Head Shot

by Otho Eskin

  He shows me the music sheet he’s holding. The lyrics are in a language I can’t read and the score looks like a bouncy quick-march.

  “Shouldn’t you practice this?” I ask.

  “We’ll fake it as we go along,” he says. “We do this all the time. Nobody knows the difference.”

  Somebody from the bandstand calls out, and the man drops his partially smoked joint and crushes it under his boot into the ground. “We’re about to start.” He smiles and climbs up into the bandstand. “Enjoy the show,” he says.

  A moment later, the musicians in formal getups begin to play a medley of show tunes.

  The first guests are arriving. All are well-dressed; some look vaguely familiar. I recognize a few senators and congresspeople. The men wear tuxes or are in formal dress uniforms, the women are in long dresses. A famous TV actor is surrounded by admiring fans who ought to know better. There’s a tall African American who looks familiar. A woman standing near me says, in an awed voice, that he’s a famous rock star.

  The place is quickly filling up, with clusters concentrated around the open bars. There’s a lot of chatter and careless laughter.

  As the band plays a chirpy foxtrot, I mix with the crowd, looking for faces that don’t belong. The weather is warm and pleasant and the atmosphere is cheerful and I see no danger.

  Abruptly the band stops playing the foxtrot and the guys with the accordions strike up some lively ethnic dance piece. Maybe it’s the Montenegro national anthem. Who knows? This must be the signal that Nina Voychek and her entourage have arrived. She’s dressed in a floral embroidered evening gown with a white silk scarf around her neck. An excited stirring spreads among the guests, and I move toward the VIP entrance.

  Nina enters. To her side is her ambassador, leaning down and whispering into her ear. Behind her follow Janet and Viktor Savich and the guy with the steel-frame eyeglasses, the deputy chief of mission.

  A man—I’m guessing from the State Department—rushes up to Nina Voychek and there’s a lot of happy banter. The ambassador and the State Department guy lead Nina into the thick of the crowd, where there’s discreet applause and burbling from the distinguished guests. Everyone looks happy—except Janet and Savich, who don’t like the scene at all. Nina and her group move through the crowd, pausing long enough for a few polite exchanges with the distinguished guests.

  Carla Lowry, the chief of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, is speaking with some dignitary in a tuxedo who wears a raft of medals on his chest. To my surprise, Carla leaves her conversation companion and works her way through the crowd toward me.

  Her eyes dart, briefly, at the small bulge under my left arm. She knows I’m armed but says nothing.

  “The reception seems to be going well,” Carla says.

  “It’s still early.”

  “My people in Chicago have picked up your man, Jovanovich, and he’s tucked in, safe and sound.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “What can you tell me about a man called Nikos Mazarakis?” Carla asks.

  “He’s dead.”

  “I know that. I also know that you visited him in his hotel room before he passed away. The MO is close to that of the murdered code clerk from the Montenegro embassy. What were you doing with the victim?”

  “Visiting an old friend.”

  “Nikos Mazarakis is, or was, nobody’s friend.”

  “Acquaintance, then.”

  “He was a dangerous man involved in a nasty business over many years. What was he doing here in the US?”

  “He was acting as an advance man for whoever is planning the assassination of Prime Minister Voychek. I met with Nikos to ask him who was paying the bills.”

  “Did he tell you?”

  “He didn’t know or was too frightened to tell me.”

  “It looks like he had good reason to be frightened.”

  “He did confirm that the assassin is a man known as Domino.”

  Carla catches her breath. “That’s new.”

  “Do you know anything about this Domino?” I ask.

  “I’ve heard of him, of course. Over the years his name has cropped up. Not in a good way.”

  “Nikos told me Domino has been contracted to carry out the three killings.”

  “Three?” Carla asks. “I thought there was just Nina Voychek.”

  Carla glances over her shoulder, looking at the crowd. Nina is nowhere in sight. “Who are the other targets?”

  “I’ll get back to you on that,” I say.

  “Watch your back.” Carla disappears into the shadows and into the happy throng.

  I stop by one of the three open bars and study the servers. They look like all the other servers in every reception I’ve ever been to: mostly college kids making a few extra bucks. The waiters carry trays of food and napkins and toothpicks in little glass bowls. I see nothing wrong.

  I also feel sure I’m missing something.

  Janet Cliff passes by and gives me a tight smile. I catch a glimpse of Nina in a huddle with Secretary of State Cross and her ambassador. They’re standing at the base of the Lincoln statue and seem to be having an intense conversation. I decide not to interrupt them.

  I stand at the top of the grand stairs and inspect the police barrier at the bottom: more a psychological barrier than a real one, I think. Nothing a determined killer couldn’t get through.

  A young couple stops near me and the man takes pictures of the crowd using a Canon SLR with a large telephoto lens. I move away. I don’t like my picture taken. By anyone, for any reason.

  “Say, buddy,” the young man calls to me. “Can you take our picture? Midge and me?” He hands me his camera without waiting for my answer and instructs me on how to take a picture even though all these cameras function more or less the same.

  “We’ve set it for telephoto, you know, us in front.” The young couple line up for their photograph. She must be about twenty, pretty, with curly, brown hair. She wears a nice frock she probably bought for this special occasion. The man looks like a mid-level bureaucrat who managed to wrangle an invitation to the reception to prove to his girlfriend how important he is.

  “Can you try to get us with some famous people in the background?” the young man asks. “Maybe the rock star?”

  The couple smiles broadly, leaning into one another so they can be centered in the picture frame. They have beautiful teeth.

  I peer through the viewfinder. “I’ll count to three.”

  I pan over the crowd, foreshortened through the telephoto lens, and see Nina and her entourage in the distance. Carla Lowry is engaged in an intense interchange with some senator.

  Then I see something I shouldn’t be seeing. Standing in the shadow of one of the massive columns that fronts the Lincoln Memorial is a tall, sinewy man with a narrow face and close-set eyes talking to a second man. As suddenly as I see them, the two men move into the shadows. But before they disappear, I recognize the tall man and I toss the camera to the couple and sprint into the crowd, drawing my Ruger.

  “You never said ‘three,’” the pretty woman calls out indignantly. “I wasn’t ready.”

  I dive through the tangle of guests.

  “That was rude,” the young man yells after me.

  The tall man I saw through the camera is thirty feet away now and is emerging from behind a table laden with champagne bottles. The second man I saw with him stands just to one side. The tall man sees me, turns, and disappears. The second man raises his right hand—wrapped in a thick, white towel—and points at me.

  At that moment, a waiter steps in front of me. “Curried shrimp, sir?” he asks before crumpling to the ground and dying, his silver tray and shrimp dropping to the stone floor with a clatter. A large red stain seeps through the front of the waiter’s starched white shirt.

  It’s horrible but there’s nothing I can do for him. He’s gone.

  I sprint after the shooter, who’s ducked behind a large tent and, for a moment, I lose him
. The crowd’s thicker here, knotted around one of the bars. The people in the crowd surging forward are trying to catch a glimpse of the famous Nina Voychek, and for a moment, they give Nina and her entourage physical protection. Nina’s almost invisible in the scrum of people surrounding her, making her an impossible target.

  I see Janet Cliff and gesture to her to follow me to where I think the shooter is headed.

  “Shooter,” I yell. “Male. Five nine. Shot one of the waiters. The shooter’s somewhere behind that tent.”

  Janet’s on her radio calling for reinforcements, giving directions. She runs ahead of me, her weapon drawn, streaking through the crowd that still does not yet sense something’s gone wrong.

  The shooter is using a weapon with a sound suppresser and no one heard the shot.

  We swing around the corner of the musicians’ stand and we’re almost on top of the tall man. He stands at the far end of a table laden with wineglasses and buckets of crushed ice and he fires at us, but it’s a wild shot and misses. Janet takes aim at the shooter, but she can’t return fire safely. Too many people are crowded behind him.

  The shooter grabs the edge of the table and heaves it over, upending it onto us, and we’re for a moment stopped, showered with wineglasses and ice.

  We catch up to him at the top of the steps that lead down to the Mall. Lucy is approaching us from our left, Glock in hand. My heart stops. I think he’s going to turn and fire at her.

  From behind me there’s a laugh and the pretty brunette girl I’d seen before, oblivious to what’s happening around her, brushes past me to assume a pose at the top of the steps, with the Reflecting Pool, the Washington Monument and the US Capitol in the distance. Ahead of us is the Mall, black in evening shadows. Surrounding it is a necklace of light of the city of Washington.

  The shooter is now halfway down the grand staircase, intending to make a break for it at the bottom of the steps. I remember him now—the man who so graciously offered to share his cab in the rain when I was headed for the Montenegrin embassy. Standing at the bottom of the grand staircase is Lieutenant Bonifacio. He has drawn his service weapon and is waiting, feet apart, in a shooter’s stance. He’s too far away to get a good shot; impossible with all the people standing at the top behind us. But nobody is going to get past the lieutenant.

  The tall man stops and spins around and fires. Janet crumples, dropping her gun to the ground, as she falls to one knee, grasping her abdomen, spurting red blood through her clenched fingers.

  Lucy’s ten feet away with an unobstructed shot at the shooter.

  “Lucy!” I yell. “Shoot! Shoot now.”

  She freezes.

  The pretty girl with the curly brown hair who wanted me to take her picture a few minutes ago must have heard me call out and she moves away, instinctively.

  I aim the Ruger.

  The shooter’s head explodes and he drops, rolling down the stone steps, leaving a long streak of red behind him.

  Lieutenant Bonifacio is bounding up the steps toward me. He must be afraid I’ve been hurt. I gesture for him to stop. There is no need for him to come further.

  The pretty young woman, standing a few feet away from me, stares at me, openmouthed, speechless. There are specks of blood on her nice new frock—Janet’s blood.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  RICK TALBOT, JANET’S number two, eases Janet to the ground, pressing a compress into her abdomen wound. “The shooter?” he demands.

  I nod at the corpse splayed far down the steps. “Dead. Head shot.”

  Lucy crouches at my side. “Are you okay, Boss?”

  Her face is ashen. I don’t have time to answer.

  “Any other shooters?” Talbot yells to me. He’s already on his phone calling for backup and ambulances.

  “At least one other. Big man, bald. Take care of Janet,” I shout. “I’ll get the prime minister out of here.”

  I holster my Ruger and grab Lucy by the arm and we push our way through the crowd. A woman somewhere screams and I hear voices yelling behind me. It’s beginning to dawn on the guests that something terrible has happened.

  “Out!” I yell when I reach Nina and her entourage. “Into the car.”

  Viktor Savich grabs Nina’s arm. Nina starts to protest, but she goes with us as we run through the VIP exit, surrounded by Janet’s security men, who provide an impenetrable barrier as we push through the crowd. Somewhere in the distance, I hear a waltz.

  Savich pulls open the door to the limousine and pushes Nina inside.

  “Take one of the cruisers,” I call to Lucy. “Go back to headquarters.”

  “Marko, I blew it.”

  “Later,” I tell her. “We’ll talk later.”

  I’m in the limousine and it’s already moving, the two flags on the fenders making us an obvious target. No time to remove them now. We’re preceded by police cruisers, their sirens screaming. The lights inside the limousine are turned off, and we sit in total darkness. I know the limousine has bulletproof glass, but that’s no comfort. A round like the 338 Magnum cartridge I found across from my house can penetrate bulletproof glass. Out the back window I see VIPs and their security teams tumble through the exits, trying to find their cars and drivers.

  “What happened?” Nina whispers.

  “The assassin,” I say. “He shot Janet.”

  “Is she going to be all right?”

  “She was wounded. I don’t know how bad. Her people are taking care of her.”

  Nina covers her mouth with her hands.

  “What happened to the shooter?” Savich asks.

  “Dead,” I say. “It looks like the killer had an accomplice.”

  In the dark, Nina takes my hand in hers. Her hand trembles as she whispers, “Am I to have another death on my conscience? God, please keep her safe.”

  “She was doing her duty,” I say. “She knew the risks.”

  Nina squeezes my hand and we drive in the dark for a few minutes.

  “Did the shooter say anything before he died?” Savich demands.

  “He was dead before he hit the ground,” I say. “It was a head shot.”

  “Janet saved my life,” Nina Voychek murmurs from the dark of the limousine beside me. “If Janet hadn’t shot that man, he would have killed me.”

  “That’s right,” Savich answers.

  “She was doing her job,” I say to her. “That’s what she signed up for.”

  “Was Yulia doing her job when they tortured and strangled her?” Nina asks.

  Ten minutes later, we pull into the embassy garage and Nina, closely surrounded by her security guards, is rushed upstairs to her suite. The rest of us follow, and Nina retreats into her private quarters, followed by Savich and Ambassador Lukshich.

  After half an hour, the ambassador and Savich emerge. “The arrangements for tomorrow will proceed without change,” the ambassador announces to the waiting security detail. “The prime minister will depart for Dulles airport tomorrow afternoon as scheduled. Exactly at 4:10 p.m. The schedule is very tight and we must leave on time. Detective Zorn and Mr. Talbot of the State Department Diplomatic Security Service will accompany the minister to the airport.”

  The ambassador smiles a thin smile. “I must report tonight’s incident to my government. Please forgive me.” He hurries off.

  “How is Nina?” I ask Savich.

  “Shaken, of course. But she’s a strong woman and will manage. She’s very concerned about Janet Cliff and may demand to be taken to the hospital tonight. I know this woman. Remember when she disappeared and we found her in the embassy kitchen? She’s independent-minded and she does what she pleases. Now I must join the ambassador. He will have last-minute instructions for me.”

  Savich leaves me with seven members of the State Department security detail in the waiting room, all armed. They all expect there will be another attempt. Tonight or tomorrow. A man named Ludlow stands in front of the doors leading to Nina’s private suite, holding a shotgun.

&nbs
p; The security detail has taken over the room outside of Nina’s private suite as a command post where members of different shifts will stand guard. Some of the security team stand at the top of the stairs. Two men are stationed at the embassy entrance to see that no unauthorized person gets into the building.

  The door to the waiting room opens and a member of the embassy staff—a very tall, thin man in his sixties, wearing a tuxedo of all things—wheels in a trolley with what looks like a full dinner and heads to the door to Nina’s private suit.

  I tell the man to stop while I inspect the trolley.

  “This is for Madam Voychek,” the man in the tuxedo protests. “The Ambassador instructed the kitchen to prepare a dinner for the prime minister.”

  “I’ll take it into the prime minister,” I say.

  The tall man looks annoyed. “We must not let it get cold.”

  “I’ll take full responsibility,” I say.

  He nods but does not look happy.

  The dinner consists of a thick sirloin steak with roasted potatoes and asparagus. To one side is a silver bowl with béchamel sauce. A silver wine cooler holds a bottle of Dom Pérignon champagne, frosted with condensation. Next to it stand four champagne flutes. To one side is a stack of heavy linen napkins embroidered with the seal of Montenegro and cutlery.

  I examine the trolley carefully. I pick up the tray. There’s nothing suspicious underneath. I examine the underside of the trolley and find no bomb or deadly scorpion lurking there. The sirloin steak looks harmless if a bit overdone. I sniff the asparagus and detect nothing amiss. The seal on the champagne bottle is unbroken. I sample a small portion of the béchamel sauce with a silver spoon and hesitate. There’s something off. I can’t be sure what it is, but I’m not sending the béchamel into Nina.

  I give the béchamel sauce to Rick Talbot and ask him to have it delivered to the police lab as soon as possible for testing. It’s probably harmless, but I’m in no mood to take chances.

  I tell the man in the tuxedo to bring another full dinner exactly the same as that prepared for the prime minister, minus the béchamel sauce. Immediately.

  The server looks anxious. “I can’t do that. Only the ambassador can order a dinner like this. I would have to consult His Excellency.”