Assassin's Silence: A David Slaton Novel Read Online Free

light, when he set down the tool case. The kid shook out his arm as if it was cramped, then picked up the case with his opposite hand. He walked no more than ten steps.
    Then he did it all over again.

 
    TWO
    For the second time in his life David Slaton had become careless. The first had occurred not long ago, at the end of a problematic year in Virginia. He had gotten too comfortable, and his wife and child had nearly paid the ultimate price. He vowed never to let that happen again, and carried through on his pledge by the most tried and true method—distance.
    For fourteen months Slaton had taken up a quiet and solitary existence in Mdina. He never made international phone calls and avoided the Internet. He rarely left the city, and had not once ventured outside the country. His lone contact with the outside world was an obscure e-mail account he rarely accessed, and then only from random Internet cafés across the island. He rented a small flat and made a few casual friends—to be a complete recluse would only raise suspicion—and allowed the occasional dinner out, even then only during off-hours. As far as he could tell, he’d blended in perfectly. Or as perfectly as a six foot two, sandy-haired stonemason could manage on a Mediterranean island.
    Someone had found him anyway.
    He knew how it had happened—his mind-set. That healthy mistrust so essential to his former life had gone slack. He had become a stonemason. Slaton knew because he went to sleep each night with fading thoughts that did not involve safe houses or zeroed sight pictures. Now it was corner joints and rubble veneer, and in the morning vague dreams recalled of a family he would never know. At some point, he had stopped taking precautions, the result being that a ten-year-old boy had seen what he should have seen. Four men covering all the angles.
    The questions of who they were and why they were here he discarded for the moment. Of far greater relevance were the where, when, and how of the situation. The answers came quickly.
    A man emerged from the shadows of the café, tall and lean, with wireless glasses over high cheeks and a patch of black chin whiskers. He moved with the air of a hurried mortician. Slaton thought he looked familiar, although in that moment he couldn’t put a name to the face. He next spotted the two in the alley, where the kid had alerted. This pair were swarthier, two-hundred-pound sacks of muscle with comparable squat builds. The most discriminating feature between them was the color of their shirts—one drab green, the other mud gray. The crew cut was still there on Triq Mesquita. Slaton watched him scrape the last gelato from his cup before taking to the cobble street.
    Was there a chance they were here to talk? Could they want to hire him?
    No, Slaton decided. He had never been a mercenary, and anyway, such negotiations would not require four men. He gave up pretenses and looked directly at each man, one by one. If their pace did not alter, there might still be a peaceful way out. All four began moving more quickly. They dodged passersby with quick, purposeful strides, and when one put a hand under his shirttail the charade was officially over. Slaton was watching a well-orchestrated takedown, and from the worst point of view.
    They were doing a good job of it. The time of day was ideal, indeed when he would have chosen. Minimal street traffic led to fewer bruised elbows, fewer bystanders to accidentally screen a shot. The light was nearly gone, but adequate for a marksman and offering the target no cover of darkness. It was also the time of day, Slaton knew, that shift changes took place at police departments, leading to a period of sluggish response. The opposing pincer along Triq San Pawl was nicely staggered, the twins shouldered against the eastern wall, and the man with the glasses keeping to the west. Slaton recognized this for what it was—an attempt to deconflict firing lanes. They were smooth and