The Mark of the Assassin
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
OCTOBER
Chapter 1 - OFF LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK
Chapter 2 - SAN FRANCISCO
Chapter 3 - WASHINGTON, D.C.
Chapter 4 - WASHINGTON, D.C.
Chapter 5 - LONDON
Chapter 6 - CIA HEADQUARTERS, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
Chapter 7 - THE WHITE HOUSE
Chapter 8 - WASHINGTON, D.C.
Chapter 9 - WASHINGTON, D.C.
Chapter 10 - WASHINGTON, D.C.
NOVEMBER
Chapter 11 - SHELTER ISLAND, NEW YORK
Chapter 12 - ST. MAARTEN, THE CARIBBEAN
Chapter 13 - BRÉLÉS, FRANCE
Chapter 14 - CIA HEADQUARTERS, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
Chapter 15 - PARIS
Chapter 16 - WASHINGTON, D.C.
Chapter 17 - BRÉLÉS, FRANCE
Chapter 18 - WASHINGTON, D.C.
Chapter 19 - AMSTERDAM
Chapter 20 - MCLEAN, VIRGINIA
Chapter 21 - LONDON
Chapter 22 - LONDON
Chapter 23 - HEATHROW AIRPORT, LONDON
Chapter 24 - LONDON
Chapter 25 - WASHINGTON, D.C.
Chapter 26 - LONDON
Chapter 27 - NEW YORK
Chapter 28 - CALAIS, FRANCE
Chapter 29 - LONDON
Chapter 30 - CAIRO
Chapter 31 - CAIRO
Chapter 32 - AMSTERDAM
Chapter 33 - SHELTER ISLAND, NEW YORK
Chapter 34 - CYPRUS
Chapter 35 - CIA HEADQUARTERS, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
DECEMBER
Chapter 36 - NORTHERN CANADA
Chapter 37 - WASHINGTON, D.C.
Chapter 38 - THE U.S.-CANADIAN BORDER
Chapter 39 - WASHINGTON, D.C.
Chapter 40 - BETHESDA, MARYLAND
Chapter 41 - WASHINGTON, D.C.
Chapter 42 - WASHINGTON, D.C.
Chapter 43 - WASHINGTON, D.C.
Chapter 44 - WASHINGTON, D.C.
Chapter 45 - WASHINGTON, D.C
Chapter 46 - WASHINGTON, D.C.
Chapter 47 - NORTH HAVEN, LONG ISLAND
Chapter 48 - MCLEAN, VIRGINIA
Chapter 49 - LONDON
Chapter 50 - WASHINGTON, D.C.
JANUARY
Chapter 51 - SHELTER ISLAND, NEW YORK
EPILOGUE
Acknowledgements
Praise for the Novels of Daniel Silva
The Mark of the Assassin
“Terrific . . . one of the best-drawn fictional assassins since The Day of the Jackal. . . . Silva’s second thriller keeps you guessing to the final page.”—The San Francisco Examiner
“A worthy follow-up to his acclaimed debut, The Unlikely Spy, and bolsters his status as a master writer of espionage and intrigue.”—The Cincinnati Enquirer
“[A] fast-moving, bang-bang thriller.”
—Los Angeles Daily News
“Compulsively enjoyable. . . . Silva keeps the double crosses moving at [a] frenzied clip.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“A taut spy thriller. . . . Silva’s writing is clean, his characterizations pithy. And he keeps readers guessing.”—New York Post
“A gleefully inventive series of plot twists. . . . Silva, whose debut, The Unlikely Spy, put the WWII thriller back on the map, brings the genre up-to-date with a vengeance in an exhilarating story that roots razzle-dazzle espionage heroics in contemporary political headlines.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“A thriller you cannot afford to miss.”—Tulsa World
“Keeps readers ensnared in a clever plot . . . a gripping, suspenseful, plausible tale in which characters run the gamut of emotions . . . dramatic and gutsy. Silva’s last book, The Unlikely Spy, was a good read; this novel is better yet.” —Naples Daily News
“An unputdownable tale of power, politics, and intrigue.”
—The Independent (Kansas City, MO)
“Fast-paced and riveting.”
—Home News Tribune (East Brunswick, NJ)
The English Assassin
“An exceptionally readable, sophisticated thriller . . . abundant action. . . . Silva ranks . . . among the best of the younger American spy novelists.”—The Washington Post
“[A] swift new spy novel. . . . Silva excitingly delivers his story’s twists and turns.”—The New York Times
“Good assassin vs. bad assassin. . . . The plot is rich, multilayered, and compelling with issues as timely as the daily headlines and problems as old as humankind. . . . Silva maintains tension and suspense.”—The Denver Post
“Enthralling . . . a thriller that entertains as well as enlightens.” —The Orlando Sentinel
“Breathtakingly orchestrated. Silva makes a stunning contribution to the spy thriller.”—Booklist (starred review)
“Thrilling . . . a good cinematic story.”
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Smooth and compelling.”—Detroit Free Press
“Silva’s sophisticated treatment, polished prose, an edgy mood, and convincing research give his plot a crisp, almost urgent quality.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Silva knows how to plot. . . . [He] will draw you in—and you’ll learn something at the same time.”
—Rocky Mountain News
“Cleverly crafted . . . engrossing . . . an intelligent thriller of the old school and one that will satisfy Silva’s fans and earn him many new ones.”—The Chattanooga Times
“A page-turner from start to finish.”—BookBrowser
The Unlikely Spy
“Evocative . . . memorable . . . a classic World War II espionage tale.”—The Washington Post
“Briskly suspenseful.”—The New York Times
“[Silva] has clearly done his homework, mixing fact and fiction to delicious effect and building tension—with breathtaking double and triple turns of plot—like a seasoned pro.”—People
“Bodies pile up, and Silva keeps the suspense keen as the advantage shifts back and forth between the good guys and the Nazis.”—Los Angeles Times
“A satisfying and fast-paced World War II espionage thriller.”—San Francisco Examiner
“Deserves a standing ovation . . . superbly written and plotted. . . . In intensity and intrigue, it matches Ken Follett’s Eye of the Needle and Robert Harris’s bestselling Enigma.”
—San Antonio Express-News
“A well-crafted first fiction that entertains while it educates.” —Chicago Tribune
“A classic World War II adventure thriller.”
—Robert Harris, bestselling author of Fatherland and Enigma
“A first novel of remarkable ingenuity and daring. . . . This is a book that will stick in your imagination long after you have figured out where all the pieces fit.”—Playboy
“Engrossing . . . a first-class spy thriller.”
—Chattanooga Times-Free Press
“A roller-coaster World War II adventure that conjures up memories of the best of Ken Follett and Frederick Forsyth.”
—The Orlando Sentinel
ALSO BY DANIEL SILVA
The Secret Servant
The Messenger
Prince of Fire
A Death in Vienna
The Confessor
The English Assassin
The Kill Artist
The Marching Season
The Unlikely Spy
SIGNET
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eISBN : 978-1-440-60726-4
Copyright © Daniel Silva, 1998
Excerpt from The Secret Servant copyright © Daniel Silva, 2007
All rights reserved
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For Esther Newberg, my literary agent and friend.
And, as always, for my wife, Jamie, who makes everything
possible, and my children, Lily and Nicholas
And ye shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you free.
—The creed of the Central Intelligence
Agency, taken from John 8:32
And ye shall know the truth,
and the truth shall piss you off.
—The staff version
PROLOGUE
THE CZECH-AUSTRIAN BORDER: AUGUST 1968
The searchlight played across the flat open field. They lay in a drainage ditch on the Czech side of the border: a man and woman and a teenage boy. Others had come this way on previous nights—dissidents, reformers, anarchists—hoping to escape the Russians who had invaded Czechoslovakia and crushed Alexander Dubček’s experiment with freedom already known as the “Prague Spring.” A few had made it. Most had been arrested; Dubček himself had been abducted and taken to the Soviet Union. According to the bristling rumor mill, some had been taken to a nearby potato patch and shot.
The three people in the ditch were not worried about making it out. They had been ordered to come at that time and had been assured their passage to the West would go smoothly. They had no reason to doubt what they had been told, for all three were officers of the Soviet Committee for State Security, better known as the KGB.
The man and the woman served in the First Chief Directorate of the KGB. Their orders were to infiltrate the dissident Czech and Russian communities in the West.
The boy was assigned to Department V, the assassins.
The man crawled on his belly to the top of the ditch and peered into the night. He put his face down in the cool damp grass as the light passed overhead. When darkness returned he rose again and watched. A half-moon hung low on the horizon, throwing off just enough light to see it all clearly: the guard tower, the silhouette of a border policeman, a second policeman walking along the gravel approach to the fence.
The man checked the luminous dial of his watch. He turned around and whispered in Czech, “Stay here. I’ll see if they’re ready for us.”
He crawled over the top of the ditch and was gone.
The woman looked at the boy. He was no more than sixteen years old, and she had been sleepless with sexual fantasies about him since they had come to Czechoslovakia three weeks earlier. He was too pretty for a boy: black hair, deep blue eyes, like a Siberian lake. His skin was pale, almost white. He had never been operational before tonight, yet he showed no signs of fear. He noticed she was looking at him. He stared back at her with an animal directness that made her shiver.
The man returned five minutes later. “Hurry,” he said. “Walk quickly and don’t say a word.”
He reached down and pulled the woman out of the ditch. He offered a hand to the boy, who refused and climbed out himself. The border policeman met them at the fence. They walked fifty meters to the spot where the gash had been cut in the wire. The guard pulled back the flap, and one by one the three KGB agents crossed into Austria.
The control officers at Moscow Center had written the script for them. They were to proceed on foot to the nearest village and find an Austrian police officer. From past experience, they knew they would be taken to a detention center for other refugees from the East. Inevitably, they would undergo vigorous questioning from Austrian security agents to make certain they were not spies. Their Czech identities had taken months to manufacture; they were airtight. Within weeks, if all went according to plan, they would be released into the West and begin their assignments for the KGB.
Department V had other plans for the boy.
There was no security on the Austrian side of the border. They crossed an open field. The air was thick with the stink of manure and the chatter of crickets. The landscape darkened as the wet moon slipped behind a stray cloud. The lane was exactly where the control officers had said it would be. When you reach the road, head south, they had said. The village will be there, two miles away.
The lane was pitted and narrow, barely wide enough for a horse-drawn cart, rising and falling over the gentle landscape. They walked quickly, the man and woman leading, the boy a few feet behind. Within a half hour the horizon glowed with lamplight. A few moments later a church steeple floated into view above a low hill.
It was then that the boy reached inside his coat, withdrew a silenced pistol, and shot the man in the back of the head. The woman turned quickly, eyes wide with terror.
The boy’s arm swung up, and he shot her rapidly three times in the face.
OCTOBER
1
OFF LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK
They made the attempt on the third night. The first night was no good: heavy cloud cover, intermittent rain, windblown squalls. The second night was clear, with a good moon, but a bitter northwest wind made the seas too rough. Even the oceangoing motor yacht was buffeted about. It would be hell in the Boston Whaler. They needed a calm sea to carry it off from the Whaler, so they motored farther out and spent a seasick night waiting. That morning, the third morning, the marine forecast was promising: diminishing winds, gentle seas, a slow-moving front with clear weather behind it.
The forecast proved accurate.
The third night was perfect.
His real name was Hassan Mahmoud, but he had always found i
t rather dull for an Islamic freedom fighter, so he had granted himself a more venturous nom de guerre, Abu Jihad. He was born in Gaza and raised by an uncle in a squalid refugee camp near Gaza City. His politics were forged by the stones and fire of the Intifada. He joined Hamas, fought Israelis in the streets, buried two brothers and more friends than he could remember. He was wounded once himself, his right shoulder shattered by an Israeli army bullet. The doctors said he would never regain full use of the arm. Hassan Mahmoud, alias Abu Jihad, learned to throw stones with his left.
The yacht was 110 feet in length, with six staterooms, a large salon, and an aft deck large enough to accommodate a cocktail party of sixty people. The bridge was state of the art, with satellite navigation and communication systems. It was designed for a crew of three, but two good men could handle it easily.
They had set out from the tiny port of Gustavia on the Caribbean island of Saint-Barthélemy eight days earlier and had taken their time moving up the east coast of the United States. They had stayed well outside American territorial waters, but still they had felt the gentle touch of U.S. surveillance along the way: the P-3 Orion aircraft that passed overhead each day, the U.S. Coast Guard cutters slicing through the open sea in the distance.
They had prepared a cover story in the event they were challenged. The vessel was registered in the name of a wealthy French investor, and they were moving it from the Caribbean to Nova Scotia. There, the Frenchman would board the yacht, along with a party of twelve, for a month-long Caribbean cruise.