by Ward Larsen
He looked once more at his targeted vehicles and knew it had to be. It was a perfect match for his needs, albeit the sort of theft that would require patience and planning, even creativity. His decision made, Slaton stepped out of the shadows and set to work.
* * *
The knock on Sanderson’s door came at half past eight that evening. He opened it to find his ex-wife.
“Ingrid … what on earth?” Seeing the concern on her face, he quickly surmised, “Blix called you, didn’t he?”
“How are you, Arne?”
“I wish everyone would stop asking me that.”
A gust of wind swept across the threshold. “Are you going to ask me in?”
“Yes, sorry.”
Sanderson turned and swept his eyes over the room. As best he could remember, Ingrid had not been here since moving out five years earlier, and he wondered how the place had changed in that time. He saw unkempt furnishings, a carpet that needed cleaning, an embarrassing stack of dirty dishes by the sink. There was no getting around it. “I’ve given the maid a year’s holiday.”
“It’s not so bad,” she lied.
“Can I offer you some tea?”
“Decaf would be nice.”
Sanderson put water on the stove, watching with an odd discomfort as she meandered the place they had shared for so long.
“How is my garden holding up?” she asked, peering into the darkness out the back window.
“Honestly? It looks like the Ardennes after a good German pounding.”
She smiled. “It doesn’t seem like five years, does it?”
“No,” he agreed.
“How is Alfred?” Sanderson asked, happy he hadn’t said “the toilet king.”
“Not well, actually. It’s his heart.”
Fishing through a cupboard for clean cups, Sanderson stopped what he was doing. He saw her sadness, and said, “I’m sorry, Ingrid. Really I am.”
She came closer and looked at him in the kitchen’s strong light. “You don’t look well, Arne.”
“What did Blix tell you?”
“He said you passed out at headquarters today. And he said you’ve been forgetful—that it’s become an issue at work.”
“It won’t be an issue any longer.” Sanderson turned back to the cupboard. “I quit today. It was a rash decision, I admit, but Sjoberg had just pulled me from a big case for no reason.”
“I did hear about that. You were working on these shootings?”
“Yes. He was quite unreasonable about the whole thing. But I suppose it was as good a time as any to pack it in. I’ve given them thirty-five years.”
“That must have been very difficult.”
“Not the way I did it. But we all knew it was coming. I only wish I could have finished the investigation I was working on.”
The tea brewed and then cooled to the point of being useful. As they talked, he thought Ingrid seemed dampened, even spiritless, but given the mood of her visit, not to mention her husband’s ill health, he should not have expected more. He did wish it, though. When they moved to better ground—their daughter and her fireman boyfriend, and the attendant speculation about grandchildren—the air seemed to improve. Ingrid even made him laugh once or twice, which was once or twice more than any other night this week. They’d talked for an hour when she finally looked at her watch.
“I should be going. Alfred doesn’t always remember his pills before bed.”
“Yes, of course.”
After an awkward moment, she said, “I promised Blix I’d tell you to see a doctor. If he asks, say I did.”
Sanderson smiled. He helped her put on her coat, and she looked at him with something old and familiar.
“This investigation—it’s bothering you, isn’t it, Arne?”
“They all do.”
“No. Not like this.”
“Unfortunately, there’s nothing more I can do about it.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She went to the door and took the handle. “You could always get off your ass and finish what you started.”
* * *
To sink a sailboat was not as easy as Christine imagined. She spent an hour in near darkness hammering and pounding, and in the end used a battery-powered drill to breach what she guessed was an adequate hole below the starboard waterline. When seawater finally began flowing, she disabled the automatic bilge pump and cranked the motor.
She had argued at length with David over the need for sinking the boat, he being of the school that no evidence should ever be left behind, and she assuming a more practical sailor’s point of view. A compromise was reached when he agreed that once their situation normalized they would search out Bricklayer’s owner and make things right.
With the boat hove close to shore in a cove off Runmarö Island, Christine maneuvered to point the bow toward open water. She shone a flashlight into the cabin and watched the water level, trying to estimate the rate of rise in relation to the engine compartment. When she gauged submersion to be minutes away, she lashed a line beam-to-beam to hold the tiller steady and levered the motor into gear. For the third time in as many days, Christine slipped down the stern ladder in her underwear and eased into the Baltic. It seemed colder than ever.
Clothing under her arm, she waded into ankle-deep water before turning to watch. The boat ran seaward, and veered slightly to starboard as slack settled into the steering arm. She had already used the boat’s depth finder to confirm that the water just offshore was deep, even if the very concept seemed ignoble, rather like making a condemned man stand in his grave to verify the correct depth. She heard the rumbling motor sputter, hesitate, and then go silent. So far so good. Already showing a distinct list to starboard, the momentum the boat had gained was absorbed in an awkward pirouette. Fifty yards out, the drunken silhouette of Bricklayer fell still on an indifferent sea.
Christine slogged ashore, used the last dry towel, and put on her pants. She wondered how long it would take, knowing that big ships sometimes took hours to go down, even days. There were any number of variables: buoyant compartments, shifting loads, center of gravity. For a long time nothing seemed to happen. The little boat just sat there, its skewed mast clear in the cloud-drawn moonlight. Then it began to founder, moving lower and swaying further to starboard until the gunnel went under. Across the still bay she heard rushing water and spewing air, and minutes later the blue-belted Pearson was flat on her side. As the hull disappeared, she watched the mast go vertical as if grasping for the wind one last time. Then it slipped straight down like Excalibur into the lake.
Christine turned away before it was gone.
* * *
Erbek Gurhan handed over his delivery paperwork, and in return was given a set of keys by the frau in the shack outside the Sassnitz transfer lot.
“You are Turkish, no?” she asked.
He nodded. “Where is this one?”
“Spot two hundred and six.”
Gurhan grunted.
“My name is Helga.”
“Erbek.”
“You’re getting a late start,” she said.
“Tell me something I don’t know. I just got the call—the ferry was running late.”
“Is it time and a half?”
“You’re damned right.”
“So then you are rich. Maybe you can buy me a pint tomorrow. My shift ends at twelve every night.”
Gurhan stared at her. He had been in Germany for five years, but still was not accustomed to the forwardness of Western women. “I won’t be back tomorrow,” he said. “This one is going all the way to Munich.”
“Then maybe the next day.”
Gurhan grunted a second time and turned away. As he padded across the gravel siding, however, he kept thinking about the woman in the gatehouse. She was lively enough and not bad to look at, although too many after-work pints had dulled her shape. And she had to be at least fifteen years older than he was—it would be like going out with his mother. Gurhan sighed. A spirited wom
an with a slack body. Why can I never find the inverse?
He found spot 206 at the back of the lot, and there his night was ruined. A mechanic with a work light was beneath the small motor home, his legs jacked out from under the front bumper.
“What is wrong?” Gurhan asked, bending down toward the ground.
The mechanic, dressed in greasy coveralls and with a wrench in his hand, slipped out from under the camper. “The engine starter is bad. I have to replace it.”
The man had light hair, but Gurhan thought his accent was not German. Probably a Pole or a Latvian, he supposed, another expatriate brought in to do the dirty work. Not that it mattered to a Turkish delivery driver. “When will it be ready?” he asked.
“I cannot get a new part at this hour. Tomorrow, I think. Probably close to noon.”
Gurhan cursed under his breath. “They just sent me here from Stralsund. What will I do until then?”
The mechanic shrugged and pushed back under the bumper.
Gurhan stood straight and looked at his watch: 11:45. He looked at the gatehouse and saw the frau whose shift was nearing an end. From a distance she seemed more attractive, and from any range utterly bored. What the hell, he thought. He started walking back to the shack.
“Hey!”
He turned and saw the mechanic’s head again.
“I’ll need the keys if I am going to make this work.”
Gurhan didn’t hesitate. He tossed them across the divide, a poor throw actually that was headed for the grill. Then the blond man swept out his hand and snatched them cleanly from the air.
TWENTY-SEVEN
By three a.m. Slaton had skirted Berlin and was sweeping through the heart of Germany, nearing Magdeburg, a modern and vibrant industrial city that seemed to have no recollection of being plundered by the Holy Roman Empire, or later bombed into oblivion by Allied air forces.
Sassnitz was a hundred and fifty miles behind, and by daybreak Slaton would have two hundred more. Rain had begun to fall, the kind of dense October drizzle that might not break for days, and the camper’s tires hissed over wet asphalt as the headlights skipped their predictable pattern over glistening white lines. Striking a pothole, the vehicle rattled down to its bones, and somewhere behind him Slaton heard a drawer slide open. The RV had seen a lot of use. It smelled of mold and cheap cleanser. Slaton didn’t care in the least.
He studied the rearview mirrors, and for the fifth time tonight cataloged the headlights drifting behind him. Vehicle headlights, he knew, produced unique signatures at night, and with some diligence could be logged and tracked. The shape of various lenses, their geometry and spacing, not to mention brightness and color. Taken together, it was all as telling as a written signature, and any vehicle following for a length of time could be readily identified. Slaton saw none behind him now that looked familiar.
He reckoned he would have to stop for fuel once before reaching his destination, and this would likely exhaust his remaining cash. The camper, a three-berth model, had been an ideal choice, and Slaton knew precisely why it had arrived at the docks of Sassnitz in mid-October. It was the sort of rental vehicle that drew a premium price in Scandinavia during the summer months, but with winter fast approaching the fleet was being repositioned south for the offseason. Spain or France. What he’d originally envisioned as a straight-out theft had gone smoothly. He’d watched the intended driver and the gate guard walk away together at midnight, and from there it was simple enough. Slaton had driven through the gate and waved to the new shift, a slim dark-skinned man. If challenged, he would have reverted to his role of mechanic, claiming the need for a test drive to certify his repair. That would have gotten him out the gate, but also resulted in a considerably shortened window of use. As it turned out, the watchman had only returned his wave, and Slaton drove away reckoning that his theft would not be noticed until midday tomorrow.
Just like riding a bike, he thought. Or stealing one.
His plan evolved further ten miles outside Sassnitz when he discovered the routing slip hanging from the camper’s rearview mirror. Destination: Munich. Not a perfect fit, but too good to pass up. Slaton would simply deliver the RV himself. When the unit showed up in the right place at the right time, there would be little alarm over what was clearly a scheduling foul-up in which two drivers had been booked for the same delivery.
Traveling west on the E30, he came to the junction that would take him south toward Leipzig and Nuremberg, and the low emerald mountains of Bavaria. Slaton veered right, toward the exit, and slowed considerably—the steering was sloppy on the slick road, and he wanted no chance of sliding into a guardrail. His journey was taking shape in the best way possible, an oblique path that molded to the contours of what was available. It was an awkward way to travel, to be sure, but had one irresistible advantage—it was even harder to follow.
* * *
The man named Rafi arrived at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Airport at 9:50 that Wednesday morning, Iran Air Flight 528 from Amman running its customary one-hour late. When he reached the curb he saw the usual car waiting, a black Mercedes limo. It was the eighth time he had run this gauntlet, a nuisance he blamed—as with Damascus’s faulty sewers, Gaza’s dust-laden air, and the price of vegetables in Beirut—on the meddlesome State of Israel. The Jews, he’d been told, were getting better at monitoring the Internet, and because of it Rafi had not been able to use his mobile phone for anything of importance in a year. In effect, he had been relegated to the role of foot messenger. Indeed, as a man who knew his history, Rafi equated himself to those brave Persian runners who’d been tasked to skirt the grip of Genghis Khan and his crew some eight hundred years ago, a noble and fearless lot who risked life and limb to deliver vital communiqués.
Yes, he thought, we have a great deal in common. Only I have enemies on both sides.
Once inside the Mercedes, he shifted across the plush leather to get a better flow from the air-conditioning vent. Neither the limo’s driver nor the thick man beside him said a word as the big car bolted through intersections heading for MISIRI, Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and National Security.
Rafi looked out the window and took in the blur that was Tehran. He had never actually set foot in the city, yet it somehow seemed familiar. He saw old women selling vegetables from carts, and suicidal young men doubled up on scooters as they weaved through lawless traffic. It could have been Amman or Cairo, any number of capitals across the region. This familiarity ended abruptly, however, when the big Mercedes swerved through a set of brooding iron gates to be swallowed by the headquarters complex of MISIRI.
Rafi straightened in his seat, and soon the big car skidded to the curb and the door popped open. He was hustled through a maze of hallways, and twenty-two minutes after landing in Iran, Rafi entered the utilitarian office of Farzad Behrouz.
The little man remained seated, his fingers squaring a thick envelope on the desk in front of him. “Well?” he prompted, no hint of cordiality.
“It is as you suspected,” Rafi said. “There will be another attempt on Hamedi.”
“Where and when?”
“I don’t know.”
Almost imperceptibly, Behrouz cocked his head. “What do you mean? Our source has always been quite … forthcoming in the past.”
“Our agent explained her situation to me. It is a delicate thing we ask, and I think she was correct to not press harder than she did. Zacharias is not a fool. But there was something. She said the Jews expect Hamedi to go abroad soon. They see this as an opportunity. If it is true, then you have your answer.”
“No,” Behrouz argued, “I must have specifics.”
“I’ve told her to keep trying, to schedule another rendezvous.”
“She understands that time is running short?”
“Yes, of course. And there is one more thing. Mossad thinks they’ve found a man who will have more success than the others. A lone assassin.”
Behrouz went quiet and leveled a discomforting gaze. It
was a look Rafi had not seen before. “Who is this man?” he finally asked.
“I know nothing more.”
“Well go back then! Take command of your Jew whore! Give her money, threaten her with exposure, do whatever it takes. Find out who this man is. And I must have the precise time and place of any attack!”
“I will do what I can,” Rafi said.
“No,” Behrouz replied, “you will do what I instruct. You have two days.” From his desk he produced a mobile phone and slid it across the desk. “This is secure. Use it when you have my answer.”
He then pushed the envelope across and Rafi took it.
Though he had originally contacted Iran though Hezbollah channels, Rafi himself took credit for the discovery and recruitment of the disconsolate Evita Levine. And as was often the case in this part of the world, aside from being a patriot, he was not above taking a reasonable commission for his work. He knew well the value of information.
Behrouz issued further, very specific instructions, and the next meeting was arranged. When Rafi left the office minutes later, he hoped his next trip here would be his last. There was something about the place that made his stomach turn, a discomfort not worth even the thick envelope of cash in his pocket. It was in the air, he decided, a stagnant and foul odor. The sort of embedded stench that might be imagined to rise from the bowels of a medieval castle. Whatever the source, he didn’t want to know.
As he was escorted down the long hallway back to the limo, turning left and right through confusing corridors and drawing the dead air into his lungs, Rafi suspected he knew exactly how those messengers had felt some eight hundred years ago.
* * *
Sanderson was awakened by an unfamiliar ringing noise. It took a few groggy seconds to realize that the bells were coming not from his head, but from his phone. He’d purchased and installed a new sim card last night, but had gone to bed before dealing with the settings. His phone had defaulted to its factory ringtone, not to mention its factory volume. It sounded like a fire alarm.
