Angel of Destruction

by Christopher Nicole

  ‘Senorita?’

  Anna stepped away from him and turned.

  He gaped at her. ‘That is a gun!’

  ‘Something no girl should be without, wouldn’t you say? Don’t look so alarmed; I’m not going to shoot you.’

  He gulped, but could not take his eyes from her body.

  ‘I tell you what,’ she said. ‘If you turn round, I will give you a surprise.’

  He obeyed, appearing to be almost mesmerized by her beauty combined with her charisma combined with the fact that she was armed; obviously he was wondering if she had been armed when having sex with Capillano. Anna stepped up to him, took a long breath, and swung her arm, as she had learned at the SS training school eleven years before, striking him on the neck just above the shoulder with the edge of her hand. This was intended to be a lethal blow, if delivered with the full weight of the body behind it, as it was aimed at the carotid artery, the principal conveyer of blood to the brain; if that flow was interrupted for any length of time death would follow. But she had deliberately not put all her weight into this swing, so that Rodrigo merely lost consciousness. His knees gave way and he collapsed on to the sand.

  He would only be out for a few seconds. Anna knelt beside him, pulled off his tie, rolled him on his face and bound his wrists together. Then she pulled off his belt and secured his ankles as well, just as he began to stir.

  Neither of those bonds would last very long; he was quite a powerful man. She tore her evening gown into strips, while he blinked at her, trying to focus. ‘Senorita,’ he muttered. ‘You hit me. What are you doing? I do not understand.’

  ‘I wouldn’t even try, if I were you,’ Anna recommended, and completed the destruction of the gown, leaving her with several lengths of quite strong material, as well as her sash. ‘Open wide.’

  He obeyed, still goggling at her. She passed a length of material round his mouth and drew it tight. Another length she passed round his body, and one round his thighs, and then took off her stockings to add yet another layer of binding. The last strip of cloth she passed round his eyes, so that he could not see what she was going to do next, and thus be unable to describe what clothes she would be wearing when she left him.

  She understood that she was being utterly unprofessional. The correct thing for her to do in these circumstances was to kill him. Abandoned on this lonely beach it might be days before his body was found, and while the Mexico City police, once they had interviewed Jaquetta, would certainly deduce that she had made off with the taxi, they would have no idea where she had gone and thus where to start looking for her. But he was absolutely innocent, and rather charming . . . and all she really needed was a few hours.

  ‘There you go,’ she said, and took her spare clothes from her shoulder bag, dressing herself in the denim pants, the crushed and untidy check shirt, the rather grubby jerkin, and the lace-up canvas ankle boots she had placed there earlier. She tied up her hair in a bandanna so that it was totally concealed, put on a pair of sunglasses that were entirely undistinguished save for the enormous lenses, which obscured even her eyebrows, and stuck a strip of chewing gum into her mouth. She placed all of her jewellery, including her watch, in the bag, replacing the Junghans with a tinny ten-dollar variety she had picked up in Miami, added her gloves and shoes, but left her pistol and the spare magazine in place.

  Satisfied, she turned back to Rodrigo. ‘Please don’t look so morose,’ she said. ‘In my experience, if you work real hard, you should be able to free yourself in about three hours. In any event, I will send you help. Perhaps in less than that. Your car will be in Matamoros, and I reckon that is only about an hour’s walk from here. I will leave the key under the front seat floor mat. You should look at it this way. You have had a nice drive in the country, a stimulating sexual experience, and you have picked up three thousand dollars into the bargain. I think you are a very lucky man. Adios.’

  She got into the car, and after some experimentation started it up. Despite her inexperience – she had only driven by herself on about half a dozen occasions – she knew what was necessary, and early in the morning the road was deserted. As she had anticipated, Matamoros was only five miles away from where they had stopped, and she was in the suburbs in fifteen minutes. She parked the car at the kerb, put the key under the mat as promised, slung her shoulder bag, and walked towards the river, flowing westward to where it would enter the Gulf of Mexico, some thirty miles away.

  The town was just waking up, and there were some whistles from early-rising youths, but she had no trouble with the border guards, who surveyed her with the invariable masculine pleasure, even if with her hair concealed and her legs in pants she was far from at her best, checked her US passport, which was in the name of Anna O’Donovan – a play on the name of her previous US employer, Wild Bill Donovan, dreamed up by her current CIA controller, Joe Andrews – and waved her on to the first ferry.

  The US immigration was a little more punctilious, but her passport was unarguable. However . . . ‘No transport, Miss O’Donovan?’

  ‘Ah guess not.’ She spoke in a drawl and took off her glasses to flutter her eyelashes at him, while chewing vigorously.

  ‘So how did you get to Matamoros?’

  ‘Ah thumbed a ride.’

  ‘From where?’

  ‘Mexico City.’

  ‘Jesus! That’s a long way. You don’t reckon that was, well, kind of asking for trouble?’

  ‘The guy who gave me the ride was a real gent.’

  He gazed at her for some moments, clearly wondering how accommodating she had felt it necessary to be, then remarked, ‘Lucky,’ without specifying whether he was referring to her or her gentleman friend. ‘But if you were coming home, how come you didn’t catch a plane or a train, instead of risking the road?’

  ‘Ma asshole boy friend threw me out,’ Anna explained. ‘And Ah had only a few bucks.’ She returned his gaze, eyes enormous.

  ‘I’d say he was a dope.’ He stamped her passport.

  Fifteen minutes later she was on a bus for San Antonio. She took a taxi to the airport, found a flight to Miami leaving in an hour. Having booked her seat, she had a substantial brunch – it was a long time since her light supper – waited until ten minutes before departure, and then went to a phone booth and put a call through to the Matamoros police station. ‘It may interest you to know,’ she said in Spanish, ‘that on a beach five miles south of you, there is a man, bound and gagged. I would like you to go there and release him.’

  ‘Senorita? Your name, please.’

  ‘The man will tell you that, when you free him.’

  ‘Where are you calling from?’

  ‘I am in Monterey. But I am about to leave. Good morning.’

  She hung up, joined the boarding queue. They would undoubtedly put a trace on the call, and discover it was long distance international. They might even be able to trace it to a call box at San Antonio airport, and eventually discover that a woman roughly answering her description had taken a flight to Miami. But all she had to do was reach there and she would be virtually home, and as always after the completion of an assignment, she wanted to lead her pursuers a dance. It was all part of the lethal game that was her life.

  *

  At two o’clock Anna was at Miami International, which in addition to the various flight desks and satellites was a huge shopping emporium. She went to one of the pharmacies within the terminal building and bought herself a toothbrush and some paste. Next she went to the Bahamas Airways check-in desk and booked a seat on the late flight to Nassau, using her reserve passport, in the name of Fitzjohn, this being the name under which she was known in the Bahamas.

  Flying home from a mission was outside her usual practice; normally she went to her CIA contact in the city and used his radio to call the cay and have her boat come across to pick her up, thus avoiding any risk of identification. But it would take them a good eighteen hours to get here, and she didn’t feel she could wait that long: experience had
taught her that while many of her own successes had depended on her patience, her willingness to wait for the opposition to make a mistake, the biggest mistake that she could make would be ever to assume that the opposition would get it wrong, or not, in fact, get it all right. Thus she had to assume that the Mexican police, with American help, would probably be able to track her as far as here – certainly after they had traced the phone call to San Antonio Airport; she had been warned by the CIA that all police forces would be instructed to give maximum cooperation in the search for the perpetrator of what was going to be a crime of worldwide sensation; much as Washington wanted Capillano to pay for his crimes there was equally no way they could afford to be in any way involved in such arbitrary justice, carried out without a by-your-leave in a nearby and friendly country. Which was exactly why they had employed her.

  So although there was only two hours to her flight, there was still work to be done, which included confusing the issue as much as possible. If both Jaquetta and Rodrigo would be able to describe the long-haired blonde with the expensive jewellery who had visited Capillano’s suite and then hijacked the taxi for the ride to the border, she would have disappeared after leaving the beach. However, American immigration, given an approximate timing, would have been able to deduce that the somewhat scruffy young woman stepping off the ferry and said long-haired blonde were one and the same, thus it would be the scruffy blonde they would be looking for at Miami. Therefore, the best thing she could do was let them find her.

  She went to the Airport Hotel, which was also a part of the terminal building, and booked a room for the night, using the name Eliza Doolittle. The reception clerk looked doubtful as he surveyed the untidy young woman carrying only a shoulder bag, so she smiled brightly and said, ‘Ah guess you’d like me to pay up front?’

  Now he looked embarrassed. ‘Well . . .’

  ‘How about a hundred?’ She peeled off the note and laid it on the counter, allowing him a glimpse of the other nine notes in the wad.

  ‘Well, of course, madam. I wouldn’t like you to think—’

  ‘You’re doing your job,’ Anna pointed out. ‘If it runs over that, Ah’ll settle up in the morning.’

  ‘Of course, madam,’ he beamed.

  She went up to her room, locked the door, removed the bandanna and then undressed, making a face as she tore off the spare magazine, and had a long shower, which she sadly needed. She then strapped on her pistol, stowing the spare magazine in her spare handbag, a utilitarian piece of fake leather, as she was no longer in any danger of being searched, transferred the contents of her evening bag, the money, the three passports, her lipstick, comb and perfume, and her jewellery, restored her bandanna, put on her big dark glasses, looked sadly at her shoulder bag and evening purse, which like her gear in Mexico City, would have to be abandoned, together with the evening shoes, then opened each one to tear out the manufacturer’s tab which indicated that they had been bought in Nassau. These she added to her handbag and went downstairs, the bag slung on her arm, smiling at the reception clerk, who would have to note that she had left her luggage, such as it was, in her room. ‘What time is dinner served in your restaurant?’ she asked.

  ‘This is an airport hotel, ma’am. You can have a hot meal any time of the day or night.’

  ‘Say, that’s great. Do Ah need to book?’

  ‘No, ma’am. It’s a big restaurant. They’ll fit you in.’

  ‘Thank you. And breakfast?’

  ‘Well, you can go to the restaurant if you want. But we’ll serve it in your room, if you prefer. What time’s your flight?’

  ‘It’s for New York. Ah think, ten o’clock.’

  ‘Then you can have a lie in. Give us a call on room service when you’re ready, and we’ll send it up. You can have a continental, or a full. The full,’ he added winningly, ‘comes with English muffins.’

  ‘That sounds great. Ah’ll do that.’

  She flashed him another smile and disappeared into the crowd of people outside the doors, walking casually until she was out of sight of the desk, then visited one of the several boutiques scattered about the building. Here she bought a new summer dress in pale blue with a plunging neckline, a straw hat with a matching pale-blue ribbon, a new pair of shoes, a clean pair of knickers as well as a pale-blue retaining band for her hair, and a new stylish handbag. She changed in the privacy of the fitting cubicle, and combed out her hair before attaching the band; then she added her watch and jewellery, changed her glasses for her winged Italian model, and pulled on her gloves. Her passports, toiletries and money she transferred to the new bag, together with her spare magazine.

  She had obtained a large carrier bag from the desk when she had paid for the goods, and in this she placed her discarded clothes and shoes and handbag, then left the cubicle, smiled brightly at the woman on the desk, and vanished into the throng. She would certainly be remembered here, but unless the search for her was made very public, no one should ask them to do that. A few minutes later she had dumped the bag in a large waste bin as she walked by, joined the queue for the Departure Lounge, and an hour later was disembarking into the heat of Oakes Field, just over the hill from Nassau.

  She took a taxi into the city, to the Royal Victoria Hotel, the oldest and most venerable of Bahamian hotels, which had stood since the days of the American Civil War, when Nassau had been the centre of the blockade runners who had taken guns and ammunition into the Confederate ports of Charleston and Wilmington, under the cannon of the Federal navy, and brought out the raw cotton which had paid for them. The trade had been so lucrative that it was said one could see the skippers in the Royal Vic ballroom lighting their cigars with hundred-dollar bills.

  As this was the hotel she always used when passing through Nassau, Anna was both known and welcome. ‘Miss Fitzjohn,’ said the maitre d’, who happened to be at the reception desk. ‘Good to see you, ma’am. Good to see you. You checking in?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  He turned the book towards her. ‘How many nights?’

  ‘Just the one, this time, I’m afraid.’ She signed the book.

  He peered over the counter. ‘No luggage?’

  ‘I’m just passing through. So, would you do one or two things for me?’

  ‘Any time, ma’am.’

  ‘Well, first thing, would you book me a table for dinner? I’ve been travelling all day, and I’m ravenous.’

  ‘Sure thing.’

  ‘Early. I didn’t sleep very well last night and I want my bed.’

  ‘Seven o’clock?’

  Which was less than half an hour away. ‘That will be perfect. Tell the chef I want fillet steak medium rare, and I’ll have a bottle of Chateau Batailley.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Then would you make a radio call to the cay and tell Tommy I want to be collected, tomorrow morning?’

  ‘You got it.’

  ‘And lastly, I’d like to send a wire.’

  He pushed the block of forms towards her and she wrote, rapidly, and pushed it back. He counted the words aloud. ‘Mr Joseph Andrews, 6666 Langley Virginia. Jiggety jog. Anna.’

  He raised his head, questioningly.

  ‘It completes a nursery rhyme,’ Anna explained. ‘Home again, home again, jiggety jog.’

  *

  Anna was more exhausted than she had realized. She was in bed by ten, and slept without moving until seven the next morning. It was not just the fact that she had not closed her eyes for thirty-six hours, more it was the events of that day and a half; as she was finishing her wine at dinner, she was reflecting that only twenty-four hours before, she had been leaving her hotel to visit Capillano.

  But as always, when she awoke her brain was absolutely clear; she was prepared, as she had to be, to face the facts of who she was, what she had done, and what was necessary for her own survival . . . until she was summoned again? It was always like this. If she had killed a hundred times, with remorseless professionalism, no one, not ev
en Clive Bartley, and certainly not Joe Andrews, any more than her Nazi bosses, had any idea of the emotional cost of those executions. Even Clive, she suspected, if she did not question his combination of desire and affection, out of which real respect and love might well grow, considered that within that cocoon of charm and sophistication and charisma there lurked some terrifying force which she could summon into action by a simple act of will. The horrifying fact was that he, and they, were quite right. What none of them understood was the enormous effort required to summon that force . . . or the emotional desert it left behind it.

  A desert which had to be subjected to the cold light of realism. Her present position came first. But she could not fault it. Presumably by now the shambles in the Mexican hotel suite would have been discovered, and the entire city, perhaps the entire country, would be buzzing. But she did not suppose even a mass murder, as it would be considered rather than a mass execution, in Mexico City, of so high profile a man as Roberto Capillano, would make the Nassau Guardian. She felt no remorse. They had been guilty men, enemies of all mankind, and she had carried out their execution with all the speed and efficiency that had earned her her reputation, even if only a handful of people in the world knew of her existence, much less that reputation.

  She went over the evening in her mind, not that she considered she had made any mistakes. As she had reckoned earlier, Jaquetta and Rodrigo would have been able to describe the Irishwoman named Anna O’Brien who had visited Capillano on the evening he had been killed, and Rodrigo would be able to tell them that she was armed and that she had been in a hurry to get out of the country. That he would be able to do that would be considered, certainly by Joe Andrews, and no doubt even by Clive, as an absurd and unnecessary and almost criminal act of generosity on her part; had she hit Rodrigo hard enough to kill him, she would have left no track to follow.