Sanderson thought about it. “The man now in a coma. He was attended to by a doctor who spoke Hebrew—that’s why I’m certain about the language.”

“Does the doctor remember what he said?”

“Yes. He said, ‘Let the bayonet go.’”

Almgren set her burger on the plate and stared at him. “Bayonet?”

“Yes. The doctor was quite sure.”

“As in ‘kidon’?”

Sanderson eyed her. “You speak Hebrew?”

“No. I speak Mossad—we all do where I live. Israeli intelligence is a big organization, but most of their employees are a straightforward bunch. Field operatives, linguists, communications specialists. There is, however, a very elite unit. A handful known as kidons.”

“And what do they do?”

“They’re a very special division. The kidonim are Mossad’s assassins.”

Sanderson stared blankly across the table. He considered the first shooting, the man in the hospital and the three he’d been up against. Had there been an assassin among them? It was not until he considered the second attack that the thunderbolt struck.

It settled in his mind in a familiar way, a recurring instinct he never doubted. It was none of the first four, but the other, the lone survivor. A man he’d met at the Strand Hotel and interviewed at length. One who had yesterday stolen a gun at a café and used it to kill twice. Sanderson remembered watching him read signs in a language he supposedly didn’t know. Remembered the blue-gray eyes that reflected like polished steel, taking everything in yet letting nothing out. In the car, the way he’d moved to see and not be seen. It had been right there in front of him all along, like staring at the sun but not seeing it for the brilliance.

The stonemason.

Edmund Deadmarsh was an assassin.

Chapter 20

TWENTY

The early-afternoon sky over Bulleron had turned to a full overcast, a steel gray curtain that promised rain. The wind kept still and the seas were quiet, soft waves lapping the boat’s hull with barely audible authority. For Slaton these were no idle observations. Weather conditions at high latitudes were subject to volatile change, and right now meteorology was critical to his near-term planning. Janna Magnussen had said a cold front would arrive tomorrow, but he wondered if things were turning sooner. Could tomorrow morning’s extraction be delayed? Part of him hoped for the worst, a maelstrom that would last a week and cover him and Christine like an impenetrable blanket. A storm formidable enough to curtail the other path that was forming in his mind.

They were going over nautical charts when Slaton broached a subject he knew would be delicate.

“I need your help,” he said. “In a professional capacity.”

Her stare began as curious, but shifted to grim when he removed his shirt to display the wound on his bicep.

“It’s not a gunshot,” he said.