The Mark of the Assassin

by Daniel Silva

  Astrid followed the Mercedes westward, across 20th Street and then 21st Street.

  “I’m getting close, Jean-Paul. Where are you?”

  “M Street. Wait for me at Twenty-third.”

  She crossed 23rd Street and stopped on the northwest corner. The Mercedes drew away. She looked north on 23rd Street and saw Delaroche pedaling at high speed, legs churning like pistons. He stopped, leaned the bike against a lamppost, and climbed into the Range Rover.

  “Go!”

  Elizabeth settled into the back of a taxi for the ride to the Hertz rental car outlet. Michael’s gadget had worked just the way he said it would. Max stopped the car; Elizabeth climbed out and pulled the latch. A figure rapidly inflated, amazingly lifelike. Max drove quickly away, and Elizabeth walked into the lobby of her building. She was tempted to walk upstairs and hide in her office, but she remembered the janitor with the expensive haircut and Special Forces ring and knew her office was no longer safe. She waited behind the glass until the Range Rover sped past, and then she stepped out and flagged down the taxi.

  The taxi dropped her outside the Hertz outlet. She walked quickly inside and went to the rental counter. Five minutes later an attendant brought a gray Mercury Sable to the front of the garage. Elizabeth climbed in and pulled out into the downtown traffic.

  She drove west across Washington through Georgetown, then onto Reservoir Road. She took Reservoir down to Canal Road and followed it north along the banks of the C&O Canal. After ten miles she came to the Beltway. She followed the signs north to Baltimore.

  Her purse rested next to her on the passenger seat. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed the Mercedes. After five rings a recorded voice informed her that the cellular phone she was trying to reach “was not in service at this time.”

  Max Lewis drove across Key Bridge and turned north onto the George Washington Parkway. He had lost the Range Rover somewhere in Georgetown. He looked across at the figure seated next to him, a tall rather attractive man with dark hair and a clean shave. He realized the figure looked something like Michael Osbourne. He glanced up into the rearview mirror. Still no sign of the Range Rover. For a mad instant he was actually enjoying himself. Then he thought of Elizabeth and how frightened she had been, and he regained a healthy dose of nerves.

  Elizabeth had told him to drive straight to the main entrance of the CIA. Someone would meet him there and take him inside. He pressed down on the accelerator, and the speedometer needle jumped to seventy-five. The Mercedes flowed easily over the rolling hills and gentle turns of the parkway. The Potomac sparkled below in the brilliant December sunlight.

  Max looked at the mannequin again. “Listen, Mr. Jib, since we’re going to be spending some time together, I think now would be a good opportunity to get to know more about each other. My name is Max and, yes, I’m gay. I hope that doesn’t bother you.”

  He looked into the rearview mirror and saw the flashing blue light of a Virginia state trooper. He looked at the speedometer and saw he was driving nearly eighty miles per hour.

  “Oh, shit,” Max said, gently pressing the brake and pulling into a scenic river overlook.

  The trooper climbed out of the car and put on his hat. Max lowered the window. The trooper said, “You were driving well over seventy back there, sir, and probably closer to eighty. May I see your driver’s license please.” Then he noticed the inflatable figure on the passenger seat. “What’s that, sir?”

  “It’s a very long story, Officer.”

  “Your driver’s license, please.”

  Max beat the breast pockets of his coat. He had rushed out of the Osbournes’ house so quickly he had forgotten his briefcase and his wallet. He said, “I’m sorry, Officer, but I don’t have my license on me.”

  “Shut off the engine and step out of the car, please,” the officer said in a dull monotone, but at that moment he was distracted by the sight of a black Range Rover pulling into the overlook.

  Max said, “Officer, you’re going to think I’m nuts, but you’d better listen to what I have to say.”

  Delaroche climbed out of the Range Rover and walked toward the trooper. Astrid got out and stepped to the front of the Mercedes. The trooper unsnapped his holster and was reaching for his weapon. “Get back in the car, sir, now!”

  Delaroche reached beneath his cycling jersey and took hold of the silenced Beretta. His arm swung up, and he fired twice. The first shot struck the officer in the shoulder, spinning him around. The second struck him in the back of the head, and he collapsed onto the shoulder of the road.

  Astrid stood in front of the Mercedes, gun in outstretched hands. She looked first at the man behind the wheel, then at the mannequin sitting where Elizabeth Osbourne had been. She was overcome with rage. She had been taken in by one of the oldest tricks in the book.

  The engine started, and the Mercedes dropped into gear. Astrid calmly fired three shots through the windshield. The glass shattered and was instantly red with blood. The body collapsed forward onto the steering column, and the afternoon was filled with the blaring of the car’s horn.

  Michael maintained a tense vigil in Adrian Carter’s office, pacing and smoking cigarettes. Carter putted golf balls to relieve his nerves. One of Monica Tyler’s factotums waited outside Carter’s office like a schoolboy in detention. Michael closed the door so they could talk.

  “Why was I never allowed to see the file on October?”

  “Because it was restricted,” Carter said tonelessly, head bowed in concentration. He stroked the ball, but missed the target by six inches. “Shit,” Carter murmured. “Pushed it.”

  “Why was it restricted?”

  “This is an intelligence agency, Michael, not a Christian Science reading room. During the time October was an active KGB agent, you probably had no need to know of his existence.”

  Carter stroked another putt. This one landed on the mark.

  Michael said, “Why was the information on October so tightly held?”

  “To protect the identity of the source, I assume. That’s usually the case.”

  “Dammit, he killed Sarah Randolph right in front of me. Why couldn’t someone in this fucking place just show me the file at some point and help me put it to rest?”

  “Because that would have been the sensible thing to do. But sensibility and intelligence work rarely go hand in hand. Surely, you’ve learned that by now.”

  “How did you get it?”

  “We had some evidence a couple of years ago that October was working again on a freelance basis,” Carter said. “The file was dusted off and put back into circulation on a very limited basis.”

  “Were you allowed to see it?”

  Carter nodded.

  “Dammit, Adrian! While I was trying to piece Sarah’s murder together with half clues and conjecture, you had the answer all the time. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Carter pulled a face that said sometimes intelligence work required lying to one’s friends. “These are the rules by which we live, Michael. They protect the people who risk their lives by betraying their own country. They protect people like you who work undercover in the field.”

  “So why did you break the rules now and give me October’s file?”

  “Because in this case the rules sucked. It made no sense.”

  “Who wanted October’s file to remain restricted?”

  Carter jerked a thumb at the factotum outside his door and whispered, “Monica Tyler.”

  Elizabeth finally telephoned, and the emergency switchboard put the call through to Carter’s office.

  “What happened? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “I did everything you told me. That suitcase of yours worked perfectly. It even looked a little like you. I’m in the car now. I’m going where you told me to go.”

  Osbourne smiled in utter relief.

  “Thank God,” he said.

  “Have you heard from Max yet?”

  “No, not yet. He should
be here any minute.”

  Carter’s secretary poked her head in the door and said there was another call. Carter took it on an extension outside. Osbourne said, “Elizabeth, I’m so proud of you. I love you so much.”

  “I love you too, Michael. Is this nightmare over yet?”

  “Not quite, but soon. Keep driving. We’ll figure out how and when to bring you in.”

  “I love you, Michael,” she said, and the connection was broken.

  Carter came into the office, face ashen. Michael said, “What’s wrong?”

  “Max Lewis and a Virginia state trooper were just shot to death on the George Washington Parkway.”

  Michael slammed down the telephone.

  46

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Delaroche crossed Key Bridge and headed back into Georgetown. He drove quickly along M Street and pulled into the drive of the Four Seasons Hotel. He waited outside in the Rover while Astrid went to get their things from the room. It gave him a moment to collect his thoughts and plan their next move.

  The easiest thing to do was abort—call for an extraction and get out of the country before they were captured. Delaroche felt confident the shootings on the parkway had gone unwitnessed; the killings took seconds, and they were gone before another car passed the scene. But he had tried once to kill Michael Osbourne, and Osbourne obviously knew he was here. The stunt his wife pulled with the inflatable dummy was proof of that. Fulfilling the terms of his contract—killing Osbourne—would be very difficult now.

  Delaroche wanted to continue, though, for two reasons. One was money. If he failed to kill Osbourne he would forfeit three quarters of a million dollars. Delaroche wanted to live out his days with Astrid free from financial and security concerns. That would require a great deal of money: money to buy a large house with property and sophisticated surveillance systems, money to bribe local law enforcement officials so he could remain hidden from the security services of the West. He also wanted to live a comfortable existence. He had lived like a monk in Brélés for years, unable to spend his money for fear of attracting attention. It had been even worse when he was with the KGB; Arbatov had made him live like a pauper in Paris on the little bit of money he earned from his paintings.

  The second reason—indeed, the important reason—was pride. Osbourne had beaten him on the footpath along the river, outsmarted Delaroche at his own game. He had never blown an assignment, and he didn’t want to end his career with a failure. Killing was his job—he had been born and bred to do it—and failure was unacceptable. Osbourne was the first target to fight back successfully, and Delaroche had bungled the hit. He had reacted like an amateur on his first job. He was embarrassed and angry with himself, and he wanted another chance.

  He thought of Osbourne’s dossier. He recalled that Elizabeth Osbourne’s father, a United States senator, had a home on a secluded island in New York. He thought, If I were scared, I would go somewhere I felt safe. Somewhere far away. Somewhere the authorities could provide the illusion of security. I would leave Washington as quickly as possible and go to a secluded island.

  Astrid came out of the hotel. Delaroche started the engine as she climbed in. He left the hotel and parked beneath an elevated freeway along the river’s edge. Then he shut down the engine and switched on his laptop computer.

  He scrolled through his files until he found the Osbourne dossier. He read it quickly and found the location of the senator’s house. Yes, he thought. Even the name was perfect. They’ll go there, because they’ll believe it’s safe.

  He exited the dossier and clicked on his database, where he had stored digital road maps of nearly every nation on the planet. He typed in his starting point and his destination, and the software quickly provided him with a route: the Beltway, I-95, the Verrazano Bridge, the Long Island Expressway.

  He started the engine again and dropped the Range Rover into gear.

  Astrid said, “Where are we going, Jean-Paul?”

  He tapped the screen of the laptop.

  She looked down and read, “Shelter Island.”

  He picked up the cellular phone, dialed the number given to him by the contractors, and spoke quietly into the mouthpiece as he drove out of Washington.

  The helicopter touched down at the Atlantic City airport. Elizabeth had taken I-95 north, then cut across to the Jersey shore. Airport security officers were waiting when she pulled into the Hertz rental car return area. They took her into protective custody and kept her in a small holding room inside the terminal for ten minutes.

  When the helicopter’s rotor had safely stopped, Elizabeth was taken in an airport van from the holding room to the tarmac. A heavy rain was falling. The last thing she wanted to do on a night like this was fly in a helicopter. But she wanted to be home. She wanted to feel safe. She wanted to smell familiar bedding, see cherished things from her childhood. For a while she wanted to pretend that none of it had ever happened.

  The van door opened, and a blast of cold rain beat against her face. She climbed out and walked toward the helicopter. The door opened, and Michael stood there. She ran into his arms and held him tightly. She kissed him and said, “I’m never going to let you out of my sight again.”

  Michael said nothing, just held her. Finally she asked, “Where’s Max? Somewhere safe, I hope.”

  He held her more tightly. She read something in his silence and pulled away, staring wide-eyed. “Dammit, Michael, answer me! Where’s Max?”

  But she knew the answer; he didn’t have to say the words.

  “God, no!” she screamed, and beat her fists against his chest. “Not again! God, no! Not again!”

  “It seems our man made quite a mess of things in Washington,” the Director said.

  “He failed to kill Osbourne, and in the process he managed to kill a secretary and a Virginia state trooper,” Mitchell Elliott said. “Perhaps his reputation as the world’s finest assassin was undeserved.”

  “Osbourne is a very worthy opponent. We always knew eliminating him would be difficult.”

  “Where’s our man now?”

  “On his way north. He believes Osbourne and his wife will seek safety at Senator Cannon’s home on Shelter Island.”

  “Well, he’s correct.”

  “Your source inside Langley confirms this?”

  “Yes.”

  “So this unfortunate business will all be over soon. October will finish what he started. I have an extraction team on standby. When he’s finished, he’ll contact me, and I’ll pull him out.”

  “October had one other target in Washington.”

  “Yes, I realize that, but he’s quite incapable of carrying out that job now. If you want that target eliminated, I suppose we’ll have to hire someone else to do the job.”

  “I think it would be wise. I don’t like loose ends.”

  “I quite agree.”

  “And October?”

  “A few minutes after his extraction, October will be killed. You see, Mr. Elliott, I dislike loose ends more than you do.”

  “Very well, Director.”

  “Good evening, Mr. Elliott.”

  Mitchell Elliott hung up the telephone and smiled at Monica Tyler. She carried her drink to bed and lay down beside him. “It will all be over by morning,” he said. “Osbourne will be gone, and you’ll be rich beyond your wildest imagination.”

  She kissed him. “I’ll be rich, Mitchell, but will I be alive to enjoy it?”

  Elliott shut out the light.

  “I’m glad my father’s not here to see this,” Elizabeth said, as the helicopter set down on the lawn of Cannon Point. “He always tries to act like one of the islanders when he’s out here. The last thing he would ever do is land a helicopter on his lawn.”

  “It’s the dead of winter,” Michael said. “No one will ever know.”

  Elizabeth looked at him incredulously. “Michael, every time someone hits a deer on this island, it gets written up in the local newspaper. Believe me, people will k
now.”

  Adrian Carter said, “I’ll take care of the newspaper.”

  The helicopter’s rotors stopped turning. The door opened, and the three of them climbed out. Charlie came out of the caretaker’s cottage, flashlight in hand, retrievers scrambling at his ankles. Sea wind tore at the leafless trees. An osprey screamed and broke into flight over their heads. Fifty yards from shore, the Athena clung to her mooring in the wind-tossed waters of the bay.

  “Where’s the senator?” Carter asked as they walked the gravel drive toward the main house.

  “In London,” Michael said. “He’s taking part in a panel discussion on Northern Ireland at the London School of Economics.”

  “Good. One less person to worry about.”

  “I don’t want to turn this place into an armed camp,” Elizabeth said.

  “I don’t intend to. I’ll have two security officers on the lawn all night. They’ll be relieved in the morning by two more from New York Station. Shelter Island police have agreed to watch the north and the south ferries. They have a good description of October and Astrid Vogel. They’ve been told they’re wanted in connection with the murder of two people in Virginia, but nothing more.”

  “Let’s keep it that way,” Elizabeth said. “The last thing I want is for the people of Shelter Island to think we’ve brought terrorists to this place.”

  “The truth won’t come out,” Carter said. “Go inside, get some sleep. Call me at Langley in the morning, Michael. And don’t worry—October is long gone by now.”

  Carter shook Michael’s hand and kissed Elizabeth’s cheek. “I’m so sorry about Max,” he said. “I wish there was something we could have done.”

  “I know, Adrian.”

  Elizabeth turned and walked toward the house. Carter looked at Michael and said, “Any weapons in there?”

  Michael shook his head. “Cannon hates guns.”

  Carter handed Michael a high-powered Browning automatic and a half dozen fifteen-shot magazines. Then he turned and climbed aboard the helicopter. Thirty seconds later it lifted off Cannon Point, turned, and disappeared over the bay.