Assassin's Game (43 page)

Slaton’s gun was suppressed for sound, but the guards were trained and so they knew they were under attack. Using his long fins, Slaton spun left and settled his sight on the Whaler. One of the guards was tall and obvious, and Slaton traded shots with the man. A round from his MP7 found home as the water to his right exploded. Uncomfortably close.

Then he heard shouting. “
There! In the water!”

More shouts from the sinking yacht. The
kidon
submerged.

*   *   *

With strong kicks Slaton swam straight under the Whaler, the boat’s dark outline clear in the dancing orange reflections. He popped up this time on the shore side, his MP7 ready and new angles of fire already fixed in his head. But he could not shoot indiscriminately. With the optic he positively identified a guard at the bow, fired and watched him go overboard when hit. Hamedi’s protection was now down to two—but they began learning. They fell to the deck and disappeared, leaving Slaton no shot. Rounds suddenly exploded all around him, the water churning like a blender. He snap-sighted on a figure near the stern of the yacht, but before he could fire his MP7 jerked to one side. Slaton felt stinging pain in his scalp and saw that his gun sight was gone, nothing but the jagged metal bracket remaining. He answered with a quick, unsighted double, and his target twisted but stayed on his feet. Slaton fired again from twenty yards and finished the job.

He submerged again knowing time was short. It was time to get close.

It was time to take Hamedi.

*   *   *

Behrouz was scrambling on the deck of the Whaler when a foot caught him in the face. He looked up and saw Hamedi backing away.

“The Israelis!” the scientist screamed. “They are after me again! Don’t you see that?”

Behrouz didn’t know what to think. The Israelis
were
attacking. But what of the words he’d heard slip from Hamedi’s mouth only minutes ago? There was no time to think about it. He screamed at the white-uniformed crewman at the little boat’s helm. “Get us out of here!” Behrouz pointed his handgun at the man to leave no room for questions.

The crewman’s eyes went wide—wider than they already were with bodies and mayhem all around. He cranked the outboard motor and it came to life, and from a kneeling position the man put the motor into gear and slammed the throttle forward. There was a roar from the back of the boat but nothing happened. They went nowhere.

“What is wrong?” Hamedi shouted.

“I don’t know,” the helmsman said. “We must be hung up on something. Maybe a line.”

Bravely, the man lifted his head above the gunnel and looked over the side. Then he moved aft and looked over the stern.

“The propeller is gone!” he shouted.

*   *   *

The propeller, in fact, had been removed forty minutes earlier and was now resting on the bottom of Lake Geneva. The crewman, befuddled by the missing prop but growing more confident, leaned in for a closer look. He never saw the gloved hand come out of the water.

Slaton got a fistful of uniform collar, braced against the boat’s hull, and pulled the sailor over his shoulder and into the lake. Having removed his scuba rig, he vaulted over the stern with the Glock ready. He was breaching the point of least freeboard, the most vulnerable position to defend, so he expected Hamedi’s two remaining men to have their weapons already trained in his direction. He only saw one, and much closer than expected. Only an arm’s length away.

In an instantaneous decision, Slaton shifted his momentum and threw himself on the man.

He crashed in hard, but his hand struck something and the Glock flew from his grip. The man was big, but he was flat on his back. Slaton lashed an elbow to the head that slowed the Iranian, but he kept fighting—the determination of an old soldier who’d battled for his life before. They grappled and locked arms, heading for a stalemate that was not in Slaton’s favor. He sensed something under his free hand, and recognized by feel what it was. Working a hand free, he pulled the anchor line until he had enough slack, then managed to loop it around the man’s neck. One handed, he had little leverage, but then he caught a break—his adversary panicked.

The big Iranian put both hands to his throat and tried to pry the rope away. That was all Slaton needed. He didn’t pull, but twisted, tightening the noose in a powerful grip. The Iranian struggled fiercely, but that only used more oxygen and made his life that much shorter. In less than a minute it was over.

But a minute was far too long.

Slaton rolled away and saw the boat’s last two occupants. Ibrahim Hamedi was backed against the starboard side. Across the beam, down on one knee, was Farzad Behrouz.

Slaton’s Glock was in his hand.

FIFTY-TWO

Slaton went still, the only option when looking down the barrel of a 9mm.

Behrouz said, “Almost, Jew. You almost did it.”

Slaton said nothing, and the Iranian’s eyes seemed to narrow with suspicion. He thought Behrouz might be having a flashback, remembering his face from yesterday’s encounter in the elevator. But then Slaton was taken completely by surprise.

Hamedi kicked out a leg, perhaps to get his balance in the rocking boat, and for some unfathomable reason Behrouz took it as a threat. He shifted the gun and pointed it at the scientist. Only a few feet away, Hamedi backed against the fiberglass hull, fear etched into his broad face.

Behrouz appeared baffled, unsure. His bewilderment was compounded when someone shouted his name from the sinking yacht. At that moment an acrid wave of black smoke washed over everything and, as if to make the chaos complete, a muffled explosion shook the night. Slaton guessed the blast was not from a grenade or a gun, but rather a death throe from the ship, probably a pressure door giving way behind tons of water or a keel beam buckling.

He watched the two Iranians intently and saw a passionate mistrust between them. The implications of this defied logic. Why was the security chief threatening the man he was duty-bound to protect? Slaton wasted no time on analysis. With a hunter’s instinct, he saw Behrouz’s hesitation as his chance. The man was ten feet away, too far to reach before the gun could swing again. But Krav Maga did not fail. The rope was still looped around the dead man’s neck, yet there was more of it, a hundred feet of braided nylon painstakingly coiled by some meticulous crewman. And at the end of that, inches from Slaton’s left hand, was what he needed.

“You’ve made a mistake!” Hamedi pleaded, staring at the gun. “You don’t understand!”

Behrouz seemed more confused than ever, and that was Slaton’s cue. He reached for the rope.

The Iranian sensed movement and tried to shift his aim. Slaton had five feet of line to work with, plus the length of his arm. At the end of that radius was his weapon. With only one chance, Slaton twisted sideways and whipped a ten-pound galvanized anchor into a sweeping arc that ended perfectly at the side of Behrouz’s skull. There was an audible crunch, and the little Iranian crumpled to the deck, dead before he hit.

Slaton never stopped moving. He sprang to his feet as a fearful Hamedi rose and tried to defend himself. Shots rang in from the foundering yacht, and Slaton launched himself shoulder first, flying across the gap toward the panicked scientist.

Both men went headlong into the frigid lake.

*   *   *

Bullets ripped the water, their trails effervescent shards of orange and white light.

Slaton had a handful of Hamedi’s collar and was dragging him lower. The scientist was a large man, but thankfully he didn’t resist right away. He was in shock after having endured an armed assault, and then being pitched into an icy lake. Slaton pulled and kicked toward his only chance—the scuba rig hanging beneath the Whaler by a quick-release knot. He was nearly there when Hamedi began to struggle. They’d been under only seconds, but the Iranian was not prepared, not trained, and the lack of air induced panic.

Slaton looked up, but without a mask he could see no more than the shadow of the small craft. It was enough. Aft, starboard side, a ten-foot line hanging straight down from the surface. There was Slaton’s salvation. Hamedi began thrashing for all he was worth, fighting the man who he imagined was trying to drown him, fighting the insistence of his lungs to breath. In a matter of seconds, everything would be for naught. Slaton paused just long enough to deliver a short, compact elbow to the side of Hamedi’s head. It did the trick, stunning the man, and with one last heave Slaton reached the regulator with his free hand.

He ignored his own mouth, instead feeling blindly for Hamedi’s face and stuffing the mouthpiece between his lips. Slaton hit the purge button, forcing air out of the system and into the scientist. Either by basal instinct or good sense, Hamedi began breathing, sucking long draws from the tank. The rig was a standard octopus setup, two regulators, and as his own lungs strained Slaton found the second mouthpiece and took his first breath after a minute of strenuous work. He disconnected the rig, put one strap over a shoulder, and then donned his mask and fins.

The
kidon
began kicking furiously.

*   *   *

Direction was everything.

Slaton referenced the luminous compass on his diving rig and pushed southeast. Overhead he saw all colors of light playing the surface, yet they were patternless and chaotic. Not yet searching. In twenty minutes that would change. By then
Entrepreneur
would be resting on the bottom of the lake, and things would begin to organize.

The lighthouse was less than a mile away, and when he got closer it would act to the inverse of its design—it would guide Slaton straight toward the rocky jetty. His problem was speed—he was dragging a full set of gear and a two-hundred-pound physicist. Hamedi had at least gone still. Slaton knew he hadn’t drowned, because the regulator’s exhaust port was venting a rhythmic flow. More likely the man was dazed from prolonged immersion in fifty-degree water. Slaton’s thick wetsuit gave him protection, but the scientist would soon succumb to hypothermia.

Slaton did everything he could to lighten his load. He ditched all his equipment, including the damaged MP7, until the only thing left was the scuba rig. The next twelve minutes were an underwater sprint that felt like a marathon. It was the most challenging physical test he had ever faced, and there had been many, both in training and in the field. His lungs heaved and his legs burned. He shifted to different strokes as cramps set in, and following a long-honed practice Slaton translated his pain into anger. He cursed Mossad and Director Nurin, cursed Iran and the depraved genius he was dragging behind him.

Finally, he saw the glow of the lighthouse.

Nearing the jetty he popped his head up once to confirm his bearings. Slaton didn’t allow Hamedi to surface, knowing a taste of fresh air would only incite further panic when he was pulled down again. With legs that felt like rubber and straining lungs, his pace declined markedly over the last twenty yards. When he broke the surface the second time they were on the calm backside of the jetty.

The sky overhead was clear, populated with stars and planets that were every bit as tranquil as the scene behind him was chaotic. Hamedi sputtered and coughed, and spit the regulator from his mouth. He began gulping air like a just-landed fish on the deck of a boat.

The jet ski was right where Slaton had left it, and he ditched the scuba gear before muscling Hamedi over the slick rocks. The tiny cove created by the breakwater was out of sight from the quai. In the distance he saw what was left of
Entrepreneur
, her white steel stern rising, air venting from portholes and blown-out windows. There were a half dozen smaller boats circling, shining spotlights and plucking survivors from the water, and at the nearby dock a shore-side contingent of police and Iranian security men scoured the water for their lost scientist.

Hamedi tried to say something, but it came out as no more than a croak. Slaton hauled him the last few yards to the waiting watercraft. He had purchased the fastest model he could find this morning, twelve thousand cash for a two-seater that would reach seventy miles an hour on their run across the lake to the quiet overlook where the Rover was waiting. From there, Slaton would call Director Nurin and make his bargain.

He tried to wrestle Hamedi onto the watercraft, but the Iranian began struggling again.

“Get on!” Slaton ordered.

Hamedi said something else unintelligible, still coughing uncontrollably from his underwater ordeal.

Then another voice rang in from behind. “Stop! Don’t move!”

Slaton froze. It was a voice he recognized.

He turned his head and saw Detective Inspector Arne Sanderson. One hand held a gun unsteadily while the other gripped the iron railing that encircled the lighthouse. He was in a wide-set stance, but swaying like a sapling in the wind. If Slaton were to guess, he’d say the man had been shot—he looked like he might pitch over at any moment. Slaton checked behind Sanderson, and as far as he could see up and down the jetty there was no one else. Neither did he see a radio bud in the detective’s ear, nor a microphone on his lapel. Slaton remembered the news article—Sanderson had been taken off the chase for unspecified medical reasons.
The detective is here alone
, he thought.

“I’m not as good a shot as you,” Sanderson said, seeming to read Slaton’s thoughts, “but from ten meters I won’t miss.”

Slaton was about to reply when Hamedi, finding strength from some reserve, stood straight. He pushed Slaton away with a stiff arm, and shouted, “Do you not realize what you’ve done? You have ruined everything!”

Slaton stood absolutely still. Absolutely stunned. The words themselves were not a revelation. The shove was weak and meaningless. What shocked him to the core was that Hamedi had spoken in perfectly succinct and fluent Hebrew.

FIFTY-THREE

“I am a Jew, you fool!”

Hamedi said it a second time in English, and the words themselves sank.

Slaton’s tactical mind-set aborted, tripped by the one thing he could never have imagined. Every problem he’d solved, every motive and strategy was suddenly put in a mirror, refracted by four simple words.