The Killing Kind

2

It was a cool August night on the southern shore of Lake Geneva, and Jean-Luc Vian’s château was alive with candlelight-a glimmering jewel nestled in the crushed velvet of the French countryside, its rich greens fading to black as the soft light gave way to darkness. The grounds were bedecked for a grand party, and the flagstone drive- which led from the rural one-lane road, past the massive iron gates and guest quarters, and up to the main house- was lined with luxury automobiles. BMWs and Mercedes, mostly, interspersed with a few Jaguars, a Bentley, and even one god-awful yellow Lamborghini, the last driven by that boorish football player Caravagas that Vian’s wife had insisted he invite.

No doubt that deceitful cow had by now lured the man to one of their many bedrooms, Vian thought, where their exploits would join those of her prior dalliances as the talk of every dinner party from Paris to Haute-Savoie.

If it weren’t for the fact that she was daughter to the foreign minister, his pride would have insisted he leave her long ago. Theirs was a marriage of political and social expediency, not love-a fact that was too well known amid the corridors of power for Vian’s taste.

Then again, Vian thought, for all her faults, at least she was enjoying the party. He, on the other hand, apparently had work to attend to, having been summoned by text to dial in to an emergency conference call-though what could be so pressing at this late an hour, his employer didn’t say.

Vian punched his security code into the keypad on his office door, waited for the electronic whir as the lock disengaged, then stepped inside. As he shut the door behind him, the lock engaged once more, and the sounds of the string quartet and drunken laughter dropped away, deadened by his office’s soundproofing.

It wasn’t until he raised the lights that he realized he was not alone.

“Who are you?” Vian asked the man in French. “How did you-”

“-get in here?” his uninvited guest ventured, his own French excellent but accented. “Mr. Vian, there’s no need for a man of your breeding and intellect to be so trite-or so dreadfully sincere. You don’t really expect me to answer your first question, do you? And as to your second, I suspect if you ruminate upon it for a moment, you could save me the tedium of explaining.”

So Vian ruminated upon it. It made no sense. How could this man have breached the gate and slipped past all his guards? Vian was sure he hadn’t been invited, for his employer-who, in addition to supplying his personal security detail, ran background checks on all attendees of Vian’s parties-had sent along the dossiers they’d compiled for everybody on the invite list just yesterday, and this man was not among them.

Perhaps he’d bluffed his way through, then. Certainly, the stranger was dressed for the role of partygoer, in his slim black suit, crisp dove-gray shirt, and matching tie. He was seated in Vian’s own leather desk chair, his black oxfords propped atop the desk. Black kid gloves graced his slender hands.

But bluffing alone could not have gained him access to this room-only Vian had the access code. Well, Vian, and his employer, who had installed the door locks, the encrypted phone and Internet connections, and the soundproofing as well.

And then, at once, Vian understood. The late-night summons. The lack of dossier on this man. The breach of Vian’s inner sanctum.

It seemed the terms of his employment had been reevaluated.

The stranger noted with some satisfaction the change in Vian’s expression from puzzlement to despair. “Sit down,” he said, withdrawing his feet from the desk and plucking a silenced firearm off the blotter as he rose.

Vian did as the man instructed, dropping heavily into one of the high-backed chairs that faced the desk from this side.

“Good,” the man said, a smile dancing across his face. “Now: tell me why I’m here.” That face was neither young nor old-oddly wise, yet unlined, as though he’d never in his life encountered a troubling thought. His hair was sandy blond, perhaps interspersed with white, perhaps not. Vian was struck by the fact that-despite the dramatic circumstances of their meeting-if he passed this man on the street a month from now, he probably would not recognize him.

But Vian knew he would not be passing anybody on the street a month from now. Vian knew his life would end tonight.

“You are here to kill me,” Vian replied.

The stranger laughed. “Well, yes, but do you know why?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does to the man who hired me, which means it does to me. You see, I’ve been asked to send a message. Your death is merely to be the punctuation mark at the end of said message.”

“All right then, what’s the message?”

“I’ve been instructed to tell you your work in the Sudan was unacceptable. I’m told that will mean something to you. It does, does it not?”

It did. Vian’s employer was, on paper, a security contractor, one with fingers in a great many pies at France’s Ministry of Defense, including the manufacture and distribution of weapons and ordnance, the contracting of private military personnel, and consulting for strategic planning. Off book, his firm was responsible for three quarters of all weapons sales on the continent of Africa, including those to all sides of the Darfur conflict. Vian, for a time, was in charge of such sales, but he found that even his own prized moral flexibility had its limits. He’d begun funneling communiqués to the UN in secret-communiqués which implicated his employer in breaking the UN African Union arms embargo. Though nothing was made of these revelations publicly-due to his firm’s ties to not only French defense but to many other NATO nations as well-his actions led to his company losing seven billion dollars’ worth of contracts.

He’d thought he covered his tracks such that his involvement would never be discovered.

Vian could only nod, certain it was far too late for him to deny it. At least, he thought, I will not die denying the only decent thing I’ve ever done.

“Good. I’ve been further instructed to glean from you, if possible, whatever I can about who else may have been involved in your unacceptable performance.”

“Why on earth should I cooperate with you?” Vian spat. “You’ve already told me you plan to kill me, and my wife is too public a figure for you to harm, which means you’ve no longer any leverage.”

“That’s not entirely accurate,” the stranger said, and then he shot Vian in the knee.

Vian shrieked. Every muscle in his body tensed at once. He jerked out of his chair, spilling onto the floor. The pain in his knee was white-hot, exquisite. It spread up through his groin and settled like lead in his stomach. Waves of dizziness and nausea shook his body, and unconsciousness encroached, spotty black at the edges of his vision. And all the while, beyond the soundproofed walls of his office, the party continued unabated-his guests oblivious to his suffering.

Somewhere, a thousand miles away it seemed, a mobile phone chirped. The stranger looked startled for a moment, and then reached into his suit coat, removing from his inside pocket a cheap, pre-paid burner phone.

“Yes?” the stranger snapped, impatience hiding puzzlement.

“This Engelmann?” The voice was coarse, uneducated- American, to his ear.

“Where did you get this number?”

“My organization has worked with you before,” he said.

“You’re with the Council?” Engelmann asked. They were the only Americans for whom he’d ever worked. The Council was a group of representatives from each of the major crime families operating in the United States-Italian, Russian, Cuban, Salvadoran, Ukrainian, you name it. Though their organizations were often rivals, Council members convened on occasion to handle issues on which their respective organizations’ interests aligned. American organized crime was often too parochial to tap someone such as Engelmann; each family had their own little fiefdom, their own way of doing things-their own hitmen should any hitting be required. Only rarely when they came together did they deign to hire outside themselves-and even then, Engelmann suspected, it was simply so they needn’t decide which family got the job, the risk, the blame should the hit fail, or the glory should it succeed.

But on the rare occasion they did hire out, they paid very, very well.

“That’s right,” said the American. “We’ve got a job for you.” He paused a moment then, noting for the first time Vian’s anguished wailing in the background. “I, uh, catch you at a bad time?”

“Not at all,” said Engelmann. “In fact, you’ve just rescued me from the most dreadful party.” Then he held the phone to his chest, covering the mouthpiece, and said to Vian, “I’m sorry-I have to take this.”

The silenced firearm jumped three times in Engelmann’s hand-each report no more than the popping of a champagne cork-and Vian’s cries ceased. Such a waste, thought Engelmann; given time, Vian would have told him anything he asked. But in reality, the loss was minor-Vian was hardly the worthiest of subjects for Engelmann’s more esoteric ministrations, and the bonus he’d been promised for any information obtained would doubtless pale before the sum the Council would likely offer.

“Now,” Engelmann said into the phone, “where were we?”