A Game for Assassins (The Redaction Chronicles Book 1) (14 page)

The Diplomat had his disguise on and was resplendent in his finery.

Disguise was perhaps the wrong word, maybe a bit too over-the-top: costume was probably more correct – but either way, the clothes he wore this fine evening were a mile away from what he would normally wear during his working life.

He was a man of secrets. Some secrets related to his job working for the British Foreign Service, some related to the 'secret work for peace' that he conducted for the Russians, and some related to his private life. Tonight's assignation was most definitely a part of his private life.

Julian Cowan, the Diplomat, walked along the Reeperbahn and as he walked, he considered that of all the places in the world, this was where he belonged. He was glad he'd been posted to Hamburg. Berlin held a much stricter legal punishment than the more forgiving Hamburg when it came to indulging his particular sexual tastes, and while it was still legally classed as a crime, there was always a member of the vice squad who would turn a blind eye or take a bribe, to leave the 'golden boys' in peace.

Tonight he wore his favorite killer outfit of purple suede and black leather, which was the polar opposite of his usual, stuffy three-piece-suit, regulation brogues and neutrally styled hair. He wore his killer outfit, because he hoped, no, prayed, that the eye candy he'd met last night would return for a repeat performance. So far, it had only consisted of drinking and a little flirtatious conversation as they watched the boys dancing. But who knew, tonight maybe, they would take it a tad further. He certainly hoped so; it would do him good to experience a release. It had been a stressful week.

First, the current spate of meetings at the Embassy and a quick stopover in Bonn, to take part in the current Anglo-German think tank on the future of a unified Germany; then back to Hamburg to meet with his Russian 'friend' to pass over the latest gossip and intelligence he had acquired. But for now that was all to be forgotten – the Embassy, the espionage, the Cold War. Tonight was to be about indulging himself in his pleasures.

Die Blaue Lagune
was situated at the far end of the Reeperbhan, a downstairs bar that was one of the most secret and exotic locations in Hamburg for the discerning gentleman requiring erotic assignations and dalliances. The clientele was predominantly male and affluent, with the only exceptions being the few regular lesbian couples who frequented it.

Cowan approached the black steel door, rapped his knuckles on the wooden knocker and was scrutinized from behind a small Judas peephole. He straightened his leather overcoat and heard the bolts and locks being withdrawn inside. The door quickly creaked open, revealing a faint red glow and emitting the smell of sweat, cigarettes and beer.

The bar and the dance floor were busy; couples drinking in corners, holding hands or kissing, while the single boys and girls gyrated to the local beat music on the dance floor. Cowan moved through the crowd to the bar, nodding to several people he vaguely knew.

Now where was he? Cowan scanned the room one more time, but nothing. Then from out of the toilets he saw the object of his affections; the tall, dark haired man, with a long drooping moustache and wearing all-black clothing. The man walked across to an empty seat at the bar and picked up his drink.

“I thought you wouldn't show again, Esteban,” said Cowan, placing a playful hand on his shoulder. He settled on the bar stool next to Esteban and waved the other hand toward the barman.

Marquez turned to him and smiled warmly. “I never miss out on a good thing, my darling.”

* * *

Two hours and many drinks later they were back in Cowan's apartment.

They had chatted over some wine, Cowan flirting outrageously, while his older beau acted cool and aloof, not wanting to rush the night's inevitable events. Flirting had led to petting and petting had led to the bedroom where Cowan now felt his newly acquired lovers' hands, slick with oil, move up the back of his legs strong and hard, then playfully across his buttocks, quickly and firmly pressing with his thumbs along his spine until they reached the nape of his neck. They massaged carefully; once, twice, three times…he could feel himself growing hard.

More importantly, he could feel Estaban dropping his weight down onto his back, could feel his arousal as the length of his shaft playfully toyed with the crease of Cowan's buttocks. He pushed his head down into the pillow, a smile of pleasure spreading across his face. “Take me, take me,” Cowan heard himself whisper, his voice hoarse with longing, as his new lover entered him gently.

* * *

Thirty minutes later, Marquez was washing his hands in the bathroom sink. Amazing how that oil got everywhere and lingered. In that respect it was very much like blood.

It had been twenty minutes since he had garroted the Englishman, the spy.

The whole operation had gone smoothly. An easy pick up of the target at the club and an unobserved exit from the bar. No witnesses had seen them leave and no one had seen them enter Cowan's apartment.

He had waited until the man was in a relaxed state following their love making and then, when the Englishman was at his most vulnerable, Marquez had quickly removed the homemade garrote which he'd secreted underneath the mattress. Marquez far outweighed the slimmer man and he dropped his knees down onto Cowan's upper arms, pinning him face downwards to the bed. Cowan yelped, more out of surprise than pain.
Perhaps he thought I was going to fuck him again,
thought Marquez.

The rest was the simple mechanics of murder. The garrote, a piece of thin piano wire connected by two dowel handles, was slipped expertly under the prone man's chin, pulled back and then twisted so that Marquez's forearms crossed. Then he pulled and pulled…

It was in that moment when Cowan began to realize that this was no sex-game, this was something else entirely, and began to panic. His body, trying to fight gravity, began to jerk and buck. But Marquez was an experienced murderer and had accounted for his victim's reaction. He shifted his weight to his left side and thrust his right knee into the small of the man's back, pressing him further down into the bed.

Marquez imagined that he looked like a rider trying to control a wild horse, the garrote his reigns as he stretched back, making the wire as taut as possible. He could see Cowan's face turning a bright red as his brain searched for oxygen, a croaking sound came from somewhere deep within his throat…and still Marquez pulled on the wire, pulled so hard that the sweat poured from his body due to the sheer physicality of the act.

He had no idea how long it had been since he slipped the garrote around the man's neck, it seemed like hours, but still he pulled and still he held the weight of the body down. He gave a final surge of effort and was rewarded with an arterial fountain of blood leaping free from the side of Cowan's neck.

The wire had cut so deeply it had severed the man's main artery, and the blood pumping onto the bed covered the once white sheets in a layer of crimson. Marquez felt the man beneath him lose strength and his body slumped forward like a balloon which has had the air slowly released from it. He worked the garrote now with a sawing motion, moving it from side to side, feeling the wire cutting through tissue and sinew until it eventually reached Cowan's spine.

He let go of the blood-soaked garrote's toggles, his hands aching from the exertion, and let them fall onto Cowan's naked back. Then he reached forward, grabbed Cowan's hair tightly with both hands and ripped the head backwards.

The head swiveled as if it was attached to Cowan's body with a one-sided hinge, turning to stare accusingly at Marquez. He looked down at the body on the bed, resembling so much butchered meat, and wrinkled his nose in disgust. Now that the killing was over, he could allow himself to feel. Not at the time, though, during the midst of a kill he was too focused and motivated on doing what was necessary.

Garroting was a first for him. Knives, guns, poisons and explosions – he had used all of them, many times in the past, but thus far, he'd never used the Italian rope. He reflected on the fact that the method of execution for this wretch of an Englishman was intimately plausible in the context of his death. What could be more personal, than murdering someone you had just had sex with using your own hands? It was quite fitting, in Marquez's opinion.

He lifted himself off the body, made his way to the bathroom and stared at himself in the shaving mirror for a long time. The mental battle raged in his head until he was finally satisfied that he'd justified his actions to his own conscience.
A job, nothing more… this man meant nothing to you. You fucked him and then killed him. That is all.

He carefully removed the false moustache he'd worn for the last few nights during his surveillance of the Englishman. The disguise was no longer necessary. Then he found Cowan's shaving brush in the bathroom and dipped it into a pool of its owner's blood. On the wall over the bed, he daubed the word
'hure'
– whore. When the body was eventually discovered, it would be assumed that the man had been the victim of a psychopathic lover or queer-basher who had taken his anger too far. By which time, Marquez would be back on a plane and making his way to Zurich.

The first 'hit' of the contract was complete.

* * *

Vaclav Kader sat in the back of his chauffeur-driven Mercedes, working on the paperwork needed by the start of business that morning, and reflected on how blessed his life was.

He signed his name on several documents and scanned a cursory eye over several more, before placing them neatly by his side on the upholstered leather seat. Outside, the gentle flurries of snow increased giving the streets of Vaduz, Liechtenstein a dusting of white.

“Dieter, turn the heating up, please. I feel as if someone just walked over my grave,” he said to the driver. Dieter, his chauffeur/bodyguard, smiled in the mirror and set about adjusting the Mercedes' heating system. Dieter was a good man. Reliable, dependable, trustworthy, and a good man to have on your side in a fight, or to take care of any unpleasant business.

They had both been in the same displaced persons camp after the war, and had come up the hard way. Black market goods and a little smuggling had made Vaclav, the wheeler dealer, and Dieter, the young enforcer, successful. But that was an age ago. Now Vaclav Kader was the CEO of one of the most successful companies in Liechtenstein.

Not that Vaclav Kader hadn't had a little help to build his post-war shipping and transportation empire; oh no, far from it. A member of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party all his life, he had been picked up by the Russians, recruited as an agent and had been 'played back' into the displaced person camps in Austria in the immediate post-war era. His mission was to infiltrate himself into western society, gain a foothold and see where it led. In truth, he was one of dozens of small time agents that the Russians would routinely 'ship' over the border, in order to worm their way into the West.

After months in the camps, where he'd gained a reputation as both a trader and fixer, he had been released with legitimate identity cards and a bright new future. The hopeful spy had then set about building his new life.

A year later he had, through the funding of a covert Russian intelligence investment, established himself in the city of Liechtenstein where he set about building Schon International Shipping Ltd into the global company it was today. But that was many years ago, and the excitement of running his legitimate business empire was far overshadowed by the thrill and danger of running his far more lucrative and illegal business, that of international arms dealer.

He had never fired a weapon in his life, had certainly never killed a man, but Vaclav Kader could reel off verbatim the pros and cons of various types of explosives, small arms, artillery and heavy-mechanized hardware. He had warehouses in Belgium, North Africa and Bolivia. He had a fleet of aircraft and ships that could be called upon to transport his secret cargoes all over the world. He had dined with warlords and revolutionaries, terrorists and presidents. He was known and respected. His work for the KGB these days was his crowning glory and the role that truly satisfied him. It was the business he had been born to run and he took pride in the title of 'Merchant of Death', which had been bestowed upon him.

He would regularly travel all over the world, ostensibly on Schon shipping business, but in reality to buy, broker, and transport all manner of small arms and munitions to KGB-backed end-users. Africa, South America, Cuba, and the Middle East had all fallen within his fiefdom over the past decade or more. He enjoyed the good life; expensive suits, the finest wines and first class travel, which for a committed Communist as wealthy as he, was a difficult juggling trick to manage with his own conscience. It was all the more remarkable, because the police and security services of the West had no real proof he was involved in any of this illegal trade.

The Mercedes turned the corner into the main street which housed the offices of Schon International Shipping Ltd. The pavements were already starting to fill with people scurrying to work, trying in vain to avoid the increasing snow fall.

His wife, a red headed beauty from Bremen, ran Schon for him these days. She was an excellent CEO and ran the company like a well-oiled machine, leaving him free to dedicate himself to his less public operations for the Russians. He knew that she had already been at work for an hour, in preparation for an important client meeting today. She was his rock and he loved her simply and completely.

“I'll pull up right outside, the snow's getting quite heavy,” murmured Dieter as the car began to slow down. As they approached the ornate entrance to his business headquarters Vaclav Kader was aware of the main double doors to Schon swinging open and his wife striding out to greet him, a radiant smile spreading across her stunning features.

Yes, he decided as he heaved himself out of his luxury car, greeting his beautiful wife outside of his global business headquarters – he really was blessed with a good life.