Book of Souls

Chapter 8

Cottle hopped back into the waiting taxi and asked to be taken to the Grand Hyatt, where he had a reservation. He was planning to have a quick wash and a good tramp around the city. Perhaps he’d find a club or two before he surrendered to the fatigue of an unexpectedly long day. As the cab pulled away, he left a brief message for Toby Parfitt on his office voice mail, letting him know the delivery was successful. He had a second call to make but he’d wait until he was alone in his hotel room.

Frazier had to make a field decision: follow the courier and extract potentially important information or go straight for Piper and the book. He needed to know whether Piper was alone. What kind of situation would he be getting into if he did a forced entry? He’d be crucified if he wound up dealing with the police tonight.

He wished he had a second team in place, but he didn’t. He went with his gut, the knowledge of Cottle’s DOD, and decided to go with the courier first. When DeCorso pulled away from Will’s building, Frazier looked up at the lit windows on the sixth floor and silently promised he’d be back later.

In midtown, the taxi deposited Cottle at the elevated Vanderbilt Avenue entrance of the Hyatt, where the young man took the escalator down to the cavernous lobby. While he checked in, Frazier and DeCorso watched him from the elevator bank. He’d have to come to them.

Frazier whispered to DeCorso, “Intimidate him, but you don’t have to beat the crap out of him. He’ll talk. He’s just a courier. Find out what he knows about Piper and why he wanted the book. See if anyone else was in his apartment. You know the drill.”

DeCorso grunted, and Frazier slipped into the corner lobby bar before Cottle could make him.

Frazier ordered a beer and found an unoccupied table to nurse it. He drank half of it before his phone rang.

One of his men at the Ops Center was on the line with an urgent press of words. “We just dug up some info on your mark, Adam Cottle.”

It wasn’t easy to surprise Frazier, but the news wrong-footed him. He ended the conversation with a simple and irritated, “All right,” then stared at the BlackBerry, trying to decide whether to call DeCorso. He put the phone on the table and drank the other half of the beer in a couple of gulps. It was probably too late to abort. He’d let it ride. There might be hell to pay, but he’d have to let it ride. Fate’s the damnedest thing, he thought, the damnedest thing in the world.

DeCorso followed Cottle onto the elevator and looked squarely up at the ceiling where he figured the security camera was affixed. If anything went wrong, the police would focus on him-one hundred percent-once they eliminated everyone else on the elevator. It didn’t matter. He didn’t exist. His face, his prints: nothing about him inhabited any database other than his Groom Lake personnel file-all the watchers were off the grid. They’d be looking for a ghost.

Cottle hit the button for his floor, and politely asked DeCorso, “Where to?” because he was the only one who hadn’t pushed a button.

“Same as you,” DeCorso said.

They both exited at twenty-one. DeCorso hung back, pretending to look for his room key while Cottle consulted the hallway sign and made a left. The corridor was long and deserted. He looked free and light as he pulled his bag behind him, a single bloke with an expense account and a night on the town. He was getting his second wind at just the right time.

He slid his room key into the slot, and the lights blinked green. His bag hadn’t cleared the threshold when a sound made him look back. The man from the elevator was three feet away, closing fast.

Cottle saw him, and uttered, “Hey!”

DeCorso kicked the door shut behind them, and quickly said, “This isn’t a robbery. I need to talk to you.”

Inexplicably, Cottle didn’t look frightened. “Oh yeah? Then get the fuck out of here and call me on the telephone. You deaf, mate? Get the fuck out.”

DeCorso registered disbelief. Something didn’t compute. The kid should have been a quivering mass, begging for his life, offering his wallet. Instead, he held his ground. DeCorso demanded, “Tell me what you know about Will Piper, the guy you just saw.”

Cottle dropped his bag and clenched and unclenched his fists a few times as if he were limbering them for a dustup. “Look, I don’t know who the fuck you are, but you’re either going to leave on your own account, or I’m going break you in two and throw out each half.”

DeCorso was dumbstruck at the kid’s aggression, but he warned, “Don’t make this harder than it has to be. You stepped into dogshit, pal. You’re just going to have to go with the flow.”

“Who do you work for?” Cottle demanded.

DeCorso shook his head in disbelief. “You’re asking me questions? You’ve got to be kidding.” It was time for escalation. He pulled a folding knife out of his coat pocket and flicked the blade out with the snap of his wrist. “The book. Why did Piper want it? Was anyone with him tonight? Tell me, and I’m gone. Play with me, and you’ll regret it.”

Cottle answered by making himself low and compact and suddenly charging at DeCorso, smashing him into the door. The force of impact made him drop the folding knife onto the carpet. Instinctively, DeCorso smashed his fists against the back of Cottle’s neck and got some separation by throwing a knee up into his chin.

They were two feet apart; both men had only a moment to look at each other before colliding again. DeCorso saw Cottle assume the crouched posture of a trained fighter, a professional, and this only furthered his confusion. He glanced down at the knife, and Cottle used that instant to attack again, unleashing a flurry of punches and kicks, all of them aimed at the neck and the groin.

DeCorso used his superior body mass to fend Cottle off and move him away from the door. He scanned the room for another weapon. The guy wasn’t going to let him get the knife back. And DeCorso wasn’t going to neutralize him with his bare hands. This kid was too good for that.

DeCorso lunged forward, and Cottle had the misfortune to step backward onto his roller bag and lose his footing. His landed awkwardly on his back, his head near the night table. DeCorso threw all 250 pounds of his hard body on top of the smaller man and heard a whoosh as the air expelled from Cottle’s compressed chest.

Before Cottle could land any counterkicks or punches, DeCorso reached for the digital clock radio on the night-stand and ripped its plug out of the wall. In a wild frenzy, he brought the chunky plastic box down hard on Cottle’s cheek, then kept smashing him again and again like a pile-driver until the box had pulverized into plastic shards and circuit boards and Cottle’s face was a mass of blood and broken bones. Through secretions, he heard Cottle groaning and swearing.

DeCorso fell to his knees and twisted his waist to look for the knife.

Where was it?

And then he saw it, slashing toward him from Cottle’s fist. The blade cut through his overcoat and got hung up in fabric long enough for DeCorso to get both hands on Cottle’s forearm and snap it down hard against his own knee.

Cottle’s primal yell made DeCorso lose control. Years of training and discipline suddenly washed away like a bridge knocked off its piers by floodwaters. The knife was in his hand now, and without a second of conscious thought, he leaned over and sliced the right side of the man’s already-bloody neck, cleanly severing the carotid artery, and collapsed backward to avoid the jets of blood.

DeCorso sat and watched, panting and fighting for air as Cottle bled out and died.

When he was able to compose himself, he took Cottle’s wallet and passport, and for show, rifled through his suitcase, scattering the contents. He found the paperwork with Piper’s address and pocketed it.

Then he left, still breathing hard.

The newspapers would carry the story for two days, before the metro reporters would lose interest. A young foreign businessman was the unfortunate victim of a violent hotel robbery.

Tragic, but these things happened in the big city.

Will would never even notice the story. He was preoccupied.

Back in London, alarms started going off after the normally reliable Cottle failed to make his second phone call. The Duty Officer got concerned enough to call Cottle’s mobile phone but got no response. It was the middle of the night, deep within the grand modern SIS building at Vauxhall Cross, where the lights perpetually burned brightly. Cottle’s SIS section chief finally had an assistant ring the Grand Hyatt to see if he’d checked in.

A desk clerk was dispatched to Cottle’s room, pounded on the door, and let himself into a hellish scene.