The Perfect Assassin Page 11

  “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 w
indow. 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.

  Well, partner, if you’ve found this, I guess you know something’s up. I was hoping to explain it in person, but here’s what you should know.

  A few weeks ago I got a phone call from a fellow named Leon Uriste. I worked with him once, when he was in military intelligence. We were never great buddies, but I think he looked me up because I was the only Mossad guy he knew. Uriste was dying of cancer, and he asked me to come see him in the hospital. I could hardly say no.

  When I got there, a nurse confirmed that Uriste only had a couple of weeks left. I barely recognized him. He was fifty-one, but looked twenty years older. As soon as he saw me he got frantic and started babbling some really crazy stuff. As the proverb goes, “None brings conscience like the face of Death.”

  Uriste drifted in and out, and part of me said it had to be the drugs. But David, he laid out an incredible story. He said there’s an organization of traitors within our service, attacking Israel. Mossad and Aman people bombing our own markets, shooting our own soldiers and policemen. Sound crazy? That’s what I thought at first. Uriste talked as fast as he could draw breath. There were so many details — meetings, targets, casualty figures. He told me who was in the organization — names, but more code names. Everything was run by someone called Savior, and Uriste swore it had been going on for over twenty years.

  It sounded absurd. Yet something about it bothered me. Here was a dying man trying to cleanse his shame. I played along and asked him who was behind it. The Palestinians? Hamas? Syria? Uriste broke up. He fell back on his bed, sobbing and babbling. He kept saying, “We had to do it. No other way.” About that time, a nurse came in. She saw that Uriste was disturbed and kicked me out. I decided to go back the next day to talk again, and maybe bring a video camera. Uriste never made it through the night.

  I was tempted to write it off as a dying man’s drug-induced hallucination, but instead I followed old Lesson #1 — It’s Good to be Paranoid. Sure enough,
Uriste had another visitor after me that day. Whoever it was didn’t sign into the hospital log, and none of the staff remembered much. One big dead end. That did it. I spent a few hours in Archives, checking and cross-checking. Those hours turned into days and the days into weeks. David, the more I looked, the more I saw. Not much hard evidence, but lots of shoddy investigations and inconsistent reports. Certain names kept popping up again and again. Worst of all, there’s someone near the very top involved.

  I copied some documents, made notes of others. It’s mostly circumstantial, but a few hard facts. Enough to convince me,old friend. These vermin really exist, they have for a long time. I don’t know how many are involved, or which of our enemies they’re associated with, but it’s got to be a small operation. Otherwise, they’d never have been able to keep it quiet for so long. I was able to identify six people who are almost certainly involved, and another three who are probable. But I still don’t know who runs it. One other thing — they seem to be launching fewer attacks now than in years past, but the things they’ve done lately have been bigger, real newsgrabbers. And for the last six months it’s been especially quiet. I think they’re looking for something really big.

  I’m going to take it all to Anton Bloch. I think he’s clean, but for insurance I wanted somebody else to know. That would be you, buddy. I decided to come to London to lay this all out, but first I called to warn you with that “double Sheena” bit last week. When I got here, you were gone, so I came to the lodge and wrote this. We need to meet soon. I’ve had company lately. I’ll show you what I’ve found, and hopefully you can add something. Maybe enough to hang these guys. I’m headed back home now, before anyone at the office gets suspicious. (Or even worse, Ingrid!) Call me.

  Oh, and be careful. From what I’ve seen, these scum have a strong presence in England at the moment. At least four or five in the London station. I was followed from the airport, but made a clean break on my way here to the lodge. If things get rough, do try to remember everything I taught you.