The Perfect Assassin Page 13

  “Sorry for what?” she yelled. “For killing that man back there? Or the others you’ve killed? How many have there been?”

  He said nothing.

  “Why can’t you just stay away from me?” She flung out another fist that glanced off his shoulder.

  He looked at her impassively, a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth.

  “Are you done yet?”

  “No!” She shouted, tears now streaming down her cheeks.

  “I came back because I realized those two men, or someone like them, would come after you.”

  Christine laughed, “Oh right, you came to rescue me.”

  “No. I came to find them. I knew they’d track you down, so I found out where you were staying, and then waited.”

  Her eyes narrowed as she tried to understand. “What would they want with me? Who are they? Or perhaps I should say, who were they?”

  “I only killed one of them,” he said distractedly, studying the rear-view mirror, “and that was an accident.”

  “Oh, it was an accident that you kicked him in the face so hard you broke his neck. I suppose it’s okay then.”

  “It happens.”

  “Not where I live it doesn’t!”

  He shot back, “And what do you suppose they had in mind for you if I hadn’t come along?”

  Christine had no reply. She drew back to her corner, pressing against the door.

  “This is crazy,” she finally said. “Two men I’ve never seen before in my life, asking me questions and trying to pass themselves off as police. When I figure out that they’re lying, they want to kill me. Only then I’m saved by … by yet another recurring lunatic.”

  She looked at him, her eyes pleading for some simple explanation. Slaton offered nothing.

  “So now you’re my hero?” she said. “Returning the favor from when I pulled you out of the Atlantic? Somehow I don’t feel like we’re even. If I hadn’t found you, I’d be a thousand miles from here, halfway to New Haven by now. My biggest worry would be whether I wanted a can of beans or a can of hash for lunch. Instead, I’ve got strangers chasing me around a foreign country, threatening me. And the local police think I’m psychotic.”

  “Look, you saved my life and I am grateful. I wish you hadn’t been pulled into all this. But I can’t change it now.”

  “You wish I hadn’t been pulled into it?” she asked incredulously. “You hijacked my boat! You … you killed someone and then forced me into a car at gunpoint!”

  “There was no time to explain back at the hotel. I had to get you out of there. It wasn’t safe.”

  “And now I’m safe?”

  “No, you’re not,” he said. “At least not yet.”

  He gauged her pensively, deciding how far to go.

  “Look, I won’t keep you against your will. But let me explain a few things first.” He saw her eyes drop to the gun in his lap, forgotten in the fury of her assault. Slaton tucked it carefully under the seat, a show of goodwill. As he straightened, the sound of an engine announced a car approaching from behind. His eyes went to the mirror, his hands to the steering wheel and gearshift. A few moments later the car whisked by at speed. It disappeared around the curve ahead. He looked at her again. She seemed less tense.

  “You could have bolted out and screamed for help from that car. You didn’t.”

  “I’m glad you put that gun away,” she said with some consolation. “But you still haven’t told me who those men were. You knew them. You called one by name … Itzaak.”

  “That’s very good — that you can remember details under stress. Most people can’t. Who did they say they were when you let them into your room?”

  “They told me they were investigators with a branch of the British government. Maritime Investigations or something. They called themselves Bennett and Harding.”

  “And they had IDs, although you didn’t look at them closely.”

  She looked embarrassed. “They seemed professional enough.”

  “One was Itzaak Simon. The other I don’t know by name, but I’ve seen him before. Both are assigned to the Israeli Embassy in London. Itzaak is the designated Assistant Attaché for Cultural Affairs. They’re both full-time Mossad Officers, Israeli intelligence.”

  Christine laughed. “Spies? Israeli spies? What in the world would they want with me?”

  “They’d want to find out how much you know about two things. Polaris Venture and me.” Slaton saw by her expression he’d scored a hit. “That’s what they asked you about, right?”

  She nodded, “So you sank that ship and they’re after you? You’re with one of the Arab countries?”

  He grinned. “No. I’m an Israeli too. And I didn’t sink the ship. I think they did.”

  Christine sighed. “This isn’t getting any easier.” Her eyes narrowed as she studied him in the faint light of an overcast-shrouded midday sun. “You don’t look Israeli. You’re fair skinned.”

  “We come in all colors, shapes, and sizes. I have a lot of Scandinavian blood, but I was born in Israel.”

  “And you? You’re a spy too? Why would Israeli spies be sinking ships, and killing one another in quiet English villages?”

  “A very good question. I didn’t know myself until yesterday. Then I got a letter from a friend of mine who had uncovered some information, and things began to make sense. I think there’s a group of traitors within the Mossad. They’re sabotaging operations, even targeting our own country and people.”

  She sounded suspicious. “You mean they’re working with your enemies?”

  “It looks that way, but I don’t know much about them yet. It’s an organization that’s been around for a long time. Lately they’ve been less active, but more desperate.”

  “You say your friend told you all this in a letter?”

  “He made a pretty convincing case.”

  “And does he know who these people are?”

  “Some of them. Some he hadn’t identified yet. In time he would have found them.”

  “Would have?”

  “Yosy was Mossad. He worked at headquarters, outside Tel Aviv. Last week he came here to tell me all this in person. I was gone on Polaris Venture, so he left a letter where he knew I’d find it. He was killed before he could get back home, hit by a bus in Knightsbridge. It was ruled an accident.”

  Christine listened intently. Slaton went on for twenty minutes, telling her everything that had been in Yosy’s report. He explained who Leon Uriste had been, and that he, too, had recently met a suspicious end. Slaton described a traitorous organization within the Mossad, a group who were bombing synagogues and shooting soldiers. He had no idea how many people were involved, but it seemed to include someone near the top.

  Christine tried to make heads or tails of the information. And perhaps more importantly, of the psyche of this man who was talking to her. The weight of what he told her was numbing on a moral scale, but always logical and consistent. She also noted his physical appearance. It kept changing in subtle ways, as if he were a portrait whose artist was never quite satisfied, always insisting on one more stroke of the brush. The blisters on his face had largely healed and his beard, light in color, was getting denser. If it hadn’t been for the eyes, she might not have recognized him at the motel. The intense blue-gray eyes that were always moving, scanning, processing all surroundings.

  The few facts she could recall supported what he was telling her, and she suspected at least some of it had to be true. He finally finished with the sinking of Polaris Venture. Christine decided she knew the rest, and it left her with one particularly bothersome question.

  “I still don’t understand what these men wanted with me.”

  “They probably got word that you had rescued someone from a ship named Polaris Venture. They would want to know who you’d found. And they’d be curious as to what you knew about the ship.”

  His attention shot forward as a truck came around the bend. She saw it as well.

  “Th
is could be your ride,” he offered. “You can go to the police and tell them everything. They won’t be able to protect you, though. Those two men were going to kill you. You and I are threats to their organization. Probably the only ones, now that Uriste and Yosy are dead. They’ll come after you, and a bobby standing guard at the door of a hotel room won’t stop them. That’s the best protection you’re likely to get from the police. If they believe your story. Stay with me and I’ll do what I can to look after you. I know how they think, how they work. It’s your best chance.”

  Christine saw the slow-moving truck closing in. Best chance? She didn’t know what to do, but there were only moments to decide. She opened the door and swung a leg out of the car. He made no attempt to stop her. There was time for one last question.

  “Why is this all so important?” she asked. “What could I know about you or the ship that’s worth killing people over?”

  “You might know where Polaris Venture went down,” he said. “Or you might know that she was carrying two tactical nuclear weapons.”

  Hanit lay moored just outside the harbor of Marseille. She was a Sa’ar V class corvette and, at over a thousand tons, a regular and formidable presence in the regional waters off Israel and Lebanon. Here, however, in one of the busiest ports of the Mediterranean, she was nothing special. Huge freighters, tankers, and warships plied a constant stream among the swarm of smaller tenders and pilot boats. The Port Authority had not been pleased to have a foreign-flagged warship show up unannounced, and so Hanit’s captain gave little argument at having been banished to anchor in the outer mooring field. They wouldn’t be here long, he reasoned, and they were under orders to be as unobtrusive as possible.

  The captain stood with his executive officer on the wing platform, to the port side of the bridge. The two men eyed a small tender as it approached. It carried a crew of two seamen and a French port official, who would no doubt be grumpy and have a plethora of forms for them to complete. It also carried Paul Mordechai and two large crates.

  Neither of the officers had ever met Mordechai, but they’d gotten the scuttlebutt. As the small boat pulled alongside, there was no mistaking their guest. He wore a bright print shirt adorned with flags of various nautical meanings. There were hurricane and gale warnings, along with a prominent SOS on the back. Mordechai spotted the two officers, came to attention, and offered a ridiculously snappy salute.

  The exec rolled his eyes.

  “All right,” the captain said, “the orders are clear. We get rid of this Port Authority quack as fast as we can, haul aboard Mordechai and the crates, then get out of here.”

  “Aye,” the exec nodded. He started to go below to supervise the detail.

  “Oh, and Dani …”

  The exec paused.

  “Mind the crates.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Ian!”

  The bellowing summons had come from the adjacent room, the Scotland Yard office of Inspector Nathan Chatham. Ian Dark answered the call, entering Chatham’s office to find his boss parked at his desk with a confounded look on his face. The object of his consternation was in hand, a small beeper that had activated.

  “This!” Chatham roared, holding the offending device over his head. “What on earth does all this mean?”

  Dark calmly took the device. The message line read:

  SEE ACSO ASAP W/DSR CNX LV 12/1-12/8 REP CONF

  “I suppose it all means something?” Chatham fussed.

  Dark read the electronic shorthand, “The Assistant Commissioner Specialist Operations wishes to see you as soon as possible. You are to bring the daily situation report. He’s also seen it necessary to cancel your holiday, which was to start tomorrow. You’re to confirm receipt of the message by pressing this button.”

  Chatham waved his hand to indicate that Dark should go ahead and do it. He did. Dark had been working with Chatham for six months now, and he noticed more and more things happening that way.

  Chatham got up from his chair, not bothering to straighten the papers that lay strewn in front of him on the desk. He was a tall, gaunt man, his face long and narrow, with a ski slope of a nose presiding over a broad, bushy mustache. Brown hair had given way to gray at the sides, all of it decidedly unkempt. His sage appearance was a constant counterpoint to Dark, whose own slight build, fair skin, and rosy cheeks gave no end of trouble when ordering a pint, even though he’d been of age for ten years.

  “Assistant Commissioner, you say?” Chatham mumbled.

  “Yes, the new man. Would you like me to come along?”

  “No, no. I shouldn’t think so. Probably just another silly staff meeting, that sort of thing.” Chatham gave a crooked grin. “You stay here and fight the battle, eh?”

  When he’d first started working with Chatham, Ian Dark had to keep from snickering at his boss. The endless military analogies, the technological ineptness. He kept picturing his boss in turn-of-the-century India wearing a pith helmet and shorts. It was an image, Dark later learned, that might well have come to be had Chatham been born a hundred years earlier. His grandfather had been a major in the Northumberland Fusiliers, serving in the Somme during the Great War. His father had battled Rommel in North Africa with the 1st Royal Dragoons. Only a ruptured eardrum had kept Nathan Chatham from continuing the family military tradition. It forced him to redirect his talents.

  “They would not allow me to shoot the enemy,” he’d explained to Dark one evening over a Guinness, “so I thought I should spend my time outthinking him.” He had done exactly that.

  Chatham had been at the Yard for over twenty years, and his reputation was second to none. Not only had he outthought the criminal enemy, but he often managed to better his superiors as well, a tactic that had more than once gotten him into hot water. It had also brought offers of promotion beyond his current rank of Inspector, offers that Chatham had repeatedly refused. He swore he could never be content “engaging the foe with pen and paper from a soft bottom chair.” But if Nathan Chatham was troublesome to his overseers, he was even more notorious to those he investigated, at least ones who turned out to be guilty. A relentless pursuer and meticulous investigator. That was all Chatham ever cared to be, and something, by virtue of results, those above him would never be able to change. Like it or not.

  Chatham went to the coatrack and wrestled an ill-fitting jacket onto his long arms. He left the room, then reappeared moments later.

  “The new Assistant Commissioner,” queried the man who had outstayed the previous six, “what was his name?”

  “Shearer, sir.”

  Chatham nodded, then disappeared down the hall. Ian Dark chuckled. There was no job in the building he’d rather have.

  Ten minutes later and two floors up, Nathan Chatham gave a cursory pat to his rumpled hair before being ushered into the office of the Assistant Commissioner Specialist Operations. The office was full of dark, weighty furniture that conveyed an aura of importance. Chatham was at least pleased to see that the new man had not redecorated the suite. The last one had made that his first order of business. He also lasted less than a year before moving on to a cushy private sector job. Chatham had berated the Commissioner himself over that appointment. “An abysmal choice. Nothing to the man. No substance!” he’d admonished. The Commissioner admitted it had all been about branch politics, and he promised to work against that kind of thing in the future.

  Now Chatham was greeted by a well-groomed, genial man, probably in his early fifties. The new lord and master of Special Branch rose from his desk.

  “Inspector Chatham, good to meet you. Graham Shearer.” The tone was crisp, but friendly. Chatham shook hands, cocked his head slightly, then finally made the connection. The name hadn’t rung a bell because he’d never known it. The face and voice were another story.

  “We’ve already met.”

  The Assistant Commissioner looked surprised. “Have we?”

  “Manchester. You were on the force. Inspector, I think. I was there to
give evidence in the trial of a drug smuggler who had killed a rival here in London. Threw him out a tenth floor window as I recall. Nasty business that.”

  “Manchester, was it? That would be … thirteen years ago?”

  “Fourteen. You were addressing the defendant’s solicitor as I was waiting to give my deposition. You said, ‘Your scoundrel is guilty and I have the evidence to prove it and if you don’t like it you can bugger off!’”

  The Assistant Commissioner’s face stretched in thought and then the smooth veneer cracked as he broke out laughing. “Your memory is painfully precise, Inspector. I have calmed a bit since then.” The Assistant Commissioner waved his arm toward a plush leather chair and retreated back behind his desk. “Please have a seat.”

  Chatham did so, encouraged that the Commissioner had taken his advice to fill the number two spot with a true policeman. As he parked his lanky frame in the chair, his eyes locked onto a box of chocolates on the Assistant Commissioner’s desk. He was obvious enough and Shearer held it out.

  “Please, Inspector. My wife gave them to me as an anniversary gift. I suppose I should find it encouraging that after twenty-two years she doesn’t mind my being a couple of stone heavier.”

  The explanation was lost on Chatham who was engrossed in the most important decision he’d had on the day. He momentarily considered whether it would be improper to take two, but decided against it for the time being. Chatham plucked out a coconut crème and wasted no time.

  “I’ve got a meeting at the top of the hour, so I’ll get right to it,” Shearer said. “We’ve had a bit of trouble down in Penzance. This morning two chaps from the Israeli Embassy were involved in some kind of row with a third man. One of the Israelis ended up dead and the other is in the hospital. The assailant disappeared, along with a woman he managed to drag off at gunpoint. She’s another story altogether. The Israeli involvement has got Home Office in an uproar. They’ve asked me to assign someone to get to the bottom of it all.”