Double Take

CHAPTER 31

Xavier Makepeace stood at the window of his hotel room in downtown Palo Alto and sneered down at the people scurrying about like pointless lemmings, none of them going anywhere, none of them worth anything. He imagined picking up his Kalashnikov and mowing a wide swath down the middle of that unending noisy herd, thirty rounds so fast it made your teeth sting. It would put all those useless cretins right out of their misery.

His Kalashnikov, his favorite assault rifle, was cheap and simple, and it never let him down. He always spoke its full name, liked the way it flowed on his tongue when he whispered it aloud, not the ridiculously shortened AK-47. Too bad he’d had to leave it tucked it away in his home in Montego Bay. But still, he enjoyed thinking about how it would feel to spray bullets from his open window—he could almost hear the screams, suck in the smell of terror, and the odor of gunshots and death. It always revved him like nothing else.

Nothing revved him at all right now. He turned away from the window.

He thought back to the years before he’d gotten his Kalashnikov, the years of his youth when he’d gathered young Jamaican men around him with bribes of the very best, the most potent ganja, their spiritual aid and, it seemed to him, their only escape. He’d believed he could lead them to do almost anything at all, and what he wanted was to rob the pasty-faced Brits, break their wills, send them scurrying back to that cold, benighted island of theirs. He thought he’d convinced some of the young men to put their future in his hands, to rebel against all the Brits’ stupid laws and tedious education, their bloody imperialist history and foppish speech, the greedy thieves. His father included. His father, who’d been sent to what he thought a dismal little island as a civil servant to improve the locals’ lot. Yeah, like he had cared whether that was going to happen.

Xavier had realized before his father had that the young men hadn’t wanted to be improved. They wanted to spend their days sprawled in the shade, wallowing in the numbing bliss of their ganja. They stayed polite to his father and had backed away from Xavier, like he was crazy and they might catch it.

Xavier thought of his father’s endless rules and regulations, that supercilious way he looked down his nose at those he considered his inferiors, and that included anyone who hadn’t attended Sandhurst.

And yet his father had lowered himself to bed a local, and Xavier was the result. The old man eventually sent him to England for an education he said would rival the prime minister’s. Xavier had hated the relentless cold, the bone-numbing damp, and the rain, always the rain, snaking down his neck, making him so miserable he’d wished he’d die.

And how he’d hated the Brits. At school they rigorously caned their rebellious young to make them strong, and he was no exception. He’d heard them say more times than he could stomach that it was for his own good. He thought he might bomb Sandhurst out of existence one of these days. It was something profoundly pleasant to look forward to.

Xavier realized he’d clenched his hands so tightly they were cramping. How could that old bastard still twist him up?

Bad memories, he thought, that’s all. His old man was well and truly gone, ever since Xavier had squeezed three neat shots into his chest on a sodden black night in Belfast, years and years ago. His father was there to negotiate with those hate-filled blighter Irish, and ended up sprawled on the street between his two dead bodyguards. Xavier had watched the life fade out of his pale icy eyes, filled first with disbelief, and then final awareness. He leaned down and told his father that a lowly Siberian peasant had invented the Kalashnikov and what did he think of being shot with that? His father hadn’t answered, he’d died instead.

Xavier had stood over that sodden bloody mess of tweeds, a still-furled umbrella lying next to him. He hadn’t told those dark-eyed men in Belfast that he’d have been happy to kill his old man for free. His father had fetched ten thousand pounds, and he’d enjoyed that money, along with his inheritance. At least, he’d thought, the Irish were trying to rid themselves of the bloody English, and he’d done his part. For a price.

Incredible weapon, the Kalashnikov. He’d once thought the Ml6 was the god of all assault rifles until he’d been with a group of Palestinians on a raid in the desert and the damned thing had jammed, victim of a blizzard of blowing sand. Why, he’d asked their leader, did they use weapons that didn’t work in this hell on earth? But the Arab had only shrugged, said there would always be hardships for those who tried to carry out Allah’s wishes. Xavier found their hard-wired hatred of the Israelis insane—as if the Israelis hadn’t lived side by side with them over thousands of years as they’d fought and lost to a host of invaders. He knew deep hatred like that knotted you up, made you an easy target rather than a fluid shadow, unseen by your enemy because you moved too fast and sure. Hatred made you stupid. The Palestinians had looked at him when he’d said that, then away, quickly, and he’d known in that moment that without their hatred, they’d have nothing at all, their lives would be pointless, like that paltry stream of humanity parading below his hotel window. It was then he’d eschewed all contact with groups of any kind. He was by himself now, depended only on himself and answered only to himself. He was the perfect assassin, swift and silent and deadly, terminating his targets without flaw, without fuss.

Until now.

He felt rage rising in his throat, a sour peppery taste, and wanted to choke on it.

A stupid little woman, an amateur who should have died in San Francisco Bay, a lovely deep knife thrust through her heart, had shot him, maimed him. Of course he couldn’t have factored in an FBI agent that first time, couldn’t have predicted he’d be there at that precise moment. What a bit of luck for that walking-dead bitch. Well, that hadn’t been because of any flaw in planning on his part.

But when she’d shot him on Saturday night—there had been no deus ex machina, unexpected and unforeseen, to rescue her. He closed his eyes, still couldn’t believe what he had let happen. The dozen small cuts on his face and neck were a constant reminder, and he could still feel the shock of pain when he’d tweezed out each splinter. The bullet had only hit the fleshy part of his arm and thankfully gone through. He’d been able to tend to it himself.

She could have killed you. Why hadn’t she? Why had she bleated out a warning? He was there to kill her, for God’s sake. She was a wimpy amateur, thank God, paralyzed by fear even when it came down to saving herself. She could have shot you in the middle of your back when you were facing her bed. You were lucky, lucky, lucky—

His hands fisted again. How he wished he had his Kalashnikov. He could walk right up to her front door, and when she opened it, he’d pump twenty rounds into her, all in her face, shredding bone and flesh, splatting blood and brains all over the acres of marble, rich wood, and the paintings marching up the walls. And anyone else with her. Then he could walk back out of that posh death house, whistling, and leave this foggy cold city.

But what he had was his Skorpion VZ 61, thirty years old and no longer made. It was his mentor’s in a guerrilla force in southern Africa, until he’d been shot in a raid, and Xavier had uncurled his fingers and taken it. His Skorpion was small, light, and easily concealed, and it was fitted with an efficient silencer.

He swallowed three more Aleve.

He’d had two chances at her, two solid chances, and she was still alive. His employer wasn’t happy, but no matter. He was not going to slink away now, no matter what orders or stupid rants he heard. This wasn’t acceptable. He’d never failed and he wasn’t about to fail now, to turn tail and run. He sat down at the stingy little desk, picked up the cheap ballpoint provided by the hotel, and drew a piece of hotel stationery from the drawer. He would get her this time. He began to write out a list of what he would need.