by Ward Larsen
“How uplifting.”
“Be thankful—someday it will be true.”
Slaton didn’t reply.
“Will you tell me what this is about?” Bloch asked.
“I told you in the message—Ali Samir.”
“But you said nothing other than the name. You dealt with Samir a very long time ago—what relevance could he have today?”
“Have you recalled the files on the mission?”
“As you asked, yes.”
“Then I’ll explain when we can look at them together.”
Bloch frowned but did not argue.
“I take it we’re not going to Glilot Junction?” Slaton asked, referring to Mossad’s new headquarters facility.
Bloch gave a mirthless chuckle. “Certainly not. A nondescript house in a quiet neighborhood is the most hospitality you can expect these days.”
“How is the director?”
“Nurin is as ever. He tells me what he wants to tell me, and most of it is the truth—at least, as far as he knows it.”
“Is your technician at the safe house?”
“Yes. A very attractive young woman who knows a great deal about computers and nothing about legendary assassins—not unless I ask her to research it. I’ve told her you are an unimportant nuisance. I also mentioned that you are happily married and will be immune to her charms.”
“Was that necessary?”
“You know how my mind works, David—remove every possible complication.”
Slaton loosely tracked their progress, and saw that they were heading west toward the coast. The Ayalon Highway gave way to a secondary road somewhere south of Jaffa. The city seemed unchanged, notwithstanding construction barriers that fronted rising sandstone apartment buildings and expanding businesses, all of which spoke of a strong economy. The landscape was endurance itself, arid and dusty, carob and acacia trees battling for moisture among patches of brown dirt. He had not been to Israel in some time—was it two years already?—yet after thirty minutes he felt the connection, the intimate familiarity. Yet while Slaton had spent many years here, his associations were always fleeting, even as a child. A year on the kibbutz, then school in Stockholm. Training sessions in the Negev, followed by a mission in Hamburg. His regular repatriations approached something migratory, a bird finding its way to an agreeable season. All the same, Israel was and would always be his homeland. The place where his journeys began.
The car nosed toward a tall and elegant building, then circled to one side. At a gated parking-garage entrance, the driver entered a code. The door lifted and the car pulled inside, ending at one of four matching elevators. Slaton and Bloch got out, and without a word spoken the car accelerated away. Judging by the other vehicles in the garage—all European, with Italy and Germany well represented—Mossad was not facing budgetary shortfalls.
Proving the point further, the elevator rose to the ninth floor out of a possible ten—penthouses, apparently, were either out of reach or deemed indiscreet—to deposit them at the private entrance of a sprawling condominium. There was an expansive main room, backed by a kitchen that was a sea of black-steel appliances. To either side Slaton saw deep bedrooms through open doors. The furniture and decorative accents were all first class.
“Safe houses were a little more rustic in my day.”
“Don’t worry, we haven’t lost our heads. The place isn’t ours—only a loaner from a sayan who is unavoidably out of the country for a time.”
Sayanim were one of Mossad’s long-held advantages—civilians who gave assistance to the Jewish cause, material and expertise, with no questions asked. “How long do you have it?” Slaton asked, staring out a twenty-foot-wide window that offered a stunning view of the sun-bleached Mediterranean.
“Our benefactor is ten months into a twenty-month sentence, a very comfortable lockup in Florida.”
Slaton stared at his old boss.
Bloch waved his hand dismissively. “A minor indiscretion involving taxes. I hear he is using the interlude to write a novel.”
Slaton heard someone push back a chair in the room to his right.
Bloch leaned toward him and said in a hushed voice, “Talia doesn’t know your background … you can choose whether to keep it that way.”
She materialized from the side room, and did not disappoint. Talia was in her late twenties, tall and rail-thin. Her hair was long and black, framing stunning features and a pair of almond-shaped hazel eyes.
“Talia, I would like you to meet David.” The two shook hands, Slaton smiling inwardly as Bloch expanded to Talia, “It’s not his real name of course, but he usually answers to it.”
“You operational types are always so obtuse,” she said, adding a smile that seemed to brighten the room.
“I extracted Talia out of Research Administration for a few days. What she doesn’t know about computers is not worth knowing.”
She looked appreciatively out the window. “The view is far better than the bunker where they usually have me chained. I might get used to this.”
“You shouldn’t,” Bloch admonished. He turned to Slaton and said, “Talia is a prodigy. She is better at what she does, David, than you are at what you do.”
“And what is that?” she asked.
Bloch answered, “David has a very sharp eye and a steady hand. He is a first-class stonemason.”
“A stonemason,” she repeated.
“I’m not that good, but I do have a passion for it. I recently spent time restoring some sixteenth-century work in Malta—now there were some artisans.”
“Is that why Anton has brought you here? To build walls?”
Slaton grinned.
“Never mind,” she said. “The two of you can have your little secrets.”
Bloch, stoic as ever, said, “All will become clear in time. I think we should get to work.”
* * *
For all the transgression of the Americans, Malika acknowledged their one great contribution to civilization: pizza that was delivered to one’s door. It was cheap, involved little effort, and on this night permitted her to avoid the ocean of cameras watching over Paris.
She lifted the cardboard lid and pulled out the last piece, then shoved the empty box across the dining room table in her flat’s kitchenette. The meat-covered slice dripped grease onto the table, and as she attacked the pointed end, a message flashed to her secure phone. She tapped the screen and called it up, at the price of an oily stain on the phone’s screen. It was a message from Raqqa. She’d been hoping for another, one from the other side of the world. That communication, or soon the absence of it, would have considerable effects on her near-term planning.
She studied the text. It began with an address in Saint-Denis, and ended with threatening language, both to be relayed to Argu. Chadeh was getting impatient for the information he’d been demanding for weeks.
She considered whether to rephrase the message before forwarding it to Baland. As it was, the wording was terse, unyielding, and held a slight suggestion of violence. Seeing nothing she could improve, Malika sent it off into space. She relished making Baland sweat.
She was getting quite good at it.
THIRTEEN
They began in the kitchen, and only when everyone had been issued a coffee cup did Talia lead them to what she referred to as “the command room.” A state-of-the-art communications suite had been installed, computers and wires strung in an untidy bird’s nest across the sayan’s rich hardwood cherry and tanned leather. Talia settled behind the main workstation, and Bloch and Slaton took chairs on either side.
“Please call up the files on Samir,” said Slaton.
Talia did, and seconds later a classified Mossad mission report blossomed to the screen.
“It’s been a long time,” said Slaton, “but as I remember we had no high-res photographs of Samir.”
“Things were different fifteen years ago,” Bloch remarked. “There were fewer cameras, and our more elusive targets were good
at avoiding them. Samir never went through an airport, never got a driver’s license or identity card—at least not in his true name.”
Slaton said, “I relied on my spotter for the ID.”
“Ezekiel,” said Bloch.
“Yes. He saw Samir up close during the pre-mission reconnaissance. I’d like to call him in on this.”
“I only wish we could. He was killed during a mission in the West Bank three years ago.”
As ever, Slaton felt the tiny knife in his gut. It was a sensation he’d not felt in some time, but a regular occurrence through his years with Mossad. “I’m sorry to hear it. Show me what you have then.”
“This is the only photo on file,” said Talia, tapping out a series of keystrokes.
A foggy image filled the screen. The mission to eliminate Ali Samir had been one of Slaton’s first after being designated a kidon—a Mossad-trained assassin. He was quietly inserted into Gaza to eliminate the fast-rising Hamas lieutenant, a man held responsible for a string of bombings along the coast. The picture had been taken near a souk as Samir sat on the patio of a teahouse. It was the only image known to exist at the time, and one that Mossad had gone to great lengths to obtain and verify. Six weeks after the photo was taken, from a range of four hundred meters, Slaton had shot him dead at precisely the same table.
Without being asked, Talia zoomed in on Samir, but the face only became more blurred.
“Can it be enhanced?” Slaton asked.
“With time, perhaps marginally. The resolution of the original is very poor. It looks like it came from a security camera or something.”
“So it wouldn’t be any use for a match?”
“You’re referring to facial-recognition software?”
“Yes.”
“No, definitely not. The detail is insufficient, and the angle of the shot is awkward.”
“All right, David,” said Bloch. “I’ve been exceedingly patient. I’d like to know what this is all about.”
Slaton produced the memory stick from his pocket and set it on the desk. Talia inserted it into a port on the computer without remark.
As she managed the new content, following security protocols, Slaton said, “Someone tracked me down in the Philippines.” He gave a brief recap of the contrived meeting with Christine at the playground, the ambush on Esperanza, and finally recovering the memory stick.
The screen blinked and the three photographs appeared side by side. “They’re all apparently taken from news articles,” Slaton said. He let Bloch and Talia study them for a time before asking, “You see the problem?”
Talia deferred to Bloch, who finally said, “Surely you are not suggesting that Samir somehow survived.”
“I am.”
Bloch blew out a snort of exasperation, then referenced the captions of the articles. “And today he is a senior ranking officer at DGSI? Really, David, I have given you a long leash over the years, but this? I think the equatorial sun may have gotten the better of you.”
“It’s him, Anton.”
Sensing the tension, Talia said, “I can verify the authenticity of the news articles.”
“Go ahead, but I think you’ll find them valid.”
Bloch said, “We have only the one picture of Samir when he was alive. How can you extrapolate that to these other photographs?”
“I’m not,” Slaton said. “There’s another picture.” He looked at Talia, and saw no point in keeping up pretenses about his background. “The sight picture from that day, Ali Samir in my crosshairs—I can see it like it was yesterday.”
“But that would mean—”
“Yes,” Slaton finished. “I missed.”
Bloch rubbed his hand over his chin. “I’ve gone over the reports from that mission, including the one you filed. Immediately after the shot there was a moment of chaos at the teahouse. At least three witnesses saw Samir go down. In your after-action report you claimed that you didn’t get a good look at the results because you were busy breaking down your weapon for egress. Ezekiel had the better view. He was certain you’d scored a hit.”
“I saw that much—I remember taking one look through my scope. The bullet struck Samir in the upper chest, left center. I decided against a follow-up because it was a public place and there were too many people moving. I hit him.… I know that much. But chest shots aren’t always fatal.”
Bloch shook his head, as if trying to dislodge the idea.
“There is another reason to think he’s still alive,” said Slaton.
Here the former Mossad director was ahead. “What brought you here today. These men who tried to kill you two days ago were given this memory stick. It means someone else is aware of your link to Samir.”
“Obviously.”
“Do you understand the leap of faith you are asking me to make, David? If he did survive, how could a terrorist like Samir emigrate to France and join the national police force? Surely they vet their applicants, do background checks.”
“Of course,” said Slaton. “But a country the size of France—they must hire over a thousand officers each year to the various divisions. Identities can be created or assumed. I’ve been racking my brain, and I remembered a few things from Samir’s mission file. His mother was Algerian—she spoke fluent French, and had spent time in Lyon when she was growing up. We also discovered that Samir had spent a year in Paris with relatives when he was a teen.”
“The records are vague on that point,” said Bloch, who’d clearly gone over the file himself in the last day. “We never discovered exactly where he went or who he stayed with.”
“Even so, the ties were there. Think about it, Anton. If Samir did survive our attempt against him—would it not have presented an ideal opportunity for him to be reborn elsewhere?”
Bloch shook his head. “Place a terrorist operative inside a European police force, then wait patiently for him to rise through the ranks? Hamas has never been an organization prone to playing the long game. We’ve seen them try to recruit individuals who are already established in security organizations … but to plant an operative who will take years to become useful? That requires considerable foresight and patience. I dare say, it could come from our own playbook.”
“So maybe they’re learning. Or maybe this has nothing to do with Hamas at all.”
Bloch was silently thoughtful, and Slaton sensed awkward undercurrents. He looked at Talia, and said, “Can you give Anton and me a moment alone?”
“Certainly. My coffee needs refreshing.” She got up and left the room.
* * *
As soon as Talia was gone, the two men took seats in a pair of heavy chairs that were angled to promote conversation, soft leather creaking beneath them. A well-stocked bookcase dominated the wall behind them, weighty and dense leather-bound volumes, as though knowledge itself would preside over their discussion.
“Will you take this to Nurin?” Slaton asked.
“If you like. But don’t expect much. I see no solid evidence of what you suggest, and certainly no compelling reason for Israel to become involved.”
“That’s what you’ll tell him. But what do you believe?”
Bloch steepled his hands under his chin. “Someone is confiding that a rising star in French intelligence bears a resemblance to a Hamas bomb maker long thought dead.”
“Which rules out Hamas itself as the source.”
“Almost certainly.”
“Do you think someone is trying to draw me out? An enemy of Baland who wants me to finish what I started?”
“I can’t see it that way. From what you told me, those men on the derelict ship might have gotten lucky. You were the target then, and I think that will continue to be the case. All this business about Ali Samir, his ghost dangling like a lure—it only exists to move you onto the killer’s ground.”
“Paris.”
“Undoubtedly.”
Slaton considered it with his customary detachment. “It could be Samir himself.”
�
�I’m not so sure. If such a senior man at DGSI wanted you dead—he wouldn’t have sent the crew you described to the Philippines. The French have units who are far more capable.”
Slaton pushed back into the soft leather. It was a good point. He was glad to have Bloch’s insight, which was certainly more impartial than his own. “If I go to Paris, set up surveillance—it wouldn’t be easy. As Zavier Baland, he’s got the entire police force of France on his side. It might be difficult to get near him.”
“I’m still not convinced this man is Samir,” said Bloch, “but for the sake of argument, I’ll concede the point. You should consider the alternate scenario. If Baland isn’t aware you are coming, and doesn’t realize his identity had been blown … his guard might be down.”
Slaton considered it in silence.
Bloch said, “Of course, David, you realize there is a far easier way to deal with all of this.”
“We could send the information through diplomatic channels to France. Let them sort out Baland’s background.”
“Precisely. You can go back to your boat and your family, and sail away into the sunset.”
Slaton gave Bloch a severe look. It was just like the old days. The subtle manipulation. By suggesting the entire matter could be walked away from, he was saying just the opposite. This was the director at his persuasive best, nourishing doubts like so many weeds in a garden, waiting for them to take root. Which told Slaton that at least some of his suspicions about Baland had struck home.
He argued, “But France would ask the same questions you have. They would want hard evidence, of which there is none. The only real proof is an old sight picture in my head. The problem for me is that someone knows I’m out there. They want me to come to France and settle an old score. If I ignore it and try to run, it doesn’t mean they’ll stop. They found me once, so there’s a good chance they can find me again. And next time my family could be put at risk under circumstances I don’t control.”
“All true,” Bloch said, cocking his head in a blatantly noncommittal gesture. “Then again, you always were a perfectionist, David. I think the idea that you might have missed that shot bothers you.”