“Sweem?”
The thin voice shattered his concentration.
“Sweem?” the girl repeated, gesturing hopefully toward the water.
“No,” he waved her off. “No, later.”
The girl pouted and flipped onto her stomach, a well-designed act that not only expressed dissatisfaction, but also added an element of symmetry to her vulcanizing process. She was a beautiful thing, and spirited. But very young — sixteen, seventeen perhaps. Of all the girls available at the bar last night, she had been the prize. Her worthless brother had negotiated a steep price, but she’d been worth every dirham. Now there was a bastard, Wysinski thought. If I had a sister like her I’d cut the throat of any man who looked at her the wrong way. Maybe I should do her a favor before I leave and — again, his thought process was interrupted, this time by a steward.
“Monsieur Weeseeski, non?” The man presented a shiny silver tray with a cordless telephone on it.
“Oui,” Wysinski said noncommittally. He was used to people butchering his name. Especially peons.
“Pour vous, monsieur.”
Wysinski had never been given a phone on a silver tray before and he thought it looked stupid. He grabbed it, got up, and slogged off through the hot sand. He didn’t start talking until his feet hit the water.
“Hello?”
The voice was familiar. “You were not at the primary number.”
“You found me,” Wysinski grumped.
“The timetable for your next meeting has been moved ahead.”
“To when?”
“Now.”
“What?” Wysinski shot back. They had only gotten back yesterday, after pounding through the ocean for thirty hours. “Why the hell didn’t we just stay and—”
“Stop!” the man on the phone insisted.
Wysinski backed down, “All right, all right. What’s the rush?”
“I can’t explain, but it is vital you go right away. Contact me as soon as it is done.”
The line went dead and Wysinski, unable to think of anything more clever, hissed a stream of expletives under his breath. He hit the off button and stood sneering at an ocean of turquoise water. He didn’t mind getting it over with. In fact, it would drive him crazy to sit around this place, aware of the task that lay ahead. But it ticked him off to not know what was going on, to not be in on the planning. In the old days he had been a tactician, a decision maker. Now he answered a phone, and was ordered to do the bidding of his distant superior. In a fit of anger, Wysinski wound up and threw the little handset far into the Atlantic. It splashed and disappeared.
The stakes were getting higher, but Wysinski knew this would be the last time. After this there would be no more need. He and the others could do as they wished — legitimately. Wysinski turned back to the beach and trudged up to his chair. Next to it, the steward stood staring at him, a statue with an empty silver tray in its hand.
“Put it on my bill!” Wysinski barked.
The steward, void any remnants of decorum, stumbled and retreated toward the pool.
The girl had clearly noticed his fit as well. “Quelle est?” she inquired in a particularly nubile voice.
Wysinski ignored her and headed straight for his room. He would call the marina and tell Joacham to ready the boat. Trudging through deep sand, Wysinski passed the little thatched hut that was the bar. On top he saw a Moroccan flag hanging flaccidly — no wind. That was good. The sooner they got this done, the better.
Jerusalem had been at the other end of the line. There, the caller dialed a second number, the purpose to give confirmation that the words for Wysinski had been sent and received. The caller mentally reviewed a careful script. Here, there would be no discussion, no room for error. The second number was, in fact, a local call. In a plush corner of the Knesset Office Building a seldom used phone rang. It was answered immediately.
The storm had subsided, the torrential rain now a light drizzle, the wind and seas fallen calm. Christine sat at the helm, steering by his instructions. They had been close to shore for an hour, holding about three miles out, but occasionally ducking in closer. In spots, the steady drizzle transformed into mist. Dusk, still about five hours off, might bring the visibility down fast.
“Come thirty left,” he commanded from his station next to the mast.
Christine turned the tiller while he scanned the shoreline with the binoculars. She wondered what he could possibly be looking for. Penzance was still twenty miles ahead, Plymouth fifty. There were no harbors of any kind here and the coastline was rocky, unapproachable as far as Windsom was concerned.
“Hold this course,” he said.
He’d been quiet since the storm, only speaking when it came to the business of maneuvering the boat. Christine wished she knew what he was up to, but, predictably, he wasn’t letting on.
With Windsom about two miles offshore, he began shifting the binoculars sharply between points along the rocky coast. Christine looked, but saw nothing remarkable. Steep cliffs as far as she could see, with boulders dominating the tide line, then a lighter color above on the near-vertical incline, probably some kind of coarse vegetation.
“All right, that’s it,” he said suddenly. “Turn her into the wind.”
Christine complied and the sails flapped loosely as Windsom’s momentum gradually slowed. He went below, rattled a few things around, then came back on deck. Christine tensed immediately when she saw what was in his hand. It was her father’s old diving knife. Eight inches long with a serrated edge on one side, it was rusty and lethal-looking. God, where had he found that? she wondered. Still, he wore the same serious, intense expression that had been there all along, which was comforting in a strange way. This man was no berserk killer. There was purpose in everything he did, and Christine knew the knife was not intended for her. He did, however, point it casually in her direction for emphasis.
“Keep her into the wind,” he said, obviously not wanting a repeat of the day’s earlier incident.
Christine watched in amazement as he went to the mainsail. Holding the knife over his head, he jabbed viciously into it. Yanking and pulling, he ripped the canvas through its entire length. He made another cut and another, until the sail was shredded into a half-dozen loosely connected pieces. Next, he went up front and gave five minute’s treatment to the jib. Then he cut the halyards and sheets. He went all around the boat cutting and slicing.
Christine watched in silence, trying to understand. He was disabling Windsom, but why? Was he going to motor into Penzance and say, “Look at what the storm did!” How would that help him? Perhaps if he was alone? Christine forced the ideas from her mind. She’d know soon enough.
Her captor went below and for two minutes she heard metallic, banging noises. He came back up with a few critical pieces of the engine — the plugs and some wiring. He threw them over the side and they disappeared.
With a thoughtful look around the boat, he nodded, apparently satisfied with his destruction. Again the man went below, this time emerging with a pair of oars. He went forward along the port side and began to unlash the dinghy.
The dinghy! That was it!