Slaton’s left palm was flat on the closet door. There was no handle on the inside, but a sharp push was all it would take. His other hand now held the SIG, a silencer threaded in place. His left arm was tensed like a cocked crossbow, stored energy waiting to be released.
Still he held back. The SIG was a mere contingency—if he intervened, Slaton would prefer to kill the fat accountant with his bare hands. Less cleanup, more questions for the police. That’s what he told himself. The problem was that killing him by any method would blow the entire mission. He had to give it a few more seconds.
Hope the girl could escape on her own.
He had an excellent view of the room from inside the closet—the door was louvered, and he’d bent one slat at eye level to provide a better view. He had also disconnected the closet light, which came on automatically when the door opened. Moussa had fallen after striking the girl, and now he lay sprawled on the floor next to the bed. Trying to stand, he looked like a bull on an ice rink.
“Bitch!”
The girl had crumpled to the bed after his blow, but she recovered quickly, rolling away to the far side. She was on her feet now, a king-sized expanse of high thread-count Egyptian cotton between them.
She moved for the door but he cut her off at the foot of the bed. The girl feinted left, then right. It was like two kids playing some deadly version of tag. Suddenly the girl vaulted onto the bed. Moussa shifted to his left, trying to cut her off, but his feet seemed stuck in wet cement.
Out of nowhere the girl launched herself airborne, flying directly at him. The move took Moussa completely by surprise: a hundred and ten pounds of litheness, in a black designer dress and pearls, soaring on a collision course. She led with an elbow that hit him square in the face and they both flew backward, landing in a heap.
Moussa howled in pain.
The girl was on her feet like a cat, and she flew toward the door and disappeared.
Not her first rodeo, Slaton thought appreciatively.
Moussa moaned and worked his way to his feet, his hands on his face like he was holding it together. He staggered to the door and peered into the hall. “Whore!” he shouted in an oddly nasal voice. With the girl clearly gone, he slammed the door shut.
The room fell to a hard silence, Slaton’s baseline sounds returning save for one addition: the bovine panting of one overstressed accountant.
From ten feet away, Slaton could see blood coursing from Moussa’s ruined nose. It ran down his chin onto what was probably a hundred-dollar shirt. The Algerian stumbled from the door to the middle of the room. There he hesitated, again putting both hands to his face. He cursed in Arabic, then wobbled like an uprooted tree. For a moment Slaton feared he might turn toward the closet. If he opened the door, he would get his second surprise of the night: the butt of a SIG to the side of his head. With any luck, he would wake up in an hour or ten with no idea what hit him.
Thankfully, he turned toward the bathroom.
For the first time in two minutes, the pressure of Slaton’s palm on the closet door eased.
He heard a light snap on, saw the spray of illumination. More cursing. He envisioned the man staring into the mirror, gauging the damage. Water began running at the sink. Then a cough that was more of a retch and water being spit into the basin. After that, Slaton heard him pissing. It was a good sign. Adrenaline was waning, normal bodily functions regaining priority.
When Moussa appeared minutes later, he’d removed his jacket, pants, and dress shirt. Wearing a sleeveless undershirt and tartan boxers, he lowered himself gingerly onto the bed and laid back. Within minutes he was motionless, his breathing less choppy.
The crisis had ebbed. At that point, Slaton relented to doing what snipers did best.
He waited.
It was another twenty minutes before Slaton emerged silently from the closet.
The financier was snoring loudly, his open mouth like a flycatcher. The blood on his face was mostly gone, but a trickle still dripped from one nostril. Even from across the room Slaton could see his nose swelling—it was almost certainly broken. He paused at the foot of the bed, regarding the man before him.
Moussa Tayeb was not a terrorist combatant. All the same, he had for years leveraged his profession to enable the operational side of al-Qassam Front. Slaton expected tonight’s work would provide more solid evidence, yet what he’d already seen was convincing enough. A great many people had died thanks to this man—including two whom Slaton loved more than any on earth. He’d seen copies of the money transfers that had paid for that attack. The big block of Semtex, the nuts and bolts and razor blades packed around it. The nylon backpack as well. As for the AKs and grenades, those had been getting stockpiled for years. What all of it had wrought, in the hands of a few fanatics, Slaton would never forget. The carnage at the hospital, the torn bodies; it would resonate in his nightmares to the end of his days.
Slaton couldn’t pry his eyes off the accountant. He hadn’t been anywhere near Netanya that night. Even so, his work had made it possible. According to Mossad, Moussa later transferred money to the families of the triggermen—the so-called martyrs. From the safety of his office the financier never witnessed what Slaton had. The gurneys with shredded bodies, the scent of charred flesh. Perhaps he’d read a news article over his morning tea the next day, seen a clip on Al-Jazeera. Did he ever feel any responsibility? His was a life of ease. Harmless keystrokes and meetings over teak desks; gluttonous dinners with sheiks and Keurig coffee in bankers’ waiting rooms. All cool and calm and detached.
It struck Slaton that Moussa had likely never heard the names of any of his victims.
In the deftest of whispers, he murmured, “Katya … Elise …”
It stirred something inside him, and in a room cut in shades of gray, Slaton raised the SIG slowly. He settled the custom red dot between wrinkles on the glistening forehead. Slaton’s finger touched the trigger softly. In that moment, the only thing between Moussa Tayeb and Paradise was a very precise 9.8 pounds of pull.
How would it feel? Slaton wondered. He had killed before, always deserving individuals, always on orders. Never had he done so of his own volition. Which was what it would be if he pulled the trigger. Could that lift the weight? End the nightmares?
Slaton closed his eyes slowly, deliberately, then opened them again. He recorded the sight picture, an indelible snapshot in his mind, before lowering the SIG.
No. If I pull the trigger now, I might never find your brother.
He removed the silencer and holstered the weapon. Slaton turned toward the door and slipped silently into the hall. Moments later he was lost to the night.