Order to Kill

CHAPTER 4

CLAUDIA repeated her new last name to herself, trying to get it to sink in. She spoke quietly, keeping the volume of her voice lower than that of the breeze blowing through the vehicle’s open windows.

“Dufort, Dufort, Dufort…”

It wasn’t as though this was her first alias-she’d had plenty of occasions to use them in the years she’d handled logistics for the professional assassin she’d been married to. This felt very different, though. Those had been nothing more than a stack of IDs and credit cards to be used for a few days and then carefully destroyed. Claudia Dufort wasn’t a convenient fiction to be used while Louis completed a contract. It was who she was now. Claudia Gould was gone forever.

She spoke a little louder, glancing over at her daughter in the passenger seat to make sure she didn’t wake her. On the other hand, maybe she should. Anna had taken to sleeping too much in recent weeks. At seven years old, she was struggling to fully grasp the ramifications of her father’s death. The permanence of it.

And then there was the new home, the new school, and the new friends. In the end, though, she was young and adaptable. In fact, Claudia had noticed that Anna’s French accent was already taking on a few South African nuances.

So, sleeping too much or not, Anna would ultimately be fine. But what about her mother? Would she learn to inhabit her new life as comfortably?

It was an open question at this point. Over the past few months, Claudia had been able to immerse herself in the details of her new identity, country, and lifestyle. But now things were settling down and that left her with too much free time.

She had more money than she could spend in two lifetimes, so a job wasn’t necessary. But what else would she do? She needed time to spend with Anna and had planned a series of adventures for them that included everything from classical music concerts to sandboarding the dunes of Namibia. It wouldn’t be enough, though. After years of working with one of the most successful contract killers in the world, baking cookies and setting up playdates seemed too radical a change.

She needed something challenging but not all-consuming. Something exciting but that left her hands free of blood. Or maybe even something that helped clean them a bit. With the poverty that plagued Africa, perhaps going to work for one of the many NGOs in the area would be an option. Her talents would be a good fit, and her money would make her appealing to any charity she approached. Better yet, she could involve Anna. A reminder that not all little girls lived in historic homes surrounded by vineyards.

Claudia tapped the brake when she saw the glow of taillights through the dusty air. As she got closer, she started to make out the back of one of the lumbering cargo trucks that supplied the local winemakers. Passing was impossible on the winding dirt road. The massive armored SUV that Mitch had left in her garage was nowhere near nimble enough.

He was paranoid like everyone else involved in his business. Having said that, while she doubted any of her husband’s enemies would bother to come looking, carjacking was rampant in South Africa. News reports and casual warnings from locals had been enough for her to put off trading in the thinly disguised tank for one of the Audi crossovers she’d been coveting.

Claudia closed to within five meters of the truck and then held that distance. The turn into her property wasn’t far, and, there was no reason to hurry. No operations to check up on. No money to launder or bank accounts to conceal. And no one waiting other than two guard dogs that had yet to warm up to her but couldn’t get enough of Anna. Another gift from Mitch.

Ahead, the rear doors of the truck suddenly flew open and Claudia slammed her foot down on the brake pedal before instinctively throwing a protective arm in front of her daughter.

“Mom?” Anna said groggily. “What’s going on?”

“It’s fine,” Claudia responded, letting the distance between her and the truck lengthen. “Go back to sleep, honey.”

Nothing seemed to be falling out of the vehicle but even the upgraded headlights of her SUV couldn’t penetrate very far into the trailer. She honked a few times but the driver didn’t seem to notice. A moment later, the loading ramp rolled out and slammed into the ground.

This time Anna came fully awake.

“Mom?” she said, rubbing her eyes. “What’s wrong with that truck?”

“I don’t know, honey. I think the latch on the doors is broken.”

The metal ramp continued to bump along the road, making enough noise to wake the dead. The night was starting to cool and the driver had his windows up. If she had to guess, he was probably also wearing headphones. It was a common practice and one of the many reasons that South African roads were some of the most dangerous in the world.

A moment later the roar of an engine behind them drowned out the rattle of metal and Claudia’s eyes darted to the rearview mirror. There were no lights and she was confused until the front grille of some kind of military vehicle got close enough to be illuminated in her taillights.

Anna screamed when it rammed them and Claudia jerked the wheel left, trying to steer the SUV into the vines that lined the road. Nothing happened. She shot a glance in the direction of her side-view mirror and saw that a steel rail similar to a forklift’s had embedded itself in her rear quarter panel. She hit the gas but the vehicle behind matched her speed, preventing her from breaking free.

Claudia locked up the brakes and twisted the wheel until it stopped, but they kept moving inevitably forward. The front of her SUV dipped violently when the front tires were ripped from their rims and she finally released the wheel to reach for her panicked daughter.

They hit the ramp and were forced into the truck’s trailer, traveling along it until they slammed into the back. The SUV’s air bags went off, shoving Claudia back into her seat and dazing her for a few seconds. By the time she managed to shake off the effect and make sure Anna was all right, footsteps were ringing against the steel floor of the trailer.

She looked back and saw a Humvee with a massive grille that included not only the forklift structure that had sandwiched the rear of her SUV but also a number of barbed spikes that had penetrated her rear hatch. The Humvee had no doors, which allowed its two Middle Eastern occupants to easily escape it. One was moving toward her while the other went for the rear of the truck to retract the ramp and close the doors.

The space was too narrow to allow her to open her door, but she wouldn’t have even if she could. The armor Mitch had built into the SUV was all that was between them and the men outside. Anna tried to grab hold of her, but Claudia pulled away, reaching for her cell phone. No signal. The metal box they were trapped in was blocking reception.

The vehicle lurched and she looked up through the moonroof to see a man with a thick beard and wide grin. A moment later, he was in motion, swinging a sledgehammer down with a deafening crash that was immediately lost in Anna’s terrified scream.

The reinforced glass held, but there was no way to know if it would continue to do so. Claudia unlatched her daughter’s seat belt and pulled her close, trying to quiet her sobbing as the man continued to attack the glass.

After about a minute, the first crack formed. The man howled with glee but Claudia couldn’t bring herself to look up. Her terror turned to a sensation of paralyzing guilt deeper than anything she’d ever felt before. She deserved this for the things she’d done in her life. But not Anna. She was innocent.