Ava lowered her face to his, her lips nearly brushing his ear. “Both of ours.”
Afterward, she sat with Gerhard Lutz in his office.
“How often do you send out bills?” she asked.
“Monthly.”
“By email?”
“And hard copy letter,” said Lutz.
“This month, you will send me his invoice first. Only after I return it to you will you send it to Tariq al-Sabah.”
“What will you do?”
“Please, Gerd. We never had this discussion.”
Chapter 33
Grand Hotel Kronenhof
Pontresina, Switzerland
He was, Ava had to admit, a handsome man.
As requested, he had dressed in a suit. Navy blue with the faintest pinstripe. White shirt with a spread collar. Solid navy tie. He’d cut his hair short, parted on the side, shiny with pomade. And the beard—the ever-present two-day stubble, the badge of hipness of every male under forty—it was gone. He was clean shaven. His face was tan from a day’s skiing. The color in his cheeks served to better contrast his eyes. They were not the obsidian black of a descendant of the Gulf, but a sparkling whiskey brown, nearly hazel. The transformation was startling. Gone was the cocksure Qatari prince. Enter the suave Italian gentleman.
“Be careful,” Zvi Gelber had implored her during a last, furious conversation earlier that day. “He knows someone’s watching.”
She’d taken precautions from the start. Pontresina was eight kilometers away from St. Moritz, a postage-stamp-sized hamlet in its own valley. Neutral ground, in Ava’s mind. She’d insisted on meeting him there. No ride necessary, thank you very much.
Tariq al-Sabah stood by the entrance to the hotel. “You came,” he said, holding the door as she swept into the lobby.
“You dressed,” said Ava.
“It gave me the chance to pick up a new suit.”
“Very smart,” she said, stepping closer to him, violating his private sphere, and running a finger along the lapel. “Shoes too.”
“These?” said Tariq. “John Lobbs. Had them made years ago.” He smelled of sandalwood and something herbaceous, an alluring combination.
Ava turned her back and allowed him to remove her camel overcoat. Beneath it she wore a black dress with spaghetti straps, tight in the waist, the hem much too high for a woman her age. It was winter, so she wore black hose and black heels that added three inches to her height. God save her, she felt as if she were walking on a high wire. One gust would topple her. Not much jewelry—just around her neck a silver chain that plunged into her décolletage.You may look, but be discreet.Her hair alone had taken an hour, straightening and combing and smoothing, until it was as sleek and shiny as a raven’s wing. And makeup, far too much makeup. Scheherazade in the sultan’s harem.
Ava Attal would not be caught dead wearing any of it; not the dress, the heels, the necklace, or the makeup. But tonight she wasn’t Ava Attal. Tonight she was Ava Marie Mercier, a covert operative working on behalf of the State of Israel. Her mission (and it was entirely of her own making) was to seduce Tariq al-Sabah of Qatar—minister of the interior, noted influencer, car enthusiast, stinted politician, and nascent terrorist—with the express goal of stealing sophisticated engineering plans he had taken possession of two days earlier from Dr. Reza Abbasi.
“Have you been here before?” she asked.
“First time,” said Tariq. “A little old fashioned for my taste.”
“I like old fashioned,” said Ava.
The Kronenhof was one of Switzerland’s oldest grand hotels. A nineteenth-century wedding cake with turrets and spires and, inside, trompe l’oeil paintings on the ceiling. Even the new furniture looked as if it were from a bygone era.
She led the way downstairs to the Kronenstübli. Tariq opened the door to the restaurant. The room was empty save a single table at its center—white tablecloth, sparkling glassware, a sterling ice bucket byits side, a bottle of champagne peeking from beneath a towel. “I hope you don’t mind,” said Tariq, as the captain helped them to their chairs. “I don’t like crowds.”
“Not at all,” said Ava. “Now we can talk about anything we like.”
“And I won’t take a picture of my dish,” said Tariq.
