arranged them on a white china plate. Then he started picking his way through the crowd.
Arafat was standing in the center of the main drawing room, surrounded by a half-dozen aides and security men and a crowd of well-wishers. Ambassador Cannon stood at his side. Tariq moved forward, the butt of the Makarov pressing into the flesh of his abdomen. Arafat was now ten feet away, but there were five people between him and Tariq, including a bodyguard. Arafat was so short that Tariq could barely see him through the crowd-only the black-and-white of his checkered kaffiyeh. If he drew the Makarov now, surely one of the bodyguards would spot it and open fire. Tariq had to get closer before he drew the gun. He had to play out the ruse with the dates.
But now Tariq had another problem. The crowd around Arafat was so tightly packed that he could move no closer. Standing directly in front of him was a tall man in a charcoal-gray suit. When Tariq tapped him on the shoulder, the man turned briefly and, spotting the tray and Tariq’s white jacket, said, “No thank you.”
“They’re for President Arafat,” Tariq said, and the man reluctantly stepped aside.
Next Tariq was confronted with a woman. Once again, he tapped the woman on the shoulder, waited for her to step aside, and moved another three feet closer to the target. But now he was standing beside one of Arafat’s aides. He was about to tap the man on the shoulder when he heard a cell phone chirp. The aide reached into the breast pocket of his suit jacket and brought the telephone quickly to his ear. He listened intently for a moment, then slipped the phone into his pocket, leaned forward, and whispered into Arafat’s ear. Arafat then turned to Cannon and said, “I’m afraid I have an urgent matter to attend to.”
Tariq thought: Damn it, but the man has the luck of the devil!
Arafat said, “I need to conduct a telephone conversation in private.”
“I think you’ll find my study to your liking. Please, come right this way.”
Arafat disengaged himself from the crowd and, together with Cannon and his bevy of aides, moved along a corridor toward the back of the apartment. A moment later they disappeared into a room. One of Arafat’s bodyguards immediately took up a post outside the door. Cannon and the aides emerged a moment later and rejoined the party.
Tariq knew he had to strike now or he would lose his chance. He sliced his way through the crowded living room, and walked down the hallway, stopping in front of the bodyguard. Tariq could see he was a member of Arafat’s personal security unit, a man who would know that the Palestinian leader loved nothing more than a good Tunisian date.
“One of Mr. Arafat’s assistants asked me to bring these to him.”
The guard looked at the plate of dates, then at Tariq.
Tariq thought: We can do this one of two ways. You can let me pass peacefully, or I can take out my gun and shoot you in the face and then go inside.
The guard snatched one of the dates and popped it in his mouth. Then he opened the door and said, “Leave the plate and come right out again.”
Tariq nodded and stepped into the room.
Gabriel double-parked the minivan on Eighty-eighth Street. He climbed out, ignoring the shouts of a foot patrolman, and ran to the entrance of the building on Fifth Avenue, Jacqueline a few strides behind him. When they entered the lobby, three people were waiting for them: a member of Arafat’s personal security unit, an American Diplomatic Security Service agent, and a New York City policeman.
A doorman was holding one of the elevators. He pressed the button for the seventeenth floor as the five people piled into the car.
The DSS agent said, “I hope to hell you’re sure about this, my friend.”
Gabriel removed his Beretta, chambered the first round, and slipped it back beneath his coat.
The doorman said, “Jesus Christ.”
It was a small study: a carved antique desk with leather in-lay, recessed lighting high in the molded ceiling, bookshelves filled with volumes of history and biography, a wood fire burning slowly in a marble fireplace. Arafat was on the telephone, listening intently. Then he murmured a few words in Arabic, replaced the receiver, and looked at Tariq. When he saw the plate of dates, his face broke into a warm, childlike smile.
Tariq said in Arabic: “Peace be with you, President Arafat. One of your aides asked me to bring these to you.”
“Dates! How marvelous.” He took one, inspected it briefly, and bit into it. “This date is from Tunisia, I’m sure of it.”
“I believe you’re right, President Arafat.”
“You speak Arabic with the accent of a Palestinian.”
“That’s because I am from Palestine.”
“What part of Palestine?”
“My family lived in the Upper Galilee before al-Nakba. I grew up in the camps of Lebanon.”
Tariq placed the plate of dates on the desk and unbuttoned his jacket so that he could get at his Makarov. Arafat cocked his head slightly and touched his lower lip. “You are not well, my brother?”
“I’m just a bit tired. I’ve been working very hard lately.”
“I know what fatigue looks like, my brother. I’ve seen what lack of sleep has done to me over the years. I’ve seen what it’s done to the men around me. But you are not suffering only from fatigue. You’re sick, my brother. I can see it. I have a very powerful instinct for these things.”
“You’re correct, President Arafat. I am not well these days.”
“What is the nature of your illness, my brother?”
“Please, President Arafat-you are far too busy, and too important, to worry about the problems of a common man like me.”
“That’s where you are wrong, my brother. I’ve always thought of myself as the father of all the Palestinian people. When one of my people suffers, I suffer.”
“Your concern means the world to me, President Arafat.”
“It is a tumor, isn’t it, my brother? You are sick from a cancer of some sort?”
Tariq said nothing. Arafat abruptly changed the direction of the conversation. “Tell me something, my friend. Which one of my aides asked you to bring me those dates?”
Tariq thought, So, his survival instincts are still as strong as ever. He thought of a night in Tunis a long time ago. An interminable meeting, a typical Arafat session, beginning at midnight and stretching till dawn. At some point a package arrived, addressed to Arafat himself, from an Iraqi diplomat in Amman. It sat on his desk for some time, unopened, until finally Arafat stood up and said, “There is a bomb in that package, Tariq! I can smell it! Take it away!” Tariq removed the package and gave it to a Fatah engineer to inspect. The old man had been right. The Israelis had managed to place a bomb in a senior PLO staff meeting. If Arafat had opened the package, all the top leadership would have been liquidated.
Tariq said, “He didn’t tell me his name. He just told me to bring the dates.”
Arafat reached out and took another date from Tariq’s tray. “It’s strange, but you seem very familiar. Have we met before?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
“Are you sure about that? You see, I never forget a face.”
“I’m certain, President Arafat.”
“You remind me of an old comrade-a man who served at my side during the good times and the bad.”
“I’m afraid I’m just a laborer.”
“I owe my life to this man. He protected me from my enemies. He saved my life more times than I care to remember.” Arafat lifted his face toward the ceiling and closed his eyes for a moment. “I remember one night in particular. I had been summoned to Damascus for a meeting with the brother of President Assad. This friend of mine begged me not to go. It was in the old days, when Assad and his secret police wanted me dead. The meeting went off fine, but as we were about to board our motorcade for the drive back to Beirut, this friend of mine tells me it is not safe. You see, he had learned that the Syrians intended to ambush the motorcade and assassinate me. We sent the motorcade on its way as a decoy, and this man managed to hide me in Damascus, right under the noses of the Syrians. Late that night we received word that Syrian special forces had attacked the motorcade outside Damascus and that several of my men were killed. It was a very sad night, but I was still alive, thanks to this man.”
