Assassin's Game (33 page)

The two locked a hard gaze, until Behrouz rose from his chair and disappeared down the aisle. Hamedi tried to refocus on his work, but it was hopeless. He opened the combination locks on his secure portfolio and stuffed the papers inside. He slid the window cover back up, hoping to find a prominent feature below. He saw nothing but thick gray clouds and a frost of ice on the window.

Without warning, the troubled, intricate world beneath him had disappeared.

*   *   *

From the United Nations complex, Slaton walked the projected motorcade route—projected because a thing like that was always subject to change, at least if the police knew what they were doing. Arriving at the docks he got his first look at the target area. He bought a sausage and a strong cup of tea from a street vendor, and took a seat on one of the countless benches along the waterfront.

Situated behind him was a modest peninsula that jutted into the lake like a distended belly, and there kiosk owners were raising their covers for the day, balloons and T-shirts going up for sale. Farther on he saw an old-fashioned carousel spinning its first turn of the day, a handful of mothers and children rising and falling on roundabout animals. The lake hummed with activity, dozens of watercraft running in different directions, each at their own speed, and on the far side of the lake was Geneva’s signature landmark—the world’s largest fountain, the Jet d’eau, spewed a frothing stream of white four hundred feet into the sky.

Slaton tuned out all this activity to concentrate on what lay immediately before him—two finger docks that stretched into the lake from Quai du Mont Blanc. There were other, less substantial berths along the shore in either direction, but these were meant for small craft. The two main piers led to deep water, and each was apparently designed to sustain one large yacht at its T-shaped ending. The more distant pier was already occupied by an old paddle steamer, one of a quaint fleet that still plied the lake, a top-heavy-looking beast that rested low on the water, and whose broad white awnings would keep dry a profitable contingent of tourists. Other than its geometric positioning, however, the picturesque paddle steamer was of no interest to Slaton.

It was another ship he had in mind.

He already knew her name:
Entrepreneur
. According to Nurin’s file she was owned by a Frenchman, an octogenarian pharmaceutical magnate, and at one hundred and thirty feet along the waterline was nominally larger than the old relic moored in front of him. So it was the vacant dock, reaching into the lake with an empty grasp, that became Slaton’s primary focus. Come Sunday evening, this was where
Entrepreneur
would be berthed.

Her absence today was relevant in a number ways. It meant the yacht was not a permanent fixture here, not anchored to a wharf, as was sometimes the case, to serve as a billionaire’s overpriced barroom. It also meant that
Entrepreneur
was seaworthy, perhaps sailing at this very moment across fifty miles of blue lake, or possibly moored at a similar berth in Montreux or Lausanne. More likely still, she was in a shipyard with her crew swabbing decks and polishing fittings for the upcoming diplomatic mission, much as the staff of a mansion would prepare for a grand ball. Whatever the case, she was a vessel with captain and crew, and thus quite capable of a starlight cruise to view Switzerland’s gleaming showplace city. This point—that a voyage was planned Sunday evening—had been alluded to in Nurin’s information, but not confirmed. Of course, from the director’s viewpoint any cruise would be moot. If all went by his plan, Hamedi would never reach the ship.

Slaton examined carefully the sphere of possibilities around him, and he began to calculate. He estimated the dock to be two hundred feet in length. At a normal pace, a man might cover such a distance in twenty-five seconds. And there, in essence, was the challenge put to him by Director Nurin. In that interval, somewhere between Quai du Mont Blanc and
Entrepreneur
’s angled-steel gangway, Slaton was to put one well-placed, high-velocity projectile into the head of Dr. Ibrahim Hamedi.

*   *   *

The chief surgeon at Stockholm’s Saint Göran Hospital, Dr. August Brune, needed to make a decision.

He was increasingly confident that their mystery patient, who had been in an induced coma for nearly a week, was ready to have the final bullet removed. The problem was authorization. The man had no family, and in fact had not even been identified. The hospital’s Ethics Board had advised him that a court-appointed advocate was the preferred course, but this took time, and the impending weekend did nothing to raise the chances of finding a magistrate. An impatient Dr. Brune decided to voice his concerns to the police, who’d been keeping a curiously constant presence around the patient’s room. In less than an hour, two men appeared at his office door.

“Can I help you?” said Dr. Brune.

The men introduced themselves. One was from the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the other a representative of the Israeli embassy.

The Israeli said, “We’ve come to discuss the patient in room 605. We know who he is, and I have papers signed by the family that grant us authority to make decisions regarding his treatment.”

The Swede concurred. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has made extensive verifications—everything is in order.”

Dr. Brune looked at the documents. He had never seen anything like it, but the sheer weight of the paper seemed convincing enough.

The Israeli said, “What do you advise as the best course for the patient?”

“He is stable. I would recommend surgery to remove the final bullet lodged in the upper lumbar region.”

The Israeli nodded. “Agreed.”

Brune looked at the two men. He could request to speak directly with a family member, but the set in these men’s jaws told him that wasn’t going to happen. An unusual situation, but a license to proceed, in his opinion, in the best interest of his patient.

“Very well, then. I’ll schedule the operating theater for tomorrow morning. But there is one thing I’d very much like to know—does this man have a name?”

The Swede nearly answered.

The Israeli cut him off.

“No.”

*   *   *

Had it happened a half second later, when his gaze was more fully averted, Slaton might have crushed the kid’s larynx.

The flash of motion came out of nowhere, close and quick to the left of his bench. With only an instant to evaluate and react, Slaton set his base, raised a blocking forearm, and cocked his right arm back for a counterstrike against the scrawny attacker lunging in from the periphery.

The Frisbee hit him in the lower lip.

The teenager altered his trajectory at the last second and tripped over Slaton’s squared leg, tumbling onto the worn grass in front of the bench.

Slaton eased.

“Pardon,” the kid said as he stood, dusting himself off. His wide smile was a further apology—and proof that he had no idea how close he’d just come to dying.

Slaton licked his lower lip and tasted the coppery tang of blood. He grabbed the Frisbee, which had landed on the bench next to him, and handed it over.

“Merci,” said the kid before winding up and backhanding the disc to his partner in the distance.

Slaton tracked its flight across the lawn and wondered, in what was becoming a recurring theme, if he would ever be as competent at life as he was at death. For today, he reckoned, it was best left an idle thought.

He got up and began walking, and from the docks roamed west along the lake’s curved edge. He passed vendors selling food and soft drinks from carts, and regarded a field of small daysailers moored along the breakwater. After a hundred yards Slaton paused, as tourists did, and pondered the scene before him with his hands clasped behind his back. He was looking at the second point of Nurin’s plot, the Pont du Mont Blanc. It was a modest item, as bridges went, a three-hundred-yard span to connect the left and right banks of Geneva where the lake funneled to become the throat of the Rhone River. The design was simplistic, neither high nor arching, but six flat lanes of asphalt intended for cars to pass over, not ships to pass under.

When Slaton had originally drawn Nurin’s scheme in his mind, he’d thought it amateurish. Now, with the physical geometry presented, he reconsidered. The bridge was set low, crouched on ten concrete and steel buttresses. From where Slaton stood he saw countless gaps in the understructure, a repeating warren of shelters and shadows where a patient man could easily conceal himself on a black evening. He imagined a prone shot, laying across a beam, or even splayed directly on one of the concrete buttresses. Distance was not an issue—from the bridge to the target area he estimated no more than two hundred yards. A simple shot.

He also granted that escape was realistic. The bridge was teeming with traffic—vehicles, bicycles, people on foot. This would change come Sunday night, still a busy thoroughfare but with a different character, more private vehicles and everyone moving casually on the leeside of the weekend. There would certainly be defenses, the Iranians undoubtedly and a modest contingent of the canton’s finest. But there would be no all-out lockdown. If Slaton saw that, a swarming defensive perimeter, it meant that the director had failed to contain his leak. Altogether, he decided Nurin’s plan was not a great one. But it
was
viable, and this made Slaton suspect that Nurin had already lied to him. He’d claimed that no one else in Mossad had knowledge of the plot, yet there was enough tactical awareness here to suggest otherwise. Had the director called in help? Had he taken advice from someone versed in such mechanics?

Someone like me?

Slaton spent another hour roaming the area. He circled the Brunswick Monument, pretending to study the carved stone lions that stood noble sentry, notwithstanding the humiliation of pigeons perched on their noses and loins darkened by summer mildew. With a walking guide in hand he crossed the bridge to the left bank and stopped at prominent buildings, marveling at high facades and rooftop spires, and viewing his kill box from every conceivable angle. He took a tour of the harbor, riding in a small boat with open seats that circled the Jet d’eau and wetted everyone with mist, and puttered past the tiny lighthouse at the end of the jetty, and whose guide rambled historical snippets and converted jokes into three languages, the punch lines invariably dimmed by translation. By noon Slaton was back ashore, his head full of geometry and his stomach empty, and he decided to cross the busy Quai du Mont Blanc in search of a café.

He was standing on a corner, waiting to cross and still reckoning vantage points, when his well-ordered thoughts swerved into a ditch. The trigger was a scent. Three women stood beside him, and somewhere sprayed to the nape of a neck was a tester of Christine’s favorite perfume. Slaton’s mind lurched through a series of disjointed images, and in the end one jagged question drilled into his mind.

When would their child be born? Slaton realized that he didn’t know the due date. Realized that he hadn’t even asked.

How could I not have asked?

He stood stunned for a moment, dazed and bewildered as traffic thundered past, and as the three women giggled and carried on a chattering exchange. He was saved when the streetlight changed. The prattling threesome set off at a brisk pace, taking the familiar scent with them. Slaton followed after allowing a gap, and by the time he stepped onto the far side of the street he had righted his mental ship.

He turned down the sidewalk and picked up his pace, the day pleasant and the sun bright. As he’d done all morning, the
kidon
appraised the setting before him. Faces and bodies and traffic all went under his capable eye. Unlike the rest of the morning, what he saw set off an alarm, and his easy stride froze to a stop on the sun-drenched sidewalk.

THIRTY-NINE

Slaton watched two black Mercedes limousines glide to a stop at the reception awning of the Hotel Beau Rivage. The first car had metal brackets bolted to the leading edges of the front fenders, a dead giveaway that was reinforced by a set of diplomatic license tags. Four swarthy men emerged from the two cars, and after a brief discussion disappeared into the hotel.

Not yet convinced of his good fortune, Slaton waited and watched. He saw a fifth man pry himself from the driver’s seat of the lead car. He stepped to the curb, leaned on the driver’s door, and lit a cigarette—a man settling in to wait. Slaton had no doubt that these were embassy cars, but which embassy? After a brief internal debate, he opted for the direct approach.

He walked straight up to the driver, and said in English, “Excuse me, do you know where the bus to Valais stops?”

The man looked at him and shrugged.

“
Où le bus est au Valais?”
Slaton prodded in French.

“No, no. I do not know,” the man replied in brusque English.

“Okay.”

“Ask bellman,” the driver suggested, more to get rid of Slaton than to help him.

“Yes, a good idea.” Slaton turned toward the hotel entrance.

The man had not said enough for Slaton to place the accent. It
could
have been Iranian, he thought, but possibly something else. Less equivocal was what he’d seen on the car’s front seat, yesterday’s edition of
Abrar
, the Farsi-language daily.

At the hotel’s entrance Slaton passed between twin stone flowerpots that welcomed guests with bursting waves of yellow and violet, not to mention the most pleasant of fragrances. Inside he found a gilded and ostentatious place, a property that was certainly, as was common along Quai du Mont Blanc, steeped in historical significance. Here, Slaton supposed, the leaders of past ages had dined well over petty arguments, and signed evening treaties in advance of midnight trysts. As such, it was the kind of place that would appeal to their contemporary counterparts who, in spite of the intervening centuries, would pursue their diplomacy in the same enduring manner.

For Slaton it all made perfect sense, and he smiled inwardly at his turn of good luck.