The Assassins (The Judd Ryder Books)

by Gayle Lynds

  Eli Eichel hesitated, seeming to debate with himself. “I’ve been collaborating with Krot. He’s the one who told me about the man inside the Padre’s organization. My job was to take care of the Padre and retrieve his pieces, which I’ll get from Ryder as soon as you and I finish our business. At the same time, Krot’s job has been to find Seymour. As far as we can tell, Seymour dropped off the face of the planet in late 2003. I think his share of the tablet was four pieces. Do you have any idea where he is?”

  Eva felt Tucker stiffen beside her. The Carnivore had said the three assassins in this room were the only ones he knew to be working in country, which meant that if “Krot” and “Seymour” were assassins, they were outside U.S. borders.

  “No idea where Seymour is,” Bosa told him. “Where’s Krot?”

  “At a hotel in Vienna, the Inner Stadt. Don’t remember which one.”

  “Where are you now in the mission?”

  “With your pieces, the Padre’s, mine, and Krot’s, we’ll have more than half the tablet. Want to come in on this? It may take all of us to find Seymour and pin him down. He’s one ruthless son-of-a-bitch.”

  “Not like us at all.” There was irony in Bosa’s tone. “I’ll think about it.”

  Eli gave a slow, suspicious nod. “I’ve told you the truth. You owe me those last two pieces. Hand them over.”

  Bosa said nothing. Did nothing. No one moved.

  The library table was on the room’s west side, where the Carnivore and Eli Eichel stood beside it, facing each other. To the east, Judd, Tucker, and Eva were together, while Danny was positioned to keep his weapon trained on them while periodically checking on his brother.

  Emotions flashed across Eli Eichel’s face—fear, anger, hatred, and then nothing.

  “Krot’s not in Vienna,” the Carnivore said quietly, too quietly. “He’s in Marrakech, and you damn well know it.”

  As Eli started to snap up his M4, Danny yelled, “No!”

  The Carnivore fired a single burst into Eli’s throat. At such close range, the rounds nearly decapitated him. He reeled, then toppled.

  “Brother!” Danny screamed as Eli’s body hit the floor. He ran to Eli, blindly spraying automatic fire around the room.

  The Carnivore fired again.

  The bullets landed in a small circle in Danny’s chest, above his heart. His head snapped back then fell forward. His great bulk propelling him, he lumbered two more steps and crashed to the floor, inches from Eli.

  Judd was already moving, checking bodies, picking up weapons.

  Bosa let his M4 drift down to his side. An iPhone appeared in his hand. He spoke into it: “Come and get us, Jack. We’re done here. I turned on the lights to the landing strip. You shouldn’t have any trouble. Hurry.”

  Eva heard Tucker moan.

  “Oh, my God,” Eva breathed. She knelt beside the old spymaster and raised her voice: “Tucker’s down. Head wound. It looks bad!”

  38

  Judd ran back to Tucker. One of Danny’s wild bullets must have hit him. Tucker was lying on his belly, his head turned to the side, the Walther near his hand. His tortoiseshell glasses had fallen off. One lens was cracked. His eyes were closed. Blood spread down his cheek, matting his gray beard.

  Eva held her cardigan sweater against his head, trying to control the bleeding.

  “Open your eyes, Tucker,” she was saying. “Come on, I know you can do it. Open your eyes!” She glanced at Judd, her expression grim. “His pupils are different sizes. It’s typical of head injuries. We need to get him to a trauma unit.”

  Bosa had been talking on his iPhone. Ending the call, he said, “The Merrittville Hospital has the closest one. Jack can fly us to the airport in ten minutes. One of my people is a medic. He’ll do triage on the way.”

  Judd tapped numbers on his smartphone, calling Gloria Feit. It was late, past two A.M. Gloria and her husband, Ted, were probably in bed.

  Still, her voice was strong when she answered. “This better be good, Judd.”

  “Tucker’s been shot in the head,” he told her bluntly. “He’s alive, but he’s not moving, not talking.”

  “Oh, God, no.” There was a pause. When she spoke again, her voice was controlled. “What can I do?”

  “We need an ambulance to meet us at the Merrittville airport to take Tucker to the hospital.” He got a description and tail number for the plane from Bosa, then relayed the information to Gloria.

  “Taken care of.” Her line went dead.

  Bosa had been searching Eli Eichel. He pocketed Eli’s limestone pieces.

  Judd flung books off a free-standing bookcase and carried two empty shelves about six feet long to Tucker and set them on the floor beside him. Judd and Bosa picked up Tucker and laid him on the makeshift stretcher.

  Judd’s phone rang. It was Gloria again. “I’ve alerted the hospital that a classified federal employee needs emergency care. An ambulance is on its way to the airport. A police escort will meet the paramedics, and one of the cops will stay with Tucker until I can get our people there to make certain he has the help he needs and doesn’t inadvertently blab any secrets. I’ve also called his wife, Karen. How’d this happen?”

  “There’s been a shoot-out at Martin Chapman’s horse farm.” Judd surveyed the havoc. “We haven’t heard any sirens yet, but it’s possible some of the employees who bunked out have notified the Maryland State Police. The cops won’t know exactly who and what they’re looking at here for a while. That’ll buy us some time.”

  “And what will they see?” Gloria asked suspiciously.

  “Corpses. A dozen or so guards, Martin Chapman, and the Eichel brothers.”

  “Oh, hell, a billionaire and two international assassins,” she said. “Is Tucker’s blood there?”

  “Yes. And our fingerprints and DNA.”

  Gloria’s voice rose. “Who is ‘our’? And whose airplane is going to fly you to Merrittville?”

  “Brace yourself, Gloria. We’re working with the Carnivore again.”

  She took an audible breath. “Well, if Tucker can, I suppose I can, too.”

  “Eva Blake is with us,” Judd added.

  “Eva? It’s a shame you’ve dragged her into this. Will Tucker’s injuries get him enough sympathy so he can hold on to his job?” There was a pause, and in it he heard if he survives.

  “Tucker went AWOL in a big way tonight,” Judd said. “Add that to the infractions Bridgeman has been toting up, and it might be enough to force Tucker to retire. It’ll help if Tucker’s right about something going on that’ll seriously hurt the United States.”

  “Shit.” She paused. “You know I’ll have to tell Scott Bridgeman.”

  “Can you delay?”

  “I can weasel out of a lot of things, but I can’t dodge a direct question from my boss. He’ll find out everything eventually anyway. Let me know if I can help again.”

  Judd ended the call.

  “Come on,” Bosa snapped. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  Eva zipped up Tucker’s jacket and grabbed his eyeglasses.

  “Ready?” Judd asked, crouching.

  Bosa squatted and nodded. “Let’s do it.”

  The men picked up the boards holding Tucker and moved rapidly across the library. Judd was in the lead, walking backward, while Eva continued to hold her sweater to Tucker’s head. In seconds they passed through the library door and entered the brightly lit hallway, then down the staircase past the two guards Tucker had shot, and along the first-floor corridor where the rest of the corpses lay. Judd’s boots grew sticky with blood. Looking at violent death was like a worm crawling up his spine.

  He rerouted his thoughts: “Was it you who knifed the two outdoor sentries?” he asked Bosa.

  “Who else?” Bosa said.

  “What are you talking about—what sentries?” Eva asked.

  Judd told her about Tucker’s text messages describing two corpses in the snow, their carotid arteries sliced.

  Bosa
nodded. “One of them had spotted Tucker, then the other saw me.” He glanced at Eva. “All of this happened while I was reconnoitering.”

  “Why are you here, Eva?” Judd asked.

  She described how the Carnivore had tricked her into joining him in Williamsburg, and then how she had escaped his plane and driven here. “He met me at the service entrance, armed to his eyeteeth and wearing the white snowsuit with the balaclava over his face. He had a plan—he’d pretend he’d captured me so we could get into the main house. That worked, and then we learned you and Tucker had broken in. So he volunteered to be part of your welcoming party, and you know the rest.”

  The door to the short hall was open. Again they hurried, passing the silent kitchen and the guards’ locker room, where Judd had left his things. The building reverberated with the powerful roar of approaching jet engines.

  Bosa lifted his head, listening. “Jack is circling the plane. Let’s put Tucker down.”

  “Jack is Alex’s pilot,” Eva explained to Judd.

  They set the backboard on the floor.

  Bosa went to stand beside the window.

  Judd stepped into the locker room, peeled off the green sweatsuit, and put on his own clothes. Then he hesitated, realizing his hands were shaking. He held them up, empty, and stared at them, the big knuckles, the large palms. His hands were shaking just as they had when he’d had the chance to shoot Chapman and decided not to. But this time he had given himself no time to reconsider.

  Shaking his head, he buttoned his peacoat and strode back into the hall.

  Eva was sitting cross-legged on the floor beside Tucker, her head bowed over him as she wiped blood from his face. The entry and exit wounds were leaking now, not flowing. Tucker was motionless as a gravestone.

  Judd looked down at them, feeling his love for Eva. He admired the tenderness she showed Tucker, her bravery and daring. There was something about her that connected with something inside him that made it hard for him to be away from her, and painful to be with her.

  Bosa opened the door. A cold wind swept in. “The SUV is in sight,” he announced. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “Are you going to hunt down Krot after you drop off Tucker?” Judd asked.

  “Yes,” Bosa said. “Want to join me? I could use the help.”

  “Tucker believed that whatever was going on with you and the other assassins had to be about more than an ancient tablet,” Judd told him. “Was he right?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll make you a deal like the one you made Eli Eichel,” Judd decided. “Fill me in completely, and I’ll go with you.”

  Bosa crouched to pick up his end of the makeshift stretcher. “Agreed.”

  Judd crouched over his end. “To Marrakech?”

  “To Marrakech,” Bosa confirmed.

  Carrying Tucker, the men went out into the bitter cold.

  KROT

  For secret assassination … the contrived accident is the most effective technique. When successfully executed, it … is only casually investigated.

  —CIA Assassination Manual, 1954

  39

  The night wind numbed Eva’s cheeks and burned her nose. To the north, the parking lights of the Carnivore’s plane glowed across the snow. The SUV arrived, white clouds of steam billowing from its tailpipe.

  As choreographed as a ballet, Bosa’s two men—the driver and a passenger—jumped out of the vehicle, opened the tailgate, slid the boards holding Tucker inside, and closed up. The driver and Bosa sat in front, while Eva and Judd took the bench seat behind them. In the far back was Bosa’s second man, checking Tucker.

  All of this was accomplished in less than sixty seconds.

  About Bosa’s age, the two men were bundled in thick coats and armed with AK-47s. Bosa, Judd, and Eva still had their M4s.

  The driver threw the SUV into gear, hit the accelerator, and the vehicle rushed off. He glanced at Bosa, who sat beside him. “Christ, Alex. You really can pick ’em. That was one hell of a hike from the plane to the garage. We sweltered in the heat.”

  “Sure you did.” Bosa waved a hand from the driver back to Judd and Eva. “This malcontent is George Russell.”

  His eyes on the driveway, George spoke over his shoulder: “Good to meet you.” He had a muscular face and gave off of a sense of restlessness, a man who liked to be working his body, on the move.

  Bosa indicated the man who was examining Tucker’s wound. “And this is Doug Kennedy.”

  Doug peered up briefly and nodded. A gray-streaked brown ponytail dangled from beneath his black watch cap. He had a high forehead, wore nickel-rimmed eyeglasses, and shot them a warm smile.

  As they drove past the garage, Judd told Bosa, “I left my cuneiform pieces in a delivery van we hid in the trees. We need to go back to get them.”

  “You mean the ones you put inside the bottle of ice?”

  Judd did not change his expression. “So you found them.”

  “I couldn’t figure out why you’d be carrying it around, so I turned on the engine and melted the ice. Not too bad a hiding place. Found this in the delivery van, too.” He gave Judd his backpack.

  “How did you get onto Chapman’s property?” Judd asked. He went through the backpack. All of his belongings were there.

  “One of my compadres discovered a map from the 1950s. It showed a concrete culvert. For some reason, the culvert fell out of use, and over the decades nature hid it. So I simply located it again. Not hard, with a GPS.”

  The SUV hurtled into the parking lot and accelerated across it.

  Eva had been watching Doug inspect Tucker. Deathly pale, Tucker’s skin resembled crepe paper, an old man’s skin. His slender body was limp, fragile-looking.

  “How is he?” she asked anxiously.

  “I’ve been palpating his skull to check for instability, and it feels normal.” Doug reached inside a bag near his feet and took out two sterile packets. He ripped one open. “His facial bones seem stable, too.” He applied a bandage to the front of Tucker’s head and another to the back. “Has he said anything or moved?”

  “No.” Eva’s throat tightened.

  “He’s breathing on his own, and there’s no drainage from the ears, nose, or eyes. Both are good signs.”

  “I’ve heard that ninety percent of gunshot wounds to the head are fatal,” she said evenly. “Is that true?”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t mean Tucker isn’t going to be among the ten percent who survive.”

  They were silent. Moonlight shone through the window, illuminating Judd’s face as he peered off into the distance. She found herself studying his intensity, the bunched muscles in his jaw, the steady gaze. The cold had made his skin ruddy, deepening the fine lines on his forehead and around his eyes, too many lines for a thirty-four-year-old, but they were earned, and she liked that. She liked the thick unruliness of his hair, and his hazel eyes—they could be brown one moment and blue the next. Now his face was like marble, hard, emotionless, but when he allowed himself, it softened and she could see a gentle man, a man who was unafraid of himself. She liked that complexity, but the man she saw gun down Martin Chapman was new to her, and she did not know yet what to think of him.

  “What sort of evidence does Bridgeman have against Tucker?” she asked.

  “A lot originated with me.” Judd described the murder of his double and then Tucker’s persuading both the medical examiner and Bridgeman to keep it quiet so he could investigate. “The only reason Bridgeman went along with Tucker was because Tucker convinced him international assassins were working on U.S. soil and it was in Catapult’s best interests to find out why and what they were doing. But then the Eichel brothers made the hunt club pristine, which left only Tucker’s word that the Padre had cut a deal with him to find the Carnivore, and only my word about our doubles and the massacre at the hunt club, which meant only circumstantial evidence of assassins. So Tucker came looking for the Eichels here—without Bridgeman’s knowledge, much
less his permission.”

  The wind had risen, and the SUV swayed as it left the parking lot for the drive to the landing strip.

  “But what about the gunfight tonight?” she asked. “The Eichels’ bodies are in Chapman’s library. That should prove Tucker was right about them being in-country.”

  Judd shook his head. “It doesn’t save Tucker, and it’s probably even worse for us. I’m a civilian with no authority to be there, so I could be perceived as just as bad as the men we left dead. Remember, there’s well-known history between Chapman and me—and I’m the one who ended up shooting him. A good case could also be made that you abandoned your Farm training to help me wipe him.”

  Eva thought about it. “I made a commitment to the CIA, and I intend to keep it. Once Tucker is safely in the hospital, I’ll rent a car and drive back to the Farm so I can explain what happened. That way I can speak on Tucker’s and your behalf and maybe even save what’s left of my career.”

  Bosa rotated in his seat, his knee up on the divider between him and the driver. He assessed Eva. “I have a better idea. Stay with us.” He couched it like an invitation, but she did not believe for an instant that was all there was to it. “It’s in your best interests.”

  “The reason you want both of us along is you’re worried we’ll go public with what we know,” she accused. “A group of top international assassins fighting over pieces of a cuneiform tablet has got to be mighty interesting to the press. They’ll be sniffing up your arse, and for a man who’s gone to a great deal of trouble to stay unknown, unseen, and unfindable, that’s got to disturb you.”

  Bosa smiled. There was something almost innocent in his expression, guileless, as if he were a man who had compartmentalized his life so well that when the killer in him receded, an almost grandfatherly man emerged.

  “All of that’s true, but I’m worried about you, too,” he told her.

  The killer might actually believe the sincerity in his voice, Eva thought.

  “The Padre and Eli Eichel have already tried to terminate you and Judd,” he continued. “What makes you think Krot and Seymour aren’t reaching out to contacts right now, searching for you, too, also thinking they can find me through you?”