Death of a Pawn: A WMD Companion Short Story

Chapter Nine

Rafiq would have preferred more time to plan the mission, but time was a luxury in short supply.

Today was the day, and he was in place.

Inside Nisman’s apartment.

Nisman lived alone. If Rafiq killed him on a Sunday afternoon, his body would probably not be discovered until Monday morning at the earliest. Probably by the maid. That would give Rafiq at least twelve hours before the news broke.

Plenty of time to get out of Buenos Aires and home to the estancia.

From Jamil’s reconnaissance he knew that Nisman’s security detail changed over at midnight and again at noon, which had allowed him to get into the apartment unseen. The guards in the back of the building usually took a smoke break a little after 3PM. He would use that window of opportunity to get out of the building.

Rafiq sat in the small maid’s closet just inside Nisman’s apartment, the smell of Paula’s cleaning supplies heavy in the air. He’d inverted a five-gallon bucket to use as a seat for his vigil. He screwed the suppressor into the barrel of his 9mm and laid the weapon on the floor next to him. Everything was in place; now all he had to do was wait.

Rafiq focused on his breathing, resisting the urge to check his watch. He’d made certain he’d gone to the bathroom before coming to the building, and he had a small CamelBak beneath his pullover in case he got thirsty. The reservoir was small, and soft-sided, which meant the water made little noise. He knew better than to bring a water bottle in with him — he might forget it. Worse, he might be tempted to take a glass of water from the apartment before Nisman arrived back at home. No, leave everything in place. No prints.

Nisman was due any minute now, if he kept to his normal schedule. The less Rafiq moved now, the better.

He checked his watch.

12:05PM.

Nisman always went to the café down the street for a late breakfast on Sunday mornings. Always. Jamil had followed him three times, and Nisman had left right on schedule for the café again this morning.

Rafiq stiffened as he heard a key slip into the front door lock, followed by a loud click. The light beneath the door in his closet hideout told him Nisman had turned on the main light in the living room.

No conversation. That was good. He was alone.

Rafiq heard the front closet door open and the gentle jangling of coat hangers. Then he heard shoes being kicked off and tossed into a corner. A briefcase being laid flat on a table. He carries that thing everywhere he goes. Footsteps padding about on the apartment’s solid marble floors. The refrigerator door opening now. Ceramic clinking. The sound of something being poured into a glass.

The apartment became silent. Nisman was out of earshot. In his bedroom, perhaps?

Three minutes later, Rafiq heard the stereo come on. Classical music. Debussy, he noted. Rafiq nodded his head slowly in time with the music.

Focus.

He resisted looking at his watch for a long time. 1:10PM. He could distinguish the sound of a newspaper being opened and shuffled about, and Nisman pulling out a chair from the table in the dining room. Twenty minutes passed before he heard the slap of the newspaper being folded back together. Nisman walked into the kitchen, and Rafiq heard the lid of the garbage bin opening.

The stereo went off, and a wheeled chair in another room — the office? — was pulled across the floor. A radio popped on with national news. Definitely the office; that was where the radio was kept.

The broadcast continued for a few minutes. He then heard Nisman scroll up and down the dial, finally settling on a station playing light jazz. Nisman left the volume on a low level. The music filtered throughout the apartment, but not loud enough to bother anyone else on this floor.

He’s a considerate neighbor.

2:05PM.

A short drink from the Camelbak straw. He stood slowly, making certain he did not knock against anything in the closet. Rafiq lengthened his spine as he stretched his arms as high as he could reach. He rolled his head to loosen his neck.

2:30PM.

Rafiq had decided he would make his move at 2:45PM, which would allow him time to clean the site and slip down the back stairwell. By the time the security detail returned from their smoke break, he would be kilometers away.

2:40PM.

Rafiq savored the moment to come. He’d first realized his gift for this sort of work during the Khobar Towers mission in Saudi Arabia almost twenty years ago now, when he was just a boy and a new recruit. The more experienced Hezbollah operatives — the men — were afraid before the operation. He saw it in their eyes, smelled it in their sweat. But Rafiq… he’d felt only exhilaration, like he was satisfying some base need. In the heat of the battle, when the others felt fear and said their prayers to Allah, Rafiq felt… joy.

When he made his first solo kill, the joy only intensified.

He shook in anticipation of his first kill in many years. He’d missed this… this sense of purpose. Hashem had kept him too long at the estancia, like a caged tiger being fed steak. Rafiq wanted to hunt.

The familiar heft of the 9mm in his right hand was like an old friend. Comforting. Calming. Rafiq told himself he was carrying out a vital mission for his brother. For all his Hezbollah brothers, and their Iranian benefactors.

But in that tiny closet, he recognized the truth of it — he just liked to kill.

2:43PM.

Rafiq gently pushed down on the lever-handled door knob, cracking the door open an inch, then six more. He peered around the door, reassuring himself that he still had the element of surprise on his side. The hum of the air conditioner masked his footsteps as he made his way to Nisman’s office. The desk faced away from the door, with a view out the thirteenth-floor window. Rafiq would take him from the doorway. One shot to the base of Nisman’s neck.

Rafiq felt his breath come faster and shallower as the moment approached. He licked his lips.

He passed through the kitchen. Dishes in the sink. No leftover food on the counters.

He cleans up after himself.

He rechecked his 9mm to ensure the safety was off, his hand caressing the length of the weapon.

Rafiq stopped in the kitchen, ready to make the final few strides to the office. He could picture the moment in his head: lining up the sights on the unsuspecting Nisman, the kick of the gun his hand, the soft sound of the suppressed shots like someone punching a mattress, and the feeling of power that would overwhelm him for a moment—

Nisman stepped out of his office, turning down the hallway. The bathroom.

Rafiq’s prey entered the bathroom and snapped on the light, then he stopped suddenly, right in front of the mirror. He spoke in soft Spanish.

He talks to himself?

Rafiq realized he was hearing two voices. Nisman was not alone.

A lover? There had been no conversations. For hours, nothing but silence.

The bathroom door was ajar. Rafiq stepped into the hallway and edged close enough to hear what they were saying.

“You played your part perfectly. We thank you.” The voice was soft, almost feminine.

Rafiq chanced a look into the bathroom. Nisman’s palms were open at his side, but the other person was blocked from Rafiq’s view.

“I trusted you,” Nisman said. “You wanted the same things as me. An end to corruption. True justice for the nation… for the victims from 1994.”

“I don’t give a damn about the Jews. That was twenty years ago. No one cares about them, except you.”

Another assassin? How did I miss this?

“Good-bye, Alberto.”

Rafiq saw the fat cigar shape of a suppressor appear behind Nisman’s right ear. A single shot, like someone had dropped a heavy blanket on the tile floor, sounded.

Nisman sank to his knees and crumpled to the floor as his muscles went limp. He lay perfectly still. For a few seconds, blood fountained from the hole in his skull, then the flow slowed as his heart stopped beating.

Alberto Nisman was dead.

Rafiq stole quickly back into the maid’s closet, closing the door silently behind him.

He waited while the other assassin did his work. The radio went off. Then he could hear papers being shuffled, and the snap of the locks on a briefcase closing. Confident footsteps passed in front of Rafiq’s hiding place, and the lock on the front door clicked when the assassin departed.

Rafiq waited in silence for a full five minutes, then opened the closet door, weapon at the ready.

Nothing. He was alone.

He crept down the hallway to the bathroom.

Nisman lay on the bathroom floor, awash in a crimson pool of his own blood. The heavy, familiar smell of iron filled the air, laced with the scent of gunpowder. Rafiq drew a deep breath and held it, savored it. A .22 caliber Bersa lay on the floor next to Nisman’s body.

His chin shook as he thought about the prize that had been snatched away. Rafiq pushed that feeling down in his gut where it gnawed away.

The job is done. Time to go home.

He looked at his watch. 3:13PM.

Moments later, Rafiq Roshed strolled down the Buenos Aires sidewalk toward his parked rental car. If traffic was light on a Sunday afternoon, he could be in Fray Bentos by nightfall. The power yacht would take him home. Home to Nadine, little Javier, and Consie. Surely Javier would be bursting with news about his latest exploit on horseback.

The thought brought a smile to Rafiq’s face.