Assassin's Silence

by Ward Larsen

  After helping the men unload in silence, Umberto left the mechanics to their business. He went to the operations office, built a cup of sweet light coffee, and stood under a mango tree as the Guatemalans set up camp under the big jet’s wing. They opened toolboxes and uncrated expendables—altogether it was a heavy load, one that Umberto imagined must have stretched the little Beechcraft to its maximum gross weight.

  After thirty minutes the men asked to borrow the largest work stand available, and Umberto complied. It turned out to be just tall enough, the service lift jackknifing up to the midpoint of the starboard engine. From there they unlatched cowling panels and went to work. Umberto did not know what they were inspecting—oil levels or hydraulic fluid, he supposed, whatever was necessary to make a fifty-thousand-pound thrust engine spin in the designed manner. Then, disturbingly, he saw the mechanics shake their heads and begin lowering the stand.

  One of the Guatemalans stepped down to the ramp and approached a watchful Umberto.

  “You have for bugs?” was what Umberto heard, the Portuguese-Spanish disconnect strong as ever.

  “Bugs?”

  The man made a swatting motion with his hands, then pantomimed holding something as he made the noise, “Ssshhh! Ssshhh!”

  “Spray? Kill bugs?”

  A big nod. “Yes, kill.”

  Umberto went into the operations office and began rummaging through cabinets. Twenty minutes and two cans of insecticide later the job was done. A massive nest of stinging insects, the likes of which he had never seen in the Amazon—not that he was any expert—fell from the starboard engine and splattered onto the tarmac like a rotten melon. The mechanics moved cautiously to the port engine, and apparently found no further infestations. One man climbed onto the spine of the aircraft and walked back to the tail section. He briefly inspected the third engine, which was centrally mounted and integrated into the vertical tail, and gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

  The Guatemalans spent the balance of the morning on the starboard side until, with the torrid sun peaking and lunchtime near, they put down their tools, wiped their hands on a common rag, and asked Umberto, “Where is beer?”

  This request passed without language barrier, and Umberto answered with a combination of words and hand gestures to guide them toward the second-nearest bar which was owned, not by chance, by his cousin Leonardo.

  The two trod off, more duty than excitement in their strides, and Umberto wondered if they would be back today. He heaved a sigh. With Central Americans you never knew.

  * * *

  Slaton slept lightly through the morning and past noon. After waking, he stared at the ceiling with an arm bent behind his head. He heard the occasional crewman transit the hallway outside, and noted regular mechanical thumps from somewhere behind the walls. Sounds that were all to be expected, along with the steady drone of the ship’s screws. Less predictable—his thoughts as he again tried to work out who was trying to kill him.

  It all eventually tapered to one manageable question. Who knew that he’d taken up residence in Malta? In the end, he had a concise list of one. As far as he knew, only the former director of Mossad, Anton Bloch, was aware of the refuge he’d chosen. Indeed, only a handful of people knew that Slaton was still alive after surviving a mission gone wrong sixteen months ago on the western shores of Lake Geneva. Aside from Bloch, this included Yaniv Stein, whom he had already called into service, a certain retired Swedish policeman, and last and most ominously the new director of Mossad, Raymond Nurin.

  Yet it was not so simple a net to cast. There were always other possibilities, most involving pure chance. A stray document or a slipped conversation at Mossad. An inadvertent paper trail. Or the most simple of all—an old enemy, visiting Malta, who had simply turned a corner at the wrong time and recognized a hardworking stonemason as something else.

  Only too late did Slaton see the folly of his self-imposed exile. Disappearing had done nothing to keep his wife and son safe, and in fact had brought a severe handicap—today he was on one side of an ocean and his family the other. Christine and his son were exposed.

  His son …

  It struck Slaton like a hammer blow—he didn’t even know his child’s name.

  He abruptly rolled off the mattress and stood, forcing his mind to matters at hand. He deleted the question of who was acting against him, and pushed aside his protective instincts for his family. With newfound clarity, he saw that he needed two things immediately—information and means. Both lay in Zurich, where his private banker kept a discreet office in the shadow of the Bahnhofstrasse giants. What happened later could not be considered. Not yet.

  Zurich had to come first.

  TWELVE

  It was midafternoon when Slaton emerged from his quarters, if a converted utility closet could be termed as such. In the mess hall he was given a bowl of brothy soup and a heel of French bread by the cook, a young Filipino, he guessed, who then began silently clearing dishes that had been strewn carelessly about the officer’s table. The man didn’t meet his eyes once, which Slaton took as an ominous sign.

  He dipped his bread into the soup and chewed off a corner. “This food is good,” he said.

  The cook didn’t reply. There was a chance he didn’t speak English, but Slaton reckoned that if he knew any four words in the language it would be the ones he’d just said.

  He tried a second time with the only phrase that might top it. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Menu in hall,” the cook said.

  “Have you been on this cruise long?”

  “Just signed second two-year contract.”

  “Two years? I’ll bet you’ve been a lot of places. Seen a lot of things.”

  No reply.

  “How about the captain? It was good of him to let me come aboard. Is he a good skipper?”

  Still nothing.

  “You Filipino? I’ve been to the Philippines a couple of times. Once to Manila and another time—”

  The cook disappeared into the kitchen.

  “Nice talking to you,” Slaton muttered into his bowl.

  He found the cook’s rebuff unaccountably frustrating. In his years with Mossad Slaton had often worked solo, loneliness his customary companion. Had Virginia changed that? During exile in Malta he’d found it increasingly difficult to distance himself from people: neighbors, shop owners, mail carriers. A ten-year-old named Kid. Now circumstances were driving him back into reclusion. The position of cook was among the most humble on any ship, and if anyone on board was going to talk to him it was the Filipino in the stained apron.

  Like it or not, he was alone again.

  Slaton put his empty bowl and spoon neatly on a tray, and shouldered out into the passageway. There was no one in sight, and he turned away from his room and walked down the corridor. He passed a door labeled ELECTRIC BUS 4, followed by staterooms where, if the stencils on the doors were accurate, the second officer and chief engineer were quartered. After these he came to an unmarked door, and Slaton nudged it open to find a storage closet that was filled from top to bottom. There were sea bags and suitcases, fishing poles and snow skis. Two folding bicycles leaned against an old surfboard. It was overflow storage, he supposed, a community repository where officers and crew could stow outsized items that didn’t fit in their cramped berths.

  Slaton heard footsteps and looked up just as a uniformed officer turned the corner. It was one of the men who’d been in the bar with the captain yesterday, the large man with the bent nose who’d been eager to back his skipper with his fists. His name tag and epaulets identified him as the ship’s second officer.

  “What are you doing?” he barked. “You are supposed to be in your quarters.”

  Slaton pulled the door of the storage room shut. “I was looking for a head that didn’t smell so bad.”

  The man came closer and glared at Slaton with olive-black eyes. “There is only one—you know where it is.”

  The man was roughly six foot four, maybe
two hundred forty pounds, which gave him a size advantage over Slaton. But only a slight one. He was clearly the kind of man who used his bulk to intimidate. His breath was rotten, something between sour milk and yesterday’s fish, and Slaton weighed the merits of bringing this to his attention.

  In the end, he said, “Yeah, I think I remember where it is.”

  Slaton turned down the passageway toward the head. He felt the black eyes follow him all the way.

  * * *

  The Guatemalans returned after a surprisingly short lunch, and if there had been beer involved Umberto saw no sign of it in their steady gaits.

  They were joined by two new men who’d arrived on a scheduled midday flight. The second pair was from Lima—was there a Portuguese-speaking aircraft mechanic anywhere in the world?—and their first request was more conventional than the bug-slaying Guatemalans’. Umberto, under instructions from the city council to do whatever he could to help, used a utility tug to pull the airport’s only ground power cart next to the big jet. The unit was twenty years old, a Cummins diesel on bald tires, purchased when the airport was in higher times and seeking ICAO certification. But the old cart cranked to life on the third try, and was soon feeding 400Hz AC power to the jet’s distributive electrical busses.

  While Santarém drank its afternoon coffee, the Peruvians removed boxes from the equipment bay, ran checks, and eventually wrote down a few part numbers. They gave their list to Umberto, who dutifully relayed it by way of the operations office fax machine to a number scribbled on top.

  Everything seemed to be going well.

  Two hours later the Guatemalans called for a fuel truck. The tanker was prompt, and they hooked up a high-pressure hose and began filling the main tanks. It was on the stroke of three that afternoon, under a steaming midday sun, that Umberto saw one of the mechanics rush to the fuel truck on a sprint and begin pounding on a red emergency shutoff switch. The switch worked, although not without a delay, and everyone watched in silence as two thousand gallons of Jet A fuel vented from a seam in the jet’s wing, splattered to the tarmac, and coursed a river of amber into the surrounding rain forest.

  * * *

  “Is it a goner?” Christine asked.

  “No, just a loose wire on the plug. I’ll have it reconnected in no time. These garbage disposals are notorious for loose leads. It’s because they vibrate so damned much.”

  She looked on gratefully. She had always considered herself a capable person, but when it came to electrical work she drew the line—that was better left to the professionals. Or at least to someone she trusted. In fact, the man underneath her sink was not an electrician but a neurosurgeon, undeniable overkill for a dodgy garbage disposal. She supposed having delicate hands on spinal columns didn’t necessarily translate to fixing three-quarter horsepower InSinkErators. Still, Dr. Mike Gonzales she trusted.

  “That should do it,” he said, standing with a screwdriver in his hand. “Give her a try.”

  Christine flipped the switch and the motor whirred like an empty blender.

  “You’re a genius. What do I owe you?”

  “Maybe a clean rag and a cup of coffee?”

  Ten minutes later they were together on the couch while Davy navigated the room, alternately standing and falling on his diaper.

  “You know, Christine, I think he’s gotten bigger since you brought him into work last month. He’s beginning to look a lot like you.”

  She smiled appreciatively, thinking, He’s his father reincarnate.

  “Hey, the Cleveland Orchestra is coming to town next week. I’ve heard it’s a great show. Would you like to go?”

  “Davy doesn’t like loud noise.”

  The two exchanged an awkward look.

  He said, “I’m not sure if Tchaikovsky would appreciate that. And you could get Annette to watch him.”

  Christine nearly replied, but instead began stacking bedtime books that had spilled from the pile on the coffee table. It wasn’t the first time Mike had asked her out. He was a good-looking, once-divorced brain surgeon with a stellar sense of humor and a black Maserati. She’d turned him down every time.

  “Christine, maybe I shouldn’t be the one to say it, but it’s been over a year. At some point you have to—”

  “I know … I know what you’re saying, Mike, and I appreciate the offer. It’s just that I’ve got Davy to deal with, not to mention work. Life just seems too complicated right now.”

  Dr. Gonzales forced a nod. “Okay. I guess I’ll have to call the escort service again.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, right. And thanks for understanding.”

  Two cups of coffee later, she gave Mike an appreciative hug and saw him to the front door. When it closed she felt blue, and not wanting to mope around the house, she soon had Davy bundled up and strapped into his car seat.

  “Groceries and the gas station, buddy. Another rockin’ night out with Mom.”

  She sat next to him, kissed him under the chin, and got a throaty chuckle in return. There almost seemed something familiar in his voice, but Christine knew that was ridiculous. She stared at her son, as she often did, and wondered how things might have been different if she’d had the good sense to fall in love with a schoolteacher or a sales rep. Even a neurosurgeon. It was her regular guilt trip, misgivings that still came every day. The last time she’d seen David he had been faced with an excruciating choice. If he didn’t kill a particular man, he was told his family would never be safe. And what had she done? She’d made the situation impossible by adding her own ultimatum. If you kill that man, don’t ever come back to me.

  Up against that, David had gone into harm’s way. She never saw him again. There was a memorial service in time, three weeks after “Edmund Deadmarsh” was officially declared deceased by the Commonwealth of Virginia. She’d stood in the church vestibule holding Davy, and Annette was there, along with a handful of neighbors, and a priest who talked fast because he had a noon flight from Dulles to reach an ecclesiastical conference in Florida. The day was dreary and the crowd sparse, probably all one could expect from God and the world when a Protestant minister gives final blessings to a Jew in a place the dearly departed had called home for barely a year. To his credit, the priest had tried to prepare, asking for details on David’s good and kind life. Embarrassingly, Christine had fumbled for a response. He killed a great many people, but would have been a terrific father if he’d survived his last assassination mission. Hardly the stuff of a virtuous eulogy. Yet David was good—that much she knew and would keep in her heart forever. It was his situation, the realm in which he’d existed, that was hopelessly scored in sin.

  Davy reached up from his car seat and put a finger to her face. Only when he touched the wetness on her cheek did she realize what had caught his eye and put a serious look on his face. She bent down and kissed him, again and again, until the throaty laugh returned. She gathered herself and took the driver’s seat, and minutes later had the car moving slowly along the snow-edged street. Though Christine had no reason to chronicle the fact, it was the first time in a week she had left home with her son.

  Less than a minute after she was gone, the garage door at Ed Moorehead’s house opened. A dark Chevy backed out of the blackened garage, performed a neat turn in the road, and accelerated briskly in the same direction.

  THIRTEEN

  Slaton reckoned that Ionian Star would bypass the Tyrrhenian Sea and skirt the southern edge of Sardinia, likely passing no more than a few miles from the coastline. He estimated this near-landfall to occur roughly two hours before sunrise, after which could be expected a full day of blue water, followed by a second night, before the lights of Marseille would materialize on the misty horizon. Uneasy with the reactions he’d been getting from the crew, Slaton had no intention of waiting that long.

  He rose at five that morning by the alarm in his head, a long-hewn skill that was more reliable than he sometimes wished. He filled the pockets of his jacket with his remaining cash and passpo
rts, and then stuffed the folded jacket into a plastic bag taken from the trash can in the head. Listening at the door, he heard only a muffled conversation from one of the nearby berths. Slaton eased the door open and slipped into the hallway. He’d advanced no more than two steps when a door ahead opened.

  The second officer stepped into the hall, his long arm blocking Slaton’s progress down the passageway. He was clearly off duty, clad in sweatpants and a sleeveless T-shirt, and his black hair was matted on one side. “Where do you think you are going?” he asked.

  Slaton stopped a few steps away. “Does it matter? I’m not bothering anyone at this hour.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.” He looked pointedly at the bag under Slaton’s arm. “What have you got there?”

  Slaton opened the bag enough to show him. “It’s my jacket. I got sick earlier and I made a mess of it. I need to find a washing machine.”

  The seaman grinned the way seamen did when landlubbers lost their stomachs. His smile faded quickly. “It’s been dead calm since we left Valletta. And five thirty in the morning is a funny time to do laundry.”

  Slaton didn’t reply.

  “Marco!” the officer barked.

  There was an interval of silence, followed by shuffling, and the door immediately behind Slaton creaked open. The bleary-eyed chief engineer stepped out in his underwear—the other man he had bought a beer for in the bar in Valletta. The man had streaks of shaving cream on his face and a cheap disposable razor in his hand. He wasn’t as big as the second officer, but a blunt jawline and ham-hock fists gave him the look of a pugilist.

  The second officer stared at Slaton’s bag, furrows grooved into his thick brow. “I think we should have a look at that,” he said. “It’s my duty to be on the lookout for contraband.”