Prince of Fire

you, but together.”

“Please, shut up.”

And there it was, he thought. The crack. Khaled had lied to her.

“We’re going to die tonight,” he said. “At seven o’clock. He didn’t mention that to you?”

Another silence. Her finger was moving over the surface of the trigger.

“I guess he forgot to tell you,” Gabriel resumed. “But then it’s always been that way. It’s the poor kids who die for Palestine, the kids from the camps and the slums. The elite just give the orders from their villas in Beirut and Tunis and Ramallah.”

She swung the gun toward his face again. This time he snatched it and twisted it from her grasp.

“When you hit me with this, it makes it hard to drive.”

He held out the gun to her. She took it and placed it back in her lap.

“We’re shaheeds, Palestina. We’re driving toward destruction, and Khaled is giving us directions. Seven o’clock, Palestina. Seven o’clock.”

ON THE ROAD between Valence and Lyon, he pushed Leah from his mind and thought of nothing but the case. Instinctively, he approached it as though it were a painting. He stripped away the varnish and dissolved the paint, until there was nothing left but the fragmentary charcoal lines of the underdrawing; then he began building it back up again, layer by layer, tone and texture. For the moment he was unable to affix a reliable authentication. Was Khaled the artist, or had Khaled been only an apprentice in the workshop of the Old Master himself, Yasir Arafat? Had Arafat ordered it to avenge the destruction of his power and authority, or had Khaled undertaken the work on his own to avenge the death of a father and grandfather? Was it another battle in the war between two peoples or just an outbreak in the long-simmering feud between two families, the al-Khalifas and the Shamron-Allons? He suspected it was a combination of both, an intersection of shared needs and goals. Two great artists had cooperated on a single work-Titian and Bellini, he thought. The Feast of the Gods.

The date of the painting’s commission remained elusive to him as well, though. Of one thing he was sure: the work had taken several years and much blood to produce. He had been deceived, and skillfully so. They all had. The dossier found in Milan had been planted by Khaled in order to lure Gabriel into the search. Khaled had dropped a trail of clues and wound the clock, so that Gabriel had had no choice but to desperately pursue them. Mahmoud Arwish, David Quinnell, Mimi Ferrere-they’d all been a part of it. Gabriel saw them now, silent and still, as minor figures at the edges of a Bellini, allegorical in nature but supportive of the focal point. But what was the point? Gabriel knew that the painting was unfinished. Khaled had one more coup in store, one more spectacular of blood and fire. Somehow Gabriel had to survive it. He was certain the clue to his survival lay somewhere along the path he’d already traveled. And so, as he raced northward toward Lyon, he saw not the Autoroute but the case-every minute, every setting, every encounter, oil on canvas. He would survive it, he thought, and someday he would come back to Khaled on his own terms. And the girl, Palestina, would be his doorway.

“PULL OVER TO THE side of the road.”

Gabriel did as he was told. They were a few miles from the center of Lyon. This time, only two minutes elapsed before the telephone rang.

“Get back on the road,” she said. “We’re going to Chalon. It’s a-”

“I know where Chalon is. It’s just south of Dijon.”

He waited for an opening in the traffic, then accelerated back onto the Autoroute.

“I can’t decide whether you’re a very courageous man or a fool,” she said. “You could have walked away from me in Marseilles. You could have saved yourself.”

“She’s my wife,” he said. “She’ll always be my wife.”

“And you’re willing to die for her?”

“You’re going to die for her, too.”

“At seven o’clock?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you make up this time? Why seven o’clock?”

“You don’t know anything about the man you’re working for, do you? I feel sorry for you, Palestina. You’re a very foolish girl. Your leader has betrayed you, and you’re the one who’ll pay the price.”

She lifted the gun to hit him again, but thought better of it. Gabriel kept his eyes on the road. The door was ajar.

THEY STOPPED FOR GAS south of Chalon. Gabriel filled the tank and paid with cash given to him by the girl. When he was behind the wheel again, she ordered him to park next to the toilets.

“I’ll be back.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

She was gone only a moment. Gabriel slid the car into gear, but the girl removed the satellite phone from her bag and ordered him to wait. It was 2:55 P.M.

“We’re going to Paris,” he said.

“Oh, really?”

“He’ll send us one of two ways. The Autoroute splits at Beaune. If we take that cutoff, we can head straight into the southern suburbs. Or we can stay to the east- Dijon to Troyes, Troyes to Reims -and come in from the northeast.”

“You seem to know everything. Tell me which way he’s going to send us.”

Gabriel made a show of consulting his watch.

“He’ll want to keep us moving, and he won’t want us at the target too early. I’m betting for the eastern route. I say he sends us to Troyes and tells us to wait there for instructions. He’ll have options if he sends us to Troyes.”

Just then the telephone rang. She listened in silence, then severed the connection.

“Get back on the Autoroute,” she said.

“Where are we going?”

“Just drive,” she said.

HE ASKED FOR PERMISSION to turn on the radio.

“Sure,” she said affably.

He pressed the power button, but nothing happened. A slight smile appeared on her lips.

“Nicely played,” said Gabriel.

“Thank you.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Surely you’re joking.”

“Actually, I’m quite serious.”

“I’m Palestina,” she said. “I have no choice.”

“You’re wrong. You do have a choice.”

“I know what you’re doing,” she said. “You’re trying to wear me down with your suggestions of death and suicide. You think you can make me have a change of heart, that you can make me lose my nerve.”

“Actually, I wouldn’t dream of such a thing. We’ve been fighting each other for a long time. I know that you’re intensely courageous and that you rarely lose your nerve. I just want to know why: Why are you here? Why not get married and raise a family? Why not live your life?”

Another smile, this one mocking. “Jews,” she said. “You think you have a patent on pain. You think you have the market cornered on human suffering. My Holocaust is as real as yours, and yet you deny my suffering and exonerate yourself of guilt. You claim my wounds are self-inflicted.”

“So tell me your story.”

“Mine is a story of Paradise lost. Mine is a story of a simple people forced by the civilized world to give up their land so that Christendom could alleviate its guilt over the Holocaust.”

“No, no,” Gabriel said. “I don’t want a propaganda lecture. I want to hear your story. Where are you from?”

“A camp,” she said, then added: “A camp in Lebanon.”

Gabriel shook his head. “I’m not asking where you were born, or where you grew up. I’m asking you where you’re from.”