Assassin's Game Page 3

  “Look! I’m sorry to put you in a bind, but I quit. Keep the paycheck.” Deadmarsh leaned the bike straight and kicked up the stand. He reached for a helmet that was hooked onto the back.

  “Quit? Now hang on a minute!” Long reached out and grabbed the handlebar.

  That was when it happened. A sharp pain in the back of his legs, as if a club had swept in just below his knees. Before he knew what was happening, Long was on his ass in the gravel and staring up at Deadmarsh.

  Earl Long was a big man, and not unaccustomed to physical challenges. On and off the job he’d seen his share of confrontation, and usually with favorable results. At six-five, two-sixty, he had three inches and at least forty pounds on the man hovering over him. Even so, Long didn’t move. There was something in the stare that kept him planted right where he was. He’d seen men full of hate and whiskey. Even craziness. This was none of those things. He was looking at eyes that were hard and impenetrable, like a steel-gray sky on the coldest winter day.

  Long sat still.

  The big bike jumped and a fountain of stone spewed behind, peppering his face. Long heard the engine wind up to the redline, then shift. It happened again, and again, until the motorcycle and its rider became a collective blur. Earl Long just sat on the ground and watched, and from that vantage point he predicted—quite correctly, as it turned out—that he would never see Edmund Deadmarsh again.

  THREE

  Stockholm, Sweden

  Christine Palmer sat looking at her watch. The auditorium was less than half full, so she suspected the other physicians attending the conference had known what was coming. Dr. Adolphus Breen, professor emeritus of internal medicine at the University of Oslo, had been prattling for an hour on the issue of bacterial prostatitis. To make it even more excruciating, the afternoon outside was glorious.

  She had been at the conference for three days, attending seminars in a dutiful way that would have made her sponsoring organization, The Physician’s Group of Eastern Virginia, smile with pride. Even so, when the esteemed Dr. Breen shifted to his well-trod treatise, “The Role of Bacterial Overgrowth in Chronic Diarrhea,” Christine could take no more. She made her move, breaking discreetly from her chair at the end of a row.

  Outside, the sun struck like a wave of warm liquid, fresh and exhilarating on her face. Having recently completed her residency, this was her first medical conference, and she now saw why her colleagues had recommended this particular seminar. In a display of right-mindedness, it had been based at the Strand Hotel, a magnificent venue overlooking Stockholm’s harbor and the Strandvägen. The timing was equally superlative. In a few months, the sidewalk she was strolling would be carpeted with snow and ice.

  Christine crossed the street, and began wandering the granite footpath that skirted the waterfront. Not for the first time, she wished David were here. She instinctively reached into her back pocket, but her phone wasn’t there. She’d been unable to find it in her room this morning, and running late, she’d shrugged and gone downstairs without it. David would be furious if he knew.

  He hadn’t wanted her to come in the first place, and Christine knew his reservations went beyond the simple fact that they were newlyweds. When she invited him to join her, David only made excuses. He mentioned the cost—the physicians group, in recent belt tightening, no longer funded the inclusion of spouses on such boondoggles. Then he’d brought up the issue of his own work, and on that Christine had bitten her tongue. In the end, she knew it was something deeper. Given his fluency in Swedish, she suspected he had served here at some point as an agent for Mossad. If so, his reluctance to come might be a way of forgetting his past, akin to the way her grandfather, a D-Day veteran, had waited decades before returning to the beaches of Normandy. So it was, Christine had come alone.

  The sidewalks along the waterfront were busy. Couples walking aimlessly, families with strollers, blond children running teetering circles around grandparents. Christine appraised the buildings along the Strandvägen, and saw noble facades given to grand towers and domes and exposed brickwork. Lining the wide esplanade were rows of massive trees that had likely once shaded horse-drawn carriages, but now were relegated to bursting foliage every spring over electric trams and bumper-to-bumper Volvos. Altogether, she saw a vibrant and contemporary city, but with the bones of Old World dignity.

  Christine had skipped breakfast after rising with an unsettled stomach, and lunch at the conference had been less than inspiring, a smorgasbord where she’d nibbled lightly while weighing the bleak afternoon lecture lineup. Now, washed in full sun and a brisk October breeze, she found her appetite rekindled. Christine drifted into a café and was given a table overlooking the waterway. She ordered coffee and a pastry, the traditional Swedish fika, and amused herself by watching the crowds. She noted an unusual number of men pushing strollers, and she remembered being told that this was a product of Sweden’s liberal parenting laws. On the birth of a child, fathers were granted generous paternity leave, and many took advantage to spend time with their newborns. She tried to picture David behind an umbrella stroller. He had come a long way in the last year, but she couldn’t fix that vision in her mind. Not yet, anyway. Christine sweetened and creamed her coffee, and watched the tan swirl blend as she stirred.

  When she looked up, a man had appeared out of nowhere.

  Her hand jerked, and in some distant recess she felt warm liquid splatter onto her wrist, heard a spoon clatter to the table. He was just on the other side of the gilt railing, standing as still and fixed as a statue in a square. He was staring at her.

  It was the last person in the world she wanted to see.

  * * *

  Christine felt like she was falling into an abyss. She tried to breath, yet somehow couldn’t, as if the surrounding atmosphere had drawn to a vacuum. Anton Bloch said nothing. He simply stood there, blunt and immovable. Knowing the effect he was having.

  A decorative railing was all that separated them. Christine wanted more. She wanted iron bars or bulletproof glass. A thousand miles. His face, stony and dour, was just as she remembered. That he made no effort to feign surprise was the only positive, no what-a-small-world lie pressed into his expression. Bloch waited for her shock to run its course. When it did, he said, “Hello, Christine.”

  She took a deep breath to gather herself. “Anton.”

  “Do you mind if I join you?” he asked, his accent a crush of consonants.

  “If I said no?”

  He ignored this and circled around to the entrance. Bloch had a quick word with the hostess, and thirty seconds later he was there, easing his bulk onto the delicate white chair across the table. He started to speak, but the waitress swooped in and took his order. Coffee, black.

  The moment the waitress was away, Christine seized the initiative. “What do you want?”

  Bloch hesitated, and Christine took that moment to study him. He’d changed little in a year, perhaps a few pounds heavier in retirement, but retaining the sober gaze and furrowed brow she’d come to know in their brief association. A brooding Buddha.

  “How is the conference at the Strand?” he asked.

  A question that was no question at all, Christine thought. More a statement to announce that there would be no pretenses. I know why you are here. Where you are staying. What you are doing. Spies, she’d learned, by some strange paradox, had a way of being succinct.

  “The conference? I’d been enjoying it until now.”

  “Why didn’t David come with you?”

  “Edmund, you mean?”

  “Do you really call him that?”

  “When I have to. Cocktail parties, dinner with friends. Lying has become a way of life for me.”

  Bloch said nothing.

  That silence weighed on Christine. At essence, she knew Bloch to be a decent man. He had once been David’s boss, ordering him to do Israel’s dirtiest work. But he had also helped David leave that impossible life and disappear. What really bothered her, she supposed, was
what Bloch represented—her husband’s past.

  “I’m sorry, Anton.”

  “I know this must be a shock, but I’ll take it as a good sign. You’ve had no other … surprises in the last year?”

  “Surprises? You mean like assassins breaking into our home in the middle of the night to settle old scores? No, nothing like that. David Slaton, the kidon, has disappeared. He’s fallen off the face of the earth.” She then added, “Just like you promised.”

  Bloch grinned, an awkward undertaking where his face came creased, little-used muscles finding recall. He moved his thick hands to the table in front of him, a space occupied by flatware and a napkin that had been folded in the shape of a boat. Bloch pushed it all aside and the tiny boat capsized.

  She said, “I tried to bring David with me, actually. He made excuses.”

  “The passport would have held up.”

  “I don’t think it was that. Tell me—did he ever spend time here?”

  “He spent much of his childhood in Stockholm. David speaks fluent Swedish, you know.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Did he work here for you? For Mossad?”

  After a pause, Bloch said, “Yes.”

  And there it was, the simplest of answers. Part of her wanted to know more. She understood what David had been to Mossad, but the details of her husband’s past were largely left unsaid between them. Here was a chance to learn more, yet she hesitated mightily. Did she really want to know?

  As if sensing her uncertainty, Bloch said, “I had to find you, Christine. Something important has come up.”

  Her eyes fell to her coffee. Something important. For most people, a newly diagnosed heart murmur, a bent fender on the Toyota. She straightened in her chair and clasped her hands deliberately in her lap. More than ever, she wished David were here.

  Bloch’s tone was strictly business. “The current director of Mossad, a man named Raymond Nurin, recently asked to meet with me. A few weeks ago a team of our operatives was lost in Iran. Did you hear about it?”

  “I remember David showing me an article in the Post. He wondered if anyone he knew had been involved.”

  “I’m sure he knew at least one of the men—they worked together some years ago, when I was in charge of things. His name was Yaniv Stein.” Bloch explained a few details of the attack, things that hadn’t been in the Post. Then he mentioned another mission that had failed some months prior. He explained that Mossad was desperate to stop Iran’s headlong charge toward nuclear-tipped madness.

  “The key to stopping them,” he continued, “involves the head of the program, Dr. Ibrahim Hamedi. He was the target of both failed missions.”

  “Anton, I really don’t need to know any of this because—”

  “Next week,” he cut in, “Hamedi will leave Iran. The director believes he will be vulnerable and is determined to try again. The problem is—”

  “I don’t give a damn about your director’s problems! I am here for a medical conference. David and I have a life, and we don’t need anything from you or Israel.”

  Bloch’s coffee came, forcing a pause. When the waitress left he didn’t pretend to address his cup. “Christine, please listen to me. Mossad is in crisis. The missions I told you about failed because there is a traitor, a leak somewhere in the agency—it has frozen them. They can’t act directly on this opportunity, and Nurin believes there is only one other way to go after Hamedi. They must use someone outside the organization.”

  Christine went rigid. Her voice struck an arctic whisper that surprised even her, “Don’t you even say it!” She pushed back from the table and stood. “You stay away from him!” Her voice kept rising. “Stay away from us!”

  Bloch rose and grabbed her arm, his hand a vice. “That’s what I told Nurin!” Bloch whispered harshly. “I am on your side in this!”

  People were staring.

  He repeated it slowly. “I am on your side.”

  Hesitantly, Christine eased back into her seat.

  Bloch said, “I told him David would never do it, that nothing could make him go back. I suspected Nurin had called me in as a recruiter—to try and talk David into doing the job. He didn’t even try.”

  Her gaze narrowed. “So what did he want?”

  “He believes there is a way to force David into taking this assignment. He told me that … that you would be here in Stockholm today. Alone.”

  Christine didn’t understand at first. As a physician she was accustomed to directness, not trained to search for snares. But finally she saw what Bloch was suggesting, and the cold realization swept her away. He kept talking, but the words barely registered.

  “Can’t you see it?” he said. “I am the only person in Israel you would trust. The director asked me to help—he thought I might be able to bring you in quietly. I told him I would.”

  Her world was spinning, but Bloch’s eyes held her in a grip harsher than the one that had just bruised her arm. “That’s what I told him. But the truth is that I came here to help you. I am going to get you out of this.”

  She shook her head. “Whatever you are trying to tell me—”

  “Listen very carefully, Christine. I want you to look discreetly across the street. You will see a silver Audi, two men. One is standing on the curb, the other sitting in the driver’s seat.”

  Trying to be casual in a world gone mad, Christine tilted her head and saw them, two men and a car framed by the shimmering waterfront. The one standing was tall and heavy, dark hair. The man at the wheel, bald and thick-necked.

  Bloch continued, “A third man is positioned near the café entrance, on the sidewalk. He’s talking on his phone.”

  She looked and there he was, smiling and chatting in a most carefree manner. He might have been asking his girlfriend on a date, or perhaps scheduling a tennis match.

  Bloch’s words fell to a slow, measured clip. “You must do as I say, Christine. For your sake. For David’s sake.”

  Christine was holding the table by its edges. She had to hold something. Bloch leveled a still, somber gaze, and she imagined it was a look he had used before with David—right before sending him into the world as Israel’s killing machine.

  “They intend to put you in that car. A private jet is waiting at the airport. Right now they’re assuming that I will act out a ruse to deliver you calmly to the car.”

  Her eyes flicked across the street.

  “What I am going to do is pay our bill, then stand up. When I do, take my arm as we head to the exit. When I give you the order, turn and run. Go inside the main restaurant, straight back through the central hallway. Past the kitchen you’ll find a door at the back. It leads to an alley.”

  The table began trembling under her grip. She focused on a glass of water on the table, mesmerized by the concentric rings inside.

  “In the alley, turn left.” Bloch pried one of her hands from the table, the one out of sight from the street, and Christine felt him press something into it. She looked down and saw a car key.

  “Dark blue Saab, near the mouth of the alley. Drive straight ahead, turn right. There’s no need to go fast, you’ll have a head start and they won’t know what to look for. I’ll hold them here as long as I can.”

  She looked at him pleadingly, willing him to stop.

  He implored in a low voice, “There is no other way, Christine!”

  “But—then what?”

  She saw his hand come around the side of the table again. This time it held her missing cell phone.

  He answered her question before she could ask it. “We took it from your room last night to isolate you. I’ve powered it down for now—leave it that way. You can be tracked when the phone is on. Just put it in your pocket.”

  She did so, not even bothering to ask how they’d invaded her hotel room.

  “I’ve already sent a message to David. He’s on the way.”

  “David is coming here? What did you tell him?”

  “Wait until tomorrow,” Bloch sai
d, ignoring her question, “then use your phone to contact him. Do it from a cab or a bus, something mobile. If he doesn’t answer, turn it back off and keep moving. Try again one day later, at the same time. Whatever you do in the meantime, don’t go back to your hotel. If I can’t stop them, it’s the first place they’ll look.”

  “If you can’t—” Her thoughts froze, stilled like a metronome hitting a stop. “Why are you doing this, Anton?”

  He seemed to take care in choosing his words. “I’ve asked a great deal of David over the years. This is a decision I made just over a week ago, during Yom Kippur. It is our Day of Atonement.”

  The waitress came with the check. Bloch took it, settled in cash, and stood. “Now,” he ordered.

  Christine pushed away from the table, but her legs seemed weak. He put a hand under her elbow and she rose, falling in beside him. The man on the sidewalk was still chatting on his phone. He was thirty feet away.

  “Are you ready?” Bloch whispered, adding a staged smile. He might have been escorting his daughter to a high school dance.

  Christine responded by looking squarely at the man outside. It was a mistake. When he recognized her eye contact, his manufactured smile disappeared. He slipped the phone under the lapel of his jacket. His hand came back out with a gun.

  “Go!” Bloch yelled, pushing her aside.

  Christine stumbled, but caught her balance. Frozen with indecision, she saw Bloch draw his own gun, then heard a crash of shots. The man on the sidewalk went down and gunfire burst in from the street. The legs that had wobbled only moments ago found new strength. Christine broke into a run, shouldering past scrambling patrons into the shadowed dining room. People were screaming, trying to get away. She slowed down and turned, caught a glimpse of Bloch aiming his gun at something—no, someone—and then his body rocked once, twice, and he dropped like a stone. Stunned, Christine’s first urge was to go to his side. But then she was stepping backward, all the while watching, willing him to rise. He didn’t move.

  The gunfire paused.