The Assassins (The Judd Ryder Books)

by Gayle Lynds

  Bosa broke the silence: “Let’s listen to the CD Liza sold you.”

  Loading the disc, Judd fast-forwarded, and soon they heard again Krot and Katia discuss her father, his death, and how she had contacted him.

  “We have the code Katia used to reach him,” Judd said, “but no phone number.”

  For a moment, Bosa sounded discouraged. “I didn’t know Grigori Levinchev was dead. That’s a blow. He was by far our best link to Seymour.”

  “You were going to tell us how you found out Grigori was in Baghdad,” Eva reminded Bosa.

  He nodded. “Once I knew Katia had been using the name Francesca Fabiano and lived in or around Portland, Maine, I contacted a source who was able to acquire three phone numbers she’d had over the last ten years—two land lines and one cell. Then he pulled her computerized phone records and discovered the only calls she’d made overseas were to Baghdad, and all were returned from Baghdad. There were a dozen Baghdad numbers. Eleven belonged to disposable cells, so they were untraceable. The twelfth belonged to a land line—someone in Baghdad had used that number to return her call. That was seven years ago, so maybe it was the time she and Grigori arranged to meet. In those days, the number was blocked, but of course the phone company had the name and address of the owner—the Save Iraq League, a political party. I dialed the number. A nightclub answered.”

  “The SIL is closely aligned with Iran,” Judd remembered. “It’s vying with the current prime minister’s party for control of the country.”

  “Grigori Levinchev was Russian,” Eva said. “Why would he be in Baghdad and using the phone line of an Iraqi political party?”

  “Because he was friends with Seymour, probably,” Bosa said.

  “Is ‘Seymour’ his real name?” Eva asked.

  “I doubt it.” Bosa crossed his arms. “I heard he was born in the United States to an Iraqi mother and an American father and was raised in Basra in southern Iraq. There were a lot of stories about him after he joined Islamic Jihad, one more outlandish than the other.… He was a descendant of Mohammad.… He was a South American pretending to be Muslim.… He was the most bloodthirsty killer the jihad ever had.… He saved the lives of a thousand children.… He could vanish like a puff of desert sand. On and on. He wore the lies like gold medals. Seymour was restless, though, and I had the feeling that nothing was ever going to be enough.”

  As Eva and Bosa had talked, Judd dug Tucker’s handheld out of his backpack and scanned through it. “I have an old photo of Seymour. It was in one of the dossiers Gloria put together for Tucker.”

  In his twenties, Seymour was a striking man. His build was heavy, rugged, while his clean-shaved face was cherubic, almost sweet. The burly body of a football player topped by the face of an angel.

  Judd passed the handheld to Bosa. “Is that him?”

  Bosa examined the picture. “He was overweight the last time I saw him. The face is in the ballpark but not the same—could be because of plastic surgery. You can see his confidence. And the way he tilts his head back and to the side shows some of his charm. Yes, I’d say it’s him.” He passed the handheld to Eva.

  “He doesn’t look a bit like one would expect an assassin to look,” she decided. “The worst he seems capable of is returning a book late to the library.”

  Bosa smiled. “Such naïveté.”

  She shook her head. “Any lingering assumptions I had that assassins were the same have been fully trashed—except that they’re all cold-blooded killers.” She avoided Judd’s gaze.

  “She’s auditioning me for the list,” Judd explained to Bosa.

  Bosa shrugged. “One does what one’s good at.”

  “I’m just trying to figure things out,” Eva said.

  Cocking his head, Bosa assessed one then the other, finally settling on Eva. “We’re all ages, nationalities, personalities, and personal lives. Years ago I had a wife and child and lived a ‘normal’ life. I grocery-shopped, kept in touch with my sister, took my family for outings, and of course left town occasionally for business. Everyone thought I ran an import-export company, and I did, minimally. I enjoyed that life.”

  “What happened?” Eva asked.

  Bosa took a deep breath. “My daughter—Liz—grew up, married a bad man, and I eliminated the problem. Liz found out I was responsible for the death, and then she discovered what my business really was. By then my wife was doing wet work with me. Liz walked out of our lives. Later, when my wife was killed on the job, I’d hoped Liz would come back.” He sighed heavily. “Liz disapproves of me.”

  “Do you ever see her?” Eva wondered.

  “No.” There was a long silence, then briskly: “Let’s see where Krot’s cuneiform pieces fit in.” He pulled the tray table toward him.

  As Judd opened Krot’s aluminum box and removed the padded chunks, Eva peeled back the Velcro coverings, and Bosa found each’s place in the puzzle of the shattered limestone tablet. They studied the result. Six pieces were still missing. Judd could feel Eva’s intensity as she focused.

  “Can you translate it now?” Bosa asked.

  She shook her head. “I’m not good enough. If you’ll take photos of it, I’ll e-mail them to a friend at the Getty Center. She’s an expert.”

  “Right.” Bosa stood, positioned his iPad, and started photographing the tablet from different angles.

  Judd watched, noting the assassin’s efficiency. There was deliberation in his movements, also a sense of leaving nothing to chance. The uncomfortable feeling Judd had had earlier returned. There was something about Bosa’s denial. Minutes ago, Eva had asked, “Why did you kill Katia Levinchev?” and Bosa had replied, “It wasn’t me.” Then when Eva persisted and told Bosa he should’ve been careful of Katia because she was a bystander, Bosa had said, “I didn’t do the hit.”

  Suddenly Judd understood—Bosa was right … he literally had not shot them with his own hand. He said to Bosa: “While we were following the Citroën to the souk, you called to give us Katia’s real name and that her father was tight with Seymour. You didn’t know any of that when we left the plane, or you would’ve told us. So either you were in Marrakech, too, and found out there—or whoever gave you the information was there.”

  Eva stared at Judd, impressed. “You’re right.”

  Judd said nothing, his gaze fixed on the wily assassin. “Well?”

  “Took you long enough.” Bosa gave a brief smile. “Would you do an old man a favor and grab me a blanket, Judd? My legs are getting cold. You should go, too, Eva. Get a blanket for yourself. We keep them in sick bay.” He gestured aft.

  Eva’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t really want a blanket, do you?”

  Bosa shrugged. Then he chuckled.

  Judd and Eva were on their feet and moving. The trijet had been flying smoothly, so the trip down the aisle took seconds. They passed through the galley, where Doug was making sandwiches. His black watch cap was gone, and his brown-gray ponytail hung loosely down his back.

  Eva reached the door first and opened it. Judd peered over her shoulder. Lying on the same divan Tucker had used was a skinny old man with a prominent nose and neatly trimmed silver mustache. His silver hair was pulled back, a ponytail lying down over his chest, coiled on top of the blanket. Despite his advanced age, or maybe because of it, there was a tough look about him. He snored lightly.

  Judd and Eva turned as Doug came up behind them. He smiled, entertained, but said nothing.

  They looked at him, then at the man on the bed. The faces were different, but there was a resemblance in the men’s bone structure and something about the cockiness in their expressions. And then there was the unusual fact both wore ponytails.

  “A relative?” Eva guessed.

  “He’s the one who told Bosa about Krot and Katia?” Judd wanted to be sure.

  Doug nodded. “My father. He and Bosa go back a long time.”

  On the double jump seat was a large bundle with a blanket tossed over it. Judd pulled off the blanket,
revealing a bulky black motorcycle jacket, a black motorcycle helmet, and an F2000 bullpup assault rifle.

  Recognizing the items, Eva said angrily, “He’s the one who shot Katia.”

  “And Krot, too,” Judd said.

  He studied the sleeping man, all bone and sinew. His skin was almost translucent. Still, he had tailed them to Krot’s hideout in the souk, waited outside for the chance to eliminate Krot, and then mercilessly done it. That showed a lot of motivation, maybe the kind of motivation inspired when someone forced you into a deadly game of last man standing.

  “You don’t have the same surname, do you?” Judd asked Doug.

  “No. My mother loved him but she wouldn’t marry him,” Doug told him. “Now that I’m older, I understand why. You’ll see what I mean. Right now, he’s exhausted. He’s had a long day. Actually, several long days. His sports car was blown up in Paris. The kid he sent to bring it to him was the one who died. Dad didn’t bother to correct the coroner about the victim. The whole thing made him pretty mad. Dad liked that car a lot.”

  “Christ, he’s the sixth assassin.” Judd stared at the sleeping man. “Burleigh Morgan is alive.”

  61

  Judd and Eva quickly returned to the cabin, where Bosa was leaning forward, working on his iPad. They dropped into their seats across from him.

  “So you and Morgan have been collaborating all along,” Judd said.

  Bosa looked up. “Morgan got in touch with me after the attempt on his life in Paris. We decided it was smart to let him stay dead. He went to Marrakech, rented a Mercedes, and started following Krot. When he called me with what he’d discovered, I relayed it to you. Morgan was necessary, and you were necessary. Morgan wasn’t going to hurt you, and he wasn’t able to handle the situation by himself. Christ, he’s closing in on eighty years old. When he got to the plane, he said you were on your way back and he’d fill me in later. He crashed, and I haven’t seen him since. There was no point in telling you about him until I had to.”

  “Watch it, sonny boy.” Grasping seat backs, Morgan swayed down the airplane’s aisle. In motion, his wire-thin body seemed supple, not the bag of bones it had appeared in repose. His face was drawn and weary, but his eyes glinted. “I can still bloody well beat the crap out of you, Alex.” He fell into the seat next to him and peered across the aisle at Judd and Eva. “Alex is an uncivil bloke. Should’ve introduced us. Glad to meet you both. You realize you’re in love, don’t you?”

  Judd recoiled, feeling a strange sensation in his stomach.

  Eva looked away.

  Morgan chuckled and peered up at his son, who had followed him with blankets. “Dougie, I need some food.”

  Doug opened the blanket over Morgan’s lap. “Sure, Pops. Right away.” He handed another blanket to Bosa, who spread it on his legs.

  “Don’t call me Pops,” Morgan grumbled.

  “No problem, Gramps.”

  Muttering under his breath, Morgan focused on arranging his blanket.

  Doug gestured down at him. “Now you see why my mother wouldn’t marry him.”

  “She was an idiot,” Morgan announced. “But great legs and boobs.”

  Doug sighed. “He never learned any manners. But then, he started out as a bullet man in London’s old East End. A few years later he shot his boss to death at Ronan Point and knifed his boss’s boss in an alley near what’s now South Quay Station.”

  “I got ambitious,” Morgan explained.

  Doug continued: “He offered to do occasional work for the remaining boys if they’d let him make his own way in the world. He was twenty-five. They said get the fucking bloody hell out of here, we’ll call you when we need you—and he went independent.”

  Morgan nodded. “I never looked back. And I damn well don’t have any plans to retire, either. I’m more trouble than a war horse. I’m the bloody war.”

  With a roll of his eyes, Doug returned to the galley.

  Eva glared at Morgan. “Why did you kill Katia? You’re a pro. You could’ve made a different decision.”

  Morgan shot her an appraising look. “Krot was bloody damn dangerous. I wasn’t going to get a second chance. So I took the chance I had. It’s over. Done with. Can’t change it. Walk away from it, Eva, or it’ll weaken your ability to do what you have to do in the future.”

  Morgan had just admitted accountability, but not responsibility. Eva leaned back in her seat, seeming lost in thought.

  Before Morgan could respond, Jack’s voice came over the loudspeakers: “Cairo International ahead, folks.”

  Cairo was an unscheduled stop. “Are we scrubbing our trail?” Judd asked.

  “Right,” Bosa confirmed. “We’ll switch planes so our flight plan to Baghdad shows we came from Cairo, not Marrakech.”

  “Are you worried that if Seymour is in Baghdad, he’s somehow found out about us?” Judd wondered.

  “What I worry about is getting lazy,” Bosa said, “and dead.”

  The trijet circled over the metropolis. The Nile River was a black ribbon, glossy, splitting the sparkling city in two. Landing, they rolled to a stop beside a Gulfstream IV business jet. They transferred their things aboard, choosing the same seating arrangements, with Bosa and Morgan on one side of the central aisle, and Judd and Eva on the other. Reading the maintenance reports, Jack and George walked around the craft, tugging, prodding, doing a thorough inspection.

  After more than an hour on the ground, they took off again. There were no clouds, and the stars shone brightly. Judd turned away from the window. An idea had been percolating in his mind for some time. He sat forward, clasping his hands between his knees, and studied Bosa and Morgan. “Considering the lengths you six assassins go to maintain operational secrecy, who could possibly have found out enough about your work to compile an encyclopedia of your contract kills? And who besides you knew about the cuneiform tablet? The only answer I can see is one of you must be the e-mail’s author. It’s one of you who’s blackmailing everyone else to play this sordid game.”

  Morgan and Bosa exchanged a look.

  “You tell them, Alex.” Morgan’s bony face was grim.

  Bosa gave a brief nod. “Morgan and I have talked about this, of course. As far as we know, Seymour didn’t contact any of us. The Padre, Eichel, and Krot were looking for him. Morgan and I have been looking for him. The blackmailer tried to blow up Morgan, so Morgan isn’t the blackmailer. I know I’m not the blackmailer, and Morgan knows it, too, because I could’ve wiped him many times, including when he came limping back to the plane tonight. From the beginning, he and I figured whoever sent the e-mail starting the game could be one of us. Now that it’s down to Morgan, Seymour, and me, it sure looks like it has to be Seymour. There’s a logical reason he didn’t contact any of us—he didn’t need to. We’ve been reporting in to him every twelve hours, we just didn’t realize it was him. Morgan and I think he’s been waiting until there’s only one of us left. When he gets that report, he’ll make up some lie that he—Seymour—is dead, meet the ‘winner,’ and ambush him. That way Seymour gets the cuneiform tablet, keeps the Catalog, and has the satisfaction of knowing the rest of us are no longer taking up space.”

  “I thought you assassins made a lot of money,” Eva said. “Your plane is worth what, Alex—forty million? Is Seymour so broke he needs the twelve-million-dollar tablet?”

  “God knows why he’s made so much trouble,” Bosa said tiredly. “Seymour’s a piece of work. I want to surprise the bastard, but first we’ve got to find him.” He tapped his iPad. “I went on Google Earth to check out the building associated with the last phone call from Baghdad to Katia. It’s clear why the SIL moved—all that’s left is a big hole in the ground. Then I found a historical photo, and it showed a five-story apartment building. The SIL could’ve had a storefront on the first floor, and Grigori Levinchev was renting a place upstairs. Maybe Seymour was, too. So I searched for the building’s owner. Of course, there are almost no records of Baghdad real estate online, so
I went to my next question—where did the SIL move to? The answer is Saadun Street near Firdos Square and the Palestine Hotel.”

  Grabbing a remote control from his tray, he aimed it aft and tapped a button. The skin of the wall next to the galley door slid down, revealing a 48-inch LED television screen.

  Bosa tapped his keyboard. “I’m linking my iPad to the TV screen. Let’s see what we can find out about the SIL political party.”

  Google returned more than 100,000 references. There were links about its founding by Tariq Tabrizi and Siraj al-Sabah, its members, its ideology, interviews, analyses, programs for the poor, cultural events, and critiques by other politicians, academics, and foreigners.

  When they reached the tenth page, Morgan finished his sandwich and put the plate aside. “Go back to the beginning,” he told Bosa.

  Bosa returned to the opening page.

  Morgan leaned forward. “Can you make those pictures bigger?”

  Three thumbnail photos showed people while a fourth displayed a stately white stone building fronted by Corinthian columns.

  “Which photo do you want me to enlarge?” Bosa asked.

  “I don’t care a gopher’s snout about the building. I want to see the people.”

  Without comment, Bosa put his cursor on the first photo and clicked. Immediately it enlarged. According to the caption, a group of thirty angry SIL MPs were storming out of a parliamentary session after they had lost a vote. In the lead was Tariq Tabrizi, who was running for prime minister now. In the next photo, Tabrizi stood at a podium making a speech. The last photo showed two men shaking hands. One was Tabrizi, who was congratulating the second man, a history professor, for winning the annual SIL leadership prize for his daily column in The Iraqi Sword. Besides a bronze plaque, he received a prize of €100,000.

  Judd whistled. “That’s one hell of a lot of money for an organization in a poor country like Iraq.”