The Assassin

by Stephen Coonts

  “I’ve been called a lot of things, but never that,” the president said with a grimace.

  “What is Qasim going to do next?” Molina asked.

  “That’s just it—we don’t know,” Grafton explained. “So far he has been looking for an opening, going after Winchester’s pals one by one as the opportunity presented itself. He isn’t doing it to intimidate or terrorize us; he’s doing it to keep his organization intact and his holy warriors motivated by showing them that he—and they—can successfully fight back. And that is precisely the reason Winchester and the others wanted in—to prove that they could fight back. Every group of people since the dawn of time has looked for ways to successfully resist their enemies. That motivation is what makes us human.”

  “Which gets us where?”

  “Abu Qasim will take any opening that presents an opportunity to hurt us at minimum risk to himself. Our challenge is to trap him.”

  “Are we talking one terrorist or two? Or ten or twenty?” the president asked with a frown. “How many?”

  “I don’t know. But believe me, one good one is more of a threat than a hundred mediocre ones.”

  Molina and the president had run out of questions.

  Grafton continued, addressing the president: “On Thursday of next week you are scheduled to appear at a political fund-raiser in New York. It’s probably been announced and been in the newspapers and on the Internet for weeks.”

  The president nodded.

  “You’re going to China this weekend for three days. That was probably also publicized.”

  This time Molina nodded.

  “The rest of your schedule for the next two weeks looks benign. No public events, just the usual preparation for the next session of Congress, budget talks and so forth. I think it’s possible that Abu Qasim may make a try during your New York visit. I’d like to help him out, with your permission, by including Winchester, Smith, Cairnes and Isolde Petrou as invited guests at the fund-raiser. The press secretary can put their names on the list and give it to the press. I suggest that Sal call Winchester and extend invitations.”

  “I thought no one knew what Qasim looks like.”

  “No one but his daughter, Marisa. Carmellini is sitting on her. She’ll be at the fund-raiser with Tommy and me.”

  The president rubbed his chin. “Qasim was in Europe, you think?”

  “Probably still is. He’ll be coming this way—you can bet the ranch on that.”

  “Any chance Homeland Security or the FBI can pick up his trail?”

  Grafton shrugged. “I’ve talked to the secretary of Homeland and the FBI director. I have another meeting with Homeland and my boss, Wilkins, scheduled for tomorrow. We can only hope.”

  It went without saying that the Secret Service would pull out all the stops searching the hotel where the fund-raiser would be held. They would even use radar to look at the structure of the building.

  “Are you going to be able to keep Winchester alive until then?”

  “I’ll try.”

  The president looked at Molina. “Sal?”

  Molina shrugged. “This mess will probably go nuclear before then. If the press gets wind of this . . .” His voice trailed off as he scratched his forehead. He looked at Grafton. “Got any other ideas?”

  “No.”

  “Darn.” Molina said it softly, almost inaudibly.

  The president came to life, sat up straight. “Do you trust Marisa Petrou?” he demanded of Jake.

  “Within reason, I suppose. I’d give her a quarter for a parking meter.”

  “You’re lying,” Molina said acidly. “You wouldn’t trust her with a wooden nickel.”

  Jake Grafton didn’t respond.

  The president smiled grimly. “Admiral, remind me to never, ever play poker with you. You’re going for the whole pot with nary a pair. You don’t even have an ace. You’ve got nothing but a lousy black queen.”

  Grafton nodded.

  “I can’t wait until the wolves in Congress get their fangs in this,” the president said. “It’s going to be one hell of a circus.” He shooed them both out.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I awoke on the descent into Dulles. The sky was dark, full of clouds. Soon the glow of Washington’s lights lit the clouds from underneath; then, as we continued to descend, the sea of lights became visible from horizon to horizon. Marisa woke up and busied herself getting put together while I got glimpses out the window.

  As the wheels squeaked on the runway, the flight attendant, a woman, came on the PA: “Let me be the first to welcome you to the United States.” As a cheer erupted from the tourist section, Marisa smiled at me.

  A man from the Company met us when we came out of customs/immigration and drove us straight to Jake Grafton’s condo in Rosslyn. While Isolde and Marisa were nibbling snacks in the kitchen with Callie Grafton, the admiral motioned me into his den. He sat and listened while I went through everything that had happened, in minute detail, since we had last seen each other.

  When I finished my litany of stupidity and death, he didn’t say anything, so I added, “I’m sorry, Admiral.”

  “You don’t owe anyone an apology, Tommy. Not me, the dead people or the gods. You did the best you could. That’s all any of us can do.”

  “Well, we have them here in the States now. With all those gun-toters at Langley to help us, a mouse couldn’t get through to them.”

  He took a deep breath and his eyebrows rose, then fell. “Unfortunately I can’t get all those gun-toters. I can’t get any of them. Wilkins and his deputies nixed that. They have zero confidence in me, and they say that if indeed we do have a squad of dedicated terrorists heading this way, the Company needs all its security personnel in place and on the job to prevent a terrorist event at Langley. Hard to argue with that.”

  I was incredulous. “Can’t you get anybody?”

  “I brought back some of the guys that have been hunting in the Middle East, the ones I could pull out without blowing their covers. The FBI has loaned me a couple of people, and I have you. If you can get your pal Willie Varner to help, we can add one more to the list. That’s about the crop.”

  I felt nauseous. “Why don’t you get Sal Molina to tell Wilkins to cooperate or ship out?”

  “If I did that, I’d be finished in the Company. It was Wilkins’ call and he made it. Period.”

  “So we salute and soldier on.”

  “Something like that.”

  I lost it then.

  Grafton waited until I ran down, then said, “The women are sleeping in the guest bedroom tonight. You’re on the couch. Tomorrow morning, go see Willie.”

  He opened a drawer and took out a pistol, a 1911 Colt automatic in .45 ACP, which he passed across the desk. I popped the magazine out, then pulled back the slide and checked for brass. It was loaded, all right. I snapped the magazine back in and looked it over.

  “It was my father’s,” the admiral said. “He carried it during World War II. I want it back.”

  “He ever have to shoot anybody with it?” I asked as I tucked it into my belt.

  “He once told me he did, then refused to answer questions about it.”

  “Marisa said Qasim wants you dead, too.”

  “By God, I hope so,” Grafton said fiercely. “I hope he attends to it personally instead of sending his mechanic’s assistant, Khadr.”

  “He might also decide that Callie will do in a pinch. Or your daughter, Amy.”

  Jake Grafton nodded once. His lips were compressed into a straight, thin line. “I’ve been thinking about that, too,” he murmured. “Come on, let’s do the tour.”

  He led me into the hall and told me about his neighbors’ condos. There were actually four on each floor. The usual elevator shaft had two elevators, and beside it a stairwell. Anyone could get into the stairwell on any floor, but only the lobby and basement doors could be opened from the inside without an access code, the admiral told me. We were on the eighth floor. First
we climbed the stairs to the top floor—actually the fourteenth floor, although it was marked ‘ROOF’—Grafton keyed his secret code into the keypad that unlocked the door, and we stepped out onto the roof.

  The surrounding buildings were a couple of stories lower, so this one stuck up out of the skyline a little. The flat roof was surrounded by a chest-high rail. About half the area was covered by a wooden deck that stood up maybe six inches above the asphalt goo that made the roof waterproof. Vents and pipes stuck up everywhere, a metal forest. Three barbecue grills were chained to pipes so they wouldn’t blow away. Someone had put a few flowerpots up here, and now, in the dead of winter, the plant carcasses they contained looked forlorn. It didn’t take us long to see all there was to see.

  We clumped down a flight, then rode the elevator to the lobby level, where we went out the main entrance. The lobby door was locked. People could key in their access code to unlock it or could buzz someone in the building; the front door could be unlocked from any condo. Once in the lobby, one could enter the stairwell or summon an elevator.

  “The Homeowners Association has talked for years about putting a keypad system in the elevators, but they haven’t gotten around to it,” Grafton said. “The elevators will take you to any floor.”

  A security camera looked at the lobby, which contained a listing of the building’s tenants and a bank of mailboxes, nothing else.

  We went outside and walked down the alley to the back of the building, which faced east, as did Grafton’s condo high above. On the back of the building at ground level, the basement level, was a loading dock, which allowed furniture to be moved into the basement and elevators via a sliding overhead metal door, now padlocked shut. Beside the big door was a personnel door with the lock in the doorknob. I examined it. It was a run-of-the-mill commercial lock, easy to pick or, if you lacked the talent for that, to break with a pipe wrench on the knob.

  The building on the north side butted right up to this one, so to complete our circumnavigation we had to go around both buildings.

  When we were back at the front entrance to Grafton’s tower, the admiral asked, “What do you think?”

  “Without a squad of armed people on duty around the clock, it’s indefensible,” I replied. “They can post a sniper to shoot into your place, break into an adjoining condo and plant a bomb, bomb your front door and come in shooting, or just burn the damn building down with you and all your neighbors in it. If they don’t want to bother with bombs or fire, they can stay outside and gun you and yours on the street when you come out.”

  “That about covers it, I guess,” the admiral said thoughtfully.

  “If I were you, I’d get the authorities to evacuate everybody until we get Qasim. Tell people there’s a sewer leak or rabid rats or infected cockroaches. Whatever.”

  “That won’t work,” Grafton said. “We can’t evacuate America until we win the war on terror.”

  I knew he’d say that. “Your best bet is to post some guys outside to spot them coming in.”

  “That’s my assessment, too. Would you go to see Willie in the morning?”

  “Okay.”

  Stretched out on Grafton’s couch with a pillow and blanket, I couldn’t sleep. Between the nap I had on the plane, the time zone changes, and a mild case of constipation from all that sitting, there was no way the sandman was going to find me. I lay there tossing for a while, then sat up in the darkness for a while, then went to the window and looked out. Amazingly, snow was falling. Wasn’t sticking, just falling. If this kept up, they would cancel the government tomorrow.

  I was standing there in my underwear when Marisa came padding out wrapped in an old robe she had borrowed from Mrs. Grafton.

  “Can’t sleep, either?” I asked.

  “No.”

  She stood beside me for a few minutes watching the snow fall into the lights. “When I was a girl I loved to watch snow come down,” she said. “I seem to have gotten out of the habit.”

  “Was that in Switzerland?”

  “Yes. I spent my childhood at a boarding school. They must have taken me there when I was still in diapers. Adults came and visited me occasionally, and took me out for dinner and movies, but I lived there, in that little world, behind walls.”

  “Did Abu Qasim ever visit?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  She remained silent for so long I thought I had crossed an invisible line; then she began to speak. Slowly at first, then faster and with more assurance. She literally began with the first visit of Qasim that she could remember and went through it almost hour by hour. Then the next, and the next, and so on. She remembered his every word, every gesture, every grimace, where they went, what they did, where they sat, what they ate—all of it. Two hours later she finally ran down. I gave her a drink from a bottle in Grafton’s kitchen cupboard and sent her off to bed.

  The snow had turned to rain, and the wind had kicked up.

  One thing’s for sure, Tommy, I told myself. She really hates that son of a bitch.

  After breakfast, I borrowed Grafton’s car and went off to visit my business associate, Willie Varner, who was better known in some quarters as Willie the Wire. You met him earlier on one of his bad days, at our lock shop. We’re partners, although my name is on the shop lease and the contractor’s and fidelity bonds since Willie is a convicted felon.

  He greeted me like a long-lost brother. “Where the hell you been?”

  “Europe.”

  “That’s a big place.”

  “France, England and a little slice of Germany called Rastatt.”

  “Sounds bad. That a city or jail or what?”

  “Town.”

  “Well, you got back to civilization just in time. We got a contract to install the locks and burglar and fire alarms in a whole subdivision they’re buildin’ over in Virginia—three hundred town houses, some-thin’ called Sherwood Forest Hills, although it’s in an old cow pasture, flatter’n Florida, and there ain’t a tree in sight.”

  Willie rubbed his hands together. “Big money in contractin’, boy, and we’re gonna get a chunk. Can’t believe this fell in our lap, but fall it did. Got Scout and Earlene signed up to help do the work. With you helpin’, it’ll go a little faster.” I knew Scout and Earlene, a couple who did some electrical contracting in the city. Earlene was a former WNBA player, and Scout had done a stretch in the pen.

  “When we’re done,” Willie added, “I’m goin’ to Vegas for a week or two.”

  Willie had been up the river a couple of times for burglary. After he got out the second time, we opened this lock shop. He was a wizard with a hairpin, a natural talent, who could open about any lock around. Me, I used picks, and since I didn’t have natural talent, made up for it with old-fashioned grit and persistence.

  “Man, we’ll have to find someone to do it for us,” I said, using the imperial “we.” After all, I owned half the business. “I need you on a little job I’m working across town.”

  He couldn’t believe it. He told me how much we stood to earn doing the subdivision. “Tommy, this is major money, a real score. Honest money, too! We only got this job because the original sub got busted for drugs and, on top of that, the damn fool had a pistol in his pocket. He’s sittin’ in jail. Needless to say, his contractor’s bond went up in smoke. We got called at the last minute. I demanded twice what the man offered, and he was over a barrel and said yes. Maybe I oughta feel a little ashamed at takin’ advantage, but I don’t. His fuckin’ problem! Big opportunity for us. We get that stuff in right and workin’, make these dudes happy, and we got a shot at biddin’ major subdivisions all over. Jesus, Tommy, they’re buildin’ out the whole northern half of Virginia, houses sproutin’ outta those old farms like toadstools after a rain.”

  I waited until he ran down. “Let Scout and Earlene do the work. We have a contractor’s bond and they don’t. They’ll make some serious money and we’ll pocket some and get the call on
the next subdivision.”

  Willie sat down on a stool and eyed me suspiciously while I fired up a table saw and began making wedges out of a two-by-four. “You still workin’ for that sailor, Grafton?”

  “Yeah. I’m sitting on his family for a week or so. It’s possible some bad dudes want them dead.”

  “Man, you went to the hospital twice for that man. How much of his shit you gonna shovel?”

  “It’s three times, and the answer is, It’s Uncle Sam we’re working for, not Jake Grafton.”

  “Yeah. Right! Next thing you’ll be tellin’ me that it’s raghead suiciders who want to do them.”

  I couldn’t help it. My face must have been a study.

  Willie took one look at my puss and groaned. “Oh, Jesus, Tommy, tell me it isn’t true!”

  It was true, though, so I twisted his arm and he cussed me out and argued. “I been to the hospital twice myself on your adventures, Tommy. Don’t want to go again. I’m too damn old, man.”

  “There’s no risk involved. I just need your eyes and street smarts.”

  “No guns. I don’t do guns or knives. Tried that last year and it didn’t work. Denzel Washington I ain’t.”

  I appealed to his patriotism and greed. We were on the side of the angels. He would make money on the subdivision contract and he would collect some government money, too. Finally greed won out and he agreed to help. “Only to keep Mrs. Grafton alive, you understand.” We called Scout and Earlene and made a deal. Willie said he would be ready to go to work tomorrow.

  “Let’s go see him now,” I said. I flipped off the saw, brushed the sawdust off my clothes and put my wedges in a paper bag. There was a nice hammer lying there, so I added it to the bag.

  “Busy now.” He waved at all the projects on the bench.

  “Now,” I insisted. “Get your coat.”

  He was subdued and well behaved by the time we rode the elevator up to Grafton’s condo. In the elevator he spotted the bulge under my coat. “You packin’?”