by Ward Larsen
EIGHTEEN
It was no more than a glint, fleeting movement down the hallway to his right. Slaton studied the geometry and realized he’d seen a reflection from the window across the hall. As he eyed the main entrance doors, a sound followed, heavy boots skidding on loose snow. Then long seconds of silence and stillness.
Movement is an essential skill for an assassin, the ability to reach a position of advantage without being seen or heard or smelled. Not surprisingly, those who have painstakingly mastered such techniques are adept at spotting errors. Large cities, Slaton knew, were virtual forests of sensory static: cars, crowds, flashing lights. Yet aside from sporting events and playgrounds, the manifestation of full-speed human movement is a gross inconsistency, doubly so when it occurs at the entrance of a professional building.
Yet that was what he’d seen. That was what he’d heard. Someone had been running full tilt, and was now just outside the entrance. Silent. Waiting.
Slaton’s reaction was both immediate and instinctive. He exited Krueger’s office, closing a locked door behind him, and crossed the hall to Suite 3—if the sign on the door could be believed, a tax attorney’s office. Slaton quickly pulled the door closed behind him. He saw a vacant reception desk and an office behind, a mirror arrangement of Krueger’s suite. Behind the closed office door he heard muted voices and shuffling.
The door opened and a young girl appeared, pretty and slim. Her hair was askew and—Slaton could not avoid noticing—two buttons on her blouse were matched to the wrong holes.
“Herr Schimmler has no more appointments today,” she stuttered.
Slaton gave a professional smile as his eyes bypassed the girl for the inner office. A story came to mind effortlessly. Herr Schimmler is a specialist in estate planning and inheritance law, is he not? I must schedule an appointment regarding my mother’s will.
Slaton never had a chance to deliver the lie as hard footfalls came from the outer hall. Through the frosted glass he saw rapid movement. One silhouette, two. Then a third, and a crash as Krueger’s office door gave way.
There were no shouted warnings of Polizei! Only the reckless haste of men ready to kill.
Slaton didn’t have to ask the young woman if there was a back door—he had studied the building and knew there wasn’t. But there was a window in the lawyer’s office. He brushed past her and rushed inside.
“No!” she protested. “You mustn’t go—”
He caught a glimpse of the lawyer, Schimmler, standing behind his desk, dumbstruck and with the tail of his shirt stuck in his fly. Slaton ignored him.
The window was there, the blind drawn for obvious reasons. Slaton pushed the slats aside, unlatched the window, and flung it open. The frigid air struck like a wall. Slaton straddled the frame, pausing long enough to shout, “Lock your doors and call the police! There are men with guns in Herr Krueger’s office!”
He was already outside when he heard a door slam shut, five strides away when the woman screamed something unintelligible. Slaton struck out across the snow-dressed lawn on a flat-out sprint. He spotted a new threat instantly—parked at the building’s entrance, a blue utility van with a plumber’s logo that had not been there when he’d arrived.
He ran on a diagonal across the lawn, and skidded to a stop after rounding a building at the first corner. Slaton checked in every direction to make sure he wasn’t being outflanked, and pulled the cheap tube-encased raincoat from his pocket, transforming his upper body in a moment from beige to bright yellow. Through the corner window of a second-tier art gallery, he studied the distant office where his banker was facing an assault team. What he saw was disquieting.
The three men from the streets of Mdina.
The twins were more alike than ever in workmen’s overalls. Ben-Meir was there as well, seeming more familiar now that Slaton had a name to go with the face. They were hauling computers and files, dumping everything hurriedly into the van. The mere fact that they were working fast and in the open meant any pretense of disguise had been dropped. They knew what they were after, and seemed sure they could get it quickly. That sealed Walter Krueger’s prospects—the banker was likely dead.
Had they followed him to Zurich? No—the van and overalls could never have been arranged so quickly. They had been lying in wait, just as in Mdina, knowing he would come to Krueger’s office. Equally certain was that they would be gone within minutes, anticipating a police response, the exact window of opportunity already calculated. Eight minutes, ten perhaps? No, he decided. Here, in Zurich’s main banking sector, the police could be counted on in no more than five minutes. If Slaton were running their op, he would have tested response times in advance by manufacturing a false alarm in a nearby building. Or perhaps they’d gone for a diversion, calling 112, the Swiss emergency number, minutes ago to report a crime four blocks away. An unarmed robbery or a crazed man with a knife—something requiring immediate response, but that would not necessitate reinforcements from the greater gendarmerie.
Yes, that’s how I’d have done it.
Slaton began moving again, with more control. He crossed the street, keeping the building on his right shoulder while masking behind a row of ageless chestnut trees. The men were together at the back of the van. After exchanging a few words, all three headed back inside.
Time for one more load.
Just as they disappeared, Slaton saw something else—something that brought him crunching to a stop on the frozen sidewalk. Krueger’s reliable assistant, Astrid, was striding up the sidewalk fifty meters from the entrance with a steaming cup of coffee in each hand. She was moving quickly against the cold, a flurry of practicality in her ankle-length skirt, heavy sweater, and no-nonsense flats. In less than a minute she would reach the entrance. Reach the blue van.
* * *
“Dammit!” Slaton muttered under his breath.
One of the twins came out with his arms loaded—a laptop computer, wire dangling to the ground, and a stack of files—and dumped everything into the van. He took up a cover position between the vehicle and the entrance. The other two were still inside, taking too long, and Slaton wondered if he’d been wrong about Krueger. Might the banker still be alive? Or were they searching for the assassin who’d been there minutes earlier?
It didn’t matter. If there was one person who had no part in any of this it was Astrid, now twenty steps away from a team of killers. Slaton cursed again under his breath, realizing that this entire disaster, at some level, was a thing of his making.
He broke into a run toward the building, angling for an approach with no line of sight to the entrance. Just as he put a shoulder to the cold brick outside Krueger’s office, Slaton heard Astrid scream. He held steady.
Then her cultured receptionist’s voice crumbling in anguish. “Walter! My God, Walter!”
A deep-toned response, reasonable and assuring, but edged with a hard accent. “There has been an accident. Please come inside—we need your help.”
Astrid again. “That computer … it’s Walter’s. What are you doing?”
Slaton ventured a look around the corner. He saw a terrified Astrid looking through the doors into the hallway, backing away from the lone man outside. The man sidestepped in an arc, herding her toward the entrance.
Slaton had to act, but the geometry was damning—the man was facing him, leaving no element of surprise for a rush, and the bulge of a holstered weapon was clear under his coveralls. With no time to circle the building, Slaton looked all around. He saw only one weapon. Hoping to God Astrid recognized him, he stepped around the corner and stood in plain sight.
The guard saw him instantly and went for his gun, something heavy caliber and suppressed for sound.
“Astrid! Coffee!”
There was a terrible pause, a slow-motion moment in which three people with unique perspectives made quick decisions. Astrid lived up to his expectations—and then some. She popped the lids from the containers using her thumbs, and just as the handgun was level
ing on Slaton’s chest she flung two cups of steaming coffee into the guard’s face.
He screamed and raised his arms, blinded by the boiling liquid, the gun now pointed at the sky. The indomitable Astrid finished the job, kicking him in the crotch with her no-nonsense flats.
The man grunted and doubled over, giving Slaton the two seconds he needed to close the gap. He led with a knee to the man’s lowered head, which put him on the ground, but the guard kept his grip on the gun. It left Slaton no choice. He put two hands over his adversary’s one, leveraged his weight, and brought the weapon close between their chests. He grounded the barrel in the man’s gut, the long suppressor angled upward, and found the trigger with his thumb.
The weapon spat its lethal round. The guard shuddered and went still.
Slaton ripped the weapon free and scrambled to his feet. There was still no sign of the other two, nor the police.
He gripped Astrid firmly by the elbow. “Come on! We’ve got to get out of here!” He began dragging her away but she resisted. Slaton followed her shocked gaze and saw what was anchoring her. Walter Krueger lay just inside the building’s portico, his body splayed awkwardly amid a spreading pool of red.
She looked pleadingly at Slaton. “We have to help Walter! We have to—”
Slaton jerked her away, forcing her eyes to his. “Walter is dead, Astrid!”
She looked at him, stunned and uncomprehending.
“Walter is dead,” he repeated. “And if we don’t leave this instant, we will be next.”
NINETEEN
“There’s a patient in room 3 who says he needs to see you.”
Christine hooked her lab coat on a peg in her office, and gave Lisa, her physician’s assistant, a pained look. “I was supposed to be off an hour ago, Lisa. Brent can handle it.”
“This guy specifically asked for you, says you saw him a few months ago. We couldn’t find his records though.”
“What’s his problem?”
“He’s got a bad leg, auto accident last year. Says it’s giving him trouble. I took a look and he’s got some serious damage. Rod replacement of the tibia, extensive grafting. He’s had a lot of work.”
“What’s the name?”
Lisa handed over a new patient file with a handwritten name: Y. B. Stein.
“Never heard of him.”
“He said you would remember the referring physician.”
Christine opened the file and scrolled her eyes down the standard form. The name in the referring physician block caused her heart to stagger a beat. Dr. Anton Bloch. A name she knew, only not as a caregiver. Anton Bloch was a former director of Mossad—and the man responsible for recruiting David into that service so many years ago.
“You all right?” Lisa asked.
Christine took a long breath and gently closed the file. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’ll see him.”
She made her way down the hall to the door marked 3. Christine paused there, her hand hovering over the metal lever as if expecting it to be hot. She wondered what to expect. News about David? Had they finally recovered his body? Yes, she thought, this was exactly how Mossad would go about a notification—false names and pretenses. Part of her wanted to turn and run, but her damned practical nature prevailed. Whatever was inside, she would have to face it sooner or later.
Christine gripped the handle and pulled.
She stepped into the room only far enough to bring the door shut. He was sitting on the examination table, a good-looking man, in a craggy way, with a rough scar on one cheek and a mildly crooked nose. His black hair was coarse and cut short, and sharp eyes seized her with unflinching directness. That in itself, the iron gaze, was enough to put Christine off her game. Her heart misfired again as she realized who this man reminded her of.
“Who are you?” she asked, not in the tone of a caring physician.
“Yaniv Stein.”
Yaniv Stein. Now the name clicked, a Mossad colleague David had once mentioned. But that Yaniv Stein had been killed during a botched mission in Iran. She looked more closely at him. He’d stripped off his trousers for Lisa’s screening exam, and below his olive-drab boxers she saw the right leg. From the knee down there was indeed serious damage.
“Does that name mean anything to you?” he prompted.
“I’d say it’s a common name in Israel. That is where you’re from?”
He grinned and she saw a younger face, albeit with grooves deeper than they ought to be. Once again, painfully familiar. “Of course.”
“Why are you here?”
Stein charged his lungs with a deep breath, as if about to exert himself physically. “Mossad sent me here to—”
“Mossad?” she interrupted, caution giving way to anger. “The same organization that betrayed my husband? That forced him into an impossible situation that got him killed? Get the hell out of my office!” she shouted.
The door opened and Lisa peered inside. “Everything okay in here?”
Christine took a deep breath. “Yes,” she said. “Mr. Stein wants an open-ended prescription for pain meds, and I told him what I thought about it. He’s leaving now.”
Stein reached for his pants, stood, and began hiking them left and right up his legs. Lisa backed out and closed the door.
When Stein was done with his pants he sat back down on the examining table. “Give me five minutes, then I’ll leave if you want. This is not an official visit, Christine. I don’t work for Mossad—not anymore. As you can see, I have certain limitations. Anton sent me to see you.”
“Why?”
“There’s a problem.”
Christine laughed derisively. “A problem. Do you guys take a course in that? Understatement 101?”
Stein ignored it. “Christine, we think you may be in danger.”
“Danger? Why on earth would I be in danger?”
Stein took a moment to arrange his thoughts. “It goes back a long time. Many years ago David was involved in a Mossad mission targeting a particularly extreme offshoot of Hamas called al-Zahari. This organization knew no bounds. They undertook a terrible series of attacks directed at noncombatants—they intentionally went after women and children in the name of sensationalism. Mossad went all-out to identify who was responsible, and one al-Zahari cell came to light. Our government decided to hit back, and David was given the assignment. You know what his specialty was.”
Christine didn’t respond, but she knew all too well. David was an extraordinarily talented marksman.
“He killed four men that day,” Stein continued, “all in a matter of seconds.”
Christine folded her arms tightly across her chest. She’d always known there had been such missions, but David never spoke of them in detail—and she had never asked.
Stein continued, “The identity of Mossad operatives is kept strictly secret. Unfortunately, in this case we believe there was a breach. It’s been many years, but recently we think David’s name was tied to these deaths.”
Christine had heard enough. “What does it matter? They can’t take revenge against a dead man.”
“Actually … you have to think about it from their point of view. The concept of Arab justice is rarely understood by Western minds. These people demand an eye for an eye, a system of tribal retribution that’s been in place for a thousand generations. If they’ve discovered David was the shooter on that mission, and we believe that’s the case, they won’t miss a chance to send a message to Israel. Or more precisely, to the other kidonim. A message that says, ‘Strike us, and we will go after you and your families.’”
Christine sat slowly in the room’s only chair, a four-wheel roller that had never felt so unsteady. Room 3 was the practice’s pediatric corner, and the walls were decked in whale stickers and fabric balloons. She felt the fight going out of her, and stared at a zoo-themed mobile while Stein continued.
“Al-Zahari will seek retribution—they have one man who specializes in it. He’s very effective, and has more than once traveled abroad to
kill.”
“An assassin?” she found herself saying.
“Yes.”
“And you’re here to warn me about this? To tell me a killer is coming to hunt me down?”
“Actually,” Stein said, “we think he may already be here. Last week we uncovered his false identity—unfortunately, the day after he arrived at Dulles.”
Christine suddenly felt cold. She stood and put a shoulder to the door. Would it never end? David had existed in a world previously unknown to her, a place where lies were a dialect and death an occupational hazard. But now the tsunami of his past was rushing at her again. The difference this time—she would have to face it alone.
“You’re saying this man could be near.”
“Very possibly. And … it might not be limited to you.”
Every muscle in her body tensed.
“You have a son now,” he said. “David’s son.”
Christine’s head began to swim. She tried to think of an argument, a way to tell this stranger who seemed so maddeningly familiar that it couldn’t be true. It was hopeless, and she knew why. A mother’s protective instinct.
She looked at him and whispered contemptuously, “You’re bastards—all of you!”
Stein looked at her impassively, not arguing otherwise. Just as David would have done.
She sucked in a long, ragged breath. “What do I do about it?”
“Anton wants me to stay with you, give you protection.”
She glanced at his now-covered leg.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m capable enough. This is a defensive op, and when you play defense, knowledge and preparation are what’s important. There are a lot of people looking for this guy, both your government and mine.”
“My government? As in the FBI?”
Stein nodded.
“If they’re involved, shouldn’t they be the ones protecting me?”
“That’s a bit delicate. Israel has shared this man’s identity with U.S. authorities, told them how dangerous he is. But we can’t mention David, or by extension you and your son. Not without raising uncomfortable questions for everyone.”