She recited it, then gave him a few coins as the clock turned to 6:58. The girl vacated her place. Gabriel walked over, lifted the receiver and fed coins through the slot. He dialed the number deliberately, fearful that if he made a mistake the first time he would not be able to summon the number correctly again. Somewhere a telephone began to ring. One ring, a second, a third . . .

“There’s no answer.”

“Be patient. Someone will pick up.”

“It’s rung six times. No one’s answering.”

“Are you sure you dialed the proper number? Maybe you made a mistake. Maybe your wife is about to die because you—”

“Shut your mouth,” Gabriel snapped.

The telephone had stopped ringing.

29 PARIS

29

PARIS

“GOOD EVENING, GABRIEL.”

A woman’s voice, shockingly familiar.

“Or should I call you Herr Klemp? That’s the name you used when you came to my club, isn’t it? And the name you used when you ransacked my apartment.”

Mimi Ferrere. The Little Moon.

“Where is she? Where’s Leah?”

“She’s close.”

“Where? I don’t see her.”

“You’ll find out in a minute.”

A minute . . . He looked up at the departure board. The clock rolled over: 6:59 P.M. A pair of soldiers strolled past. One of them looked at him. Gabriel turned away and lowered his voice.

“You told me if I came, you’d let her live. Now, where is she?”

“Everything will be clear to you in just a few seconds.”

The voice: he latched on to it. It drew him back to Cairo, back to the evening he’d spent at the wine bar in Zamalek. He’d been lured to Cairo for a reason—to plant a bug on Mimi’s telephone, so he could overhear a conversation with a man named Tony and capture the telephone number for an apartment in Marseilles. But had he been brought to Cairo for another reason?

She started to speak again, but the sound of her voice was drowned out by the blare of a station announcement: Train number 765 for Marseilles is now boarding on Track D. . . . Gabriel covered the mouthpiece of the receiver. Train number 765 for Marseilles is now boarding on Track D. . . . He could hear it through the telephone—he was sure of it. Mimi was somewhere in the station. He spun around and glimpsed her girlish hips flowing calmly toward the exit. Walking on her left, with his hand in the back pocket of her trousers, was a man with square shoulders and dark curly hair. Gabriel had seen the same walk earlier that morning in Marseilles. Khaled had come to the Gare de Lyon to witness Gabriel’s death.

He watched them slip through the exit.

Train number 765 for Marseilles is now boarding on Track D.