He did what he could to push the fear out of his mind. By the time he finished stashing the bodies, the noise had abated, and he relaxed a little.
The Israeli asset moved down the walkway now, towards his target’s room. He knew he’d have to move quickly, and after the act, he could not return. No, he would continue on downstairs, and make his way out the front gate, hopeful the guards there would be distracted by the match.
He entered the hallway off the walkway, and he stepped up to his target’s door. With his hand on the latch he hesitated, tried to get control of his heart before it hammered its way out of his chest.
Hawthorn opened the door slowly. There, on the bed just five meters away, the Arab spy saw him. Hawthorn checked the man’s hands and saw nothing but a silver pen in his right hand, and some papers in his left.
The papers fell to the floor.
Hawthorn braced himself to kill again, and he raised his weapon, hoping like hell this room was far removed enough from the main floor so no one would hear.
He locked his arm to fire, aiming for the man’s chest.
No words were spoken.
And then, just ahead and on his left, movement through the open window. A black form. Hawthorn thought it too small to be a person at first, but the form grew as it entered, sailing through the air, and he watched as a man landed silently and adroitly on both feet. A gymnast, but a gymnast in black, his face masked.
A gymnast with a gun. He held a black pistol in his hand, a long suppressor protruding from the end of it.
Hawthorn felt relief wash over him. The Mossad had sent a killer, after all. A real killer, here to save him. Manny Aurbach had promised to keep Hawthorn safe, and the old man had come through. Manny had cut too close for comfort, certainly, but—
Hawthorn saw the armed man raise his gun—not at the Arab spy by the bed, but at Hawthorn himself.
No!
“Istanna!” Wait!
The Israeli asset never felt the bullet that killed him.
69
Present Day
Catherine King spoke in soft tones to convey her sympathy to the man on the other end of the phone. “The man you rescued was a spy, but he worked for a Middle Eastern intelligence agency. After all this time the Israelis still aren’t sure which one. He’d also infiltrated al Qaeda—the core AQ in Pakistan. The Mossad thinks his job was to discover the identity of the Israeli plant in al Qaeda. He’d done this somehow, and then he lured Hawthorn to Italy to murder him. You happened to show up when Hawthorn realized he’d been compromised. It was kill or be killed, so Hawthorn decided to act.”
The pain his Court’s stomach moved to his back, to his chest. He’d heaved early in Catherine’s story, as the details began to fit his reminiscence, but with everything turned upside down.
With Court as the villain.
Now his head hung between his knees. His lips were rimmed with vomit.
Catherine said, “Listen carefully to me. It was an honest mistake you made. You saw what you expected to see. Confirmation bias, they call it. An assassination attempt. You reasonably assumed the assassin was the man you came to stop, and the would-be victim was the man you came to rescue.”
Court spoke in a near whisper. “But . . . but I got PID.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Positive ID. I saw his picture. I identified him before I moved on the villa.”
“I’m sorry, Six. You must have been mistaken. It’s confirmed by the head of the Mossad. He told Alvey personally that Hawthorn was shot to death in Trieste six years ago while at a Serbian safe house for a meeting of senior al Qaeda operatives from Iraq and Pakistan.”
“No,” Court said, but his voice held no conviction.
“Why is it you can’t believe?”
“Because I don’t make mistakes.”
“Everybody makes mistakes.”
“Not when you face the consequences I face.”
Catherine said, “This was six years ago. You can’t blame yourself.”
Court shouted into the phone. “Of course I can! The man I rescued hugged me after I got him out of there. He must have known I was American. An infidel assassin. He must have known I’d fucked it all up. He hugged me anyway. He was so relieved that I’d failed so miserably.”
Catherine did not know what to say. After a time, though, she just said, “I am sorry, Six. But I have to catch my flight. Please tell me we can talk when I get back home. I won’t write about any of this, not until we talk. I promise you.”
“Okay.” Court’s voice was barely audible. “Catch you later.”
He hung up the phone and put it back in his pack.
Suddenly every last vestige of energy melted away from him. He had nothing left to give.
He no longer cared.
He could hear Maurice’s voice in this little room. Gravelly from chain-smoking and the wear of middle age, yet powerful and commanding.
What would Maurice say now, seeing his student broken and defeated, sitting on the floor?
Court knew. Maurice had said one line to him when Court found himself wallowing in his own misery and unable to complete his objective.