The Perfect Assassin Read online

  The storm had subsided, the torrential rain now a light drizzle, the wind and seas fallen calm. Christine sat at the helm, steering by his instructions. They had been close to shore for an hour, holding about three miles out, but occasionally ducking in closer. In spots, the steady drizzle transformed into mist. Dusk, still about five hours off, might bring the visibility down fast.

  “Come thirty left,” he commanded from his station next to the mast.

  Christine turned the tiller while he scanned the shoreline with the binoculars. She wondered what he could possibly be looking for. Penzance was still twenty miles ahead, Plymouth fifty. There were no harbors of any kind here and the coastline was rocky, unapproachable as far as Windsom was concerned.

  “Hold this course,” he said.

  He’d been quiet since the storm, only speaking when it came to the business of maneuvering the boat. Christine wished she knew what he was up to, but, predictably, he wasn’t letting on.

  With Windsom about two miles offshore, he began shifting the binoculars sharply between points along the rocky coast. Christine looked, but saw nothing remarkable. Steep cliffs as far as she could see, with boulders dominating the tide line, then a lighter color above on the near-vertical incline, probably some kind of coarse vegetation.

  “All right, that’s it,” he said suddenly. “Turn her into the wind.”

  Christine complied and the sails flapped loosely as Windsom’s momentum gradually slowed. He went below, rattled a few things around, then came back on deck. Christine tensed immediately when she saw what was in his hand. It was her father’s old diving knife. Eight inches long with a serrated edge on one side, it was rusty and lethal-looking. God, where had he found that? she wondered. Still, he wore the same serious, intense expression that had been there all along, which was comforting in a strange way. This man was no berserk killer. There was purpose in everything he did, and Christine knew the knife was not intended for her. He did, however, point it casually in her direction for emphasis.

  “Keep her into the wind,” he said, obviously not wanting a repeat of the day’s earlier incident.

  Christine watched in amazement as he went to the mainsail. Holding the knife over his head, he jabbed viciously into it. Yanking and pulling, he ripped the canvas through its entire length. He made another cut and another, until the sail was shredded into a half-dozen loosely connected pieces. Next, he went up front and gave five minute’s treatment to the jib. Then he cut the halyards and sheets. He went all around the boat cutting and slicing.

  Christine watched in silence, trying to understand. He was disabling Windsom, but why? Was he going to motor into Penzance and say, “Look at what the storm did!” How would that help him? Perhaps if he was alone? Christine forced the ideas from her mind. She’d know soon enough.

  Her captor went below and for two minutes she heard metallic, banging noises. He came back up with a few critical pieces of the engine — the plugs and some wiring. He threw them over the side and they disappeared.

  With a thoughtful look around the boat, he nodded, apparently satisfied with his destruction. Again the man went below, this time emerging with a pair of oars. He went forward along the port side and began to unlash the dinghy.

  The dinghy! That was it!

  Christine was overwhelmed with relief. He had disabled Windsom, and now he was going to row himself ashore. In a matter of moments she’d be free!

  She watched as he tied a short painter onto the little boat’s bow and slid it into the water. He bent down and held the dinghy close with one leg, then turned.

  “I’m sorry,” he said evenly.

  Giddy with relief, she nearly laughed out loud. Sorry? For what? she wondered, anger creeping in. For kidnapping me? For keeping me in constant fear over the last four days and nights? Or for tearing my poor father’s boat to shreds? She wanted to scream it all at the top of her lungs. But Christine held back, because more than anything else, she just wanted him to go.

  He stepped into the dinghy and used one of the oars to push off. Then, locking the oars in their gimbals, he began rowing toward the shoreline. Christine scanned the rocky coast. It looked impenetrable from where she stood, two miles away, but she had no doubt he’d make it. She watched him go, rowing strongly. Again she thought about how quickly he had recovered from his injuries. Christine was thankful for that. Thankful because the strength was taking him away, stroke by stroke, out of her life for good.

  “Keep going,” she said. “Keep going so that I’ll never see you again.”

  A hundred yards away, David Slaton faced aft as he rowed ashore. He saw Windsom bobbing aimlessly, her torn sails and cut lines flopping uselessly in the breeze. And she was there, watching him.

  He could hear the faint sound of waves breaking along the coast. The sound would gradually become a roar, but he would deal with that later. He pulled the oars hard through the cold water. Slaton felt beads of perspiration already forming on his face, and the muscles in his back and legs began to feel warm and full.

  The physical labor was good. He needed the exercise. But more importantly, Slaton finally felt like he was doing something. For days he’d taken it easy, letting his body recover. He had used the time to think, to try and make sense out of what had happened to Polaris Venture. She’d been sabotaged — of that, he was sure. But by whom? And why? There had been fifteen others on that ship, good soldiers one and all. The whole operation had been tightly held, known to only a few people in South Africa and those at the highest level of his own government. Yet it had been compromised all the same.

  Then there was Yosy’s phone call, right before Slaton had departed England for the mission. It had seemed harmless enough at first, but then Yosy dropped the name Sheena into the conversation, a fictitious character they’d devised years ago while working together in southern Italy. The name was a flag, their personal warning code. It had never gotten used in Italy, but last week Yosy brought up the name during an otherwise casual conversation — twice. Extreme danger. Slaton had been thrown quickly into the Polaris Venture mission, and was unable to contact Yosy by a more secure means. Once briefed on Polaris Venture, he never considered that it might be the subject of Yosy’s warning, given the level of secrecy around the project. Now he saw that was clearly a mistake.

  Yosy might not have known specifically about Polaris Venture, but he’d seen a danger and tried to give warning. Slaton decided that as soon as he was safe, the first order of business would be to get in touch with Yosy. He could be trusted. Everywhere else there were doubts. Slaton had to be careful, because somewhere there was a traitor, and he had a bad feeling it was on the Israeli side of the fence. At the moment, however, he held one distinct advantage. Only one person in the world even knew he was alive, and she didn’t know who he was.

  Slaton took one last look at the small sailboat. She was standing astern with an arm raised, holding onto a stanchion. At this distance her figure was nothing more than a silhouette. A strange corollary flowed into his mind as he decided she was an exceptionally attractive woman, from any distance. It was a plain beauty, simple and unadorned by cosmetics or trappings. She was average in height and build, with a distinctly athletic carriage, fluid and steady, never bothered by the movement of the boat. The hair was straight and brown, with lighter streaks from the sun, the skin clear and tan. His mind held a vivid image.

  It was, however, an impression that could not be permitted to linger. It bothered him and he pushed it away. There was no place for it. There had not been for a very long time. Slaton looked again over his shoulder to evaluate the task at hand. He spied the small house atop the bluff, the one that undoubtedly commanded a breathtaking view of this craggy coastline. He had spotted it with the binoculars from Windsom. A vacation home, with any luck abandoned this time of year. That was where he was headed. David Slaton reestablished his grip on the oars and pulled hard. Now it was time to work.

  Chapter Five

  He dragged the dinghy up
a steep pathway, thankful it wasn’t any heavier. Slaton’s bare feet slipped now and again on loose stones, and he had to grab at the bases of the sturdier shrubs for leverage as he lugged his load uphill. The path rose from a tiny patch of sand and pebbles — what must have passed for a beach along this rugged stretch of coastline — which had fortunately been accessible during the low tide. If he had arrived six hours later he might still be rowing up the coast, looking for a place to put in. Even better, the footpath eventually led to the very house that had piqued his interest. Slaton had already been up the path once to do his reconnaissance. The house was vacant, as he’d hoped.

  Finally reaching the top with the dinghy in tow, he stopped for a moment to catch his breath. The house lay in front of him. It was a boxy, two-story structure with a small shed off to one side, the type of quaint summer residence common to the area, and probably used only a few months of the year.

  He grabbed the dinghy again and dragged it to the shed. There, he tipped it up on one side and leaned it against the wooden building. No better place to hide something than right out in the open. Slaton went around to the front of the shed and swung open its squeaky door. The padlock had been a problem, but then his lock-picking tools were less than professional grade. The tensioner was a tiny, flat-bladed screwdriver, the rake a thin metal rod, both scavenged from the sailboat’s toolbox. Old and rusted, the lock on the shed had taken five minutes. Fortunately, the back door of the main house had been far more accommodating, giving up in a matter of seconds.

  The shed was dark inside, light only coming by way of the open door and a few cracks that had evolved between the old wooden wall planks. There was a single bulb mounted up on the ceiling with a pull-cord, but it would be no use since the power had been disconnected for the season. Slaton’s eyes gradually adjusted. He could make out an old lawn mower that looked like it hadn’t been used in years, a scattered assortment of gardening tools, a tireless rim from a bicycle wheel, and an old rusted wheelbarrow. The place had an oily, musty odor. Some gnarled driftwood lay in a pile in one corner, and Slaton heard an animal scratching and scurrying underneath.

  He spotted a bulky tarp covering something large in one corner. Slaton maneuvered through the junk and yanked the tarp away, revealing an ancient Brough motorcycle. He shoved aside a rake and a few old boards to get a closer look. There was a helmet, the tires were up, and he saw no obvious parts missing. It was a relic, but might be serviceable. He shoved more junk aside and eventually made a path wide enough to walk the machine outside. There, the first thing he noticed was a current license plate. That was a good sign — probably a toy of the owner’s. He checked for fuel and found less than half a tank. Slaton got on and began to kick the starter, still not hoping for much. After ten tries, the machine coughed, spit, and eventually held a tenuous grip on idle power. Slaton added some throttle and it clunked to a stop.

  He got off, put his hands on his hips, and sized up the tired old contraption. Other than walking, it was his only mode of transportation at the moment. Slaton cast a glance up the coastline. Earlier, from the top floor of the house, he’d seen that the nearest neighbors were a half-mile away on either side. The house to the west looked vacant, though he couldn’t say for sure. The house to the east was definitely occupied — there were lights on, and a thin wisp of smoke emanated from the chimney.

  He considered how much time he might have. The neighbors were far enough away that they wouldn’t notice him anytime soon. More pressing was the good Dr. Palmer. She was a capable sailor. He had no doubt she’d have some kind of sail rigged up by now. Even so, it would be at least nightfall before she could make any port. What worried him more was the chance she might flag down another boat. If she could contact the authorities by radio, things would go a lot faster. Sometime in the next twenty-four hours the police would start searching this stretch of coastline for a man — six-foot-one, sandy hair, and recovering from a nasty sunburn. They’d start by looking for the boat he’d come ashore in, the one that was now tucked neatly against the woodshed.

  Gasoline dripped slowly off the bottom of the Brough’s engine. Slaton scratched his chin and decided he’d give it an hour. There were a few rudimentary tools strewn about the shed. If he couldn’t get it up and running by then, he’d move by some other means. Jump into a truck, steal a bicycle, or walk if necessary. He had to distance himself from this place in order to get safe. Only then could he begin the real work that lay ahead.

  It took forty minutes. A loose clamp on the fuel hose and a badly adjusted carburetor were the main problems. Slaton had also cleaned the spark plugs and found some oil to add. That done, the thing ran. It would never be the cutting-edge racing machine it had been sixty years before, but he figured it would hold together long enough to get him out of Cornwall.

  Slaton went into the house and climbed to the second floor. The lone room there was arranged as a library or den of sorts. He edged up to a window, keeping his own profile in the shadows, and looked out across the treeless, heathered landscape.

  A thin column of smoke still wafted up from the chimney of the house to the east. Slaton studied the meandering road that loosely connected the properties along the coast. So far, there had been no traffic. He surveyed the lay of the land and tried to recall the coastal features he’d seen from his approach to shore earlier; that in mind, he guessed the quickest way to a main road would be east.

  Downstairs were two bedrooms and he started with the smaller. He found linens and boxes of needlepoint, but nothing of use. Slaton wasn’t particularly careful about fingerprints. That would only slow things down and he didn’t have the time. Eventually the authorities would match some of the prints around the house to some of those on the sloop Wind-som. It didn’t matter. His prints were not on file. Not with Scotland Yard, not with Interpol. It would be another dead end.

  He moved to the other bedroom and was quickly rewarded. A small wooden box on the dresser held three twenty-pound notes and another five or so in loose change. In the closet he found what he really needed — clothing. The rags he had on were disintegrating fast, except for the U CONN sweatshirt he’d stolen. More importantly, tomorrow all of it would be included in the police description of a man on the loose, a mad kidnapper who’d been plucked from the ocean. This quiet little hamlet would be in an uproar by midday. Fortunately, the house seemed to have at least one seasonal occupant who was roughly Slaton’s height. Unfortunately, he was also about fifty pounds heavier. It would have to do.

  He chose a pair of dark work pants and a cotton pullover shirt. A belt from the dresser, cinched to its smallest circumference, kept the pants in the vicinity of his waistline. He found two sweaters and put both on, the heavier, a wool pullover, on the outside. The brisk temperatures outside would turn downright bone-chilling in a seventy mile an hour breeze, or whatever the old machine could muster. Slaton went back to the closet and rummaged further. The selection of shoes was limited, but happened to be a good fit, and he chose a newer pair of leather hiking boots. Finally, Slaton took a few more items of clothing and stuffed them into an old canvas backpack.

  Dressed and packed, he positioned himself in front of a full-length mirror and evaluated the effect. The thick, bulky clothing made him look stockier. He was still dirty and greasy from working on the motorcycle. Slaton wiped his filthy hands on the trousers, then, for good measure, smudged the sleeve of his sweater. It was good. The scraggly, half-grown beard helped, and the blisters on his face, not completely healed, gave his complexion a ruddy appearance. It was quite good. A working man. Just finished an honest day’s work and on his way home, or maybe to the pub for a pint.

  Satisfied, he pocketed the money he’d found and went outside. Slaton closed the door to the shed and looked around to see if anything else was obviously out of place. Other than a new boat leaning against the shed, the exterior was just as he’d found it.

  He climbed on the Brough and kicked it to life. The thing spewed heavy blue smoke before c
hugging itself into a rhythm. He gave the throttle a turn and the old bike scampered up the dirt and gravel driveway, churning a cloud of dust along the way. Slaton hit the road at speed and turned east.

  A surly Anton Bloch was putting on his coat to head home when Paul Mordechai came bounding energetically into his office. One hand held a piece of paper, which he shook wildly over his head, the other a can of Coke, the sugar and caffeine elixir that Bloch suspected was partly responsible for the engineer’s constant state of motion.

  “We’ve found an ROV in France. It’s owned by a non-profit environmental group and they want to sell it so they can upgrade to a deeper model. This one will work just fine for us, though. I even talked them down to a great price.”

  Bloch couldn’t have cared less. “When can we get it?”

  “As soon as we transfer the funds. It’s in Marseille right now.”

  “Which ship have you decided to use?”

  “Of those we have enroute, I think Hanit is the best choice.”

  Bloch put his coat back on the rack. “All right. I’ll have her diverted to Marseille.”

  “Don’t you want to know how much?” Mordechai asked cheerily.

  Bloch ignored him, picked up the phone and arranged for a secure line to Defense. Waiting for the connection to be run, he was naked to Mordechai’s stare. “All right, give me the account information and I’ll arrange payment,” he said impatiently.

  Mordechai grabbed a notepad from Bloch’s desk and scribbled the account numbers from memory, talking at the same time, “Six hundred and fifty thousand. It’s a steal! I’ll bet they paid one-three, maybe one-five last year. We got the controller, cables, displays, and all the spares.”

  Bloch glowered. “Go pack your bags. You’re going to Marseille. I’ll have a jet waiting for you at Palmachim within the hour.”