Assassin's Game

FIFTY-NINE

Anton Bloch walked gingerly across a wide cobbled street, the uneven brickwork a test to his faltering gait. His long rehabilitation had gone well enough, but he still lacked the strength he’d once had, and the half-mile walk up a steep hill, in the heat of a Mediterranean August, was more than he’d bargained for.

The stone under his feet was an intricate mosaic, clearly a matter of some honor to a craftsman centuries ago. According to the driver who’d brought him here from Luqa, a chatty amateur historian, the Roman legions had arrived two thousand years ago, and in their wake the island was subsequently pillaged by Arab hordes, sacked by the Aragonese, and occupied violently by Byzantines. So perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised he has ended up here, Bloch mused.

Though his body was travel-weary, Bloch’s mind was sharp, and he followed the directions he’d so meticulously memorized. He passed lines of white-stone villas rife with dull corners, and pairs of querulous old women rife with sharp opinions. There were shops and grocers, and the occasional municipal building, the latter distinguished by that universal air of managed demise. Bloch was completely out of breath when he reached the end of the winding lane, where the path funneled open into a broad piazza.

He decided the address he’d been given was most likely allotted to a restaurant on one corner of the square, although the place lacked any numbers to prove the point. The building had yard-thick walls, pockmarked from one invasion or another, and the tables were no more than slabs of bleached stone. Bloch kept to the sidewalk as instructed, and where it ended he paused at a scenic overlook to take in the glistening Mediterranean, a view that had certainly not changed since the day the Romans had arrived. Rolling cobalt swells met the bases of cliffs, having built and traveled for days to reach their churning end. He turned the other way and saw a lazy Monday on the square. Waiters on patios moved languidly in the rising heat to arrange place settings for lunch. Under an olive tree a workcrew was taking a break from plastering the walls of an old church.

Bloch was watching a priest cross the road, black robe flowing and a gold cross dangling from his neck, when David Slaton appeared out of nowhere. He was standing on the sidewalk a few steps away, relaxed but observant. He said, “Thanks for coming.” There was nothing more, no offer of a handshake or pat on the shoulder. For a man like Slaton, social graces were no more than tradecraft — exhibited when necessary for appearances, but otherwise superfluous.

“It’s been a long time, David.”

“Over a year. How is retirement treating you?”

“It was good until you came along. Then somebody shot me in the spine.”

“And your recovery?”

“A little stiffness. But maybe I’m only confusing it with old age.”

Slaton began moving, and Bloch remembered — the kidon was never at ease when still. He strolled the sidewalk and Bloch kept up, wondering if the easy pace was for his benefit. They paralleled an ancient stone wall as light traffic skittered past, and while they walked Bloch studied Slaton. He looked more physically robust than ever. Deep tan and sun-lightened hair, lean muscle straining the shoulders of a loose, untucked shirt. On outward appearances, a man in vibrant health.

“You look fit,” Bloch offered.

“I’ve been working.”

“I’m told there are quarries outside town. Men here, it seems, still pull blocks of granite and marble from the earth by hand.”

“Do they?”

Bloch looked pointedly at Slaton’s roughhewn hands, but said nothing.

“So?” Slaton asked. “Did you do as I asked?”

“I have to say, your method of contact took me by surprise. A check in my name for five million dollars and a plane ticket to America? You never were one for subtlety.”

An unsmiling Slaton asked, “Were you tempted to take it and run?”

“No. But be thankful my wife didn’t open it first. I’d have a villa in the south of France and two new cars by now.”

This time Bloch saw perhaps a crease of humor at the corner of Slaton’s mouth. It disappeared as soon as he asked his next question. “Did she take it?”

“I think you know the answer.”

“How did you put it to her?”

Bloch sighed. “Not as you suggested. Your idea about a widow and orphan’s fund for Mossad operatives lost in the line of duty? Please, David. Do you not know your own wife?”

Slaton didn’t respond.

“I told her it was a personal life insurance policy. I said your premiums were dutifully paid, and that she was the legal beneficiary. It didn’t matter, of course. Maybe it had something to do with the messenger. You should have hired an actor to pose as an insurance adjuster, a stranger who could arrive at her door with papers to sign and a settlement statement. Or perhaps you might have set up a company with a bland name and simply mailed her a check. But no — one look at me and she wanted nothing to do with the money. By the way, where did you get it?”

“It’s not Mossad money, if that’s what you mean. Not exactly.”

Bloch eyed the kidon, but didn’t pursue the point.

“Does she have any doubts?” Slaton asked.

“About your death?” Bloch paused, choosing his words carefully. “I’m not sure. Edmund Deadmarsh was declared legally dead in the Commonwealth of Virginia last month. And of course she hasn’t heard from you. As you know, I went to see her a few weeks after Geneva, when you first insisted on this madness. She had trouble with it then, but now she seems more … accepting. I think she believes that if you’d survived you would have found your way to her by now.”

They meandered the promenade in silence, and at the crest of the cliff reached a white stone wall beyond which was a thousand-foot plunge to the deep blue Mediterranean. Bloch knew they were less than three hundred miles north of Tripoli, the roof of the Sahara, yet the arid onshore breeze born of the sirocco seemed at odds with the azure seascape before them.

He said, “Christine permitted me to see your son. He is only two months old but already has your—”

“Son?” Slaton stopped abruptly. He turned away, the dry breeze whipping his hair.

“My God!” Bloch stammered. He watched the kidon closely, saw his hands thrust deep into his pockets, the thick muscles tensing under his shirt. “You didn’t even know that much?”

“The less I know the better.”

Bloch pulled out his phone, called up the photograph he’d taken, and said, “Here, David. I took a picture of him with—”

In a flash Slaton whipped around and snatched Bloch’s phone. Without even looking at the screen, he smashed it against the stone wall and heaved the plastic and silicon remains spinning toward the sea below.

Bloch said nothing, and for a very long time they stood side by side at the stone precipice. “David—” he finally picked up, “you don’t have to do this. I can go back to Tel Aviv. I could tell them that—”

“No!” Slaton cut in. His voice fell to a quiet, hushed tone. “You will go back to Tel Aviv and tell this director and any other that if Christine and my son are ever … I repeat, ever put at risk, I will start with the prime minister of Israel and work my way down.” He met Bloch’s eyes. “Are we perfectly clear on this?”

“And your wife and child? You truly intend to never see them again?”

Slaton shifted his stare out to sea.

Bloch shook his head and looked up at the flawless blue sky. He tried to put himself in the kidon’s untenable position. He tried to understand. “Tell me, David. Is it possible to care for someone that much?”

Without answering, Slaton turned and walked away.

Bloch watched as he moved diagonally across the square, expecting Slaton to vaporize into his surroundings. Instead, he veered to one side of the piazza. The priest was at the church now, overseeing the work crew who’d gone back to plastering what was clearly a Roman Catholic house, the Vatican having long ago wrapped things up here. Slaton steered toward the man and struck up a conversation, a curious back-and-forth that caused the priest to cock his head and put a thoughtful finger to his lips. It was as if Slaton had asked an unanswerable question. Finally, that default solution so often relied upon by men of God was given. The priest shook his head, raised his palms upward, and looked to the sky.

Slaton nodded appreciatively, as if to thank the father for his opinion, and then turned away toward the far side of the square. He picked up his pace over the cobblestone street, shouldered into a crowd at the central market, and in a flurry of white-shirted bronze men and barefoot children playing soccer, the kidon was quickly lost to sight.