Nurin did not reply right away.

“Dammit! What’s going on here? Where is my wife?”

“Your wife is safe,” Nurin said.

There was a lengthy pause as Slaton interpreted. Your wife is safe. Four simple words, but the implication was stunning. His world, so long predictable, seemed to invert. All that was known became unknown. All that was controlled became uncontrolled.

“Are you telling me Mossad has taken Christine?”

“She is safe.”

“Safe? You put her in the middle of a goddamn firefight. Christine ran through traffic and threw herself into a boat.”

“None of that was planned.”

“And what was planned? Mossad is branching out into kidnapping and extortion? If that’s your new organization, Director, I’m glad I left.”

“Actually, David, that is my point. You can never leave. Not with your background. You will always be what we trained you to be.”

Slaton felt anger welling. “Is that the point of all this? You want me back? For what?”

Nurin answered with silence.

Still focused on the man across the table, Slaton said, “All right, Director, I’ll go that far with you. Who do you want me to kill?”

Chapter 10

TEN

Sitting in an unmarked police car a hundred yards away, Sergeant Lars Elmander was becoming increasingly agitated. To begin with, he was unhappy he’d been forced to work on a Sunday morning—his twelve-year-old son had an important soccer match. Then there was the assignment itself. It had started out easily enough when he’d spotted Deadmarsh leaving the Strand Hotel. For two hours Elmander had watched him stroll the waterfront like any tourist, taking in the sights at a casual pace, chatting with a vendor at a news kiosk. This was followed by an extended breakfast on the patio of the Renaissance Tea Room.

Yet the very ease of the job had begun to bother Elmander. He was watching Deadmarsh flick casually through a newspaper, teacup in hand, when the disconnect mushroomed to sufficient mass in his policeman’s brain. Elmander had been given a briefing on his target, and he decided that for a man who’d just flown across an ocean to find his missing wife, Edmund Deadmarsh was acting in an improbably casual manner. His concerns were magnified when a second man arrived and, with no apparent invitation, took a seat at Deadmarsh’s table.

He watched closely, yet saw little interaction between the two. Soon Deadmarsh began talking on a mobile phone, and it was then that the final revelation thumped into Elmander’s head. It occurred to him that the stranger who’d just arrived matched the description of a man they were looking for—the shooter of two days prior.

Elmander straightened in his seat and pulled out his phone. He dialed Sanderson’s number, but the inspector didn’t pick up. “Come on, come on…”