Assassin's Silence: A David Slaton Novel (35 page)

“The storage closet had been emptied,” Slaton finished.

Nassoor nodded. “There was no money, of course. But I was so relieved that the canisters were gone—I didn’t even care.”

Slaton remembered the transfer of four hundred and fifty thousand dollars to a Beirut bank. Money that was likely now in Ben-Meir’s pocket. “You never saw who took the cannisters?”

“No, we only spoke by phone.” Nassoor crushed the remains of his cigarette into the dirt with a toe. “What do you think will happen?”

“To the material? I think it will be weaponized. You’ve already said it can be dispersed as an aerosol in an explosion.”

“Yes, it would be frightfully easy. Or as I said, cesium chloride is a highly soluble salt. It could be used to contaminate a water supply, or … or God knows what.”

Nassoor was visibly shaken, realizing his complicity in some impending catastrophe. One that could cost hundreds, even thousands of lives. “I was so relieved when I saw the empty closet,” he said reflectively. “It was as if a great burden had been lifted. I brought my family home only this morning thinking the nightmare was over. Then I realized you were following me. I didn’t know if you were here to give me four hundred and fifty thousand dollars, to arrest me, or … or worse. That is how it will always be. Tomorrow, the next day. Some of life’s missteps follow a man to the grave.”

Slaton said nothing.

With a half turn, Nassoor looked endearingly at his family. “My son, Ameer, he is a good boy. But he has many troubles. Very expensive troubles. In the West there is help for such things. But here…” He looked back at Slaton. “Would you have done differently?”

Slaton thought about this for some time. “I honestly don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never faced a choice like that.”

“What will you do with what I’ve told you?” Nassoor asked with the weight of a confession.

Slaton was unable to give absolution. “I’m going to do whatever it takes to find that material. And the people who took it.”

“Then I should tell you one more thing. Last night I spoke to one of my neighbors—she is a widow, a busybody who sees herself as the concierge of our building. She saw a black truck leave the garage yesterday—something rugged, for desert travel. Because it was not a resident’s vehicle—she knows them all by heart—she tried to see who was driving. It was a man. Not young, not old. He had a trimmed beard and wore glasses.”

Slaton nodded, quietly satisfied that he had tracked Ben-Meir so accurately. “Anything else? A license plate number? Writing on the truck?”

“Only one other thing,” Nassoor said. “She said the truck turned north, onto Armenia Boulevard. The driver would only do that if he was heading north, away from the city.”

“That’s helpful,” Slaton said, wishing for more.

“Do you think there is any chance the money will come?”

“I think you know the answer.”

Nassoor nodded, and after a long hesitation he asked, “What will become of us?” The inclusion of his family in the question lent it a tragic quality.

Slaton remained silent. He stood to leave, but then paused and looked solemnly at the slight physicist. “I don’t know, Moses. Really I don’t. But I wish you the best of luck.”

FIFTY

The winch cable was a thing of beauty. Ghazi had cut two ten-foot sections, then interlaced the braided-steel cable through a series of holes that Tuncay had drilled along the rim of each door. In the end it looked akin to a pair of industrial-grade shoelaces drawing the bomb bay-like doors together. After adjusting the tension twice to manipulate the gap, everything looked ready.

“All right,” Ghazi shouted. “Now!”

With a loud
clunk,
the uplocks released, and he watched the big doors droop ever so slightly. He quickly moved in and measured the gap at three intervals. “Yes, that is perfect. Less than two centimeters.”

Tuncay came down from the flight deck, and Ben-Meir was already there—the ever-surly Israeli had left his guard station in the hillside scrub for an early afternoon progress report. In the closed position the doors kept a tight seal, important for keeping leakage to a minimum, and when the release mechanism was activated they parted less than half an inch. Ghazi wondered if this would vary in flight under low pressure generated by the passing slipstream. Or would dynamic pressure perhaps push the doors upward? Without flight testing, there was no way to tell. There was also the question of how everything would perform under a load. He desperately wanted to fill the tank once with water for a wet test, but, according to Ben-Meir, the nearest spigot was four miles away.

“Very impressive,” said Tuncay.

“Yes, a wonder of modern engineering,” added Ben-Meir sarcastically. “But why are the agitators still not in place?”

“The agitators are next,” Ghazi replied.

“How long will it take to pump the water into the tank?”

“I estimate two hours. Then another hour to put the cesium into solution. That must be left until the very end, and once the process is complete no one can go near the drop tank.”

Even the ever-stoic Ben-Meir appeared unnerved, and Ghazi smiled inwardly. There were two kinds of people—the relative few who understood and respected radiation, and the majority who feared it irrationally. But then, that was what they were all counting on.

“Do you have protective gear?” Ben-Meir asked.

“Of course,” Ghazi replied, “and I have partially opened one of the canisters to validate my procedure.”

“What about you?” Tuncay asked Ben-Meir. “Have you spotted any threats?”

“Two boys and a goat walking to a nearby well,” he replied. “When they saw me coming with a gun they ran for the hills.”

Smart boys,
Ghazi thought. He said, “Everything will be ready by midnight.”

“Good,” said Ben-Meir. “Eight more hours—then you and I will have done our part. I’ll have you at a club in Beirut before sunrise, with whiskey pouring down your throat like a river.”

“You can have your whiskey,” Ghazi replied, irritated as ever by Ben-Meir’s goading. “Tomorrow morning I will be far from here. When the world becomes aware of our work, I want to be on the opposite side.”

“Don’t worry,” said Ben-Meir, “we’ve made sure the blame will fall elsewhere.” He strode away purposefully, ready to resume his watch over the hills.

Ghazi pulled one of the tank agitators from its crate—it looked like an anemic outboard motor with a flat-bladed propeller on one end. He sighed, and said to Tuncay, “When this began, I truly believed we could escape any consequences. None of us would have gotten involved otherwise. But now … I am not so sure.”

“Why?” asked a cautious Tuncay.

“You heard Ben-Meir this morning. Three of his men are dead. One in Malta and two in Switzerland. This assassin he talks about … this
kidon
 … he is formidable.”

“I’m not so sure,” Tuncay replied.

“Why?”

Tuncay cocked his head in a circumspect way. “We only have Ben-Meir’s word. Does it not strike you as convenient that the only member of our tactical team to survive is the token Israeli?”

Ghazi set aside the agitator. “You think he is colluding with the
kidon
?”

Tuncay looked cautiously to where Ben-Meir had disappeared into the scrub. “You are good at math. The smaller the divisor, the greater the profit for those who remain. I say the assassin has had help. Never forget—they are both Jews. You and I talked about this once, the first time we met. We wondered if there could be more than seven in the group.”

“You think he is the eighth? This
kidon
?”

The pilot shrugged. “Who can say? But on that first meeting I heard Ben-Meir take a phone call. He was outside on a balcony, thinking he was alone.”

“What was said?”

“That is my point—I don’t know because he was speaking Hebrew.”

“
Hebrew?
You are sure?”

“I know enough to recognize it.”

“He might have been talking to family, his banker, even a mistress.”

“All I will say is this, my friend. When you drive south with Ben-Meir toward Beirut tonight, make sure you do not fall asleep. You might wake to find yourself in Tel Aviv—if you wake at all.”

Ghazi shook his head. “No, you are wrong. If I know anything, it is that Israel has no part in this.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because the equipment you see here—the lead, the agitators, the special pumps—it all came from Iran.”

A stunned Tuncay looked questioningly at the chemist.

“I was there,” Ghazi said. “Nighttime deliveries in the marshes outside Basrah. I can’t say exactly who is involved, but this equipment definitely came from Iran.”

Neither man said anything for a time, and Ghazi went back to unpacking the machinery. In the silence his thoughts swirled. An Iraqi chemist, pilots from Turkey and Syria, an Israeli who hires thugs from eastern Europe—he didn’t even know their nationality, may God have mercy on their souls. It was as disparate a group as could be imagined, which was probably why they’d so far gone undetected by Western intelligence agencies. But Iran? It had been in the back of his mind, ever since his first visit to the marshes of Haziweh. Could there be such a silent partner, one known only to Ben-Meir? He said in a half-whisper, “I don’t know who has dreamed up this madness. All I can tell you is that it will end soon.”

“Yes,” Tuncay agreed, casting a wary eye toward the fifty-two canisters stacked nearby. “A few more hours. What could go wrong?”

*   *   *

Davis found Sorensen alone in a small conference room near the Operations Center. The look he got upon entering was not an endearing one.

“Look,” he began, “I’m sorry.”

“You made me look like a fool in front of the director! Coltrane thinks—”

“Stop right there, Anna! He’s impressed with your work, but you sidestepped me. I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on.”

After the two exchanged a long stare, it was Sorensen who relented. “All right, we don’t have time for this. I should have kept you up to speed.”

“Yeah, well … I screwed up too.”

“How?”

He told her about the respirator he’d seen in the wreckage. “I should have looked into it. I just talked again to the guy running the show in Brazil. They found empty paint buckets in a pile of trash, and a number of airport workers saw the jet getting repainted. It’s no longer dark blue on top. It’s an off-white now, like half the airplanes in the world—apparently light colored jets save money because they require less cooling on the ground. This is definitely going to make our search harder.”

“But at least we’ll be looking for the right color airplane.”

“Assuming they haven’t painted it again.”

She frowned, but refrained from calling him a pessimist. “All right, I’ll order the changes to our search parameters.”

“You can forget about the registration number too.”

“Registration number?”

“It used to be CB68H, but there was a small bucket of black paint in the same trash pile. I’m guessing they altered the tail number. It could be anything now.”

FIFTY-ONE

Slaton departed Geitawi Hospital and walked westward at a brisk pace, sweat gripping the back of his shirt. As he strode past mosques and churches, townhomes and tenements, Dr. Moses Nassoor dominated his thoughts. Physicist? Father? Terrorist? Perhaps a bit of all three. He was not a patently evil man, nor a virtuous one. Nassoor was part of the other 98 percent, the greater herd whose lives were so casually shredded by the Hezbollahs and Mossads of the world.

Slaton covered two miles before reaching an establishment that would provide everything he needed. He walked into the Beirut Four Seasons Hotel, a predictably lavish property fronting the city’s main yacht basin. At the lobby entrance he paused at a pedestal and scanned the schedule of events taking place in the interior conference rooms: a meeting of Lebanese school headmasters, a free lunch-and-lecture sales pitch on how to invest in real estate in Lebanon, and, in perhaps the most damning compass of where the country was headed, a conference for representatives of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Wealth Management—Middle East Division. Slaton pressed ahead to search for an opening.

He found her sitting near Ballroom One: unnaturally blond hair and legs crossed stylishly, a shoe dangling off one heel. Her name tag said V
ANESSA
. She was gatekeeping behind a table with the Morgan Stanley logo, arrayed on which were stacks of brochures, complimentary pens, and a small tablet computer. Above all that—an uncommonly engaging smile. Vanessa was thirty, well-coiffed, and impeccably dressed, trying hard to look attractive and for the most part succeeding.

If there was a discontinuity in Slaton’s approach, it was that he wasn’t wearing a business suit. Outside mission requirements, he rarely reflected upon matters of grooming or style. Christine had occasionally fought the good fight, suggesting he try a coordinated tie or a splash of cologne, and perhaps there was a part of him that wondered
what if?
If so, it was a very small part, and one he easily ignored. James Bond could have his tuxedos. Bona fide assassins were nothing if not pragmatic, dressing in every situation for utility. When their appearance became incompatible with an op, they fell back on their second most reliable attribute. They lied convincingly.

He said in French, “I hope you can rescue me.”

“Certainly, monsieur,” replied Vanessa through chemically whitened teeth. “What is the problem?”

“I’ve just arrived for the meeting. My flight was terribly late and the imbeciles have lost my luggage. I have no registration information—it was all on my computer. And to make the day complete, my mobile has gone dead.”

The woman smiled sympathetically, and began referencing a printout of names in front of her, one that Slaton was already reading inverted—a silly parlor trick that came in surprisingly useful.

“The name is Winterbourne,” he said.

“Of course.” She placed a check next to the name. “You were actually scheduled to attend tomorrow’s presentation.”