The Assassin

by Stephen Coonts

  Consequently Marisa often thought of her real mother when the other children were fast asleep, saw her in the glow of her imagination. Her real mother was a beautiful, kind, understanding, gentle woman who laughed a lot and loved her little Marisa. Although in fact Marisa had no memory of ever seeing her mother, over time she convinced herself that this woman she saw in her dream was indeed Mama.

  Being a child, she finally told the dorm lady all about Mama, about how she looked, how she wore her hair, her smile and laugh and touch. The dorm lady told the headmistress, who mentioned it to Uncle when he came.

  She remembered Abu Qasim staring down at her as the headmistress talked, the look in his eyes.

  Years later she wondered about the hold Qasim had on Georges and Grisella, the hold that would make them pretend to be parents of someone else’s daughter. Was it money? Grisella certainly liked her jewelry and fashionable dresses . . . and after all, in the diplomatic service Georges undoubtedly had to keep up appearances.

  Or was it something else, a dark secret, blackmail?

  When she was a teenager Marisa loathed Grisella and favored the blackmail theory. The woman was capable of anything, she believed. Grisella had probably murdered someone, a deranged lover, perhaps—any lover of hers would have to be deranged—and somehow Abu Qasim had learned about it. Qasim . . . yes, with his air of knowing all, back then she thought him capable of blackmail. Years later she found that he was capable of the most heinous crimes imaginable. Blackmail would have been a misdemeanor for him.

  Had Qasim murdered her mother?

  Tonight, in the cottage in Kent, Marisa Petrou lay in the darkness turning that possibility over and over in her mind, as she had done for thousands of nights, ever since she was a child.

  It was almost midnight when Eide Masmoudi and Radwan Ali met on the sidewalk outside the mosque. There was a trash can on the street corner, full but not overflowing, and as he went by he stuffed the tightly capped bottle in there. Just having it on his person was a huge risk—he had carried the damn thing far enough.

  They crossed the street and were walking down the sidewalk when Radwan glanced over his shoulder. “What did you put in the trash?” he asked.

  Eide looked back. Someone was reaching into the can, pulling out trash. He didn’t recognize the figure under the streetlight. “Who is that?”

  “Looks like Omar to me, that suck-up from Libya, the one who’s always spying on everyone. He must have seen you put something in there.”

  Eide jerked at Radwan’s arm and kept walking. “I put a bottle in there,” he said. “Jake Grafton gave me a small bottle with a chemical of some kind to pour in the drinking water. It will kill the sheikh, stop his heart. Maybe tonight.”

  Radwan stared into Eide’s face.

  “It’ll look like a heart attack,” Eide said.

  Radwan stood paralyzed, trying to process it. Eide grabbed his arm and forced him to keep walking. “Grafton wants us out of here. Now.”

  “Oh, man . . .”

  “I’m going to call Grafton and set up a meet. He’ll send us back to the States.”

  “All my stuff is in our flat,” Radwan protested. “My money, everything. I gotta go by the flat and get my stuff.”

  “Let me call Grafton first.” Eide removed his cell phone from his pocket and punched in a number he had memorized. They continued along the sidewalk.

  As Eide waited for the phone to send the call through, Radwan said, “Man, if the sheikh croaks and we rabbit, the holy warriors are going to smell a rat. They’re going to be really pissed. I mean, like, really pissed.”

  Eide snapped the telephone shut. “So what do you want to do?”

  “Man, if that asshole just drops dead of a heart attack and we sit there with our mouths shut, looking innocent and heartbroken, who’s to know?”

  “Grafton said the risk was too great.”

  “He doesn’t think we have the balls for this.”

  “I don’t know that I do,” Eide said as he forced himself to put one foot in front of the other. He had his cell phone in his left hand, his right in his pocket, and was staring at the sidewalk.

  “Well, by God, I do,” Radwan Ali declared. “These jihad fools are pissing on believers everywhere. They’re pissing on the Prophet. They’re pissing on Allah!”

  “It’s that kind of world.”

  “Allah will help us. He’ll give us strength. The truth is we are on His side. Do you believe or don’t you?”

  I came awake when I heard someone moving in the room. My pistol was a lump in my pants pocket, and Marisa’s Walther was in my coat. I lay frozen, listening. The glow from the light outside on the stoop gave the room a smidgen of illumination.

  “Are you awake?” Marisa’s voice.

  “Yeah,” I said. I moved then. I reached into my pocket and got the pistol in my hand. Slid it out. Since I had my overcoat over me she couldn’t see what I was doing.

  I found her with my eyes. She was wearing some kind of robe and was barefooted. Since she hadn’t had a chance to pack when we left the château—yesterday?—presumably she found the robe in a closet. She held the robe shut with her arms, which were wrapped around her chest.

  Marisa sat down in the stuffed chair across from me, so I relaxed a little. If she intended to stick a knife in me, she was going to have to come flying out of that chair to do it. She used a hand to brush hair back out of her face.

  “I want to talk to Jake Grafton,” she said.

  “Umm.” I checked the luminous hands of my watch. About 2:30 A.M. here, 9:30 P.M. last night on the East Coast. “What about?”

  “Abu Qasim.”

  “One of his favorite subjects,” I admitted. What the heck. Grafton rarely said anything interesting, and Marisa might. After all, Grafton told me to pump her. I got my cell phone out, flipped it open and pushed the button. Grafton’s cell number came up. I pushed the green button and listened to the rings. He got it on the fourth one.

  “Yes, Tommy.”

  “Marisa wants to talk to you.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “Quiet as a grave.”

  “Okay, put her on.”

  I threw the coat back and stood, reached, handed the phone to Marisa. Her eyes swept over the pistol I had in my right hand and fastened on the cell phone. She grasped the thing in both hands and said, “Hello.”

  I went to the window by the front door and looked out. At least the limo was still there.

  When I turned around Marisa was walking toward the kitchen, whispering into the telephone. I got a few words, but only a few.

  I debated following her—after all, she was using my phone—but didn’t. I dropped into the chair she had vacated, put the pistol back in my pocket and yawned. Her voice was merely a low murmur.

  Ten minutes passed, then fifteen. I was starting to nod off sitting up when Marisa came back and handed me my phone.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  When she turned away I caught the glistening of tears on her cheeks. I reached out, grabbed her, pulled her gently onto my lap. She didn’t resist. I wrapped my arms around her and she laid her head on my shoulder.

  After a while I realized she was asleep.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  It was the pounding on the apartment door that awoke Eide Masmoudi. He slept beside Radwan Ali on a foldout couch, while the other two men who shared the apartment shared the only bed in the only bedroom.

  Ali was also instantly awake. It was only a few minutes after five in the morning . . . still dark outside.

  As the pounding sounded through the apartment, Ali leaped from the bed and stepped around the kitchen counter. Masmoudi put on his trousers and shirt, then unlocked the door.

  Three men from the mosque burst into the room. One of them was Omar from Libya. When Eide saw him, he knew he and Radwan were in big, big trouble.

  The other two, Osama and Fawaz, were older men, trusted confidants of Sheikh al-Taji.

  Before a
nyone could say a word, the bedroom door opened and Eide’s roommates appeared wearing trousers and T-shirts. In the kitchen area, Radwan was pulling on his trousers and shirt.

  “Sheikh al-Taji is dead,” Osama roared, his eyes on Eide.

  “How . . . ?” asked one of the men from the bedroom.

  “Poisoned,” Fawaz thundered.

  “Poisoned?”

  “He died in his sleep. Omar saw this man”—Fawaz’s arm shot out, his finger rigid, inches from Eide’s face—”throw away a bottle when he left the mosque. He fixed dinner. Hours later the sheikh died in bed.”

  “What bottle?” Radwan asked.

  Omar pulled it from his pocket and displayed it.

  “That had eyewash in it,” Radwan said disgustedly. “I saw him use it.”

  “Eyewash?”

  “Medicine for the eyes,” Radwan said. He lifted his chin and made a pouring motion with his hands.

  “It has no label,” Osama objected. The doubt was beginning to creep into his voice.

  Eide shrugged. “It came off.”

  “I say the bottle held poison,” Omar roared, loud enough to wake the sleepers on the floors above and below.

  Eide held out his hand, took the bottle. He unscrewed the cap, sniffed the bottle, then licked the top. Ran his tongue around it. Then he tossed it at Omar. “And if I don’t die, then what?”

  “But the bottle is empty,” Omar shouted. His eyes shot an appeal for help to Osama and Fawaz.

  “How do you know the sheikh was poisoned?” one of Eide’s roommates asked.

  “He was a healthy man. Healthy men don’t die in their sleep.”

  “Sometimes they do,” Radwan said conversationally.

  “Wash for the eyes . . .” Osama scrutined Eide’s face, then Radwan’s. “The sheikh is dead. He may have been murdered. If he was . . .” He faced the roommates. “No one leaves this room. We’ll be back.”

  With that Osama pushed his way toward the door. Fawaz followed. Omar was last, still holding the bottle. He didn’t look at Eide or Radwan.

  When the door closed, Eide looked around at the other three. “He was a great man, and the infidels feared him. Rightly so. They are right to be suspicious.”

  “It is the will of Allah,” one of the roommates said, then headed for the bathroom.

  In five minutes everyone was back in bed. That was when Radwan whispered, “If they go to a pharmacy and look at eyewash bottles, they will see none like that one.”

  Eide looked at Radwan and Radwan looked at Eide.

  “There are no pharmacies open at this hour.”

  “The one on Regency Street might be.”

  “Wait,” Eide whispered.

  He let fifteen minutes pass, fifteen slow, agonizing minutes, then they got slowly out of bed, as soundlessly as they could, and put their clothes back on again. Radwan went to the kitchen and took two paring knives from the drawer while Eide looked out the window at the fog that muzzled the streetlights and filled the space between the buildings. One knife Radwan handed to Eide, who put it in his coat pocket. They found their wallets, their cell phones. Carrying their shoes, they tiptoed toward the door, opened it as quietly as possible and went through, then pulled it shut.

  They paused on the stairs and put on their shoes, then continued down the three stories to the street.

  When they exited the building, they almost knocked Omar down. He was leaning on the stoop railing.

  The collision was unexpected, but Omar’s reaction told both men precisely where they stood. Omar had been left to watch them. “Traitors,” he hissed and grabbed for Radwan.

  Radwan slashed at Omar’s throat with his knife; blood gushed forth. Omar sank to the bricks of the stoop, holding his throat. He fumbled for his cell phone. Eide had already started to run, but he whirled and came back, grabbed the cell phone from Omar and kicked him in the face. Then he and Radwan ran into the fog.

  After they had covered several blocks, they slowed to a walk and Eide used his cell phone to call Jake Grafton. While he was on the phone, out of the corner of his eye he saw movement. Fawaz and Osama came walking out of the fog toward them down a side street.

  Oh, bad break!

  Eide and Radwan sprinted for their lives.

  The cell phone vibrating in my pocket woke me. I had been sleeping in the chair. Marisa was asleep on the couch, where I had placed her sometime during the night. I had covered her with my coat.

  “Tommy,” Jake Grafton said when I answered, “Tom and Jerry need your help.” Since this was an unsecure line, Grafton was using code names. Tom was Eide Masmoudi and Jerry was Radwan Ali.

  As he talked, I went to the window and looked out. The stoop light was glowing into thick fog. I looked at my watch; dawn was still an hour or so away.

  After he hung up, I went over to the couch. Marisa’s eyes were open and she was looking at me. I bent down and whispered, so we wouldn’t wake Isolde in the bedroom.

  “I have to go out. Going to take the limo and leave you two here. Don’t make any telephone calls, don’t go out, don’t answer the door. I’ll be back in a few hours, I hope.”

  She nodded.

  I put on my coat and covered her with hers. Her eyes stayed on me.

  Her little Walther was a lump in the left pocket of my coat. I took it out, checked the safety and handed it to her. “Just in case,” I said.

  She put the pistol in the pocket of her coat, then pulled the coat up around her chin. Those big brown eyes stared at me.

  “He will try to kill you,” she whispered. “Or he will send a professional killer named Khadr. He has used him before. Khadr was probably the one who killed the people yesterday at our château, I think.”

  I bent over and kissed her on the lips, then left. Made sure the door latched behind me.

  If she poisons me one of these days, I am going to regret that kiss right up until the lights go out. Still, it tasted mighty good.

  The holy warriors were right behind Eide and Radwan. They couldn’t see them, but they could hear their running feet whenever they paused for a few seconds, and they could hear them shouting at each other, checking alleys and side streets.

  Radwan was breathing hard—and running slower. Eide’s years of recreational jogging had left him in much better shape.

  “I can’t go much farther,” Radwan huffed at one point.

  “Run or die,” Eide shot back.

  They kept running.

  The issue was decided at a major street. They darted across . . . and a speeding car loomed out of the fog. The driver slammed on his brakes and lay on his horn. Eide managed to avoid it, but the fender smacked Radwan’s left leg a horrible thump and spun him to the pavement. As the car screeched to a halt, Eide checked his friend, grabbed his arm, tried to pull him up.

  Radwan moaned.

  Now Eide saw. His left leg was broken. The thigh bone was snapped and the leg bent at a horrible angle.

  “You can’t carry me,” Radwan said between clenched teeth. “Allah is with me. Save yourself.”

  Eide grabbed Radwan and pulled him toward the car. Radwan wrapped his arms around Eide’s arm and pulled himself upright by sheer strength of will. Eide reached for the passenger door handle, which was locked, immobile.

  “Hospital! Open the door,” he thundered at the driver, who was staring at him with a gaping mouth. He must have seemed a terrible apparition, a brown man sweating profusely, every muscle in his face and neck taut, trying to get into the car.

  The driver floored the accelerator. Radwan lost his grip on Eide and fell to the street with a groan as the car roared away into the fog.

  “Leave me,” Radwan implored. “Save yourself.”

  Eide looked around desperately. He heard the running feet again. There was just no way. “We’ll meet again in Paradise,” he said.

  “Go.” Radwan pushed at him. Eide turned and ran.

  Outside the cottage I paused by the car to listen and look. The air was chilly, at
least twenty degrees colder than it had been yesterday evening when we arrived, so the fog was almost a solid. Dark, of course, in that hour before first light, and quiet. Every now and then I caught the distant low rumble of a jet running high, but nothing else.

  I tried to remember what day this was, and decided it was Sunday.

  The only light in that dark soup was the little glow of the light above the front door.

  Was there anyone out here in this stuff?

  I closed my eyes and concentrated on what I could hear.

  Nothing.

  I opened the car door and got in, started the engine and fed gas.

  Sunday morning, and the roads were nearly empty, which was fortunate, since I drove way too fast for the conditions. I parked at a subway station on the outskirts of London and took the next train in. I kept looking at my watch. Six thirty A.M. in St. James’ Park, the third bench in from the southwest corner, Grafton had said.

  Should I be precisely on time, or early? I thought early, if I could make it, and as I trotted toward the entrance to the park, I thought I would get there with maybe ten minutes to spare.

  Eide Masmoudi found the bench in St. James’ Park that he had told Grafton about and stood in the fog trying to catch his breath. He checked his watch. A few more minutes. The big American would be on time—of that Eide was sure. Tommy Carmellini. Eide had seen him on several occasions but had never spoken to him. Jake Grafton trusted him, and that was enough.

  He threw himself on the bench and stared about him into the fog. After a few seconds he found that he couldn’t sit.

  He stood, shifted from one leg to another, walked around a little, listened and peered into the opaque gloom that swirled about him. He held his cell phone in his hands, just in case.

  The sheikh was dead, he told himself. That was something positive. The sheikh and the others were so happy last night. They killed somebody . . . with a car bomb, probably. Like children, they were delighted by explosions, which fascinated them: The split second of extreme violence appealed to their imaginations and their souls. He didn’t get much of what they said, just a few whispers, then they would laugh.