He arrived to find a nurse tending an IV. The patient looked no different, still and lifeless, but an array of monitors beeped rhythmically to prove otherwise.

“Any change?” Sanderson asked, again showing his identification.

“No,” the nurse replied. “I expect it will be a few days before any decisions are made.” She was a matronly sort, roughly his age, and Sanderson suspected she knew what she was talking about.

He stood with his hands on his hips, and thought aloud, “Too bad we never got a word with him.”

“There were a few moments when you might have.”

“A few moments?”

“He was conscious when he arrived. Even muttering a bit.”

“Muttering?” Sanderson repeated.

“He kept saying something over and over, but it made no sense to me.”

“Can you remember the words?”

She shrugged. “They were very distinct, but it wasn’t Swedish. And not English either. My only two languages.” She made a stab at sounding it out.

Sanderson took out his notepad. “Say it again as precisely as you can.”

The nurse did, and Sanderson wrote down the words phonetically. “Who else was on duty when he came in?”

“Dr. Gould down in ER. I think he’s working now if you want to talk to him.”

Five minutes later Sanderson was doing just that. Gould was nearing the end of his shift, but happy to help a policeman on a quest.

“Yes,” the doctor said, “I did hear what he said. It didn’t make much sense, but that’s not unusual around here—the man had incurred severe trauma.”

Sanderson again took out his notepad, ready to scribble. “Tell me anyway.”

The words the doctor gave were very near those he’d gotten from the nurse, perhaps a harsher edge to a few of the consonants.

“One more time,” Sanderson said.

“Would you like it in English?”

Sanderson looked up, nonplussed.

“It’s Hebrew,” Gould said. “I recognized it immediately. He was saying, ‘Let the bayonet go.’ As for what that means—I wish you luck, Inspector.”

Chapter 19

NINETEEN

Slaton watched Christine start a pot of coffee aboard the newly christened Bricklayer, and as she went about the job neither tried to discuss their predicament. Her smooth face was strained, the usual easy smile gone. Her weariness was accentuated by the rumpled clothes she’d certainly been wearing for days. Being well versed in stressful situations, he knew to let her lead the conversation.

Christine rummaged through a storage bin and made small talk about the weather, eventually progressing to a rundown of her short voyage here, this no more than a sailor’s account of an uneventful passage. Dividing her narrations, however, were long moments of silence. When the coffee was brewed she found two mismatched cups, poured, and sat down at the small table to face him.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

“We’re going to get you safe. Then we’re going to keep it that way.”