The Mark of the Assassin

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.
    CHAPTER 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 it 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-Barth-Bemy 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. There was no Frenchman--an officer in a friendly
    intelligence service had created him--and there most certainly was no
    party of twelve. As for Canada, they had no intention of going anywhere
    near it.
    THAT NIGHT THEY OPERATED under blackout conditions. It was clear and
    quite cold. The bright half-moon provided enough light to move about the
    decks easily. The engine was shut down, just in case an
    infrared-equipped satellite or aircraft passed overhead. The yacht
    rocked gently on the flat sea. Hassan Mahmoud smoked nervously in the
    darkened salon. He wore jeans, Nike running shoes, and a fleece pullover
    from L.L. Bean. He looked up at the other man. They had been together
    ten days, but his companion had spoken only when necessary. One warm
    night, off the coast of Georgia, Mahmoud tried to engage him in
    conversation. The man simply grunted and walked to his stateroom. On
    those rare occasions when he did communicate verbally, he spoke in the
    precise accent-less Arabic of someone who has studied