The Hunter

CHAPTER 28

Paris, France

Friday

08:12 CET

Alvarez pulled his bulky frame out from the hotel bed of nails and headed for the shower. After three efficient minutes of washing and scrubbing, he got out, dried himself, and dressed. He’d had only a handful of hours of sleep the night before, the same as every other night over the week, and he felt like pounded crap. He was running on fumes, and the fumes were running out. When he was younger he could do whatever the job required, whenever, but things had taken a downward trend somewhere along the road after taking Route 35. Route 40 was just around the corner.

Things weren’t going to get any easier, with the job or with his body. Time was the worst enemy there was. The way Alvarez saw it you were smart if you knew fighting it was a losing battle, but you were a coward if you didn’t fight anyway. Alvarez had allowed himself an extra half hour in bed in an effort to rejuvenate his brain and sinews. The big-ass yawn told him it hadn’t been enough. The direct hunt for Ozols’s killer may have gone cold but concentrating his efforts on finding out who hired the seven shooters to kill the assassin was generating leads.

Seven out of the seven dead shooters had been identified, and of those the American, Stevenson, was the focus point of Alvarez’s hunt. Noakes had found a series of photographs on Stevenson’s hard drive of some kind of meeting between Stevenson and an unidentified man, dated a couple weeks before the Paris massacre. A third individual had taken the shots secretly, mainly of the mystery man, an overweight guy in his fifties carrying a briefcase. There were pictures of him arriving at a cafe in Brussels and taking a seat at one of the tables outside where Stevenson waited; of the two conversing for a while, drinking coffee, and eating pastries; and of the fat guy standing to go, leaving the briefcase beneath the table.

The photographer had then followed him to his car and taken a few pictures of him driving away. For some reason the guy with the camera had failed to get a shot of the licence plate, but Noakes was doing his best trying to get it from reflected surfaces. So far without luck.

Stevenson’s bank records showed that he had deposited one hundred thousand euros in cash a day later. No one at the bank had questioned the deposit or notified the authorities about it. The bank manager had since been fired. Alvarez was determined to identify the guy with the briefcase and was working towards that goal with his typical composed efficiency.

Alvarez’s ability to remain calm in a crisis was one of his most highly prized traits. It took a lot for him to get emotional and even more for him to act on that emotion. In his time in the military he’d been on the receiving end of some hairy situations, and as an operative of the Central Intelligence Agency more than one gun had been pushed in his face. Only once had he genuinely feared for his life, and at that moment he found that fear focused him and made him deadly.

If anything it was easier for him to deal with danger than it was the more mundane varieties of stress. People not answering the damn phone pissed him off far more than staring down the barrel of a. 45.

Kennard had disappeared off the radar, his phone taunting Alvarez with his all-too-perfectly-well-rehearsed voice-mail message each time Alvarez hit speed dial. The previous evening Alvarez and Kennard had shared a drink in a shitty little Parisian apology of a bar. Alcohol was something Alvarez usually saved for special occasions, but Kennard had been wearing a face like he’d been sucking jalapenos for a couple of days, and Alvarez understood the importance of morale.

It felt good letting his hair down too. The week had been an ungodly bitch, and he was feeling the effects. A few beers had chilled him out, but Kennard had been a bundle of nervous energy. Something was definitely under the younger guy’s skin, but Kennard was keeping his lips well and truly locked. Woman trouble, Alvarez guessed. Some slutty piece of ass not returning his messages or some other bullshit. After draining the last of his beer, Alvarez had suggested finding a burger joint but Kennard shook his head.

‘I would,’ Kennard had said, ‘but I’ve got something I need to do.’

Alvarez’s eyes widened a fraction. ‘Something, or someone?’

‘I wish.’

Alvarez was firing up his laptop and onto his second cup of black coffee when his phone rang. Less than sixty seconds later he was heading out the door.

It was a short hop on the metro to the embassy, and he made his way to his office hoping that someone had made a terrible error. They hadn’t. The police report was waiting for him, including photos. Alvarez sat down, unhooked his office phone, switched off his cell, and carefully read through the information.

Kennard was dead. Murdered. Stabbed multiple times in the gut, ultimately dying from loss of blood. Signs of a struggle. His phone was taken and his wallet emptied. No witnesses. Paris’s finest had it down as a robbery. Poor schmuck.

Alvarez had lost people before, albeit rarely, only two in his whole career with the company. They were assets though, not true CIA. He accepted it as an inherent risk of the operational side of the business, but it wasn’t something he’d ever become used to. Alvarez leaned back in his chair and exhaled heavily.

He’d never particularly liked Kennard and wasn’t about to pretend to grieve for his passing, but he was genuinely sorry the guy had been murdered by some snail-eating piece of shit. Probably some homeless junkie so he could score some crack. It was no way for an officer of the Central Intelligence Agency to die. Far better to have been have been killed on duty than while going for a piss.

The way the cops had it and the way it looked in Alvarez’s head too was that the perp had surprised Kennard with a knife and demanded his things. Kennard had tried to draw his gun and had been stabbed repeatedly. Kennard was full of himself enough to have tried something stupid like that. He should have handed over the wallet and waited for the guy to go and then put three in his spinal column.

Alvarez thought for a moment. Kennard, though hardly a lethal weapon, was a fully trained operative. It was hard to see how some lowlife could’ve gotten the drop on him. Alvarez scratched the back of his thick neck. He sighed and shook his head. He was reading far too much into it. The guy had been killed. It happened, even to the best. And Kennard certainly wasn’t the best.

Alvarez was going to have a shitload of extra work to do now that Kennard was out of the picture. The guy gets himself killed when they’re up to the eyeballs on the hunt for a professional contract killer. Perfect timing.

Alvarez put the file down and turned on his phone. He had three missed calls and a voice mail. He listened to the message. It was Noakes telling him about the photographs on Stevenson’s hard drive. He called him back.

‘What have you got?’

‘I’ve found something in a couple of the photos from Stevenson’s meeting.’

‘Such as?’

‘In the ones showing the mystery man leaving, we’ve got some shots of his car-’

‘But none of the licence plate, I know.’

‘Yeah, well, that’s right, but on two we get a look at a windshield sticker, once I’d enhanced the image. It’s from the rental-car company.’

‘Who are they?’

‘They’re based out of Brussels. We didn’t have a clear shot of the sticker, just the first half of the name and phone number, but that was enough to narrow down the list of suspects until I found out who it was. There aren’t that many rental-car companies in Brussels with similar names. I’ve emailed you the pertinent details.’

Alvarez hung up a minute later and opened up Noakes’s email expectantly. He pushed the police report to one side. It was a damn shame about Kennard, but he would deal with the bureaucracy of his death later on.

Right now he had more pressing matters.