Hour of the Assassin

by Matthew Quirk

  “Of course. Most of those kids came from prominent families.”

  “Who?” He picked up a pen and notepad from the counter.

  “What?”

  “Tell me all the politicians who would have been there.”

  “I don’t know who was there that summer.”

  “Who would have been?”

  “What are you going to do with those names?”

  “Don’t worry about that, Karen. Just tell me.” The last few words came out louder than he intended.

  “Nick, you need to get a good lawyer and contact the FBI.”

  “I am working on that. But I don’t know if I can trust them or the police. And I need more. I need those names.”

  Karen leaned back, looking drawn suddenly, pale. “Nick I’m not going to help you build a . . . I don’t know what. There could be a warrant out for your arrest. This is the murder of the former director of the CIA, and you’re still out there chasing down some theory that your flake ex-girlfriend told you about? Just stop, please.” Fear edged into her voice. “Leave it alone. You’re going to get yourself killed with this.”

  He put the pen down. Was she warning him away from something? “What do you mean?”

  “I mean drop this. Whatever the hell was going on with Emma, whatever you’re out there all night doing instead of being here at home with me. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but it seems like you’re always looking for some excuse to go out and put yourself in front of a gun. Do you miss guarding? Is that it? Is this not enough?” She held her hands out to the sides, looking around their home, then gestured back and forth between herself and Nick. “Aren’t I enough? If not, just tell me. I can handle it.”

  “No, Karen. Wait. That’s not it.”

  “Then stop. It’s already gone way too far.”

  He paced toward the doorway and looked into the den and then the living room, to the faces of Karen’s clients and the shots of her and her school friends at their wedding.

  Nick fought against the exhaustion, focused. Those photos had spooked Emma when she was here, when she came to Nick for help. She recognized how close Karen still was to all of those people from school who were now serious political players.

  “Do you know something about what happened to the woman at that party?”

  “No,” she said sharply. “I told you.”

  “Are you trying to protect me? Are you trying to keep me from finding something out?”

  She held her hand up. “This conversation is over.”

  “Are you trying to protect someone else? Are you afraid of someone?”

  She looked down.

  “Karen, whatever you do, you need to swear to me that you won’t tell anyone, even law enforcement, about anything I told you now or this morning. About Emma, or Catherine, or Malcolm Widener. It’s for your safety. That’s dangerous information. Promise me you won’t tell a soul.”

  “Nick . . .”

  “Promise me that, please.”

  She shook her head slowly.

  “What is it?” he asked. “You can talk to me.”

  “No, Nick. I can’t. That’s the problem.”

  He took a long breath in and thought about what she’d said, really thought. He could see how this all looked to her. The law had just come knocking on her door, asking about him like he was a fugitive, because he was a fugitive.

  “I’m sorry, Karen.”

  She put her hand up. She wasn’t one for theatrics or tears. “I can’t do this right now,” she said, her voice breaking. She turned away and walked down the hall. He heard the bathroom door open and close.

  He had come in here and was about to start writing down politicians’ names like some kind of hit list, talking about how he couldn’t trust the cops and swearing her to silence. Of course he had scared her. And then he’d suggested she had something to do with it, that she was hiding something from him. He could understand if she wanted to throw him out the front door onto his ass. Nick leaned forward and planted his palms on the table. The people behind all this had put blood on his hands and made him look like a killer. Now he had seen that suspicion on the face of his wife. This nightmare was taking everything from him, threatening his home, his marriage. He brought his hands to the edge of the table and gripped it. Every muscle in his body drew tight, veins standing out, his forearms straining until they shook, the water glass rattling against the wood.

  All he wanted to do was haul that table over, to give vent to this rage and the howl building in his chest. But that would only terrify her and make him look more guilty.

  After a moment, he let go and brought his hands to his sides. He shut his eyes, breathed in and out of his nose, and pressed back the anger.

  42

  Nick walked toward the front window. His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he took it out. Delia had sent a message, asking him to call her back. He couldn’t talk to her now, not in the middle of this.

  He looked down the hall and heard water running.

  His eyes passed over the table. It was bare except for the place mats and the glass. Karen’s phone was gone.

  He took three steps toward the bathroom. The water had been going for a long time.

  There was something odd about her bringing it in with her. She didn’t use it to fill any empty moment, didn’t hide in its screen. He liked that about her.

  It didn’t sound like she was calling anyone. But it was possible. Or she could have been texting. He watched the door.

  He moved closer. Karen came out. She seemed better. Her eyes were clear.

  She ran the back of her hand across her cheek. “Let’s just take a step back, okay?” Her phone was in her hand. When he looked up, he saw she’d been watching him, tracing his gaze to her cell.

  She offered him a bittersweet smile as she walked toward him. “Why don’t we sit?”

  She moved closer, looking up at his face. Verbena. That scent. It was the lotion she used on her hands. Fatigue and suspicion went around in his head like grinding gears. But behind that, overwhelming it, was something so simple. He needed her. He wanted to hold her.

  Her lower lip turned up, all concern.

  “I know this is a lot. Let me get you some coffee or something to eat.”

  It seemed odd to him, her sudden kindness after such valid suspicion. Had she contacted someone, and was she trying to keep him here long enough for someone else to come?

  You’re paranoid. You’re losing it. This is your wife.

  He forced himself to step away from her. His eyes went to the windows, but he couldn’t see out. It was too bright inside.

  “I shouldn’t have come, Karen. I’m sorry I put you through all this.” He needed to talk to Delia, and he knew he didn’t belong in this house right now, if only to keep whatever was chasing him away from her. “I don’t want to bring any of this closer to you. I’m going to go.”

  “Stay. Don’t go back out there, Nick. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “It’s for the best.” He put his hand on hers, warm. Her hands were always so warm against his.

  She glanced to the windows.

  He pulled his fingers from hers, then dipped his head and started out, walking fast because he didn’t trust himself to keep going.

  43

  Nick went out the back door, stepped off the deck, and moved to his right so he could get a view of the street. He stayed in the dark yard, turning slowly as he had been trained to do so long ago, eyes scanning from far to near, far to near, sector by sector, searching the still neighborhood.

  He shook his head. He was standing out here in the night like a lunatic, swinging at shadows. He needed rest. He started walking, then halted.

  It was the smallest thing: a flash from two houses down, a pinpoint of light hidden near the bushes between two of his neighbors’ homes.

  He slipped across the lawn, where the landscaping gave him some cover, and looked that way. A figure stood down the street, close to Deli
a’s car. That person seemed to be waiting, watching, trying to intercept him.

  He listened and heard only wind through the trees’ bare winter branches and a car engine in the distance. He looked for other surveillance. For every man you saw there were usually others hidden. He needed that vehicle. There were paths in the woods behind the houses, along the old creek bed and the drainage culverts. He could take them and circle behind the watcher.

  He wanted to see how many there were, and if it was the police or FBI. If it wasn’t, and if that was a lone sentry, he might be able to take him by surprise.

  He went into the woods and followed the dirt path beside the creek, which right now wasn’t much more than a damp depression in the earth choked with leaves. In a clearing to his left, there was a small playground.

  His instincts pushed him to rush, but he forced himself to slow down. He didn’t want noise. He looked toward the street and the lights of the houses. The figure was gone.

  Nick took a few steps off the path.

  He heard footsteps treading on the wet earth, coming toward him. It sounded like one person.

  Nick ducked between the pines, going the other way, crossing the creek bed and the clearing, along the edge of the playground.

  If there were others, Nick wanted to draw out this pursuer and get him away from his support. He took cover behind an oak and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark, searching the woods.

  His hand rested on his holstered gun, but he didn’t draw. Not yet. There was a chance that it was a law enforcement officer. Nick wasn’t about to kill a cop or force a cop to kill him.

  Nick wouldn’t shoot someone here unless he had no choice. He was trained to protect. This was no place to send bullets flying, with houses behind the target, children sleeping, no place to start a war.

  The swings on the playground creaked softly in the wind. He and Karen used to stop here on their walks, sit and talk at the end of the day.

  He edged around the tree, peered into the blackness. The white beam of a tactical light cut through the woods and hit him in the eyes as it scanned past.

  It blinded him for a moment, left him helpless. He clamped shut his eyes and took cover again. Had he been seen? A cop would announce himself, but as he stood there he heard no call. That was one of the killers.

  Nick drew his gun from its holster and looked around him, but all he could see was blackness and the streaking afterimage of that light.

  He listened for movement, waiting for boots to drum the ground toward him. He picked up no noise but his own breath. It sounded so loud, and his heartbeat throbbed in his ears. He took a step to his right, his foot thudding into a root, then froze and searched the woods, gun raised, his eyes adjusting slowly but still only giving him shadows.

  The wind pushed past him, and the branches creaked overhead. Had that person missed him? Moved on?

  He turned, his vision better now, able to make out the lines of the trees.

  Breath, footsteps—someone raced at him from the right, suddenly so close. Small lightning flashed in the dark, stabbing toward him. A stun gun.

  Nick arched back and the electric spark buzzed by his chin. By its blue light he saw the man’s face. Nick grabbed the attacker’s collar with his left hand, dug his feet into the ground, and drove with both legs, hauling the man off balance, sending him stumbling and falling to the side. Something thumped in the dark.

  Nick threw him so hard he lost his own balance and wheeled back. He put his hand out as he fell. White pain flared near his elbow as he hit something hard. He held on to his gun as he got up and spun toward the man, following a groaning sound, taking aim.

  His eyes started to adjust. The light was better in the clearing. He saw a figure laid out on the ground, his head leaning against a railroad tie that edged the play area.

  His jacket had fallen open, and a pistol hung from a strap holster on his waist. A suppressor was threaded into its barrel.

  That was an assassin’s rig. Nick took a step closer, kept his gun aimed at the man’s face, and stripped the pistol from him with his left hand. That brought a stab of pain from Nick’s left forearm. He must have cut it on the way down.

  “Who are you?” Nick asked, each word measured, violence restrained for the moment. The grip of his pistol dug into his palm.

  The man made a sound from deep in the back of his throat. His cheek lay against the railroad tie, head propped up, neck angled. Nick could break it so easily.

  The wind blew between the trees. A swing stirred, the links of its chains complaining softly. He used to play with his nieces here. This was his home. The rage burned in him like a fever.

  The man’s eyes opened. He looked up at Nick with terrible fear, whimpered, and tried to get up, but his strength was gone.

  No. No matter what this man deserved, Nick was no killer. He wouldn’t become the lie they had made of his life.

  “Who sent you?” Nick growled, and put his boot on the man’s chest.

  He tried to speak but could only manage a groan before his eyes closed and his head lolled to the side.

  A noise like a whisper came from the ground just beside him: an earpiece. Nick put the man’s gun in his jacket pocket, the suppressor jutting out, then took his radio and listened.

  “Three minutes out,” a voice said over the channel. “Do you see him? Wait for us to approach. You there?”

  Nick keyed the mic. “He’s gone,” he said, low and fast.

  “Copy.”

  “Where can I meet you?” Nick asked.

  “Authenticate.”

  “Where can I meet you?”

  “Authenticate. Copy?”

  Nick didn’t answer. They had some kind of system in place, a code word to confirm an operator’s identity.

  “Silence. Silence. Silence.” That was the order to kill a network that had been compromised. Whoever was on the other end of that radio knew that their man was down. Nick watched his chest rise and fall slowly as he patted his pockets, both empty.

  The man’s eyelids fluttered, and he mumbled like someone talking in his sleep. Nick had no time for questions. He turned and ran toward the car.

  44

  Forty-five minutes later, Nick was walking down the fluorescent-bright aisles of a CVS. He’d already checked out but was circling back toward the bathroom.

  He had called the Arlington County police using a fresh SIM card as he left his neighborhood and reported someone with a gun in those woods. He hoped they’d found the man Nick had fought. They would have plenty of questions about a guy laid out with a tactical radio setup, stun gun, and empty holster. At the very least they would stop anything else from going down on that street.

  He held his left elbow to his side, hiding the bloodstain over his forearm. To everyone he passed he offered what he hoped was a pleasant, utterly normal smile, though he suspected that it, along with his general beat-to-shit condition, made him look like an escaped mental patient.

  He entered the bathroom, locked the door, and pulled up his sleeve. A splinter as thick as a bamboo skewer was stuck into his arm. He covered it with soap and a splash of the rubbing alcohol he had bought. Then he looked up at the water-stained drop ceiling, grabbed the end of the wood shard, and pulled.

  He leaned against the sink to steady himself, then dropped the shard into the trash.

  A red gouge ran like a pocket under the skin, bleeding but not too heavily. He doused it in more alcohol, then opened a bandage with one hand and his teeth.

  The knob turned and rattled.

  He ignored it as he sealed the bandage over the cut and applied pressure. After splashing water on his face, he looked in the mirror, black circles under his eyes like a Halloween mask of himself.

  He gathered his items and left, striding past the man waiting outside without looking at him.

  A security guard with a salt-and-pepper beard checked his receipt on the way out.

  Nick walked back to the car, searched it for any kind of trackin
g device, and then climbed in.

  He lifted the prepaid phone and checked his messages. There was a voicemail from Jeff.

  “We’re on with Ellsbury tomorrow. Probably in the morning. I’ll let you know. Get up early.”

  Nick owed Delia a call. He rang her through the encrypted app.

  “Everything all right?” she said.

  “Aces,” Nick said, and scraped a few flakes of blood out from under his nails.

  “Really? Is that why you sound like you swallowed a bowl of gravel?”

  “Long day. But I talked to Jeff. I’m going to connect with a lawyer. I could use some good news.”

  “Did something happen?”

  His wife might have sold him out, but he couldn’t admit that and kept looking for ways around the evidence he had seen. He hoped it was the stress and lack of sleep taking his mind to that dark place. He shoved the thought away, like you would hide a box in an attic, and let the immediate tasks occupy him.

  “I’ll fill you in later. But don’t talk to Karen. And let me know if she calls.”

  “Is she . . .”

  “Later,” he said.

  “Sure. Well this might be good news. I dumped everything we have, the offshore shell corp and money stuff and the Federal Election Commission data, into a giant Neo4j graph database and tried a few things, but it really hit with a multimode network transform.”

  “English, Delia. I’m an old man.”

  “There are some political groups that made or received payments from one of the lawyers I connected to your LLC and mystery SUV.”

  “Where’s the lawyer?”

  “Grand Cayman. Though I may have found an office she’s connected to in the US, in Delaware.”

  “What groups?” He grabbed a pen and paper from the console.

  She read out the names of three political action committees. They all sounded equally patriotic and meaningless.

  “Should I have heard of them?”

  “No. They’re basically just fronts, but they all seem to be connected to Sam MacDonough, the senator. They helped some other politicians, too, but if I had to bet, I’d say he’s the common thread. He went to St. Albans with Malcolm Widener, and then Georgetown.”