The Assassin

by Andrew Britton

  Vanderveen pressed his face into the nape of Kharmai’s neck and breathed deeply, catching the mingled scents of vanilla, sweat, and fear. An unusual combination, but not unpleasant… at least not to him. Carefully, using her hair to conceal as much of his face as possible, he raised his lips to her ear and said, “Naomi, are you ready to die?”

  She didn’t respond; she didn’t even moan. In that strange moment, he was intensely proud of her. He pulled her even tighter, letting his lips touch the lobe of her ear. He was aware of her heart thudding, her body shaking, her breath coming in short, quick spurts. And yet, despite her obvious terror, she didn’t scream… She didn’t even whimper.

  What an incredible woman. If he had chosen a different path, a different life, he might well have selected a girl like this to share it with. For a brief moment in time, it seemed as if they had somehow fused, as if their bodies were one.

  But she belonged to Ryan, and for that, he couldn’t forgive her.

  He reversed his grip on the knife, placed the tip at the hinge of her jaw, and pushed it in.

  Kealey heard words come out of his mouth when he saw what was happening, but he couldn’t be sure of what he was saying, his screams drowned out by those of the onlookers. He fired instantly, knowing that it no longer made a difference; Vanderveen had changed everything by putting the knife in, and Kealey knew instinctively that the other man wouldn’t stop until Naomi was dead. His first shot missed completely, but he got lucky with the second, as Naomi wrenched her body to the left, trying to get away from the knife. Vanderveen followed her before regaining control, exposing his right shoulder for less than a second. Kealey’s round ripped into his arm just above the elbow, tunneling the length of his bicep before exiting at an angle near his shoulder, catching the edge of his neck.

  Vanderveen jerked back, but somehow managed to bring Naomi’s body back in front of his own. The knife was still moving up, and there was so much blood… impossible amounts of blood. Kealey was still squeezing the trigger, swearing and screaming all at once, but nothing was happening. He dropped the mag and reached for another, slamming it in, racking the slide. The movements were like second nature: mechanical, yet strangely fluid. Despite the speed with which he’d reloaded, precious seconds had been wasted, time which Vanderveen had used to continue his grisly work. Kealey leveled the gun, but the moment was gone. He’d been running forward and was now just 30 feet from the struggling pair. He moved to the right, looking for a shot.

  Naomi screamed in agony as the blade crossed under her ear, nicking her jawbone before sliding up to her right cheek. She felt the razor edge cutting deep as it moved over her skin, angling up to her cheekbone. Rationally, she knew what was happening, but her mind was somehow detached, unwilling to accept what was taking place. She couldn’t focus on anything but the searing, ripping, mind-bending pain; everything she knew was mired in feeling. If she’d been able to hear, her whole world would have been noise: the few people still in the area screaming in horrified disbelief, Ryan’s shots and screams carrying over the din, and the sound of fast-approaching sirens covering everything. But since she couldn’t hear, she could only feel: the hot blood streaming down the side of her neck, the hooked tip of the knife caught under her cheekbone, Vanderveen’s wrenching attempts to pull it free. She felt his body jerk once behind her as Kealey’s second round found its target, but Vanderveen was still holding the knife, still trying to get it up to her eye, so she knew he had not suffered a disabling wound.

  Her hands, still cuffed, had jerked up the second she felt the knife begin to penetrate. She was grabbing his wrists, trying to pull them down and away, but part of her mind — the small part that hadn’t shut down completely — was telling her that if she succeeded, the knife would come down along with his hands, and then he’d be able to cut her again.

  She wriggled frantically, trying to pull away, but it just wasn’t working. Then she tried to drop down to the pavement, but he seemed to expect it, and his left arm only tightened around her throat, cutting off the last of her breath. Her throat was clogged with blood, her vision blurring. She felt herself start to weaken, to give up the fight. He was just too strong. Way too strong… stronger than she would have believed. Finally, he managed to pull the knife out of her face, and she braced herself, waiting for the final, fatal cut.

  It had taken Joe Ruggeri a little under 2 minutes to run the full length of six city blocks. Amazingly, he had yet to see any units respond, even though he’d called it in when he was still back on West Fifty-Fourth. There had been two more shots just a few seconds earlier, and the screams were impossibly loud as he crossed Forty-ninth. Suddenly, everything seemed clear; he could spot the back of the overturned truck and two men; one was lying on the ground, his hands wrapped round his throat. The other was 20 feet north of the truck, moving to his right — Ruggeri’s left — his hands wrapped round the grip of a semiautomatic pistol. His eyes were wide, and he appeared to be shouting at someone that Ruggeri couldn’t see.

  Traffic had come to a complete halt on Seventh. Everyone north of Fifty-first was still honking angrily, but the motorists farther south — those to his immediate left — could tell that something was wrong. Some had abandoned their vehicles entirely, while others were standing in the middle of the street, watching from a distance, eyes wide. Ruggeri ran out to the middle of the street, keeping low behind a series of cars. He looked up over the hood of a yellow RAV4, took in the scene, then ducked down again, his gun in two hands between his knees.

  The brief glimpse had given him a new piece of the puzzle: a man holding a woman hostage. Ruggeri had seen blood, which meant that he had to act immediately, but he was still too winded from the long sprint to trust his aim. From the angle, it was clear that the other man with the gun — the one near the truck — didn’t have a shot, but Ruggeri did. He had a clear line of sight on the hostage taker’s head, and he planned to use it.

  Taking a deep breath, he stood up, leaned over the hood of the RAV4 for support, and took aim. Then he squeezed the trigger.

  Vanderveen didn’t know how he’d managed to hold on to the knife after Kealey’s second round found its target. Looking down at his right arm, he could see he was badly injured, though the pain had yet to set in. The entire sleeve of his jacket was soaked in blood, and his grip on the knife was rapidly starting to slip. The wound in his neck was not as accommodating. It was becoming increasingly difficult to breathe, though it didn’t feel as if the bullet had penetrated his airway. He was surprised to find he no longer cared; all that mattered now was finishing the woman.

  She was struggling hard, and the knife was locked in somehow, jammed into her cheekbone or maybe hooked underneath. He couldn’t tell, and the second he tried to look, he would expose himself to a fatal barrage. He focused on keeping her upright and in front of his body as he worked the knife loose, ignoring her blood-choked screams. Finally, the knife came free, and he moved it down and around to her throat. Sensing his intentions, she tried to tuck down her chin. He tried to pull her head back and reached around farther, aware of another shot. This one pierced his arm in almost exactly the same place as the first, and this time, the pain was so intense, the knife slipped from his grasp. He screamed in agony just as another round scorched into the left side of his neck. He was thrown against the Mercury, where he bounced off the front fender before dropping to the pavement.

  Owing to the angle of the car, he was momentarily blocked from Kealey’s view. Realizing this, he took the opportunity to reach into his coat with his left hand, finding the butt of his Glock 19. He pulled it out slowly, painfully, aware of the woman stumbling away, dripping blood all over the pavement. He raised the gun, aiming for her back, then changed his mind. For some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger. He would have laughed if he’d still been able to speak; he was willing to cut her to ribbons, but the idea of finishing his work no longer held any appeal. How strange. He tried to breathe but only succeeded in sucking
blood into his airway. Incredibly, it was all over. For a fleeting instant, he wondered if he could set off the BLU-82 by firing through the roof of the box but realized it wouldn’t work, not at this range. Still, he could try….

  Or he could shoot Kealey.

  It was a difficult choice to make, and he didn’t have long. The other man was probably less than 10 feet away, circling to his position. While he would have much preferred to destroy every building in the vicinity by detonating the bomb, his mind, working through the pain and the absence of air, told him this was all but impossible. And that left him with just one choice.

  Unable to use his right arm, he moved his legs round and under his body. He got to his knees, careful to keep his head below the line of the hood. It was difficult to get a feel for the gun in his left hand, and the darkness was already creeping in. If he was going to act, it had to be soon. Normally, it would be occasion enough for a deep, calming breath, but he was past that now.

  He was past everything.

  Kealey was running forward, crossing the last 30 feet as fast as he could. He was torn between finishing Vanderveen and helping Naomi. He saw her stumble away from the Mercury, hands pressed to her face. Blood was streaming down from between her fingers. As she made it to the first line of cars at the light on Forty-eighth, a few people rushed out from behind their vehicles to pull her to safety. The sight should have relieved some of his anxiety, but he wasn’t sure if Vanderveen had managed to get to her throat with the knife. If he had, there was almost no chance she’d survive. He wanted nothing more than to go to her, but he couldn’t seem to stop moving toward the car. Vanderveen had taken so much from him, and now it looked as if he’d taken Naomi, too.

  The thought of losing her was unbearable, but he tried to push it out of his mind, knowing he had to finish what he had started. He knew he’d managed to hit Vanderveen a second time in the same arm, but it looked like the man to his right had fired the fatal wound. Kealey could see him screaming something about dropping the weapon, but he wasn’t about to comply. He was driven forward by a burning desire to inflict on Vanderveen what the other man had inflicted on so many others — namely, a great deal of pain, followed by an appalling death.

  He was rounding the car, gun up, ready to finish it. Just as he moved into position for the shot, Vanderveen stood up and leveled his weapon. Thrown off by the sudden, unexpected movement, Kealey’s first shot went wide, missing the other man’s head by an inch. Vanderveen fired at the same time, and Kealey felt something punch into his left arm, just above the elbow. He fired again, and this time he found his target. A pink cloud exploded like a halo around Vanderveen’s head, blossoming into the cool air, just as the man near the RAV4 fired several rounds of his own into the falling body. Vanderveen twisted to the right, bounced off the front of the Mercury, and hit the ground. He didn’t move again.

  Kealey kept moving forward. Intellectually, he knew that the man was dead, but some part of him didn’t register that fact. He fired round after round until his gun was empty, and even then he kept squeezing the trigger, aware that he was shouting at the top of his lungs, but unaware of what he was saying. It didn’t seem to matter anymore. Will Vanderveen was gone, but there was nothing to celebrate. Kealey would have given anything to turn back the clock just a few minutes; he would have let the man live forever if it meant keeping Naomi out of harm’s way. Unfortunately, it was too late for that now.

  It was too late for a lot of things.

  A sudden movement to his right caught his attention. Kealey turned to see that the man had moved away from the RAV4 and was now pointing a gun at his chest, saying something and waving his free arm in a downward motion. Kealey couldn’t seem to hear the words for some reason, but he understood that he was being told to lose the weapon and get on the ground. He considered this request from a distance, thought about complying, then decided against it. He was starting to feel dizzy, his limbs turning to water. Looking down, he saw that the blood was rapidly spreading around the wound in his left arm; in fact, it was spreading at an alarming rate. He realized that Vanderveen’s final round had severed his brachial artery. The wound was starting to throb, but just as the pain settled in, everything else went away.

  He felt himself start to fall, tumbling into a black void.

  And then there was nothing.

  CHAPTER 57

  LOUDOUN COUNTY, VIRGINIA

  From all outward appearances, the eighteenth-century, three-story manor house at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains was just another site of modest historical merit, no different from the many similar properties scattered throughout the Virginia countryside. No Monticello, this, but a pleasant environment nonetheless, the kind of place that, in other circumstances, might play host to fourth graders on field trips or families in search of a cheap, educational day in the country. Such visits, however, had never transpired, nor would they, for despite its unspectacular history, Windrush Manor was much more than it seemed.

  First constructed in 1770 by William Fitzhugh, an American planter and delegate to the Continental Congress in 1779, the house was willed to Fitzhugh’s cousin by letter in 1825, along with 100 acres comprising the grounds. The property was then handed down through a succession of sons and daughters until 1976, when it was quietly purchased by an outside party: Richard Helms, the former director of Central Intelligence. Over the next few years, extensive modifications were made to the building’s interior. Then, in 1979, the government signed a fifty-year lease on the property. Although tax records indicated otherwise, Helms never received — nor requested — financial compensation of any kind. When Helms passed away in 2002, the property was willed to a like-minded, closemouthed supporter of the intelligence community, and everything continued as normal.

  Since 1979, Windrush Manor had been a place for U.S. intelligence officers injured in the line of duty to convalesce, a place so secret that listing it with the Virginia Historical Society or a similar institution was no longer possible, for the property was no longer known to anyone who might conceive of doing so. Nestled deep within the Virginia Piedmont, Windrush was accessible only by a single service road. Wayward motorists occasionally found their way to the main gate, but when they did, they saw nothing that might give them cause for alarm, just a pair of watchful security guards, the kind of minimal protection often employed by wealthy, reclusive private citizens. The security was designed to be effective, but not obtrusive. The various electronic countermeasures scattered throughout the surrounding forest were just as efficient, and just as invisible. In short, Windrush was the kind of place that the U.S. government would never admit to knowing about, simply because it would never be forced to.

  It was just after 1:00 PM when a black GMC Yukon rolled up to the service entrance just off US 421. The window came down with a whisper, and the driver produced his Agency credentials. The guards were not alarmed in the least, as this particular visitor was himself a recently discharged patient. He had left the manor two weeks earlier, but had visited every day since. Used to seeing his face, the guards would have preferred to let him pass without delay, but rules were rules. They called up to the small command post in the house, where another officer turned away from his microwaved lasagna and checked the list. Approval was given, and the driver was waved through.

  The Yukon rose and fell over a series of gentle hills, the engine’s low rumble breaking the afternoon quiet, tires hissing on the damp, black ribbon road. The oak and hickory trees passing by were skeletal and absent of color, their bark stripped bare by foraging deer. After several miles the trees broke and the house appeared. The Yukon turned off the main road, the tires crunching on gravel as it rolled to a stop, the engine shutting off. Then the door swung open and Ryan Kealey stepped out, dressed in jeans, a black roll-neck sweater, and a corduroy barn jacket.

  He took a moment to look around, breathing in the cold air, appraising the low gray clouds that scudded along the wintry sky. It was the first week of November, and
a heavy snow had fallen two days earlier, freezing the millpond and blanketing the ground with a layer of clean white powder. The manor house, with its whitewashed fieldstone walls, almost looked like an extension of the ground, save for the wood shingle roof. Smoke curled out of the twin stone chimneys, the gray haze drifting east on a cold, steady breeze.

  Kealey walked up the path to the banded oak door, aware of a black Suburban sitting off to his right. The engine was running, along with the heater, he guessed. He couldn’t see through the tinted windows, but as he moved forward, he shot a quick glance through the windshield. He was surprised to see a man he recognized. It was Harper’s longtime driver, apparently recovered from his bout with the flu. There didn’t appear to be anyone else in the vehicle, and looking around, he saw no sign of the other man. Kealey decided he was probably inside.

  He knocked on the door and was admitted by Jean Everett, the head nurse. Everett was in her early forties, with blond hair going to gray and a kind, careworn face. She smiled at him and held out her arms for the flowers he was carrying. It had become a kind of daily ritual; she would accept the flowers he brought, find a vase and some water, then send him away with a gentle apology and a plea for a little more time. Kealey knew she did not bring the flowers upstairs until he was gone, as she didn’t want to give him the chance to explore the house. It was not a subtle gesture, but he couldn’t despise her for it; he knew she was just looking out for her patient.

  “How is she?” he asked. It was another part of their ritual, and he received the expected response.

  “Getting better. Healing.” She smiled again, but there was a trace of sadness there. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought this woman had lobbied on his behalf. “She’s eating a little bit more, which is a good thing. She went outside yesterday after you left, and I think that helped.”