The Perfect Assassin

Chapter Six

At that same early morning hour, in the basement of the Israeli Embassy, the watch officer on duty opened his second can of Coke. He needed the caffeine to stay awake during another graveyard shift, which he, being the most junior person assigned to the station, was awarded three nights each week.

The windowless room was dimly lit, regardless of the time of day, and the duty officer sat surrounded by a forest of radios, cipher machines, computers, and telephones. There were also two televisions, tuned respectively to BBC News 24 and CNN, Mossad’s reluctant admission that even the world’s best intelligence networks were often scooped by some unrelenting newshound.

The duty man scraped for crumbs at the bottom of a bag of potato chips — he needed the salt to make him thirsty — then went to a computer station and began searching the newswires. There was a Reuters dispatch about a French arms sale to Iran. Nothing new there. As he continued searching, he remembered the dead-drop letter. It had come in just before the shift change, and the woman he’d relieved suggested he decipher it sometime during the night.

He found it, simply enough, in the in basket. The letter originated from a source inside Scotland Yard, a mid-level man who worked in the Operations Center. He was an agent whose information was supposed to be delivered each Thursday, taped to the underside lid of a toilet reservoir in the men’s room at the Shady Larch Pub in Knightsbridge. It actually came with great irregularity — once a month at best. Nobody at the station could decide whether the agent’s skittish nature was due to fear of being found out, or a randomly active conscience. The man was a British citizen and apparently had no ill will against the Crown. He was, however, also a Jew whose maternal grandparents had both perished in Bergen-Belsen, and he confessed to his control officer a nagging urge to aid the ancestral homeland. There were millions of people who could trace their lineage to victims of the Holocaust, and the Mossad made a living out of recruiting them.

Unfortunately, this particular agent was a ragged, sweaty bundle of nerves. He actually vomited on his control during their first meeting. The good news was that the information he did provide had always proven authentic and accurate. The Israelis decided it best to give him a dead-drop location and let him produce whatever he could, quietly hoping he might eventually move up to a higher position at the Yard.

The duty officer yawned as he labored to decipher the coded letter. It used a cumbersome one-time pad. Time consuming, but very secure. It was the ship’s name that raised his eyebrows. Polaris Venture. He tried to remember the Watch Order headquarters had put out a few days back. Was that the name? He was shuffling through papers when he heard someone in an adjacent office. He walked over and found a familiar face.

“Hey, Itzaak. What are you doing here at this hour?”

The more senior man frowned sufferingly, “Dumb-ass reports, due yesterday.”

The duty officer nodded sympathetically.

“Do you remember that Watch Order headquarters just put out? They were looking for a ship in the eastern Atlantic.”

“I guess. Why?”

“Well, our boy at Scotland Yard came through today. I just deciphered it and he’s got something in here about a woman who says she rescued some guy from the middle of the ocean. Then this guy commandeers her sailboat and they end up in England. She thinks the name of the ship that went down was …” the duty officer looked at the deciphered message in his hand, “Polaris Venture. Wasn’t that the name?”

Itzaak answered right away, “Nah. I saw the message. I don’t think that was it.”

The duty officer shrugged and walked back to his station. After all, it was a crazy story, which was probably why the agent at Scotland Yard had tacked it onto a few other more relevant bits of information — that odd English sense of humor. He’d ask his relief about it at six. In the meantime, he considered getting a sandwich from the snack machine, but one glance down at his newly expanded waistline quashed that idea. He didn’t need it.

Three hours later, Emma Shroeder came into the embassy basement to visit the coffee maker.

“Morning, Emma,” the duty man offered.

“Morning,” she replied in her raspy, deep voice.

“Listen,” he said, “I know it’s not your area, but do you know where they keep the current Watch Orders?”

Emma eyed the new guy, clearly not having decided about this one yet. She sighed, went to the file cabinet by his knee and pulled out a file, nicely labeled watch orders.

“No,” she said, retreating to the stairwell, “I’m not cleared for stuff like that.”

The duty officer’s smile lasted until he found the order in question. Itzaak had been out to lunch. The name Polaris Venture was highlighted in yellow and seemed to jump off the page. Worried that he’d screwed up, the duty man immediately condensed the agent’s report and transmitted it to headquarters in Tel Aviv. He had no idea what a hornet’s nest it would stir.

The message arrived at Mossad headquarters just after 5:00 GMT. It was quickly routed up, and Bloch got the news over breakfast. He called to check the Prime Minister’s schedule, then arranged for a secure message to be sent to London.

Ninety seconds later the reply came.

Chief Bickerstaff had gone back to the Penzance station at five-thirty in the morning. He didn’t normally start so early, but his phone calls to the States the previous evening had been troubling. By six this morning, he was uncomfortable, and now at six-thirty Bickerstaff was quite sure he’d blown it.

He had fully expected to find that this Christine Palmer woman was going through a messy divorce, a bankruptcy, or maybe she was just a loon. Unfortunately, his phone calls had proven quite the opposite. She had indeed graduated, with honors, three years ago from the University of Connecticut Medical School. Having completed the first part of her residency at the Maine Medical Center in Portland, she was on a temporary leave of absence to retrieve her late father’s sailboat from Europe. The faculty and staff at the medical center held Dr. Palmer in the highest regard, both as a physician and a person. The more Bickerstaff found out about her, the more she seemed a perfectly normal, intelligent twenty-eight year-old woman.

The phone rang and Bickerstaff eyed it warily before picking up.

“Edwards here, sir. I think we’ve found something.”

Bickerstaff grimaced.

“I’m at the Tewksbury house, two down from your aunt Margaret’s place. We’ve found a dinghy up against the shed that seems to be the one we’re looking for. I called Mr. Tewksbury in Manchester — woke him up, I’m afraid. He said he doesn’t even own one. He told me where to find a key and I let myself in the house. Looks as though somebody’s been through it.”

“Didn’t you check out that area last night?”

“I did.”

“And you didn’t see the boat then?”

“That’s the funny thing,” Edwards said. “I was looking down along the shoreline last night. This shed, it’s not one of those that are down on the beach. It’s up right next to the house. He must have lugged the thing all the way up the cliff.”

Bickerstaff tensed. “Right. Because we wouldn’t be looking for it there, would we?”

“One other thing you should know about, Chief. Tewksbury and I tried to figure if anything was missing. The only thing that’s gone for sure is an old motorcycle he kept in the shed. Tewksbury says he hasn’t used it in over a year. He didn’t think the thing would run, but it’s definitely gone.”

“All right,” Bickerstaff said. “Anything else I should know?”

“Tewksbury’s coming down tonight on the 6:10 from Manchester. He wants to go over the place and make an insurance claim. I think that’s all, Chief. I thought I should give you a call right off.”

“All right. Stay there and see what else you can find. Tonight I want you to meet Tewksbury when he gets off that train. Get him to his house and find out exactly what’s missing.”

“Right.”

“Call me if you find anything else.” Bickerstaff hung up, realizing he should have added in a “well done” for Edwards.

“Now what?” he muttered to himself. Bickerstaff knew he’d botched it. Christine Palmer’s story had seemed so far-fetched that he hadn’t given it much credence. The man at Lloyd’s had been so sure. No ships lost in the Atlantic, he’d said. Not for over two months now. The phone calls to the States last night hadn’t fit in, but still …

Bickerstaff realized he was setting his excuses. He had no choice but to call in help. If there was a dangerous man out there, Bickerstaff had given him a big head start. He might as well go straight to the top with it. Bickerstaff dialed Scotland Yard.

The call took ten minutes. It led to two hours of shuffling from one department to another, no one at the Yard seeming eager to handle the matter. There was kidnapping and destruction of property, all with foreign nationals involved, and then the business of a sunken vessel. First it was routed to Special Branch, which recommended the Foreign Office. The Foreign Office, in turn, thought the Royal Navy should handle it. The Navy, of course, wanted no part, and it finally ended up back with Special Branch. They all reacted as they had on Bickerstaff’s initial report last night. It was incredible, probably some kind of silly hoax. A sergeant from Special Branch finally got with Bickerstaff and asked for more details. He assured the chief that a thorough investigation would commence. Possibly today, but more likely tomorrow.

Slaton hired a car at an all night agency in Reading, a Peugeot. He used the Danish identity since it was the one associated with the credit card. From Reading, he traveled south on the A33, then southeast on the M3 to Hampshire. As he arrived in New Forest, dawn’s light began to spread its warmth across the countryside. The land seemed to open up, deep unfenced fields, interspersed with plots of thick foliage. The topography retained an unspoiled, medieval aura, a concept accentuated by the early morning mist.

It was shortly after sunrise when Slaton arrived at his destination. A series of small dirt roads edged away from the main highway, meandering through stands of trees that grew more and more dense as he went. Narrow drives occasionally branched off left and right, and small shacks — a few could almost be called houses — were just visible through the walls of fir and oak.

He went past the familiar turnoff, then pulled over to the side. Leaving the car running, he got out and walked slightly ahead. Slaton stomped on the shoulder of the gravel road, making sure the ground was firm, then got back in and coaxed the car slowly into a gap in the brush. It wasn’t completely hidden from the road, but it would do. He’d go the rest of the way on foot.

Slaton had no way of knowing if there would be anyone at “The Lodge,” as it was commonly referred to. The small hunting cottage had been used many years ago as a Mossad safe house. It was actually owned by a businessman in Newcastle, a sayan — the Hebrew term for “helper.” The place had been considered compromised as a true safe house years ago, but a few of the embassy staff still used it now and again as a getaway to hunt or shoot targets, that being something you couldn’t do just anywhere in England without drawing notice. Rumor had it that some even used the place for more amorous pursuits.

Slaton moved quietly through the thick underbrush. The forest was damp and silent, the result of a light rain the night before. Instead of looking ahead, Slaton looked down to watch where he stepped, avoiding twigs and branches, and allowing the wet leaves to cushion his steps. In such dense vegetation, sound was far more important than sight. Every twenty paces, he stopped to listen.

When the lodge finally came into view, he saw there were no vehicles in front. Slaton moved laterally through the forest and did a quarter-circle around the perimeter, alert to register any motion or sound. He waited and watched. There was no smoke from the chimney, but that meant nothing. The lodge had electricity and was equipped with a small space heater, thanks to an owner who had no enthusiasm for the manual labor involved in splitting and hauling firewood.

After a full ten minutes, Slaton decided it was safe. He moved quickly out of the brush and backed up against the side of the house, near a window. He reached out and touched the back of his hand to the glass pane. It was cold. With one look inside he was finally convinced. There was nobody home.

He retrieved the key from under one side of a small log pile near the front door — it had been a long time since any effort was made to keep the place secure. Slaton went in and found it just as he remembered. One room, some comfortable old furniture and a fireplace on one side, a big lumpy bed on the other. Next to the bed, tucked into a corner, was a small kitchenette. Throw rugs covered most of the wood floor and there were cheap, drab curtains pulled back from the windows. A slight musty odor made him think the place had probably not been used in many weeks. He checked the fireplace and found a small pile of cold ashes. Slaton went to the back window and tried to open it. The lock was stiff, but he finally pried it aside and lifted the wooden frame up. A cool breeze wafted in, but that wasn’t the point. If anyone came up the driveway, he’d hear it a lot sooner with the window open. It was also an extra way out.

Slaton looked around the place. He could almost see Yosy lolling on the couch, a beer in his hand and maybe throwing at the dartboard across the room, just as many darts ending up in the wall as on the board. They had come here a half-dozen times together, sometimes with others from the embassy. It was a getaway, a place to relax, to forget the constraints of the bizarre world in which they existed. Occasionally they’d go off into the forest to shoot targets, or even bag a couple of pheasant for dinner. Mostly, though, they’d relax, drink, and discuss what things would be like if they were king. All in all, light relief for the heavy reality of their day-today ops. A reality that had never seemed more suffocating than now, Slaton thought.

He’d first met Yosy at the “schoolhouse,” nearly twenty years ago. Slaton remembered the smiling, gregarious young man with whom he’d had so much in common. Their days were spent in classrooms, buildings, and fields, going over strange, sometimes unimaginable lessons — things that would supposedly save their lives, or perhaps even their country someday. With the idealism of youth, Slaton, Yosy, and their classmates played the game during business hours, then escaped nightly for food, drink, and revelry.

To talk about their training outside the schoolhouse was strictly forbidden. More than one cadet had been eliminated from the program for lack of discretion, and they were sure the instructors had sources in every watering hole in Israel. Still, the student-spies found ways to escape, and the order of the day was to find humor in the inane, seemingly ridiculous things they were learning.

Slaton remembered one particularly libatious evening. As they sat at an outdoor café in a large square, Yosy had posed what seemed an insurmountable challenge. In the center of the square stood a statue, full-body and to scale, of a male lion. The statue was surrounded by a knee-deep reflecting pool. Yosy had guided Slaton’s attention to a rather prim, frail young woman who was dining in the company of a thick paperback novel at the adjacent café. Yosy had recognized her as a librarian from the nearby university (in fact, the institution from which he’d graduated two years prior). Slaton was tasked to somehow have the woman sitting atop the lion within the next ten minutes, a gin and tonic raised in her left hand, offering a toast in the general direction of the judges. Upon issuing those instructions, Yosy called a time hack and the race was on.

Slaton’s ale-induced haze had not helped, but he began improvising. He took a camera from Yosy’s backpack, then went to the bar and ordered a gin and tonic. From there he walked halfway to the statue, then made a beeline to the woman’s table.

“Irena! Where have you been?” he admonished when he was nearly on top of her, with a hard look at his watch.

The woman glanced up from her romance novel, perplexed. “I beg your pardon?” she said meekly.

Slaton was masterful, oblivious to the giggling and taunting going on three tables away. He tilted his sunglasses up over his eyes, mixing surprise with awe. “I’m sorry to bother you, miss. Only … it’s just that you bear a striking resemblance to Irena, the model who was supposed to meet me here half an hour ago. She’s late, and I am losing the light …”

After a pause, Slaton asked the woman, if it wasn’t too much trouble, to remove the reading glasses that were perched low on her nose. Yosy and the others fell quiet as they strained to hear the performance.

“Yes, a remarkable resemblance. The project today? It will be for the cover of Leisure Travel magazine. It might seem unusual, but you see that statue over there …”

On it had gone until, as attested to by five witnesses, the woman had sat atop the great stone beast, smiling mechanically as she raised her glass in salutation. One minute and ten seconds to spare. Slaton even used Yosy’s camera, and an entire roll of film, to record the triumph.

At the time it all seemed so innocent, a game with no harm. Slaton had learned his lessons well, the arts of deception and destruction. As had Yosy. Only now Slaton sat here alone, and it seemed anything but a game. Yosy had come to see him, to warn him, and now he was gone. Why had Yosy told his wife he was going hunting, when in fact he was the one being hunted? Slaton held one hope for the answer.

He went to the couch and gave it a shove across the floor, then rolled up one side of the rug underneath. If Yosy had come, this would be the place. There was a single loose floorboard, the one he and Yosy had heard creak under their feet so many years ago. Then, they had found two bottles of wine stuffed underneath, a soothing Cabernet. Now Slaton pulled up the short plank hoping to find something, anything to explain what was happening. The hole beneath the strip of wood was only six inches deep, but it extended far along the length of the floor to one side.

Slaton curled his arm into the nook and instantly latched onto something. He pulled out a heavy manila envelope, then groped once more in the dusty hole to make sure there wasn’t anything else.

He brushed the envelope off, opened it, and sank onto the displaced couch. Inside was a two page, handwritten letter. Stunning, it answered many of the questions that had been tormenting him. But it raised even more.

Slaton sat with the letter in his lap, staring blankly at the wall. He knew it was true. It was all true. Ingrid said they’d taken Yosy’s papers. The documents? It didn’t matter. Slaton didn’t need that kind of proof. Someone named Uriste was dead. Yosy was dead. And they had tried to kill him. Proof. Polaris Venture’s crew. More proof. Then there was Polaris Venture’s cargo. There was surely more to that. His mind swirled. How many others had there been? Twenty years of innocent victims. Israelis killing Israelis. How could it have gone on for so long?

Slaton snapped. He jumped up and kicked over a table, sending it flying across the room. The act broke his concentration and took him away from where he knew his questions were leading — that precipice from which he might not be able to turn back.

Slaton went to the kitchen and drew a glass of water from the faucet. It was cold and clear. He held the glass to his forehead and its coldness was a mild shock, unraveling the mental snarls. He stood still, thinking and agonizing until it suddenly came to him. For all the questions and possibilities, Slaton realized exactly where to go next. Even without knowing who they were, he knew where they would be.

The revelation gave clarity. It gave purpose. Carefully, Slaton washed and dried the glass, then placed it back in the cupboard exactly where it had been. Ten minutes later, the rest of the lodge was as he’d found it. He hurried back to his car, hoping it wasn’t already too late.

A rap on the door brought rude end to the deepest sleep Christine had managed in years. She rustled groggily in the sheets and tried to focus on the clock next to her bed. The red digital lights read 10:24. Another knock. It had to be the maid.

“I don’t need any service,” she said in the loudest voice she could muster. Christine rolled over, hoping for a few more minutes rest, but consciousness was unavoidable as the events of the last days invaded once again.

Another knock, this one louder and more insistent, rattled away her sleep-induced fog. It was hopeless. She got up slowly and stumbled to the door, vaguely trying to remember what time she had told Chief Bicker-staff she’d be in today.

“Who is it?”

“Miss Palmer,” a muffled voice called in a clipped British accent. “I’m Inspector Bennett, Maritime Investigations Branch. My partner, Inspector Harding, and I would like a word with you.”

Christine put a bleary eye to the peephole and saw two men looking expectantly at her door. They both wore suits, ties, and professional smiles. Behind them, a nearly empty parking lot basked in the mid-morning sun. She unbolted the door and opened it a crack, peering her head around the corner.

“Maritime Investigations?” she queried, squinting against the light of day.

The nearer man thrust out an identification card with his photograph on it. The other nodded politely. “Yes, Maritime Investigations, Scotland Yard. We’ve been called in to assist the local police on this matter of your abduction.”

The word “abduction” sounded peculiar, but she supposed it fit. She nearly let them in before remembering that all she had on was a T-shirt and panties.

“Can you give me a moment to dress?”

“Yes. Yes, of course. We’ll wait right here.”

Christine hadn’t expected company. She rummaged through the few clothes she’d retrieved from Windsom and found a pair of Levis to slip on. She took a quick look in the mirror, then wished she hadn’t. Her hair was a frightful mess — she’d taken a shower last night and gone straight to bed. Christine decided the policemen wouldn’t care. She let the two Scotland Yard men in.

“I am sorry,” Bennett said. “It looks as though we’ve rousted you out of a sound sleep.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” she lied. “It’s time I got up anyway.”

Christine plucked two used towels off the couch and threw them on the bed. The two men smiled amiably and took a seat.

“We won’t take much of your time. Perhaps you could tell us your story, just in a general sort of way. Then we might have a few questions. The more we find out about this devil, the better chance we’ll have of catching him.”

“So you’re searching for him now?”

“Absolutely.”

Christine was relieved. “Have you already talked to Chief Bickerstaff?”

“Oh, yes, of course. But we’d like to hear it straight from you as well.”

Christine sighed. She’d already gone over it so many times. It was becoming tedious. She started from the beginning and went over everything, or at least most of it. She omitted the parts about him crashing in while she was getting dressed, and that she had to lay with him while he slept. She didn’t want anyone jumping to the wrong conclusions. It took ten minutes. Bennett and his sidekick listened attentively. They didn’t interrupt to ask questions, but Christine could see them both mentally storing up for later. When she finished, Bennett was clearly struck to compassion.

“You’ve had quite an ordeal.”

“I came out all right. My boat’s another story, but that can be repaired.”

“Of course,” Bennett said. “Tell me, do you have an accurate position for where you came across this man?”

“Sure. I didn’t record it right away when I found him. I had a lot of other things on my mind. But I did eventually make the plot and mark it on a chart, probably good to within a mile or two. I figured somebody would need the fix to start a search.”

“Do you remember the coordinates?”

“No. But it was roughly halfway on a line between Gibraltar and the Madeiras. Chief Bickerstaff was supposed to go over to my boat this morning, so he probably has the actual numbers.”

“I’ll get the coordinates from him, then. Tell me again, what did this man look like?”

“About six feet tall, maybe a little more. Thin build, but very strong. His hair was sort of a light, sandy color, blue eyes. He looked a bit gaunt in the face, but that was probably from going without food and water for so long.”

“You say you examined him when he first came aboard?”

“Yes. He had a wound on his abdomen, a shallow cut. I cleaned and dressed it.”

“Did he have other scars? In particular, a large one right here?” Bennett pointed to a spot on his ribs exactly where the nasty scar had been on her abductor.

“Yes! You know who he is?”

Both the men nodded knowingly.

“He told me his name was David.”

The policemen exchanged a look and Bennett said, “We don’t know his name, mind you. Not his real one. He goes by any number of aliases. The man’s a terrorist of sorts, a mercenary, and every bit a killer. In all honesty, I’m surprised he’s let you off alive.”

Christine tried to comprehend. “How did he end up in the middle of the ocean?”

“No telling right now,” Bennett mused. “Perhaps he was hired to sink the ship, this Polaris Venture, and then botched up his escape.”

“He told me there were no other survivors. I thought that was odd.”

“Nothing odd about it. All his doing, I suspect. Now, you said that he made you turn your boat around and take him here, to England. Did he mention why?”

Christine considered that and was about to answer when the telephone rang. She went to the nightstand to pick it up when Harding spoke for the first time.

“Let it go, Dr. Palmer. They’ll leave a message at the front desk.”

“No,” Christine said, “I think it might be Chief Bickerstaff. I told him —” Her line of thought derailed. Something was wrong. What was it? Harding had spoken for the first time, and his voice — no his accent — it was anything but British. She turned to see both men moving toward her.

“What—”

She reached for the phone but Harding’s hand came down firmly on top of hers. When the phone stopped ringing, he reached around behind the nightstand and unplugged the wire.