Zealot Read Free Page B

between tables, nearly upsetting a tray of drinks. He startled
     the kitchen help as he slammed through the swinging doors and stalked into the kitchen.
    “Are you lost, Monsieur?” a surprised busboy asked. The
sous
-chef made a move to stop him, but MacLeod was out the back door and into the alley beyond before anyone could reach him.
    Slowly, cautiously, MacLeod crept along the side of the restaurant. He spotted his man leaning against a letterbox, smoking
     with studied casualness. The gunman watched with great interest as the Chez Nous waiter brought their lunch to their table
     on the patio. MacLeod slipped into the crowd of pedestrians on the sidewalk and, pulling from his pocket the notecard on which
     he’d jotted the restaurant’s address, strode toward the letterbox as if he was going to mail it.
    In front of the letterbox, he made a great show of dropping the card. Recognition dawned on the face of the gunman as MacLeod
     bent down to pick it up. Before the gunman could react, MacLeod elbowed him sharply in the groin.
    The man bent double in pain, howling. MacLeod delivered a roundhouse kick squarely in the man’s gut, driving him hard back
     against the letterbox.
    A well-placed hit to the back of the man’s neck dropped him neatly to the pavement before the passersby on the sidewalk were
     even aware anything had happened.
    MacLeod had the man’s gun almost before the gunman hit the ground. A passing tourist screamed at the sight of the automatic,
     alerting everyone on the street and in the café as well, but MacLeod had eyes only for the battered gunman at his feet.
    “Who are you?” MacLeod growled, pressing the automatic nearer the man’s face. “Why were you spying on me?” He tried again,
     in Arabic this time. “
Shú ismak? Min wáyn inta?
” but still there was no response. The man simply closed his eyes, as if expecting MacLeod to pull the trigger.
    Suddenly, MacLeod felt a hard ring of steel jammed in his own side, insistent. “Donn-can,” Maral’s purr pleaded in his ear,
     “put the gun down. Please, put the gun down.” He could feel her hands shaking, felt her gun vibrate against his ribs. For
     the safety of all of them, he decided to do as she said. He set the automatic on the pavement by the letterbox.
    The man on the ground made a quick move toward it, intent on using it. Maral barked a sharp “
la!
”, no, and reached out her hand to help him gingerly to his feet. “Assad, Duncan MacLeod,” she said to him by way of perfunctory
     introduction as she helped him up. Assad, in pain, held his ribs and glowered at MacLeod. To MacLeod she said, “Duncan, this
     is Assad. My bodyguard.”
    “Your WHAT?” MacLeod was livid.
    Maral, hearing the distinctive whine of Parisian police cars in the distance and seeing the size of the crowd their little
     drama had attracted, begged him, “Please, there’s been a horrible mistake. Let’s just go someplace quiet we can talk.”
    “I think we’ve gone way beyond ‘mistake.’ ” MacLeod took her by the arm and led her off through the crowd, Assad lagging a
     short distance behind. “This had better be good.”

    “So it was all a lie? Bir Zeit? New Brunswick? All of it?” MacLeod paced angrily across the sumptuous lobby of the Hôtel Lutétia,
     feeling used. Across the lobby Assad and an Arab gentleman in a traditional headdress were speaking with a
gendarme
, straightening out the little “misunderstanding” at Chez Nous. Maral, looking tired and worn, sat in an armchair near MacLeod,
     trying to get him to understand.
    “It
is
true. Every word of it.”
    “So tell me again the part about how the schoolteacher conveniently forgot to mention she was a negotiator for the Palestinians,
     with a gun in her handbag and an armed bodyguard.” He pulled her to her feet. He was in her face. He didn’t care.
    Maral gave it right back to him. “What am I supposed to do? Announce to every Don Juan who comes on to me in a