The Assassin (27 page)

“And Alexander Surkov?”

“The Russians, I imagine.”

“But you don’t know?”

“No.”

“Your husband?” Qasim.

“How do you know?”

“He might have poisoned Jean by mistake, while he was trying to poison Isolde, or intentionally because he was afraid we would learn that Jean betrayed Isolde and the others to Qasim and demand that Jean tell the authorities. I just don’t know.”

“But you didn’t see Qasim poison the food?”

“No.”

“I have a suggestion. Why don’t you just tell me what Abu Qasim told you and the part you are supposed to play in his drama?”

She sprang from the chair and reached for her purse. I was ready to break her neck if she pulled out that Walther, but she extracted a pack of cigarettes and a pack of matches. Her hands shook as she tried to get a cigarette lit. It took two matches to get the thing ignited. Being a gentleman and all, perhaps I should have lit it for her, but I merely sat and watched.

Was she selling out her father?

Or was she doing precisely what Abu Qasim had told her to do, which was tell this tale to Grafton, via Carmellini?

I had been hanging around Grafton too long—I was even beginning to think like him.

If she was merely obeying orders, what did Qasim expect Grafton to do with the information? What was it Qasim wanted Grafton to do?

The problem, I decided, was that I didn’t know which side Marisa was really on.

Of course, maybe she didn’t know, either.

Khadr walked up behind the car sitting outside the Petrou mansion and raised the pistol as he came alongside. The window was up. He fired through it, hitting the driver in the head. The driver slumped forward onto the steering wheel.

Khadr walked on, up the walk, up the steps, across the stoop, and rang the doorbell. He waited.

If Marisa was acting, I thought she should have been on Broadway. She sat on the edge of her chair, her feet under her, and sucked on her weed. Inhaled deeply and blew smoke all over. She repeatedly pushed her bangs back out of her face, over and over, unconsciously.

“Will he try to kill Isolde?” I asked gently.

“I don’t know.”

“You?”

She eyed me. “I don’t know.” She looked down and sucked some more on her cigarette. After a moment she said, “If they knew I was talking to you and Grafton, they would.”

“They?”

“You don’t think he’s working alone, do you?”

“I guess not.”

When the door opened, Khadr shot the butler once, right in the face. He stepped into the foyer. The maid was there, carrying a tray with a silver pot. She started to scream. Khadr shot her, too. The first bullet hit her in the body and she fell, dropping the tray. Dark liquid splattered all over the floor.

Khadr walked into the room and shot the maid in the head as she lay on the floor. Then he turned and walked out of the chateau.

Down the steps, past the car with the dead driver, and down the winding driveway to where Abu Qasim was waiting.

Marisa finished her cigarette in silence, stubbed it out and took a deep breath. She looked calmer, more herself.

I rose from my chair. “I’ll go call Grafton, see what he says.”

“Au revoir” she said automatically.

“I’ll be right back.”

She looked up at me, pinned me with those dark brown eyes and said, “Every time I see you it’s as if I’m seeing a ghost. They want to kill you so badly … you’re a dead man walking, Tommy Carmellini. So au revoir, in case we never meet again.”

I walked the hallways to the main staircase and started down. About halfway down I saw the butler, who was sprawled near the front door. The door was wide open.

I stopped—frozen—looking and listening. The Springfield seemed to find my hand automatically. I looked down and left… and saw the maid, lying on the floor with her legs akimbo. Spilled chocolate all over the floor, a lake of it. The platter had broken. Why hadn’t I heard it break?

I guess my brain locked up about then. In my mind’s eye I could see Speedo behind the wheel of our rental car, parked outside. Speedo Harris, MI-6. Good God!

My legs carried me the rest of the way down the staircase, across the foyer and out the door without any thought on my part. The rental car was parked out there on the brick pavement. I could see Speedo’s head slumped over the wheel.

No one else in sight. No cars, no people, no dogs, no airplanes going over, only a deathly silence.

I walked around the front of the sedan to the driver’s door. The window was up… and had a hole in it. The steering wheel was holding Speedo up. His eyes were open, staring at nothing.

Amazing the things you think about at a moment like that. I stared at Speedo’s head and saw the entry hole for the bullet that killed him. Just a little spot of red, right above his left ear. His paperback novel was on his lap.

Well, at least Marisa didn’t kill him; she had been with me ever since the butler showed me to the upstairs sitting room.

But somebody shot him, sure as hell. Hanging around with Carmellini was the equivalent of a death sentence. Jake Grafton oughta be locked up for sending me to guard anyone.

I felt a yell coming on. If the shooter was upstairs doing Isolde and Marisa …

I charged for the porch, took the steps three at a time. I was yelling then—I couldn’t help myself. Howling. I jerked the damn door open and ran inside, ready to shoot the first person I saw.

I saw no one alive. The butler and maid were lying just as I had first seen them.

I charged for the stairs and went up three at a time, still yelling. Raced along the hallway and jerked open the sitting room door. There sat Marisa, staring at me as if I had lost my mind. Maybe I had.

“Where’s Isolde?” I roared. I was waving the pistol around, looking to make sure she was the only one in the room.

She didn’t come fast enough to suit me. I grabbed her arm and threw her toward the door.

“Quick, goddamnit!” I was trying to speak normally, but it wasn’t working. The words came out as a shout. “Someone shot the guy I came with and the butler and maid. He may be in the house. Where is she?”

Marisa gathered herself and ran. I followed, twd doors down, through a hallway that led to a corner room suite. The old woman was sitting there at her desk working on something.

I looked around the room, in the bath, in the closet. God, I was so ready to shoot somebody. I don’t recall ever being so frustrated or keyed up.

“Get your passports and your purses and any medication you have to have. Quickly, now. We’re leaving.”

“Where—?” Marisa asked.

“London. A safe house. That’s the only place I know that killers can’t get to you.”

Marisa said something in French to the old lady, and by gum, she jumped up and ran into the bathroom. In thirty seconds she had her purse and her passport from the desk and was ready to go. I wondered if her late husband knew what a jewel she was.

It took about the same amount of time to collect Marisa’s stuff, and then I was leading them down the stairs.

When we saw the butler and maid sprawled out, Isolde stopped dead. She began spewing French at Marisa. She bent down, gently touched the butler’s white hair.

I thought this wasn’t the time and place for long good-byes, and reached for her. Marisa put a hand on my arm.

Isolde Petrou got down on her knees beside the butler and seized his hand. Tears were running down her cheeks and she was biting her lip. “No, no, no,” she muttered. After a moment she hoisted herself up and went over to the maid, who was lying on her back with her eyes open, staring at infinity. Isolde got down on her knees again, closed her eyes, touched her cheek, said her name, said good-bye.

Marisa reached for the older woman’s arm, helped her to her feet, nodded at me. Together, they followed me.

We went out through the kitchen toward the garage, taking our time, looking for anyone at all. Didn’t see hide nor hair of the cook or gardener or wine cellar dude. I wondered if they were all asleep … with bullets in their heads. No time to look—they were alive and well or they weren’t. I was going to keep these two women alive or die trying.

I put Marisa in the front seat of the Mercedes limo and Madame Petrou in back, then hunted through the chauffeur’s quarters over the garage for the keys. It was like an anxiety dream. Lurking around somewhere, maybe, was an assassin, and I couldn’t find the damned keys. I kept expecting to wake up any second in a cold sweat.

Just when I was ready to admit defeat, I found the keys hanging on a nail at the head of the stairs. Don’t know how I missed them coming in.

I shot down the stairs, punched the garage door opener and stood to one side, watching, as it rose at its usual pace. It made a noise going up. Needed oil.

No one in sight. I dove into the car, backed out smartly and got going down the drive. The gate was open. I slowed and looked into the guard shack.

I intended to drive on by, then thought better of it. Slammed on the brakes, jammed the transmission into park and turned it off. Took the keys with me, just in case. I didn’t trust Marisa far enough to throw her. The last thing I wanted to see was her and Isolde disappearing down the road while I stood there surrounded by corpses, looking stupid.

One glance into the guard shack was enough. The day man was facedown on the floor.

I got back into the car, jammed the keys into the ignition and lit that thing up. As we roared away, I got out my cell phone and pushed the 1 button. In about a minute I had Robin Cloyd. “Tell Grafton that someone killed Speedo—a bullet in the brain—and at least three of the Petrou household staff. I have both the Petrou women in their limo, and we’re heading to London.”

“I have been listening to the audio from the bugs.”

“Call the police. Maybe they’ll get lucky.”

“I’ve already talked to the admiral.”

“Where is he, anyway?”

“Here.” That would be Washington.

“Put him on.”

“He’ll call you in a few minutes.”

The connection went dead.

Marisa was watching the road and checking the rearview mirror on her side of the car. She had her purse in her lap, and the top was open. I grabbed it and glanced inside. Sure enough, she had that Walther in there. I took it out and put it in my pocket, then dropped the purse in her lap.

“I didn’t kill anyone,” she said.

“Maybe not in the last fifteen minutes, I’ll grant you that. And I certainly don’t want you shooting me.”

“I am not going to shoot you, Tommy.”

I adjusted the rearview mirror in the middle of the windshield to keep an eye on madame in the back. Maybe she poisoned her son and maybe she didn’t. She was biting her lip, looking out the windows … Once, when I glanced in the mirror, I caught her wiping her eyes.

“Honestly, I’ll feel better having the gun in my pocket,” I told Marisa.

“If you don’t slow down, we’re going to be killed in a car wreck.”

Those big Mercedes Benzes sure can roll. I let off on the gas and took a deep breath and tried to get my thoughts in order.

Poor Speedo. He was a dweeb, but still… to die like that.

I wondered if he even saw it coming.

Jake Grafton took the call from Robin Cloyd at Sal Molina’s desk in his tiny White House office. On the other side of the desk was CIA director William S. Wilkins, and he was in a sour mood. He knew far more than he had before about Huntington Winchester and his friends, and the president’s aide’s personal direction of this operation.

As the admiral listened to Cloyd’s summary of events at the Petrou chateau on the other side of the Atlantic, Wilkins snarled, “You’re a fool, Molina. I don’t give a pinch of rat shit what commitment the president made to Huntington Winchester. Involving the agency in a harebrained scheme like this—one that is bound to blow up in your faces—strikes me as a classic case of rotten judgment.”

Molina looked unperturbed. “In the president’s judgment—and mine—the possible rewards justified the risks. Yes, the risks are substantial, but we are going to have to take risks if we expect to have any chance at getting the terrorist masterminds.”

William Wilkins shook his bald head. “I’m not a fool and I’m not an optimist. I have spent thirty years assessing risks in covert operations, and believe me, this one meets none of the criteria for approval.”

He was wasting air, and he knew it. During the last twenty years the agency had lost the trust of many of the politicians in Washington. It had missed the impending collapse of Communism in the late eighties and early nineties, assured the establishment that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and been overly optimistic about the prospects for some kind of political settlement between the three major groups in Iraq after Saddam was removed, to name only three of its blown calls.

The agency’s record of penetrating terrorist organizations and combating them effectively was even worse. This was the unspoken fact that hung in the air now, although neither Wilkins nor Molina was willing to voice it, and was undoubtedly one of the factors in the president’s decision to provide support to Winchester’s quixotic quest. Knowing the political forces at work merely deepened Wilkins’ gloom. Amateurs mucking about, getting killed or scared and squealing to the press, weren’t going to get it done. Other than filling some coffins with their own corpses, their main accomplishment would be triggering another congressional investigation, destroying the president politically and throwing even more mud on the agency.

As he sat watching Grafton on the phone, avoiding Molina’s calm scrutiny, William Wilkins contemplated retirement. The hell of it was, it was his agency, and, by God, his country, too.

“I’ll call him in a few minutes,” Grafton said and hung up the telephone. He glanced from face to face, then told them of the events in the chateau and of Carmellini’s departure with both women.

“What is your recommendation?” Molina asked calmly. The man would wear that expression when they lashed him to a post in front of a firing squad, William Wilkins thought savagely, and wished that day would really come.

Grafton deferred to his superior. Wilkins was having none of it. He held out his hand to Grafton and opened it. “The floor is yours,” he said through clenched teeth.