The Assassin

CHAPTER ELEVEN

When Khadr dropped over the wall and lit like a cat on the sidewalk, Abu Qasim put the car in motion. He stopped by Khadr, who climbed into the passenger seat.

“I heard shots,” Qasim said.

Khadr took a deep breath and exhaled slowly as he collected his thoughts. Khadr was not his real name, of course. In fact, Abu Qasim didn’t know his real name. He was a professional killer from somewhere in the Middle East, spoke five languages fluently, had some education and was an excellent actor, with the ability to fit into almost any crowd. If he had any religious convictions, Qasim didn’t know about them. Khadr killed for money. For the right price, he would kill anyone. Qasim paid his fees because Khadr was good, very good. Holy warriors on jihad would do their best, but when Qasim wanted it done right the first time with no screw-ups, he hired a professional like Khadr.

“I was jimmying the door when I heard someone turn the lock. Obviously I was making some noise, and apparently the man heard it. There were two locks. I stood back, and when he opened the door and was silhouetted by the light behind him, I shot him. I stepped inside, and the other guard was coming down the stairs. I shot him, too.

“I dragged the corpses into a basement storeroom and found the electrical distribution box, turned off the power, waited for my eyes to adjust, then went upstairs.

“Zetsche and his woman were asleep. I killed them with a knife. On the way out someone began following me. We played cat and mouse for a while, then I slipped down the stairs to the basement. Someone had apparently put a vase on the stair. I saw it, but the man behind me didn’t. Then someone started shooting — killed the man chasing me, I think.”

As they drove, Abu Qasim thought about his next move. Finally he said, “There is a man in Zurich, a banker named Rolf Gnadinger …”

The snow was sticking on the grass, but the wall to the Zetsche estate was merely wet and slick. I fell onto the sidewalk, a drop of about five feet, and twisted my ankle a little bit. Cussing under my breath, I limped off toward town. The road was also wet — the flakes were melting as fast as they hit.

Up in the parking garage, I threw my bag into the front trunk of the Porsche and lit her off. If the law found me before I got out of Germany, I was going to spend a few miserable days as a guest of the German republic. My clothes and razor and toothbrush were in the hotel — I certainly didn’t want to waste time retrieving them. I’d just replace that stuff somewhere and put the bill on my expense account. Screw the taxpayers — that’s my motto.

On the way out of town I passed an ambulance running lights and sirens going the other way. They need not have hurried; none of the people at the Zetsche estate needed a fast ride to a hospital.

I didn’t relax until I crossed the Rhine River bridge into France. That’s when the reaction to too much adrenaline and a fumbled assignment hit me hard. At one point I had to pull over and rest my head on the steering wheel as the windshield wipers slapped and squeaked and a rain-snow mixture pattered gently on the roof of my ride. My face throbbed where that cop slugged me, and I was exhausted.

A dead battery in the night vision goggles and my inability to stay awake had cost four people their lives. Oh, I know, I didn’t kill them— the assassin who did had already gone on to his reward, whatever it might be. Still, the story should have had a different ending. Those people should still be alive.

Marisa Petrou! She had to be the one who opened the door for the assassin. Even if she wasn’t, she sandbagged me, trying to help him escape. That gorgeous bitch was in this mess right up to her plastic surgery scars.

I should have slapped her harder. Should have knocked her damned head off.

Grafton knew she was involved in the Surkov killing, and I’d bet ten dollars against a doughnut that she poisoned her husband. Tens of thousands of women have murdered their husbands since people stopped living in caves — maybe millions. It’s the ones who don’t kill their man that we should wonder about. Naturally, I made a fool of myself by defending her to Grafton. “She isn’t the type.” Ha!

A sleety dawn was threatening to smear itself all over France when I realized that I couldn’t go any farther. The next pull-off was a truck rest stop. There was even a McDonald’s. I found a spot under a tree— behind a semi where the car couldn’t be seen from the highway — killed the engine, locked the doors and went to sleep.

The workday was well under way in London when Jake Grafton called Sal Molina on the encrypted telephone — getting him at home and waking him up — and gave him the news: Wolfgang Zetsche was dead, as were his girlfriend and two employees. The killer had been shot dead by Tommy Carmellini. Before he could tell it all, Molina began asking questions.

“Abu Qasim?”

“I haven’t had a chance to do a debrief yet. Tommy’s driving back to London. He said the man he killed was young, maybe twenty-five.”

“German police?”

“I’ve talked to the German intelligence chief. Given him all I can.”

“Do any of the police or intel agencies know of the link between Surkov, Petrou and Zetsche?”

“The police know Marisa Petrou was present at all three killings, and Isolde at two. Tongues are starting to wag. To the best of my knowledge, they don’t know what the link is, but they are looking.”

“Did one of those women kill those people? Or any of them?”

“I don’t know.”

“Lot of damned help you are.”

“My job is delivering bad news.”

“You’re really good at it. Call me when you get some more.” The connection went dead.

Jake Grafton called Speedo Harris and Per Diem into his office. “Let’s hear it,” he said. Unlike the president’s aide, he listened to everything the British and FBI officers had to say before he asked questions. The murder of Alexander Surkov with polonium was still getting the bulk of the various police agencies’ investigative assets — for political reasons, if nothing else — and the revelations were aired on television and radio as fast as the agencies dribbled them out. Politicians postured and wrung their hands.

“The agencies are trying to find out everything they can about Marisa Petrou,” Per Diem said. “She was at the scene of three murders in what — twelve days? That’s bound to attract some notice. They are also interested in Tommy Carmellini. The Brits know he is a CIA officer, and they are asking questions. I suspect our good friend Harris may have put them on Carmellini’s trail.”

Speedo didn’t turn a hair. “I was asked about Carmellini and answered truthfully,” he told Jake Grafton, who nodded his approval. “Carmellini’s popularity with the French authorities is on the wane, however. The French officer I spoke to made some regrettable comments. Positively nasty, I dare say.”

“Tommy rubs them the wrong way,” Diem added, quite unnecessarily.

“The officer I spoke to at New Scotland Yard was less than complimentary about you, Admiral,” Harris continued. “He snarled something about you playing your cards very close to your vest. ‘All take and no give,’ he remarked.”

Grafton nodded. “Oleg Tchernychenko,” he said, changing the subject abruptly.

It was midafternoon when I rolled into old London town. I was so tired my eyes watered. I parked in front of the office and went inside to see the boss.

“Where have you been?” Jake Grafton barked.

“Fleeing the scene of a crime.”

I must have looked so bad that he took pity on me. His frown disappeared and he said, “Get a bath and change clothes. You and I are flying to Scotland this evening.”

“It’s January in Scotland,” I pointed out. “Have you any idea what the weather is up there?”

“Invigorating. Go! Hurry. There’s a plane waiting.”

By golly, there was, too. It was past teatime and the sun was long gone when we climbed aboard, but in minutes we were droning through the clag over England. Grafton sat beside me so we could talk, but I didn’t even try. I put my head back and went promptly to sleep.

When he woke me up — by shaking me — we were on the ground and taxiing.

Speedo Harris was behind the wheel of the car that was waiting for us. He muttered something pleasant to me, but I didn’t quite catch it and wasn’t in the mood to ask him to repeat it. I grunted and sat there watching as we rolled out of the suburbs and off into the wild Scottish night. The wind blew fiercely and the rain fell sideways, drumming on the car’s sheet metal. Every now and then the car shook from the impact of a gust of wind. I pulled my miserably thin coat tighter and wondered what this trip was all about.

“You got our man cornered in a hole up here?” I asked Grafton.

“Tell me about last night. Everything you can remember.”

I flicked my eyes over to Speedo, who could be relied upon to repeat every word to his MI-6 bosses. Grafton nodded, almost imperceptibly. So he was sharing. Make that: He was sharing what I knew.

So I went through it, minute by minute. I had enough wit left to omit any mention of threatening Marisa. If she got shot, stabbed or poisoned, I didn’t want Jake Grafton and MI-6 and every spook agency in the free world suspecting me. Who knows? I might even decide to shoot, stab or poison her myself before I got a whole lot older. A man has to keep his options open.

When I finished my narration, he asked, “Did she kill Zetsche?”

“I dunno. I’ve run through it a hundred times today, trying to decide. I don’t even know if she opened the servant’s door. Anyone in the house could have opened it. Anyone could have killed the juice. All I know for a fact that I could swear to is that she was standing in Zetsche’s bathroom with a gun in her hand — with him in bed with a knife in him, dead as old dog food — and she sandbagged me downstairs a few minutes later, when I was about ready to drill the villains. Villains plural.”

“Tommy,” Grafton said gently, “I hate to have to tell you this, but the man you shot was Isolde’s chauffeur.”

“Aaw …”

“He must have been following the assassin, chasing him, when you opened fire. It was a tragic, regrettable accident.”

I didn’t know what to say. Even if I had known, I doubt if I could have got it out. That moment had to be the lowest point in my life.

“Of course,” Grafton continued after a few moments, “he might have been the one who admitted the assassin to the house. He might have been in that stairwell to lock the door after he left when you opened fire.”

I stared at him. Finally I found my tongue. “Why in the world would he lock the door behind the killer? With four dead bodies cluttering up the place? They jimmied the jamb to make it look like a break-in; they even left the pry bar lying there so the police would be sure to find it. Locking the door behind the guy would show the world that there were two people involved.”

“I don’t know, Tommy. Maybe the chauffeur was playing solitaire in the dark and heard the killer leaving and chased him. Maybe he went downstairs to check on the power and the killer rushed by him.”

Maybe, perhaps, could be—

Infuriated, I spluttered, “What’s the answer? What is going on?”

“Damn if I know,” he said and shrugged.

Jake Grafton, spymaster. Yeah, dude, he’s got it all figured out. Right.

As I sat there contemplating strangling him, my eyes settled on the back of Speedo Harris’ perfectly barbered head. The thought occurred to me that Jake Grafton probably knew a lot more than he wanted MI-6 to know.

Yeah. That was it. He was mushrooming everyone, including me, keeping us in the dark and feeding us shit.

I scowled at him and he pretended not to notice. The jerk!

Did you ever meet someone with an irrepressible, volcanic personality that stunned you and left you gasping? I’ve met a few — Jake Grafton’s understated personality is like that on those rare occasions when he lets the tiger come out to play — but none measured up to Oleg Tchernychenko, whose inner fire overwhelmed and dazzled everyone within range.

We were in an old mansion on the windswept moors. It was as big as a medium-sized Holiday Inn but much better decorated. More comfortable, too. The big room that the guy at the door brought us to had a roaring fire going in a huge, blackened fireplace, but since Tchernychenko was holding forth in front of the fireplace, keeping us frozen with his eyes and voice and facial expressions, I didn’t get a chance to look around much until later. Whoever owned the joint — I doubted if this Russian did — was very much into World War I. Helmets and bayonets and uniforms were mounted high on the walls, along with other memorabilia from that period, such as silver cigarette cases engraved with the autographs of German aerial aces, old newspaper front pages, photos of the princes and belles of the age and the like. Everywhere there were books, hundreds of them, thousands.

As I said, though, for the first five minutes I didn’t see any of it. I was staring at Tchernychenko and his mane of graying hair. It seemed as if he were about to whip out a white baton and conduct the orchestra, but no. He did his conducting with voice and eyes and facial expressions and presence.

“Grafton!” the Russian boomed. “When I heard that name I told them to let you in — there couldn’t be two Jake Graftons sneaking about, now could there? Of course, the hour is late, but we arrive when we arrive, eh?”

I rolled my eyes at the boss, who didn’t even look my way. Fortunately Speedo was in the kitchen with the help, so tomorrow the boys and girls at MI-6 weren’t going to be puzzling over Tchernychenko’s remarks. At least I hoped Speedo was there. Then I wondered if Jake Grafton cared.

“Ah, yes, Grafton.” Tchernychenko didn’t have much of an accent — if anything, he sounded to me as if he were British, or had wasted much of his life hanging around them.

“MacGregor!” he roared. “MacGregor! Come take some orders and bring these gentlemen a drink.”

Since we were in Scotland, we drank the local stuff — neat, of course. Even adding water would have been sacrilege.

Grafton had trouble getting a word in edgewise, so he let Tchernychenko run on. He was ranting about the Islamic fundamentalists, “Islamofascists,” he called them.

“Amazing as it sounds to a logical mind, many British leftists are very sympathetic to the fascists, even though they are xenophobic, misogynic, homophobic, antidemocratic religious fanatics who are willing to murder anyone who doesn’t believe as they do. Add the British instinct to root for the underdog to a generous dose of anti-Semitism and it’s positively breathtaking what they can explain away. British intellectuals have a lot to answer for, including their fascination with Communism in the twentieth century. They are going to again cover themselves with glory, I fear.”

He paused a moment for air, then said, “They need another Churchill and they haven’t one.”

Grafton moved right in. “We came tonight to discuss the Surkov murder with you.”

“Alexander Ivanovich … a tragic figure.” Tchernychenko shook his leonine head. “Polonium, so he would suffer. A lesson to every Russian.”

“He accused the Russian government of poisoning him,” Grafton murmured.

“They did it, of course.”

“Not some terrorists, perhaps?”

“Oh, no. Putin and that crowd are trying to make the expatriates come to heel. A few spectacular poisonings will bring them around, he thinks. One of these days he’ll snap his fingers and they’ll obey like trained dogs.”

“And you — how do you stand with the Russian government?”

“They will not shed tears at my funeral,” Tchernychenko said curtly and took a mighty slug of scotch.

“If the real enemy is terrorists and they get you, you’ll be just as dead,” Grafton pointed out calmly. He had a way of saying things that would freeze your blood if a normal person said them, yet from him the remark seemed candid but harmless. That was an illusion; nothing about Jake Grafton was benign.

“No one unknown to me can get onto the grounds. I have four men on duty every hour of every day.”

“Russians?”

“No. British. There isn’t a Russian alive who can be trusted to disobey Putin … me included.” He chuckled, as if that comment were funny. “I know these men and pay them well. They are loyal and extremely competent. They know the stakes, and they know that in the long run Putin and the terrorists will lose. Tyranny and fanaticism burn with a white-hot flame for a short time, then they always sputter out. No one trembles today when one mentions Hitler or Joseph Stalin — no one. Would you like more Scotch?”

For the first time, Grafton glanced at me. “Tommy, would you please check on Speedo? See that he gets a drink and is properly entertained.”

I rose and went off to find the British op. When I glanced back as I went through the door, Grafton and Tchernychenko had their heads together.

I will tell you frankly, I didn’t believe the Russians iced Surkov, or Jean Petrou, or Wolfgang Zetsche. I had a name and wasn’t letting go: Abu Qasim.

Or, maybe, Marisa Petrou. For husband Jean, at least. A little of Mom’s heart medication in hubby’s vino and voila! Life is looking up.

After visiting the kitchen and ensuring Speedo was being properly attended to, I wandered through the house, looking at the stuff from World War I. The downstairs held four large rooms with twelve-foot ceilings, each with a massive fireplace. Little rooms were arranged down the west side of the building: kitchen, pantry, a few bathrooms and a couple of small sitting rooms that now contained televisions. I inspected the entire ground floor and the outside doors and staff door and the view from the windows. Just plain old Scottish night was visible out each window, black and windy and wet. The portraits on the wall and the black windows stared at me as I walked along, looking at this and examining that. The floorboards creaked and groaned with every step. The sound of the wind whispered through that Scottish mansion. Every few moments I paused, closed my eyes and listened to the song of the wind and the rattling windows. Drafty old place. Cold, too. Fifty-five degrees would be my guess, almost cold enough to hang meat. I was fast losing any secret desire I might have had way back when to live in a castle or McMansion. My warm, cozy little apartment was going to look sooo good.

After I had checked out the downstairs, I went upstairs and sniffed around. The rooms were smaller, still chilly and drafty, stuffed with loaded bookcases, and the only bath was at the end of the hallway. Eight bedrooms, three sitting rooms and one bathroom. My mom wouldn’t have liked it.

I wondered about Isolde’s chauffeur. Was he a good guy who tried to capture a villain, or was he one of “them,” a holy warrior trying to earn glory in the next world by committing mayhem and murder in this one?

That Marisa …

Maybe I shot the wrong man in that castle near the Rhine. If I was supposed to get a guilt trip over that possibility, it wasn’t working. I didn’t feel anything, not guilt, angst, remorse … not even relief. Okay, okay, I’m lying again. The truth was I felt guilty and in over my depth. Yet when I ran through the events of that evening in my mind, I couldn’t see what I could have done differently.

I was getting more than a little peeved at Marisa. She knew the answers — all the answers — and she wasn’t talking.

The 1911 Springfield felt good in my pocket, a nice, solid, deadly lump. I got it out and exchanged the half-empty magazine in the grip of the thing for a full one. Checked that the hammer was back and the safety was on, then wedged it back under my belt.

“Wolfgang dead,” Tchernychenko muttered. “Murdered.”

“With a knife, apparently,” Jake Grafton said smoothly, “and you may be next.”

The Russian made an unpleasant noise with his lips and teeth. “I’m safe as it is possible to get here in this house.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Some Arab knife artist or mad bomber isn’t going to dash across these highlands in the dead of winter and through four armed men. On the other hand, if Putin wants me dead, there isn’t much you or I or anyone on earth can do about it. There isn’t anyplace on this planet one can hide from him. The polonium — it was a warning. So we would know and fear him.”

“Perhaps,” Grafton said slowly, “you are misreading this situation. I have been told by a man I respect that the Russian government had nothing to do with Surkov’s death.”

“The Russian government? Those mice that serve at Putin’s pleasure? Perhaps they didn’t. But Putin — I have incurred his wrath before. He is consolidating his power in Russia. He wants to become a czar, to rule Russia.” Oleg Tchernychenko waggled a finger at Grafton. “I think he will do it. Yes, sir. I think he will do it. Beholden to no one, with a mandate he wrote himself, he will rule as Stalin did, as Lenin did, as Czar Nicholas and Catherine the Great did.

“You people of the West, of these little green islands and the lands across the Atlantic, you don’t understand. You have your elections and make polite noises and debate endlessly and vote. Let me tell you, sir, they don’t do that in Russia. Never have and probably never will; certainly not in our lifetimes. And, Admiral, they don’t do that democracy twaddle in the Middle East. God speaks to the imams and they tell the faithful and the faithful charge off to die gloriously as soldiers of God— and kill a few infidels, if at all possible. Those simple fools have never asked why God needs their help, nor will it ever occur to them to ask.

“On the other hand, Putin doesn’t need God’s help. He can build his empire with his own two hands. He can poison Alexander Surkov in Mayfair and all the power and might of Great Britain can’t save his life. We Russians, we understand the basic laws of political physics.”

Jake Grafton said nothing. He sipped at the last of his Scotch.

Tchernychenko wasn’t finished, however. “There is a man, Sheikh Mahmoud al-Taji, who runs a mosque in London. The British court released him today — it was on the telly this evening. He will not be jailed or deported.”

“I heard about that.”

“He’s a terrorist.”

“Do you know that for a fact?”

“I have my sources. Rumor has it he is trying to buy weapons and explosives from Russia. I have friends — I hear these things. Why would they say them if it were not true? And why the British government didn’t accuse him of that I can’t imagine. So now he is free to stand in his mosque and preach his poison. ‘To die in the name of Allah should be the goal of every believer.’ That is his mantra. The court didn’t convict him because he didn’t say ‘to kill and die in the name of Allah.’ The judge is a fool.”

Grafton didn’t reply.

“What are you going to do about him?” Tchernychenko demanded.

“What should I do?” Grafton asked softly.

“Have him killed. Send your soldiers after him.”

“He is a religious leader. As far as I know, he hasn’t raised money for terrorism, hasn’t plotted terror strikes, hasn’t enlisted soldiers in the war of terror. I, too, have heard rumors, but they are only that, rumors. All he has done that the British could prove is rant in a mosque.”

“He is inflaming the rabble. Surely you can see that?”

Jake Grafton rubbed the stubble on his chin. It had been a long time since he shaved this morning. “We’ve assassinated five men. All five were actively engaged in terrorism. True, they preached in mosques and argued politics, too, but first and foremost, they were directly responsible for murder of the innocent.”

“You can’t draw that line and defend it,” Tchernychenko roared. “Your Abraham Lincoln noted that there was no difference between the wily agitator who induced a soldier to desert, and the soldier who did indeed desert.”

“No, sir,” Grafton said forcefully. “Lincoln did not say that there was no difference. He asked if he had to leave the hair on the head of the agitator untouched. He did not answer the question, he merely asked it. Now I tell you, if we try to kill everyone who disagrees with us politically or on religious grounds, we are going on a fool’s errand. We’ll be up to our armpits in blood, to no avail.”

“Maybe that is where we should be,” Tchernychenko said heavily. “The time has come when we must take sides and chose a course.”

“We cannot murder everyone who disagrees with us,” Jake Grafton said curtly.

“I wished the Islamic fascists believed that,” Tchernychenko shot back, undaunted. “On the other hand, Putin understands he cannot kill everyone, but he can kill the people who irritate him the most. Corpses make wonderful examples.”

I was sitting in a stuffed chair in the big room across from the main entrance, well back from the light, dozing, when I sensed that someone had entered the room. I tightened my grip on the Springfield as I pried niy eyelids open. It was Jake Grafton. Tchernychenko was behind him.

“Hey, Tommy, time to go.”

I came erect and pocketed the pistol. We collected our driver, said our good-byes and stepped out into the windy night. The temp had dropped some while we were there.

As we rode away in the car with Speedo behind the wheel, driving on the wrong side of the road, Grafton said, “Did you get the bugs in place?”

“Every room in the joint,” I muttered, “including the one you spent the evening in. Best job I’ve done in years.”

“And the retransmitter?”

“Stuck it on the side of the house. Leaned out a second-floor window. No way to hide it, of course.”

Grafton didn’t say anything. Each bug would transmit a tiny signal to the retransmitter, which could boost the signal and broadcast that signal and up to thirty-one others at once, to the satellite. The satellite could send the collected signals to Langley or Fort Meade, whichever seemed to have less work, or both. There the signals would be monitored and recorded for study by computers and humans at a later date.

I sat looking out the window into the black Scottish night. Blacker than the doorway to hell. Blacker than the Devil’s heart. Black and formless. Black, black, black.