by Ward Larsen
“So we’re good? Not blown?”
“I don’t think so. Moussa will wake up in the morning, and if he remembers anything it’ll be that he got really drunk and had a run-in with a hot prostitute.”
“How hot was she?” she asked, grinning lasciviously despite her bruised eye.
Slaton smiled for the first time in hours. “Plasma hot, which is way beyond smoking.” He turned to Yosy. “Did the data go through?”
“We think so. The 8200 guys are working on it as we speak. They said there’s no sign of corruption in the feed, but it’ll take a day or two to figure out what we’ve got. Maybe longer if Moussa has gotten obtuse with his financial arrangements.”
“The financials aren’t time critical. We need leads to his brother. Information like that can be highly perishable.”
“Agreed. I’ll go re-emphasize the point.” Yosy turned away and disappeared into the front bedroom where the tech team was going over the laptop data. Yosy was Slaton’s closest friend at The Office—and given that he had little life outside Mossad, his best friend in the world. He was also one of the few people who knew what finding Ramzi Tayeb meant to him.
“Busy night,” Anna said. She was clearly still amped from the operation.
“Yeah,” Slaton agreed.
“Any update on when we wrap it up?”
“We’ve got Moussa nailed down, but he’s scheduled to leave in two days. The Office wants an initial take on the laptop data before we make any more moves. Worst case, if any files didn’t go through, we might have to find a way to get back into his room tomorrow. So, for now … we wait.”
She pulled down the ice pack and referenced the wall mirror near the front door. “It’s not so bad.” She turned back and looked at him engagingly. “You tired?”
He shook his head. It was after one in the morning, but the clock was irrelevant; everyone was still on a mission high.
“Think we could find someplace open for a drink?” she asked.
“Probably.”
“Of course, it would be a violation of protocol to go out in public right after an op.”
“Technically.”
“I’ll get my jacket.”
6
The night air was cool and fresh as they walked a weaving path toward the river. They hadn’t found an open bar yet, but the idea of drinking had lost its allure and neither spent much time looking. Instead, they reached the left bank of the Alzette and turned right for no particular reason. Anna wore a heavy jacket to tone down her dress, and a stylish faux fur hat was angled over her bruised cheek. It hardly mattered—they’d seen few other people since leaving the safe house, and the path was more shadow than light.
Even though it was quiet, Slaton’s eyes never stopped roving. Every passing car and person was noted, evaluated, categorized. He studied alcoves and watched for stalled cars. He’d been studying the surrounding area for weeks, to the point that he had a virtual moving map in his head. He knew every road and alley that touched the river, and more relevantly, which were dead ends and which were paths to safety.
While Slaton studied the city, he felt Anna studying him.
“Do you ever let up?” she asked.
He shot her a glance, and instead of answering asked a question of his own. “Have you done this kind of op before?”
“What kind is that?”
“I think the Brits used to call them honey traps.”
A terse smile. “This is my third.”
Slaton considered it. “Does that bother you?”
“That Mossad uses me that way?”
“Yeah. I mean, you’re gorgeous, but The Office isn’t shy about using it.”
“Is that supposed to be a compliment?”
He grinned and steered toward the river. “About as close as I come.”
“First of all, it wasn’t a classic honey trap. That implies going farther than I would have. I’m fine with flirting and teasing, but it’ll never go beyond that. These people we’re after are not exactly a Me-Too crowd. In much of the Middle East, women are subjugated. That’s a weakness on their part, and I’m happy to exploit it.” She gauged him as they walked, and said, “If you think about it, the way The Office uses me—it’s not so different from you and your marksmanship. They find our God-given advantages and apply them. I don’t blame Mossad for that. I’d do the same if I was in charge.”
“Is that what you want? To take Anton’s job someday?”
Anna laughed, and far more genuinely than what he’d heard outside Moussa’s room earlier. “I’m not thinking that far ahead. Right now, we’ve got one particularly vicious terrorist to track down.”
“Ramzi Tayeb.”
They neared a footbridge spanning the river, and Slaton took the turn. It was a lousy counter-surveillance move, an indefensible tactical position. But the view was nice. Halfway across they stopped and looked down into the river. Ebony waters swirled beneath them, cold and indifferent.
“We’ve all read his file,” she said. “We know how many attacks he’s organized. But when you say that name … I get the sense that finding Ramzi means more to you than the rest of us.”
He tried to give her a questioning look, like he didn’t know what she was talking about. Surely, he failed. Slaton had been working with Anna for two months now, and so he knew she was a sharp case officer. Naturally, she had his tells down.
“It goes back a few years,” he confessed, “to when I was being recruited. I was finishing up at university. Ramzi Tayeb was operating in Gaza at the time. He’d gone there from Algeria because that was where the fight was, where he could kill the most infidels. He rose fast, and soon he was planning strikes inside Israel. At that time al-Qassam Front was run by a man named Anand. On one particular evening three men stopped a bus outside Netanya. They were carrying AK-47s, fragmentation grenades, and one of them had a bomb in a backpack. They slaughtered everyone, twenty-two people, including three children.”
Slaton pulled out his wallet and removed a picture. He showed Anna a candid photo of a woman pushing a young girl on a swing. The woman was dark-haired and beautiful, with an effervescent smile that was echoed in the little girl.
Anna looked at him, stunned, trying to conceive the inconceivable.
“My wife and daughter.”
“They were on that bus?”
He nodded.
“I never knew you were married,” she said at a near whisper. “And such a beautiful little girl.”
“My wife’s name was Katya, my daughter Elise. She was almost two years old. Elise was the only survivor, although it took over an hour for help to reach her. A second bomb went off as the first responders were arriving, so they had to pull back until the area could be cleared. Elise probably would have lived if they’d been able to reach her sooner. I got to the hospital just a few minutes too late.”
They stared at the swirling water, neither saying anything for a time. Slaton’s hands gripped the rail but there was no concealing a slight tremble. Hands, when holding a gunstock, that were among the steadiest in all Israel.
Anna placed a hand over his. “I’m so sorry, David.”
He said nothing, his thoughts skewing in ways they hadn’t for a very long time. The nightmares still came, but during missions Slaton always compartmentalized, put the past in its box. Voices from behind suddenly invaded his consciousness. He glanced to the side, saw a couple of college kids on the bridge. Harmless, yet they’d gotten within thirty feet before Slaton had seen or heard them. Not because they were being stealthy, but because his mind had disengaged. Because he’d let the past distract him.
“Come on,” he said. “We should get back.”
7
At quarter past eight the next morning, Neema Monsoor pushed her housekeeping cart from the service elevator on Le Cristal’s fifth floor. She had been working at the hotel for three years, and was happy with the job. The schedule was steady, the pay decent, and she got along well with the other housekeepers
, although the head of hotel appearance, a stuffy Frenchwoman, could be a stickler.
She checked her clipboard to see which rooms were occupied, and saw only three. First in line was 54. She’d seen the guest from that room yesterday morning while she was vacuuming the hallway runner—he seemed a surly sort, and had ignored her sunniest, “Good morning, monsieur.” That said, he left early each day, which made her job easier. He was also tidier than some of the rich slobs who treated the rooms like dumpsters.
Neema pushed her cart to the door of 54, knocked once lightly, and heard no response. Her second knock was more insistent. “Monsieur Tayeb?” she called out, reading the name from her clipboard.
Still nothing.
She unlocked the door using her passkey, and announced “housekeeping” in her best singsong voice as she pushed inside. Right away she saw Mr. Tayeb on the bed.
“Oh, pardon, monsieur.” Neema nearly turned back outside, yet something made her pause. She took a closer look at the man on the bed, saw what she hadn’t before.
Her piercing scream could be heard all the way outside on Boulevard Royal.
* * *
Chief Inspector Jean-Claude Bausch bundled into Le Cristal’s lobby and made straight for the front desk. He was a hulking man with a bulbous nose and push-broom mustache. His overcoat was worn at the elbows and its threadbare belt hung limply at the sides. He wore a necktie with a loosened knot and a set of police credentials with yellowed lamination dangled crookedly on a lanyard between his lapels. The array of loose accessories gave a distinctly disorderly impression, like a man coming apart.
At the desk he held out his badge to the clerk. “The general manager is expecting me.”
Without a word, the woman disappeared through an open doorway. Moments later a delicate man wearing stylish wire-framed glasses appeared. He smiled and shook Bausch’s hand in a practiced, formal manner that bordered on effeminate. He introduced himself as Frederick Laurent.
“Perhaps we should talk in my office,” Laurent suggested.
“We can talk right here,” Bausch countered, his eyes taking in the broad lobby.
The manager nodded deferentially, although he did usher Bausch clear of the front desk.
While they moved, the manager went into a spiel Bausch had heard countless times before. “I must start by expressing my shock, Inspector. Le Cristal has never experienced such a horrible episode in the refuge of our halls.”
Bausch didn’t bother to reply, his eyes still moving. He scanned the upper reaches of the atrium for cameras, and noted the locations of staircases and exits.
Laurent drew to a stop between two well-tended potted palms. “I give you my personal guarantee that we will help your investigation in any way.”
“Good. You can start by telling me when the victim arrived.”
“He checked in three days ago and was booked for two more nights.”
“What about your security arrangements. Do you have guards on duty at night?”
“Yes, one man on the late shift, although he is not always directly on premises.”
Bausch gave the little man a questioning look.
“The guard also serves as our limousine driver when necessary—we offer local transportation to our concierge-level guests.”
Bausch frowned, then looked up at the ceiling. “I see only two security cameras.”
“That is correct. There are six cameras in all, two in the lobby and one on each of the upper floors.”
“I assume it’s an in-house system, no one monitoring the feeds?”
“That is correct.”
“How long do you keep the images?”
“All data is erased after three days.”
Bausch cast a wary gaze on the manager. It seemed an unusually short archive.
The manager explained. “You must understand, monsieur, we are a boutique hotel. Many of our clientele are quite wealthy—they value their privacy and do not appreciate excessive surveillance. Our guests who harbor security concerns generally travel with their own contingents. Le Cristal does not maintain the kind of watch other hotels might, but it is not due to complacency. We simply prioritize discretion over false reassurances.”
Bausch nodded, easily reading between the lines. You don’t watch closely because many of your clients are criminals. What he said was, “An evidence team will be arriving within the hour. Where is the footage from the cameras kept?”
“A computer in a closet in the administrative area, behind the front desk.”
Bausch felt a comment rise, but managed to quell it. “Then please secure this ‘closet’ until my people arrive. It must not be tampered with.”
“D’accord. I will personally secure the room.”
“Has the fifth floor been blocked off?”
“It has,” replied Laurent. “There were only two other guests and both have been reaccommodated.”
They crossed the lobby toward the elevator, and on reaching it Bausch dismissed the manager by saying, “I’d like to have a word with the maid who discovered the body. We’ll also need to talk to everyone who was on duty last night.”
“I will see to it,” Laurent said. He then added hesitantly, “And there is, perhaps, one thing you could do for me, Inspector.”
Bausch raised an inquisitive eyebrow as he sank the elevator call button.
“The hotel’s reputation has long gone untarnished. Anything you could do to keep this situation out of the public eye … it would be very much appreciated.”
Bausch pursed his thick lips noncommittally. “Yes, I do have some discretion along those lines.” He looked out across the fine marble foyer. “As it turns out, my niece is getting married in the summer. I think her father is looking for a venue for the reception.”
The manager never missed a beat. “Have him come see me personally. I will find a very special rate.”
Bausch smiled as the elevator doors opened.
8
Moments later Bausch ducked under a ribbon of yellow crime scene tape to enter the fifth-floor hall. He made his way up the corridor to the only room with a uniformed policeman at the door. Instead of checking his credentials, the guard said, “Good morning, Inspector.” It was one of the compensations of living in a country no larger, and no more populous, than a mid-sized American city that there were no strangers among the gendarmerie. And on any given day, also one of the curses.
Bausch regarded the man, whose name was Romelu. He hadn’t been on the force long, which made him neither friend or foe. A rare neutral. “Who has been inside?” he asked.
“The coroner is there now. I responded to the initial call, and Boudreaux was right behind me. Otherwise, no one else.”
“See that it stays that way.”
“Yes, sir.”
Bausch reached into his pocket, pulled out a set of plastic booties and nitrile gloves. Once he was geared up, he went through the open door. The smell hit him immediately. As a small nation, Luxembourg didn’t get many murders. Some things, however, needed only to be experienced once to imprint on one’s memory.
He saw the medical examiner, Valerie German, doing battle with a camera strobe. Bausch knew German as well, and better than most—they’d dated twelve years ago when both were new on the force. The relationship had been fleeting, torrid, and doomed to failure, the romantic equivalent of a meteor. Since then, German had married and settled, while Bausch was twice divorced. They didn’t cross paths often, but when they did the jagged undertones remained.
“Hello, Valerie.”
German turned, and when she saw him her lips puckered as if she’d sucked a lemon. “I thought Jardine had drawn this one.”
“It’s your lucky day. I thought you might be here, so I demanded to take over.”
Her face went to something near a snarl.
“Honestly, when I heard the victim was Moussa Tayeb, I volunteered. A few years ago I assisted the French Sûreté on a case involving his brother.”
She look
ed at him searchingly. “Ramzi Tayeb?”
“Touché. Ramzi is the more famous of the two. The case involved a bombing outside Paris.”
“Did they figure it out?”
“There were a few arrests, the usual ruffians. The teenager who delivered the device went to Paradise. It had all the hallmarks of one of Ramzi’s operations, but they never caught up with him. Last I heard, he was plying his trade in Beirut.”
German went back to fiddling with the strobe. She was going to make him work for every scrap. “Anything of note yet regarding our victim?” he prompted.
“I’ve only been here twenty minutes, but I have a few preliminaries.”
She lowered the camera and turned toward the body. Moussa was lying on the bed in his underwear: supine, eyes closed, one neat hole in his forehead. Save for that, and a distinct pallor, he might have been napping. A good deal of blood had drained beneath him, discoloring the pillow and bedding.
“The cause of death seems apparent. One round, small caliber at very close range. There is powder residue on his shirt. Chances are, he was sleeping at the time. Never knew what hit him.”
“Time of death?”
“I took a temperature when I first arrived—it is only approximate, but I’d say between midnight and three in the morning. I talked to the maid briefly, and apparently there are rumors running amongst the staff.”
“Rumors?”
“It seems our victim was at the bar last night, drinking quite heavily. There was also mention of a blonde …” German let that hang for the appropriate interval. Bausch’s first wife had been a fair-haired Dane. She added, “It’s been suggested she was a working girl, although not one of the regulars. A good detective might talk to the bartender.”
“I’ll see if I can find one,” Bausch said distractedly as he leaned in to look at the wound. His eyes then went lower. “This?” he asked, pointing to the victim’s damaged nose.
“Not related to the gunshot. I’d say he got punched pretty hard.”
“Prior to the bullet?”