Assassin's Game

THIRTY-THREE

Farzad Behrouz could see little to distinguish the door he was watching from a hundred others along the dust-caked street in central Molavi. The apartment was situated on the first floor of a five-story affair, a welcome advantage — surprise was far easier to keep without ten sets of boots clambering up switchback staircases. He watched a cat on the front step nose hopefully around an empty saucer. There was one window on the face of the flat, at this hour closed and in south Tehran certainly locked, and behind the glass was a small flowering plant that looked oddly vibrant in the dim light.

The four cars were in position, three on the front street and one in the back alley, the last team not meant to take part, but simply there for containment should any vermin scurry out the back door. Standard procedure. There were no lights on inside the flat, and had not been since nine-thirty — this from the advance surveillance group — which implied that their target had been asleep for roughly an hour. Satisfied, Behrouz chopped a finger from his seat in the lead car to set the assault in motion.

Ten men spilled into the street. It was probably eight more than they needed, but then shock was always an intended subtheme. The two men in the lead, carrying a hundred-pound battering ram, didn’t bother to knock. They hit the door on a dead run and it yielded to a single blow, slamming back hard and then hanging by its hinges in the aftermath at an awkward angle, rather like a drunk clinging to a lamppost.

The cat ran for its life.

Behrouz watched his team disappear with a trace of regret. He’d done his share of late-night door knocking, early in his career, and he remembered the thrill. Tonight, however, unlike the recent synagogue campaign, he could not take part. He wondered what was happening inside, and admonished himself for not having his men wired so he could monitor their chatter. His reasons for not personally taking part were summed up in that American-coined phrase he had grown to relish: plausible deniability. Behrouz was on a limb to even order this raid, and to be seen as actively involved could prove problematic — a definite risk when every urchin on the street had a smartphone with a camera. As the head of state security, there were only a handful of men in Iran who could call Behrouz to account. But no head of state security was without enemies.

Behrouz saw a flashlight beam slash across the window, and then shadows scurried past the open doorway. He heard a crash as something was overturned, and then the woman’s voice barked, loud and indignant. He frowned. After twenty minutes, the leader of the search team trotted out. Behrouz rolled his window halfway down.

“Well?” he asked impatiently.

“Nothing.”

Behrouz cursed under his breath. To this point the stakes were minimal, but pressing further would raise the risk considerably.

“Do we take her into custody and keep looking?” the man asked.

Behrouz was still for a long moment. They had been watching the old hen for six hours, ever since her son’s motorcade had left. And they’d been discreetly asking questions for a week. By all accounts she was a kindly old soul, well-liked by her neighbors. A distributor of cakes to children and supper to the indigent. None of this told Behrouz what he wanted to know.

He finally said, “No. Tell her a mistake was made and apologize. Say the local police reported a drug stash in the building.”

The brute looked at him as if he’d just been told to dance the tango. “We’re letting her go?”

“Yes, you idiot! Do it!”

The man plodded off toward the house.

The team was clear three minutes later. They tumbled into their cars and the black convoy re-formed, and as Tehran eased toward midnight the team slithered away under a trail of dust. Before turning the corner, Behrouz looked back and saw the old woman appear in her doorway. She paused at the threshold for a moment, hands on her hips in a nightdress and staring indignantly. Then, in a final act of defiance, Ibrahim Hamedi’s mother reached out and pulled her shattered door closed.

“You’re sure?” Nurin asked.

“Yes,” said Ezra Zacharias. “The account was checked on the client’s behalf earlier today.”

“And why are we monitoring this account?” inquired Veron.

The three men were at the conference table in Nurin’s bunker, seated on three opposing corners. The Star of David flag hung limply on a staff behind Veron, as still as the air in their subterranean vault. Daylight had left the city above hours ago, but there were no windows here to prove it. That was what Nurin had never liked about this place — you never had a true sense of what time it was.

“The man who’s been giving us trouble in Stockholm,” Nurin explained, “he was once involved with this account. After what happened Sunday, I suspected he might attempt to access it. The account has long been inactive, but our man would have no way of knowing this.”

“So he’s one of us,” said Veron.

“Was,” Nurin corrected. “A long time ago.”

“A kidon?”

Walking a thin line with his two lieutenants, Nurin decided the best reply was none at all.

Zacharias said, “This attempt to access the account — what does it mean?”

“It means he is in Switzerland. It means he needs money, but hasn’t found any.”

“Money?” questioned Veron. “For what purpose?”

Nurin chose his words carefully. “He has harmed us once. He may try to do so again.”

“But why?” implored Veron. “You still haven’t said what the former director was doing in Stockholm. Why did he contact this American woman?”

Nurin sat back in his chair and looked pointedly at the ceiling. Both his subordinates remained silent as he churned to a decision. When the director’s eyes came down, they settled on Veron.

“What kind of force can you have in Switzerland in twenty-four hours?”

“Twenty-four hours? We always have one team on alert.” Veron spoke with a commander’s confidence. “Eight men.”

“Do it. I want them standing by in Geneva tomorrow night.”

“Geneva?”

“Yes. That’s where he’s going.”

Veron hesitated visibly, everyone knowing his question. How could you know this? What he asked was, “And our mission?”

“If I give the word, I want you to find him.”

“How? We barely have a description.”

Nurin explained in detail where to look, and when, and added at the end, “Look for the man with a rifle.”

After another long silence, a clearly frustrated Veron said, “And if we find him as you say?”

“Wait for my instructions. If he is not there — I may have another mission for you. Tell your best marksman to be ready.”

Four hours after stepping onto German soil, Arne Sanderson was still walking. As night gathered, Sassnitz fell to a film noir landscape. All around him were utilitarian buildings set on industrial grade concrete, the sort of corrugated aluminum boxes no reputable architect would ever admit to creating. Smoke from the exhaust of countless vehicles mixed with chimney risings from pocket neighborhoods, altogether giving the air a rough-hewn edge of diesel and soot.

Sanderson trudged along a gravel railroad siding, head down and collar high, and tried to collate what he knew. Before landing — if that was what you called it in a seaplane — Magnussen had shown him where she’d dropped the American, a small cove a few miles up the coast. From there the shoreline was empty in either direction, and Sassnitz the only civilization nearby. As he sidestepped across the rails, heading for the town’s transportation hub, Sanderson was comfortable concluding that this was where Deadmarsh had come.

Unfortunately, it only led to a larger question. Before leaving Sweden, Sanderson had taken the time to reference Janna Magnussen’s flight planning table. He’d drawn a line south from Sweden across the Baltic, and in doing so had proved his suspicion that Poland was a more direct escape. There were also any number of other options on the compass. West to Norway, or east to Latvia or Estonia.

Why did you come here? he wondered.

Sanderson crossed the entrance of a holding yard, his feet pressing gravel into wet earth, and he tried to see it all as the assassin would have. A busy transfer point with a constant flow of trucks and boats. A rail yard with scheduled departures to firm destinations. Perhaps there was his answer. Why here? Because from Sassnitz a man could go virtually anywhere in Continental Europe with little chance of being tracked. It was an ideal waypoint. Yet as good as that theory was, it only led to another question. A waypoint to where? Without knowing where Deadmarsh was heading, he was grasping at air.

A gust swept leaves over the ground like so much October confetti, and Sanderson tucked his chin lower. He stopped in the rail terminal and talked to a few of the attendants, language an ongoing obstacle as he mixed halting German with English. I’m looking for a man who might have passed through yesterday. Six foot one, fair hair, unshaven. Name? I don’t know. Where was he going? I’m not sure. He was persuaded by a night watchman to ask a ticket agent, and the ticket agent told him to try the taxi stand. After ten minutes and six sets of shrugged shoulders, Sanderson gave up on a quest that bordered on the ridiculous.

He went back outside where the night’s coolness hit him. He plodded over service roads and circled warehouses, looking for any inspiration. He came upon a large parking apron where trucks and shipping containers were lined in rows. At the back he saw an assortment of parked recreational vehicles. Sanderson walked up to the access point feeling strangely light-headed. A tiny gatehouse was staffed by a middle-aged woman, and he saw an identification badge hanging round her neck on a lanyard. Her name was Helga. She was engaged in an intense conversation with a swarthy, younger man, but both fell silent when Sanderson came within earshot.

She said something in German that Sanderson didn’t understand. He replied with, “Do either of you speak English?”

“Some,” said the woman.

“I’m a policeman from Sweden. I’m here looking for…” Sanderson drew a blank. His mind seemed to freeze, like a computer in need of a reboot. He looked all around. The lights overhead seemed particularly bright, glowing banks that cast the cargo yard in a watery amber hue. His gaze settled on a light pole that seemed to divide as he looked at it. His head felt like it might split.

“You are all right?” the man asked.

“No, I…” Sanderson struggled for words, any words. What came out was, “Could you … tell me … tell me if there’s a hotel nearby. I’m not feeling at all well.”

One point three billion dollars.

The pub was just off Bahnhofstrasse, an English-Irish theme struck in dark hardwood, brass rails, and electric ale signs. Slaton sat alone, parked on a high stool and leaning into a beer the color of Brent Sea crude. It was a necessary prop — without it he’d have been the only person in the place with two free hands.

He sat facing the pub’s front window, watching expensive cars stream past in a constant flow, streaks of chrome glinting in the bright streetlights and neon spill. It was eight-thirty on a Wednesday evening, and the pub was stocked with bankers and bookkeepers and civil servants, a general aggregate of upward-aspiring Swiss. They were a well-lubricated bunch, loosened ties over designer shirts, leather-booted legs under tight skirts. Everyone was slapping backs and carrying on in a way that said they had not just arrived. Slaton studied them one by one, perhaps out of habit. He saw nothing to raise a warning flag, yet for some reason kept at it. Watching and listening. He heard conversations that held not a whit of intelligence value. Girlfriends and promotions. Hot investment tips and vacations to Mallorca. He had heard it all before, a hundred different times in a hundred different bars. Yet tonight it sank differently as he filtered the trite and mundane through his newfound prism.

Slaton had worked for Mossad since the day he’d graduated from university. He had never held a proper job, never worried about financial markets or office parties or impressing a boss. The next mission — that had been his creed, his driving principle. An instructor from sniper school had once jested that to be an assassin was akin to being a priest. Morals aside, once you were ordained you could never be anything else. Was it really true?

U.S. dollars. One point three billion.

He’d sat there for a time staring dumbly at Krueger, his fork stuck in a trout. But then, what could one say to such a thing? Benjamin Grossman, heartless merchant of death and closet homosexual, had amassed an absolute fortune. And now he had given it to Slaton, or more succinctly, given it to Slaton to be funneled for the benefit of Israel. In the identity of Natan Mendelsohn, Slaton had never been anything more than an intermediary, his objective to win Grossman’s trust and act as his link to the homeland. He remembered discussing Israel and her issues with the man on a number of occasions, because this too was part of his mission — Mossad had to be sure Grossman would make a trustworthy sayan. But this?

This Slaton had never expected.

He had faced a great many dilemmas in his years, often matters of life and death. Tonight’s revelation was trivial on its face, yet carried an underlying trauma. He would meet with Krueger in his office tomorrow to finalize the trust. Given the size of the bequest, Krueger estimated that full execution would take a matter of weeks as the Swiss authorities stamped documents, verified signatures, and, most importantly, double-checked that all revenue due the canton was collected. The only requirement on Slaton’s part was to certify himself to be Natan Mendelsohn, and proof of this was now in his pocket, returned in a sealed envelope after a year in the banker’s safe.

At the time it had seemed a good insurance policy, and now Slaton patted himself on the back for his foresight. He was once again Natan Mendelsohn, and had the Swiss identity card and passport to prove it. Both were Mossad products, although likely noncurrent and erased from official databases. They would be useless for entering another country, and no good to show a policeman. But Slaton didn’t need that. Natan Mendelsohn was in Switzerland and would remain there for the rest of his fabricated life. He could use the identity to sign Herr Krueger’s papers in front of a lawyer. He could register at respectable Swiss hotels and draw money from respectable cash accounts. On face value the documents were perfect, every stamp and hologram in place, and the photographs of Slaton displaying a textbook fusion of pain and indifference. A man irritated at having to replace expired items. A man who didn’t have to be told not to smile. For the immediate future, the identity of Natan Mendelsohn suited him perfectly.

His dinner with Krueger had been a blur after the bombshell, but Slaton had not completely lost his focus. On leaving Il Dolce, in an awkward moment, the newly minted billionaire explained to his banker that he had lost his wallet. Krueger had given him a hundred Swiss francs and arranged for a room at a nearby hotel. Slaton suspected that Krueger would have bought him a hotel if he’d asked — whatever it took to maintain a long-term lock on a ten-digit investment account. At the usurious percentages Krueger charged, he would never need another client.

“Another for you?”

Slaton looked up at a smiling waitress. He snapped back his head, downed the last of his beer, and found himself saying, “Yes, please.”

Slaton rarely drank, typically only to remain in character, but tonight he wanted another. He’d been consumed by a singular thought as he walked here from the restaurant, stumbling through the chilled autumn air without a trace of countersurveillance — he likely wouldn’t have noticed if Iran’s black-robed clerics themselves had been parading up Bahnhofstrasse. The distraction was still with him as he sat drinking alone, watching the moneyed crowds brush past on newly paved streets and spotless sidewalks.

What if I just kept it? With that kind of money, Christine and I could disappear forever.

The logistics would be simple. Slaton could arrange the details with Krueger tomorrow — have the money distributed to numbered accounts, and then spread far and wide. The Caymans, Aruba, Switzerland. The moral question was even easier. Grossman had been a criminal, but also a Jew, and in the end his conscience had pushed him to leave his wealth to Israel — the country Slaton had nearly died for, but that now betrayed him in the purest sense.

And not for the first time.

Long ago, during his recruitment, Slaton had lost the first woman he’d loved and their child in the most banal of tragedies — killed in a random traffic accident. Yet Mossad had misrepresented that catastrophe, twisting the facts to meet its own ends. They had turned grief into hate, hoping to bias Slaton’s psyche in order to channel his physical gifts. In order to create the perfect kidon. That had been another regime in Mossad, but the essential manipulation was unchanged. So Slaton would feel no angst in keeping the windfall from Grossman, not today and probably not tomorrow. The only thing left would be to retrieve Christine. Within a month they could be established in a new life in some warm and faraway place. And soon, the three of them, no attachments whatsoever to their old lives. A perpetual deception.

And there, he knew, was the catch. The reason it would never work. It was a lie Christine would never allow. Not for her, and certainly not for their child. Slaton took it no further, feeling like a beggar on a cold street staring at a vacation poster in a travel agent’s window — imagining a trip to paradise you would never take. When his beer came he drank it quickly and settled the bill. Ten minutes later he found the hotel where Krueger had booked him a single night’s stay. Slaton had never heard of the place, and when he walked inside he realized why. Lustrous marble floors, gilt accents, crystalline chandeliers.

The concierge greeted him and guessed his name. Bags, Monsieur Mendelsohn? None tonight? Very well … An elegant woman at the desk glanced at his passport and, deferring any bothersome signatures or swiped credit cards, he was soon being escorted to a palatial suite. Once alone, Slaton stood in a room with eighteen-foot ceilings and hand-painted murals. Louis XIV furnishings set delicately on ornate Persian rugs. Now that he was a billionaire, Slaton supposed it was only fitting that he should stay in a five-star hotel.

He could not contain a grin, thinking, God, Christine, how I wish you were here for one night. In spite of all the rest, this would make you laugh.