The Killer

EIGHT

09:41 CET

Le Hotel Abrial was located on the Avenue de Villiers, west of the Seine. Victor had caught a second taxi at the museum, and it was a long, slow drive through the Parisian traffic. The driver was thankfully silent, and Victor gave him a moderate tip. A generous tip or no tip at all and the driver might remember him if asked at a later date.

Victor noted that it was a nice area, glowing with all the positive things that tourists tell their friends about Paris but without the rain, the dirt, and the sour-faced Parisians. Victor made his way along the busy street, passing the hotel. He found a pharmacy a couple of blocks away where he purchased a bar of soap, disinfectant, tweezers, cotton balls, and deodorant. He then found a quiet bar where he bought a lemonade and used the bathroom to wash himself.

He then turned his attention to the wooden splinters embedded in his face. At the time adrenaline had blocked the pain, but Victor no longer enjoyed such luxury. The splinters were small but rough and snagged in his flesh. With gritted teeth he drew them from his cheek with the aid of the tweezers. He would have preferred to get it over with quickly, but he had to work slowly to avoid their breaking. When the last one was out, he held a cotton ball soaked with disinfectant against the tiny wounds for as long as he could stand it.

If the bullet had struck the door frame a few inches higher, he would’ve been pulling splinters from his eyeball instead of his cheek. Not a pleasant thought. He withdrew a small bottle of eyedrops from a pocket and splashed some silicone solution onto his hands and rubbed it in. It dried in seconds. He allowed himself to light a cigarette outside and smoked it leisurely as he walked along the sidewalk. The hit of nicotine was just what he needed. Being alive felt good.

He promised himself it would be the first and last one today. He’d been trying to keep up a one-a-day rate for the last week and was determined to stick with it this time, maybe even cut down further in a couple of weeks. Or maybe not. Either way, he wasn’t going to ruin the postbattle elation worrying about his little addiction. Victor discarded the smoked cigarette, momentarily feeling bad for littering but eased his guilt by conscientiously disposing of the toiletries, but in several different trash cans.

The hotel lobby was simple but tasteful, thankfully quiet. He caught the eye of a happy-looking receptionist behind the desk who was scratching his bleached goatee and walked over.

“Quis-je vous aider, monsieur?” the guy asked.

“Oui, avez-vous un téléphone public?”

The receptionist pointed to the far end of the lobby, toward the sign for the bathrooms. “Juste autour là.”

Victor thanked him and crossed the lobby. Around a corner there were two outdated payphones. Victor checked the inside line number for room service and called it. A cheery female voice answered.

“Hi,” he said back. “I have some laundry to deliver, but I can’t read the room number.” He gave the reference code on the receipt.

There was a strained sigh. “I wish they’d sort that out.” Victor heard fingers punching keys with rapid efficiency. “Mr. Svyatoslav.” It took a couple of attempts to pronounce. “He’s in room 210.”

It was a pleasant room with a comfortable-looking bed, spacious en suite bathroom, and elegant decor. Victor switched on the TV and used the remote to flick to a news channel. So far nothing about the shootings. He doubted it would be long before a story about the killings aired. He turned the set off and looked around the room. The sniper hadn’t been in any hurry to leave. Clothes hung on the outside of the wardrobe, toiletries still lined the sink in the bathroom. Maybe he had planned to do a little sightseeing after he’d shot Victor. A foreigner in Paris, why not take in some of the culture? Now the only sightseeing he’d be doing would be in hell.

Victor looked forward to the postcard.

He expected the other assassins would have rooms at different hotels throughout the city. Less conspicuous that way, especially for a multinational group whose members, Victor believed, didn’t know one another before they had been assembled to kill him. Without any clues to where they had been staying, he would have to make the most of his current location.

There was nothing on the tables by the bed or in the drawers next to it. He ran his fingers between the mattress and the frame, finding and removing a brown leather wallet that was empty except for a few euros. No passport or plane ticket. He supposed that would have been too easy.

Victor searched the room thoroughly, first checking the toilet tank to see if the sniper used the same security methods as himself, but nothing was hidden there. A shame. It would have been nice to share a little kinship with the man he’d killed.

Every other feasible hiding location proved to be empty. The hotel safe then. That made sense. No chance of the maid or anyone else walking away with something valuable or incriminating.

The sniper had made a telling error in having personal items with him on a job. It was inexcusable, if understandable. After all he did not plan on being killed. And dead it hardly mattered anyway if someone found out who he was. That reaffirmed what Victor already knew about the team. They were independent contractors, not affiliated with any organization. If they had been, the sniper would have been more careful. So who assembled them? Someone with resources, someone with means. Hiring assassins wasn’t as simple as flipping open the phone book and looking under A.

Victor made enemies just doing his job, but only someone who knew he was going to be in Paris could have had killers stationed in the city. As far as he knew only two people fell into that category. His client and his broker.

The person who had supplied him with the job he knew only as the broker. This was the individual who acted as the middleman between Victor and the person who actually wanted the job done. The client. Victor didn’t know the identity of either. Victor likewise didn’t know why the client wanted the target dead, except it had something to do with the item now in his jacket pocket.

What association the broker had with the client Victor didn’t know. Sometimes brokers were individuals, free agents; other times they worked for a country’s intelligence services, private security firms, organized crime, or other groups. Or they might be associated with the client through other business practices, such as a lawyer or consul, or the client may have been passed to the broker through other intermediaries.

There was always the risk a broker was in fact some member of a police or intelligence force who had somehow found out about Victor and was hiring him so they could apprehend him. One of the many dangers of the freelance trade. The broker who had passed this job to Victor had been a first-timer, at least in his dealings with Victor. He knew nothing about the broker except that the efficiency and professionalism demonstrated suggested that this broker had dealt with hired killers before.

Victor took out the flash drive and examined it closely. Just a memory stick-not very exciting, but he guessed the information it contained was to someone. He was supposed to stash the drive at a secure site of his choosing and contact the broker with the location so it could be picked up.

The broker had petitioned for a personal handover of the drive, but Victor never met anyone directly connected to his work unless he also planned to kill them. Not only did he want to avoid having anyone see his face, but a prearranged handover would always present a perfect opportunity to ambush him. Now it appeared an ambush is exactly what would have occurred had Victor gone along with the broker’s request. Since he’d refused to comply, they’d been forced to try to kill him immediately after he’d killed Ozols, while they still knew where Victor was. If they had waited until he’d stashed the drive and contacted the broker, they might have lost him.

If the motive for wanting him dead was to ensure that any subsequent investigation or reprisals could not be traced back to them, then it was understandable but stupid. Aside from communiqués over the Internet there was no connection between Victor and the broker and absolutely no connection between Victor and the client. This method protected all parties. Or maybe it was simpler than that. Maybe they just didn’t want to pay him the second half of his fee. Still, hiring a whole team of assassins couldn’t have been cheap, even for ones he doubted charged anywhere near as much as he did.

In the lobby he gave Svyatoslav’s details to the desk clerk and asked to check out before adding, “You have some of my things in the safe.”

If the clerk decided to check the photograph in the passport against the man standing in front of the desk there could be no mistaking the two. He reached into his coat to flick off the.45’s safety but decided against it. The clerk was young, skinny. He wouldn’t put up much of a struggle.

The clerk returned a few seconds later and handed Victor a passport, plane ticket, and credit-card wallet. There was no change in the clerk’s cheery expression. Victor was satisfied he hadn’t bothered to make any checks. Victor had a look at the items, as might anyone concerned about leaving something behind. He noted the plane ticket was for Munich, business class. Inside the wallet were two credit cards. Both cards and plane ticket were for Mikhail Svyatoslav. Victor placed the wallet and ticket in his pocket. No keys. Too late to worry about where they might be now.

He signed out and paid the bill with the more worn looking of the sniper’s credit cards after subtly checking the signature on the back. His forgery wouldn’t get past a handwriting expert but it was close enough for a clerk who looked like he would have trouble reading the articles in a porn magazine.

The clerk handed him a copy of the bill, which Victor saw included the sniper’s address, and said, “We hope you had a pleasant time in Paris.”

He sounded genuine. Victor considered how genuine he would have been had he known that moments before Victor had been deciding how best to kill him.

Victor raised an eyebrow.

“It’s been stimulating.”