The Assassin (41 page)

Back on the couch, I finally wound down and drifted off about four in the morning. Robin was up making coffee at five, waking me.

“Hey,” she said. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“That’s all right.”

“Want some coffee?”

“Please. Black.”

She brought me a cup. I sat up to drink it. “Thanks.”

She settled into the nearest chair and sipped at her cup of joe. Her hair was sticking out in every direction. I also noticed that she had a nice set of legs. “This isn’t going to become a regular thing,” she informed me as she tightened her robe around her.

“You mean coffee in bed in the morning?”

“Don’t want you to have any unrealistic expectations.”

“I’ll try to keep myself under control.”

I don’t think Robin had slept a wink, because she went to sleep in the back of the SUV as we rolled through New Jersey. Rain began falling from a featureless slate sky. At first it was just a sprinkle; then it became steady. When she woke up, I pulled over and we ran around the car, dashing through the drops, changing places. She hadn’t even gotten up to highway speed before I was asleep.

They were sitting in a rental car on a highway pull-off, a half mile from Winchester’s mansion. Just across the fence, horses grazed on hay strewn about a pasture. Khadr studied the mansion and barn with binoculars. A gentle rain was falling. The windshield wipers worked in slow rhythm.

“You can assume that there are armed guards,” Abu Qasim said.

Khadr did not reply. He was studying the trees that surrounded the house, which obscured most of it. He could see a few windows and the roofline, but little else.

“And the weather?”

“A storm is coming. The weather forecasters predict that the rain will get heavier, the wind will rise significantly, and about 3:00 a.m. the rain will turn to snow.”

“Once the snow begins, the guards will relax.”

“What do you know of snow?”

Khadr pondered his answer but didn’t lower the binoculars. Telling clients about past hits was foolish; the information was a weapon they could use to try to save themselves if they were ever arrested and interrogated. Not Abu Qasim, though; saving himself wasn’t on his agenda. Khadr said, “I once did a job in Russia. It was winter.”

After another minute he lowered the binoculars. “We have sat here long enough,” he said.

Abu Qasim started the car and steered it back onto the highway.

“So what do you think?”

“I think there is a place on the next hill with another view of the house. Drive over there.”

Qasim pressed. “Can it be done?”

“The risk is great. One must assume armed guards, an unknown number, and infrared and motion detectors. Some of the guards will be outside, some inside. Once I evade the outside guards, I must somehow enter the house, remain undetected, make my kills, then escape. It is a great undertaking.”

“That it is.”

“Your friends would undertake it for the glory. I will not.”

“Twice your usual fee?”

Khadr glanced at Qasim.

“This is the last job I need you to do,” Qasim said.

Khadr still said nothing. He was watching the road and looking over Winchester’s estate as the car rolled along.

“You are worried, perhaps,” Qasim mused, “that I will kill you instead of paying you.”

“Not really,” the killer replied.

“A payment in advance, perhaps? Wired to your bank in Switzerland.”

“There is not enough time. It must be done tonight during the storm or not at all.”

“What do you suggest?”

“I am safe from my clients only because they know that I will not blackmail them, nor will I demand more than the agreed fee; and should they fail to pay the agreed fee once it has been earned, I will kill them. I have had little monetary disputes with several clients in the past after I have done the job I was hired for, and those clients are now resting on Allah’s bosom. Or the Devil’s. Whichever makes you comfortable. In your case, however, the usual safeguards are unnecessary. You don’t care if I get caught and tell everything. If I told everything to the press it would only add to your legend and standing with the jihadists. You will pay for results and accept no excuses. If I try to blackmail you, you will laugh.”

Qasim remained silent.

“I kill because I am paid for it,” Khadir said. “A crime, a sin, whatever, I do it for money, like a whore. You buy murder because you hate. I leave it to your Allah to judge between us as to who is the evil man.”

When I awoke, Robin had a weather report on the radio from a New York City station. A big nor’easter was moving in. Going to be lots of rain and wind and maybe even snow. She must have seen me stir, because she glanced over her shoulder at me. “You want to drive?”

“I can drive,” Callie said.

“Let Mrs. Grafton do the honors,” I said. Truthfully, I was awake but very tired.

It only took another hour for us to get to Winchester’s estate. Fortunately I remembered how to get there and gave directions from the back seat.

Someone came out and held an umbrella as we got the car unloaded.

Jake Grafton was there. He escorted the women inside. I stayed on the porch, which wasn’t large, watching the rain. The porch was sort of out of the wind, which was about fifteen miles per hour, I estimated, gusting higher. The rain was steady, but not too heavy as yet. I leaned the shotgun against the wall within easy reach.

When Grafton came back outside to talk about the mess in Rosslyn, I went over it shot by shot, then told him about the interrogation, everything important that I could recall.

“You did well, Tommy,” he said.

I didn’t feel very pumped. There were bodies scattered all over Europe because I hadn’t been quick enough.

Grafton briefed me on the security, told me where the holes were and who was in them, and gave me an extra radio earpiece, so I could listen to any transmissions he or the guys outside made.

“I’ve still got your Colt,” I told him. “Robin has the other shotgun.”

He nodded.

“You didn’t tell me she was a former Marine.”

He gave me a little grin and said, “There’s liquor at the bar, and beer, if you want it. Dinner in about an hour.” Then he went back inside. I stayed on the porch watching the rivulets on the pavement, thinking about things.

Actually I was thinking about Marisa. She was inside, of course, and I wanted to see her, yet I didn’t. So I started going over it again, everything, trying to figure out who she was and what she believed. After a while I gave up. The truth was beyond me.

The night got awfully dark, and the rain kept falling. After a while Robin came out, handed me a drink and said dinner was on.

Marisa glanced at me when I came into the dining room. The dog was lying beside Winchester’s chair and stayed there. I had ditched my coat and shotgun on a chair in the living room. I seated myself across the table from her and down a seat. I looked around, found out who was there and who wasn’t and nodded at the two FBI agents who were cooking and standing inside guard duty when Grafton pronounced names. It must have been a nice break for them from chasing bank robbers and doing security investigations.

Winchester was at the head of the table, talking about his son, Owen, who I knew had been killed in Iraq. Grafton sat on one side of him and Isolde Petrou on the other. Isolde and Winchester were soon in deep conversation about what else needed to be done by banks, business and industry to help governments fight terrorism.

When I looked at Marisa, I found she was looking at me. She maintained eye contact, and only looked away when Amy asked her a question. She looked like the calmest person at the table. Of course, I wondered why. The possibility that she knew what was going to happen next reared its ugly head.

Grafton looked pretty calm, cool and collected, too, I noticed, but then, he always did. If they announced World War III and told him to lead the charge, he would still look exactly the same, still the Jake Grafton you always knew. Knowing him as I did, I thought he had a good idea what Qasim’s next move might be—maybe he had even played for it—but of course he couldn’t know.

Me?—I knew the bastard had murder on his mind. I was absolutely certain of that. The only thing I didn’t know was where and when and how.

Gonna find out, though. Sure as shootin’.

And I wasn’t calm. My stomach was doing flips; eating was the very last thing I thought I could handle. I poured some more of Winchester’s whiskey down there to settle things a little, but my appetite didn’t improve. I played with the salad, stirred it around, munched a piece of tomato. When I looked up, there was Marisa, watching me with those big brown eyes.

I looked at Robin Cloyd and found she was looking at me with a curious expression on her face. I didn’t have time to figure that out— Marisa was watching Grafton now. I tried to read her face and failed. It was like trying to decipher the Mona Lisa.

I gave up and went into the kitchen to see if the feds needed any help with the veggies or squashed potatoes or roast beast. Plates needed to be carried, they said. I began shuttling them to the table.

“Really getting nasty out there,” one of them said when I came back for the last two plates. I had almost forgotten. I looked at the rain hammering the window. Lord, it had turned to sleet! No wonder it was so loud.

“Glad I’m inside and not out in one of those holes,” the other guy said.

I took the plates in, set them down, then came back to the kitchen. The agents were settling down on stools at the counter with their own plates. I joined them and grunted at appropriate points in the conversation. Mainly, though, I listened to the wind and the sleet rattling on the glass.

I played with the food a while—I really wasn’t hungry—and pushed the plate back. Grafton came in shortly thereafter. “Great dinner, gents,” he said to the agents, who were still working on theirs.

He stood at the window looking at the sleet striking the outside win-dowpane, then came over to where I sat.

“If you were Khadr … ?”

“Tonight,” I said.

“I think so, too,” he murmured, then paused to listen carefully as a gust pounded the sleet against the window. The sleet was basically soft hail.

After nodding to the other guys and saying something else nice about the grub, he went back to the dining room.

chapter TWENTY-TWO

When I had hidden in the kitchen for as long as my conscience, and good sense, would allow, I went back into the dining room. Everyone was gone. I got busy bussing the table, and the FBI types helped. As they worked, they talked shop gossip; I tried not to pay attention but found myself listening anyway. I was reminded that everyone has problems. They also weren’t happy that they were at Winchester’s doing what they thought was manual labor when they were highly trained, professional crime solvers.

When that job was done they made themselves coffee and got deeper into FBI internal politics. It was a few minutes after nine o’clock.

I checked that my earpiece was in tight and my belt radio was on, then wandered into the living room. Everyone was there except Marisa. Jake Grafton, Huntington Winchester, Isolde Petrou and Robin Cloyd were into the war on terror, while Jerry Hay Smith sat silently, probably secretly recording their remarks for a future column. Callie and Amy were huddled by the piano with their heads close together, probably talking mother-daughter stuff. After all, Amy had that boyfriend in Baltimore …

I inspected every window and door in the lower story, ensuring they were locked as the wind whispered against the windows. The wind was howling outside, but the house was of quality construction and tight. Goes to show what real money can do.

Went to the basement and looked around down there. One door went out. That Khadr—if he came alone—this basement door would attract him like a moth to a flame.

Still, underestimating him could be fatal for someone.

Would he come alone ?

All the possibilities leapt to mind, everything from an assault by a dozen or two fired-up locals intent on earning their way into Paradise to a bomb against the building or a rocket into the house.

Clearly, there was no way to do more than we had done. We had four guys outside, and me, Grafton, Robin and the two pistol-packing pro crime solvers in. I wondered if either of the federal cops had ever been in a gunfight. Or if Robin had. That was our team unless Grafton had cavalry standing by somewhere that I didn’t know about. Even if he did, it was doubtful that they could get here in time to do much good. Whatever happened, if it happened, would happen damn quick.

Ahh . .. nothing will happen.

I decided I was jumpy, working myself into a state because I was a little scared. The memory of the adventure in the stairwell was still fresh as newly spilled blood. My ears still buzzed from the gunshots in that concrete sounding chamber. My shoulder still ached from the bullet in London and hurt from the crease last night.

My worst problem was my adrenaline hangover. That and congenital paranoia.

When I finished the basement, I climbed the stairs to the top floor and began familiarizing myself with the layout, doors, light switches, closets, storage rooms, bathrooms, places to hide, furniture in odd places… all the things I would need to know if the power went off. Room by room, I looked at everything. This joint only had a half dozen bedrooms up here—it was really a small hotel.

One of the bedroom doors was closed. Marisa’s, I figured. I stood there for several seconds breathing in and out before I knocked.

Maybe half a minute passed before the door opened. She was wearing an ankle-length nightie. She walked away from me, and I closed the door. The only light came from the little reading lamp beside the bed.

She turned to face me.

“Tommy . .. ” I don’t know exactly how it happened, but we wound up in a tight embrace, kissing. Her hunger was a tangible thing; her warmth and sensuality swept over me.

Afterward we lay together between the sheets in the darkness holding each other tightly. She had her head against my chest, as if she were listening to my heart.