Assassin ah-2

by Ted Bell

  “Ah, a most excellent suggestion, monsieur. I will do all within my power to…to…I’m sorry—”

  Snay waved the waiter away with the back of his hand and smiled at al-Nassar. “No style. No substance,” he said.

  “Shoot him.”

  “And waste a perfectly good bullet? No, I have a far better idea, with your permission.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve been thinking on this for some time, Attar. I’m going to buy this hotel.”

  “An interesting notion. To what end?”

  “Real estate has been very profitable for me, as you well know, Attar. Every one of my clubs and casinos is posting spectacular numbers. Especially my new hotel, the Bambah in Indonesia. Fabulous resort. But it is time again to expand my holdings. I will create within these walls a sumptuous palace where eminent men of the world like you and I do not have to suffer these miserable insufferables. And this silly English décor.”

  “It’s French, actually. Art Deco. Created by a chap named Basil Ionides sometime in the late twenties.”

  “All the more reason to fix it up.”

  And that is precisely what Snay did. He bought the old Victorian brick hotel in the heart of Mayfair. Snay bin Wazir could not know this—his history was too short—but this was not merely a fashionable hotel. It was a cultural icon, one of London’s most revered architectural symbols for a century or more. Queen Victoria had visited Empress Eugénie of France when she was in residence here in 1860. The present queen had come here for balls when she was still a princess. Even to this day, the hotel catered to the Royal Family, hosting innumerable teas, state visits, and receptions.

  His first move was a summary firing of all the employees. He began with the pompous little headwaiter in the Reading Room, but no one was spared. He fired the doormen in their silk toppers and red frocked coats, the aged valets, dress maids and hall porters, the dining and wait staff in their boiled shirts and cutaways, the Maître Chef des Cuisines and all the sous-chefs, and, finally, Henri, a confidante of Churchill himself who had presided over the main bar since before the war, and then the general manager himself.

  To say this “Bloodbath at Beauchamps,” as the tabloids tagged it, had all of London agog would be to put it mildly. There was outrage from every quarter. A spokesman at Buckingham Palace said the queen had no comment other than she was profoundly disgusted. The editorial pages of the London Times were spewing vitriol in the direction of the former Pasha of Knightsbridge. It was a lead story on the BBC for weeks. They treated it like a national disaster. It was, as one TV reporter put it, “A cock-up of monumental proportions.”

  Snay bin Wazir, who happened to be tuned in that night, took this reporter’s comment as a compliment and rang up next morning to thank him for being the one newsman in town with the guts to take his side in the matter.

  You could have blown up the Tate, the National Gallery, and the British Museum all in a day’s work and not had more brimstone rain down on your head than bin Wazir found pouring down upon him in those turbulent times.

  But Mr. bin Wazir had been forewarned by al-Nassar to expect this reaction from hidebound Londoners, and so he went about town with his usual aplomb, smiling in the face of the angry stares that met him everywhere, ignoring the shouted insults in the street, acting for all the world as if he were a man who’d found himself in the middle of a summer squall that would soon blow itself out.

  The story quickly found its way across the pond where the American newspapers and television networks picked it up. There was a resounding hue and cry from that side of the Atlantic as well. Generations of wealthy Americans had called Beauchamps their “home away from home” and legions of them had grown up knowing the hotel staff by name. Now, the hate mail and death threats were arriving at bin Wazir’s door from both sides of the Atlantic.

  Unabashed and undeterred, bin Wazir proceeded with his project. It wasn’t long before the scaffolding went up and armies of construction workers and demolition squads were hard at work. The windows and doors were all boarded up and the interior and exterior renovation began right on schedule.

  It was bin Wazir’s fervent belief during this stormy period that he would be redeemed once his new palace reopened and haute London got a look at what true grandeur really looked like. He had hired the best architects and interior designers money could buy and given them carte blanche. Within a few guidelines, naturally.

  Gone would be the hideous silvered Georges Braque mirrors, the Jazz Age sculpture and paintings, and furniture upholstered in Cubist fabrics so dated as to make one laugh. Bin Wazir told his designers to let their minds venture into a golden future, where computer articulated twenty-four-carat nymphs danced and a ballet of sparkling jets spewed forth in splashing fountains of jeweled marble; and swirling, flashing lasers illuminated multicolored birds singing in massive gilded cages suspended from on high.

  He imagined a new skyline for his team of designers as well. Opulently turreted and domed, with pillars and pediments and gables clad in endless mosaics of colored stone; with flags of every nation fluttering from every shimmering bronzed turret top, welcoming the world to bin Wazir’s door. Yes, when the world finally came to his sumptuous palace, and gazed upon its many splendors, bin Wazir would find his redemption. And, quite possibly, a knighthood, he sometimes imagined.

  His first clue that this fantasy might not come to pass was the day he invited all of London society, all of the press, including his old friend Stilton at the Sun, to witness the grand unveiling of the hotel’s new marquee. To accentuate the new and dispel the old, it was rumored that bin Wazir had actually changed the two-centuries-old name of the fabled grand dame of Mayfair.

  At the stroke of noon, on a hot June day, amidst a cacophony of shouting reporters and clicking cameras, bin Wazir would pull the silken cord, letting the royal purple velvet drapes festooning the new façade and hiding the new marquee, fall to the pavement.

  With a great flourish, bin Wazir pulled the cord, the draperies fell away, and a huge gasp arose from all those assembled. The crowd stood in shocked silence, gazing upwards with disbelieving eyes.

  There, for all to see, in massive golden letters forming an arch above the hotel’s azure-tiled entrance was the new name of London’s most magnificent new hotel. And, of course, it was spelled precisely the way bin Wazir thought it should be spelled.

  Phonetically.

  BEECHUM’S.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Nantucket Island

  SHORTLY AFTER K ITTYHAWKE TOOK OFF FOR MAINE, STOKELY Jones, Ross Sutherland, and Sergeant Tommy Quick were having breakfast in the gleaming stainless steel galley presided over by Blackhawke’s executive chef, Samuel Kennard. Kennard was known by one and all aboard the yacht as Slushy. Since the early eighteenth century, this unsavory moniker had been the nickname commonly given to cooks aboard ships in the British Royal Navy.

  “Slushy,” Stoke said, swallowing a mouthful of fried grits, “sit your ass down here and eat some breakfast with us. You been on your feet since five this morning.”

  “Brilliant idea, mate,” Slushy said, in his thick cockney accent, and brought a plate piled high with bangers and mash over to the galley staff’s main dining table. “Don’t mind if I do, thank you very much.” Slushy’s substantial girth was all the proof you needed of his pudding.

  “That’s better,” Stoke said. “I just can’t stomach eating when somebody’s standing there cooking. Must have been something in my childhood. Now, Slushy, you got shore leave this morning? Man, you got to see that whaling museum in town. I’m telling you, brother, those old whaling cats were some seriously badass dudes.”

  “Better trust him on that one, Slushy,” Quick said. “Mr. Jones does not use the word badass lightly.”

  Tom Quick, who was always heavily armed despite his crisp white crew attire, reported directly to Sutherland and had total responsibility for the security of the yacht Blackhawke. Quick was of medium height, lean, with a
shock of sun-whitened hair and frank, inquisitive grey eyes. He had been working for Hawke for more than two years. Alex had met the U.S. Army’s number-one sharpshooter at the Sniper School at Fort Hood. Hawke had promised Sergeant Quick an exciting career and he had delivered in spades. Sarge, as he was now called, had helped to salvage Hawke from too many unsalvageable situations to count.

  “Says it all the blooming time, though, don’t he, Mr. Sutherland? Badass?” Slushy said. Most major yachts of the world boasted chefs lured away from the finest four-star restaurants of Europe. Alex had hired Kennard away from a pub in Clapham Common, which, he argued, had the best food in all of London. Slushy was an innate culinary genius and could cook, literally, anything to perfection. Even the salted shark strips Sutherland was currently chewing on.

  “Damn good shark this morning, Slush,” Ross said. “C’mon, Stoke. I’m headed for the ship’s library. Get a jump on that list we made last night.”

  “That’s good, that’s good,” Stoke said. “My man Sarge here and I’ve been doing some checking on that sniper rifle I found up in the tree. I tell you, Quick here is a walking sniper encyclopedia. And I want to hear about you and Ambrose’s little midnight visit to the crime scene, too.”

  “Well, later,” Tom Quick said, rising from the table. “Meeting with my team at nine. Good luck, good hunting, guys.”

  “Sarge,” Sutherland said to Quick, “Security level aboard is unchanged, correct?”

  “Aye, sir. Level Three ever since the boss got the call from the DSS about the incident up in Maine.”

  “I don’t feel good about this, Tommy. Take her to Four.” Five was full on, wartime. They’d only been at Five once and that was in the middle of a firefight with Cuban gunboats during a very hairy military takeover down in Cuba.

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Quick said, “Go to Four.” He saluted and he was gone. Four meant round-the-clock armed watches and a two-man team manning the video feeds from the underwater cameras night and day. It must be getting very sketchy out there, Quick thought, taking the steps to the upper deck three at a time.

  An hour later, Stokely and Sutherland were in the library, hard at it. They had managed to eliminate a few names from the Enemy Register and had created a new chart headed Physical Evidence.

  “Trouble with that enemy chart,” Stoke said, sitting back in his armchair with his hands laced behind his head, “Is that Alex Hawke got a price on his head in half the damn countries on the list.”

  “Quite right,” Ross said, turning from the chart. “But you don’t get paid for shooting the bride.”

  “Yeah, I been thinking about that. Guy who did that to Vicky? He was sending a signal. I can hurt you and I can kill you. But before I kill you, I’m going to put you in a world of hurt.”

  “Yeah,” Ross said. “It’s definitely not a standard-fare contract hit. Have to be at least five names up there we might safely eliminate.”

  “Scratch ’em,” Stoke said. “Mr. Congreve wants ’em back up there, he can tell us why when he gets back from Maine.”

  As Ross drew a red line through some of the names, Stokely got up and went to the evidence chart, a big black Magic Marker in his hand. He wrote the letters SVD at the top of the page.

  “Let me tell you a little bit about the sniper rifle this guy managed to leave stuck in the tree,” Stoke said. “Gun was a Dragunov SVD. That’s short for Snayperskaya Vintkova Dragunova. I’m pronouncing that best I can.”

  “Russian,” Sutherland said.

  “Bet your ass. Now, here’s the weird part. That gun sucks. So out of date, guy might as well used a goddamn flintlock.” Stoke wrote the manufacture date, 1972, on the chart, next to SVD.

  “Accurate enough, I’d say, assuming the target actually was Vicky and not Alex.”

  “Oh, it’s accurate enough, you got a good enough scope on it. Which it did, by the way. Best goddamn scope money can buy. Now, here’s the weird part.”

  “Yes?”

  “I know a lot about this shit, as you know. I don’t want to bore anybody.”

  “Bore me, Stokely, to tears,” Ross said, “Make me cry.”

  “You asked for it, son. Okay. You see, while the SVD was mass produced in the old USSR in the seventies, they’re hard to come by these days. I mean, no serious shooter is going to go out and look for one of these things, know what I’m saying?”

  Stoke was illustrating his points, getting everything down in writing on the physical evidence chart.

  “Wouldn’t be professional, is what you’re saying,” Sutherland said, smiling.

  “See? That’s why the boss likes you, Ross. You good, my brother. Now. This is the best part. While the gun itself is an antique, the scope is definitely not. The scope is a 10X Leupold & Stevens Ultra Mark IV. They don’t get much better. Multicoated lenses for superior light transmission and contrast. Bright, distortion-free image in any kind of light. And exposed knobs for easy windage and elevation adjustments. Bored yet?”

  “You see any tears?”

  “The Ultra Mark IV is brand spanking new. It has a range knob that goes from one hundred yards to one thousand yards with one complete turn of the dial. And that, little buddy, tells you something.”

  “Namely?”

  “That Leupold scope? Total overkill. It’s strictly American military or American law enforcement. Joe Public can’t buy one for love or money. I called the head tech support guy at Leupold this morning just to make sure. These scopes are locked down tight. Got a big computer with nothing to do all day but keep track of every damn serial number.”

  “So,” Ross said, leaning forward in his chair, “Our shooter has to be either a U.S. serviceman or police officer.”

  “Both possible, but not very damn likely.”

  “Right. For now, at least. So we’ve got an outdated Soviet weapon with a brand new U.S. scope mounted on it. Strange, but I’ll go with it.”

  “I’m saving the very best for last.”

  “Please.”

  “This guy Sarge put me onto at Leupold? I talked to the tech guy. Name was Larry. Wouldn’t give out his last name. Security. Anyway, he asks me why I’m so curious about this particular scope so I told him the whole story about Vicky, beginning to end. He’s listening to me now, ’cause at this point he knows I’m ex-SEAL, ex-NYPD, and shit and the cat knows my ass ’cause of reputation or some shit, you know, and the U.S. Navy?”

  “U.S. Navy.”

  “Hell, Ross, Navy’s a major contractor with him, do a whole lot of business with his company, dig? Whole damn lot. You capiche what I’m saying here?”

  “He had a certain incentive to cooperate.”

  “There you go again, Ross! Shit! Let’s just say the boy took a very deep breath and let me into his total utmost confidence.”

  “What’d he say, Stoke? You’re driving me mad here.”

  “He said, what the boy said was, Stoke, you didn’t hear this from me. But. There’s one damn scope out there somewhere we just can’t account for.”

  “Christ!”

  “That’s exactly what I said! Seems like about three months ago, somebody broke into the apartment of a Dade County SWAT team guy down in Miami. Killed him in his bed. M.E. guy on the scene said somebody drove a sharp object through both his eyes. Stole his weapon. Only thing he took.”

  “Hold on. The SWAT guy had his weapon at home? That’s not how it works, Stoke. They lock them down at the HQ after every operation.”

  “Shit, you think I don’t know that, Ross? Wasn’t supposed to have his damn sniper rifle in house. ’Course not. Against every SWAT reg in the book, you right. He was a bad boy. Weekends, he took his gun, a .50-caliber Barrett M82A1 rifle by the way, out into the ’glades, did himself a little gator shooting. Somebody watching the boy for a while, knew all his habits.”

  “Knew weapons and scopes, as well.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where exactly was this apartment?”

  “South Beach.”

 
; “Question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “How come Vicky’s shooter puts the new scope on the old rifle? Why not just use the .50-cal Barrett?”

  “Thought about that. He’s more comfortable with the old SVD. Used it for a long time. The new Barrett is all funked out with new kinds of shit he’s not used to. So, he puts the good scope on the old gun.”

  “You’re thinking this shooter is Russian, Stoke?”

  “Russian, old Eastern bloc, maybe. Lots of pissed-off Commies running ’round the planet love to mess with Alex Hawke.”

  “Chinese. North Koreans…”

  “Them, too. But the Chinese and NKs, see, they got their own sniper rifles. Wouldn’t be messing with some outdated Soviet shit.”

  “Middle Easterners might—”

  At that moment Pelham appeared in the library, carrying a silver salver with a teapot and tea service for two.

  “I daresay I hate to interrupt what is most certainly a most scintillating and fruitful discussion, but I thought that perhaps a cup of good Darjeeling might further stimulate the cerebral cells.”

  “Pelham,” Stoke said, “You something else. You like some whole different species. Ordinary folks never know what the hell you talking about, but it always sound so good.”

  “Most kind, Mister Jones,” Pelham said. “Will you be having tea?”

  “I will be having tea,” Stoke said, a huge grin on his face. “Pelham, you been with Alex since the day he was born. We sitting here trying to figure out who could have the kind of hatred for Alex that would drive them to murder his bride on the steps of a church. Maybe you could add something. Why don’t you sit down there and listen to old Ross talk about his midnight visit to the crime scene?”

  “Are you quite serious?”

  “I’m quite serious as I ever get.”

  “Then I should be delighted. My morning was going to be spent sorting through his lordship’s jumble of handkerchiefs. The linen and the silk seem to have cojoined. This sounds a much more interesting and worthwhile endeavor.”