The Perfect Assassin (14 page)

“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.

TO:LND:COS

FROM: HDQ #002 30NOV0552Z

RE PREVIOUS MESSAGE 0510Z. SEND TEAM TO

INVESTIGATE DISCRETELY. NO, REPEAT, NO

CONTACT. FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS BY

NOON ZULU. ACKNOWLEDGE.

Ninety seconds later the reply came.

TO: HDQ

FROM: LND:COM

RECEIVED HDQ #002 30NOV0552Z. WILL COMPLY.

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 …”