Assassin's Game Page 16

  “Sanderson.”

  He heard a great deal of background noise, and then, “Hello, Inspector.”

  The voice registered instantly—one he had first heard three days prior in the lobby of the Strand Hotel. “Where are you?”

  “I’m very near, actually.”

  Sanderson began trotting up the hallway that led to the operations center.

  The man whose name was certainly not Edmund Deadmarsh said, “I thought we should talk.”

  “You realize you’re in a great deal of trouble.”

  “How is the policeman?”

  “His leg was damaged, but he’s expected to make a full recovery. Unlike the other two.” Sanderson shoved his way into the room and skidded to a stop in front of the duty officer’s desk. He switched the phone to his left hand and began scribbling on a notepad.

  “I’m glad to hear he’s recovering,” said the familiar voice. “Please give him my apologies. At the time I didn’t see any other way. He was about to get far worse.”

  Sanderson finished his note and shoved it toward the duty officer. Talking to suspect Deadmarsh on my duty number! Triangulate this call immediately! He then readdressed the phone with, “Are you trying to tell me you shot our man in the leg to rescue him from another assailant? Do you expect me to believe that?”

  “Believe whatever you like, Inspector. I was having a leisurely breakfast when I was forced to defend myself. Have you identified the other two, the ones who initiated things?”

  “I think you know we haven’t.”

  “How is Anton?”

  “Who?”

  “The man you showed me in Saint Göran, the one in a coma. Has his condition improved?”

  “There’s been no change.” Sanderson looked expectantly at the desk man who was multitasking between a phone and a computer. He scribbled a reply to Sanderson. Pinging now. Need thirty more seconds.

  Sanderson said, “Who is he?”

  “You really have no idea? Tell me you’re better than that, Inspector.”

  “Please. Let’s not play games.”

  “All right. His name is Anton Bloch. One year ago he was the director of Mossad.”

  Sanderson wanted to respond, but his thoughts fell into a tailspin. As incredible as this sounded, it made perfect sense. An Israeli, and certainly a man with enemies.

  “I’ll assume by your silence that you really didn’t know,” Deadmarsh prompted.

  “Are you saying this was some kind of attempted assassination?”

  “You figure it out. I want to talk about my wife.”

  Sanderson half-listened as Deadmarsh made her case, the fugitive stonemason explaining that his wife was only a victim in some ill-defined scheme. The tech gave a wild thumbs-up and wrote another note. We have him locked! Near Frihamnen Ferry Terminal!

  Sanderson issued an order he was in no position to give—he made a circular carry-on motion with his free hand to indicate that the duty officer should launch the fleet. The man complied, and within seconds every available unit on the east side of Stockholm was descending on the computed position.

  Deadmarsh chose that moment to say, “Sorry, Inspector, but let me call you right back.”

  The line went dead.

  * * *

  “You can’t do that!” Janna Magnussen shouted.

  Slaton had opened the side window of the Cessna. It was an easy thing to do, a single latch, and had raised the level of wind noise considerably. What had his pilot’s attention, however, was that he was holding the mobile phone outside with one hand as he studied the breaks in the clouds below. When they were over a clear section of the Lilla Värtan Strait, he let fly.

  “No! You cannot do that!”

  Slaton watched the handset flutter down behind them, but quickly lost sight.

  “It is against the law to drop things from an aircraft!” she protested.

  Slaton eyed her. The cockpit was loud, but it was a small space, so he was sure Magnussen had heard at least some of his conversation with Inspector Sanderson. Now he’d begun dropping objects on the city below. It was a pivotal moment, and one that Slaton had anticipated, indeed planned. Before calling Sanderson again, there was a need to amend his relationship with his pilot. He pulled the Beretta from his right thigh pocket and pointed it across his body. Magnussen’s scowl shifted, annoyance giving way to concern. But the pilot kept her cool, as pilots were prone to do. She had certainly faced moments of more immediate peril—terrible thunderstorms, ice-covered wings, oncoming aircraft. All the same, Slaton had her undivided attention.

  “I need your help,” he said.

  “This is how you ask for help?”

  “I don’t have the luxury of asking. Please understand that I have no interest in harming you, Janna. But I won’t hesitate if you make it necessary. And before you declare this illogical, that a passenger would disable an airplane’s only pilot, I should explain. I’m not an experienced aviator, but I have had some training. If I needed to land this airplane I could. I wouldn’t attempt it in the water because I’ve never done that. I’d just hold a speed of eighty knots, fly south until the weather clears, and then find a nice open field or a dirt road. A place with no power lines or trees. It wouldn’t be pretty, and I’d probably wreck your airplane. But I would walk away. I’m very confident of that.”

  Magnussen alternated, watching him one moment, and her instruments and path the next.

  He continued, “I won’t let you change the transponder code to indicate a hijacking, and I will be listening to every radio call you make. All I ask is that you fly over two more points here in Stockholm, and then take me south.”

  “Where?” she asked.

  “I’ll let you know when the time comes. When we arrive, I’ll get off your airplane and you’ll never see me again. You can go wherever you like, and I will still pay you the balance of our agreed upon fee. Once I’m gone you can alert the authorities or not—that’s up to you. But if you delay that contact for a few hours, say the time it will take you to return to Oxelösund from our destination, then two weeks from now I’ll send you a check in the amount of twenty thousand U.S. dollars.”

  She looked at him suspiciously, but not without interest. Mossad agents were trained to operate in a sequence—manipulate, persuade, coerce, and as a last resort, threaten and deliver bodily harm. As an assassin, Slaton had long resided on the backside of this continuum, but he was not incapable of lesser means.

  “This is where you calculate probabilities, Janna.”

  They locked eyes and he could see her doing exactly that. The gun was now pointed at the floorboard, having served its purpose.

  “Do as I ask for a few hours,” he said. “The rest is up to you.”

  The more Magnussen thought about it, the less worried she appeared. Skeptical certainly, but not immediately fearful for her life. She said, “I saw something on television yesterday. There have been shootings in Stockholm. A manhunt is under way. You are the one they’re looking for.”

  “Yes. And so you know I’m serious. But I also think you believe me—you know I won’t harm you. I only need to leave Sweden, Janna. Doesn’t that make sense?”

  He watched her consider it all, likely adding in the circumstance of having dropped him off on a remote island yesterday.

  “All right,” she said. “Tell me where you want to go.”

  “For the moment, let’s turn west.”

  * * *

  Sanderson listened intently as the units reported in. He was still in the operations center, his phone in hand and a thumb poised over the Answer button.

  He was sure the primary revelation was now rising up the chain of command—that the man lying in a coma at Saint Göran was a former director of Mossad. As explosive as this was, Sanderson viewed it as a distraction for the moment, a piece of a larger, more theoretical puzzle that was secondary to finding Deadmarsh. Get the American in custody, he decided, and the intriguing details could be sorted at will.


  The duty officer in charge of the operations center, Assistant Commander Eilsen, was giving a status report on a secure phone. “We’ve got eight cars establishing blockades around the Frihamnen terminal. All the access roads are covered, and six teams on foot have begun flushing the passenger boarding area. We’ve also recalled a ferry that just left for Riga. No one’s spotted Deadmarsh yet, but he’s got to be there somewhere.”

  Sanderson’s phone rang, again an unknown number. He answered by saying, “Give it up!”

  “I could say the same to you, Inspector.”

  Sanderson heard the same background noise he’d registered earlier, and thought, He’s moving. The boat to Riga?

  Eilsen tapped his computer display and whispered, “He’s using a different number!”

  “Let’s end the hide and seek, shall we?” Sanderson said. “You claim that you didn’t shoot that policeman with malicious intent. I’m inclined to believe you. And you imply the others were shot in self-defense. If this can all be proven, you’ll be shown leniency. Come in quietly, kidon.”

  The line went quiet, nothing but the low mechanical buzz.

  Their second triangulation went more quickly, everyone having been forewarned. Sanderson saw a red circle blossom to the map display. It was ten miles from the first plot. His eyes narrowed.

  “What the hell?” Eilsen mumbled. He immediately began redirecting units toward the new fix.

  Deadmarsh was talking again, something about his wife’s innocence. Sanderson covered the mouthpiece and said, “I can hear an engine in the background. He’s traveling. A truck or a motorcycle. It’s the only way he could have moved like that. Tell everyone to watch for a vehicle running north!”

  The call suddenly ended.

  Sanderson cursed.

  Three miles east of police headquarters at Kungsholmsgatan 43, a white mobile phone traveling at its terminal velocity struck the pavement of a nearly empty municipal parking lot near the Vasa Museum. The handset exploded into shards of plastic and circuitry, and scattered across the tarmac, no piece larger than a one-kronor coin surviving. Ten minutes later and eight miles west, after another brief conversation, the third phone fared marginally better. It bounced off the vaulted roof of the rectory at Brännkyrka Church, streaked past a priceless stained-glass window, and finally came to rest under eighteen inches of well-consecrated earth in the adjacent cemetery.

  * * *

  By the time Deadmarsh’s third call ended, cars in blue and yellow Battenburg markings were racing a patternless weave across greater Stockholm. Sanderson was immediately summoned to Sjoberg’s office, and found the new investigator-in-charge already there.

  “Why did he call you of all people?” Anna Forsten asked before he’d even crossed the threshold.

  “I’d given him my number. I’m probably the only policeman in Sweden he knows.”

  Sjoberg said, “SÄPO is going to be all over this. Can it be true? The former director of Mossad is sitting in a coma at Saint Göran?”

  “It sounds incredible,” Sanderson said, “but I expect it’s true.”

  Forsten flicked a well-manicured finger through a printed transcript of the calls Sanderson had just taken. “What does this mean—‘Come in quietly, kidon.’ What the devil is a kidon?”

  “A kidon is a Mossad assassin.”

  Sjoberg stared incredulously. “And where did this revelation come from?”

  “That’s what I was trying to tell you when you—” Sanderson hesitated. He looked at each of them in turn. “Am I to understand that I’m back on this investigation?”

  An agitated Sjoberg said, “No, Arne, you most certainly are not. I just need to know how—”

  “Then figure it out for yourselves!” Sanderson turned on a heel and started for the door.

  “Wait! I want your phone.”

  Sanderson stopped.

  Forsten said, “We’ll give it back once we’ve routed your number through the operations center switchboard.”

  “Brilliant. And when he calls again expecting to speak to me, how will you answer?”

  “He doesn’t give a damn about you. This man is obviously trying to throw us off. I wouldn’t be surprised if this whole Mossad angle is no more than misdirection.”

  “I agree,” Sjoberg said. “All he’s done is prove what we already suspected—that he’s right here in Stockholm.”

  “Is he?” Sanderson countered.

  “Arne,” Sjoberg said, “let’s not make this more difficult than it has to be. Give me the phone.”

  Sanderson pulled out his mobile and dropped it on Sjoberg’s desk. “Do what you like. But I’ll tell you this. If you … if you…” Sanderson stood still, trying to remember what he was about to say. He felt suddenly dizzy.

  And then everything went blank.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  When Sanderson regained consciousness he was lying on the couch in Sjoberg’s office. Looking down at him were Sjoberg and a uniformed EMT.

  He blinked, and said, “What happened?”

  Sjoberg said, “You passed out, Arne.”

  “Passed out?” He wrestled up to a sitting position, only then realizing that a blood pressure cuff was wrapped around his arm.

  “Are you on any medication?” the EMT asked.

  “No.”

  “Has anything like this happened before?”

  “No, of course not.”

  The EMT removed the blood pressure cuff.

  “How long was I out?” Sanderson asked.

  “Only a few minutes,” Sjoberg said. “You went pale as a ghost and over you went. Forsten caught you before you hit.”

  With that picture in his mind, Sanderson’s humiliation was complete. He rubbed his forehead and tried to stand.

  “Easy,” said Sjoberg. “There’s no hurry.”

  “I’m fine,” Sanderson said. He felt the EMT at his elbow, and on reaching his feet made every attempt not to waver.

  “Did you eat anything this morning?” the EMT asked.

  “No—I’m sure that’s all it was. And I have been working hard.”

  “Yes,” Sjoberg agreed, “he’s been under considerable stress.”

  “Have you ever had a seizure of any sort?”

  “Seizure? No, never.”

  The EMT addressed Sjoberg. “Well, he seems all right. I’ll leave you now, but I’m just downstairs if you need me.” He turned to Sanderson. “Get something in your belly, and then rest. If anything like this happens again you should see your doctor.”

  The man left, and Sjoberg said, “Well, Arne, if this doesn’t convince you I don’t know what will. Go home and get some sleep. I’ll have Blix drive you.”

  Sanderson did not argue.

  * * *

  Evita was given a ride to her assignation by a friend from work, an undependable woman who for once showed up on time. Traffic was light, and when they arrived Evita asked to be dropped two blocks away from the hotel. She thanked her friend and checked the time. As feared, she was early. Seeing no upside in punctuality, Evita spotted a pub nearby and decided to shore up her nerve.

  She took a seat at the nearly vacant bar, and in no more time than it took for a double vodka to be pushed in front of her, Evita found herself sandwiched between a pair of afternoon regulars, a thrice-divorced lawyer and an old man named Yehud whose breath smelled like a camel’s crotch. The lawyer tried to chat about his ex-wives, while old Yehud, unshaven and unwashed and with beer foam on his lips, simply propositioned her in the most vulgar of terms. She was equally unreceptive, though found the old beggar’s honesty refreshing in a way. Yet as she sat in silence, Evita felt a tremor of unease—even if she was miles from home, there was a chance one of them might know her husband, a man on terms with a good share of the city’s connoisseurs. As it turned out, the far-off look in her eyes was enough to deflect their advances.

  The vodka worked wonders. As always, Evita was repulsed by what she was about to do, yet there was never a question of followin
g through. This morning, like every morning, she had spent her ritual moment with the picture of Saud and the tender poem he’d written for her. These were her only remembrances, and she kept both hidden deep in a dresser drawer. For a few minutes each day he was hers again—a man whose beauty would never fade, an artist whose talent would never diminish, and a lover whose soul would always be faithful. That daily tribute gave her the steel to go forward, gave her the will to take vengeance for a crime that would never be pursued in any court.

  Evita would undertake her justice. But to do it with the requisite smile? That required a little something extra. She lifted her glass, snapped her head back one last time, and bid her courters good-bye.

  * * *

  The Baltic, five thousand feet below, was in a pitched battle, wind versus water. Slaton watched the whitecaps come and go, creases of white bursting to life, then fading quickly into the matte-black sea. The skies above were equally ominous, hard gray clouds that blotted the sun into submission and fragmented the horizon. He could see rain to the west and north, sweeping gray curtains reaching down to the sea. Dramatic as the scene was, it held little relevance. The visibility ahead and below—that was the critical thing, and right now it was suitable for what Slaton had in mind.

  They’d struck a course of south by southwest, and the little Cessna plowed obediently at a steady one hundred knots. Janna Magnussen was equally steady. Two hours removed from Stockholm, the tension had dissipated. Their conversation had turned almost casual, as if the dynamics of their relationship had never been skewed by a hijacking. The gun was back in Slaton’s right pocket, but both knew it was readily presentable. They began by discussing Magnussen: her upbringing near Oxelösund, her sister, even her failed marriage. Then, in a clear breach of professional standards, Slaton found himself contributing to the conversation. He gave a candid account of his own childhood in Sweden. Keeping light on detail, he reflected on schoolyard memories—pranks conspired with long-forgotten friends, sporting matches gloriously won or comically lost.