she was alive would rise up en masse and savage her in death. At least Remy would write well of her. They had always been cordial. Maybe she could get something nice out of Jacques. Perhaps even Gilles-No, wait. Remember the party in Milan, the argument over the coke. Christ, Gilles was going to rip her to shreds.
Yusef handed her the lighter. She dropped it back into her purse. The silence was appalling. She wanted to keep him talking; somehow talking made her feel safe, even if it was lies. “You never answered my question,” she said.
“Which question is that? You’ve had so many tonight.”
“When this is all over, am I going to see you again?”
“That’s entirely up to you.”
“And you’re still not answering my question.”
“I always answer your questions.”
“Do you? If you’d told me the truth in the beginning, I doubt I’d be flying off with a complete stranger in the morning.”
“I had to keep some things from you. And what about you, Dominique? Have you been completely honest with me? Have you told me everything about yourself?”
“Everything of consequence.”
“That’s a very convenient answer. You use it very effectively when you want to avoid talking anymore.”
“It also happens to be the truth. Answer my question. Am I ever going to see you again?”
“I certainly hope so.”
