The Perfect Assassin (8 page)

Christine charged her lungs with a few last breaths of fresh air, then went below. He had set up the table between the two bunks, complete with placemats and the appropriate silverware. It looked as if he were entertaining, the only thing missing, a pair of candles in the center.

“Have a seat.” He made it sound more an invitation than a command.

Christine sat, and he dropped a plate in front of her. A big cheese omelet, the bacon she had smelled, toast, and the last of the fresh fruit. Christine tried to remember when she’d last eaten. She ought to be hungry, but her appetite was nonexistent.

He, on the other hand, slid in across the table with a plate of his own and attacked it with purpose. He shoveled in everything, quickly and mechanically, the knife and fork in constant motion. Nothing was held to the palate, no attempt to measure subtleties of taste or texture — it was instead the elementary process of adding fuel to a furnace nearing empty. He was practically done when he noticed she hadn’t touched her meal.

“What’s the matter? Am I that bad of a cook? Or are you afraid I’ve poisoned it?”

Christine looked at her plate. “No. It’s fine.” She nibbled on a strip of bacon. Perhaps taking the meal he’d prepared would add to whatever tenuous union she could form with this person — breaking the bread, one of those ancient human bonding things. Wasn’t that what the police always did in hostage situations? Order pizza for the terrorists? More importantly, Christine knew her body might need the energy. She didn’t know when or for what, but she had to be ready.

She finished ten minutes later. He took up her plate and replaced it with a cup of hot coffee.

“So,” he said, obviously with things on his mind, “I figure it’s about three days to Land’s End. Sound right?”

Christine had taken a good look at the chart earlier. “I’d say so. Where exactly will you be getting off?”

“I haven’t quite decided, but you’ll be the first to know. In a hurry to be rid of me?”

There was a hint of playfulness in the question. She went along. “Oh, no. Stay as long as you like. And next time bring some friends. I’m sure they’re a fun bunch.”

“Indeed they are.”

“If you brought enough of them, next time you could commandeer a freighter. Maybe even a cruise ship.”

Christine thought she actually saw his rough, chapped lips crack at the corners.

“Of the two, definitely the cruise ship,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because I’d hate to be forced into sleeping with my arm around some smelly old sea dog.”

“That
would
be disgusting.”

“Your protest is duly noted. But nothing changes.”

She sighed, and the man looked at her with something bordering on concern. “You know, you really look like you could use some sleep.”

Christine had to agree. Physically and emotionally she was drained. He started to clean up the galley.

“Go ahead. Lie down. I think I can handle the boat for now.”

She suspected he could handle it in a typhoon if he had to.

He finished cleaning and climbed up the stairs. “I’ll wake you if any-thing comes up.”

Christine looked longingly at her bunk and decided it was worth a try. She stretched out and her body was immediately grateful. Knotted, aching muscles began to loosen and relax. As wonderful as it felt, though, her thoughts were still a scramble of worrisome questions, as they’d been all day. How had she gotten into this mess, and when would it end? Three days from now in England? And
how
would it end? What would he really do with her? The only realistic answers were frightful. Christine pulled a blanket up to her chest, finding warmth and even a thin, laughable sense of security. The bunk was soft and she closed her eyes. Three days to England. Would she ever be able to sleep with him lurking around? That question danced lightly in her mind for a few moments, then was answered.

Chapter Four

It was called the War Room, the name an obvious choice for a place designed with exactly that in mind. The Israeli government had seen more than its share, and after the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, it commissioned the nation’s best and brightest structural engineers to design a complex that would harbor the country’s leadership through whatever dark days might lay ahead.

The engineers took to the task with relish and quickly identified an ideal site for the fortress, one which at the time, unfortunately, was occupied by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. The engineers made a compelling case for the location, based on geological stability, advantages of the existing structure and, most importantly, proximity to the Knesset. So it was announced, with great public fanfare, that a new headquarters would be built for the Ministry of Agriculture. The Ministry’s employees cheered the announcement, although some thought it suspicious since the old building had been renovated at great expense only a year earlier.

These doubts were quickly erased by way of a spreading rumor that the real reason for the move involved the original building’s foundation — it was suspect, and might collapse at any time. An engineering report surfaced, confirming that the rickety structure was indeed doomed to ruin. The place was boarded up and notices of condemnation were posted all around at street level. Ministry employees were given notice to clear out their personal possessions, and an entire department of government was temporarily relocated to a rented building on the outskirts of town.

Another engineering survey soon declared that the original structure was perhaps salvageable, but not without extensive modifications. Heavy equipment began to appear, ushering in a period of constant activity. Endless trains of vehicles passed through the lone construction entrance and disappeared into what used to be the basement parking garage. Huge earthmoving and digging machines crawled down into the bowels of the structure. Cement was brought in, dirt hauled out. It was nearly two years before the heavy equipment gave way to a procession of smaller vans and trucks. Contractors of all sorts set to work on plumbing, electrical, and ventilation jobs.

If anyone had been keeping track, a number of things would have been strangely obvious from the start — such as the fact that the volume of dirt hauled out could have filled a stadium. Or that more concrete was used in the “shore-up” than had been used to construct the entire building in the first place. Employees of the adjacent buildings were among the first to note these discrepancies. Six months into the project, at least one office, the claims department for a large insurance company whose third floor suite had a bird’s-eye view of the proceedings, had begun a pool to guess what was going on across the street. Among the speculative answers to the mystery were an underground military base, a bomb shelter, a gold mine, and a secret archaeological dig. An official winner of the pool was never declared, a fair result really, since all those answers held a fraction of the truth.

The War Room was on the lowest level of the refuge. Situated under a full two hundred feet of dirt and reinforced concrete, it could withstand any burrowing conventional weapon ever designed, and at least one direct hit from an air or ground burst nuclear device. Six independent air intakes were filtered for chemical, biological, and radiological contaminants. Three wells drew water directly from deep aquifers. Electrical power was taken from the grid above, backed up by two 1,750 kilowatt diesel generators. Fully staffed and provisioned, the fortress could be sealed off to operate independently for over a month.

Presently, the Prime Minister sat at the head of the War Room’s long meeting table. Directly behind him, a large Israeli flag sagged from its staff. It was 6:00 in the morning, and the thick smell of coffee permeated the air. Most of the men and women around the table looked sleep deprived, with the exception of Paul Mordechai who was trying to balance a pencil on his finger, and probably calculating the physical forces involved.

“We’ve found her,” Anton Bloch said.

He fiddled with a remote control until the large map of West Africa and the adjacent Atlantic Ocean was projected onto the wall behind him. It was the same map the Cabinet had been presented yesterday, only now the course lines were gone, replaced by a bold black
X
to mark
Polaris Venture
’s final resting place, a convention that made Jacobs feel as if he was looking at a pirate’s treasure map.

“We found her late yesterday. The EC-130 made four passes to confirm the location. It’s accurate to within a hundred meters.”

“Just how far off the coast is that?” General Gabriel asked.

“Two hundred and thirty miles west of Gibraltar.”

“That’s good at least,” Gabriel said. “Some of those crazies in North Africa think they can claim sovereignty all the way out to two hundred.”

Bloch continued, “The other good news is that she’s in over ten thousand feet of water. Unsalvageable, as we said yesterday, to all but a few major countries. And they’d have no interest.”

Zak asked, “What about survivors?”

“No one in the water could still be alive, it’s too cold. All the life rafts on board were equipped with radios. The EC-130 monitored 121.5 megahertz the whole time it was in the search area — that’s the international VHF distress frequency. Unfortunately, there were no contacts.” Bloch looked to General Gabriel for help.

“
Moledt
is on the way. She’s our fastest ship available, a Reshef class corvette,” Gabriel said. “
Moledt
cruises at thirty knots, so she should be on station the day after tomorrow.
Hanit
will be a half-day behind.” Heads around the room nodded, approving of the pointless formality. Jacobs listened grimly.

“They’ll keep a search running until we call it off,” Gabriel added in his confident, soldier’s voice.

Deputy Prime Minister Sonja Franks addressed the Director of Mossad. “Anton, what about the possibility of someone else finding survivors? Have our stations picked up anything?”

“No. But then, as we agreed, we’re not asking questions. It’s a passive order, listen only. Radio traffic, newspaper articles, gossip in the bars. It might take a few days for anything to turn up.”

Ariel Steiner picked up where he’d left off, shooting straight at the Prime Minister. “This is a fine mess. We’ve found the ship, but can’t be sure the weapons haven’t been hijacked.”

Jacobs was in no mood for it. “Ariel, you know damn well—”

“Gentlemen, please,” Zak interjected, becoming a referee between the two most powerful men in his country. Jacobs exchanged glares with the Labor Party man as he receded into his chair.

“Paul and I have given this some thought,” Bloch said. “We know the ship has gone down, so the only question is whether the weapons are still intact. We can find out.”

“I thought salvage was out of the question,” Sonja Franks remarked.

Paul Mordechai piped in, “We’re not talking about salvage. We’re talking about reconnaissance. I spent an hour with our Naval Systems people last night. What we need is a deep-water surveyor — a small robotic sub. It can go down to the wreck and determine if the weapons are still there.”

“Do we have something like that?” Steiner asked.

“No,” said Mordechai. “They’re used primarily for oceanographic research and working on oil rigs, that kind of thing. These machines aren’t cheap, but they are commercially available.”

“One of these gadgets can tell us whether the weapons have been hijacked?” Zak asked.

Bloch said, “Probably. When ships go down at the depths we’re talking about, it’s hard to say exactly what will happen. They can break apart, scatter over miles and miles of ocean floor. But if
Polaris Venture
was scuttled as we suspect, the charges were placed so she’d go down fast and in one piece. I think there’s a good chance we’ll find the weapons.”

“How long will this take?” Zak asked.

“Three or four days. Possibly longer if we can’t find the right equipment.”

Steiner threw his arms up in exasperation. “And in the meantime, two nukes might be on their way to our doorstep.”

“He’s right,” General Gabriel said. “If one of our enemies has taken them, could they be used right away? Aren’t there codes or something to arm them?”

Mordechai answered. “There
are
codes, and we have good reason to believe they’re secure. To use one of the weapons without them, the current arming and fusing system would have to be reprogrammed, or the whole device rebuilt. Either case would require highly skilled scientists. To reprogram you would also need the bomb’s technical design specifications. Without that, it would be easier to just take the thing apart and rebuild it with your own triggering device.”

“How can we be sure these codes are secure, given how things are in South Africa?” someone asked.

Mordechai grinned. “Because they’re not in South Africa. They’re on the bottom floor of this complex.”

The room was silent and nobody asked the obvious question. Bloch was compelled to explain, “As soon as
Polaris Venture
left Cape Town, General Van Ruut personally handed the codes over to my man, who brought them straight to us. We needed them to prepare the weapons for storage.”

The Prime Minister summed it up. “So it’s likely that these two weapons are sitting on the bottom of the ocean. If someone has taken them, but doesn’t have the codes, they’d need three or four weeks to make them usable — worst case. More likely months. We have enough time to take a look without going on high alert.”

“And if they are on the bottom of the ocean?” Deputy Prime Minister Franks asked.

“We leave them there,” Mordechai replied happily.

“Let’s get on it,” Jacobs said. He directed Paul Mordechai to quietly find an appropriate submersible, then turned to Bloch.

“Keep up the passive monitoring for any intelligence about the sinking or, God forbid, hijacking of
Polaris Venture.
”

The Prime Minister then reminded everyone of the extreme sensitivity of the situation. If they kept a tight lid, the whole thing would probably be a nonevent in a few weeks. The members of the Cabinet concurred.