The Secret Servant (Gabriel Allon #7)(108)

“Our preferred method.”

“Indeed.”

Gabriel held out his hand. Carter delved into his pocket again and came out with a slip of paper. Gabriel read what was written there and smiled.

“Can you make him go away?” asked Carter.

“It shouldn’t be a problem,” Gabriel said. “But I’m afraid we’ll have to spread a little money around Cairo to make it happen.”

Carter held up Robert Halton’s check. “Will this be enough to get the job done?”

“More than enough. But what should I do with the change?”

“Keep it.”

“Can I kill the prince, too?”

“Maybe next time,” said Carter. “More coffee?”





63




CYPRUS



He left Jerusalem for Cyprus three days later. Chiara pleaded with him to take her along but he refused. He had lost one wife to his enemies and had no intention of losing another.

He entered the country on an Israeli passport bearing the name Gideon Argov and told the Cypriot customs officers that the purpose of his visit was vacation. After collecting his rental car, a C-Class Mercedes that he subjected to a thorough inspection, he set out along the south coast toward the whitewashed villa by the sea. Wazir al-Zayyat had been vague about when he might appear, so Gabriel stopped briefly in a small village market and bought enough food to last him three days.

The March weather was unseasonably mild and he spent the first day relaxing on the terrace overlooking the Mediterranean, guilt-ridden for having abandoned Chiara to Jerusalem. By the second day he was restless with boredom, so he searched the Internet for a decent art-supply shop and found one a few miles up the coast. He spent the remainder of the afternoon producing sketches of the villa, and, late in the afternoon of the third day, he was working on a decent watercolor seascape when he spotted al-Zayyat’s car coming up the road from Larnaca.

Their encounter was conducted at a leisurely pace and in the cool sunshine on the terrace. Al-Zayyat worked his way slowly through the bottle of single malt while Gabriel sipped mineral water with wedges of lemon and lime. For a long time they talked in generalities about the situation inside Egypt, but as the sun was sinking slowly into the sea Gabriel brought the topic of conversation around to the real reason why he had asked al-Zayyat to come to Cyprus: the name he had been given in Jerusalem earlier that week by Adrian Carter. Upon hearing it, al-Zayyat smiled and nipped at his whisky.

“We’ve had our suspicions about the professor for some time,” he said.

“He was in Paris for the last year working on a book at something called the Institute for Islamic Studies. It’s a well-known front for jihadist activities, funded in part by Prince Rashid. He left Paris the day after Christmas and came back to Cairo, where he resumed his teaching duties at the American University.”

“I take it you’d like to grant the good professor a sabbatical?”

“A permanent one.”

“It’s going to cost you.”

“Trust me, Wazir—money is no obstacle.”

“When would you like to do it?”

“Late spring,” he said. “Before the weather gets too hot.”

“Just make sure it’s a clean job. I don’t want you making a mess in my town.”

One hour later al-Zayyat left the villa with a briefcase containing half a million dollars. The next morning Gabriel burned his sketches and the watercolor and flew home to Chiara.





64




CAIRO



The name on the reservation list sent a chill down the neck of Mr. Katubi, the chief concierge of Cairo’s InterContinental Hotel. Surely there was a glitch in the computer reservation system, he thought as he stared at it in disbelief. Surely it had to be a different Herr Johannes Klemp. Surely he hadn’t decided to come back for a return engagement. Surely it was all some sort of terrible misunderstanding. He picked up his house phone and dialed Reservations to see if the guest had made any special requests. The list was so long and detailed it took three minutes for the girl to recite them all.

“How long is he planning to be with us?”

“A week.”

“I see.”

He hung up the phone, then spent the remainder of the morning giving serious thought to taking the week off. In the end he decided that such a course of action would be cowardly and would inflict undue hardship on his colleagues. And so at 3:30 that afternoon he was planted firmly at the center of the glossy lobby, hands behind his back and chin raised like a defiant soldier before a firing squad, as Herr Klemp came whirling through the revolving doors, dressed head to toe in Euro black, sunglasses shoved into his head of silver hair. “Katubi!” he called brightly as he advanced on the steadfast little concierge with his hand extended like a bayonet. “I was hoping you would still be here.”

“There are things about Cairo that never change, Herr Klemp.”

“That’s what I love about the place. It does get under your skin, doesn’t it?”

“Just like the dust,” said Mr. Katubi. “If there’s anything I can do to make your stay more enjoyable, don’t hesitate to ask.”

“I won’t.”

“I know.”