Assassin

by Tom Cain

  ‘It’s like blood, man, like the whole frickin’ ocean is turning into blood.’

  Bahr turned back to the staff quarters and glared wide-eyed at Carver. ‘Don’t you go anywhere!’ he yelled, his composure shattered. ‘Consider yourself under arrest!’ Then he started running towards the dock.

  10

  Carver stood in thoughtful silence watching the chaos as the President was helped off his yacht on to one of the speedboats. His place at the Lady Rosalie’s helm was taken by a black-uniformed figure and then the speedboats turned and raced for the shore, shadowed by the helicopter.

  ‘Step away from the window.’

  Carver turned and saw a young Secret Service agent standing by the internal door to the dining-room pointing his gun right at him. The agent looked as though he was having a hard time holding on to his composure. His nerves were fraying. If they snapped, he might do something foolish. With the minimum possible fuss, Carver did as he was told.

  ‘Now sit down at the table, hands on the table-top, palms down.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Carver and once again obeyed.

  For a while, nothing happened. From where he was sitting, Carver could look past the agent, through the door and into the corridor. So, when footsteps sounded outside the room, he was the first to see the tall, commanding figure dressed in jeans and a windcheater with the presidential insignia on the left breast standing framed in the doorway.

  Automatically Carver got to his feet.

  ‘Sit down!’ screamed the agent, his head suddenly jerking to one side as he realized that his President was in the room.

  ‘Take it easy, son,’ Roberts said.

  Tord Bahr was following right behind the President. He went up to the agent and said a few words in his ear, sending him from the room.

  Lincoln Roberts turned his attention to Carver. He stood still, saying nothing, just weighing him up. Finally he said, ‘Sit down.’

  Roberts strolled over to the coffee jug and poured himself a cup, nice and easy, just as though this were a casual social visit between friends. After all that had just happened there was something almost unnatural about his aura of calm self-control. His drink fixed, he sat down opposite Carver in the chair that Bahr had been occupying no more than ten minutes earlier. He moved the bowl of cereal out of his way, leaving the table clear between him and Carver. Bahr very deliberately remained on his feet, evidently determined to reassert his unbending sense of duty.

  Roberts took a sip of coffee. ‘Mmm, that’s good,’ he said appreciatively. ‘Your sandwich OK?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Carver wasn’t a man who often felt awed by anyone else’s presence. But then he’d never sat down for coffee with a US president before, let alone one he was willing to risk his life for. Most politicians he’d met, he wouldn’t have jumped from a plane at 25,000 feet just to test their security systems. He’d have chucked them out of it, instead, see how that worked.

  Roberts, though, had something different about him. When he talked about trying to change things for the better he sounded as though he truly meant it. Maybe he was just a better actor than the rest of them. What was that saying? If you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made. That could be his secret, though Carver hoped it wasn’t. Time would tell. Meanwhile, Carver resumed chewing on his steak, waiting to see what the President wanted to say.

  ‘You like my yacht?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Carver replied. ‘She’s a beautiful boat.’

  Roberts nodded over his coffee mug. ‘I agree. She’s thirty years old, you know, got a Brazilian hardwood hull. I had her restored a while back. When I get her out on the water, feel the wind in her sails, breathe in that salt sea air… well, I guess that’s when I’m most at peace with the world.’

  The President leaned forward and looked Carver in the eye, and now he wasn’t anyone’s friend. He was a man who had the ambition, the drive and the ruthless focus required to work his way from obscurity to the most powerful job in the world.

  ‘You want to tell me what you thought you were doing wrecking that peace?’

  ‘Keeping you alive, sir – making sure you never became another Mountbatten,’ Carver replied. ‘In 1979, the IRA killed Lord Louis Mountbatten, Prince Charles’s “Uncle Dickie”, by blowing up his yacht. Last night, I attached a dummy device to the hull of the Lady Rosalie, right beneath the cockpit, about sixty seconds before I ran like a lunatic across that lawn out there. There was a sensor attached to it that measured boat-speed through the water, wired to explode once the boat reached eight knots. Nothing serious, just a great big bang and a lot of red dye, but I think it made my point.

  ‘Of course, if I’d been a real assassin, I wouldn’t be sitting here opposite you now. I’d have sneaked back out of your dock, the same way I came in, swum down past the boundary of your property and come ashore. Then I’d have got into the sand-coloured Saturn Astra that’s parked in the lot at the Knotts Island Market, just a mile or two down the road from here, driven to the nearest airport and got a ticket out, bound for any destination on earth. I’d be gone before you even knew what I’d done.’

  ‘So why attack the house?’ asked the President.

  ‘I wanted to make a point, sir. Special Agent Bahr asked me to stage an assassination attempt as an exercise to test his agents’ readiness. So I gave them a very obvious assassin, right there in everyone’s face. Once he’d been taken out, they all thought the exercise was over. I don’t blame them: it’s only natural. This morning, they were relaxed, feeling good. The last thing anyone expected at that point was the actual hit. But that was the point: if anyone does this for real, it’s going to be unexpected. Maybe in movies you see nut-jobs posting threatening letters, making the hero run round the streets chasing messages on payphones, letting everyone know there’s a killing on the way. But the guys at the top of this business just come in quietly, do the job, and half the time no one ever knows that there even was an assassination. They think it was an accident.’

  ‘You sound awfully like a man who’s talking from experience.’

  ‘Let’s just say I was very well trained, Mr President, and I served in various units with a wide range of duties.’

  Roberts did not reply, just drank his coffee. He swallowed, grimaced and murmured, ‘Hmm…’ Then he got up from the table and held out a hand. As Carver shook it, the President said, ‘It’s been very interesting meeting you, Mr Carver. You gave me a lot to think about. You mind if I give you some advice in return?’

  ‘Of course not, Mr President.’

  ‘Those things you said about assassinations…’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘I’d advise you very strongly not to put any of your ideas into practice.’

  ‘No, sir, my work these days is based entirely on keeping people safe from harm. I sleep better that way. One thing I learned from active service was that every time you cause someone else to be killed you kill a bit more of yourself. Gets to the point where there’s barely anything left. It’s not a good place to be.’

  Roberts frowned. ‘Goodbye, Mr Carver,’ he said. ‘Have a safe journey home.’

  The President left the room, but Bahr stayed behind. When the two of them were alone, he told Carver, ‘No one ever finds out about this, do you understand? No one. Ever. As far as we’re concerned – far as the whole world’s concerned – the President came down here, had a peaceful weekend, just like any other. You are way off the record. You want my advice, you’ll keep it that way.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Carver. ‘Can you get me a lift to my car?’

  11

  Carver drove back up to Richmond, getting there just in time for a ten o’clock flight to Chicago. He was feeling good about the way the Lusterleaf job had gone. He’d decided to ride his luck, see if it worked for women as well as presidents.

  As he sat at the departure gate, he was looking at a text message on his phone. It read: ‘Hey you! 2 long. How come no call?! Maddy xox’.


  It had come in three weeks ago, automatically and untraceably rerouted from his standard contact number. Carver thought about the first time she’d left him a message, a scrap of paper left on a bedside table at a hotel in the South of France that read, ‘If you’re ever in Chicago…’ with a number and the same sign-off, ‘Maddy xox’. He’d found it when he woke up and discovered he was alone in his bed. The night before, Madeleine Cross had just about saved his life.

  They’d met in the bar of the Hôtel du Cap. Her husband, who’d made millions selling medical supplies to hospitals, had gone off to a casino in Cannes. It said everything about the state of their marriage that he hadn’t invited her to go with him, and she hadn’t invited herself.

  Carver, meanwhile, had just watched his whole life falling apart around him. Alix Petrova, the woman he loved, had told him she’d married another man. She swore that someone had told her Carver was dead. It was a complicated story. But then, he thought, everything about his relationship with Alix had been a complicated, painful, impossible bloody story.

  Madeleine had been sitting by the bar, watching the whole charade of his conversation with Alix and her subsequent departure. Left alone and defeated at his table, Carver had been too lost in his own self-pitying misery even to notice another woman. He’d walked up to the bar to get a double whisky and it was only then he heard someone say, ‘So it didn’t work out, huh?’

  He turned and saw an immaculately glossed and painted brunette, whose scarlet dress was perfectly cut to reveal the swell of her breasts, the slenderness of her waist and the flawless line of her caramel-tanned thighs. That much Carver caught at a glance. It took him a while to notice the knowing, feline tilt of her eyes or the sharp, dry mind that lay behind them.

  Since both their partners had let them down, they decided to find out how well they could make it work together instead. Pretty well was the answer, but it had only ever been the one night. A fair amount of time had passed, long enough for Carver and Alix to get back together, try to make it work and fail. Since then he’d exchanged occasional texts and emails with Maddy. It had all been friendly, but nothing more than, and they’d never got round to meeting up again. Maybe it was time to change that. He made the call.

  ‘Hello?’ Her voice was sleepy. Damn! Had he woken her up?

  ‘Hi, it’s Sam… Samuel Carver… You texted me a while back. I couldn’t get back to you till now.’

  ‘Sam…? Oh, Sam! Hey, great to hear from you. Where are you?’

  ‘I’m at Richmond airport, Virginia, thought I’d take a plane to Chicago. Fancy some brunch when I get there?’

  ‘No, I don’t think that would be possible…’

  Carver was shocked to discover how sharp the pain of disappointment felt. ‘Oh… Right… Look, I’m sorry if I disturbed you, I-’

  ‘No, it’s fine, you didn’t disturb me at all…’ He could hear the smile in her voice as she admitted, ‘OK, you did, but I don’t mind. It’s just I’m not in Chicago.’

  He gave an exhausted, ironic laugh. ‘Oh God, I don’t believe it… Where are you then?’

  ‘On my ranch. It’s a few miles out of Cascade, Idaho. It’s where I come from. I told you, remember?’

  ‘Yeah, maybe, I think so. But excuse my ignorance, where exactly is Idaho?’

  ‘Where’s Idaho?’ She sounded outraged by his ignorance. ‘I should put this phone down, right now, just for that.’

  ‘Seriously, how do I get to you?’

  ‘You’d do that? Really?’

  Now he detected something else: she wanted him to make the effort.

  ‘Sure. In the past twelve hours I’ve parachuted 25,000 feet, swum about a thousand yards and driven 120 miles. What’s one extra flight?’

  She laughed. ‘OK, action hero, when do you get to O’Hare?’

  ‘About eleven.’

  ‘Perfect. There’s a United flight to Boise, that’s the closest airport to me. It leaves around midday, gets in early afternoon. Why don’t you take that?’

  ‘Sounds like a plan.’

  ‘And if you’re very good, I’ll meet you at the airport.’

  Now Carver knew his luck was in. As the first call for passengers was being made he dialled a number in Oslo, Norway. It belonged to Thor Larsson, the eccentric Norwegian who was both his closest friend and the supplier of much of the surveillance equipment, computer hard- and software and assorted gadgets Carver needed to carry out his assignments.

  ‘Hi, it’s me,’ Carver said when the call was answered. ‘Look, I’m sorry it’s taken me a while to get back to you. I’ve been under the radar. Just wanted you to know that little gizmo you just made me – the one with all the red ink… Yeah, that one. Well, it worked a treat… No, I can’t tell you where I used it, not unless you want us both to get shot!… Of course I haven’t forgotten your wedding. Unless you’re telling me the bride changed her mind. Can’t say I’d blame her…’

  Carver smiled as he heard what the voice on the other end of the line had to say. ‘Well, that’s good news. I’d better start working on my speech… Yeah, I’m great, just off to Boise, Idaho, if you can believe that…

  ‘What do you mean, you don’t know where that is?’ He laughed. ‘Miles from anywhere, that’s where! And yes, of course there’s a woman involved. Why else would I go to Boise bloody Idaho?’

  12

  Damon Tyzack was back in London, sitting at a table outside a café on Brompton Cross. He watched the glossy Eurotrash girls passing by, babbling into their mobile phones, while bankers’ wives and trust-fund totties wandered in and out of Joseph and the Conran Shop as if they’d never even heard the word ‘recession’. These were the women he had been born and raised to possess.

  He should have been properly settled by now, with a family in the home counties, a flat and a mistress in town, and an agreeable life all round. Instead, he’d suffered disgrace, been disowned by his family and forced to spend years doing squalid work for ignorant, lowlife scum. And that had all been Samuel Carver’s fault. His small-minded attitude – a determination to play by the rules and regulations that was, quite frankly, proof that he was common as muck, for all his attempts to pretend otherwise – had cost Tyzack everything he held dear. Now that, entirely through his own efforts, he was in a position to exact some measure of revenge, Tyzack intended to make the most of it. Years ago, he might have acted out of anger or bitterness. But now, having had plenty of time to reflect, he was going to treat the whole thing as a game, a treat to be savoured and enjoyed.

  A waitress came to take his order. She was a pretty enough thing, with blue eyes and an engaging smile. Carrying about five to seven pounds of extra weight, Tyzack estimated, but tighten up that stomach a little and firm up the jawline, stick her in a studio flat off the Gloucester Road and you’d be looking at two to three hundred quid an hour, twelve hundred for an overnight.

  When the girl asked if he was ready to order, Tyzack’s face broke into a friendly, open smile and he looked at her as if there were no one in the world he was happier to see standing in front of him than her.

  ‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘I’ll have scrambled eggs and smoked salmon, brown toast, a nice big glass of fresh orange juice and a double espresso, please.’

  As she was writing it down he asked, ‘What’s your name?’

  The girl smiled shyly. ‘Agnieszka.’

  ‘What a lovely name. Where do you come from, Agnieszka?’

  ‘From Lód, in Poland.’

  ‘Well, I feel very sorry for all the boys from Lód, then.’

  She frowned, not quite sure where he was going, but unable to resist the obvious question: ‘Why?’

  ‘Because they don’t have a beautiful girl like you to look at any more! Still, very good news for us boys in London, isn’t it?’

  The lines were ridiculously corny, but it didn’t matter. Tyzack had charm, a gift that stupid people always saw as a sign of warmth, when so far as he could see it simply involved a col
d-blooded knack for sensing what other people wanted and then giving it to them.

  Agnieszka giggled, right on cue, flashed him a coy, heavy-lidded glance and walked away with an extra little swing in her step.

  Not bad, thought Tyzack, watching her rump in her tight black skirt. A good little earner if she did what she was told. She would, of course, once he’d persuaded her. That was always the enjoyable part of the process, establishing who was in charge. Tyzack contemplated precisely how long it would take to beat the light out of those bright-blue eyes: experience had given him an almost mathematical appreciation of the effects of time and abuse. His mind drifted back to Lara Dashian. When she made her pathetic, stumbling way to his table, he’d immediately felt that essential deadness, overlaid with a dusting of fear and desperation, like the icing sugar on a sponge cake. Obviously seeing him as the lesser of two evils, she’d tried so hard to please; he’d been tempted to chuck her back to her pimp, just for a laugh. On balance, he decided he’d have more fun keeping her. As they went upstairs, he watched her fear melt away and for a moment he regretted his decision and wondered if he’d better give her something to be scared of himself.

  But then he remembered he was playing the part of Samuel Carver. And that pathetic little man would never have taken advantage of a screwed-up teenage whore. He’d have behaved like his dismal, suburban idea of a gentleman. And there was something else, too. As he chucked her on the bed it suddenly occurred to Tyzack that the silly bitch might actually want him to screw her. All the more reason, then, not to.

  Tyzack’s phone rang. He saw the number come up on his screen and gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Yes, Foster, what is it?’

  ‘It’s that container, guv. It’s fallen off the ship.’

  Tyzack closed his eyes and inhaled slowly through his nose, trying to ease the tension that had suddenly clamped around his temples. He let out his breath and asked, ‘What do you mean, “fallen off the ship”? Tell me, Foster, how exactly does a container just fall off a ship?’