On it had gone until, as attested to by five witnesses, the woman had sat atop the great stone beast, smiling mechanically as she raised her glass in salutation. One minute and ten seconds to spare. Slaton even used Yosy’s camera, and an entire roll of film, to record the triumph.
At the time it all seemed so innocent, a game with no harm. Slaton had learned his lessons well, the arts of deception and destruction. As had Yosy. Only now Slaton sat here alone, and it seemed anything but a game. Yosy had come to see him, to warn him, and now he was gone. Why had Yosy told his wife he was going hunting, when in fact he was the one being hunted? Slaton held one hope for the answer.
He went to the couch and gave it a shove across the floor, then rolled up one side of the rug underneath. If Yosy had come, this would be the place. There was a single loose floorboard, the one he and Yosy had heard creak under their feet so many years ago. Then, they had found two bottles of wine stuffed underneath, a soothing Cabernet. Now Slaton pulled up the short plank hoping to find something, anything to explain what was happening. The hole beneath the strip of wood was only six inches deep, but it extended far along the length of the floor to one side.
Slaton curled his arm into the nook and instantly latched onto something. He pulled out a heavy manila envelope, then groped once more in the dusty hole to make sure there wasn’t anything else.
He brushed the envelope off, opened it, and sank onto the displaced couch. Inside was a two page, handwritten letter. Stunning, it answered many of the questions that had been tormenting him. But it raised even more.
Well, partner, if you’ve found this, I guess you know something’s up. I was hoping to explain it in person, but here’s what you should know.
A few weeks ago I got a phone call from a fellow named Leon Uriste. I worked with him once, when he was in military intelligence. We were never great buddies, but I think he looked me up because I was the only Mossad guy he knew. Uriste was dying of cancer, and he asked me to come see him in the hospital. I could hardly say no.
When I got there, a nurse confirmed that Uriste only had a couple of weeks left. I barely recognized him. He was fifty-one, but looked twenty years older. As soon as he saw me he got frantic and started babbling some really crazy stuff. As the proverb goes, “None brings conscience like the face of Death.”
Uriste drifted in and out, and part of me said it had to be the drugs. But David, he laid out an incredible story. He said there’s an organization of traitors within our service, attacking Israel. Mossad and Aman people bombing our own markets, shooting our own soldiers and policemen. Sound crazy? That’s what I thought at first. Uriste talked as fast as he could draw breath. There were so many details — meetings, targets, casualty figures. He told me who was in the organization — names, but more code names. Everything was run by someone called Savior, and Uriste swore it had been going on for over twenty years.
It sounded absurd. Yet something about it bothered me. Here was a dying man trying to cleanse his shame. I played along and asked him who was behind it. The Palestinians? Hamas? Syria? Uriste broke up. He fell back on his bed, sobbing and babbling. He kept saying, “We had to do it. No other way.” About that time, a nurse came in. She saw that Uriste was disturbed and kicked me out. I decided to go back the next day to talk again, and maybe bring a video camera. Uriste never made it through the night.
I was tempted to write it off as a dying man’s drug-induced hallucination, but instead I followed old Lesson #1 — It’s Good to be Paranoid. Sure enough, Uriste had another visitor after me that day. Whoever it was didn’t sign into the hospital log, and none of the staff remembered much. One big dead end. That did it. I spent a few hours in Archives, checking and cross-checking. Those hours turned into days and the days into weeks. David, the more I looked, the more I saw. Not much hard evidence, but lots of shoddy investigations and inconsistent reports. Certain names kept popping up again and again. Worst of all, there’s someone near the very top involved.
I copied some documents, made notes of others. It’s mostly circumstantial, but a few hard facts. Enough to convince me,old friend. These vermin really exist, they have for a long time. I don’t know how many are involved, or which of our enemies they’re associated with, but it’s got to be a small operation. Otherwise, they’d never have been able to keep it quiet for so long. I was able to identify six people who are almost certainly involved, and another three who are probable. But I still don’t know who runs it. One other thing — they seem to be launching fewer attacks now than in years past, but the things they’ve done lately have been bigger, real newsgrabbers. And for the last six months it’s been especially quiet. I think they’re looking for something really big.
I’m going to take it all to Anton Bloch. I think he’s clean, but for insurance I wanted somebody else to know. That would be you, buddy. I decided to come to London to lay this all out, but first I called to warn you with that “double Sheena” bit last week. When I got here, you were gone, so I came to the lodge and wrote this. We need to meet soon. I’ve had company lately. I’ll show you what I’ve found, and hopefully you can add something. Maybe enough to hang these guys. I’m headed back home now, before anyone at the office gets suspicious. (Or even worse, Ingrid!) Call me.
Oh, and be careful. From what I’ve seen, these scum have a strong presence in England at the moment. At least four or five in the London station. I was followed from the airport, but made a clean break on my way here to the lodge. If things get rough, do try to remember everything I taught you.
Cheers.
Yosef.
Slaton sat with the letter in his lap, staring blankly at the wall. He knew it was true. It was all true. Ingrid said they’d taken Yosy’s papers. The documents? It didn’t matter. Slaton didn’t need that kind of proof. Someone named Uriste was dead. Yosy was dead. And they had tried to kill him. Proof.
Polaris Venture
’s crew. More proof. Then there was
Polaris Venture
’s cargo. There was surely more to that. His mind swirled. How many others had there been? Twenty years of innocent victims. Israelis killing Israelis. How could it have gone on for so long?
Slaton snapped. He jumped up and kicked over a table, sending it flying across the room. The act broke his concentration and took him away from where he knew his questions were leading — that precipice from which he might not be able to turn back.
Slaton went to the kitchen and drew a glass of water from the faucet. It was cold and clear. He held the glass to his forehead and its coldness was a mild shock, unraveling the mental snarls. He stood still, thinking and agonizing until it suddenly came to him. For all the questions and possibilities, Slaton realized exactly where to go next. Even without knowing
who
they were, he knew
where they would be.
The revelation gave clarity. It gave purpose. Carefully, Slaton washed and dried the glass, then placed it back in the cupboard exactly where it had been. Ten minutes later, the rest of the lodge was as he’d found it. He hurried back to his car, hoping it wasn’t already too late.
A rap on the door brought rude end to the deepest sleep Christine had managed in years. She rustled groggily in the sheets and tried to focus on the clock next to her bed. The red digital lights read 10:24. Another knock. It had to be the maid.
“I don’t need any service,” she said in the loudest voice she could muster. Christine rolled over, hoping for a few more minutes rest, but consciousness was unavoidable as the events of the last days invaded once again.
Another knock, this one louder and more insistent, rattled away her sleep-induced fog. It was hopeless. She got up slowly and stumbled to the door, vaguely trying to remember what time she had told Chief Bicker-staff she’d be in today.
“Who is it?”
“Miss Palmer,” a muffled voice called in a clipped British accent. “I’m Inspector Bennett, Maritime Investigations Branch. My partner, Inspector Harding, and I would like a word with you.”
Christine put a bleary eye to the peephole and saw two men looking expectantly at her door. They both wore suits, ties, and professional smiles. Behind them, a nearly empty parking lot basked in the mid-morning sun. She unbolted the door and opened it a crack, peering her head around the corner.
“Maritime Investigations?” she queried, squinting against the light of day.
The nearer man thrust out an identification card with his photograph on it. The other nodded politely. “Yes, Maritime Investigations, Scotland Yard. We’ve been called in to assist the local police on this matter of your abduction.”
The word “abduction” sounded peculiar, but she supposed it fit. She nearly let them in before remembering that all she had on was a T-shirt and panties.
“Can you give me a moment to dress?”
“Yes. Yes, of course. We’ll wait right here.”
Christine hadn’t expected company. She rummaged through the few clothes she’d retrieved from
Windsom
and found a pair of Levis to slip on. She took a quick look in the mirror, then wished she hadn’t. Her hair was a frightful mess — she’d taken a shower last night and gone straight to bed. Christine decided the policemen wouldn’t care. She let the two Scotland Yard men in.
“I
am
sorry,” Bennett said. “It looks as though we’ve rousted you out of a sound sleep.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” she lied. “It’s time I got up anyway.”
Christine plucked two used towels off the couch and threw them on the bed. The two men smiled amiably and took a seat.
“We won’t take much of your time. Perhaps you could tell us your story, just in a general sort of way. Then we might have a few questions. The more we find out about this devil, the better chance we’ll have of catching him.”
“So you’re searching for him now?”
“Absolutely.”
Christine was relieved. “Have you already talked to Chief Bickerstaff?”
“Oh, yes, of course. But we’d like to hear it straight from you as well.”
Christine sighed. She’d already gone over it so many times. It was becoming tedious. She started from the beginning and went over everything, or at least most of it. She omitted the parts about him crashing in while she was getting dressed, and that she had to lay with him while he slept. She didn’t want anyone jumping to the wrong conclusions. It took ten minutes. Bennett and his sidekick listened attentively. They didn’t interrupt to ask questions, but Christine could see them both mentally storing up for later. When she finished, Bennett was clearly struck to compassion.
“You’ve had quite an ordeal.”
“I came out all right. My boat’s another story, but that can be repaired.”
“Of course,” Bennett said. “Tell me, do you have an accurate position for where you came across this man?”
“Sure. I didn’t record it right away when I found him. I had a lot of other things on my mind. But I did eventually make the plot and mark it on a chart, probably good to within a mile or two. I figured somebody would need the fix to start a search.”
“Do you remember the coordinates?”
“No. But it was roughly halfway on a line between Gibraltar and the Madeiras. Chief Bickerstaff was supposed to go over to my boat this morning, so he probably has the actual numbers.”
“I’ll get the coordinates from him, then. Tell me again, what did this man look like?”
“About six feet tall, maybe a little more. Thin build, but very strong. His hair was sort of a light, sandy color, blue eyes. He looked a bit gaunt in the face, but that was probably from going without food and water for so long.”
“You say you examined him when he first came aboard?”
“Yes. He had a wound on his abdomen, a shallow cut. I cleaned and dressed it.”
“Did he have other scars? In particular, a large one right here?” Bennett pointed to a spot on his ribs exactly where the nasty scar had been on her abductor.
“Yes! You know who he is?”
Both the men nodded knowingly.
“He told me his name was David.”
The policemen exchanged a look and Bennett said, “We don’t know his name, mind you. Not his real one. He goes by any number of aliases. The man’s a terrorist of sorts, a mercenary, and every bit a killer. In all honesty, I’m surprised he’s let you off alive.”
Christine tried to comprehend. “How did he end up in the middle of the ocean?”
“No telling right now,” Bennett mused. “Perhaps he was hired to sink the ship, this
Polaris Venture,
and then botched up his escape.”
“He told me there were no other survivors. I thought that was odd.”
“Nothing odd about it. All his doing, I suspect. Now, you said that he made you turn your boat around and take him here, to England. Did he mention why?”
Christine considered that and was about to answer when the telephone rang. She went to the nightstand to pick it up when Harding spoke for the first time.
“Let it go, Dr. Palmer. They’ll leave a message at the front desk.”
“No,” Christine said, “I think it might be Chief Bickerstaff. I told him —” Her line of thought derailed. Something was wrong. What was it? Harding had spoken for the first time, and his voice — no his accent — it was anything but British. She turned to see both men moving toward her.
“
What
—”
She reached for the phone but Harding’s hand came down firmly on top of hers. When the phone stopped ringing, he reached around behind the nightstand and unplugged the wire.
Chapter Seven
Christine sat quietly on the couch, stunned. Her stomach was knotted, her muscles rigid. Harding sat next to her, a gun in his far hand. She wanted to cry out, to scream for help, but they’d warned her against it. That warning was reinforced by the ominously calm expressions of her new captors. It had happened again. Ever since she’d pulled that miserable, half-dead wretch from the ocean, her life had gone mad, a nightmare with no end.