The Assassins (The Judd Ryder Books)

by Gayle Lynds

  Tucker was silent. Scott Bridgeman was just thirty years old, and yet he was running one of Langley’s top clandestine units. Langley no longer had the wide array of experienced top management choices of years past.

  Tucker responded patiently: “On the other hand, the situation could be innocent. There were people along the line who knew—people in the military, for instance. What’s important is the intel was decisive in bringing the operation home. The Carnivore was a volunteer and unpaid, and his reward was to get shot up rather badly. Still, once I was back here, I opened an investigation into whether one of our people was collaborating with him. The investigation got sidetracked when some of our hotspots flared up. Of course I’ve told Gloria to reactivate the probe.”

  Bridgeman glared. “We need fast answers.”

  “Gloria knows that.” Tucker considered whether to disclose the latest wrinkle, about Judd Ryder’s imposter. Not even Gloria knew about it.

  Beneath his blond crewcut, Bridgeman was studying him. His eyes narrowed. “Why didn’t you take this job when it was offered to you, Tucker? You’re a legend. You could be the one sitting here.”

  “Being assistant director keeps me in the office more than I like,” Tucker said honestly. “With your job, I might as well chain myself to my desk.” Fieldwork kept him sane. He liked the changes of scenery, meeting new people, the chance to test himself up front and personal against intelligent and dangerous enemies.

  “How am I supposed to manage you, Tucker? You don’t tell me what you’re doing until you’ve already done it. I just got a call from Matt Kelley.” Kelley was the director of the Clandestine Service. “He told me you’d been at the ME’s and ordered them to keep the investigation into Judd Ryder’s double a secret. Matt asked me whether I knew my arse from my ear.”

  That was Matt through and through, Tucker thought, his face expressionless.

  “You used the excuse of national security, for chrissakes,” Bridgeman went on. “You had absolutely no authority to do that. Besides, you know damn well Judd Ryder isn’t clean—he got into some serious trouble in Iraq.”

  “But he saved us more than once in the Library of Gold mission,” Tucker reminded him.

  Scott’s lips thinned. “He did blood work for army intelligence in Pakistan and Iraq. There’s no way anyone can ever completely trust an assassin, not even one of our own. They have nightmares, flashbacks. They get jumpy and react crazily. They’re unpredictable and get used to killing. You were lucky he was stable enough to be useful when you took him on as a contract employee.”

  “I’ve known Judd all his life. He’s as stable as you or me.”

  Bridgeman shook his head. “There’s bad family history there, too. His father turned out to be an international criminal.”

  “I doubt Judd knew anything about what his father was doing. Judd inherited ten million dollars from him, but instead of retiring to the Riviera or blowing it all on gambling or drugs, he started a foundation to build schools in disadvantaged places. He put the whole inheritance into it. And it’s a working foundation, not one of those tax dodges. He personally manages the projects. He hammers nails and paints walls. He just got back from Baghdad, where he’s started an elementary school in one of the poorest neighborhoods.”

  “Good for him. Send him back to Baghdad. I don’t want him hurting Catapult.” Bridgeman leaned forward, his jaw jutting. “You were protecting Ryder with the medical examiner, even though you knew I’d never approve. The murder of the double is a police case. I want you to call the ME, apologize, and tell him you were out of line.”

  “The ME’s a showboat. He’ll instantly go public about Ryder.”

  “Probably, but at least he won’t drag Langley into it.”

  Tucker swallowed back his anger. “You’re right—I should’ve reported what I was doing, but there was little time, and it doesn’t mean I’m wrong. At least one international assassin—the Padre—is operating on U.S. soil.”

  “You know damn well it’s the FBI’s job to investigate inside our borders.”

  “We don’t always share our intel with the Bureau, and vice versa. And when we do, there’s often a time lag.”

  “The Padre is off the table. He hasn’t done anything wrong here.”

  “That we know of,” Tucker countered. “Worse, we don’t know what he’s got in mind, other than tracking down the Carnivore.”

  “He’s given us valuable information.” Bridgeman’s tone was steely. “You have no real evidence he’s out to wipe the Carnivore. And even if he is, the Carnivore could be thousands of miles away. Do you really want to waste our people’s time on something as flimsy as this? Until you can bring me something that walks, talks, and bleeds, don’t tell me one of your guesses is real.”

  Tucker looked down at his hands, folded neatly in his lap. He often sat that way when under attack. Some people crossed their arms, an unconscious gesture of self-protection, shielding their most vulnerable organ, the heart. Others put their hands to their throats or fiddled with their hair. Long ago Tucker had decided to appear relaxed, so he let his hands curl comfortably in his lap, which forced his shoulders to loosen. The discipline of it distracted his mind from the assault and allowed him to focus.

  Tucker spoke calmly. “You called me a legend. You said I could be the one sitting in your chair. If either of those is true, then perhaps I’m worth listening to on this issue. I’m going to approach it another way.… To be a good spy, you have to be smart, hardworking, and talented. To be a great spy, you’ve got to have one more quality—instinct. ‘Gut,’ if you will. I figure you have good gut.” He had seen no evidence Bridgeman had any gut at all, but his goal was to put Bridgeman in a more receptive mood.

  Bridgeman gave a slow nod. “Go on.”

  “My gut is screaming there’s something very big going on here, and the Padre’s hunt for the Carnivore is the tip of the damn iceberg. To begin with, they’re titans in the underworld of assassins. They don’t waste their time with turf wars. There’s no money in it, and somebody’s sure to die. When you work at that rarified a level, it could be you. So what’s happened that’s so big that it’s provoked the Padre to go after the Carnivore?”

  Bridgeman was silent.

  “Next question, who killed Judd’s double?” Tucker continued. “And who was the intended victim—the double or Judd? On the same day all of this happens, the Padre asks my help to find the Carnivore fast. The logical answer is the Carnivore killed the double believing it was Judd, because he was worried Judd could tell the Padre how to get to him. The Carnivore is obsessed with security. It’s one of the reasons he’s been untouchable for so many decades. He’s used more pseudonyms than a brush has bristles. How about his real name? No way. His nationality? Please. This is the way I see it: The Carnivore knows the Padre is after him. He needs to eliminate any possibility the Padre can find him. The Carnivore’s last job was with Judd, Eva Blake, and me. Judd claims the Carnivore didn’t tell him anything about where he lived. He didn’t tell me either. So that leaves Eva Blake. Judd is on his way to see her now. The Carnivore spent time with her. He could’ve told her, and if he did, then he’s got to be worried she told Judd and maybe me.”

  “Are you thinking he’ll come after you?” Bridgeman asked curiously.

  Tucker shrugged. “What matters is something big is going on between the Padre and the Carnivore. Judd has already been dragged into it. Let’s let him dig around and maybe save us some aggravation.”

  Bridgeman looked away. Tucker had made an important point, but Bridgeman seemed to be having a hard time agreeing.

  “Matt Kelley can get the ME to back down,” Tucker went on. “If you don’t want to ask Matt to do it, I will.” He had just pulled out his trump card and laid it firmly on the desk. Matt Kelley was not only the director of the Clandestine Service, he had also been Tucker’s protégé some twenty years before. There was no way Bridgeman could let Tucker go over his head to Matt.

  Bridgeman
spoke as if he had just had a brilliant idea. “This is potentially too serious a situation to let the ME grandstand about it. How long does Ryder need?”

  “A week.”

  “A week?” Bridgeman sat back and rubbed a hand over his face. “Christ. I’ll talk to the ME and see if I can get it for you. But your boy, Ryder, better damn well move fast. His first day is closing out.”

  13

  Montgomery County, Maryland

  Houses and offices passed in a blur as Judd Ryder raced his pickup north on Route 650. Constantly checking the tracker Eva had left him, he drove at 80 miles per hour and watched for the state police. After fifteen miles the landscape grew rolling and rural, the four-lane highway narrowed to two lanes, and he still had not caught up with her. He gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles ached.

  Finally the green dot on the tracker showed her vehicle had turned off the interstate. At a white-steepled church Ryder did, too, following east on a county road. That was when the moving dot on the tracker froze. As it remained motionless, he stared, riveted—her vehicle had stopped.

  Relieved, he sped his pickup into a forest and then down across a stone bridge. Timbered hills rose around him, and he saw an entry not much wider than a residential driveway. Next to it was a small sign:

  The Esti Hunt Club

  Private—No Trespassing

  Accelerating past, he parked off the road, slung on his pack, and walked back, the tracker in hand. Taking out his Beretta, he plodded into the forest. Winter sunlight shone down through the trees in silver shafts. From behind a large oak he assessed the hunt club’s entry. Tall steel gate. Attached intercom. Closed-circuit security cameras high in trees on both sides.

  His tracker showed the dot was moving fractionally. Eva must be walking around. Switching configurations, he called up a map of the region, but when he zeroed in, the geography grew hazy. He could make out only two rectangular buildings and what appeared to be smaller buildings, a blurred drive, and gray formless masses that were probably trees. He cursed silently. This area north of Washington was part of the nation’s security zone, and the U.S. government forbade detailed public satellite views.

  He slogged uphill, pushing through branches. His boots grew heavy with snow. At last he found a deer trail. Following it, he passed a deer blind. At the crest, he dropped to his heels and surveyed the hunt club below—two large lodges and several small cabins with steep shingled roofs. Two men dressed in padded hunting jackets and armed with Uzis stood outside a white Ford Explorer parked where the drive formed a wide oval in front of the lodges and cabins. One man was smoking; the other talked on a cell phone. They held their Uzis with confidence. There were no other cars, and all of the windows in the buildings Ryder could see were dark.

  Shifting his gaze, Ryder spotted Eva stumbling off a lodge porch. She was hatless, her long red hair ablaze in the afternoon sunlight. An armed guard followed, shoving her. Ryder’s jaw tightened. She fell to her knees and let out a cry. The guard grabbed her arm and yanked her up. Pushing her ahead, he hustled her into a small cabin and locked the door. Within seconds she was standing at the window, hands pressed against the glass, peering out. Her features were tight with fear.

  It was unlike Eva to give an inch, yet she acted beaten. What had they done to her? Ryder’s grip tightened on his Beretta. The hum of a powerful engine sounded from the drive, and in seconds a shiny black Cadillac limousine appeared. The windows were darkened, its occupants unseeable. As soon as it stopped, the driver’s door opened and out stepped a man in a padded hunting jacket like those the three other men wore. He, too, carried an Uzi. He scanned the surrounding slopes.

  Ryder crouched lower, studying the Ford Explorer, the Cadillac limo, the men with Uzis, and Eva in the window. He rose quietly to his feet. Using spruces and pines for cover, he started down the long hill.

  14

  The Padre was in a good mood. The sun was shining over his favorite hunt club, Catalina was making snowballs and laughing, and he was certain that one way or another he was going to have the Carnivore soon. Sitting inside his limo, comfortable in the soft leather, he touched a button and his window descended. He beckoned his longtime driver.

  The man trotted over and crouched beside the window. “Si, señor?”

  “Where is Judd Ryder?” the Padre demanded.

  “Coming down. He has about fifty yards to go. He is wearing his dark peacoat, so when he stays in the shadows of the evergreen trees and keeps low, he is difficult to spot. His training has been excellent.”

  “He was military intelligence. Deep cover.” The Padre had learned everything possible about Judd Ryder, just as he had learned everything about Eva Blake. One or both must know where the Carnivore was, and if they did not, then Tucker Andersen would deliver the information. But he did not want to wait for all of that to happen.

  “We are ready for Ryder,” the chauffeur assured him. “Where the forest ends, he must choose between crossing open space or using bushes for cover. Of course he will choose the bushes. He will not get past our Uzis.”

  “I want him alive,” the Padre said sharply.

  “Por supuesto.” He touched his cap deferentially.

  The Padre smiled to himself, pleased, feeling a moment of warmth for his faithful servant. “Bueno. As a reward I will show you a very valuable secret, a strange wonder you will not see the like of again.” He enjoyed tormenting his employees with what they could never have.

  As his chauffeur watched, the Padre took from his trouser pocket a leather pouch. Loosening the drawstrings, he turned it over onto his palm, and out slid three smaller leather pouches. He opened one, showing a large, uneven chunk of limestone. Excitement spread through him as he turned it over so the cuneiform symbols showed.

  He held up his hand. “Do you know what this is?”

  The man frowned, puzzled. “No, señor.”

  “It buys freedom from a blackmailer, and it’s the secret to millions of dollars.”

  The chauffeur’s dark eyes grew as large as the bells of San Sebastian’s Good Shepherd Cathedral. “So much for a rock?”

  The Padre chuckled and returned it to its pouch. He did not mention he had only three pieces and needed to acquire the rest of the tablet to win.

  Suddenly he felt restless. He looked across the circular drive. The woman stood motionless in the window, a statue of misery.

  He gestured at her. “Bring her out. I am weary of waiting for Ryder. Seeing her will inspire him to come more quickly.”

  As the chauffeur trotted away, the Padre checked his iPhone, but there was no message from Tucker Andersen. Disappointed, he sat back again to survey his secluded haven. Whenever he’d had business in North America, he had treated himself to a visit here, indulging his love of fishing and hunting. All of that was before Catalina, before his new life with her. She filled the void his many activities had filled before.

  As he watched her bend over to scoop up snow, her wide smile and childlike delight, he thought again about his mother, Esti. He had named this place for her—the Esti Hunt Club. He sighed deeply.

  Gazing up, he saw his man bringing the woman from the cabin. The Padre opened his limo door and stepped out into the crisp air. Stretching, he studied the hillsides. He wanted Ryder. Now.

  Turning to the chauffeur, he pounded his fist once into his palm. The signal told him to hit the woman. That would bring Ryder tearing down the slope.

  Puzzled, worried, she peered first at the Padre, then at his four men, and finally at his young wife. But Catalina had laid down on her back on the snowbank beside the limo and was swinging her arms and legs, making a snow angel.

  The chauffeur nodded, faced the terrified woman, and pulled back his fist. The Padre did not see what happened next. Instead, he felt one excruciating nanosecond of pain, and then he felt nothing. A sniper bullet had exploded his skull. The rest of the sniper rounds fell like a deadly rain on his wife, his men, and the woman who looked like Eva Blake.
r />   15

  By the time the last shot was fired, Ryder knew the source was one of two snipers working in concert among the trees at the top of the hill to the north. Although they were at least a half mile from their targets, their accuracy was pinpoint. The tally—five males, two females. So fast it was over before any of the armed victims had a chance to aim and return fire, not that they could have seen the shooters. Not that their Uzi rounds could have reached that far. There had been nothing any of them could have done. Nothing Ryder could have done.

  I couldn’t save Eva. I couldn’t save her.

  Ryder plunged down the wooded slope, his boots sinking into the snow, his heart aching. A black crow shrieked and flapped low across tamped animal tracks, a narrow trail. Ryder jumped onto it, running and sliding and falling and running again. The trail followed an ice-coated creek that streamed down through the forest.

  Almost out of the trees, Ryder saw a man leave one of the lodges and dropped to watch. Like the others, the man was dressed in hunting clothes and carried an Uzi. A sixth man. A survivor. He must have been indoors the entire time. Without a glance around, he went from one victim to another, kicking away weapons, testing for vital signs. He showed no shock, not a moment of remorse, no surprise.

  Moving quietly downhill another twenty feet, Ryder hid behind a hedge of juniper bushes then crab-walked along it to an opening where he was behind the man. When the man closed in on two male corpses near the Explorer, Ryder sprinted to the rear of the limo. Dropping low, he waited. The man moved to the last two victims. The more distant was a teenaged woman, lying on her back in a snowbank. She had been making a snow angel and died smiling, a bullet between her eyes. The man hurried past her to a stout, older man, who was sprawled beside the limo’s passenger door.