Ward Larsen
The Perfect Assassin
With apologies to LvB
Für Elise
Prologue
The longshoremen scrambled across the pier to finish their task. Lured to work by an offer of triple-time wages, the few who had shown up were getting anxious. The cargo had arrived late, and tonight everyone had more important things to do. Tall floodlights presided over the operation, their sulfuric glow staining the night sky an obscure yellowish hue, and calm winds were no help in flushing away the noxious haze that had settled over the city. Mostly it came from the fires outside town, but now mobs were adding to the conflagration, looting and burning in the city itself as the last viable corner of the Republic of South Africa slid to oblivion.
At 2,000 tons, and 150 feet along the waterline, Polaris Venture was not among the largest ships to have visited the Port of Cape Town in the last week. She was, however, the only vessel berthed there now, and that singular presence managed to enhance her stature. A converted trawler built by Sterkoder of Norway, her lines were decidedly square, as if to attest to the solid vessel she was. Polaris Venture had been in port for eight hours, which was about as long as anyone had stayed lately, but having taken on her cargo it was time to go. The loading crane and gangways backed away, and dockhands on the pier tossed heavy mooring lines into the water. Polaris Venture’s crew scurried around deck to hoist up the lines, then her single screw was engaged and she began to crawl up the channel.
The ship moved slowly toward the jetties and open ocean. A leviathan in the narrow waterway, she’d soon become a speck on the vast ocean ahead. Sliding beyond the lights of the pier, Polaris Venture’s profile fell to a vague silhouette. By the time she’d cleared the jetties and picked up speed, her running lights and a dim glow of white light from the bridge were all that punctuated an otherwise black ocean. Minutes later these extinguished, a nicely symbolic end to the entire affair, as the port would likely not see traffic again for a very long time.
The ugly noose of apartheid had been lifted over a decade ago, but those expecting quick rise of a new and just South Africa had been roundly disappointed. Like a failing dam, the cracks had started slowly. Festering land disputes and tribal arguments seeped out. Corrupt politics added pressure until, seemingly overnight, the madness burst through. The authorities were little help, they having already begun to split and polarize to the different camps. It was a textbook civil war left behind in Polaris Venture’s wake, one whose course to an end would be anything but a predictable, straight line.
Back along an empty pier the dockhands dispersed, many silently wondering if they’d ever see work here again. A second group of men, those who had delivered Polaris Venture’s cargo to the docks, gathered uncertainly around their leader. With the final seams of order shredding in a country that had been undone by racial bitterness, it was an odd counterpoint that the two dozen soldiers were equally divided — twelve black and twelve white. Their uniforms were sanitized, displaying rank, but no regimental patches or other insignia. This much had been a firm directive, related to the night’s work. But it was also an appropriate terminus for a unit whose sole mission had just departed on the high tide.
The detail’s leader, a colonel, had little to offer. With a few words of congratulation on a job well done, he awkwardly dismissed his troops — to what or where nobody was sure. The men milled about for a few minutes to say their own good-byes, then disbanded in groups of two or three, knowing they would likely never see each other again.
The colonel was the last to leave. He paused on the pier, his thoughts still resting with his troops. He was an honorable sort who, while not particularly religious, did find comfort in the occasional divine request. The colonel stood at water’s edge, closed his eyes, and offered a prayer for his men, a simple plea that their treason might be lost in the chaos.
Chapter One
Christine Palmer saw it right on schedule, a waxing three-quarters moon on the horizon. Bright and beautiful in its own right, the moon began lifting up toward the stars for what would certainly be another celestial masterpiece over the eastern Atlantic. She’d always been amazed by the number of stars you could see out here, away from the usual lights and pollution. Gentle swells made a rhythmic, hollow slapping noise against Windsom’s fiberglass hull. The only other sounds were those of the boat’s rigging, which creaked and groaned in proportion to the strength of the wind.
Christine raised her chin into a crisp southeasterly breeze, finding it remarkable that conditions on the open ocean could vary so greatly. The first night of her trip had been like this one, calm seas and a gentle breeze. The second night had been a singularly miserable experience. A strong weather system had rolled in, pounding Windsom with vicious winds and towering waves. Christine could do no more than keep the boat on course and the sails trimmed, all under a constant lashing of rain and frigid ocean spray. She’d spent most of that night on deck, wet and chilled to the bone. When the storm finally broke, late the next morning, she had collapsed onto her bunk, without even the energy to remove the foul weather gear that had done so little to keep her dry.
That had been four nights ago. Since then, the weather had largely cooperated and Christine convinced herself, perhaps with reaching optimism, that such trying times were necessary to find true appreciation of life’s more placid moments. It was a satisfying concept, and one she suspected would be quickly discarded in the next squall.
Sitting at the helm, she twisted her shoulder-length hair into a ponytail and poked it through the back of her baseball cap. The luminescent hands on her watch told her it was five-thirty in the morning. The sun wouldn’t be up for an hour. Christine tended to be an early riser, but sailing somehow magnified the trait. In the four days since the storm her routine had taken shape. She went to bed an hour or two after sunset, set the alarm to wake up once at midnight to check the sails, the autopilot, and the weather, then slept again until four or five. Aside from the one wake-up call, it was a natural fit for her body’s circadian rhythm. And it allowed her to enjoy her favorite time of day.
Christine went below to the galley. When she crawled out of the bunk each morning, coffee was always the first order of business. It had to be brewing before she could go topside to face the day’s other issues, such as whether or not Windsom was still pointed west. She poured her fix into a big ceramic mug, the one her father had given her last Christmas. It was an oddly shaped thing, similar to the Pyrex flasks she’d used so often in chemistry lab, wide at the bottom and tapering to a narrow, round opening at the top. The mug had drawings of famous schooners all around and a rubbery non-skid coating on the base. It was, in fact, the very same cup she had picked out for her father that Christmas. Mom had instantly seen the humor — the two sailors thinking alike again, probably even ordering from the same catalogue.
The pain returned as Christine thought of her father. It had been three months since Dad had died, and the hurt still came, only not as often, and it dissipated more readily. Being on Windsom seemed the best tonic. It had been a place of great happiness for their entire family this last year. She and Dad had crossed east to Europe last summer. On arriving in England, Christine flew back to Maine to finish her third year of medical residency. Then Dad had somehow coaxed Mom to England to spend a month cruising Europe and the Mediterranean. This was a terrific coup, since Mom normally kept herself a great distance from all large bodies of water. Christine had no idea what persuasions her father might have used to get Mom aboard until the answer slowly presented itself — a constant stream of postcards from the ports of Europe. It was a second honeymoon, Christine thought, much deserved after having spent twenty-eight years raising a family.