The Black Widow (Gabriel Allon #16) - Daniel Silva Page 0,9

to have in a place like Beirut.

He checked the time on his Samsung mobile. Sami Haddad noticed. Sami noticed everything.

“What time is he expecting you?”

“Ten o’clock.”

“Late.”

“Money never sleeps, Sami.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Shall we go straight to the hotel, or do you want to take a drive first?”

“Your call.”

“Let’s go to the hotel.”

“Let’s take a drive.”

“No problem.”

Sami Haddad turned off the Corniche into a street lined with colonial French buildings. Mikhail knew it well. Twelve years earlier, while serving in the Sayeret Matkal special forces, he had killed a terrorist from Hezbollah as he lay sleeping in the bed of a safe house. To be a member of such an elite unit was the dream of every Israeli boy, and it was a particularly noteworthy achievement for a boy from Moscow. A boy who had to fight every day of his life because his ancestors happened to be Jewish. A boy whose father, an important Soviet academic, had been locked away in a psychiatric hospital because he dared to question the wisdom of the Party. The boy had arrived in Israel at the age of sixteen. He had learned to speak Hebrew in a month and within a year had lost all traces of a Russian accent. He was like the millions who had come before him, the early Zionist pioneers who had fled to Palestine to escape the persecution and pogroms of Eastern Europe, the human wrecks who came spilling out of the death camps after the war. He had shed the baggage and the weakness of his past. He was a new person, a new Jew. He was an Israeli.

“We’re still clean,” said Sami Haddad.

“Then what are you waiting for?” replied Mikhail.

Sami wound his way back to the Corniche and headed to the marina. Rising above it were the twin glass-and-steel towers of the Four Seasons Hotel. Sami guided the car into the drive and looked into the mirror for instructions.

“Call me when he arrives,” said Mikhail. “Let me know whether he has a friend.”

“He never goes anywhere without a friend.”

Mikhail collected his briefcase and overnight bag from the opposite seat and opened the door.

“Be careful in there,” said Sami Haddad. “Don’t talk to strangers.”

Mikhail climbed out and, whistling tunelessly, breezed past the valets into the lobby. A dark-suited security man eyed him warily but allowed him to enter without a search. He crossed a thick carpet that swallowed his footfalls and presented himself at the imposing reception desk. Standing behind it, illuminated by a cone of overhead light, was a pretty black-haired woman of twenty-five. Mikhail knew that the woman was a Palestinian and that her father, a fighter from the old days, had fled Lebanon with Arafat in 1982, long before she was born. Several other employees of the hotel also had troubling connections. Two members of Hezbollah worked in the kitchen, and there were several known jihadis in housekeeping. Mikhail reckoned that approximately ten percent of the staff would have killed him if informed of his true identity and occupation.

He smiled at the woman, and the woman smiled coolly in return.

“Good evening, Mr. Rostov. So good to see you again.” Her painted nails clattered on a keyboard while Mikhail grew lightheaded from the stench of overripe azaleas. “We have you for just one night.”

“A pity,” said Mikhail with another smile.

“Do you require assistance with your luggage?”

“I can manage.”

“We’ve upgraded you to a deluxe sea-view room. It’s on the fourteenth floor.” She handed him his packet of room keys and gestured toward the elevators like a flight attendant pointing out the location of the emergency exits. “Welcome back.”

Mikhail carried his bag and briefcase into the elevator foyer. An empty carriage waited, its doors open. He stepped inside and, grateful for the solitude, pressed the call button for the fourteenth floor. But as the doors were closing, a hand poked through the breach and a man entered. He was thickset, with a heavy ridge over his brow and a jawbone built to take a punch. His eyes met Mikhail’s briefly in the reflection of the doors. A nod was exchanged, but no words passed between them. The man pressed the button for the twentieth floor, almost as an afterthought, and picked at his thumbnail as the carriage rose. Mikhail pretended to check his e-mail on his mobile and while doing so surreptitiously snapped the blunt-headed man’s photograph. He forwarded the photo to King Saul Boulevard, the location of the Office’s anonymous Tel Aviv headquarters, while walking along the