Icicle. "Yes."

"Why did Halloway want Seth to kill your father?" 'To force me to join them.

To make me think the Night and Fog had kidnapped my father."

"Where is Halloway now?" Icicle didn't answer. "If that bullet isn't removed, if he doesn't get a transfusion," Drew said, "we'll never get an answer."

"You're right. He'll die. And his jacket's soaked with blood now.

We'll never be able to sneak him into the hotel. We need a safe house.

Gallagher has to tell us where to meet his medical team." Saul stopped at the curb and scrambled from the car toward a phone booth.

But not before he heard Drew ask Icicle again, "Where is Hauoway?"

"Kitchener. Near Toronto. In Canada."

10.

Despite the sourness in his stomach, Misha Pletz swallowed yet another mouthful of scalding coffee and restrained his impulse to hurry down to the communications room in the basement of Mossad headquarters in Tel

Aviv. It was only 11 p. m., he reminded himself. Operation Salvage wouldn't occur for another hour, and in the meantime its team was under orders to obey radio silence. Besides, I'd only get in the way down there, he thought. I've done my job. The plan's been checked repeatedly. Nonetheless, he worded that the information Joseph had given him might be incorrect. Verification of the contraband, the time and place of delivery, and the identification codes had been impossible.

With an informant other than Joseph, with a threat less critical to

Israel's existence, Misha would not have risked acting. But under the circumstances, to do nothing was a worse risk. His superiors had reluctantly agreed with him. The door to his office came open. Misha's assistant hurried in, his exhausted features flushed with excitement.

"Romulus just made contact" Misha's shoulders straightened. "I've been hoping. Where is her

"Rome."

"How did he get in touch with us?"

"Through the CIA." The assistant gave Misha a piece of paper with a number written on it. "He wants you to phone him as soon as possible."

The message was puzzling. When Misha had last seen Saul, the Agency had possibly been involved in an assassination attempt against him, and even if the Agency hadn't been involved, it had made Saul promise to stay away from them. Then why was Saul now using one of their contacts? Was

Saul in trouble with them? Was this message a hoax? But ho ugh puzzling, the message was also a double blessing. Not only was he anxious to talk with Saul and Erika, but he felt grateful to be distracted from waiting for news about Operation Salvage. He picked up his safe phone and dialed the number. Trans-Mediterranean static crackled. At the other end, the phone rang only once before Saul's distinctively resonant husky voice said, "Hello."

"This is Sand Viper. Can you talk freely where you are?"

"I'm in an Agency safe house. They tell me the phone's secure."

"Are you in trouble?"

"With the Agency? No, they're cooperating. It'd take too long to explain." Saul's voice hurried on. "I've learned some disturbing things about Erika's father."

"So have I," Misha said. "Twice in the last two days he sent messages to me. I've had visual confirmation--he's alive. Tell Erika. Her father's alive, and he isn't being held captive. He wants to stay out of sight, though. He eluded two attempts to follow him. The messages he sent me--"

"About the Nazis?" Saul sounded surprised. "He actually told you?"

"Nazis?" Misha pressed the phone hard against his ear. "What are you talking about?"

"War criminals. That's why Joseph disappeared. He and Ephraim Avidan and the other former operatives whose names were on the list you gave us--they learned where war criminals were hiding. They formed a team and went after them." Misha felt too astonished to speak. Saul's voice became more urgent. "If Joseph didn't tell you, what was in his messages?"

"Even on a phone as secure as this, I can't risk telling you. He had information vital to Israel. That's all I can say. By noon tomorrow,

I'll be free to explain."

"But tomorrow could make all the difference. Joseph might already have done things that'll haunt him for the rest of his life. For his sake, for Erika's sake, I've got to stop him. You said he disappeared again.

Haven't you any idea where he is?"

"He keeps moving. His messages came from different countries. First the United States, then Canada."

"Did you say Canada?"

"Is that important?"

"Where in Canada?" Saul demanded. "What city?" 'Toronto."

"I thought so!"

"What's wrong?" Misha asked. "Do you know why Joseph would have gone there?"

"The son of one of the Nazis lives near there. The father was the

Painter, the assistant commandant at Maidanek. The son's name is

Halloway." The name made Misha inhale as if he'd been struck. He wanted to tell Saul that Halloway was one of the arms merchants Joseph had revealed in his message. But he didn't dare discuss it until Operation

Salvage had been brought to a close. When the team was safely back home, he'd leak information that would make the Libyans think Halloway was implicated in the mission, and then he'd be free--but only under guaranteed secure conditions--to explain to Saul. "I have to hang up,"

Misha said. '"'I'll call you again at noon tomorrow. This is important.

Don't do anything further. Just wait for my call. I have information for you."

Misha broke the connection.

11.

A dial tone. Distraught, Saul set down the phone and turned toward me modest living room of this safe house, a farm on the outskirts of Rome.

It had been converted into an emergency medical faculty. Icicle, his skin almost the literal color of ice, lay on a foldout bed, a bottle of plasma suspended above a tube leading into his arm. The same doctor who'd attended to Father Dusseault had disinfected and now was suturing the wound in Icicle's left arm. He applied a dressing and bandaged it.