by Ward Larsen
“Mr. Slaton,” the voice said officiously, “Ismael Pellman. You haven’t filed a travel voucher for your trip to Paris on August three through five. Please do so, or call me to straighten it out before this Tuesday.” Then a beep, followed by a thickly accented voice. “Hello. This is Rangish Malwev at Rangal’s Fine Clothing. The leather jacket you have given us to repair is done. The charge is seventy-seven pounds, three. You may pick it up at your leisure.”
That one would have gotten the boys moving, Slaton thought. Of course all they’d find was that he really had sent in an old jacket to be repaired. For seventy-seven pounds he could have gotten a new one, but he was partial to the one he had. Or used to have.
Another beep and a dial tone.
A fourth beep and another message, the caller strangely familiar, but he didn’t recognize her right away. “David. Oh, David. I’m sorry but I didn’t know who else to call. They’ve been here all day but … I can’t believe what they tell me.” It was Ingrid Meier, Yosy’s wife. He’d known her for twelve years, yet Slaton barely recognized the quavering, broken voice that crackled from the recorder. Ingrid was one of the most rock-solid people he’d ever known, but here she sounded a shattered, babbling mess. Slaton’s blood went cold. “What happened, David? What happened?” She was crying. “Please call. I don’t know these people who came to see me today. They took his papers, his things. I want to hear it from you. He was coming to see you, to go hunting. Were you with him? What happened to my Yosy … please David …” She broke down, sobbing, and then a dial tone.
Slaton stared blankly at the machine as it stopped and then spun in the methodical process of rewinding. What happened? What happened to Yosy? Slaton felt ill. He could think of only one thing that would put Ingrid Meier in a state like that. His thoughts accelerated. He was coming to see you … London? Yosy had called with a warning, then tried to come see him. To explain the danger in person? But then what?
He checked the clock in the kitchen. 1:15 in the morning. How could he find out anything now? If something had happened to Yosy in England, anyone at the embassy could explain. But who could he trust? No one. Not now. Slaton picked up the phone, planning as he dialed. He had to know. The number he chose was not listed in any directory. It was low priority and non-secure, but unless someone had tinkered with it lately, this particular line would not be recorded or traced.
A tired woman answered, “Israeli Embassy.”
Fortunately, Slaton didn’t recognize the duty officer’s voice. A newby must have been socked with the late shift.“
Good morning,” Slaton said, gaining an octave. “This is Irving Weisen at Headquarters Personnel.”
“It’s morning here, but not by much,” the woman answered, yawning.“
Oh, of course.” Slaton said awkwardly. “We’re having a records inspection here, and I’m missing one of my files. I thought you might be able to help.”
The duty officer didn’t try to hide her disdain for the headquarters paper-pusher. “Look, this is the London station. We don’t keep hard copies of personnel records.”
“I realize that, but whoever checked it out was sloppy. Very sloppy. The only part of the checkout slip I can read has something scribbled on it about the London station. It might be one of your people, and if it is, perhaps we can figure out who would have wanted the folder here at headquarters — something like that.”
“Okay, okay. What’s the name?”
“Yosef Meier.”
“Shit!” the duty officer spat indignantly. “Don’t you guys have any idea what’s going on out here in the real world? Put a window in that building. Yosy Meier was killed in an accident here in London last week.”
The woman in the London embassy communications room heard nothing at the other end of the line. “Does that solve your mystery?” she finally asked with annoyance.“
Yes, I’m sorry. How did it happen?”
“He was hit by a bus, or a truck or something. Ask somebody at the Western Europe Desk. They ought to have a clue.”
Quietly, Slaton finished what he started. “All right. I know where that file would be. I’m sorry to have bothered you.” He heard the click as the embassy woman hung up.
Slaton stood motionless. His best friend was dead. An accident, the woman had said. For Slaton there could no longer be any doubt. Someone had tried to kill him. Someone had sunk Polaris Venture with her entire crew. His body tensed. They were on him again, the feelings he had faced for so long. The horror he’d battled until there was nothing at all — only numbness. Now, in a moment, that pain returned. Or maybe it had never really gone. He wondered what Yosy could have known. If he’d only come to London a few days sooner, Slaton would have been around to find out. And maybe Yosy would be home now, and his wife wouldn’t be a basket case, and his children — God, his children —
There was an audible crack and Slaton looked down. The plastic telephone receiver, still in his grip, had fractured. Small shards of white plastic lay on the floor at his feet. He looked at his hand for a moment as if it were not part of him, not under his control, while his heart continued to pound. Then Slaton saw his reflection in a mirror on the far wall. There was a sudden urge to throw the phone, or something, anything, at the image. He remembered how much he hated what he saw. Slaton closed his eyes.
It took a full two minutes. He stood without moving. Slowly, his breathing came under control, his hold on the broken phone eased. Slaton opened his eyes and carefully, almost delicately, placed the shattered receiver next to its cradle. He pulled the phone jack from the wall, then picked up his canvas backpack and went to the front door, not making a sound. At the door he stopped and listened patiently. The only sound to register, a car engine off in the distance. He opened the door a crack and saw the hall was empty.
Slaton left the building quickly and quietly. He made no attempt to right the upside-down six.
Thirty minutes later Slaton was on the outskirts of Oxford, one of the more industrial quarters that generally escaped the paths of most tourists. The city’s blue collar underpinnings ran deep, however the situation was played down for most intents and purposes. Car parks, walking paths, and public transportation were arranged to emphasize a more marketable image — that of a city of universities, an everlasting academic nirvana where the world’s best and brightest, strolling around in caps, gowns and white bow ties, designed solutions for a troubled planet. The big Rover car factory, vital as it might be to local dinner tables, was not an “image enhancer.”
Slaton stood across the street from a storage facility, an open-air design with a small office at the front, then four narrow rows of storage sheds surrounded by a three-meter metal fence. The only way in was through an electronic gate next to the office, where access was granted at all hours, seven days a week.
The place was owned by a chubby, nearly bald, pink-skinned fellow whom Slaton had met when renting his unit. The man lived in a flat above the office, allowing him to advertise “24-hour on-premises security and surveillance.” Of course, he probably slept for eight to ten of those twenty-four hours. Then, and on his days off, a single camera at the entrance supposedly recorded all activity to and from the rows of storage sheds, thereby rendering the advertisement correct in its most literal sense.
Slaton watched for ten minutes. No one else approached the place, and the proprietor’s flat over the office was still dark. He crossed the street and went straight to the gate. There, he entered the dubious access code — 1–2–3–4. The lock on the wire gate made a click, and he was in.
Slaton had rented the smallest compartment offered, 10-foot by 5, and those units happened to be right up front. The lock was his own, a simple key padlock, and distinctly less hefty than those on many of the other sheds — sure to emphasize the insignificance of what lay inside. He took out the key he’d retrieved from the spine of Treasure Island — the boys from the embassy had been sloppy — and opened the roll-up metal door.
Happily, everyt
hing was as he’d left it. There were a couple of beat-up old chairs, an apparently virgin stereo receiver (which actually hadn’t worked for years), and a few boxes containing books, magazines, and some old clothing. There was also a small, skewed table, and next to it, on the floor, an old television. The television’s picture screen had a severe diagonal crack and its plastic case was damaged on two corners. It looked for all the world like it had probably fallen off the crooked table, an effect Slaton had only been able to manufacture by dropping it to the concrete floor three times. Anyone raiding the cubicle would have immediately written off the television as junk and settled for the stereo. The rest was sure to disappoint all but the most desperate of thieves.
Slaton checked outside to make sure he was still alone, then went to work. He dug out a screwdriver from the bottom of a box of clothing and picked up the battered television, setting it on the table that, in spite of its asymmetrical appearance, was in fact quite sturdy. Slaton worked the back panel, pulling screws until the plastic cover that concealed the picture tube came loose. He removed the panel, revealing the usual array of circuit boards and wires, along with a small black pouch.
The pouch, that type of “fanny pack” often worn by tourists, was encased in a large zip-lock plastic bag. Slaton removed the plastic bag, opened the nylon carrier and quickly took inventory. There were five thousand British pounds and three thousand U.S. dollars, all in various small and medium denominations. Two Mossad-produced identification packages provided passports, driver’s licenses, and other associated documents, one even including a valid credit card. Of the identities, one was Danish and one British, chosen, quite simply, because those were his two most proficient languages. There was also a time-worn wallet.
This was Slaton’s get-well kit. He had set it up many years ago, mainly to recover if he ever became compromised as an “illegal.” Certain missions could have no ties to Israel. If he had to run in such a case, Slaton would be on his own to get safe, with no help from the embassies and their more legitimate staff. Because of this, he had built the kit and was meticulous about keeping it current and available. In the beginning, he’d used bank safe-deposit boxes, but the advent of self-storage enterprises provided a much more anonymous opportunity to squirrel his things away. Few cameras, fewer signatures and, best of all, no nosy bank officials.
There was one problem. The kit was missing the thing he needed most — a weapon. He’d taken the Glock semi-automatic to his flat for some upkeep. Earlier, he found it had been taken from his room, no doubt removed by the embassy cleaning crew.
He studied the two sets of identification. Every time he passed through Tel Aviv, Slaton would stop in Documents Section and switch out at least one of the packages. His special status in Mossad came with the label autonomous — all records of the identities he chose were expunged, and no one in Mossad was supposed to keep track of them. He now wondered if that was truly the case.
Slaton opened the wallet and began stuffing it with documents that presented him as Henrik Edmundsen, along with some cash. The old leather wallet was one he hadn’t used in years, and had been with the kit as long as he could remember.
As he came to the small plastic pockets where he was going to put the driver’s license, he found an old photograph, one he had mistakenly left inside. Slaton stopped and stared at the picture, not able to help himself. The confluence of emotions immediately swept in and churned, like a half-dozen rivers meeting in one spot, but with nowhere to go. Abruptly, Slaton shoved the picture back behind a leather sleeve in the wallet where it couldn’t be seen. He cursed himself for his carelessness. It had been carelessness. He snatched up the remainder of his documents and cash, shoving everything back inside the nylon pack, all except the wallet, which he pocketed.
He closed up the shed and locked it for the last time. It was paid for through the end of the month. A month or two after that, the owner would rip the lock from the past due shed and toss out Slaton’s little collection of junk. Leaving the facility, he dropped the key down a storm drain and walked east toward the train station. On the way he passed a cab, two bus stops, and a car rental agency. The storage shed had been a good choice.
Slaton suppressed the urge to check six. No one would be following him. Not yet. The world thought he was dead. Everyone except a young American doctor, who was probably in a police station in Penzance. And she had no idea who he was. All the same, he stayed alert.
The first train to Reading left at four in the morning. He boarded a nearly empty car at the far end of the platform and took a seat. Slaton closed his eyes as the train lurched ahead. He knew where he had to start. Ingrid Meier had told him, the anguished voice echoing in his head. What happened, David? He was coming to see you, to go hunting. There was such pain in her voice. The kind of pain that would never go away. Not without answers.
Slaton vowed to find out what happened to Yosy. When he did, he would go to Ingrid and tell her everything. Then, perhaps she could heal. Perhaps she could recover as he never had.
Chapter Six
At that same early morning hour, in the basement of the Israeli Embassy, the watch officer on duty opened his second can of Coke. He needed the caffeine to stay awake during another graveyard shift, which he, being the most junior person assigned to the station, was awarded three nights each week.
The windowless room was dimly lit, regardless of the time of day, and the duty officer sat surrounded by a forest of radios, cipher machines, computers, and telephones. There were also two televisions, tuned respectively to BBC News 24 and CNN, Mossad’s reluctant admission that even the world’s best intelligence networks were often scooped by some unrelenting newshound.
The duty man scraped for crumbs at the bottom of a bag of potato chips — he needed the salt to make him thirsty — then went to a computer station and began searching the newswires. There was a Reuters dispatch about a French arms sale to Iran. Nothing new there. As he continued searching, he remembered the dead-drop letter. It had come in just before the shift change, and the woman he’d relieved suggested he decipher it sometime during the night.
He found it, simply enough, in the in basket. The letter originated from a source inside Scotland Yard, a mid-level man who worked in the Operations Center. He was an agent whose information was supposed to be delivered each Thursday, taped to the underside lid of a toilet reservoir in the men’s room at the Shady Larch Pub in Knightsbridge. It actually came with great irregularity — once a month at best. Nobody at the station could decide whether the agent’s skittish nature was due to fear of being found out, or a randomly active conscience. The man was a British citizen and apparently had no ill will against the Crown. He was, however, also a Jew whose maternal grandparents had both perished in Bergen-Belsen, and he confessed to his control officer a nagging urge to aid the ancestral homeland. There were millions of people who could trace their lineage to victims of the Holocaust, and the Mossad made a living out of recruiting them.
Unfortunately, this particular agent was a ragged, sweaty bundle of nerves. He actually vomited on his control during their first meeting. The good news was that the information he did provide had always proven authentic and accurate. The Israelis decided it best to give him a dead-drop location and let him produce whatever he could, quietly hoping he might eventually move up to a higher position at the Yard.
The duty officer yawned as he labored to decipher the coded letter. It used a cumbersome one-time pad. Time consuming, but very secure. It was the ship’s name that raised his eyebrows. Polaris Venture. He tried to remember the Watch Order headquarters had put out a few days back. Was that the name? He was shuffling through papers when he heard someone in an adjacent office. He walked over and found a familiar face.
“Hey, Itzaak. What are you doing here at this hour?”
The more senior man frowned sufferingly, “Dumb-ass reports, due yesterday.”
The duty officer nodded sympathetically.
“Do you remember that W
atch Order headquarters just put out? They were looking for a ship in the eastern Atlantic.”
“I guess. Why?”
“Well, our boy at Scotland Yard came through today. I just deciphered it and he’s got something in here about a woman who says she rescued some guy from the middle of the ocean. Then this guy commandeers her sailboat and they end up in England. She thinks the name of the ship that went down was …” the duty officer looked at the deciphered message in his hand, “Polaris Venture. Wasn’t that the name?”
Itzaak answered right away, “Nah. I saw the message. I don’t think that was it.”
The duty officer shrugged and walked back to his station. After all, it was a crazy story, which was probably why the agent at Scotland Yard had tacked it onto a few other more relevant bits of information — that odd English sense of humor. He’d ask his relief about it at six. In the meantime, he considered getting a sandwich from the snack machine, but one glance down at his newly expanded waistline quashed that idea. He didn’t need it.
Three hours later, Emma Shroeder came into the embassy basement to visit the coffee maker.
“Morning, Emma,” the duty man offered.
“Morning,” she replied in her raspy, deep voice.
“Listen,” he said, “I know it’s not your area, but do you know where they keep the current Watch Orders?”
Emma eyed the new guy, clearly not having decided about this one yet. She sighed, went to the file cabinet by his knee and pulled out a file, nicely labeled watch orders.