Risk the Night
Risk
the Night
by
Anne Stuart
Copyright
2011 by Anne Kristine Stuart Ohlrogge
CHAPTER ONE
It had started as an average day.
The man currently calling himself Constantine awoke in his
small apartment in the third
arondissement
of Paris after
three hours’ sleep.
He seldom
needed more, and often made do with less, a blessing or a curse from the surly
god who made him.
He’d showered,
shaved and dressed in work clothes, staring at himself in the mirror for a long
time.
He had no vanity – his
face and body were tools of his trade and nothing else.
He had a lean, wiry frame, deceptively
strong, and he was taller than he appeared.
His face was narrow, with strong bones, and the only thing
remarkable about him were his bright blue eyes, an unfortunately memorable
shade of turquoise.
He put in the
muddying contacts, surveyed the results with satisfaction before tying his hair
back and covering it with a cap.
In his black jeans and black turtleneck he would blend in with the
students in the area, particularly with the backpack he’d purchased for the
occasion.
He double-checked its contents.
A change of clothes.
His
Glock
and silencer, just in case.
He tucked the knife in one of the black boots he wore,
yanking the jeans over the bone handle.
He’d planned carefully, as always, and it wouldn’t take long.
He’d have more than enough time to
return here for a shower if things got messy.
The good thing about black – blood never showed.
It was a warm spring day, promising rain later.
He moved down the streets at a
leisurely pace in the early morning hours, reaching the discreet boutique hotel
well before the city day had begun.
Scum of the earth like
Mirador
never gave him
a moment’s pause.
He had a gift, a
gift for death, and in the case of someone like
Mirador
it was well-used.
He didn’t know why he hesitated.
He’d been trained for this by none other than the United States
government, though they no longer paid his bills.
And at least on his own he could pick and choose his
targets.
He didn’t have to worry
about shades of gray – either the target was scum or worth
redeeming.
He had more than enough
business taking care of the absolute scum.
So much, in fact, that he was getting tired of it.
So damned tired.
But for now he had no reason to quit.
He took care of
Mirador
, quickly, cleanly
and headed back to his apartment, going straight for the shower.
By the time he emerged, made his second
cup of coffee for the day and turned on the television the hit had already made
the news.
Switching off the
television, Constantine headed out for the worst part of his day.
“I was an idiot to tell you I’d do this,”
he said, walking into the empty third floor flat Taggart had
rented for the occasion.
Taggart had been leaning over a camera, but he rose and looked up at
him, his face creasing with annoyance.
He was older than Con, and he’d been in the business since he was very
young.
He knew more, had done more
than Con even wanted to think of, and he owed him.
Though he wasn’t sure he owed him this much.
“Cry to someone else,”
Taggart growled, not bothering to remove the cigarette from the side of
his mouth.
“Your voice will be
disguised, the room will be pitch black and the reporter will be on the other
side of a barrier.
There’s no way
you’ll be identifiable.”
Con made a grumbling noise.
“So why are we doing this?”
Taggart shrugged.
“I owed
someone a favor.
Like you owed me
a favor.
Probably the guy I’m
doing it for owed someone else.
You weren’t just hatched – you know how these things work.”
“I know how these things work.”
He looked around the empty apartment.
He was restless, edgy, and the last thing he wanted to do
was sit down and spin stories for a gullible reporter.
But Taggart was right.
He owed him.
“Where?”
“Got the bedroom set up.
There’s a bullet-proof divider between you, just in case this isn’t as
innocent as it appears.
The
windows are completely blacked out – there won’t be a shred of light
getting in.”
Con’s smile was cool and brief.
“Don’t think I won’t kill you if this blows up in our faces.
I’m not that sentimental.”
“Neither am I,”
Taggart
said, opening the door into an inky dark room.
“I assume
Mirador
was your work?”
“Why assume that?
I’m on
vacation.”
“Sure you are.”
At least Taggart had seen to the basics.
Coffee, wine, fresh bread and cheese and fruit.
He wasn’t particularly hungry –
he didn’t eat much the days that he worked.
Taggart would know that as well, but Con wasn’t interested
in playing games.
He made himself
a cup of coffee and leaned back in the darkness, waiting.
He heard the shuffling noise a few minutes later, another sound, as if
someone bumped into a piece of furniture, and then the scraping sound of wood
on the marble floor.
He leaned
forward toward the microphone that would distort his voice.
“Do you have a blindfold on?”
He spoke in French.
He suspected the reporter was American
– they usually were.
He was right about that.
He just hadn’t expected it to be a woman.
“Yes, and it’s a pain in the ass,”
she said in a low voice, her schoolgirl French
adequate.
She’d had an expensive
education, an anomaly which normally would have interested him.
Right now he had too many other things
on his mind.
“
Renard
said I could take if off once you told me I could.”
“Not yet.”
He lit a cigarette,
the flare of light blinding in the inky darkness.
Stygian darkness.
He wondered if this was what hell looked like.
He expected to find out sooner rather than later.
“All right,”
he said.
The
faint glow of the cigarette wouldn’t give anything away, and it would throw her
off.
He didn’t smoke.
He heard the rustle of cloth, the clearing of her throat, and he knew
she wanted to ask him not to smoke.
She didn’t dare.
Smart
woman.
“What did you want to know?”
She cleared her throat again.
“My name is Elizabeth Shannon and I’m writing an article …”
“I don’t care who you are or what you’re doing,”
he said, bored.
If that was her real name then he was
christened Constantine.
“
Renard
made the arrangements.
If I didn’t trust him I wouldn’t be here.”
Trust Taggart to have taken a name like
Renard
.
Sly old fox.
“Ask your
questions.
I have things to do.”
“I’m taping this.
Do you
mind?”
“Why should I?”
He took
another drag of his cigarette and waited, patient, bored.
Slightly distracted by the husky note
in her voice.
Unlike others he
never found sex appealing on the days that we worked.
But there was something about her voice …
“You kill for a living?”
She asked the question in English.
Mid-Atlantic seaboard upper class American English.
He was right.
“I do.”
He answered her
in the same language, with a guttural German accent.
German accents were tricky – you could easily start
sounding like a Prussian nobleman or a Nazi commandant.
He always used a light touch, even when
he used a working class voice.
“Who hires you?”
“Whoever can meet my price.
Governments.
Private
contractors.
Individuals.
I’m not fussy.”
“What is your price?”
“It depends on the job, the complexity, the fame of the
individual.
I’d say probably more
than you can afford.
Were you
looking to hire me?”
“No.”
He was spooking
her, deliberately, and she was trying not to show it.
Good for her.
He could terrify combat veterans if he tried.
He considered toning it down, but didn’t.
“How many people have you killed?”
“I’ve lost count.”
He was
lying to her, of course.
Another
of his curses – a photographic memory.
He knew each face, each name, each job, and always would.
“Are there jobs you would refuse to take?”
“Why would I?”
He was
toying with her, more interested in her answers than his own variety of lies.
“Because the … the victim … the target … what do you call them?”
She was beginning to sound
rattled.
He took another drag on
the cigarette he didn’t want and smiled.
“Take your pick,”
he
said.
“Victim sounds good.”
He could pick up on her annoyance now.
She suspected he was playing with her.
Good.
He liked an intelligent adversary, and she was most
definitely that.
“Did you kill Congressman Walters?”
“No comment.”
“Did you kill the King of Waziristan?”
“No comment.”
“Did you kill Jimmy Hoffa?”
she demanded, frustrated.
“No comment.”
“Would you kill a good man?
If the price was right?”
“How am I to know whether a man is good or not?
One man’s savior is another man’s
terrorist.
It’s not my place to
judge.”
“Just to carry out the sentence.”
“Yes.”
“Would you kill a woman?”
He took another drag on the heavy Turkish tobacco.
When in France he smoked
Gitanes
if necessary, unfiltered.
“What makes you think women are any less innocent than
men?
I can assure you, certain
women are far more dangerous than their male counterparts.”
“I take it that means yes.”
“Take it any way you wish.”
Taggart was going to be annoyed with him.
He was supposed to give this inquisitive female enough to
feed her paranoid fantasies with no real information.
Instead he was stonewalling her, for the simple reason that
he wanted to annoy her.
To get a
reaction from her.
For God’s sake,
he wanted to move her.
What the
hell was wrong with him today?
He heard her intake of breath.
“Have you ever killed a woman?”
He didn’t hesitate.
“Yes.”
“A child?”
“No.”
Silence as she digested that information.
He should have lied to her – he didn’t want her making
the mistake of thinking he was human.
“Are you here in Paris for a particular job?”
“I’m on vacation,”
he
said.
“I’m here for the wine and
the food and the pussy and nothing else.”
He felt her instinctive reaction, and he wanted to laugh.
A crude word was such a minor thing
compared to the world he was opening up for her.
It went with his accent – rough German that was then distorted
by the microphone.
He could croon
to her in a few hours and she’d have no idea who she was talking to.
The idea was tempting.