Assassin's Game

by Ward Larsen

  Keeping with the flow of traffic Slaton passed through Bern, home to the Iranian embassy of Switzerland, and on the far side of the city made a series of stops. At a hardware store he purchased a small tarp, two heavy canvas duffel bags, bolt cutters, and a keyed padlock. A retail mega-box store provided three inexpensive suit coats and an assortment of spray-on fabric protectants. He worked quickly, paid cash, and kept minimal contact with the sales associates.

  Back in the Rover, Slaton maneuvered to a quiet corner of the parking lot and spread the three jackets across the backseat. All were dark in color, but each knit using a slightly different blend of fabric, one mostly wool, the others leaning toward synthetics. He took the aerosol fabric protectants and applied a heavy band to the left and right shoulders of each jacket. To get the first coating to dry more quickly, he opened the windows for better ventilation. He then waited, leaning on a fender and sipping water from a plastic bottle as traffic on the autobahn built to its daily crest. After fifteen minutes he applied a second layer, but only to the right shoulder of each jacket. Three jackets, three brands of clear solvent, with a heavier application on the right side. Satisfied, he left the jackets in place to dry.

  Slaton’s next stop was a travel station where he filled the Rover’s gas tank for the last time, and finally a pub where he enjoyed a bowl of thick barley soup and warm bread. He was back on the A1 just in time to blend into the leading edge of Friday’s rush-hour traffic, set perfectly to arrive in Basel shortly after nightfall.

  FORTY-ONE

  Sanderson decided he’d been staring through windows long enough. He asked the waitress if she knew where the nearest canton library was located. She did, offering directions along with a warning that the branch would soon close for the day. He settled his bill and set out on aching feet.

  If he was going to have any chance of finding one person in an urban sea of a million he had to narrow his field, yet with no actionable intelligence to work from Sanderson saw only one course—it was time to start thinking like his quarry. If Deadmarsh was indeed here for an assassination, his first job would be to find out everything possible about his target. Sanderson, therefore, would do the same. His began his inquiry as he walked with a call to Elin Almgren.

  She picked up immediately. “Good to hear from you, Arne. Any luck?”

  “Perhaps.”

  After an extended pause, she asked, “So how’s the weather in Geneva?”

  Sanderson didn’t remember mentioning where he’d gone. “You can be maddening, you know that.”

  “You asked for any information I could give you on Dr. Ibrahim Hamedi, and the first thing I saw was that he’s going to be in Geneva this weekend. Would you like the rest?”

  “I sense I’m running up a catastrophic bar bill.”

  “That you are. I’ve found a lot on Hamedi, although not much that’s going to help you. He’s a top-flight physicist, well respected in academic circles. He was offered a teaching post in Hamburg, and also a research position with CERN on the big particle accelerator project outside Geneva. He rejected it all to go back to Iran and build ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. Or course, this is all publicly available information.”

  “Tell me something that isn’t.”

  “All right. Anytime a nuclear scientist is suddenly recalled to a place like Iran, questions get asked. Germany’s BND, and their Swiss counterparts, the FIS, both made quiet inquiries after he left. It was the usual raft of questions. What kind of expertise did Hamedi have. Had he shown any unusual political leanings or frequented particular mosques in the Hamburg area. Did he have family members back home who might be at risk. No one who knew Hamedi thought he had any affinity for the Iranian regime, and in the end the investigators drew nothing but blanks. There was not the slightest indication that Hamedi was anything other than what he appeared to be—a brilliant scientist returning home to take part in a government program. Despite the objectionable nature of the work, there was nothing anyone in Europe could do about it.”

  “Can you tell me where he’s staying in Geneva?”

  “You want me to ask about the projected movements of a man who’s been a serial assassination target? That’s one way to get highlighted. If you want me to keep this little inquiry of yours quiet you’ll have to come up with something less direct.”

  “Yes,” Sanderson relented, “I suppose you’re right.”

  “I wish I had more for you. I’ll keep an eye out all the same.”

  “Thanks, Elin.”

  “And Arne … please take care of yourself.”

  Sanderson arrived at the library thirty minutes before closing time. He spent the entire half hour researching archived news articles about the head of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, in particular the years Hamedi spent at the University of Hamburg and the names of colleagues he worked with. The most promising findings Sanderson printed for later study, and at 6:02 that Friday evening he was the last patron to leave the building, a stack of papers under his arm and a stern-faced librarian bolting the door behind him.

  * * *

  Slaton arrived at the warehouse outside Basel at eight o’clock that same evening. A city that clawed outward into both Germany and France, Basel had long been an industrial center, with a particularly vibrant presence in the pharmaceutical field. As such, it was a place with no shortage of office parks and warehouses. Of specific interest to Slaton was an address owned by LMN Properties, a shell company whose vague title—the late Benjamin Grossman freely admitted—had been lifted shamelessly from the middle of the Roman alphabet.

  Slaton had been to the building twice before in his dealings with the arms merchant, so he was sure he could find it. He was equally sure that the property remained in Grossman’s holdings, this confirmed by the detailed inventory records provided by the estate lawyer, Herr Holmberg. The only open question was what remained inside. Slaton knew what the storage facility had once housed, and it was not, as alleged in Holmberg’s Addendum Three, a waypoint for pass-thru inventories of “seat cushions, wicker baskets, and scented candles.”

  Slaton steered the Rover through blocks of low office buildings and disjointed parking aprons. The buildings varied in size from stand-alone corporate headquarters to space-sharing small businesses, all interspersed with the odd vacant property awaiting new tenants. He saw a handful of other cars in the area, and lights blazed brightly in random windows. Building 17G, however, nestled in an inconspicuous and ill-lit corner, rendered no more than four empty parking slots and a pitch-black entrance. Slaton maneuvered into the nearest spot and backed the Rover tight to the front door. He retrieved the bolt cutters, already hidden in one of the canvas rucksacks he’d purchased, and made his way to a threshold that had likely not been crossed in months.

  The sign on the front door was stenciled in simple block letters: LMN, followed by GmbH to denote the Swiss equivalent of a limited liability corporation. There was no accompanying corporate logo, nor any artful designs or feathered script. Indeed, he saw only two other bits of information posted at the entrance. A phone number to call should the place catch fire, and beneath this perhaps the most telling detail—notice that this particular LMN facility would be open, BY PRIOR APPOINTMENT ONLY.

  A security keypad at the door posed the first test, its tiny light shining red—the universal color of denial. Slaton knew what the combination had been a year and a half ago, and he doubted it had changed. Holding his breath, he typed the sequence: 4-7-7-2-3-5. The keypad translation for “Israel.” The red light changed to green, followed by a click, and he was in.

  Slaton snapped on the lights and happily they worked, some midlevel cog in Grossman’s machine having kept up with the utility bills. The air inside was stale, and he was greeted by a dead mouse at the dusty reception desk. He bypassed it all quickly to reach the final impediment. The bulk of the building’s square footage was dedicated to storage, this room behind a secondary door that was secured by a simple padlock—a padlock to which he
did not have a key. The capable Herr Holmberg would provide one in due course, but the bolt cutters were far more timely. The lock snapped easily, and Slaton pulled the door open with an audible creak. He heaved a sigh of relief.

  His luck was holding.

  Everything was still here.

  * * *

  On arriving at his hotel room Sanderson settled onto a bed that squeaked. He began sorting through the articles he’d copied, and one in particular drew his interest, a background piece taken from a conservative Berlin monthly. Two of Hamedi’s former colleagues were quoted to express surprise that this rising star in particle physics had turned down a teaching post of considerable prestige at the University of Hamburg. Another close acquaintance swore that at least one private concern, the German conglomerate Siemens AG, had tried to recognize Hamedi’s talents with the more tangible persuasions of a six-digit pay package and a German car that would, if one was in the mood, exceed two hundred miles an hour on the autobahn. Hamedi turned down the Porsche as readily as he had the department chair, and when he announced that he’d shunned it all for a job with the Iranian government, more than a few eyebrows were raised.

  Sanderson had seen such recalls before, governments calling in financial support and reclaiming doctoral candidates to dark corners of the world. Established scientists like Hamedi were often brought back by way of intimidation, this typically involving threats to family members left behind. Yet according to his peers, Hamedi had seemed willing, even enthusiastic about the position, and as far as anyone knew he had no family in Iran other than his mother, a simple woman in her seventies of whom Hamedi spoke warmly, but rarely saw, and who lived in the same Tehran house where he’d grown up. Sanderson’s overriding conclusion: Hamedi was either opaquely patriotic, or more likely stoking his professional ego by assuming control of a vital government project. Either way, his motivation had little apparent bearing on how he would be hunted by Deadmarsh.

  Sanderson needed what the assassin needed—information regarding the logistics of Hamedi’s upcoming visit. When would he arrive? Where would he stay? Where were the vulnerabilities? The only thing remotely helpful was a much-recycled press release announcing that Hamedi would speak Sunday to a U.N. audience of arms inspectors, government ministers, concerned scientists, and of course, representatives of the media. This pushed Sanderson to his last avenue of inquiry, a cross-check of Hamedi’s old colleagues from Hamburg. At least three now worked at CERN, or more formally, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, the mecca of theoretical physics. Sanderson then undertook an inverse search of CERN scientists who’d either taught or performed research at universities where Hamedi had studied and taught. Here he unearthed three more possibilities. Altogether, four men and two women, names he recorded for further pursuit in the morning.

  He settled into bed, which did nothing to ease the ache in his neck, and checked his phone one last time. A message from Sjoberg he deleted without a thought. The only other thing was a text message from Ingrid: PACKAGE SENT. WILL ARRIVE TOMORROW. PLEASE BE CAREFUL.

  Sanderson briefly considered a reply, but in the end he thought better of it. He turned his phone off and closed his eyes, hoping for a decent night’s rest before the trying day ahead.

  * * *

  Slaton was staring at an arsenal. One side of the room was stocked to the ceiling with guns, ammunition, and rocket-propelled grenades. The other was piled high with less spectacular, but equally vital, support gear. Water purifiers, boots, uniforms. An inflatable boat caught his eye, but only for a moment. He saw camouflage fatigues, both the classic green and black jungle design, and a pixelated tan desert motif. He saw the dull gray of projectile casings, the reflective green of optic sensors, and the cold black of weapon stocks. Altogether, the color palette of state-sponsored violence.

  On Slaton’s first visit here, Grossman explained that he’d purchased the building with a contrarian mind-set, reasoning that there was no better place to hide an arms gallery than in a quiet corporate plantation of fastener wholesalers and snow-shovel distributors. Being near the tri-border area, three miles from France and two from Germany, the location was the essence of convenience. Yet this was not a waypoint for shipments. The European authorities were reasonably competent, and so Grossman maintained his bulk storage facilities in less scrupulous and ever-changing points across the globe. Kinshasa, Cali, Jakarta—warehouses that Slaton had already confirmed were in Holmberg’s meticulously prepared inventory. The Basel office of the LMN Corporation functioned, for lack of a better term, as Grossman’s wholesale showroom.

  Closing the door behind him Slaton went to work, and after five minutes with a crowbar he found most of what he needed. There was a wide selection of gunsights and night vision gear. Some required power, and he inserted batteries into two of the units and connected them to an electrical outlet to charge. His preferred sniper rifle was here, the Barrett 98B, but Slaton was happier to find an MP7A1, Heckler and Koch’s capable assault weapon, along with five forty-round magazines, ammunition, and a suppressor. There was also a Glock 9mm, and he checked that it was clear and the action smooth before loading a magazine and slipping the gun into the waistband of his pants. Two extra magazines went into his left pocket, upside down and backward, ready for a quick exchange given his right-handed grip. Slaton then helped himself to ten 2,000-gram bricks of a certain Czech-manufactured product, along with the associated electronics. After a thoughtful pause, he took ten more. Finally, in a dark corner, he found the ensemble of gear that would get him in and out.

  Slaton collected his equipment—and on paper it was his—and began transferring everything to the Rover, the weapons concealed in canvas as he made the short traverse. Once done loading, he retrieved the three jackets from the backseat along with a half-empty bottle of water. Back in the storage room he spread the jackets over unopened crates at the far end. Slaton took the two sets of night vision goggles, now minimally charged, and killed the room’s lights. Alternating between the optics, he carefully inspected the jackets, and after a thoughtful two minutes he declared the German unit superior. He crossed the room with the water bottle in hand, twisted the cap, and shook it over the jackets like a priest sprinkling holy water. He again referenced the German sight, and thirty seconds later had his answer.

  Scotchgard.

  Slaton used the crowbar to rip a half dozen strips of wood from different crates, doing his best to leave the planks with jagged edges and bent nails. The three jackets and the unwanted brands of stain protectant went into a plastic trash bag. He transferred all of it to the Rover, locked up the storage room with the padlock he’d purchased, then reset the alarm on the outer door. Slaton steered Krueger’s luxury SUV back toward the A2 on a secondary road. One mile short of the autobahn, he pulled to the shoulder near a quiet country bridge, waited patiently for two cars to pass, then opened the passenger-side window and sent the trash bag spiraling into a churning tributary of the Rhine River.

  FORTY-TWO

  Slaton arrived at the Montreux Casino at ten o’clock Friday evening and parked the laden Rover in a quiet corner of the ground-floor parking garage. The broken planks he’d ripped from the crates in Basel went on top in the Rover’s cargo area, and he added a few sheets of crumpled newspaper and two spent plastic bottles retrieved from a nearby trash can. After setting the alarm, he circled the vehicle once to make sure the only thing visible inside was a pile of trash.

  In the hotel lobby, wearing his new Armani sportcoat and with the Prada travel bag in hand, he went straight to the reception area for preferred customers—a runway of red carpet that was clearly delineated by silver stanchions and thick-braided gold rope.

  “Can I help you, monsieur?” queried the man at the desk.

  “Yes, the name is Mendelsohn and I’d like to register. I’m here as a guest of Walter Krueger.”

  “Ah, yes. We’ve been expecting you. Monsieur Krueger called to make all your arrangements.” He went to work on his keyboard
, and soon Natan Mendelsohn’s identity card was accepted with a careless glance. Two minutes later Slaton had a room key in his pocket, and the desk man was handing over a second plastic card, this one cast with a mirror-like platinum finish.

  “This card, Monsieur Mendelsohn, will access your gaming account. Bon chance!”

  The man raised a finger, and Slaton was escorted to a fifth-floor room by an engaging young woman. After a brief tour of the suite, Slaton declared an urge to hit the tables, a request met enthusiastically by his personal concierge. She led him to the casino floor and introduced him to the cashier, who soon pushed a stack of chips across a well-worn counter that summed twenty thousand Swiss francs.

  The gaming floor was like any other. Red, green, and gold were the dominant colors, and waitresses in short skirts and push-up bras did a brisk business serving unlimited alcohol to brooding figures hunched behind felt tables and brass machines. The sounds were equally predictable, the squeals of winners easily overriding the quiet groans of their less fortunate supporters.

  Slaton began with blackjack. He played poorly, yet somehow emerged nearly two thousand francs to the good. He switched to roulette, bet heavily to accelerate things, and in twenty minutes had forfeited his gain along with another five thousand. Slaton frowned accordingly, and slapped his palm on the green felt each time the maddening little ball went astray. The croupier kept to his task, as did the unsmiling pit boss, and the cameras overhead recorded everything as the casino’s new guest from Zurich took a modest pounding on the first night of the seven for which he was booked. After a tedious hour’s work, Slaton returned to the cashier’s cage, and there exchanged his remaining chips for cash, after losses and tips taking to his room the sum of fourteen and a half thousand Swiss francs.