The Assassins (The Judd Ryder Books)

by Gayle Lynds

  The Chapman Farm

  Arabian Horses

  He rolled down his window and touched the intercom button.

  A voice answered instantly: “Good evening, sir. What can we do for you?”

  “I’m a friend of the Padre’s,” Eli lied. “I’m here to give Mr. Chapman an update on Judd Ryder.”

  “I’ll relay your message.”

  Closing his window, Eli looked up, studying the place. On the other side of the gate, a wide drive climbed past mounds of snow and picturesque wood corrals to a plantation-style mansion that was as white and fancy as a wedding cake. Fronted by stately columns, the house boasted railed porches across each of its three stories. The compound was highly secure, with closed-circuit cameras and electrified concertina wire atop the granite wall that surrounded the property. A sentry dressed in white patrolled among the buildings. Unless an outside light shone directly on him, the man was almost impossible to see against the snow. Soon Eli spotted a second guard, also wearing white head-to-toe.

  “I estimate the mansion is twelve thousand square feet.” Danny was gripping his knees, staring through the windshield. “Since it’s fundamentally a box, it’s easy to do the math. Would you like me to tell you the size of the other buildings, too?”

  “Yes, I’d be interested in that.” Long ago Eli had given up trying to understand why Danny was fascinated by such things. In any case, the exercise would keep Danny occupied.

  “I’ll start with the next biggest building,” Danny said. “The barn. It’s ten thousand square feet—perhaps it contains a riding ring. After that is the garage. It’s five thousand square feet. He must have several cars. Then there’s…”

  Eli stopped listening. When the voice sounded again from the intercom, he rolled down his window.

  “Go to the main house,” the voice ordered. “You’ll be met and searched.”

  Eli drove the van up the slope, passing under bright lights.

  “I can’t take any weapons inside, can I?” Danny said.

  “No. They’d just confiscate them if you tried. And we don’t want any fights, at least not yet.”

  They parked at the top of the circular drive. As they climbed brick steps, the front door opened.

  “Come in, sir. My name is Troy.” The speaker was an enormous man probably in his early thirties, at least six foot five, broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped, and dressed in a dark green sweat suit. Weighing close to 250 muscular pounds, he carried an M4 and wore across his chest a bandolier crammed with rounds.

  The bandolier was ridiculous overkill, Eli thought to himself. But then, it fit in with what Eli had learned about Chapman. Behind the big guard stood two more guards—older and smaller—also wearing green sweat suits and bandoliers, also carrying M4s. They frisked Eli and Danny, then led them into a three-story foyer dominated by a life-size painting of an older man. His thick silver hair was brushed back in waves, crowning an unlined, untroubled face. There was something noble about his erect carriage and the directness of his gaze. From his research, Eli recognized him—Martin Chapman.

  With Troy in the lead, they climbed a curving staircase to the second floor and turned down a corridor. The tables and chairs along the wainscoted walls appeared to be authentic antebellum.

  Troy tapped on a paneled door. There was a soft click, indicating it had been unlocked from inside.

  He pushed it open, gestured, and they entered a softly lit library. Thousands of leather-bound books peered down from three towering walls. As he looked up, Danny’s breath exploded in small excited bursts, while Eli simply stared at the mass of volumes covered in deep brown, rich red, and glossy black leathers. It was a majestic sight. Exhibition cases stood around the room, also displaying leather-bound books.

  Across the room, a tall man stood up behind a giant carved desk. He was the live version of the man in the painting. Behind him were French doors that opened onto the porch and the deepening twilight. He was dressed casually in wool trousers and a neatly tucked-in Pendleton shirt. His expression was stern.

  “My name is Chapman.” He walked toward them with the graceful gait of an athlete.

  Eli shook the mogul’s hand, noting the neutral grip, a sign of self-confidence; the insecure either gripped too hard or had no grip at all. “You’ve got quite a library here.”

  A flash of pleasure appeared on Chapman’s face. “How do you know the Padre?”

  “It’d be more useful to tell you what I know about you and Judd Ryder’s father,” Eli said. “For months you’ve been worried Ryder was going to come after you for killing him, which is why you’ve got such intense security.” He gestured at the three guards who stood against the rear wall with their bandoliers and M4s.

  Chapman laughed as if he had just heard a good joke. “You’re a man who likes tall tales. I had nothing to do with the man’s death. Tell me who you are. It’s only fair, since you seem convinced you know a lot about me.”

  “My name is Eli Eichel, and this is my brother, Danny. I realize you can’t easily terminate someone who’s a threat to you, so we’ll do it for you. All I need is help finding Ryder.”

  Danny had been ambling around the room, gazing at the walls of books. He announced to Chapman, “You have eleven hundred forty board feet of bookshelves.”

  Chapman’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “How did you figure that out?”

  “A simple calculation. Once you know how long a shelf is, you multiply it by the number of them on the wall, and that gives you the total for that wall. There are three walls of books, and all are of equal size, so the figure then must be tripled.”

  “I didn’t see you measure any of the shelves,” Chapman said. “How do you know how long they are?”

  “It has to do with the waves.” Danny’s expression was almost doting; he had found an interested pupil. “I see three waves for every foot. Waves are pieces of air that wrinkle. So I just wait until I see the wrinkles. The farther I am from a line, the harder it is to see them, but if the light’s decent and I have time to wait, I can be pretty accurate.”

  Chapman said nothing. He simply stared for a moment, then turned to Eli. “Is he an idiot savant?”

  “No, autistic. What’s really important is he’s a gifted sniper.”

  Chapman’s gaze narrowed. “Independent?”

  “Yes, both of us, for more than thirty years. But we’re comfortable with other means of assassination, too.”

  Chapman watched Danny continue to roam the room.

  “What will he do next?” Chapman asked.

  “If you’d like to know the wattage of your lightbulbs, individually or collectively, he can tell you—or the depth of your rugs, or the average width of your books, or how quickly he can use Krav Maga to kill the three men guarding your door.” In Hebrew, krav maga meant “close combat.” Brutal and efficient hand-to-hand combat, it was stressed at Mossad’s two-year training course at their school in the city of Henzelia, near Tel Aviv.

  Chapman gestured at Danny. “He’s Mossad?”

  “No, I was. After Henzelia, a few of us were sent to a special camp in the Negev Desert to become executioners. Bullets, blades, bombs, poison, the garrotte, and of course the body, especially the hands. After I resigned, I taught Danny everything I knew.”

  “And you resigned because—?”

  “Danny had become a serial killer. He’d murdered three men in Tel Aviv and a woman in Jerusalem. He was fascinated by the mechanics of execution, but he needed to learn to do it right, and to make money at it. Otherwise he wasn’t going to survive. I’ve always taken care of my little brother.”

  Danny slid a book out from one of the shelves. He balanced it on his fingertips as if his hand were a scale and he were weighing the book. His hands looked big enough to clasp cinder blocks, almost dwarfing the leather hardback.

  “Is what your brother told me accurate, Danny?” Chapman asked.

  “I like perfectly clean kill shots with minimum spray.” Danny curled then flicked
his fingers upward. The book flipped over and landed solidly again on his fingertips.

  Chapman nodded to himself. He faced Eli. “You have my attention. Both of us know you don’t want to eliminate anyone to please me. You need to find Judd Ryder for your own reasons.”

  “The answer is simple—Ryder stole from me. My brother and I were hired to scrub the owner of three pieces of a rare cuneiform tablet,” Eli lied. “Instead, Ryder did the hit then swiped the pieces.”

  “Who did Ryder kill?”

  “The Padre.”

  Chapman’s pale eyebrows rose. “The Padre’s dead?”

  Eli suppressed a smile. “Yes, as well as his wife and the employees he brought with him.”

  A moment of terror flashed across the mogul’s face. “If Ryder could get to the Padre—”

  “It’s more than likely he can get to you, too.”

  Chapman looked away. “He tried once. For some reason he changed his mind at the last minute.”

  Eli had not known that, but he could use it: “Now that he’s bloodied himself with the Padre, whatever internal censor stopped him from doing you is gone. You’re as good as dead.”

  The mogul asked stonily, “Where have you looked for him?”

  “I sent people to his row house on Capitol Hill. His mother’s estate in Chevy Chase. Eva Blake’s place in Silver Spring. They talked to neighbors, but nothing useful developed. I understand he was close to Tucker Andersen, the CIA man.” He was repeating the reports the Padre’s men had turned in to describe their search.

  “There’s no way Ryder can get past my security.” There was a long moment of silence as Chapman looked away, seeming to collect himself. “When you arrived, you acted as if the Padre were still alive. Either you were lying then—or you’re lying now.”

  Eli smiled. “I said what was necessary to get inside to meet you. Danny, what do you think?”

  His broad back to them, Danny had reached above his head to caress the thick gold lettering on a book spine. Without looking back at them, he said, “Mr. Chapman doesn’t care whether you’re lying. He just wants to liquidate Ryder. He should pay us a lot because he’s so scared his spit is dry.”

  Eli chuckled.

  Chapman was expressionless. “Let’s be clear … you’ll eliminate Ryder in exchange for information about where he is?”

  “Absolutely. And I keep the cuneiform pieces.”

  “Done.” Chapman walked to his desk, his stride long and purposeful. He checked his Rolodex and dialed. “Senator Leggate, please. Martin Chapman calling.” The mogul tapped the toe of one of his boots on the parquet floor. “She’s not? Patch me through to her cell.” His tone grew cold as he continued, “Then as soon as she gets reception, tell her to call me.” Chapman hung up, his expression irritated. “She’s back in Colorado, meeting constituents in some remote mountain resort. She’s due to helicopter into Denver in a couple of hours. She knows to return my calls quickly. She’ll phone from the air.”

  “Why Senator Leggate?”

  “The answer is Tucker Andersen. If anyone knows how to find Judd, it’s usually Tucker. The two are close friends. Senator Leggate is on the Intelligence Committee. She doesn’t have to guess where the bodies are buried at Langley. She’ll have ways.”

  “Why didn’t you contact her for the Padre when he was looking for Ryder?” Eli asked.

  “How do you think he found out Ryder was in Iraq?”

  Eli nodded. Contacts were everything, for both billionaires and assassins.

  24

  Williamsburg International Airport

  Newport News, Virginia

  As a cool afternoon wind whipped across the tarmac, Eva Blake followed Frank Smith up the staircase into a Dash 8 twin-engine plane. Holding about thirty passengers, it had a standard configuration of a central aisle lined with rows of two seats on either side. Frank and she were the only passengers.

  Frank closed and secured the door. There was a sudden hush, and for a moment Eva felt as if she were in a time capsule, suspended, waiting for the unknown. Suddenly she was nervous. For what exactly did Tucker want her?

  Frank hung their coats in the forward closet. With a courtly gesture, he indicated she should precede him down the aisle. She chose a seat above the wing, and he sat across from her. Dressed in charcoal-gray wool slacks, a gray-and-white herringbone jacket, and a pale blue button-down shirt, he looked every bit the professor.

  “How long have you been CIA, Frank?” She peeled off her brown wig, and her red hair tumbled to her shoulders. She sighed with relief. A wig was like wearing a heating pad shaped like a skullcap.

  “Too long, and not long enough,” Frank told her. “As a round figure, let’s say thirty years. One of the greatest tragedies I’ve witnessed is that Langley’s only famous spies seem to be the failures and the traitors. Pity, when so much crucial work is done by the vast majority who must remain unsung. Still, I’m not near my expiration date yet, so I hope to be in use long enough to see the public perception of Langley improve.”

  Eva studied him, the large elegant nose, the good bone structure, the solid body. There was something familiar about him. She watched his gestures, listened to the timbre of his voice.

  “Here’s a little insider intel.” He waved his hand grandly, taking in the aircraft. “This is a Dash turboprop, as you no doubt noticed. If you were in Afghanistan a few years ago, you would’ve seen her or one of her sisters bristling with unusual antennae. That’s because Langley was secretly using them for ‘special’ transportation. That’s just between you and me and the exit row, of course.”

  She asked where he had been stationed and the operations on which he had worked. But no matter how she phrased her questions over the next few hours, she never got real answers from him. He seemed to be the ultimate spy—charming, anecdotal about irrelevant topics, and close-mouthed about what mattered. As they sat on the tarmac of the Williamsburg airport waiting for word from Tucker, the pilot served soft drinks and sandwiches. Frank worked on e-mail. She had no computer, but the pilot brought her newspapers and magazines. Thinking about what Tucker might have in mind for her, she scanned through them, noting that the bloody lead-up to the election of Iraq’s next prime minister dominated the news.

  At last the cockpit door opened, and the pilot walked toward them, carrying a satellite phone.

  “We have a message from Tucker?” she asked eagerly.

  Nodding, he touched the button that activated the speakerphone.

  The voice was a woman’s, and her tone was authoritative. “My name is Jane Squires. Tucker says you’re to fly to Merrittville Airport in Maryland and wait there for instructions.”

  Frank Smith’s voice boomed, filling the aircraft. “What’s this all about?”

  “Someone named Martin Chapman,” the woman said.

  Eva felt a burst of adrenaline. “Is Chapman involved in something we can get him for?”

  “Ask Tucker when you see him.” Squires hung up.

  The pilot snapped his phone shut and announced, “We’ll take off as soon as I get clearance.” He walked back to the cockpit.

  Frank focused on her. “You seem to know something about Martin Chapman.”

  Eva’s chest was tight. She glanced down at her hands, saw they were clenched. She took a deep breath. “He set me up so it looked as if I killed my husband in a drunk driving accident. I spent three years in prison. Not jail, prison.” Without thinking, she was back in the Central California Women’s Facility, a harrowing world of steel bars, guards, and violence. She thought she would lose her life, then her mind. Instead it had hardened her, made it easier to tune out what she did not want, made it possible to give up what she thought she needed.

  “Tucker got me out to help him with an operation,” she went on, “and that’s where Chapman came in again. He sent people to kill a colleague and me, and we were shot up rather badly. I don’t like it when a criminal doesn’t pay for his crimes, but most of the people who could’ve t
estified against Chapman died. Then, when the operation ended in Greece, Chapman’s lawyers brokered a deal between the Greek and U.S. governments. Chapman and his cronies paid off Greek officials, who agreed not to prosecute them, and the U.S. backed off because the CIA had been caught operating on Greek soil illegally.”

  Frank frowned. “That’s terrible. Was the colleague you mentioned Judd Ryder? Before you ask, I naturally did my homework about you.”

  “Yes.” In her mind she could see Judd’s face, feel the warmth of his smile … and she was back in Los Angeles four months ago. Her house had been sold, and her things were packed and on their way to Judd’s place on Capitol Hill, where they would live together. It was one of those perfect Southern California evenings. The sun was setting in a dramatic swath above the glittering lights of the city. Judd and she stood on the balcony of their room at the Chateau Marmont. He leaned close, his breath spicy. She lifted her lips, and he cradled her chin and kissed her. Heat spread into her belly and legs. She pushed him back into their room, and they hurried to their bed.

  Afterward, they returned to the balcony, holding hands, their flesh moist, the aroma of good sex lingering around them. There are rare times when one is in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing with the right person, and that was how she felt. They were together. They were happy. The mood was right to tell him.

  “Tucker phoned,” she said. “Langley has accepted me. I’m to start in two weeks, first at headquarters, then I go to the Farm.”

  “You’re sure it’s what you want?”

  “Yes, but I want you, too. We’re bigger than our differences over this.”

  He gazed at her, his expression somber. “It’d ruin me, Eva.” He turned back into the room and walked through the shadows to the pile of clothes on the floor.

  She followed him. “I don’t understand.”

  He dressed. “The truth is, I was an assassin. A hit man, a closer, a clean-up man, a janitor, an executioner.” He said the words as if he were pounding nails. “With you in the business, it’d be a daily reminder of what I did. What I was. What I could easily slip back into again.”