Assassin's Dawn

by Ward Larsen

  Slaton was confident Anna would give them nothing during questioning. At least, nothing that wasn’t misdirection. He guessed that detectives would draw a line between the two locations they could place her—last night in the City of Luxembourg, and today on the Belgian border—and extrapolate that line into Belgium. From there they would focus on big cities, most likely Liège and Brussels. Which was all fine with Slaton, because he wouldn’t be in either. He wouldn’t even be in Belgium.

  His reasons were twofold. The most obvious was guilt—he regretted leaving Anna behind. He told himself he would have gone back for any team member, and it might have been true. Either way, he wasn’t going to rest easy until she was on a flight home.

  The second reason was even more compelling. According to Bloch, Ramzi Tayeb had arrived in the City of Luxembourg last night. Slaton had been trying for years to get a lead on the man, and the idea that he was close steered him like a great magnet. He had no idea if Bloch’s lead was accurate. If it was, might Ramzi still be there? And if so, could Slaton find him? In the end, the questions were irrelevant. With or without Mossad’s help, he was damned well going to try.

  Until this moment, Slaton had committed no serious crimes. He’d entered the country using a false identity, broken into a hotel room last night to hack a computer. If the Luxembourg police were looking for him at all, it wouldn’t be any great manhunt. Their dragnet would also be widening, following the perfectly reasonable assumption that he’d fled across the border. Which in fact he had, if no more than a few hundred meters. For all those reasons, he was looking at a low-threat environment. Major airports in Belgium might be a problem; so, too, train stations. But a bicyclist peddling back toward the City of Luxembourg?

  That wouldn’t be on anyone’s radar.

  The jacket he’d been wearing earlier was folded neatly into one saddlebag. Wearing his new weatherproof jacket, dark glasses, and helmet, he bore little resemblance to the man who’d gone inside a nearby convenience store an hour ago.

  Slaton set out straight for the bridge, and crossed the Sûre for the second time that day. He came within a block of the gas station and saw no police cars. Half a mile later, he veered onto a dirt and gravel bike trail that would take him back the way he’d come: a twisting easterly path that ghosted deep into the shadows of the Ardennes.

  * * *

  On arriving at police headquarters, centered in the City of Luxembourg, Anna was hustled directly to an interrogation room. It was a dank and fetid place, designed for discomfort. There were three chairs, none of which had padding, and the metal table between them was bolted to the floor. The temperature was ten degrees warmer than the rest of the building and the cleaning staff seemed to have lost their key. The stench of sweat and fear permeated the air. It all delivered a subliminal message with the subtlety of a sledgehammer: this was a fork in the procedural road. One path led to freedom, the other to far darker places. Fortunately for Anna, she had little time to brood over it.

  She was alone for less than a minute when a detective walked in.

  He introduced himself as Chief Inspector Jean-Claude Bausch. He was dour and imposing, with a beefy build and a walrus mustache that hung like an awning over his bloated lips. His suit was frayed, his shoes beaten, and he moved with the air of a plodder. Anna had been told why she was being detained, although there were no formal charges yet: she’d been seen last night at Le Cristal in the company of a man who’d been murdered.

  She was innocent of that crime, but needed to prove it without implicating herself and the others. The car ride to town had taken nearly an hour in traffic, and she’d used the time to prepare for an interrogation. The first thing she accepted: there was no hope of denying proximity to Moussa Tayeb. Too many witnesses. Her bruised eye could be construed as a motive, although a thin one. The gun they’d found in her purse wasn’t the murder weapon, but it was suggestive, and also not licensed. That gave the police a pretext to hold her.

  Bausch set a manila folder on the table, squared it with his fingertips. He looked like a pianist about to perform a difficult passage. Somewhere in the background the heating system coughed to life, a bump of humid air. Bausch began with the mundane, defaulting to English, his voice that of a headmaster addressing a recidivist troublemaker. Name, home country, reason for visiting Luxembourg. Anna kept perfectly to her legend. She was Sophie Bauer of Austria.

  Their back-and-forth progressed and soon fell into an awkward pattern. Anna responded to questions she could answer truthfully. The rest she ignored. Her hands, still surprisingly restrained by a pair of metal cuffs, rested lightly on the table.

  Bausch was commendably steady, no frustration showing. Anna suspected otherwise.

  After keeping to the mundane for a time, he struck with a bolt from the blue. “Do you always travel with a gun?” It was the same tactic used by lie detector operators. Easy … easy … kill shot.

  She didn’t hesitate. “Usually, yes.”

  “Why?”

  “For protection.”

  “Do you have a permit to carry one here?”

  “You know I don’t.”

  A pause. “Were you at the bar at Hotel Le Cristal last night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Silence.

  Bausch pulled a photo from a file folder. It was a picture of Moussa Tayeb, probably taken from his passport. “Have you ever seen this man?”

  “Yes, last night in the lounge.”

  “Did you speak to him?”

  “Yes.”

  “About what?”

  Silence.

  Bausch feigned patience. “At approximately twelve thirty a.m., did you leave with him?”

  “I did.”

  “Why?”

  “I thought he was cute.”

  Bausch stared at her.

  Anna sensed a mistake. It was one thing to put the man off his game, but antagonizing him was not in her best interest.

  “Where did you go?” he asked.

  “To his room.”

  “Were you going to sleep with him?”

  “Certainly not.”

  A frown. “Was he going to give you money?”

  “No.”

  “How much?”

  “I said no.”

  “Did you go inside his room?”

  Silence.

  Bausch stopped there. He leaned back from the scarred table, pinched the bridge of his nose.

  Anna looked at him almost sympathetically. “Inspector, I know this must be difficult for you. Please trust me when I say … all will soon become clear.”

  He straightened in his chair. His face—in particular, his eyes—went to something severe, a coal-black stare that was not part of any act.

  “Do you understand the gravity of your situation?”

  She didn’t reply.

  Veins bulged in his neck and his knuckles went white from lack of blood. She could sense his rage building, in his posture, riding the air. The interview probably wasn’t going as he’d hoped, but his reaction seemed extreme.

  Bausch stood and walked toward the door. He paused just short and looked up at the ceiling. Anna was wondering what he was thinking when she noticed marks above the door jamb, a small square of chipped paint and plaster where something had been removed. Only later would she understand its significance: this was the only interrogation room in the building without a camera.

  Bausch turned and came back to the table. He didn’t sit down.

  Out of nowhere he lashed out and struck her on her already blackened temple.

  14

  Anna nearly fell to the floor, but managed to stay in her chair. She was stunned—not by the severity of the blow, but by the simple fact that it had come. Luxembourg was no third world backwater, not a place where thugs masquerading as police officers beat confessions out of people. This was a European democracy, a place with rule of law, with principles.

  Yet even the best of nations, she knew, had their
rogue cops. It was the only answer Anna could come up with, and it made her choice a simple one. Astonished as she was, she knew how to handle the situation.

  Bausch’s face was a mask of anger. “I know you killed him,” he hissed. “The question is, who do you work for?”

  Her face collapsed into a well-considered front: shock and fear, tears welling.

  He raised his right hand, threatening another blow. “There was a man with you at the travel station. Who is he?”

  She shook her head pitifully. “What man?”

  The hand began to descend again, but this time Anna was ready. She snapped her head back in the last instant, and at the same time widened her stance. One of the basic tenets of Krav Maga is to improvise anything available as a weapon. To that end, her wrists were curled apart to tighten the metal cuffs. As soon as Bausch’s hand swept past in a harmless rush of air, she sprang up, rotated her shoulders, and sent her manacles crashing into his big nose. The steel cuffs and chain dug deep into his flesh and Bausch reeled back. Anna leapt to her feet, and as the policeman stood dazed, clutching his torn face, she kneed him in the crotch.

  He doubled over and retched, staggering toward the wall. It might have been enough, but being in no mood for half measures, and with perhaps a trace of malice, Anna struck one last blow. With her cuffed hands behind his neck, she brought a knee hard into the side of his head. Bausch crumpled against the wall.

  Anna checked her wrists—the first blow with the cuffs had broken the skin on one side. A small cut, but useful. She expressed as much blood as she could by manipulating her hands, then brought it up and wiped it on her face and bruised cheek. She then reached up to the lapel of her blouse and tugged until the top button gave way, revealing the top seam of her bra.

  With Bausch groaning and semiconscious, she went to the door. Once more Anna reverted to the role of a slightly built, defenseless girl, and began pounding frantically on the heavy wood. “Help!” she screamed, “Rape! Help me …!”

  * * *

  In Tel Aviv, Anton Bloch was searching for clarity.

  He was sure that by now the Grand Duchy Police had obtained Hotel Le Cristal’s security camera footage. They would quickly realize they were looking at hours of worthless looped footage. His own analysts at Unit 8200 had been studying the true, diverted feeds for hours. They concentrated on one particular camera, mounted precipitously above the guest elevator, that recorded every passage in the fifth-floor hallway.

  The lead analyst presented his group’s findings to Bloch in a small conference room, referencing a computer tied to Mossad’s secure internal network.

  It began well.

  Bloch watched a gray-scale view of Moussa Tayeb and Anna arriving in a swirl of grabbing hands and lurching evasions—he looked exceedingly drunk, she sober and animated. After pausing to unlock the door, Moussa disappeared inside. Anna remained at the threshold, and Bloch tried to imagine her thoughts: her part in the scheme had been to give Slaton as much time as possible to infiltrate the room, wire up the laptop, and get clear. That role reached an end at Moussa’s door. Having done all she could, it was time to retreat—yet she needed to do it without raising suspicion.

  Then everything went sideways.

  In a blur of grappling arms, Anna was dragged into the room by her inebriated mark. The door remained open, and Bloch’s eyes went to the clock in the screen’s corner. Ten seconds passed. Twenty. Slightly short of the thirty-second mark, Anna burst back into the hall. She ran not toward the elevator, but for the stairs at the far end of the hall. Good girl, Bloch thought. A quicker exit. No getting cornered while you wait for the elevator. And on the stairs, you can easily outpace a drunk.

  Moussa appeared moments later. He peered outside, up and down the hall. One hand was on the door jamb for support, the other on his bloody nose. He disappeared, slamming the door shut.

  “There’s nothing significant for another thirty minutes,” the analyst said.

  He ran the clip forward, and the next thing Bloch saw was Slaton emerging from the room. He looked casual, a man heading downstairs for a nightcap. He closed the door softly, then turned toward the stairwell. So far, everything Bloch was seeing fit the version of events in Slaton’s report.

  “The next activity comes twelve minutes later,” said the Unit 8200 man. “That’s where we run into a problem.”

  There it was again, Bloch thought. A problem. He watched closely as the video ran. The hall was empty, then seemingly out of nowhere a dark blob appeared and the screen went black. The operator stopped the playback.

  “What happened?” Bloch asked.

  “It’s hard to say exactly. We’ve looked at it closely, and clearly someone obscured the camera lens. We think it might have been black spray-paint. It’s still obscured as we speak, probably permanently, and I’m sure the police have figured it out.”

  Bloch’s thoughts went to sea as he imagined who might sabotage the camera. The possibilities seemed endless.

  “One other thing,” the analyst said. “The system we gave Slaton to access Moussa’s room—it gives us notice when anyone unlocks the door. Less than a minute after the camera blanked out, someone did.”

  “Did they use a hotel key?”

  “No way to tell—we only know the lock activated.”

  “So it appears someone blocked the camera lens, then entered his room moments later.”

  “Essentially, yes.”

  Bloch considered it. “Did the other hotel cameras capture anyone coming or going around the same time?”

  “As far as we can tell, no. But the network is very basic. A decent operator would have no trouble getting in and out without being seen. We never saw Slaton come or go, other than in the hallway outside Moussa’s room.”

  “All right,” the director said. “Keep looking for anything on Ramzi. He is the priority.”

  Bloch was disappointed, sensing a missed chance. Video of someone entering Moussa’s room would have gone a long way toward clearing Anna. The camera, no doubt, had been obscured by the real murderer. He got up and headed for the door wondering what else could go wrong.

  * * *

  Owing to its small size, Luxembourg has never warranted a standing consulate from the state of Israel. On that day, it was just as well. What needed to be said was better left outside diplomatic channels.

  The Israeli foreign minister requested a one-on-one call with his counterpart in Luxembourg. The secure connection was consummated at two o’clock that afternoon—on the Luxembourg end, in a top-floor office of the tidy beige Mansfeld Building, home to the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

  The Israeli minister made a persuasive case that the woman being detained at police headquarters had nothing to do with the death of Moussa Tayeb. To prove the point, a video was forwarded in which the girl could be seen leaving the room in question. Moments later, Moussa Tayeb appeared briefly, very much alive. Left unaddressed was how Israel had come into possession of security footage from Hotel Le Cristal while the Grand Duchy’s own police were empty-handed.

  The Israeli minister confessed that the woman, whose true name was immaterial, was an Israeli national. He also claimed she’d been tangentially involved in a Mossad operation, the target of which was a large-scale terror funding scheme based out of Luxembourg. This served as both an admission of guilt and an accusation; it conceded Israel’s involvement, but also raised the specter that Luxembourg was once again running afoul of E.U. financial laws by facilitating the funding of terrorism.

  At the end, the Israeli suggested that a quiet resolution might be in the best interest of both countries. Pending the release of the woman, Israel would share information regarding the illicit financial transactions, allowing Luxembourg to clean things up internally.

  The Duchy’s foreign minister diligently took notes. There would be gnashing all around, and he would have to run it by the prime minister, yet he had no doubt what the final decision would be. Having long been under the watc
hful eye of world banking authorities, Luxembourg had spent years cleaning up its act. The last thing the country needed was a disclosure of new black-money ties to terrorism. Conversely, the government very much wanted to retain its reputation as a haven for the far more lucrative “gray market” transactions. It was a fine line to hew, and the key, as it always had been, was discretion. If that meant today releasing a woman from custody—who was likely innocent—it seemed a small price to pay.

  The deal was sealed within the hour.

  On the Luxembourg side, orders flowed downhill like a minor avalanche, landing, as such dictates typically did, on the shoulders of one high-ranking policeman.

  15

  Slaton arrived in Luxembourg’s Old City shortly after three that afternoon, coasting through a few final turns along the riverside trail. The air was cool, yet in spite of it, he was perspiring from the long ride. The skies had gone gray and a light drizzle was falling.

  The city was busy at midafternoon, the white-noise din of traffic compounding the visual blur. People, cars, buses, everyone rushed and purposeful. Slaton was a contrast as he coasted to a stop at the edge of a west bank park. He stood still and watchful, balanced on the bike’s saddle while sipping from a water bottle. He had no reason to expect trouble, but the very thought that Ramzi Tayeb could be here, somewhere in this city, raised his alertness to an unprecedented level.

  He dismounted and used the lock he’d purchased to secure his bike to a light pole, then detached one removable saddlebag and looped the strap over his shoulder. He doubted he would need the bike again, but leaving it here, in the center of town, gave an escape option going forward. He switched to his heavier jacket, in part to counter the building rain, but also because the SIG was in its right-hand pocket. He left the helmet on the bike’s handlebars, not caring if it disappeared.