Only then do we start talking about killing him. And we pull the trigger only if we can get Sarah and the entire team off this island without getting caught.”
“How are we going to get proof?”
“The photographs aren’t good enough,” Gabriel said. “We need his voice.”
“He doesn’t speak.”
“Everyone speaks. We just have to make him speak while we’re listening.”
“And how are you going to do that?”
Just then the green light shone on the telephone recorder and a burst of dial tone came blaring over the speakers. Madame al-Nasser’s call lasted less than thirty seconds. When it was over, Gabriel listened to it again, just to make certain he’d got the details right.
Gabriel pressed the Stop button and looked at Mikhail-
THE RESTAURANT known as Le Poivre is one of the island’s undiscovered gems. It stands at the far end of a pleasant little shopping center in Saint-Jean, at the intersection of the main coast road and a narrow track that climbs the heights overlooking the beach. It has no view, other than the traffic and the parking lot, and little in the way of ambience. The dining room is the size of an average suburban patio. The service is sometimes listless, but the food, when it finally arrives, is always among the best on the island. Still, because of its unremarkable location, those who come to Saint Bart’s to be seen are rarely seen at Le Poivre, and nothing much out of the ordinary ever happens there. It is why, to this day, they still talk about the incident that occurred there involving Monsieur and Madame al-Nasser.
The staff know the story well, as do the locals who drink at the tiny bar. Afternoons, during the docile period between lunch and the evening rush, they often recount it over a glass of rose or an espresso and a cigarette. The reservation had been for 9:30, but they had come on the early side. Odette, the hostess on duty that night, remembers it as 9:15, but Etienne, the bartender, will tell you with great certainty that it was 9:20. There were no tables yet available, and so they had a seat at the bar to wait. Etienne saw to the drinks, of course. A glass of champagne for Madame al-Nasser. A pineapple juice for the gentleman. “Nothing else?” Etienne had asked, but the gentleman had smiled without charm and in a voice barely above a whisper had replied: “Just the juice, please.”
A table opened sometime after 9:30. Again there is mild dispute over the time. Denise, the waitress, recalls it as 9:40, but Odette, keeper of the reservation sheet and watcher of the clock, swears it was no later than 9:35. Regardless of the time, Monsieur and Madame al-Nasser were not happy with the table. Madame complained that it was too close to the entrance of the toilet, but one had the impression that Monsieur al-Nasser disliked the table for a different reason, though he never voiced an opinion.
It was nearly ten before the next table opened. This one was against the rail overlooking the street. Monsieur al-Nasser sat in the chair facing the bar, but Etienne remembers that his gaze was fixed permanently on the traffic flowing along the coast road. Denise apprised them of the evening’s menu and took their drink orders. Madame ordered a bottle of wine. Cotes du Rhone, says Denise. Bordeaux, according to Etienne. Of the wine’s color, however, there is no dispute. It was red, and much of it would soon be splashed across Madame’s white tropical pantsuit.
The catalyst for the incident arrived at Le Poivre at 10:15. He was small of stature and unimpressive of build. Etienne made him at five-eight, a hundred fifty pounds at the most. He wore a pair of baggy khaki shorts that hadn’t been washed in some time, an oversized gray T-shirt with a tear in the left sleeve, a pair of sandals with Velcro straps, and a golf cap that had seen better days. Strangely, no one can summon a compelling portrait of his face. Etienne remembers a pair of outdated eyeglasses. Odette recalls an untrimmed mustache that really didn’t suit his features. Denise only remembers the walk. His legs had a slight outward bend to them, she will tell you. Like a man who can run very fast or is good at football.
He had no name that night but later would come to be known simply as “Claude.” He had come to Saint-Jean by motorbike from the direction of Gustavia and had spent the better part of the evening drinking Heineken at the bar a few doors down. When he arrived at ten-fifteen looking for a table, his breath stank of cigarettes and hops, and his body didn’t smell much better. When Odette explained that there were no tables-
How long he remained inside is also a matter of some dispute. Estimates range from two minutes to five, and wild theories have been spun as to exactly what he was doing in there. The poor couple seated at the table rejected by Monsieur and Madame al-Nasser later described his piss as one for the ages and said it was followed by much flushing and running of water into the basin. When finally he emerged he was pulling at the fly of his khaki shorts and smiling like a man relieved of a great burden. He started back toward the bar, with his gaze targeted squarely upon the waiting Heineken. And then the trouble began.
Denise had just finished refilling Madame al-Nasser’s glass of wine. Madame was raising it for a drink but lowered it in disgust as Claude came out of the toilet tugging at his crotch. Unfortunately, she placed the glass on the table and released it in order to lean forward and tell Monsieur al-Nasser about the spectacle. As Claude teetered past, his hand knocked against the glass, spilling its contents into the lap of Madame al-Nasser.
Accounts of what transpired next vary according to who is telling the story. All agree Claude made what appeared to be a good-faith attempt to apologize, and all agree that it was Monsieur al-Nasser who chose the path of escalation. Harsh words were exchanged, as were threats of violence. The incident might have been resolved peacefully had not Claude offered to pay the dry-cleaning bill. When the offer was hotly refused, he reached into the pocket of his soiled khaki shorts and hurled a few wrinkled euro notes into Monsieur al-Nasser’s face. Denise managed to get out of the way just before Monsieur al-Nasser seized Claude by the throat and pushed him toward the exit. He held him there for a moment, shouting more insults into his face, then pushed him down the steps into the street.
There was a smattering of applause from the other patrons and much concern about the wretched state of Madame al-Nasser’s garments. Only Etienne bothered to tend to the figure sprawled on the pavement. He helped the man to his feet and, with serious reservations, watched as he mounted his motorbike and wobbled down the coast road. To this day Etienne harbors doubts about the authenticity of that evening’s events. A black belt in karate, he saw something in the drunkard’s carriage that told him he was a fellow student of the arts. Had the little man in the glasses and golf hat chosen to fight back, Etienne says with the conviction of one who knows, he could have torn Monsieur al-Nasser’s arm from the socket and served it to him for dinner with his Bordeaux.
“It wasn’t Bordeaux,” Denise will tell you. “It was Cotes du Rhone.”
“Cotes du Rhone, Bordeaux-it doesn’t matter. And I’ll tell you something else. When that little bastard drove away, he was grinning from ear to ear. Like he just won the lotto.”
ELI LAVON had watched Gabriel’s performance from the parking lot, and so it was Lavon who described it for the rest of the team that evening at the villa. Gabriel was slowly pacing the tiled floor, nursing a club soda for his hangover and holding a bag of ice to a swollen left elbow. His thoughts were on the scene now taking place half a world away in Tel Aviv, where a team of specialists in the science of voice identification was deciding whether the man known as Alain al-Nasser would live or die. Gabriel knew what the answer would be. He had known it the instant his quarry had risen from his table in a killing rage. And he had seen proof of it a few seconds later, when he’d managed to lift the right sleeve of his quarry’s shirt and sneak a glance at the ugly shrapnel scar on his forearm. At 11:30 the lights came on in the villa across the inlet. Gabriel went out onto the terrace, and on the opposite point Ahmed bin Shafiq did the same. To Mikhail it seemed that the two men were staring at each other over the darkened divide. At 11:35 the satellite phone purred softly. Yaakov answered it, listened a moment in
