The Mark of the Assassin (38 page)
They sat at the conference table, Monica at the head, the factotums at her right hand, Michael and Carter at her left. A secretary brought a tray of coffee and cream and a plate of dainty cookies. Monica gaveled the proceedings to order by tapping the tip of her stiletto gold pen on the polished surface of the table.
“Where’s McManus?” Carter asked.
“He had to go downtown to the Hoover Building on an urgent matter,” Monica said tonelessly.
“Don’t you think the FBI’s representative to the Counterterrorism Center should be sitting in on this meeting?”
“Anything the FBI is required to know will be passed on to them in due course,” she said. “This is an Agency matter and will be dealt with as such.”
Carter, unable to hide his anger, gnawed on the nail of his forefinger.
Monica looked at Michael. “After the incident on the ferry you were ordered to return from London immediately and report to headquarters. You disobeyed that order and went to Cairo instead. Why?”
“I believed I could uncover valuable information concerning an active investigation,” Michael said. “I didn’t go because I wanted to see the pyramids.”
“Don’t be a smartass. You’re in enough trouble as it is. What did you learn in Cairo?”
Michael placed the photographs given to him by Muhammad Awad on the table and turned them so Monica could see. “Here’s Hassan Mahmoud, the man found dead in the Whaler, meeting with a man named Eric Stoltenberg in Cairo a few weeks before the attack on the jetliner. Stoltenberg is former Stasi. He worked in the department that supported national liberation and guerrilla groups around the world. He’s freelance now. Muhammad Awad, before he was shot on the ferry, said Mahmoud had joined forces with Stoltenberg.”
“Two men having coffee in a Cairo café is hardly proof of a conspiracy, Michael.”
Michael held his temper. Somewhere during her ascent to the top, Monica had mastered the art of derailing her opponent in mid-thought with a barb or a shallow contradiction.
“I went to Cairo because I wanted to talk to Stoltenberg.”
“Why didn’t you pass on the information to Carter at the Center and let someone from Cairo Station handle it?”
“Because I wanted to handle it myself.”
“At least that’s honest. Continue.”
“By the time I got to Cairo, Stoltenberg was dead.” Michael dropped a photograph of Stoltenberg’s ruined face on the table. Carter looked away and winced. Monica’s face remained placid. “He was shot three times in the face, just like Hassan Mahmoud, just like Colin Yardley.”
“And just like Sarah Randolph.”
Michael looked down at his hands, then at Monica.
“Yes,” he said. “Just like Sarah Randolph.”
“And you believe these killings are all the work of the same man?”
“I’m certain of it. He’s a former KGB assassin, code-named October, who was inserted into the West as a young man and planted deep. He’s a contract killer now, the world’s most expensive and proficient assassin.”
“And this you learned from Ivan Drozdov?”
“That’s correct.”
“Your theory, Michael?”
“That Muhammad Awad was telling the truth: The Sword of Gaza did not carry out this attack. It was the work of some other group or individual, done in the name of the Sword of Gaza. And now October has been hired by this group or individual to liquidate the team that carried out the attack.” Michael paused for a moment, then said, “And eventually he will come after me.”
“Would you like to explain that?”
“I think they tried to kill me once already, on the ferry during the meeting with Awad. They failed. I think they’ll try again, and this time I think they’ll give the job to October.”
There was a long pause. Conversations with Monica were always punctuated by moments of silence, as though she were receiving her next lines from a stage prompter in the wings.
“Who’s they, Michael? What they? Where they? How they?”
“I don’t know. Someone blew up that jetliner, and did it for a very good reason. Look what’s happened in the interim. The Mideast peace process has collapsed; arms are pouring into the region like never before.”
Michael thought, And a wounded president came from behind and won reelection, and this country is about to build a costly missile defense system.
“Good God, Michael! Surely you’re not suggesting any kind of linkage.”
“I don’t know all the answers. What I’m suggesting is that we seriously consider the possibility other forces were involved in the attack and broaden our investigation accordingly.”
Adrian Carter finally spoke. “I thought Michael was off the mark when he raised this with me the first time, but now I believe I was mistaken. I think the Agency should do as Michael suggests.”
Monica hesitated a moment. “I reluctantly concur, Michael, but I’m afraid the investigation will go forward without your involvement.” She treated herself to a long sip of her coffee. “You have uncovered potentially valuable intelligence, but your means and methods have been inexcusable and, frankly, unbefitting an intelligence officer of your experience. I’m afraid I have no choice but to place you on suspension, pending the outcome of a disciplinary review. I’m sorry, Michael, but you’ve left me no other option.”
Michael said nothing. He had expected it, but still a shock wave shot through him when Monica spoke the words.
“As for your concerns about your personal safety, you can be certain that the Agency will take every step necessary to protect you and your family.”
“Thank you, Monica,” Michael said, and immediately regretted it. Assurances from Monica Tyler had the permanence of a sonnet written on the surface of a lake.
The chauffeured car bearing Mitchell Elliott arrived at his town house on California Street shortly after 8 p.m. It had been a very long day, much of it spent on Capitol Hill twisting arms. Elliott had been around politics long enough to realize euphoria has a tendency to wear off rather quickly in Washington. Promises made by presidents often die the death of a thousand cuts in committee. It would be many months before the national missile defense came before Congress for a vote. The tragedy of Flight 002 would be a distant memory by then, and Beckwith would be a lame-duck president. It would be left to Elliott to make sure the program didn’t fall by the wayside. He had spread millions of dollars around Capitol Hill; half the members of Congress were indebted to him. Still, he realized it was going to take every ounce of his influence and imagination to see the project through to the end.
The car stopped at the curb. Mark Calahan got out and opened the door. Elliott went inside the house and walked upstairs to the library. He poured himself a glass of scotch and went into the bedroom. The bathroom door opened and a woman entered the room, dressed in a terry-cloth robe, hair damp from the shower.
He looked up. “Hello, Monica darling, tell me about your day.”
“He underestimates me,” she said, lying next to him in bed. “He plays me for the idiot. He thinks he’s smarter than me, and I detest people who think they’re smarter than me.”
“Let him underestimate you,” Elliott said. “It’s a fatal mistake, in this case literally.”
“I had to reopen the investigation today; I had no other choice. Osbourne has managed to uncover quite a lot of your little game.”
“He’s only scratched the surface, Monica. You know that as well as I do. And besides, there’s no way he’ll ever see the whole picture. Osbourne is trapped in a house of mirrors.”
“He knows the identity of your assassins, and he thinks he knows why they’re killing.”
“He doesn’t know who’s behind them, and there’s no way he ever will.”
“I had to put out a worldwide alert for them, Mitchell.”
“Who controls the distribution at Langley?”
“Everything comes to me, eyes only,” she said. “Theoretically, no one else in the building will see it. And I sent McManus out on an errand, so the Bureau is completely in the dark.”
“And Michael Osbourne will never know what hit him. Good girl, Monica. You just earned yourself a nice bonus.”
“I had something else in mind, actually.”
DECEMBER
36
NORTHERN CANADA
The Gulfstream dropped below radar cover over the Davis Strait and landed on a remote flare-lit road along the eastern shores of Hudson Bay. Astrid and Delaroche ambled down the stairway, Delaroche with the nylon duffel slung across his back, Astrid with her hands over her face against the cruel Arctic air. Stephens never shut down the engines. As soon as Astrid and Delaroche were clear of the aircraft, he raced down the road once more, and the Gulfstream lifted into the clear Canadian morning.
A black Range Rover waited for them on the shoulder of the road, filled with cold-weather outdoor gear—snowshoes, backpacks, parkas, and dehydrated foods—and a packet of detailed travel instructions. They climbed in and closed the doors against the bitter air. Delaroche turned the key. The engine groaned, struggled, then died. Delaroche felt his heart sink. The jet was gone. They were completely alone. If the truck didn’t start they could not survive long.
He turned the key once more, and this time the engine started. Astrid, typically German for an instant, said, “Thanks God.”
“I thought you were a good communist atheist,” Delaroche cracked.
“Shut up and turn the heat on.”
He did as she asked. Then he opened the packet and tried to read the instructions, but it was no good. He removed a pair of half-moon reading glasses from the breast pocket of his coat and thrust them onto his face.
“I’ve never seen you wear those before, Jean-Paul.”
“I don’t like to wear them in front of people, but sometimes it can’t be helped.”
“You look like a professor instead of a professional killer.”
“That’s the point, my love.”
“How do you kill people so well if you can’t see?”
“Because I’m shooting them, not reading them. If there were words written across their foreheads, I’d need my glasses.”
“Please, Jean-Paul, drive the bloody car. I’m freezing to death.”
“I have to know where I’m going before I drive.”
“Do you always read the instructions first?”
He looked at her quizzically, as if he found the question mildly offensive.
“Of course you do. That’s why you’re so bloody good at everything you do. Jean-Paul Delaroche, methodical man.”
“We all have our vices,” he said, putting away the instructions. “I don’t ridicule yours.” He dropped the Range Rover into gear.
“Where are we going?” Astrid asked.
“A place called Vermont.”
“Is it near our beach?”
“Not quite.”
“Shit,” she said, closing her eyes. “Wake me when we’re there.”
37
WASHINGTON, D.C.
The first day of Michael’s exile was appalling. At dawn, when the alarm awakened him, he rushed into the shower and turned on the water before realizing he had nowhere to go. He went downstairs to the kitchen, made toast and coffee for Elizabeth, and brought it up to her. She had breakfast in bed and read the
Post.
A half hour later, Elizabeth was letting herself out the front door, dressed for work with her two briefcases and two cell phones. Michael stood in the front window, waving like an idiot, as she drove off in her silver Mercedes. All he needed was a cardigan and a pipe to complete the picture.
Post.
A half hour later, Elizabeth was letting herself out the front door, dressed for work with her two briefcases and two cell phones. Michael stood in the front window, waving like an idiot, as she drove off in her silver Mercedes. All he needed was a cardigan and a pipe to complete the picture.
He finished the newspaper. He tried to read a book but couldn’t concentrate on the pages. He tried to put the time to good use by checking all the door locks and replacing batteries in the alarm system. That took a total of twenty minutes. Maria, the Peruvian housekeeper, came at ten o’clock and chased him from room to room with her industrial-strength vacuum and toxic furniture polish. “It is a beautiful day outside, Señor Miguel,” she said, shouting at him in Spanish over the roar of the vacuum. Maria spoke to him only in her native language. “You should go out and do something instead of sitting around the house all day.”
Michael understood his own housekeeper had just dismissed him. He went upstairs, dressed in a nylon warm-up suit and running shoes, and went back downstairs. Maria thrust a piece of paper into his hand, a list of cleaning supplies she needed from the store. He stuck the list in his pocket and went out the front door onto N Street.
It was a warm day for early December, the kind of afternoon that always made Michael think there was no neighborhood in the world more beautiful than Georgetown. The sky was clear, the air breezy and soft and scented with wood smoke. N Street lay beneath a blanket of red and yellow autumn leaves. They crunched beneath Michael’s feet as he jogged lightly along the redbrick sidewalk. Reflexively, he looked through the windows of the parked cars to see if anyone was sitting inside. A van bearing the name of a Virginia kitchen supply store was parked on the corner. Michael committed the name and number to memory; he would call later to make certain the place was real.
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