The Assassins (2 page)

His face tight with anger, the general slowed and glared after them.

“Forget it.” Morgan jammed his bullpup rifle into his side.

With a grunt, the general ran again. The little group pounded past a pile of sandbags toward a long three-story building. The general yanked open the door, and they slipped into a vast exhibit hall. Moonlight shone down from high windows, illuminating shattered glass display cases, fallen shelves, and empty marble pedestals. It had the feel of a graveyard.

Cursing the thieves, the general led them across the room toward an arched entrance. There was no door.

“It looks bloody dark ahead,” Morgan said. “Light your torches, lads.”

3

Switching on their flashlights, the six assassins and the general raced down the hall past corridors and doors until they reached another large gallery decorated with wall friezes glorifying larger-than-life Mesopotamians slaughtering much smaller foes.

Slowing, the general gestured around. “This is the Assyrian Gallery.” Then he turned to a glass case attached to the wall. “And your tablet is here.”

The assassins converged. Inside was a brown clay tablet about twenty-four inches square, but instead of Roman or Cyrillic letters, it displayed the wedge-shaped characters of civilization’s first form of writing—cuneiform.

The assassin who had once been Mossad focused his flashlight on an engraved sign in Arabic beside the display cabinet. Excited, he said, “This tablet dates back three thousand years and describes our father, Abraham. He came from Ur.” The founder of Judaism, Abraham grew up in Ur, an ancient city in what was now Iraq.

The former jihadist gave him a sharp look. “The
Prophet
Abraham, yes.” In Islam, Abraham was considered one of the religion’s five prophets, along with Muhammad and Jesus.

Impatient, Morgan aborted the never-ending religious quarrel: “The only thing that bloody matters is getting our money.”

He pulled out the key he had picked up in an Amsterdam drop box two days before, and the general handed over a second key. Morgan inserted them into the double lock, turned them, and pulled open the glass door. The general stepped forward and pressed what appeared to be a small blemish inside the frame. There was a soft clicking sound, and the entire display swung away, disclosing a recessed safe with two more locks. A safe within a safe.

Again Morgan inserted the keys, turned them, and pulled open the door. Another tablet lay on the floor of the second safe. Everyone leaned forward.

His pulse accelerating, Morgan slung his bullpup across his back and with both hands reached inside and lifted it out. About twenty inches long and eighteen inches wide, it was not clay but limestone, pale, slightly grainy, about two inches thick. The cuneiform script was carved deep and clean. Morgan felt emotion well up in him, not for the beautiful artifact, but for the castle in Yorkshire he planned to splurge on.

“Here’s our twelve million dollars, lads.” That was the amount Saddam still owed them. The general had guaranteed the tablet was worth at least that much. Morgan tilted it upright for the others to see. “Let’s get the hell out of here. I’ve got a man in London panting to flog it.”

Suddenly a thundering crash sounded in the stairwell. The walls seemed to shudder. Voices quarreled loudly above them, then an arm and head in pink granite thudded down the steps.

“More thieves!” The general dashed inside the stairwell and aimed his AK-47 upward. “Come down here, you dogs!”

Before the general could shoot, automatic fire rained down. Rounds exploded through the general’s head and shoulders, spraying blood and bone. He dropped to his knees then pitched forward.

“Kill the torches,” Morgan snapped. “We’re gone.”

The limestone tablet clasped close to his chest with one hand, the bullpup rifle in the other, he ran back through the dark gallery, the others close around. In seconds, bullets followed, slicing past, the noise echoing loudly. A sharp pain burned across his gun arm, telling Morgan he had been hit. He hurtled around the corner, down a corridor, around another corner, and through a door.

They were in another exhibit hall. Breathing heavily, he dropped to his haunches. The others squatted beside him. The gunfire behind them had stopped. They peered through the shadows across the long room to where two Republican Guards appeared in a doorway. One was talking on his radio, repeating to his cohort that intruders had arrived and they must be killed.

Morgan swore silently. All his carefully arranged plans had gone to hell. He could hear the noise of running boots behind them. They were trapped, but he was not done yet. He pointed at the Basque and the Israeli and then indicated the two Guards across the room.

The Basque slid his knife out from under his shirt. It was slender, tapered, and doubled-edged. Keeping low, he padded off past an upended display case. At the same time, the Israeli aimed his M14 modified sniper rifle with sound suppressor.

The two Guards seemed to see or hear something. They lifted their weapons, looking for targets.

The Israeli’s M14 gave off a single
pffft,
but both Guards staggered and went down.

The assassins rushed across the exhibit hall. One Guard was dead, a black hole in his forehead. The other was dying, stabbed up under his rib cage to his heart.

The group took off, passing through one doorway then another until at last they blasted out into the cool night air. But as they accelerated away from the building, a dozen Guards chased, firing their AK-47s. Orange-colored muzzle flashes flamed into the night.

The assassins lowered their heads and pounded toward the children’s museum. Morgan staggered, a pain burning across his scalp. A bullet had grazed his head. Hot blood soaked his
ghutrah.

The Israeli grunted—a round had pierced his shoulder.

The Basque stumbled—he was hit in the calf.

Finally they made it through a towering arch, past giant statues of Babylonian lions, and around to the lee of the building. They had managed to lose their pursuers, at least for the time being.

“We can’t stay here. Let’s go,” the former Cosa Nostra killer ordered.

Morgan wiped sweat and blood from his face. His head ached like someone had bashed it with an axe. “Yeah? And where to, dipstick?”

“Out there.” He gestured with his Walther past a wrought-iron fence to Museum Square, where a platoon of U.S. Abrams tanks was stationed. There was no way the Guard would follow them into all of that weaponry.

Morgan hesitated. Unless they were being employed by a government, and sometimes even then, governments were a professional assassin’s enemy. Still, he stared thoughtfully at the American tanks. It was not as if anyone there would know who the assassins were.

“Brilliant,” he decided, “if we survive that long.”

“I’ll carry the tablet, Morgan,” the jihadist offered.

“I’m not crippled, you greedy bastard.” Morgan glared at him. “Let’s go.”

With the building as a shield, the assassins hurried past palm trees. The Israeli gripped his shoulder. The Russian held his side. The Basque limped badly. The air erupted with the piercing noise of another fusillade—the Guards had rounded the building and were pursuing.

The jihadist grunted and staggered. Blood appeared on his hip.

The ex-Mafia killer was out front. He shot open the museum gate, and the others rushed for it. That was when Morgan felt pain explode in his back. He had been shot, but it felt as if a bloody lorry had rammed him. The cuneiform tablet slipped from beneath his arm, and he heard it crash onto the paving stones. His legs would not move. He could not feel his hands. He fell hard.

Vaguely he realized his team was down beside him, picking up the pieces. He could hear someone talking to him, swearing at him, saying his name. Were they going to take him or dump him? An assassin could never be too careful with his friends.

4

From Beirut to Paris

Rescued by two of his fellow assassins, Burleigh Morgan was laid up for a month under an assumed name in a private suite at the Clemenceau Hospital in Beirut. He had multiple wounds to his skull, right arm, scapula, lungs, and ribs. As he drifted in and out of pain, his thoughts kept returning to the castle he wanted in Yorkshire. He could see it clearly in his mind, standing on a green hill, its turrets tall and walls formidable. He had planned to use his share of the proceeds from selling the cuneiform tablet to buy it.

When his headaches stopped, Morgan flew to Cairo, to a secret pied-
à
-terre on an island in the middle of the Nile River. His flat was on the twentieth floor. In the bedroom, he unpacked. Then he went out to the balcony to enjoy the view.

He did not understand loneliness, could not abide complaining, and deep in his scarred soul knew a professional assassin had no business with “beliefs.” An assassin needed to be sharp, plan for every detail, and crave the work. African wild dogs were not the largest predators on the savannah, but they were far more successful killers than most.

So when Morgan looked down from his balcony at the teeming streets and sidewalks with people scrambling and sweating, he smiled to himself. He was a wild dog. They were not.

That night he e-mailed the five other assassins:

The Baghdad item could still be valuable. I have two pieces. Send me yours. I’ll get them reassembled and appraised.

Morgan’s tradecraft was impeccable. His various e-mail addresses ran through private servers from Kuala Lumpur to Mexico City, from the Ural Mountains to Pakistan. Tracing him was as impossible as a top Chinese black hatter could make it.

The next day, he heard from three of the assassins:

3:22
A.M.:
You’re nuts. The general said it was worth millions because it was an ancient artifact. Now it’s just a pile of rocks.

8:03
A.M.:
I’ll give you my pieces if you wire me $250,000 holding money.

12:10
P.M.:
How do I know if I send you mine, you won’t cut me out of my full share?

Controlling his temper, Morgan responded that they bloody well knew he could be trusted to give all of them their fair shares. Besides, money was money, and it was worth a shot to see whether they could make a few million quid off what they had.

The next morning, he received two more e-mails:

8:43
A.M.:
I’ve got four pieces. I assume I’m going to get twice as much for mine as anyone with two pieces.

9:12
A.M.:
I want my own appraiser.

The bickering continued until Morgan could not take dealing with the arseholes any longer. Besides, what one of them had written was true—the tablet in pieces could be worthless.

From Cairo he flew to Majorca, where he continued to recuperate, and then on to London to an East End safe house. Finally, he resumed wet work.

Years passed. He spent more and more time in Paris. He bought himself a brand-new, sapphire-blue Cobra MkVI gull-wing sports car and hooked up with a lively blonde who lived on the rue des Foss
é
s Saint Bernard. Her name was Beatrice. She was in her fifties, and she was hot. They were an odd-looking couple—he was in his mid-seventies, skinny, and as wrinkled as a gorilla. He was also strangely happy.

In January, Beatrice and he were sitting together in front of her fireplace, enjoying the warm flames and listening to blues music, when he checked his e-mail. One had just arrived from an anonymous sender, addressed to six assassins. As he read the names, a chill crawled up his spine—it was the six of them who had heisted the ancient tablet. The sender knew far too much about them, including past employers. The information was incendiary.

Beatrice was staring at him. “Some bad e-mail has upset you,
cheri
?” She stroked his silver ponytail.

Closing the laptop, he lied: “No, nothing bad at all. I’m tired, old girl. I’ll go back to my place and catch up on my sleep. You and I have too much fun, you know.” He forced a smile. In truth, he needed to make phone calls. He slid the laptop into his satchel and stood.

Her worried eyes assessed him. “Very well. I understand.”

He took her hand and kissed it.

She watched him put on his coat and leave. She had been a famous dancer in Pigalle and missed the excitement of those days, and Morgan was an exciting man. She hurried to the window, where she saw his grand Cobra waiting near the end of the block. Good—he would not have far to walk. His complexion had been gray.

She turned back into her sitting room. It was time for a
caf
é
serr
é
. Opening the door, she started toward her kitchen. But before she had gone six steps, there was a huge roar. Her apartment shook. As the chandelier swung, she ran to the hallway window. Flames licked up through a brown cloud over the spot where the Cobra had been parked. Her throat tightened. She forgot her coat and ran down four flights and out to the curb, where the concierge and neighbors and shopkeepers were gathering in the afternoon cold, staring at the end of the block.

“Sainte merde,”
someone murmured in shock.

A woman nodded.
“Une bombe
é
norme!”

Sirens wailed.

Beatrice ran into the smoke. Tree limbs littered the area like broken toothpicks. Car parts were strewn about, sizzling. A streetlight had snapped in half. With horror, she saw a charred arm on the sidewalk. And there was a giant hole where the car had been, a black hole that spread across the asphalt and took out grass and parking.

Coughing, she wiped tears from her face.

“Madame, venez avec moi.”
The concierge took her arm and guided her back. “Your gentleman did not suffer,
madame
. I am very sorry.
Venez avec moi.
”

She could feel people’s eyes on her. She was shaking from the shock and cold, but the cold was good. It helped to clear her mind. At her building, she turned to gaze back at the smoke, to think about the enormity of the blast that had killed Morgan. It would have been much simpler and cheaper to shoot him. This was not just about murdering some old assassin. Someone powerful had sent a warning.