The Perfect Assassin

by Ward Larsen

  “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.”

  When the food came, Christine found she’d worked up a surprising hunger. She polished off her eggs and toast faster than Slaton, who wasn’t dallying, and now she was shoveling through a bowl of fruit.

  “I see you’ve found your appetite,” he said.

  “Being hunted like this,” she mumbled through a mouthful of cantaloupe, “it seems to crank up my metabolism a notch. Maybe when we’re all done and nobody is shooting at us anymore, I can write a diet book and get rich.”

  Slaton grinned and flipped open a newspaper he’d purchased. He held up page four next to his face and Christine gagged when she saw it, a rough pencil sketch of him beneath the headline — KILLER STILL LOOSE!

  “Good Lord, put that thing down!” she whispered harshly. Christine glanced uneasily around the half-full cafe.

  “Nobody’s looking,” he said. “And besides, it’s really not a very good likeness.”

  Christine had to admit the resemblance was poor, but it was still unnerving. “I suppose I should be happy my high school graduation picture isn’t right there next to you.”

  “It will be.”

  She frowned and was about to register her displeasure when the waitress scurried over to fill her coffee cup for the third time. The waitress moved on and Christine took a long, steamy sip. She was beginning to feel the zing. “You know, we can’t just run forever. We’ve got to do something. I say we go to the police, tell them everything.” She reached over, grabbed the newspaper and began scanning. “Here … ‘Inspector Nathan Chatham, one of Scotland Yard’s most experienced investigators, has been put in charge of the search for a suspect who’s wanted for —’”

  “Christine,” he interrupted in a patient tone, “you’re right. We do have to take the initiative.” Slaton reached down to the floor and grabbed a large plastic bag he’d brought in from the car. “We have to figure out what’s going on, and I think it might start with this.”

  Christine had wondered what was in the bag, but hadn’t asked, knowing he’d get around to it. Slaton pulled out a large, flat book titled Hammond’s World Atlas. He shoved aside their plates and opened it on the table. The page he selected covered the northwest coast of Africa and the adjacent Atlantic Ocean, the area where she’d first found him.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “I stole it from the public library in Southampton. I went there while you were checking into Humphrey Hall.”

  “I guess we can add that to the list of crimes they’ll be after you for. Let’s see now, we have murder, assault, kidnapping, auto theft, forgery, vandalizing my boat … and now pilfering from the local library. Have I missed anything?”

  “Plenty,” he said distractedly as he ran a finger over the map. “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought and things are starting to make sense, but I need more.”

  Slaton pointed to a line he’d penciled onto the map. It started at the bottom, in the southern Atlantic, and curled up along Africa’s western coast. “This is the course Polaris Venture was supposed to have taken. At least that’s how I remember it. Now, show me where you found me. Be as precise as you can.”

  Christine studied the map and found the Madeira Islands, the best reference she could remember. Then she took a table knife and laid it over the mileage scale. She measured off 280 miles, marked it with her thumb, then moved her rule to the islands along the proper bearing.

  “Here,” she said, putting the point of the knife on the spot. “If I had parallels or a protractor I could do better, but I’d say this point is good to within ten miles.”

  Slaton pondered her estimate, cupping his chin. “I was in the water for a day and a half. Which way do the currents run?”

  “The Canary current comes in from the northwest, maybe a knot or two. The wind might have affected you. It was out of the northeast, I think, but pretty light. I’d say you drifted south, but it’s hard to say how much. Thirty miles, maybe forty. I still can’t believe you survived so long in that cold.”

  “So Polaris Venture went down about here.” Slaton shook his head, “No, that’s still off the course we were supposed to have taken. A good thirty or forty miles west.”

  “How were you navigating?”

  “It was all hooked up on the autopilot, which gets its position from GPS.”

  “Did the South Africans load the waypoints for your route?”

  Slaton slouched in his seat and his head flew back, “Oh, no!”

  “What?”

  “He did that, too.”

  “Who did what?”

  “Viktor Wysinski. There were two of us in South Africa to set this up, but I was the only one to actually go along for the ride. Wysinski gave the course data to the ship’s captain. And he was there when it got programmed.”

  “He’s Mossad?”

  “Yep. I had a lot of time to think while I was floating around out there. I suspected Viktor, but I couldn’t believe he’d turned. He was hardcore, used to be a commando in the Israeli Army. A real patriot, or so I thought. But I can’t see it any other way now. He had access to make it all happen. Wysinski installed the explosives on the ship, and he must have set them to go off at a specific time and place.”

  “Explosives?”

  Slaton explained, “We were ordered to install scuttling charges on the ship. That way if there was a hijacking we couldn’t repel, at least we could sink her. I’m certain that’s how Polaris Venture went down. I was out on deck, and I remember hearing the charges go off. Unfortunately, most of the crew were down below, asleep.”

  “None of them got clear? Not even the ones who were above, on duty?”

  He shook his head, “I never saw anyone else. In the dark, all I could find was that cooler.”

  “So Wysinski is one of the people who are making our lives so awful.”

  “Has to be. And he is now on my list.”

  Christine didn’t know what that meant, except that it was probably bad news for this Wysinski fellow.

  As Slaton concentrated on the map, Christine tried to sort through all the blips on her very cluttered mental radar. “So this guy changed the ship’s course and sent her down using the explosives. But I don’t see why. I mean if he, or the people he works with, are trying to get those nuclear weapons you told me about — well, what have they accomplished?”

  Slaton banged a palm on the table in frustration, “That’s what doesn’t make sense! If you sink her in ten thousand feet of water, the weapons are gone. The whole affair might embarrass our government, but that’s not worth the risk, not worth killing sixteen people.” Slaton stared at the atlas, looking like a frustrated chess player with fewer ideas than pieces.

  Christine fixated on the small dent her knife’s tip had made on the page. “Wait a minute!” She took the atlas and flipped to the index.

  “What is it?”

  “David, this isn’t a nautical chart, it’s an atlas. The page we were looking at leaves out one very important part of the picture.” Christine turned to the rear of the book and found the page she wanted.

  “Look at the same spot here!”

  Slaton did, and his troubled expression washed away. This page covered the entire Atlantic Ocean, but also showed a relief of the ocean floor. It presented the vertical development beneath the surface, all the trenches and ridges that lay unseen in the dark depths. There, right where they had calculated Polaris Venture’s demise, was the answer.

  “The Ampere seamount! That’s it! Sink her on the seamount, then you can recover the weapons.”

  “It wouldn’t be easy,” Christine said. “It’s a hundred and thirty feet. I’ve done some diving and that’s pretty deep.”

  “No, it’s well within reach. If you breathe a special mixture, you wouldn’t even have to decompress.”

  The waitress came by and Slaton waved off a refill on their coffee. She left the check and went on her way. Christine stirred in her seat.

&n
bsp; “There’s more,” Slaton warned.

  “What?”

  “The codes, the ones that activate these weapons. The South Africans gave them to us for safe keeping. They were hand-carried back to Israel after we loaded Polaris Venture. Guess who.”

  “Wysinski again?”

  “Touché. Whoever’s running this will have both the weapons and the codes to use them.”

  Christine closed her eyes and wondered aloud, “Can it get any worse?”

  “Probably.”

  “Do you think someone would actually use these things?”

  “There are only two reasons to steal a nuclear weapon. To use it, or sell it to someone else who will.”

  It was sturdy logic, but Christine was amazed he could remain composed at such a thought. “David, we can’t just keep running. Sooner or later someone will catch up. If it’s not these lunatics, then it’ll be the British police. We know what these people have done. Now we have to tell the authorities.”

  Slaton sat back and took a deep breath. “I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m not sure who to trust with something like this. Wysinski and his bunch have infiltrated Mossad. But I have no idea how high up it goes.”

  “We could tell Scotland Yard. But it does sound so far-fetched.”

  “We have no proof of anything. No Polaris Venture, no weapons. My government wouldn’t admit to any part of it. They’d just tell the Brits that I’m the assassin who’s been running around killing people. Even if we convinced someone this is all happening, the first thing they’d do is go out to the seamount and look for the ship. That could take days or weeks, and it’s already been … what, ten days since Polaris Venture went down? Given how carefully this operation was planned, I’ll bet the salvage has already taken place.”

  “We have to do something, David.”

  He wore a look of grim determination. “Yes. And I think it’s time we went on the offensive.”

  Emma Schroeder used her ample hip to wedge a bag of groceries against the door jamb as she flipped through a massive key ring, trying to find the one that would let her into her flat. She finally found the right one, and at the same time the phone inside began to ring. Fumbling, she opened the door and trundled over. Emma balanced the groceries on the back of the couch with one hand, and picked up on the fifth ring.

  “Hello,” she said breathlessly.

  “Hello, beautiful.”

  She stood straight and lost her grip on the bag, which fell to the couch, a half dozen oranges spilling out and thudding to the floor. There was no mistaking the voice or the greeting.

  “Where the hell are you, David?”

  “I’ll bet that’s the million dollar question around the office, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t be cute, dammit.” Recovering, Emma saw the door was still wide open. “Hold on a minute.” She went over and closed it, then picked back up. “Do you know what’s going on?”

  “No, Emma. You’re the source. I called to find out.”

  “They’re saying you killed Varkal … and Freidlund and Streissan. Itzaak Simon’s still in the hospital.” Emma waited for a response, but only got silence. “David, tell me you didn’t do these things.”

  “I didn’t kill Varkal,” he said flatly.

  “And the rest?”

  “The rest I did, but only in self-defense. I had no choice, Emma. There is a group of traitors inside. I don’t know how many, but they’re on the verge of something really terrible.”

  “I saw an ops order today that was really terrible. Basically, it instructed the entire station to drop everything and look for you. They want to bring you in, David, one way … or the other. I’ve seen a lot of orders, but I’ve never seen one like that.”

  “I have,” Slaton replied. “But they’re pretty unusual. And this one’s a mistake.”

  “You mean it’s a bogus message?”

  “No, darling, it’s a legitimate message. But the reasons behind it are all skewed. I don’t have time to explain now, but I can tell you that the people behind it are the same ones who killed Yosy.”

  Emma was dumbstruck. “Killed Yosy? You mean as in murdered him? It was an accident, David.”

  “Trust me. I know about things like that. It wasn’t an accident.” He paused, as if letting it sink in. “Emma, I need your help. I know I’m putting you in a bad spot, but I’m asking you to trust me and not—”

  “What do you need?”

  “Emma, understand, I could get you in trouble here.”

  “I expect trouble from you, you scoundrel. Now what do you need?”

  “We have to be quick,” Slaton said.

  Emma realized what he was suggesting — that her phone might be recorded, or even live-monitored. “Go on.”

  “See if you can find out where a guy named Viktor Wysinski is. You’ve probably never heard the name, he’s a headquarters puke. But I really need to find him. I’ll call you back tomorrow at—”

  “Eastbourne.”

  “What?”

  “He’s in Eastbourne, at the Harbor Hotel.”

  “Dear, you’ve always been a model of efficiency, but how on earth could you know that?”

  “Alpha roster. One went across the acting Chief of Station’s desk yesterday and I got a peek at it. I guess he wanted to find out exactly who we had in country, probably so they could all go out and look for you.”

  “Wonderful.”

  Emma explained, “This guy Wysinski was the only one listed as being in the U.K., but not checked in here at the embassy. I remember things like that.”

  “You always amaze me.”

  “That’s why you love me so, you and …” Emma felt tears well up in her eyes. “Do you really think somebody did that to Yosef?”

  “I’m afraid so, Emma. Listen, I’m sorry to mix you up in this. I’d better go now.”

  “All right. Be careful.”

  “You do the same.”

  “And call me if you need anything else. You know how good I am.”

  “You’re the best, beautiful. The best.”

  It had been frustrating to wait all day for Emma to get home from the office, but Slaton had seen no other way. Calling her at the embassy would have been far too risky. Since then, things had gone well. He and Christine made good time from Devon, pulling into Eastbourne shortly after midnight. With little chance of spotting Wysinski at that hour, they found a secluded spot to park and struggled for some shut-eye. The previous night at the beach already seemed like a lifetime ago.

  Slaton was always cautious, but his instincts told him to be particularly aware now. An hour before sunrise, he sent Christine off with instructions. She’d run a few errands when the shops opened, then, much as they’d done at Belgrave Square in London, she would drive the car periodically by a designated rendezvous point.

  It began perfectly. Slaton spotted Wysinski soon after setting up watch, headed toward Dunn’s Harbor Hotel from the direction of the harbor. He granted the stocky ex-commando a wide berth. Slaton would rather lose sight and pick him up later than be spotted. Wysinski turned into the lobby of the hotel and disappeared into an elevator. He seemed both casual and alone, characteristics that Slaton found troubling.

  Slaton set up camp at a café down the street, well clear of the hotel entrance, but near enough to monitor the traffic going in and out. It was two hours before he picked up Wysinski again, this time leaving the hotel and heading back to the waterfront. Having already settled his check, Slaton waited for Wysinski to pass, then took up pursuit.

  The sun had made intermittent appearances over the course of the morning, but dark skies to the north made for an easy forecast. Wysinski marched at a brisk pace into the ocean breeze, his thick legs churning near double-time. Minutes later he reached the waterfront and trundled down one of the five long piers that jutted into the harbor.

  Slaton turned aside, wandering the path that arced along the harbor’s perimeter, all the time keeping an eye on his quarry. Wysin
ski stopped at a slip halfway down the pier, boarded a big motor yacht, and disappeared into its cabin. Since he wasn’t carrying any baggage, Slaton doubted the man was going anywhere. Wysinski had also ignored the use of tradecraft on his walk to the harbor — no double-backs, quick turns, or slowdowns. Just a casual stroll that Slaton disliked.

  The harbor was quiet. It was the wrong time of year to begin with, and the impending dismal weather acted as a final blow to curtail the waterfront’s more casual pursuits. The small rental sailboats were chained together. The trinket vendor’s carts were all shoved aside in a line and locked down. A few boat owners scrubbed and fiddled with their prize possessions, and a handful of the scrappier merchants were open for business, probably more out of habit than anything else.

  Slaton scouted for a position that would give an unobstructed view of Wysinski’s boat. He selected an empty bench, adjacent to a kiosk whose optimistic owner hoped to sell T-shirts with pictures of waterbirds on them. Slaton unfurled the newspaper he’d been carrying all morning and settled in. Patience was demanding, but more so now as Slaton remembered the last time he’d seen Wysinski, on Pier Three in Cape Town. He had given Slaton a “see-you-later” nod as Polaris Venture pulled away from the dock — with full knowledge that the ship and her crew were doomed by the explosives he had so meticulously planted. Very simply, the man had tried to kill him. And Slaton knew Wysinski was associated with whoever had killed Yosy. He felt anger and hatred, just as he had for so many years, only now the source was different. Yet as strong as these feelings might be, Slaton knew how to push them aside. The kidon remained calm, for there was much to be done.

  He looked across the harbor, registering all pertinent details. The roads that led to and from the waterfront, the maze of buildings and structures that sheltered people and channeled traffic. He checked lines of sight and noted those vantage points that would have a clear view of Wysinski’s boat. Slaton studied the few people who were out, recording where they were and what they were doing. One man had a dismantled rudder up on a dock, applying a coat of red bottom paint. Another was installing some kind of antenna on a cruiser. A bored waiter at an empty café stood folding napkins, probably hoping for a break in the weather that might draw out a healthy crowd for lunch. Then he saw a young girl, probably no more than seventeen or eighteen. She was smiling as she tended the row of flower boxes that fronted the café. There was an open, genuine look of content about her, and Slaton imagined that, by innocence of youth, she was enamored with what her work would bring. In time, the boxes would explode with color, contributing to spats ended, weddings enhanced, or — best of all — the simple, romantic beauty of a lone magnificent flower, a gift from one lover to another. Seventeen, the kidon thought. Seventeen years old.