Assassin

73

'Is he dead?'

Maddy nodded. 'They switched off the life-support. I'm so sorry… I just spoke to Karin. At least she saw him. That's something, I guess.' Her eyes were red from crying, her cheeks still lined by the tracks of mascara-stained tears. She swallowed, chewed her lip and then said, 'She's pregnant with his baby. Ten weeks.'

'Oh God…'

Carver closed his eyes and his face slumped back down on to the padded examination table on which he was lying.

'I'm sorry,' he said, his voice muffled. 'Dragging you into all this… I had no idea…'

He was finding it hard to talk. He'd been drugged unconscious twice in twelve hours and he couldn't clear the narcotic fog from his brain. There were things he wanted to say to Maddy – explanations at least, if not excuses – but the right words wouldn't come. There was something else, too, something he had to do, but he couldn't remember what.

His body was naked, and numb from the neck down with local anaesthetics. A grey-haired doctor, glasses perched on the end of his nose, was working his way down Carver's back, buttocks and legs, repairing the damage wreaked by Tyzack's cane. He had been introduced to Carver as Dr Rolf Lyngstad. His wife Greta, a former nurse, was assisting him. The hundreds of stitches combined with the lines of the wounds to create a brutal cross-hatching over Carver's shredded skin.

Maddy glanced up at Lyngstad, who caught her eye and then very deliberately turned away, devoting his full attention to Carver's back. Whatever she was about to say, he was not going to hear it.

She crouched down by the end of the table until her head was level with Carver's. Quietly, but with fierce insistence, she said, 'Look at me. Look me in the eye.'

His head tilted up again.

Now her voice was somewhere between a whisper and a hiss. 'I know you kill people. The cops told me. Three guys last night. That's true, isn't it?'

He didn't deny it.

'But the sick bastard who did all this to you, who killed Thor, he's still out there.'

A fractional nod.

'And he's been planning… all this, right? He's been working on it a while. That British guy who knows you, Grantham…'

Carver's eyes widened: 'He's here?'

'Yeah. He told me about Damon Tyzack. He said it looked like he'd been setting you up, not just here, but other places. He said Dubai was one. And California. The sick bastard was in the States. And it made me think. That day at the hot-dog stand, the guy who creeped me out, that was him, wasn't it?'

'I don't know for sure.'

'But it might have been…'

Carver nodded again.

'He knows where I live. Doesn't he? He knows where I fucking live!'

'Yeah… I think so.'

'Was he there? When we were together?'

Carver didn't have to reply. The look on his face told her all she needed to know.

'Shit! That's just… I mean, what am I supposed to do now? Where am I supposed to go?'

'I'm sorry,' Carver repeated.

'Sorry? Oh, screw that. Sorry doesn't begin to cut it. No, I don't want you being sorry…' She knelt down in front of him again. 'I want you to kill him, Carver. Do you understand me? I want you to blow his sorry ass away. I want Damon Tyzack dead. I want him in pieces. I want to know that he's never coming back, that he can never find me, or hurt me. And if you can promise me that he's gone then maybe, just maybe, I might let you back in my life. Because right now, I wish I'd never met you.'

Carver looked at her, trying to see some sign of forgiveness or hope for him in her eyes. Maddy had rested one of her hands against the table to balance herself. He reached up to hold it, but she snatched it away.

'Just kill him,' Maddy said. Then she got up and walked out of the room without a backward glance. Jack Grantham peered round Dr Lyngstad's back, screwing up his mouth in squeamish disgust. 'Your back,' he said, 'looks like a badly darned sock.'

'Piss off.'

'Oh dear, feeling sorry for ourselves, are we?' he said, getting closer to Carver while Lyngstad, not best pleased by the criticism of his handiwork, shot a venomous look over the top of his glasses. 'Woman trouble, I bet. I passed that American piece of yours in the hall and she didn't look too happy. I don't know… every time I ever meet you, there's some girlfriend or other giving you grief.'

'Has it ever occurred to you that you might be the reason why?' Carver asked. 'Telling her Tyzack had been in the States… Now she's convinced he'll be after her next, and she blames me.'

'You say that as though she's wrong. So, is she gone for good, you reckon?'

'As long as Tyzack is still around, she is.'

Grantham could not keep the smirk from spreading across his face.

'Jesus wept… That was what you wanted,' Carver snarled. Grantham had managed to irritate him as much as usual but there was one compensation: the anger was cutting through his brain like Drano down a blocked pipe.

'That's not quite fair,' said Grantham. 'I honestly thought she had a right to know that there was a possible threat to her safety. But yes, it did occur to me that there might be consequences. And I wasn't entirely unhappy about that because experience has taught me that if I want you to do something, well, let's just say you tend to need an incentive.'

'To get Tyzack?'

'Who else?'

'You don't think that the fact my best friend is dead because of Tyzack is enough of an incentive? Or that I might feel like killing him just for what he's done to me?'

'Yes, but I wanted to be absolutely sure.'

'I see. So where is he?'

'Ah, well…' A look that came as close as Grantham would ever get to embarrassment crossed his face. 'I was hoping he might have told you something about where he was heading next.'

Carver closed his eyes, forcing his mind back to the barn. And then it came to him, the warning he had to relay: 'No, I don't know where he is now. But I think I can tell you where he's going to be in two days' time. He'll be in Bristol. And he'll be trying to assassinate Lincoln Roberts.'

A look of incredulity crossed Grantham's face. 'He told you this, did he?'

'Not in so many words, no,' Carver admitted.

'So how, then?'

'He said he was going to do a job that would put him in a different league. He also said it would be "the big one". He wouldn't be more specific than that, though I knew he was longing to tell me everything. He's trying to prove that he's better than me. In his mind that means taking out the world's number-one target. And that's always going to be the US President.'

Grantham shrugged. 'Not necessarily. Could be any number of people… the Queen, the PM, bin Laden, the Pope. Could be a celebrity.'

'Yes, it could be,' said Carver, 'but Damon Tyzack has no reason to kill any of them. Let me ask you something: have they worked out who the target was last night?'

'Yeah, some German woman, name of Kreutzmann. She was a journalist, one of those campaigning types. The bomb was in her room.'

'And what does she campaign about?'

'People-trafficking,' said Grantham. 'Evidently she's against it.'

'Right, and that job Tyzack did in Dubai, the targets were a people-trafficker and a pimp. Maddy said you told her Tyzack had worked in the States. Who was the target?'

'Chap called Norton Krebs. He was some sort of financial consultant.'

'Oh yeah? Who did he consult for?'

'Well, some of his clients were pretty unsavoury.'

'Slave-traders?' asked Carver.

'I honestly don't know. But it's possible.'

'OK, let's forget about him. That still leaves Tyzack and the people who are paying for him up to their necks in the slave trade. Meanwhile President Roberts is flying into Britain to give a speech at a conference about slavery and people-trafficking. I don't know, maybe it's a coincidence. But if I'm wrong, I just look paranoid. If you're wrong, Tyzack takes a potshot at the President.'

'Point taken,' said Grantham. 'But suppose it is the President, all he's doing is giving a speech. Why would anyone need to kill him?'

'Depends what he's going to say.'

'Well, no one knows the answer to that,' said Grantham. 'The speech has been totally embargoed. The Yanks won't even tell Number Ten. It's really put the PM's knickers in a twist. He even wanted us to see if we could find out what was in the bloody thing. We had to tell his office that we'd love to oblige, but sadly we don't have any bugs in the White House and it's a bit short notice to try and turn one of his staff.'

'For you, perhaps,' said Carver. 'But maybe I can help.'