Sanderson confessed, telling her about the three-way encounter on the jetty, Hamedi’s confession and the assassin’s plan.

“You can’t be serious,” she said when he was done.

“All I had to do was pretend to shoot the man.”

“So this Israeli killer—he’s still alive?”

Sanderson looked away, clearly perplexed. He mused aloud, “When I was standing on that bridge, facing the two of them—I wasn’t well. I had a terrible pain in my head, fine motor issues. I wasn’t thinking clearly. It couldn’t have been a more simple task. All I had to do was point the gun at the man and miss, then he was to go over the rail. But my vision—”

“Your vision?”

“At the last moment I remember seeing double. There were two of him, and I was terribly confused and dizzy. You see, I’m not sure, but … I fear I may have shot him after all.”

She held his hand for a long moment, then reached over and kissed his cheek. “Is there anything I can do?”

“No, you’ve been wonderful as always. Thank you.”

“Take care of yourself, Arne.”

“I will. And you take care of Alfred.”

Minutes later Sanderson was inside and had the teakettle on the stove. He turned on the furnace, then went around the house and cracked windows open to clear the stagnant air that had built in his absence. On the kitchen counter he lined up enough pill bottles to start his own pharmacy, and finally settled into his best chair. He turned on the television and quickly found a news broadcast. The banner at the bottom told him all he needed to know. BREAKING NEWS: NUCLEAR BLAST DETECTED IN CENTRAL IRAN. GOVERNMENT SILENT AS TO CAUSE. The commentator speculated, because that was all he could do. Sanderson registered none of it. Instead, he weighed the evidence himself, having a good bit more to work with. He sat very still, sifting and making deductions, applying the events of today to what he remembered from Geneva.

The teakettle began whistling three minutes later, and by that time, as he stood gingerly and went into the warming kitchen, Arne Sanderson had a broad smile on his face.

Chapter 59

FIFTY-NINE

Ten months later
Dingli, Malta

Anton Bloch walked gingerly across a wide cobbled street, the uneven brickwork a test to his faltering gait. His long rehabilitation had gone well enough, but he still lacked the strength he’d once had, and the half-mile walk up a steep hill, in the heat of a Mediterranean August, was more than he’d bargained for.