The Enemy Inside

FORTY-TWO

The Libyan watched from the shadows off to the side of the bridge as the old man reached the steps. When Korff got there, he steadied himself with one hand on the heavy beam that formed the handrail on one side of the stairs and began to step down.

Holding the open-bladed knife in one hand, the handle of the garrote in the other, the Libyan waited for him to tumble. Instead the old man came down the steps slowly, sideways, until his lead foot hung up on the line he never saw. For a second he leaned off balance, looked as if he might go down, then grabbed the heavy timber that formed the banister and pulled himself back. He stood there one-legged on the step, the other foot somehow hooked, hung up on the fishing line as Korff tried to regain his balance.

It was now or never. The Libyan came out of the shadows behind him, stepped gingerly over the taut line and plunged the blade of the knife deep into the lower right side of Korff’s back. He probed with the point, moving the handle, searching for the kidney. The second he did it he realized that the blade was too short. He pulled it out and jammed it in again.

This time he hit a nerve. Like a wounded bull the old man lashed out with his left arm. It caught the Libyan on the side of the head with the force of a wooden log and drove him down onto the stairs. The old man’s foot came down with such force that it snapped the line strung across the steps.

The knife still in his back, the old man thrashed about, turning in circles as he tried to reach behind to grab the handle. But he couldn’t get it. The blade was buried in a blind spot beyond the angle where his elbow simply didn’t bend.

The Libyan lay on the steps nearly paralyzed with fear as he watched the hulking form lashing out madly at the empty air above him.

The old man tried to reach the knife with one hand as he swung blindly overhead with the other, all the while yelling and shouting in a language the Libyan couldn’t understand. He bellowed like a bull, enough noise to wake the dead. He struggled to find the handle of the knife as he bled onto the stairs.

Lights on both sides of the river started coming on. If the old man got a hold of his knife and could pull it out, the Libyan knew he would cut him to pieces. He pulled himself to his knees and grabbed the garrote from the steps where he dropped it.

He came up behind Korff just out of reach of his swinging arm, looped the double strand of monofilament over the old man’s head and dropped it quickly around his neck. With the full force of both arms he pulled, using every ounce of strength in his body. The loop snapped closed. Instantly the yelling stopped, the last German syllable cut in half.

The old man went down, the Libyan riding on his back as he pulled the two wooden handles with all of his might. He could see the top of the man’s ears as they turned a cyanotic blue. His fingers tore at his neck trying desperately to reach the line now cutting deep into his throat, closing off his air.

Suddenly the two wooden handles jerked. They moved several inches apart as if the line joining them had snapped. But it didn’t. Instead it held. Instantly the old man’s hands fell away and his body went limp as he slid down the stairs headfirst onto the cement below, blood and aerated bubbles pouring from the deep crevice cut into his neck. The Libyan let loose of the handles. The garrote had done its job, severing the windpipe and the jugular.

He stood up, grabbed the handle of the knife, and pulled it out. He wiped the blood from the blade and the handle on the back of the victim’s coat, cut the handles from the garrote, and quickly disappeared into the darkness, snapping the blade closed as he went.

Ana made her way around the buildings and back to the cobbled walkway along the river. She approached the entrance to the bridge from upstream just in time to see the man step away from the body on the ground. She watched as he quickly walked in the other direction away from her, headed west along the river, back toward the metal bridge she had just crossed.

Ana cursed herself for her lack of patience and then followed him. As she passed the pile of death lying at the foot of the steps she realized it wasn’t one of the lawyers. It was the other man. The one they dined with. She wondered who he was, but there was no time to find out, not now. As she looked up she noticed that the killer was walking swiftly along the river, opening the distance between them.

She picked up the pace and moved, her soft-soled shoes glided silently over the rough stones. The man in front of her seemed oblivious.

Ana stayed off to the left, toward the building side of the quay, away from the water. Each time the man looked back she was in the shadows, lost among the stacked chairs and canvas-shrouded stalls of the closed-up riverside bistros. After a while he seemed to slow down, but he still hugged the river’s edge.

She wondered if he was moving toward a rendezvous with the other man she’d seen on the roof. Ana stayed with him, searching for some way to get out in front so she could take him by surprise. He passed the wrought-iron bridge. Thirty meters farther on he walked by the intersection that Ana had taken in her circuitous course to get around him. It was a tactical blunder that now left her scrambling to catch up.

She watched as he crossed a small open plaza with a broad concourse of steps leading down to the water, geese squawking in the dark distance. She waited until he cleared the open area and then raced after him.

She saw him for a fleeting instant before he disappeared around a bend where the broad quay narrowed to a paved footpath. The slender track seemed to thread between some ancient buildings stacked up against the river and the water’s edge.

For a moment Ana hesitated. The path was dark, constricted, and dangerous. If the man stopped along the way she might run right into him before she realized. She looked down, gripped the handle of the object in her hand more tightly, and moved on.

Thirty seconds further along, the path intersected with another bridge over the river, this one quite wide, open, and well lit. For a moment she wondered if he’d taken it. But as she studied the broad span over the water and the straight road it connected to across the way, she realized he couldn’t have, not unless he ducked into one of the buildings either here or on the other side. If he was walking on the open road she would still see him. Both the bridge and the street beyond were deserted.

Ana continued along the water, picking up speed, moving fast, throwing caution to the wind. But always the object in her hand was pointed forward. She passed the swift running water at the dam as it coursed around the concrete baffle, a running rapid against the stone embankment on her side of the river.

Then just as she edged around a closed cheese vendor’s stall she saw him. He was maybe fifty meters out in front of her, walking at a steady pace but not rushing. He entered an area where the path narrowed once more, this time to the point where it formed a veritable catwalk suspended over the water. In places it appeared to be barely wide enough for two people to pass. The walkway clung to the side of several buildings that formed a cliff at the water’s edge.

Ana saw her chance. An intersecting street dead-ended at the river just at the point where the catwalk began. She ran toward it, wheeled to the left away from the river, and raced along the street. It skirted around directly in front of the line of buildings edging the water. Ana ran down the broad lane in front of a three-story structure. The sign mounted in front read: MUSEUM.

She continued running past the complex of buildings, a hundred and twenty meters in all. When she rounded the corner of the last structure, she raced toward the river once more.

By the time she got there, Ana’s heart was pounding. She was breathless, her back pressed against the white plaster wall of the building as she waited.

She looked down and checked the feathered fletches on the bolt to make certain they hadn’t become detached or frayed. The custom-made crossbow was compact, silent, and powerful. Fashioned of fiber composite materials, it featured two concentric cams mounted on the detachable split limbs of the bow.

The cams multiplied the power of the thrust from the string once it was wound tight by the small cranking device she carried in her bag. It could launch a projectile at three hundred and fifty feet per second.

The weapon could shoot both longer arrows and shorter bolts. Depending on the weight of each it could deliver more than a hundred pounds of kinetic energy to the victim at fifty yards. In a word, at close range it was deadly.

Tonight Ana was hoping she wouldn’t have to use it, that the medieval appearance of the device might be enough to hold the man in place and frighten him senseless so that he would tell her what she wanted to know. There was no need to kill him if she didn’t have to.

A second later she heard what sounded like shuffling footfalls mixed with the rushing water of the river. Ana snapped a quick peek around the corner and stepped out away from the building, moving quickly to the center of the walkway. She pulled the curved rear shoulder stock tight into her body to steady her aim and sighted down the barrel over the bolt until it was pointed at the center mass of the man’s chest.

At first he didn’t even see her. For someone who had just killed another man he seemed unfazed, his attention gripped by the splendor of the river. The unremitting sound of the cascading water seemed to have drowned his senses. His attention was focused on the other side. Maybe he was meeting his companion over there.

He was maybe twenty-five feet away and closing on her. Any second he would turn and see her. She stood stone-still.

He was young, maybe early twenties, slender, well-muscled, and wiry. She guessed he was probably quick and dangerous because of it. He had a dark complexion and short dark hair. If she had to guess she would say North African, perhaps Egyptian or Lebanese. But he could have been from anywhere.

When he finally turned his head to the front, the startled expression that washed over him seemed to drain the blood from his face. It froze him in place, fifteen feet directly in front of her with nowhere to go, the river on one side and the solid wall of the building on the other. A look of panic filled his eyes. Instantly his knees flexed, his arms extended out from his sides ready to fight as he turned his head first one way, then the other, looking for any avenue of escape.

The last thing she wanted was a rabbit. Ana knew if it turned to a footrace she would never be able to catch him. He was young, lean, built like a runner. She was winded, still recovering from her sprint around the building.

She tried talking to him in French. When that didn’t work, she tried English, then Spanish.

Whether he didn’t understand her or chose not to, she couldn’t be sure. But it seemed to relax him. Slowly he came out of his crouch, relaxed his arms as he studied her from a distance. He put his hands on his hips, struck a bold pose, murderous male model strutting the latest in soiled T-shirts and shredded jeans.

She motioned for him to put his hands up.

He didn’t do it. Instead he just stood there looking at her. The message? She had only one arrow. Did she really want to burn it over something like this?

Ana kept the crossbow trained on him as she backed off a couple of steps. It was a mistake.

The kid suddenly smiled. He mistook her movement for fear. It told him all he thought he needed to know. If she wanted to kill him she would have already done it. She was probably just some pain-in-the-ass citizen trying to be a hero. He had already made enough miscalculations to fill a book.

She motioned with the crossbow for him to get down on the ground.

This time he shook his head and the smile broadened. He motioned with his hands toward one thigh, challenging her to shoot him in the leg. He’d be on her with the knife in an instant, cutting her throat. Besides, she’d probably flinch at the last second and miss. This time he winked at her and said something in a language she didn’t understand, at least not the words.

Ana got the message. The eruption of manliness, the seeping arrogance. Not only was there a single arrow, but the person behind the trigger was a woman. She could read it in his eyes. Ana had known that look since she was a young girl. If he wasn’t careful this machismo was going to get him killed.

When his feet suddenly started to move and he backed up just a short step she said, “No!” He was getting ready for something. She could tell.

He stopped momentarily as his right hand slowly went toward the back pocket of his jeans. The smile never left his face.

Ana knew he was reaching for the knife.

“Stop!” She shook her head, looked at him with a stern expression, tightened her grip on the crossbow, and leaned into it as if she was about to pull the trigger.

His hand slowed but only for an instant before it disappeared behind his hip. The sound of the water covered the snap of the blade as it opened.

He may have concealed the knife, but his faltering smile and the fixed concentration in his eyes told Ana all she needed to know.

The spring in his legs launched him toward her. Two strides like a long jumper and he closed the distance. She pulled the trigger.

The needlelike point of the knife lashed out toward her throat as the momentum of his body quickly carried him forward.

The bolt met him in midair. It entered his chest and disappeared for a fleeting instant before Ana glimpsed it again in the distance as it skipped like a stone across the surface of the river.

His outstretched arm holding the blade reached her just as she turned her body and stepped to one side. His lifeless form flew past and collapsed in a heap on the cement a few feet beyond where she stood.

A fraction of a second sooner and even as deadweight his body would have planted the knife in her chest.