“Why not?”
“Because I can’t generate a false passport with her picture on it without raising alarm bells. Besides,” Seymour added, “you and your service are rather good at making false passports.”
“We have to be.”
They walked in silence for a moment along the quiet street. Gabriel had run out of objections and questions. He could only say no, something he was not prepared to do.
“She might not be in any condition to travel,” Gabriel said at last. “In fact, it might be a while before she’s ready for much of anything at all.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“If she’s actually in that villa,” Gabriel began, “and if we can get her out, we’ll have to take her to one of our French safe properties and clean her up. I’ll bring in a team, a doctor, some nice girls to make her feel comfortable.”
“And when she’s ready to move?”
“We’ll change her appearance, take her photograph, and stick it on an Israeli passport. And then we’ll bring her across the Channel, at which point she will be your problem.”
They had reached the end of the street. It had brought them back to the flank of Notre Dame. Seymour adjusted his scarf and pretended to admire the flying buttresses.
“You never told me where the villa is,” he said indifferently.
“You’ll know soon enough.”
“And Marcel Lacroix?”
“He’s dead,” said Gabriel.
Seymour turned and extended his hand. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Walk to the Gare du Nord and get on the next train to London.”
“It’s more than a mile.”
“The exercise will do you good. Don’t take this the wrong way, Graham, but you look like hell.”
As it turned out, Seymour couldn’t recall the way to the Gare du Nord. He was an MI5 man, which meant he came to Paris only for conferences, holidays, or when he was trying to find the kidnapped mistress of his prime minister. Gabriel murmured the directions into Seymour’s ear and then followed him to the station’s entrance, where he vanished into a sea of beggars, drug dealers, and African taxi drivers.
Alone again, Gabriel rode the Métro to the Place de la Concorde and then made his way on foot to the Israeli Embassy at 3 rue Rabelais. After paying a courtesy call on the station chief, he contacted the operations desk at King Saul Boulevard to request a French safe house and a hostage reception committee. Five minutes later the desk phoned back to say a three-member team would be on the ground within twenty-four hours.
“What about the house?”
“We have a new property in Normandy, not far from the ferry terminal at Cherbourg.”
“What’s it like?”
“Four bedrooms, an eat-in kitchen, lovely views of the Channel, maid service optional.”
Gabriel rang off and collected the keys to the house from the station chief’s safe. It was approaching half past four, leaving him just enough time to make the five o’clock train to Avignon. He arrived in darkness and returned to his hotel in Apt. That night there was no rain, only a powerful wind that stalked the narrow streets of the town’s ancient center. Gabriel lay awake in his bed, in solidarity with Keller. At breakfast the next morning, he drank more than his usual allotment of coffee.
“You didn’t sleep well, Monsieur?” asked the elderly waiter.
“The mistral,” replied Gabriel.
“Terrible,” agreed the waiter.
The sign over the storefront read L’IMMOBILIERE DU LUBéRON. Adopting the skeptical demeanor of Herr Johannes Klemp, Gabriel spent a moment scrutinizing the property photographs hanging in the window before entering. A woman of perhaps thirty-five greeted him. She wore a tan skirt and a white blouse that clung to her with an illusion of dampness. She didn’t seem to find Herr Klemp’s attempt at small talk appealing. Few women did.
He told her that he had fallen under the Lubéron’s spell and that he planned to return for a longer stay. A hotel wouldn’t do, he said. In order to experience the real Lubéron, he wanted to rent a villa. And not just any villa. It had to be something substantial, in an area where tourists rarely ventured. Herr Klemp was not a tourist; he was a traveler. “There’s an important difference,” he insisted, though, if there was one, it seemed entirely lost on the woman.