“Yet the chance of failure is high. Escape would be difficult, and even if achieved the assassin would have to disappear completely. You would need a man who is—” Bloch stumbled for a moment, and when the answer fell he understood why he was here. He looked at Nurin with a piercing glare.

“There—you see it, Anton. What more perfect assassin than a man who is already dead.”

Nurin again went quiet, allowing Bloch to consider every aspect. In the interim, he produced a pack of cigarettes and selected one. He made no offer to Bloch, so Nurin knew he’d recently quit. The director lit up, took a deep pull, and exhaled a steady stream of smoke that was instantly carried away on the breeze.

“No,” Bloch said. “It would never work.”

“I disagree. He is perfect, Anton. His new life was facilitated by the Americans, but even they do not know his true background. Only three people in the world know what David Slaton once was. Two are seated on this bench. The third, of course, is immaterial. Slaton died one year ago—I can even show you a headstone in a quiet cemetery outside London. He does not exist. Not on paper, not in computers. Many years ago, Mossad made sure that his past was wiped clean. He became our most lethal kidon, an assassin who existed for years as no more than a shadow. Now that shadow itself has disappeared. He is an apparition, I tell you, as pure and absolute as can be.”

Bloch did not respond.

“More to the point, he is the most effective, lethal kidon we have ever created.”

Those words returned Bloch to an uncomfortable place, a long-buried sense of conflict. The appraisal of Slaton was more accurate than even Nurin could know. Still, Bloch had never decided whether Israel should find pride or shame in having created such a killer. What did it say about his country? What did it do to the man? “He is an assassin second to none, I grant you that. Or at least he was. But there is one overriding flaw in your plan, Director—he would never do it. He has a new life. No patriotic plea, no amount of money will pique his interest, I assure you.”

“He is still a Jew. We are his people.”

Bloch did not reply.

Nurin hunched forward on the bench and seemed to inspect the brown gravel. He took another long draw, then dropped his cigarette to the earth and crushed it under the heel of his nondescript Oxford.

“Anyway,” Bloch said, “what makes you think he would be more successful than the others?”

“Our internal security has been compromised, that much is clear. Slaton would operate outside the organization. He would report only to me, thus isolating the leak. The larger problem, the one that has vexed us all along, is that Hamedi remains in Iran. However, a singular opportunity has arisen.”