The Mark of the Assassin (32 page)
27
NEW YORK
The in vitro fertilization program at Cornell Medical Center had an assembly-line quality that reminded Elizabeth of the criminal courts in any big city. She sat on the scratched wooden bench in the hall outside the procedure room, surrounded by other patients, as technicians moved silently about, gowned and masked. Only Elizabeth was alone. The other four women had husbands clutching their hands, and they eyed Elizabeth as if she were some spinster who had decided to have a child with the borrowed sperm of her best friend’s husband. She consciously held her left hand beneath her chin to reveal her wedding band and two-carat diamond engagement ring. She wondered what the other women were thinking. Was her husband late? Was she recently separated? Was he too busy to be with her at a time like this?
Elizabeth felt her eyes begin to tear. She was using every ounce of self-control in her possession to keep from crying. The double doors of the procedure room opened. Two technicians wheeled out a sedated woman on a gurney. Another was wheeled inside from the changing room nearby to take her place on the table. Her husband was dispatched to a small dark room with plastic cups and
Playboy
magazines.
Playboy
magazines.
A small television hung on the wall, silently tuned to CNN. The screen showed a live shot of a smoking ferry in the English Channel. No, Elizabeth thought, it’s not possible. She stood up, walked over to the television, and increased the volume.
“. . . Seven people killed. . . . Appears to be the work of the Islamic terror group known as the Sword of Gaza. . . . Second attack in two days. . . . Believed responsible for yesterday’s deadly terror attack at London’s Heathrow Airport. . . .”
She thought, My God, this can’t be happening!
She went back to her spot on the bench and dug inside her handbag for her cell phone and her telephone book. Michael had given her a special number to be used only in extreme emergencies. She tore through the pages, feeling the stares of the other patients, and found the number.
She dialed, punching the keypad of the phone violently, as she walked to a private spot on the stairwell. After one ring a calm male voice said, “May I help you?”
“My name is Elizabeth Osbourne. My husband is Michael Osbourne.”
She could hear the rattle of a computer keyboard over the line.
“How did you get this number?” the voice asked.
“Michael gave it to me.”
“What can I do for you?”
“I want to speak to my husband.”
“Your telephone number, please.”
Elizabeth gave him the number for the cell phone, and she could hear the keyboard rattling again.
“Someone will be calling you.”
One of the technicians appeared in the stairwell and said, “You’re next, Mrs. Osbourne. We need you inside now.”
Elizabeth said to the man on the phone, “I want to know if he was on that ferry in the Channel.”
“Someone will be calling you,” the voice said again, maddening in its lack of emotion. It was like talking to a machine.
“Dammit, answer me! Was he on that boat?”
“Someone will be calling you,” he repeated.
The technician said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Osbourne, but you really need to come inside now.”
“Are you saying he’s on that boat?”
“Please hang up now and keep this telephone free.”
Then the line went dead.
A nurse showed Elizabeth to a small changing room and gave her a sterile gown. Elizabeth was clutching the cell phone in her hand. The nurse said, “I’m afraid you’ll have to leave that here.”
“I can’t,” Elizabeth said. “I’m expecting a very important call.”
The nurse looked at her incredulously. “I’ve seen a lot of Type-A women in this program, Mrs. Osbourne, but you certainly take the cake. You’re having surgery in there. It’s not a time for making business calls.”
“It’s not a business call. It’s an emergency.”
“It doesn’t matter. In three minutes you’re going to be sleeping like a baby.”
Elizabeth changed into the gown.
Ring, dammit. Ring!
Ring, dammit. Ring!
She climbed onto the gurney, and the nurse wheeled her into the operating room. The surgical team was waiting. Her doctor’s mask was lowered and he was smiling pleasantly.
“You look a little nervous, Elizabeth. Everything all right?”
“I’m fine, Dr. Melman.”
“Good. Why don’t we get started then?”
He nodded at the anesthesiologist, and a few seconds later Elizabeth felt herself drifting into a pleasant sleep.
28
CALAIS, FRANCE
The port burned with blue and red emergency lights as the ferry approached the French coast. Michael stood on the bridge, surrounded by the captain and his senior officers, smoking one cigarette after the next, watching the coastline draw nearer. He was alternately freezing cold and sweltering hot. His chest hurt like hell, as though someone very strong had punched him twice. Graham Seymour was on the other side of the bridge, surrounded by his own group of crew members. They were vaguely in custody. Michael had told the captain he and Graham were from U.S. and British law enforcement and that someone from London would meet the ferry in Calais and explain everything. The captain was dubious, as Michael would be in his place.
Michael closed his eyes, and the whole thing played out again. He saw it as news footage, with himself as an actor on a stage. He saw the gunman approaching and Odette scrambling for her weapon, eyes wild. The man with the balaclava and the gun was not from the Sword of Gaza, and Muhammad Awad had not been the target. Michael was the target. Awad was just in the way.
He closed his eyes once more and pictured the two men on the motor yacht. Slowly, their faces grew clearer, as if he were focusing on them with the long-range lens of a surveillance camera. He saw the men firing at him from the stern deck. He had the annoying feeling he had seen them in passing somewhere before—a restaurant or a cocktail party or the chemist shop in Oxford Street. Or was it a petrol station on the M40 in Oxfordshire, pretending to put air in the rear tire of a white Ford minivan?>
The ferry landed at Calais. Michael and Seymour were shepherded past the news crews and shouting reporters to an office inside the terminal. Wheaton and a dozen Agency and diplomatic officers were waiting. They had flown from London by helicopter, courtesy of the Royal Navy.
“Who in God’s name is this?” Wheaton asked, looking at Graham, who had forsaken his guitar case but still looked like an aging student in his jeans and Venice Beach sweatshirt.
Seymour smiled and stuck out his hand. “Graham Seymour, SIS.”
“Graham who and what?” Wheaton asked incredulously.
“You heard him right,” Michael said. “He’s a friend of mine. By coincidence he was on the ferry.”
“Bullshit!”
“Well, it was worth a try, Michael,” Graham said.
“Start talking, now!”
“Fuck you,” Michael said, pulling off his sweater to reveal the pair of rounds embedded in his vest. “Why don’t we go back to London and do the debrief there?” he said, calmer now.
“Because the French want a go at you first.”
“Oh, Christ,” Graham said. “I can’t talk to the bloody Frogs.”
“Well, since you’ve just landed in their jurisdiction, I suppose you’ll have to.”
Michael said, “What are we going to tell them?”
“The truth,” Wheaton said. “And we’ll just pray that they have the good sense to keep their fucking mouths shut.”
In New York Elizabeth lay sleeping in the recovery room when her cellular phone chirped softly. A nurse stepped forward and was about to shut off the power when Elizabeth awakened and said, “No, wait.”
She pressed it to her ear, eyes closed, and said, “Hello.”
“Elizabeth?” the voice said. “Is this Elizabeth Osbourne?”
“Yes,” she croaked, voice thick with anesthesia.
“It’s Adrian Carter.”
“Adrian, where is he?”
“He’s fine. He’s on his way back to London now.”
“
Back
to London? Where has he been?”
Back
to London? Where has he been?”
There was only silence on the line. Elizabeth was fully awake now.
She said, “Goddammit, Adrian, was he on that ferry?”
Carter hesitated, then said, “Yes, Elizabeth. He was there on a job, and something went wrong. We’ll know more when he gets back to the London embassy.”
“Was he hurt?”
“He’s fine.”
“Thank God.”
“I’ll call you when I know more.”
The chopper touched down at dusk on a Thameside helipad in East London. Two embassy cars were waiting. Wheaton and Michael rode in the first, Wheaton’s drones in the second. They turned onto the Vauxhall Bridge, past the ugly modern building that served as the headquarters for MI6. Michael thought, So much for George Smiley’s veiled redbrick lair at Cambridge Circus. Now, headquarters of the Service had actually made a cameo appearance in a James Bond movie.
“Your friend Graham Seymour is going to get a rough reception in that building in a few minutes,” Wheaton said. “I spoke to the Director-General from Calais. Needless to say, he’s not pleased. He also gave me a piece of news that will have to wait until we’re behind closed doors.”
Michael ignored the remark. Wheaton always seemed to take too much pleasure at the professional misfortune of colleagues. He had come up through the Soviet directorate, when Michael’s father was senior staff at Langley, and had worked overseas in Istanbul and Rome. His job was to recruit KGB officers and Soviet diplomats, but he proved so inept he quickly received a series of dismal fitness reports, one written by Michael’s father. Wheaton was transferred to headquarters, where he thrived in the backstabbing, patrician atmosphere of Langley. Michael knew Wheaton resented him because of his father, even though the lousy fitness report probably ended up saving his career.
They arrived in Grosvenor Square. Wheaton and Michael entered the embassy side by side, Wheaton’s men following. Michael had the strange feeling of being under arrest. Wheaton went straight to the secure tele-conference room. Carter and Monica Tyler appeared on the screen as Wheaton and Michael sat down in plush black-leather chairs.
“I’m glad to see you’re all right, Michael,” Monica said. “You’ve had a remarkably harrowing couple of days. We have a lot of ground to cover, so let’s begin with the obvious question. What went wrong?”
For ten minutes Michael carefully recounted what happened on the ferry: Awad, the Palestinian girl named Odette, the motor yacht, and the gunman. He described the shooting, the bullets passing through Awad’s body into his vest. He described the explosion, and how the men on the boat provided covering fire for the gunman’s escape. Finally, he described the last battle with Odette, and how Graham Seymour shot her to death.
“What was Graham Seymour, an officer from MI-Six, doing on that boat in the first place?”
Michael knew he could gain little at this point by lying. “He’s a friend. I’ve known him a very long time. I wanted someone watching my back I could trust.”
“That’s beside the point,” Monica said, with practiced impatience. Monica, as a rule, disliked field operations and the officers who carried them out. “You included an officer from the service of another country without the approval of your superiors at headquarters.”
“He works for the British, not the Iranians. And if he hadn’t been there, I’d be dead right now.”
Monica pulled a frown of irritation that made clear she would not be swayed by arguments based on emotion. “If you were so concerned about your security,” she said tonelessly, “you should have requested backup from us.”
“I didn’t want to go in there with some heavy squad that Awad and his team could make a mile away.” That was only part of the truth; he wanted as few people as possible from London and headquarters involved in the operation. He had worked in the field, and he had worked at headquarters, and he knew Langley leaked like a sieve.
“It sounds as though Awad and his team identified your good friend Graham Seymour,” Monica said contemptuously.
“Why would you assume that?” Michael asked. Wheaton fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat and Carter, four thousand miles away in Langley, did the same thing. Monica Tyler did not take well to questions from staff; even rather senior officers like Michael. She had the certainty of conviction that is an unfortunate by-product of innocence.
“Why else did one of their gunman attempt to kill you? And why else would Awad set off a bomb strapped to his body?”
“You’re assuming the gunman was Sword of Gaza. I think that assumption is wrong. The shooter made no attempt to spare Awad’s life. He tried to kill me by killing Awad first. The woman was standing behind me the entire time. If they wanted me dead, she could have done it, and I would have never known what hit me. And when the shooting started, she went after the gunman first, not me.”
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