The Assassin tc-3 Read online

I m not sure how long I stood there, trying to become one with the night and the old building.. trying to feel the presence of other human beings.

  Finally I could stand inactivity no longer. I began easing my way down the staircase, one slow step at a time, pausing after every step to look and listen.

  Four bodies — and Marisa standing near two of them holding a pistol. I thought it unlikely she scared off a killer with that popper she had in her hand. Did she lead the killer to Zetsche, or was she holding Zetsche at gunpoint until the killer arrived with his sticker? Or was she trying to find the knifeman to shoot at him?

  I heard the cat running along the hallway below me. Then silence again.

  Something scared it.

  It sounded as if the cat came from behind the staircase, from the kitchen and dining room area. The Dead Zoo and parlor were in the other direction.

  I gained the lower floor and stayed low, hunkered down, looking and listening. Unfortunately all the outside windows were in rooms one entered from this interior hallway, which was as black as Hitler’s heart.

  Time was passing, and if the killer was out of the house and making a getaway, my sneaking around inside hunting him was going to prove unproductive, to say the least. On the other hand, acting as if he were gone when he wasn’t seemed like an excellent way to become victim number five.

  I decided to give him a few more minutes. Time was riding him the hardest. For all he knew, Marisa or I had called the cops. I wondered if she had.

  Something was out there in that hallway. I could feel it.

  Something that moved, then stopped for a while, then moved again. Something that was as alert as I was. I could feel him…

  The sound of glass breaking shattered the silence. The vase! Then another sound, a tumbling. A heavy weight, thump thump thump.

  I sprinted for the door to the basement staircase. Got there with my penlight just in time to see a formless shape moving at the bottom of the stairs. The bastard had tripped over the vase and tumbled all the way to the bottom.

  I rushed the first shot. The little pistol kicked viciously. The muzzle flash blinded me and the report nearly blew my eardrums out. Unable to see a damn thing, I pulled the trigger three more times as the small automatic tried to tear itself from my hand. Blind and deaf, I stopped shooting and used the light again, trying to see if there was anything still down there at the bottom of the stairs to shoot at.

  I was peering into the darkness, the gunpowder smell heavy in my nostrils, when I heard a noise behind me. Started to turn, and something slammed into my head.

  Stunned, I went to the floor. Dropped the penlight. In the glare I could see a white shape above me, drawing something back to whack me again. I kicked. Got her in the knee. She fell heavily. It was Marisa.

  I rose, retrieved the penlight and staggered down the stairs. Glass crunched under my feet. A splash of blood in the entryway.

  The door was standing open. Lying ten feet out into the snow was a man. I walked out, held the pistol ready to drill the bastard again and turned him over with my foot.

  He had been hit twice. Once in the back and once in the arm. Scanned the light around… and saw a set of tracks leading away from the house. A man’s tracks, it looked like, running. So this clown I shot was number two.

  I killed the light and moved to one side. Squatted, trying to make myself a small, invisible target. Nothing seemed to be moving. I looked, letting my eyes adjust, as I held the pistol in both hands, ready to shoot.

  The only sound was my breathing.

  Whoever he was, he was over the wall and gone, or he was out there behind a tree, waiting for a fool — me, for instance — to come looking for him. Then he would drill the searcher and leave at his convenience.

  Like most folks, I have done my share of foolish things and will probably do some more dumb stuff in the future. Not this night, though. I didn’t like the odds.

  I slipped over to the man lying on the white, wet ground, bent down, put the pistol against his ear and felt for a pulse in his neck. There wasn’t one.

  I shined,the penlight full in his face. His mouth was half open. Lifeless eyes stared into infinity.

  He might be an Arab, I thought, and young. Not over twenty-five, I would say. I took another quick look, trying to decide. Ethnic identifications are not my thing, and after all, this guy was dead. Perhaps he was an Arab. Or perhaps not.

  I went back inside, leaving the door open, and mounted the stairs. Marisa was standing in the hallway. If she still had a gun, it was in her pocket. I hit her with the back of my hand and she slammed into the wall. Didn’t go down.

  “You’re in this to your eyes, you fucking bitch.”

  “You don’t know anything,” she hissed, then turned and ran.

  I was standing there with my cell phone in my hand, holding the penlight in one hand and trying to focus on the little keypad, trying to get my breathing under control, when a man came running down the hallway. I put the light on his face.

  The butler, I thought.

  “What—” he began, but I cut him off.

  “Herr Zetsche and his girlfriend are dead. Murdered in their bed. One of the killers is lying in the snow. Call the police.”

  His mouth made a big O. I gave him a little shove in the chest. “Go, find a phone and call the police. Now!”

  He went.

  Jake Grafton answered on the third ring. I gave it to him as quickly and succinctly as I could.

  He took a second or two to process it — no more.

  “Come back to London,” he said. “Get out of Germany as quickly as you can.”

  “I’ve left fingerprints all over. The local fuzz will alert every cop and county mountie between here and California.”

  “I’ll call them. Leave before they arrive.” Then he hung up.

  I stood there with the dead phone pressed against my ear, trying to think. He didn’t give a good goddamn if the assassin came back after Marisa. He must know she did it, or was in on it.

  Well, I had a few minutes. One or two, anyway.

  I put the phone in my pocket and went storming back upstairs. The door to the Petrous’ bedroom was closed and locked. After I retrieved my gear from the bedroom next door, I used my foot on Marisa’s chamber. Two kicks and the doorjamb shattered. The door flew open.

  Marisa had lit a candle. The old woman was sitting in a chair, wearing a robe. Marisa was on the bed.

  “Why’d you do it?” I demanded.

  “I thought you were shooting at one of the guards.”

  “You lying bitch! Why’d you open the basement door to let the knifemen in?”

  She stared at me. “You don’t know that.”

  “I make my living opening locked doors. That door was opened from the inside. The jimmy marks were made so it would look like the door was forced. It wasn’t.”

  She lowered her head and remained silent.

  I grabbed a handful of hair and lifted her head so I could see directly into her face and she could see into mine.

  “Four people murdered, and you helped kill them. One woman and three men. Let me tell you how it is. If another person dies with you in attendance, I’m coming after you. There isn’t a hole on this planet you can hide in. And when I find you, I’ll kill you sure as God made little green apples. And you can tell that to your pop.”

  Then I left. There was nothing else I could do.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  When Khadr dropped over the wall and lit like a cat on the sidewalk, Abu Qasim put the car in motion. He stopped by Khadr, who climbed into the passenger seat.

  “I heard shots,” Qasim said.

  Khadr took a deep breath and exhaled slowly as he collected his thoughts. Khadr was not his real name, of course. In fact, Abu Qasim didn’t know his real name. He was a professional killer from somewhere in the Middle East, spoke five languages fluently, had some education and was an excellent actor, with the ability to fit into almost any crowd. If he had any religious co
nvictions, Qasim didn’t know about them. Khadr killed for money. For the right price, he would kill anyone. Qasim paid his fees because Khadr was good, very good. Holy warriors on jihad would do their best, but when Qasim wanted it done right the first time with no screw-ups, he hired a professional like Khadr.

  “I was jimmying the door when I heard someone turn the lock. Obviously I was making some noise, and apparently the man heard it. There were two locks. I stood back, and when he opened the door and was silhouetted by the light behind him, I shot him. I stepped inside, and the other guard was coming down the stairs. I shot him, too.

  “I dragged the corpses into a basement storeroom and found the electrical distribution box, turned off the power, waited for my eyes to adjust, then went upstairs.

  “Zetsche and his woman were asleep. I killed them with a knife. On the way out someone began following me. We played cat and mouse for a while, then I slipped down the stairs to the basement. Someone had apparently put a vase on the stair. I saw it, but the man behind me didn’t. Then someone started shooting — killed the man chasing me, I think.”

  As they drove, Abu Qasim thought about his next move. Finally he said, “There is a man in Zurich, a banker named Rolf Gnadinger …”

  The snow was sticking on the grass, but the wall to the Zetsche estate was merely wet and slick. I fell onto the sidewalk, a drop of about five feet, and twisted my ankle a little bit. Cussing under my breath, I limped off toward town. The road was also wet — the flakes were melting as fast as they hit.

  Up in the parking garage, I threw my bag into the front trunk of the Porsche and lit her off. If the law found me before I got out of Germany, I was going to spend a few miserable days as a guest of the German republic. My clothes and razor and toothbrush were in the hotel — I certainly didn’t want to waste time retrieving them. I’d just replace that stuff somewhere and put the bill on my expense account. Screw the taxpayers — that’s my motto.

  On the way out of town I passed an ambulance running lights and sirens going the other way. They need not have hurried; none of the people at the Zetsche estate needed a fast ride to a hospital.

  I didn’t relax until I crossed the Rhine River bridge into France. That’s when the reaction to too much adrenaline and a fumbled assignment hit me hard. At one point I had to pull over and rest my head on the steering wheel as the windshield wipers slapped and squeaked and a rain-snow mixture pattered gently on the roof of my ride. My face throbbed where that cop slugged me, and I was exhausted.

  A dead battery in the night vision goggles and my inability to stay awake had cost four people their lives. Oh, I know, I didn’t kill them— the assassin who did had already gone on to his reward, whatever it might be. Still, the story should have had a different ending. Those people should still be alive.

  Marisa Petrou! She had to be the one who opened the door for the assassin. Even if she wasn’t, she sandbagged me, trying to help him escape. That gorgeous bitch was in this mess right up to her plastic surgery scars.

  I should have slapped her harder. Should have knocked her damned head off.

  Grafton knew she was involved in the Surkov killing, and I’d bet ten dollars against a doughnut that she poisoned her husband. Tens of thousands of women have murdered their husbands since people stopped living in caves — maybe millions. It’s the ones who don’t kill their man that we should wonder about. Naturally, I made a fool of myself by defending her to Grafton. “She isn’t the type.” Ha!

  A sleety dawn was threatening to smear itself all over France when I realized that I couldn’t go any farther. The next pull-off was a truck rest stop. There was even a McDonald’s. I found a spot under a tree— behind a semi where the car couldn’t be seen from the highway — killed the engine, locked the doors and went to sleep.

  The workday was well under way in London when Jake Grafton called Sal Molina on the encrypted telephone — getting him at home and waking him up — and gave him the news: Wolfgang Zetsche was dead, as were his girlfriend and two employees. The killer had been shot dead by Tommy Carmellini. Before he could tell it all, Molina began asking questions.

  “Abu Qasim?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to do a debrief yet. Tommy’s driving back to London. He said the man he killed was young, maybe twenty-five.”

  “German police?”

  “I’ve talked to the German intelligence chief. Given him all I can.”

  “Do any of the police or intel agencies know of the link between Surkov, Petrou and Zetsche?”

  “The police know Marisa Petrou was present at all three killings, and Isolde at two. Tongues are starting to wag. To the best of my knowledge, they don’t know what the link is, but they are looking.”

  “Did one of those women kill those people? Or any of them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Lot of damned help you are.”

  “My job is delivering bad news.”

  “You’re really good at it. Call me when you get some more.” The connection went dead.

  Jake Grafton called Speedo Harris and Per Diem into his office. “Let’s hear it,” he said. Unlike the president’s aide, he listened to everything the British and FBI officers had to say before he asked questions. The murder of Alexander Surkov with polonium was still getting the bulk of the various police agencies’ investigative assets — for political reasons, if nothing else — and the revelations were aired on television and radio as fast as the agencies dribbled them out. Politicians postured and wrung their hands.

  “The agencies are trying to find out everything they can about Marisa Petrou,” Per Diem said. “She was at the scene of three murders in what — twelve days? That’s bound to attract some notice. They are also interested in Tommy Carmellini. The Brits know he is a CIA officer, and they are asking questions. I suspect our good friend Harris may have put them on Carmellini’s trail.”

  Speedo didn’t turn a hair. “I was asked about Carmellini and answered truthfully,” he told Jake Grafton, who nodded his approval. “Carmellini’s popularity with the French authorities is on the wane, however. The French officer I spoke to made some regrettable comments. Positively nasty, I dare say.”

  “Tommy rubs them the wrong way,” Diem added, quite unnecessarily.

  “The officer I spoke to at New Scotland Yard was less than complimentary about you, Admiral,” Harris continued. “He snarled something about you playing your cards very close to your vest. ‘All take and no give,’ he remarked.”

  Grafton nodded. “Oleg Tchernychenko,” he said, changing the subject abruptly.

  It was midafternoon when I rolled into old London town. I was so tired my eyes watered. I parked in front of the office and went inside to see the boss.

  “Where have you been?” Jake Grafton barked.

  “Fleeing the scene of a crime.”

  I must have looked so bad that he took pity on me. His frown disappeared and he said, “Get a bath and change clothes. You and I are flying to Scotland this evening.”

  “It’s January in Scotland,” I pointed out. “Have you any idea what the weather is up there?”

  “Invigorating. Go! Hurry. There’s a plane waiting.”

  By golly, there was, too. It was past teatime and the sun was long gone when we climbed aboard, but in minutes we were droning through the clag over England. Grafton sat beside me so we could talk, but I didn’t even try. I put my head back and went promptly to sleep.

  When he woke me up — by shaking me — we were on the ground and taxiing.

  Speedo Harris was behind the wheel of the car that was waiting for us. He muttered something pleasant to me, but I didn’t quite catch it and wasn’t in the mood to ask him to repeat it. I grunted and sat there watching as we rolled out of the suburbs and off into the wild Scottish night. The wind blew fiercely and the rain fell sideways, drumming on the car’s sheet metal. Every now and then the car shook from the impact of a gust of wind. I pulled my miserably thin coat tighter and wondered what
this trip was all about.

  “You got our man cornered in a hole up here?” I asked Grafton.

  “Tell me about last night. Everything you can remember.”

  I flicked my eyes over to Speedo, who could be relied upon to repeat every word to his MI-6 bosses. Grafton nodded, almost imperceptibly. So he was sharing. Make that: He was sharing what I knew.

  So I went through it, minute by minute. I had enough wit left to omit any mention of threatening Marisa. If she got shot, stabbed or poisoned, I didn’t want Jake Grafton and MI-6 and every spook agency in the free world suspecting me. Who knows? I might even decide to shoot, stab or poison her myself before I got a whole lot older. A man has to keep his options open.

  When I finished my narration, he asked, “Did she kill Zetsche?”

  “I dunno. I’ve run through it a hundred times today, trying to decide. I don’t even know if she opened the servant’s door. Anyone in the house could have opened it. Anyone could have killed the juice. All I know for a fact that I could swear to is that she was standing in Zetsche’s bathroom with a gun in her hand — with him in bed with a knife in him, dead as old dog food — and she sandbagged me downstairs a few minutes later, when I was about ready to drill the villains. Villains plural.”

  “Tommy,” Grafton said gently, “I hate to have to tell you this, but the man you shot was Isolde’s chauffeur.”

  “Aaw …”

  “He must have been following the assassin, chasing him, when you opened fire. It was a tragic, regrettable accident.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Even if I had known, I doubt if I could have got it out. That moment had to be the lowest point in my life.

  “Of course,” Grafton continued after a few moments, “he might have been the one who admitted the assassin to the house. He might have been in that stairwell to lock the door after he left when you opened fire.”

  I stared at him. Finally I found my tongue. “Why in the world would he lock the door behind the killer? With four dead bodies cluttering up the place? They jimmied the jamb to make it look like a break-in; they even left the pry bar lying there so the police would be sure to find it. Locking the door behind the guy would show the world that there were two people involved.”