The Assassin

by Stephen Coonts

  He didn’t know who they killed. Not that it mattered to them. They killed someone, some infidel, and they really didn’t care who. Just murdering someone made them feel good, empowered, important. They were like dogs, pissing on the pillars of a great civilization that they neither understood nor felt a part of.

  He thought about Radwan. If only the driver hadn’t panicked!

  Inshallah. It would be as Allah willed it.

  Eide took a deep breath and exhaled. He forced himself to think about his mother. She was in Paradise with her husband, that he knew, and he silently thanked Allah for that.

  He heard someone coming.

  By some quirk he could hear soft footsteps approaching. On the sidewalk . . . from the direction of the corner gate. Grafton’s man would come from there, probably.

  He turned to face that way. A figure solidified out of the fog, a man wearing a business suit. Out for a stroll this morning, carrying an umbrella in his left hand, wearing a soft hat . . .

  “Good morning,” he said in perfect English as he walked the last few feet toward Eide, who was still standing in front of the bench.

  “Hello,” Eide said, visibly relaxing.

  Now the man’s right hand swept up. He had a pistol in it. Eide saw the pistol with its fat silencer too late to react.

  Eide forced his eyes from the black hole in the front of the silencer to the man’s face, which was partially hidden under the hat brim. It was a hard face, he could see that.

  The man was going to kill him—he knew it and accepted it.

  “I would pray,” he said.

  “If you wish.”

  He looked about, wondering in which direction Mecca lay. It didn’t matter, he realized. He went to his knees, bent his head to the sidewalk and began to pray.

  The bullet caught him in the back of the head. His body toppled. The man took a step closer and shot him again in the head. Then he picked up the spent brass cartridges and pocketed them.

  Another man loomed out of the fog, but he approached the bench from behind. He, too, had a pistol in his hand.

  “Quickly,” the first man said. “Sit him on the bench and give me his cell phone.”

  They pocketed their guns and lifted Eide onto the bench. With the cell phones in hand, the first man led the second into the fog behind the bench. He stopped and checked the telephone numbers Masmoudi had called last.

  “He called Jake Grafton,” Abu Qasim said. “So someone will be coming to meet him here, and soon.”

  “Should we kill him, too?” Khadr asked.

  Abu Qasim pocketed the telephone as he considered. “No, I think not. I want you to stay here. Move forward just enough so that you can see the bench and anyone who arrives, and if he examines the body of the traitor, shoot him. Make sure you get at least one bullet in him. Then flee.”

  “He will probably be armed,” Khadr pointed out. In his entire career he had never been in a gunfight, and Tommy Carmellini was the only man who ever managed to fire a shot at him. He did not relish the prospect of giving Carmellini another chance.

  “Perhaps,” Qasim acknowledged.

  Khadr said no more. Had anyone but Abu Qasim told him to do this, he would have refused.

  With his umbrella firmly in hand, Abu Qasim walked away into the fog.

  The morning looked like wet concrete when I came out of the subway station, although the sky was trying to get lighter in the east. The fog swirled like smoke when disturbed. Not many people out and about yet—not any sane ones, anyhow. The moisture felt cold against my cheeks and forehead, almost like a wet cloth. Damp and cold and clammy.

  I felt my phone vibrating.

  “Yeah,” I said when I got the button punched and the thing against my ear.

  “They aren’t answering their cell phones,” Grafton said. “They may have turned them off so they won’t attract attention.”

  “That’s one possibility,” I agreed as I strode through the wrought-iron gate that marked this entrance to the park.

  “Be careful, Tommy,” he said, and the line went dead.

  I put the phone back in my shirt pocket and put my right hand into my coat pocket, where I had the Springfield stowed. It felt solid, reassuring, as I walked along in that dark gray, wet, gauzy world.

  I found the first bench beside the sidewalk easily enough. Eide and Radwan were supposed to be on the third one. Needless to say, I didn’t know how far that was from where I stood. Ten yards, fifty, a hundred?

  I stood by the bench, near a light pole, listening to the silence. There was a background of muffled traffic noises, the occasional rumble of a subway train that went under the street I had just left . . . and . . . a plane, somewhere high and far away.

  Now I heard steps. A man. Hard leather heels, walking purposefully, striding along the sidewalk.

  Even as I turned in his direction he appeared out of the gloom, a man in an overcoat wearing a soft brimmed hat and carrying an umbrella. He nodded at me and strode on. I listened to his steps fading.

  I walked the way he had come, looking for the second bench. It was perhaps twenty yards past the first one. I got my first glimpse of the darker shape of it from about fifteen feet away. The light on the pole above it was lit, illuminating the fog for a few feet around.

  Never in my life had I seen fog that thick. It seemed to be getting thicker as the dawn progressed, if that was possible.

  I walked on.

  Barking. Actually it was yapping, just ahead. A little dog, yapping at something. And a woman’s voice, scolding the dog.

  Now I saw them, coming toward me. She was tugging the dog along on its leash. It didn’t want to come. It was looking behind her, still yapping, worried about something. “Now, Winston,” she said.

  She saw me and flashed a grin.

  I gave the dog room. Getting dog-bit sets a bad precedent for the week.

  The third bench began to take shape as I approached. A man was sitting on it.

  Two more steps and I could see him fairly well. His head was down, with his chin on his chest. He was totally relaxed, as if he were asleep.

  Another step closer. It was Eide Masmoudi. He didn’t stir as I approached.

  “Hey,” I said.

  He didn’t move.

  I froze. Ran my eyes around. Listened.

  So where was Radwan?

  Another two steps . . . I could see Eide better. His eyes were open.

  I stepped off the pavement, walked up behind him. That’s when I saw the two red spots behind Eide’s right ear, about two inches apart. Two small-caliber bullets in the brain.

  Tom—Eide Masmoudi—was extremely dead.

  As I stood there trying to process what I was seeing, I felt a cool breeze on my cheek. The wind was picking up. There was more light—the sun was above the horizon and illuminating this mess.

  Eide hadn’t been shot sitting here. Someone had arranged his body on this bench. That struck me as unusual. Most killers, I thought, did their thing and got the hell out of Dodge.

  This killer had lingered. He had taken the time to arrange the body so at first glance Eide appeared to be sleeping. Why?

  The cool wind on my cheek was clearing the fog. Visibility was rapidly improving. I could see trees, stark black things without leaves, and rocks . . . bushes, and the second bench. Empty.

  The killer didn’t want anyone calling the bobbies immediately because he was still here! That realization hit me like a hammer, and I ducked down behind the bench.

  As I did so I heard a pffft of something passing by my head. I knew what that was, by God—a subsonic bullet.

  I jerked the pistol from my pocket and ran toward two big rocks that I could see twenty feet behind the bench. Dove through the air and landed behind them as something spanged the rock and went zinging away.

  I tried to glue myself to the back of the biggest boulder.

  So the killer was still here and he wanted big dumb me. Lovely. Just fucking lovely!

  I had
no idea where he was. I found out real quick, though. The next shot came from ahead of me—I saw the muzzle flash, just a small wink—and the bullet hit me in the left shoulder. A stab of pain went through me.

  I crawled around the rock as fast as I could go. At least two more shots whacked into the rock, maybe three, before I managed to get the stone between me and the shooter.

  I worked my left arm and hand. Nothing broken, but my shirt was getting cold and wet from blood and the wound stung like hell.

  I figured he was using a small-caliber auto pistol with a big silencer, the same weapon he had used on Eide. Without sights, the weapon would be impossible to shoot accurately at any distance. He had managed to do a number on me with it, though.

  I still had my Springfield in my right hand, and it had sights. And a three-inch barrel. Perfect for shooting someone ten feet away, but not quite what the doctor ordered for a Sunday morning shoot-out in the park.

  At least I knew where he was. Or where he fired from. No doubt he was moving.

  I got my feet under me and went running out to my right, away from the rock toward a set of trees that would allow me to work back to his shooting position.

  I felt something tug at my coat as I ran.

  Got a glimpse of him just before I got to the trees, so I snapped off an unaimed shot just to keep him honest—and to alert any police who might be strolling though the park on Sunday morning.

  The fog was lifting, but there was still some, so the report didn’t sound all that loud. Sort of a loud pop.

  I didn’t stop behind the trees, but tried to keep them between him and me as I closed on him.

  I had the pistol in both hands now, and I wanted to shoot. Caught a flash of him running the other way—he wasn’t waiting for the cops—so I cut loose. Fired three times.

  After the last shot I didn’t see him, so I ran in that direction. If he was lying on the ground waiting, he was going to get a free shot at me, but unless he drilled me between the eyes, I was going to kill him with this 9 mm.

  He wasn’t on the ground as I came thundering up. I looked all over, the pistol ready in my hands as if I were Jack Bauer, but he had disappeared. Made a tactical retreat, I suspected, running like a rabbit. But which way?

  Not a soul did I see, any way I looked. What I saw was short dead grass and naked black trees and stick bushes and some rocks and paved paths—sidewalks—in every direction. Here and there a bench for better days. The sun was a faint ball in a skuzzy gray sky, hanging in the trees. Visibility up to maybe a half mile, a chill wind taking the sweat right off my brow . . . and my shoulder hurt like hell. I guess I relaxed a little.

  So the punch in the chest when the bullet hit almost took me off my feet.

  There was a ditch maybe seventy or eighty feet ahead, and the shooter was in it. I got a glimpse of a head sticking up, and maybe a smidgen of the pistol. Then another round sailed by my cheek and I realized that I was going to have to find cover or die.

  Scared the hell outta that guy, so I did.

  I ran toward the nearest tree and got behind it. Damn thing was pretty skinny, but it seemed to cover the essentials.

  A bullet had thumped me in the chest, so I wondered how badly I was hit. I reached inside my coat, found the sore place . . . and my cell phone. I pulled it from my shirt pocket. It was ruined. A bullet had smacked it and was stuck in the thing, with just the base sticking out. Looked like maybe .22 caliber. I dropped the phone back in my pocket. Checked the sore place with my fingers, didn’t feel blood.

  I ooched one eye around the tree and looked for my would-be killer. Didn’t see him. I scanned the grass where the ditch should be. He had gone in one direction or the other, but I didn’t know which.

  He was certainly a ballsy bastard—I’ll give him that. He was whanging away with a silenced .22, trying to wound me just enough that he could safely approach and deliver the coup de grâce, as he did to Eide Masmoudi.

  I wondered if the guy was Abu Qasim. Or that killer Marisa had warned me about, Khadr.

  So what did he expect me to do? Stay hidden and call the police? I would if I had a phone; he didn’t know he put it out of action, though.

  I didn’t figure he would stay around long. I looked right and left, waited for him to come out of the ditch or creek, whatever it was.

  Just when I was ready to give up and charge his last position, I saw a dark shape run up the bank to my left, maybe a hundred yards away, onto a paved sidewalk. He galloped off into the trees.

  I was tempted to go after him but didn’t. All he had to do was duck behind a tree and wait for me to get within range.

  I put my pistol in my pocket and headed back for the bench where Eide had started his eternal sleep. My shoulder hurt with every step, and my chest ached.

  When I got there a female police officer was checking the corpse, ensuring he was dead. The radio in her hand was squawking continuously, a stream of unintelligible noise. An older man with a big dog straining on a leash was watching her.

  When the bobby glanced at me I said, “The guy who did it to this guy is gone. How about calling an ambulance for me?”

  “What’s wrong with you?” she said sharply, frowning at my criminal mug.

  “He got one in me. It’s bleeding and hurts like hell. And have your dispatcher call MI-5.”

  The dog barked at me. Barked and snarled and barked some more. Lunged forward on his leash.

  The cop was on her radio, so I asked the guy who was holding the hound back, “Did you see anything?”

  “I arrived just a moment ago. Out for a stroll to exercise old Jack.”

  “Then get the fuck outta here,” I said nastily.

  A wounded look crossed his face, but he left, dragging the dog.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  When his cell phone vibrated, Jake Grafton removed it from his pocket and looked at the number. The call was from the agency office in London. He was sitting in the library of Huntington Winchester’s house in Connecticut. Winchester was there, as were Simon Cairnes and John Hay Smith. They watched him punch the button and say, “Yes.”

  “Boss, Carmellini. They got Tom. He was dead when I got to the meet—two bullets in the brain. Have no idea where Jerry is. And the shooter got one into me. He also killed my cell phone. I’ve been to the hospital for a Band-Aid and am back here at the office.”

  “How bad are you hurt?”

  “Silenced twenty-two bullet. Went into my left shoulder a couple of inches. Missed my tiny little heart by a mile. They dug it out. I’ll be okay. Doc told me to take some aspirin and call him tomorrow.”

  “Go get Marisa and Isolde and bring them to the States. Have the people there make travel arrangements. Catch the first possible flight.”

  “Okay.”

  “Keep me advised.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry, Tommy.”

  “Hated to see him like that. I never even spoke to him, but he seemed like a hell of a guy.”

  “He was.”

  “I threw a few slugs at the shooter, on the off-chance. I don’t think any of them connected.”

  “Get some more bullets.”

  “Yes, sir,” Carmellini said, and the connection broke.

  Jake Grafton put the telephone back in his pocket and looked at the three men seated in the chairs around him. He tried to smile; it came out a grimace.

  “So,” he said. “Where were we?”

  “ ‘Get some more bullets.’ Want to tell us what that was all about?” Jerry Hay Smith asked. He wore what was left of his hair in a Trump combover.

  “One of my men shot at a man and missed,” Jake Grafton said. “He’ll get another chance.”

  Simon Cairnes and Jerry Hay Smith stirred uneasily. They had been summoned last night to come to Winchester’s house immediately. It was now—Grafton glanced at his watch—ten after five in the morning.

  “I agreed to contribute money to help Winchester,” Cairnes said, “and I’ve done that
. I’ve given Hunt every penny he asked for, almost a million dollars total. I’d like to know where the money has gone and what you’ve managed to accomplish.”

  “My men—your employees—have assassinated six prominent terrorists.”

  “That’s just a number. Gimme some names.”

  Jake Grafton recited them.

  “What I want to know—what we all want to know—is this: Is Islamic terrorism less of a threat today than it was three months ago? Have we made any difference at all?”

  “That,” Grafton acknowledged, “is precisely the right question. And the answer is unknowable.”

  Simon Cairnes stirred uneasily. His gaze swept around to Winchester and Smith. “You two want to say anything?”

  Smith piped up. “Last night you called and invited—no, demanded!—that I come immediately to Winchester’s house. So here I am. Tell me whatever it is you think could not wait for business hours.”

  “Do you have a cassette recorder in your pocket?” Grafton asked pleasantly. “Or are you using a cell phone with an open line?”

  “I don’t have to answer that,” Jerry Hay Smith said, with a bit of belligerence creeping into his voice.

  “You do if you ever expect to have that recording admitted as evidence in a court of law. Now I’m asking you again, are you making a record of this conversation?”

  Smith glowered. “Yes,” he muttered.

  “What court do you think we’re likely to wind up in?”

  “I think someone might sue me for libel, and I want a recording to protect myself.”

  “What do you think of that, Mr. Cairnes? Are you aware that Mr. Smith is writing a book about you, Mr. Winchester, and the other people in this venture? He’s up to sixty-seven thousand words, by the way.”

  Simon Cairnes’ face was a mask of cold fury as he stared at Jerry Hay Smith, who was staring at Grafton. “How did you learn that number?” the journalist demanded of the admiral through clenched teeth.