He drank down some of the Maker’s-and-Coke and the elevator doors slid open. Asaf Cohen, Stiletto’s Mossad contact, stepped out and took in the site before him, his head moving left and right and lingering a little too long on the bikini-clad IDF sunbathers. Stiletto whistled. Cohen snapped his attention to Stiletto, grinned, and approached with an easy gait.
“Good morning,” Cohen said, shaking hands with Stiletto. “What are we drinking?”
“Maker’s-and-Coke.”
“This early?”
“It’s after midnight in the States.”
Cohen took a deep breath. Stiletto couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark aviator glasses, but he sensed those eyes were looking right at him.
“What did you want to see me about? Your job is done. Go home.”
“The job is incomplete,” Stiletto said.
“Missions fail all the time. We knew the risks when we hired you. If you had been killed—”
“I know, I know. You didn’t want it traced back to Mossad. I get that. But I also have my pride to think about.”
Cohen laughed. “Pride will get you killed.”
“My reputation?”
Cohen shrugged. “I suppose it’s not good to be known as somebody who can’t finish his tasks.”
“You paid me a lot of money.”
“You needed to pay your men. By the way, where did they go?”
Stiletto shrugged. “Who knows. I tried to get them to stay with me and keep going, but they refused. They were paid to go into Iraq; they went there.”
Cohen shook his head with half a grin on his face. “You have a lot to learn about mercenaries, Stiletto.”
“Or just find men with a better work ethic.”
“That has nothing to do with it. Mercenaries are the way they are. That’s why we hire them. No fuss. No drama. You’re creating drama by trying to be a hero.”
“I’m simply trying to earn my money.”
“You earned it. Go home. We’ll catch el-Gad another day. You know how it is. Miss him on Tuesday, get him on Friday.”
“Today is Friday.”
“You know what I mean.”
Stiletto folded his arms. “What if I want to kill el-Gad on principal?”
“Because he needs killing?”
“People like him, yeah. So these people”—Stiletto gestured toward the pool—“don’t have to worry about somebody blowing up this hotel.”
Cohen removed his sunglasses, squinting at Stiletto. “I’m going to tell you this as a friend,” he said. “Don’t get too deeply involved in things. You need to stay detached.”
“The C.I.A. used to tell me the same thing.”
“That’s what got you fired.”
“You’ll notice I took the consequences and moved on with my life.”
“What happens if I tell you Mossad will not sanction continued action?”
Stiletto waited a beat. Then: “I’ll do it on my own. Worse case I end up dead. The worse worse case, I end up guarding oil rigs again to save more money.”
“Those oil rig jobs are quite unpleasant.” Cohen put his sunglasses back on. “When was the last time you visited Greece?”
“That’s classified.”
Cohen laughed again. “Ah, spies. Tell you what. Go somewhere away from here and do some serious thinking. You might like Athens and a casino there called Regency Mont Parnes. Lots of good play. Lots of attractive women. Like those over there.”
“You probably know them.”
Cohen took the opportunity to glance at the three women over the top of his aviators. “Nope. Not those.”
Stiletto said, “How long should I think about things?”
Cohen shrugged. “Couple days. I’m sure the answers you’re looking for will come to you quite quickly. Be seeing you.”
Stiletto watched Cohen cross the roof to the elevator, walking with a casual gait, shoulders relaxed. He didn’t look like a veteran of various secret campaigns carried out in defense of his country.
Then again, Stiletto didn’t look like a killer, either.
And Stiletto had a talent for killing bad guys.
Stiletto waited a few more minutes to give Cohen time to get to the lobby and back to his car and away. He leaned his elbows on the railing and gazed out at the Mediterranean.
Of course he took missions personally. Well, some of them. It was a flaw, and his bosses at the Agency had pointed that out many times. But there were some who deserved a champion, somebody who could fight the battles they could not. Stiletto considered himself that champion. It was thankless; it was crazy, yeah, but when one has the power to make a difference, one should exercise that power. Responsibly. Carefully. Devastatingly.
He needed a victory over el-Gad for another reason. Everything felt upside down, inside out, and out of control. He’d felt the same when his wife died.
Stiletto and Maddy had married young and struggled greatly during the early years of Stiletto’s military service. Their daughter Felicia added further complications, but they were a happy family for a while, despite Scott’s constant travel for special operations missions that took him away from home for weeks at a time. When he retired from the army with the rank of major, he was all set to take a cushy security job in New York City when Maddy died of cancer. After that, Felicia decided she didn’t want anything to do with her father, and took off on her own. Scott had no idea why his daughter hated him; she never explained, and his mind often spun in circles trying to discern the reason why.
His latest situation wasn’t as bad as losing his family, and he could at least cope with the changes.
But it was still hard.
The Med offered no comment. Only the ocean and the land lasted forever; everything else around him would someday be gone, same as the civilization that preceded it had faded into history. What would it look like then? From that perspective, Stiletto wondered what the point was. Why risk his neck when history would eventually forget he existed and the only witnesses, the ocean and the land, forever presiding over human folly, couldn’t talk? Then he realized he was thinking way too much.
A splash behind him. Somebody screamed. Stiletto turned to look. Some knucklehead had cannonballed into the water and the splash made a direct hit on the bikini-clad IDF women, who were laughing it off now as they dried themselves, one shooting a nasty look at the fellow as he swam lazily, pleased with himself.
Stiletto returned to his hotel room on the eighteenth floor. Using his laptop, he booked a flight to Greece.
THE CABLE car swayed as it traveled upward, the slope of the mountain below a carpet of dark green. The treetops looked bristly from above, and very unforgiving should the cable car somehow fall through the forest canopy to the ground below. Stiletto had to admit it was a nice view, though. Behind them, the lights of the city blazed against a curtain of black. Ahead, more lights, but isolated in a single spot. The lights of the Regency Casino Mont Parnes were almost as bright as the city lights, but not as dazzling.
Stiletto loved Greece, especially the coastal areas, and had once spent a week of vacation at a seaside resort, but he hadn’t been back in several years, despite his quip to Cohen. This trip, and the reasons for it, made the venture less enjoyable than if he’d been on holiday, but if he could finish what Mossad had hired him to do, he might change his tune.
There were two ways to get to the Regency. The first was to follow Parnithos Road which wound through the mountain, twisting and turning its way through the forest and requiring special attention, especially at night. There were no lights on the road, and a driver who was tired, slightly inebriated, or simply not paying attention faced disaster should he or she run off the road or overcorrect on one of the hairpin turns.