The Assassin (42 page)

I still had the bandage over the drain the doctor had installed in London, plus my new bandage on my souvenir shoulder crease. She ignored them both.

“Sometimes I wish,” she said, “that I were a different person, a normal person, with a normal family and normal problems.”

“Normal problems …” I echoed. “Don’t we all wish?”

“But I’m not.”

A blast of wind struck the house and rattled the window, which was cracked open about an inch. Cold air blew gently into the room through that crack. The sleet had stopped and now was just rain—a lot of rain, I could tell by the sound.

Somewhere a tree limb was rubbing against the house. The gutter, it sounded like. It was a random, scraping sound, whenever the wind blew hardest.

“You aren’t, either,” she said.

My earpiece and radio were on the floor someplace. I thought about putting it back on, yet I didn’t want to move to find it.

“I’m frightened,” she whispered.

“Khadr?” Qasim.

“One is as bad as the other,” I said, trying to sound normal.

She didn’t hesitate. “With our luck, we’ll get them both,” she said bitterly.

I kissed her one last time, as warmly and tenderly as I could, then got out of bed and dressed in the darkness as the wind moaned and rain hammered the glass.

Using the fence line and a little draw, Khadr crawled into the back of the barn. The journey from the fence to the barn, a distance of about a hundred yards, had taken him an hour. He was wet to the skin and cold, but he ignored both sensations.

Khadr was dressed all in black, with a black ski mask over his head and face, with holes only for his eyes, and black gloves on his hands. He killed swiftly, ruthlessly and without remorse, and he was very good at it. Tonight he was armed with a silenced pistol, a knife, a garroting wire and hard experience gained through fifty-five paid kills and six that weren’t. The pistol he carried in a black synthetic holster with the bottom cut out to make room for the silencer. The knife hung in a black sheath on his left side.

The large double door was closed and barred from the inside. Khadr pulled gently on the handle, then moved to the personnel door. It was unlocked. He slipped through into the barn, closed the door behind him and ensured it had latched, then moved sideways into a dark corner and stood waiting with the silenced pistol in his hand. Waiting and listening, alert with every sense attuned.

The horses knew he was there, of course, and shifted nervously in their stalls. No doubt they were looking his way, and they could probably see him, although he couldn’t see them. They didn’t whinny, however. These were tame horses, used to man’s presence. He heard the horses’ shuffle above the noise of the wind and rain, both of which came in driving gusts.

The only light in the barn was from the exit signs above the doors at either end. Khadr’s eyes adjusted quickly, and he saw the layout, the stalls and the dark shapes that hung above the doors, the horses, watching him, looking around.

He waited until the horses turned away, one by one, back to their feed bags or standing asleep or lolling in their stalls. He heard one horse lit down. Ten minutes passed with only the sounds of the storm; then he heard a gentle plop of a horse exercising its bowels.

He started down the passageway that led to the front entrance … and froze. Something … A man snoring. The sound was above him.

He searched the overhead, saw the platforms and the end of the hay bales stored there—and saw the areas where they weren’t.

From a pocket he removed a small infrared detector that looked like a telescope. Holding it up to his right eye, he scanned the overhead. Two heat sources …

Like a shadow he moved to the ladder against the wall, by a tack room, and stood at the bottom of the ladder looking upward. Listening.

The snoring was closer. One man … no, two—definitely two—above him.

He climbed the ladder, a lithe, agile black shadow, moving slowly and steadily. No one can move absolutely soundlessly, not even Khadr, but the sounds of the nor’easter on the uninsulated roof covered the tiny noises of the rungs taking his weight, the rubber soles of his shoes scraping on the wood.

He paused at the top, his pistol in his hand, every sense on full alert. Slowly, ever so slowly he raised his head, which was still covered with the black ski mask. In the dim, almost nonexistent light they were black lumps sleeping on mats, their feet at least ten feet from him. They appeared motionless, snoring gently. Over his head the roof reverberated.

Khadr forced himself to look around, to ensure that these were the only two men in the loft. The corners of this empty area of the loft were totally black, impenetrable. He used the infrared scanner. Empty.

At any moment one of the men could awaken or someone could enter the barn down below. He could afford to wait no longer.

He holstered the pistol and, using both hands, completed his climb, then stepped onto the loft floor.

Neither of the men stirred. Now he pulled the pistol again, automatically thumbing the safety to ensure it was on. Stepping carefully, feeling the floor with each foot before placing his weight on that spot, he moved toward them. They were in sleeping bags, three feet or so between them.

He moved so he was adjacent to their waists. He thumbed off the safety. Swiftly he bent down, placed the muzzle of the pistol inches from the head of the man on his left and pulled the trigger. A soft plop. A second later he put a bullet into the head of the man on his right.

He was about to holster the gun when the first man he shot sat up, groaning, one hand on his head. Khadr placed the muzzle of the silencer against the side of the man’s head and fired again. The victim tumbled over and lay still.

Now the killer holstered the gun and removed a penlight from his pocket. The beam was a tiny spot. Quickly he looked for the radios that he knew must be here.

He found them. The first man he shot had an earpiece in his ear. The wireless transceiver was lying near his head. Khadr inspected the transceiver, ensured it was on, then clipped it to his belt. The earpiece he inserted in his own ear.

He adjusted the squelch until he got static, then turned it down until the static faded into silence.

Guns lay on the floor nearby. M-16s and 1911-style automatics. He picked up one of the pistols, checked that it was loaded, cocked and locked, and shoved it into his waistband, just in case. If he had to use it, he would be in deep trouble, perhaps fatal trouble. For him. Still…

He went to the window and looked through the rain-smeared glass down into the yard. It was empty, but he knew there were people out there, waiting. Waiting for him. Shielding the penlight carefully, he looked at his watch. Only ten thirty. Lights were still on in the house. Four cars were parked near the small porch.

He would wait, Khadr decided. He had all night.

Standing silently, motionless, he took out his infrared scanner and began searching the area.

Behind him the leg of the first man he had shot moved, then stiffened, then finally relaxed and moved no more.

When I got downstairs, the party around the fireplace was breaking up. Callie and Amy were already upstairs, apparently, although I hadn’t heard them pass Marisa’s door. Smith made himself one last toddy, then carried it by me up the stairs. He refused to meet my eyes.

Winchester called his dog, who followed him into the hallway that led to the dining room and kitchen. Grafton trailed along after the collie. Robin was sitting with her shotgun across her lap in front of the fireplace. She watched me descend the stairs and follow the two into the hallway.

I found Grafton talking to the two FBI agents. “Tommy and Robin will take the first watch,” he said. “I want you to go upstairs and get some sleep. Tommy will wake you at three and you can relieve them.”

He glanced at me, and I nodded. From a backpack he extracted two night vision headsets. He explained how they worked to the FBI agents, who had never used them before. Showed them the on-off switch, the switch to cycle between infrared and starlight, and showed them the gain and contrast knobs. The federal cops looked dubious.

“If you’ve never used these before, you might be better off without them,” I suggested.

They both nodded.

Grafton handed me a set.

“Since we have more people than we’ve had the last few nights, I’m going to try to get a full night’s sleep,” Grafton continued, talking to the agents. “Same drill as in the past—I’ll have the radio on so I’ll hear anything anyone says on the net. I’m the reinforcements. If anyone sees anything, hears anything, suspects anything, say so on the net. Got it?”

He looked from face to face, then at me. We all nodded our understanding.

“Admiral,” one of the agents said, the taller of the two. “Realistically, what are we facing?”

“I honestly don’t know. We could be assaulted by a gang, bombed or attacked by stealth by one man. I don’t know. Last night at my place in Virginia four men tried to gain entrance to the building.”

The FBI types looked at each other. The shorter one, who I knew was married from his comments during dinner, unconsciously felt the pistol in his holster to reassure himself. When he saw me watching he lowered his hand.

Winchester went to the coatrack by the kitchen door and began donning a coat and slicker. The dog sat looking up at him expectantly.

“Hunt, why don’t you let Tommy take the dog for a walk?”

Winchester looked at me.

“Sure, Mr. Winchester,” I said with false enthusiasm. “I need to stretch my legs.”

“Okay.” Winchester took off the coat and held it out to me.

“Thanks,” Grafton murmured. He slapped me on the shoulder, my bad one, and headed for the living room to give the other set of goggles to Robin.

The dog looked at me as if I were its best pal.

“Her name is Molly,” Winchester said as he took the leash off the hook. Molly stood up and turned around excitedly and fanned the air with her tail. “She has to walk and sniff a while before she decides to go.”

I got dressed, arranged the slicker flap over my head and accepted the leash and Winchester’s flashlight. It was one of those black aircraft-aluminum jobs, with three or four D-cell batteries. I almost said no, then thought, why not? The rain wouldn’t do the night vision goggles any good at all, and I might need them later. I left them on a coat hook. After saying something polite, I opened the door, and the dog dragged me out into the night.

And a damned miserable night it was. Not yet freezing, but with the wet wind howling at least thirty knots, and gusting higher, and driving the raindrops into my face and legs like pellets, it felt like the arctic. The wind chill must have been near zero. Tree branches writhed and whipped in the wind, and low evergreens bent over from the blasts. Why the Pilgrims and other strait-laced religious types from Merry Old England ever wanted to take this place away from the Indians, I don’t know.

The dog liked it, though. She tugged me right along on her usual walk, I suppose. We went into the grass and along the hedges as she sniffed at everything. She found a couple of old dog-poop piles and inspected those carefully, but I got tired of that and pulled her on. She then charged to the end of the leash. Considering all the times she must have done this, you’d think she would have been leash-trained, but no.

I flashed the light around, just looking, shining it everywhere, in case there was a watcher. The guy in the hole by the corner of the barn could close his eyes or duck down; he didn’t need me giving away his position. Mostly, however, I watched the dog. Having had a little canine experience myself, I knew the dog would detect an intruder before I did. Molly certainly wouldn’t smell him in this hurricane, but she would sense him. Khadr. If he was out here. Or any other holy warrior waiting for a sucker infidel.

After a few minutes of this I led Molly on around the house. Might as well check out the whole area.

As I walked, bent down to protect myself against the wind, struggling to hold on to the pooch, I thought about my recent tryst with Marisa. Now there was a woman! But was she the real deal, or only acting a part?

The unanswered questions were right there, just beneath the surface. My paranoia was so ingrained by this time that I went over every look, word, touch, gesture—even her body language and the way she held herself—trying to find a false note. Ran the scenes over and over in my memory, looking …

The problem, I decided, is really me. I find it impossible to not turn over the rock to see what’s underneath.

Oh, God, Tommy, you idiot, what a way to live!

From the barn window, Khadr watched Tommy trudge through the wind and rain with the dog lunging on her leash until he disappeared around the house. He didn’t know who the man with the dog was—the infrared didn’t allow that kind of definition. Now that Tommy was gone, he used the infrared scanner again, although he realized he was only looking at this side of the house, and the areas to his left and right were obscured by his vantage point. There must be people out here! Getting as close to the glass as possible, he used the scanner to look down to the right and left.

There he was, a man, below, almost against the corner of the barn, to Khadr’s left. One man, in a hole, perhaps.

Khadr continued to look, scanning, trying to determine if this was the only man. He was still looking when Tommy Carmellini and the dog came back around the house. They entered at the door they had come out of.

A few minutes later some of the upstairs lights went dark. The people inside were going to bed.

So how was he going to get past the man in the hole and get inside?

Khadr began turning that problem over in his mind. In truth, he had no plan. He was looking for an opportunity, and if one developed, or he saw a way to make one, well and good. If not, he could always leave the way he had come in. He had a cell phone in his pocket to call Qasim to meet him.

After all, Qasim wanted to create terror, and the discovery of two dead men in the barn would certainly create it. And another opportunity might present itself tomorrow night, or the night after.