THE PERFECT KILL (12 page)

He was making coffee when the door opened ten minutes later. It was Blondie, wearing a formal nightdress. Her jet black hair was in curlers. Her sixty-five-year-old face devoid of its normal caked make-up. She had an expression of rank suspicion.

She had behind her, towering over her, a tall, dark-faced man. Creasy could see his right hand inside his open jacket. His eyes were black buttons. Eyes without expression.

The woman made a sign of the cross over her ample breasts and muttered a few words of prayer in Italian. Then in French she said, “I’d heard you were dead.”

Creasy smiled. It was a smile of affection.

“Blondie,” he said, “I’m sorry I couldn’t let you know otherwise. It was necessary.”

Over her shoulder, she said to the man behind her, “You can go now. It’s OK. Close the door behind you.”

As it closed, she moved to Creasy, put her arms around him and hugged him for a long time. Then she slapped him very hard. So hard that his head rocked back.

“Don’t ever do that again,” she hissed. “I went to church. I prayed for your soul, just in case you had one. I lit candles for you…I cried for you.”

She was crying again now. He pulled her head against his chest and whispered into the curlers, “I’m sorry, Blondie. It was necessary.”

She pulled her head back, wiped her sleeve across her eyes and said, “I suppose it must have been …what do you want?”

“First a cup of coffee, then something to eat, then a good sleep.”

“How long are you staying?”

“Two, maybe three days.”

She started bustling around the kitchen; an instant mother.

“Go to your usual room. I’ll bring the food and coffee up. Don’t tell me what you like for breakfast, I know.”

She turned and gave him a severe look.

“Before you go to sleep, you will tell me everything…you will make up for my prayers, the candles and my tears.”

“I will,” he said solemnly.

He walked into the bar at nine forty-five in the evening and recognised several faces. Nobody recognised him. Blondie was a mistress of disguise. She had spent an hour changing the shape of his face, enlarging his eyebrows, fixing a moustache. It was a large room with a long bar at the end. Everything very plain and utilitarian. Sawdust on the floor.

At the bar he ordered a beer, noting that Wensa, the bartender, had hardly seemed to age in the intervening years. He carried his drink over to an isolated table in the far corner. It was understood, in this bar, that when people wanted to talk business they went to that table or the one in the other corner. The bar was a sort of brokerage house of the nether world. Information was asked for and given. Deals were made.

Contracts given out.

The Corkscrew came in at exactly ten o’clock. He looked to be in his early sixties. Creasy knew he was much older. He had a man with him, a younger man. The Corkscrew’s eyes swept the room and settled on Creasy. All of Blondie’s skills would never fool the Corkscrew. He said something to the younger man, who moved to the bar.

The old man approached the table and said, “It’s only happened once before.”

“What?” Creasy asked.

The Corkscrew’s smile was gap-toothed. He was called the Corkscrew because he could worm his way into anything and then pull out.

“Arising from the dead,” he said.

Creasy didn’t offer him a drink. The Corkscrew only drank water and never in bars. He was also a man of very few words.

“What is it?” he asked.

“A job,” Creasy said. “A complicated one…but it pays well.”

“How well?”

“Three hundred thousand.”

He did not have to specify the currency. The deals done in this bar were always done in Swiss francs.

“It will be intermittent,” he continued. “Over the next year or two. No more than four or five days each month.”

“Where?”

“I need two holes. One in Damascus and one in Algiers. They must be secure. Small apartments in busy areas, preferably somewhere near the souks. They would have to be lived in and visited for a few days every month, so as not to attract any comment. You would need good cover and to be well documented, probably as a trader. Also, I would need you to get some machinery into Damascus and Algiers and stash it for me in the holes.”

“Heavy machinery?” the Corkscrew asked.

Creasy shook his head.

“Medium to light. A couple of RPG7s, a couple of submachine-guns, Uzis preferably, a couple of heavy hand guns, Colt 1911s would be good. Also two sniper rifles with night scopes and silencers. Finally, some grenades…a couple of dozen, fragmentation and phosphorescent. Plus the ammunition. Four rockets each for the RPG7s, eight mags each for the Uzis and the same for the Colts. I want everything in place within sixty days, although it might be up to two years before I use them. In each hole I also need a very complete medical kit. Can do?”

The Corkscrew shook his head.

“No.”

“You’re busy?”

Another shake of the head. “No, I’m retired. I was seventy last year.”

Creasy sighed in exasperation.

“So why the hell did you sit there and let me lower my pants. Why not tell me in the first place?”

The Corkscrew gestured at the bar. The man he had come in with walked over and sat down. He was about forty years old. So thin as to be almost skeletal. His hair was receding halfway across his head and he wore thick rimless spectacles. He had no other distinguishing features. No one would ever look at him twice.

“My son,” the Corkscrew said to Creasy. “He will do the job.”

Questions arose in Creasy’s mind. He was about to ask them and then stopped. The Corkscrew would not present his son if he was not totally capable. He would have trained him himself to do the family business.

“What are you known as?” he asked the younger man.

He got a very straight-faced answer. “Corkscrew Two.”

“Are you married?”

“Yes, and I have two sons, Corkscrew Three and Four.”

Creasy asked the older man, “Do I brief him now?”

The Corkscrew shook his head.

“No. I’ll do it. Just a couple of questions. First, should the holes be rented or purchased?”

“Purchased. I don’t need any luxury but they should be compatible with a man engaged in a modest business.”

“Funding?”

“Do you still have the same account in Luxembourg?”

“Yes.”

“A hundred thousand will be in it by close of business tomorrow. That will be for expenses, for the holes and the machinery. It should be enough. If you need more let me know. The three hundred for the job will be spaced at thirty thousand a month and paid up in full if the job ends early.”

He took the card from his inside pocket and passed it across to the Corkscrew.

“Keep me informed at that address. In an emergency call me at that number. If I’m not there, leave word with Michael Creasy.”

For the first time the Corkscrew’s face showed expression.

“You have no brothers or sons,” he said. It was a statement.

“I have a son,” Creasy answered. He gestured at the younger man but was looking at the Corkscrew. “Like you I continue the family business.”

Creasy got back to the Pappagal just after midnight. The door was opened by Blondie herself.

“I have a problem,” she said briskly. “Raoul got sick and I had to send him home. The guy I usually use for backup is on holiday.”

“No sweat,” Creasy said. “I’ll fill in.” He followed her down the corridor. As he passed the open door on his right, he saw several business-suited men sitting at the bar. The girls were lounging on the settees watching them. Waiting. They were all dressed elegantly. They were all young and very beautiful. Blondie ran a very high-class house. Sometimes things could go wrong, especially with diplomats from the Third World. Sometimes, they became over-confident because of their diplomatic immunity.

He followed Blondie into the kitchen. The shoulder holster was lying on the table, the black butt of the pistol jutting out. He took off his jacket and slipped the harness on, then he pulled out the Beretta and checked the magazine. It was empty. He then pulled back the breech. It was empty. He put the gun back into the holster. It was an understanding that Blondie had with the police. The gun was always empty. It was only ever shown as a threat. He put his jacket on and left the kitchen.

“I’ll bring you some coffee,” Blondie said. The Pappagal had twelve rooms, eleven of them were used by the girls and one by Raoul or his standin. The girls’ rooms were opulent, with many mirrors. Raoul’s room was spartan. A single bed, a table, two chairs and a colour television to relieve the boredom.

Above the television was a row of eleven light bulbs, each with a number underneath. If a girl had a problem with a client, she would press a recessed button in the headboard of her bed and the relevant bulb would light up in Raoul’s room. Creasy turned on the television and tuned into Cable News Network. Five minutes later Blondie bustled in with a tray holding a large percolator of coffee, a cup, and a half-full Cognac glass. Creasy knew it would be Hennessy Extra. She put it on the table, asking, “Are you hungry?”

He shook his head.

“I’ve eaten. Go about your business.”

“There’s only one possible problem,” she said. “He’s coming at one o’clock. He’s the military attache at the Chilean Embassy. Macho type. Occasionally gets a bit heavy. He’s booked Nicole for one o’clock. She’s in room seven.”

She bustled out.

Creasy drank his coffee, sipped at his Cognac and watched the world’s death and mayhem unfold on the television. Beirut. The West Bank. Kashmir. Ethiopia. Sri Lanka. It came into that spartan room from all corners of the earth.

At one thirty, it came from room seven. The bulb lit up. It took him six seconds to get there. As he opened the door, he heard a muffled scream. Nicole was lying on her belly, her face being pushed into the pillow. The man was straddling her.

Creasy closed the door behind him and said, “Cut it!”

The man turned. Lust was stamped on his face. It turned to anger. He was a big man and very hirsute. Black hair covered his back, chest, legs and arms. Creasy’s hand slipped into the side of his jacket and stayed there.

“Get off of her,” he said. “Get dressed, then get out.”

The man swore at him in Spanish. Creasy answered in the same language.

“You don’t have diplomatic immunity with me.”

He pulled out the Beretta.

The man swore again and rolled off the girl. She turned over, long legs, long body, long black hair. Hatred in her eyes as she looked at the man.

“What happened?” Creasy asked.

“He wanted to give me a bonus,” she answered. “Just to hurt me a little. A thousand francs. I refused. He hurt me anyway. The bastard’s leaving tomorrow and won’t be back. He knew that.”

The man was getting dressed. He called her names. His language was totally vile. He spoke in French and Spanish. She started to come off the bed in a rage. Creasy’s voice stopped her.

“Stay still. Exactly where you are.”

His voice carried authority and she froze.

The man finished knotting his tie and put on his jacket. He was in his late thirties and looked very fit.

He moved closer to Creasy, looked into his eyes and snarled.

“Listen, pimp, without that gun, I’d pull your arms off.”

Creasy opened the door, tossed the Beretta out onto the carpet in the corridor, closed the door again and held his arms out.

“Be my guest.”

The man smiled.

“You’re no chicken,” he said.

Creasy smiled back.

“And you’re no cockerel.”

He watched the hatred come into the man’s eyes, watched him edge closer. The man started talking again. A soft voice.

“OK. I don’t want trouble. She’s not worth it. Not a slut like that.” He smiled and held up his hands, palms outwards. “Peace, OK?”

“Whatever you want.”

Creasy saw the man’s right hand curl into a fist. Watched the man’s hips pivot. Creasy swayed back and to the left, and the fist swung past his face. The momentum carried the man forward into the upthrust jab of Creasy’s stiff-fingered right hand. He dropped to the floor in a heap. Creasy kicked him in the face.

The man rolled onto his back unconscious, blood oozing from his nose and mouth. Creasy knelt down, took his left arm, held it by the wrist and placed it over his right knee. The edge of his right hand slashed against it.

The girl on the bed heard the crack as the bone snapped. Five seconds later, she heard the crack again as the man’s right arm was broken.

Creasy looked up. Her face was as white as alabaster. She crossed herself and muttered something under her breath.

“Go and fetch Blondie,” he said. “Tell her we have a “baggage” job.”

The girl put on a red velvet dressing gown. She stepped over the man to the door, then turned and looked down at him. She leaned over and spat on his face. Then she looked at Creasy, smiled and said, “He won’t be going home tomorrow.”

Creasy finally got to bed at three o’clock. The tap on his door came at three fifteen. Nicole came in still wearing her red dressing gown. She sat on the edge of the bed and looked at him. The room was well heated and the sheet only came to his naked chest. She ran a hand across it. Across his scars. Then she stood and took off the dressing gown.

She looked down at him and murmured, “Blondie told me not to waste my time. That you don’t make love to whores.” He looked at her steadily, then pulled aside the sheet and patted the bed beside him. She lay down and he turned off the light. A few minutes later she was asleep, an arm across his chest; her head resting against his shoulder. Blondie had been right; but she was at peace. The ultimate intimacy…to sleep together and not to make love.

Normally Colonel Jomah would have summoned Ahmed Jibril to his office at Syrian Airforce Intelligence. On this occasion, however, he decided to visit Jibril at his base. He phoned and told him he was coming.

As his black, unmarked Mercedes approached the entrance, he noticed the security on the street, both his own and that of the PFLP-GC. About a dozen men. He knew that in two rooms on the second floor of the building opposite the entrance there would be two more men with heavy submachine-guns.