Assassin's Game

TWENTY

The early-afternoon sky over Bulleron had turned to a full overcast, a steel gray curtain that promised rain. The wind kept still and the seas were quiet, soft waves lapping the boat’s hull with barely audible authority. For Slaton these were no idle observations. Weather conditions at high latitudes were subject to volatile change, and right now meteorology was critical to his near-term planning. Janna Magnussen had said a cold front would arrive tomorrow, but he wondered if things were turning sooner. Could tomorrow morning’s extraction be delayed? Part of him hoped for the worst, a maelstrom that would last a week and cover him and Christine like an impenetrable blanket. A storm formidable enough to curtail the other path that was forming in his mind.

They were going over nautical charts when Slaton broached a subject he knew would be delicate.

“I need your help,” he said. “In a professional capacity.”

Her stare began as curious, but shifted to grim when he removed his shirt to display the wound on his bicep.

“It’s not a gunshot,” he said.

“Very reassuring — but I can see that. I did a turn in the emergency room at a big hospital in Boston.” She left it at that, not asking what had caused it. “I’m afraid the boat isn’t very well stocked with first-aid supplies.”

Slaton reached into his backpack and handed over the remainder of what he’d purchased in Stockholm.

“You always have an answer, don’t you?”

He presented his arm. “Obviously not.”

She set to work, removing the old dressing and cleaning the wound as best she could. Christine was normally chatty and chipper, but she carried on now in a discomforting silence. Slaton found it unbearable — one more good thing trampled by his intractable problems.

The quiet lasted until she tied off the outer bandage.

“Anything else?” she asked, pulling away.

“Is there a toothbrush on board?”

She shook her head, and said dismally, “It’s a hell of a way to live, Deadmarsh.”

“And I am a little hungry.”

“I docked for provisions in a village yesterday. Spent all the cash I had on cheap calories — pasta, rice, eggs, some canned vegetables.”

“I’ve seen you work with a box of rice. You’re good.”

Christine didn’t smile, and again his marital radar sensed something amiss. Slaton wondered if there was some complication he’d not yet seen. She pulled a pot from a cabinet and started fiddling with the tiny gas stove. He watched her work, knowing that simple chores could bring a sense of normalcy. It was a thing Slaton had learned during nerve-racking stays in safe houses and treacherous surveillance stakeouts: washing a load of laundry or doing the dishes was a simple way to cut the tension. Christine probably hadn’t recognized it yet. But she would. She was learning.

“How long will the provisions last?” he asked.

“For both of us? A few days, a week if we want to lose some weight. Is that the plan? To wait Nurin out until this assassination scheme is past its shelf life?”

“That was my original idea.”

She went still. “But not anymore?”

“Things have changed. Staying here, or sailing someplace else … it wouldn’t work. Mossad is looking for us. And of course the police — I’ve killed two men and shot an officer, and I’d rather not have to explain my reasons in a court of law. As for Mossad, it’s true that Nurin’s plan will be dead in a week, but who’s to say the director won’t come up with something better next week or next month. Hamedi might go abroad again, or perhaps Mossad will find an opening in Iran that has a better chance of succeeding than the last two. No,” he said with certainty, “laying low for a few days doesn’t fix anything. It only postpones the inevitable.”

“The inevitable? And what is that?”

Slaton didn’t answer.

The rain promised by the darkening skies began to fall, tapping against the boat’s fiberglass shell. Christine went to the companionway and slid the top shell closed as drizzle swirled into the cabin. She sank next to him at the built-in dining table, and again he sensed something amiss in her pained expression.

He met her eyes. “What’s wrong, Christine?”

After a long pause, she said, “There’s something you should know.”

“You mean it gets better?”

He’d hoped for a good-natured smile, but didn’t get it.

“When I was in the village yesterday, I bought one thing besides the food.” Christine reached into her pocket and pulled out a small plastic strip. It looked like a Popsicle stick, blue and with two colored bands on one end. She set the stick on the table and Slaton stared at it blankly. Only when he correlated the depth of her gaze did he realize what he was looking at.

“Is that a … you mean we…?”

Christine nodded. “Yes, David. We’re going to have a child.”

At 4:05 that Monday afternoon Sanderson was waiting in Sjoberg’s office while the assistant commissioner was tied up in something called the Interdepartmental Coordination Group. Sanderson briefly considered bursting in on the meeting with his revelations about Deadmarsh, but in the end he decided against it — given his present standing, he supposed drama would not work in his favor.

A ship’s clock somewhere in the room rang eight bells. He thought it sounded silly in a police department, and certainly not fitting for an AC’s office. Sanderson looked around the place and admitted, not for the first time, that he had once aspired to this room. The nameplate on the door might well have been his had he kept a more careerist outlook. He noted two pictures behind the desk. A younger Sjoberg standing on a golfer’s tee box with a commissioner long since retired, both brandishing long-shafted clubs. Another of Sjoberg accepting a plaque of commendation from the mayor, probably for some groundbreaking administrative achievement. Sanderson asked himself the familiar questions. Should he have made more appearances at the moving-up parties? Spent his weekends on the charity fund-raiser circuit? Those were the unwritten rules of the game of advancement, and Sanderson had not played by them. He supposed it was natural to find a few regrets at the end of a career, and he couldn’t deny this was one of his. Still, if he hadn’t achieved rank, he knew he’d earned the respect of the men and women he worked with on a day-to-day basis. If the inspectors and sergeants and constables at Kungsholmsgatan 43 were faced with a challenging case, he was the man they’d want to run it. Of this he was sure.

The door behind him rattled, breaking his musings, and Sjoberg walked in. He was followed by a woman whose self-important air and yellow identification badge indicted her as being from National.

“Arne—” Sjoberg looked at him with unmasked surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“I’d just like a minute of your time. I’ve come across something important.” Sanderson saw the woman hesitate at the door.

A befuddled Sjoberg addressed her, “Would you give us a minute?”

She backed outside with a gracious smile, leaving the door open.

“Arne, we’re very busy. I’d think you of all people would realize it.”

“I talked to a doctor today at Saint Göran.”

“Good, it’s about damn time.”

“No, no. Not Samuels. It was a physician from the emergency room. He told me that the victim brought into the ER Saturday—”

“What?” Sjoberg said, cutting him off in a coarse whisper. “You went to Saint Göran on a matter relating to this investigation?”

“Yes.”

“Have you forgotten my orders? Or are you simply ignoring them? You are not involved in this anymore!”

“But the man was Israeli, I’m sure of it. Don’t you see how this fits? This man we’re looking for is—”

“Enough! Arne, you are on medical leave. What must I do to make this clear? We are perfectly capable of handling things.”

“Are you? Then how could you miss something like this?”

Sjoberg’s voice rose, “I will not listen to the accusations of a dysfunctional detective who can’t even keep track of his—” His words faltered there, and the two glared at one another.

The office door was still open, and Sanderson sensed a hush outside. Phone calls paused, keyboards gone still.

In steady, drawn-out words, Sjoberg said, “Out of my office this minute or I’ll have your credentials.”

Without thinking, Sanderson reached into his pocket, pulled them out, and threw them at Sjoberg, striking him in the chest. He turned on a heel and walked out.

There were a dozen police officers in the outer room, men and women standing like statues between desks, planted motionless in chairs. They were detectives and sergeants and constables. One and all, they looked at Sanderson with something he had never seen before. They looked at him with pity.

Slaton was swept away. Joy, dread, hope, fear. All of it washed through his head in a single, tumultuous wave. He didn’t know what to do, what to say, and so he reached out and took Christine in his arms. He wanted her to clutch him back, but that didn’t happen. She pushed him away with tears welling in her eyes.

“So what the hell do we do now?” she said harshly. “You’re going to be a father, David. Is there a procedure for that?”

His mouth dropped open but nothing came. It was just as she’d said. His thoughts were a blank. No contingency plan, no tactical recourse. Slaton sat there shaking his head, stunned to inaction for the first time in his life.

“I just want this to end,” she said. “I know you’ve tried to escape your past, but it hasn’t worked. And now you’re doing just what they want, falling into this trap. The kidon is back — and I’m losing David Slaton.”

“No, Christine. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Yes, you are. I know you are.”

He said nothing.

“When can we just live like everyone else, David? When?”

After a long pause, he said, “Right now.”

Finally her face softened, and for the first time since arriving she looked at him as she last had — on the porch in Virginia with her suitcase in her hand. Having to go but not wanting to leave.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“No, there’s nothing for you to be sorry about.”

“If I didn’t love you like I do…”

He leaned in and kissed her.

She responded, tentatively at first, then becoming more insistent. Slaton pressed back and was met with more. Desperation gave way to relief. Relief brought comfort. And finally — the familiar anticipation. Soon they were holding and fumbling, kissing necks and raking careless hands through one another’s hair.

They’d only been apart for days, but it felt like years. The strain that had been building, cresting like a wave, suddenly expelled in a frantic rush. They half shuffled, half fell onto the bunk. An empty coffee mug got kicked to the floor. Hands went under clothing and shoes thumped to the deck.

And for the briefest of times, the hostile world outside was forgotten.