Assassin's Game (7 page)

He was wrong.

SEVEN

Inspector Arne Sanderson tried to be discreet as he eyed the man in the backseat of his unmarked car. He was intrigued by the American in the mirror.

For the last twenty-four hours Sanderson had run an ambitious investigation. The first hours of any inquiry were critical, the time when cases were broken, yet this particular quest had hit a wall. His overall assessment was one of disconnects. He had a double shooting, but no apparent motive. A doctor with a spotless background who’d been chased through the streets, and who was concerned enough about her safety to have leapt onto a moving boat. And the most troubling thing of all—of the five people involved, the only one he’d identified was the doctor, and she seemed more a victim than a suspect. They had found driver’s licenses and passports on the two men who’d been collected by ambulances at the scene. All were Turkish items and all patently forged. Yet it was quality work, or so Sanderson had been told—biometric chips, color-changing ink, fluorescent fibers—all certainly fashioned by the same artist. Drug smuggling was his first inclination, and that could still be the case. But there was a niggling doubt. A doubt further driven by the man seated behind him.

Driving fast and distracted by thoughts of his passenger, Sanderson missed the turn at the Kungsbron bridge. He made a hasty correction, and nearly ran down a pedestrian outside the Belgian embassy. Cursing silently, he eased off the accelerator. For thirty-five years Sanderson had watched policemen near the end of their careers, and he knew there were two distinct leanings. Most pulled back and coasted onto the off-ramp of retirement. They put checkmarks in boxes and answered phones when it suited them, showed up at the station a few minutes later each morning. When the halfhearted party finally came, with its backslapping and cake and embarrassing gifts, it was no more than a ripple, quickly lost in the ongoing storm of day-to-day operations. But there was a second path. Men and women who went out on less subdued terms, the results either noble or ruinous, but always spectacular.

Is that where I’m headed?
he wondered.

Sanderson looked in the mirror again, but the man had somehow slipped from view. In what was becoming a recurring mental exercise, he challenged himself to recall details about Edmund Deadmarsh: a bricklayer from Virginia, calluses on his hands to prove it. What color were his eyes? Blue-gray, unusual.
Too easy.
What color were his shoes? Sanderson thought, but drew a blank.
What color?

Brown, tan laces, well-worn. Boat shoes, but not a name brand, U.S. size eleven or twelve.

Yes,
he thought,
that’s it
.

He pressed a bit harder on the gas, and took a policeman’s liberties against a newly red traffic light. He made it through the intersection unscathed, but with horns blaring behind him. Arne Sanderson grinned ever so slightly.

*   *   *

Minutes later Sanderson turned sharply into the parking lot of Saint Göran Hospital. On appearances a contemporary affair of burnt brick and glass, the facility was in fact one of the oldest in Sweden, with a pedigree dating back to the thirteenth century. As an institution, it had survived war, famine, and no fewer than eight hundred Nordic winters, which was more than could be said for the monarchies and governments that had overseen its administration.

Sanderson led inside, flashed his identification to a security guard, and entered the elevator with Deadmarsh and Sergeant Blix in trail. When the door closed, he sank the only button that would take them down.

Deadmarsh watched closely. “Why are we at a hospital?” he asked.

“The two victims of this shooting are here, but we haven’t been able to identify either. Both men were carrying false papers—very high-quality documents, in fact.” Sanderson saw no reaction to this as the elevator bottomed out. The door opened, and he noticed Deadmarsh eyeing a sign on the wall that said in Swedish,
MORGUE
. If he didn’t know better, he might have thought the American was reading it.

He said, “We’d like you to take a look at these men, see if you recognize either of them.”

“What makes you think I’d know who they are?” Deadmarsh asked.

“We know your wife had an acquaintance with one of them, so there must be some chance. How long have the two of you been married?”

“About six months.”

“Did you know each other long before that?”

“No, actually. Only a few months.”

“So you wouldn’t have a lot of mutual friends,” Sanderson suggested.

“Fewer than most couples.”

They arrived at a heavy metal door, and Sanderson sent Blix ahead. He turned and said, “All the same, I’d like you to have a look. But I must warn you, this is the morgue. Are you up to it?”

“If it will help find my wife—absolutely.”

Sanderson engaged his most somber smile. “Good. It always helps to have that kind of cooperation.”

EIGHT

Slaton followed the inspector through a steel door that looked like something from a prison. Here, on the lowest level, the contemporary architecture of the building’s outer facade gave way to more original underpinnings. As was common practice in Europe, the ancient foundation had been shored up, and the old skeleton dressed with new fixtures and fittings. The room in which he was standing was dated by a hard stone floor that seemed to go straight to the earth’s core. He saw naked ventilation ducts strapped to a plaster ceiling, Internet wiring tacked across wall slabs that had been laid down centuries before. Noting the thickness of the jointed stone, Slaton was happy to have taken up masonry in the twenty-first century.

Weak lighting sprayed the unpainted walls in an eerie yellow hue. The room was cold and damp, fitting to its function, and the smell of an acrid cleaning agent didn’t quite overpower the stench of death. Slaton had been in morgues before, bigger versions overflowing with the aftermath of bombings and war. Here there were no more than a dozen tables reserved for the newly departed, a waiting room for earthly remains until they could be disposed of with that proper balance of decency and sanitation. Slaton did not see an attendant, but he heard music from a nearby office, something with a Euro-pop techno beat that added to the room’s bizarre texture.

A drawer had already been pulled, presenting a body covered by an off-white sheet. The inspector led Slaton to one side of the long gray tray, and his sergeant pulled back the cover. Slaton studied the body. As he did, he felt Sanderson studying him.

“He was alive when the paramedics arrived,” the inspector said. “Survived for nine hours in the critical care unit before giving up.”

Slaton said nothing.

“Well? Do you know him?” Sanderson asked.

“No, I’ve never seen him.”

Sanderson stared for a long moment but didn’t ask again.

Slaton turned away and swept his eyes over the dank room. “Where’s the second body?”

“Upstairs,” Sanderson replied. “Fortunately for everyone, that one is a bit warmer.”

*   *   *

On the way to the elevator Sanderson’s phone rang. He excused himself and asked Sergeant Blix to escort Slaton to the sixth floor. When they arrived, the hulking Norseman told Slaton it would be a few minutes, and then he struck up a conversation with a pretty young attendant at the nurse’s station.

Slaton found a row of chairs and took a seat. The body downstairs had told him little. He’d seen only the face, and truly had not recognized it. Dark hair and complexion, perhaps thirty years old, and judging by the lay of the covering sheet a man in reasonably good shape. He might have been Israeli. Then again, he might have been Turkish, Greek, or Egyptian. Slaton had been unable to think of a justifiable reason to view the rest of the body, which might have been more useful: Had the fatal wounds struck in the chest, the center of mass? How many rounds and how were they grouped? Such details, in the correct presentation, might signify a professional strike, giving Slaton some direction as to who he was dealing with. Yet as much as he wanted to ask questions of his own, Slaton knew that was a delicate game. If he seemed too curious, Sanderson would become suspicious. Consequently, he resigned himself to the role of passive intelligence gathering for the time being.

Sanderson reappeared and beckoned Slaton to follow.

They walked down a bright corridor, everything white and antiseptic. Turning into a room, Slaton saw a nurse tending an IV, and in the adjacent bed he saw the second victim. This one told him a great deal more. He was looking at his former boss, Anton Bloch.

*   *   *

Bloch lay motionless, trussed in tubes and wires. His swarthy face was pale, distorted by a ventilator pipe that had been taped into his mouth. But there was no doubt—it
was
him. Slaton did his best to not react, knowing Sanderson was watching. He certainly failed. There were shocks in life that could not be tempered by any amount of training or self-discipline, and seeing an old friend on the edge of an untimely death was one of them.

“What’s his condition?” Slaton asked.

“He’s been placed in a drug-induced coma. He was shot three times. The surgeons were able to remove two of the bullets, but the last is lodged close to his spine. They’ve stabilized him until they decide how to proceed. The doctors want very much to talk to his family.” Sanderson paused before prompting, “So? Any idea who he is?”

“No,” Slaton said. He felt the policeman’s eyes drill in from the periphery. “You said my wife was seen talking to one of these men. Was this the one?”

“Yes, a very good guess.”

Slaton took one last look at Bloch, a mental snapshot, then turned to the hallway.

Sanderson followed him out, and said, “Too bad you weren’t able to help us.”

“I wish I could, Inspector.”

“Yes, well—not to worry. We’ll just figure it out some other way, won’t we? Oh, there is one other thing that’s come up, Mr. Deadmarsh.”

“Something about Christine?”

“Unfortunately, no. More of an administrative matter involving your passport.”

“What about it?”

“Would you mind if I took another look?”

Slaton reached into his back pocket and handed the document over. Sanderson made a show of inspecting it, holding it up to the corridor’s bright fluorescent lights like a radiologist with an X-ray.

“Is there a problem?” Slaton asked.

Sanderson frowned and handed it back. “With the document, no. It looks perfectly in order.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “But I just took a rather curious phone call. One of our people back at headquarters performed a check on your immigration status—it’s only standard practice. You arrived at Arlanda earlier today, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“It seems that the electronic record of your arrival has somehow disappeared. The name on your passport brings up nothing now. The only Edmund Deadmarsh we could find in our backlog is an eighty-nine-year-old Englishman who hasn’t visited Sweden in thirty years.”

Slaton shrugged. “What can I tell you? It must be a computer glitch. I walked right through immigration and gave them my passport. I can even describe the officer I gave it to,” he added, guessing that Sanderson’s people had already verified that video.

“Yes, as you say, I’m sure it’s only some kind of computer foul-up. I have to get back to headquarters now. Why don’t you give me your mobile number. I’ll call you if we learn anything as to your wife’s whereabouts.”

Slaton gave his number. Sanderson handed over a business card in return, and said, “If you should hear from her, please let me know right away.”

“I will.” Slaton glanced toward the room they’d just left, and said, “I do have one question, Inspector.”

Sanderson cocked his head, inviting him to go on.

“The two men you showed me—did one of them shoot the other?”

The answer came quickly, “We don’t have that ballistics information yet.”

“But you said this happened in a public place, a café. Surely there were witnesses.”

Sanderson eyed him. “When I have everything sorted, I promise to let you know. Sergeant Blix will give you a lift wherever you like.”

“I’d like to go back to the Strand Hotel.”

Sanderson gave Blix the order.

Slaton asked, “Is it all right if I use Christine’s room at the hotel? I am paying for it, after all.”

Sanderson seemed to think about this, then said, “I don’t see why not. I’ll make sure the front desk knows about it.”

*   *   *

Slaton was dropped at the Strand Hotel for the second time at six that evening. The massive building hovered at the water’s edge, seeming almost medieval as framed by the enduring Scandinavian twilight. He retrieved his bag from the bellman, went to the front desk, and just as Sanderson had promised was given a key to Christine’s room.

As soon as he stepped into room 324, Slaton knew it was hers. Obvious enough were her familiar things—a blue sweater in the closet, her father’s old suitcase on a chair. But her perfume was also there. He saw Christine’s effects laid out with intimate signatures—the way her comb and hairbrush were nested together, and the way her shoes were set in a perfect line. He was equally sure the police had been here, and he imagined Sanderson and his brutes plodding through the place with big boots and gloved hands. In a drawer he saw carefully folded shirts overturned, toiletries in the bathroom scattered and disorganized. He looked for her passport but didn’t find it. Slaton guessed she would not have taken it to a café—not unless she’d known what was coming. Was that a possibility? Might Bloch have arranged a meeting and forewarned her to bring it? Had he been trying to help her escape from something? From someone?

He found a conference welcome bag on a table stuffed with brochures, along with pens and lanyards emblazoned with the names of pharmaceutical conglomerates. A lecture schedule was on the adjacent desk, and he recognized her brisk check marks next to certain presentations, these ending yesterday afternoon. After that, nothing. Slaton scanned the margins of the schedule for scribbled notes, and checked the scratchpad near the phone for names or numbers. He picked up the hotel phone and dialed the code to retrieve messages. There were none, of course.