The Assassins (23 page)

Katia slowed. “Do you know who that woman is, the one who’s taking the photos?” She nodded across the street. “I think she was following me last night. She may have photographed you and me when we were in the souk. Maybe before then, too—in the marketplace.”

He peered at the woman. “I don’t remember her. Does she worry you?”

Katia felt safe with Pyotr. Despite his violent past, or maybe because of it, there was something about him that made her feel taken care of.

“No,” she decided. “She’s probably just a tourist.”

A fortune-teller called out from an alley. “Come. Find out how many years of happiness you will have together, love birds. Come, come.” Stooped, she beckoned with both hands. Gold rings covered her arthritic fingers, and tiny gold cymbals chimed from her ears. “You will not be sorry. You will learn your good future!”

Pyotr gave her dirhams. “You’re much too young to be out so late.”

She laughed, and the money vanished into the red sash at her waist. “I am much too old to care. Here, let me see, young miss. Your palm, please.”

But Katia put her hands behind her back and shook her head. “Dreams are better than predictions, but thank you.”

As they walked on, Katia peered back over her shoulder. The ice cream cart was as busy as ever, but she no longer saw the photographer.

“Where do you live, Pyotr?” she asked curiously.

“In a wood chalet at the top of a high green valley in Switzerland. The views take your breath away. The bells of the dairy herd are my only alarm clock. My idea of heaven.”

Ten minutes later they arrived at their hotel. The outdoor caf
é
was closed, the little tables vanished. They strolled through the lamp-lit lobby and rode the elevator up to her floor. Even though they were not touching, she felt heat radiate from his body, calling her. She ached to have sex with him, but it was not a good idea.

Soon they were at the door to her room. Unlocking it, she opened it onto darkness, emptiness. The loneliness of her life was almost palpable.

She turned. “Thank you for two wonderful days.”

“That sounds like good-bye.”

“I didn’t mean it to. I just meant it’s been wonderful.”

“There you go again. That sounds like good-bye, too.” There was disappointment in his eyes. “You’re worried about me. Who I was. Whether I’m the same person today. A contract killer. Whether I could kill again.”

“You’ve given me a great gift,” she told him. “You showed me the poverty of my life—and that I can change it. Love is what my dreams were telling me I could have. It’s what I came to Marrakech to find out.”

There was a small smile on his lips. If he had changed the way he claimed, he was a remarkable man. He was also handsome, elegant, strong-looking, virile. She could not believe she was getting rid of him.

She stepped back and forced herself to say the words. “I’m tired. I have to go in now. Again, thank you for everything. I’ll never forget you.”

He gave a slow shake to his head, the small smile still on his lips. “Let me ask you a question, although I’m sure of the answer. Did you love your father? Do you still love him?”

She frowned. What a weird question, especially now. “Of course.”

“Do you still miss him?”

“What are you getting at?”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” He looked both ways along the carpeted hall.

She looked, too. They were alone.

When he spoke again, it was quietly and in Russian. “Let me educate you about who you are, Katia Levinchev, daughter of Roza and Grigori Ivanovich Levinchev. I asked you about your father because I was trying to find out whether you knew what Lubyanka had assigned him to do after he left Bedford training village. He and I partnered occasionally. Lubyanka made him into a political assassin, too. He went independent a year before I did.”

She said nothing. Was there a corner of her mind that had suspected this? About a decade after his disappearance, her father and she had talked several times a year, especially on their birthdays. For her, each time was special. The clouds in her life would vanish, and the sun would warm her.

“I respected him,” he went on. “If you loved and trusted your father, perhaps you can give me a chance. He and I are no different.”

For a moment she felt numb. What was left to her? Returning to her mother who was not really her mother, to a kindergarten class to teach American children when she was not really American, to a few friends who had always known who they were and never questioned it.

She made herself breathe. She liked the way he looked at her, his gaze steady but concerned. His nose was a little crooked, and she liked that, too. Odd that he had not had it straightened. She admired that about him—he seemed not to mind imperfection, even in himself.

He took her hand and covered it with his own. “Let me fall in love with you, Katia.”

Shivers of pleasure spread up her arm and down into her belly.

He pulled her to him. Her head fell back, and she sank into his muscles and heat. She lifted her mouth hungrily, and he kissed her long until she felt weak and had to pull away.

He walked her back into her room, kissing her ears, her throat. She ran her fingers down his cheek, over his beard stubble, and down his throat. Somehow the door closed behind them, and the little bed light came on. Fumbling, she unbuttoned his shirt. His mouth went to her shoulder, wet and probing. She arched back, and he slid off the straps of her sundress and pulled it down over her breasts.

She could feel her nipples harden. Fingers trembling, she unzipped his pants, and then he was against her, hard, pushing her into the wall. She shook with need. He flipped up her skirt and slid his hand between her legs.

She moaned, eager to greet the inevitable.

47

At three
A.M.
Pyotr untangled himself from the hotel bed sheets. The only illumination in Katia’s room was moonlight slanting in from where the drapes did not quite touch the wall. Listening to her regular breathing, Pyotr slid out of bed and padded across the carpet, picking up his clothes. He had a short errand.

Dressing quickly, he left, running along the hall to the staircase then down to the second floor. He was inside his room in seconds, changing into a black zippered jacket, black pants, and black athletic shoes. He slid his PB “silent pistol” into his shoulder holster. Based on the famous Soviet Markov gun, it had been his favorite small arm since his days in the KGB.

He peered out the door and sprinted to the stairwell again, traveling down another flight, to the first floor. Through the closed door to the lobby he could hear the television broadcasting what sounded like an old French movie.

He opened the door, padded along another corridor, and pressed his ear against the kitchen door. Silence. Opening it, he stepped into darkness tinged with the aroma of cinnamon and cloves. He had scouted the kitchen earlier. With the aid of moonlight from a high window, he headed straight to the rear door. As expected, it was bolted from the inside. It was a solid bolt, but he was not trying to break in. Sliding it open, he was soon outdoors and hurrying along the brick alley.

*   *   *

Her name was Doktor Hanke B
ű
rger, or Sarah Rosenblatt, or Se
ñ
ora Agrifina Cortez. Or tomorrow, just plain Jane Smith. She was in a very good mood, because the Carnivore was regularly wiring $5,000 payments into her Liechtenstein account for her reports on the tall man with the black hair staying at the Hotel Fashion under the name Pyotr Azarov. She had no idea whether Azarov was his real name, and she did not care. Her assignment was simply to follow him and report in detail whom he saw, where he went, what he did, and whatever conversations she could listen in on.

Standing in a dark doorway across the street from his hotel, she finished her thermos of hot green tea and honey and smiled at the tally on her Droid. So far she had earned $20,000 for this one assignment, a lucrative gig.

She yawned and checked her watch. Surely by now Azarov and his girlfriend were inside for the night. She was so tired she ached. Surveying the sidewalks and street, she left the doorway and headed toward her
riad,
the little hotel where she was staying. The nighttime traffic was intermittent.

As she passed a grassy area between two buildings, she had a sense of being followed. It was not so much that she heard footsteps, it was almost a change in energy. She glanced in a store window, hoping to see whether she was right. The only reflection was her own, her narrow face, her dark hair pulled loosely back in a ponytail.

“What did you do with her?” The voice came from behind. A man’s voice. She recognized it—Pyotr Azarov.

Glancing over her shoulder, she pulled out a small Luger and sprinted. All she could see were palm trees, buildings, and parked cars. She could no longer hear him, and she did not sense him behind her either. Not slowing, she angled into an alley, dodging cans and crates, then through a side gate she had discovered three days earlier, in case something like this happened.

Azarov was waiting on the other side. His feet were planted solidly, and his PB pistol with sound suppressor was pointed at her. She stopped quickly, hunched over, her body still in running position. Her heart thudded against her ribs. She started to raise the Luger, but as if from nowhere his forearm slashed it from her hand.

Keeping his gaze on her, he scooped it up. “What did you do with the old woman who was fronting for you? The one who was taking photos to distract me from noticing you?”

Thinking quickly, she reached for her pocket. “Are you going to rob me? I’ll give you my billfold. There are a lot of dirhams and euros in it—”

“Christ, woman, don’t be stupid.” Azarov was tall and muscular. There was a darkness in his eyes she did not like. “What the hell did you do with your gray-haired employee?”

She drew herself up. “Vivienne flew back to Paris tonight. Her vacation’s over, and she has to report to work tomorrow.”

“You killed her,” he decided. “Did you leave her body where the authorities would find it quickly?”

“I didn’t—”

He swore loudly. “Damnation, you’ve really fucked things up. I’m going to have to figure out how to convince Katia I didn’t do it. Who do you work for—the Carnivore or Eli Eichel?”

“The Carnivore, not that it matters. I wasn’t able to find out anything about you,” she lied. “He fired me tonight. How did you make me?”

“Honey, if you have to ask, you’re in the wrong business.”

Her lips peeled back. “I’m sorry I ruined your little plans…”

She did not hear the single gunshot, but the impact of the bullet was like a sledgehammer to her forehead. She felt herself stagger back. Then blackness shrouded her.

48

Aloft, over the North Atlantic Ocean

Alex Bosa walked down the trijet’s aisle, carrying a tray with six sandwiches on three china plates. “I’ll finish debriefing you as we eat,” he announced.

“How long until we reach Marrakech?” Eva asked as she chose the plate with turkey sandwiches. She had not realized she was hungry. She ate eagerly.

“It’s an eight-hour flight. We arrive in the afternoon.”

“Talk fast. We need to get some sleep.” Judd grabbed rare roast beef sandwiches and chewed.

Sitting in his usual seat across the aisle, Bosa put the last plate on his lap, also roast beef. He took a large bite. “I’ll start with Burleigh Morgan. A bomb exploded under his sports car a few days ago in Paris. He was the central figure in this situation. He was a Brit, and in the sixties, the Brits had plenty of oil interests in Iraq, so when the Baath party took over the country and needed someone to partner with Saddam for some hits on British oilmen and officials, they hired Morgan. Flash forward forty years, and Saddam needs an outsider to honcho the wet jobs on his financiers—”

“He went to Morgan,” Eva said.

The assassin nodded. “And Morgan came to us. All things considered, the money was so good it was hard to refuse—four million dollars a corpse. The problem was, afterward Saddam wouldn’t pay the second half of what he owed us. Naturally, we decided to scrub him. But Saddam varied his routine and used body doubles, sometimes five at a time. They were so good, when one brushed his teeth supposedly Saddam was the one who went to bed.” He paused, his voice tight with anger. “All we could do was wait for an opening. We finally got it in 2003, when it was clear the United States and friends would invade Iraq. Saddam was going down.”

The trijet bounced and swayed. Bosa looked out his window, his brow furrowing as if considering how to stop the forces of nature. “Morgan found out about a valuable cuneiform tablet Saddam had stashed in the Iraq National Museum. The tablet was supposed to be worth at least twelve million dollars as an antiquity. So we broke in and confiscated it. The problems began when the Republican Guards shot up Morgan so bad he dropped it, and it smashed into bits. All of us took pieces. Since we believed its value was as an artifact, we never got around to agreeing about the details of having it assembled.”

“It’s been a dozen years since then,” Judd pointed out. “What’s changed?” Finishing one sandwich, he picked up the other and ate.

“We received anonymous, untraceable e-mails that described one high-profile wet job by each of us,” Bosa told them. “The information was accurate and included contact information for both employers and targets as well as details of the hits themselves. Several jobs, including mine, are still believed to be accidents. None of us wants that e-mail read by anyone else. It could destroy the lives of our employers, and it could lead to our arrests. In any case, it’d make it damn hard for us since we guarantee our employers secrecy.”

“Gee whiz, too bad,” Eva said. “Your employers hired you to commit murder!”

Bosa peered at her gravely. “One of them was the U.S. government.”

She sighed. “Of course.”

“What’s worse, the sender claims to have detailed fifty jobs each of us did—that’s three hundred assassinations—in something he calls
The Assassins’ Catalog.
The good thing is, he’ll trade it for the tablet pieces. He says the tablet is a map to some ancient Mesopotamian treasure, and he wants it. He gave us five rules. First, if any of us drops out, he’ll e-mail the
Catalog
to online blogs, TV networks, and international newspapers like
The New York Times
and
The Times
of London. So he’s damn well blackmailing us. The second rule is one of us—but only one of us—can win the
Catalog
. Third, we have to kill each other off.” Flushing with anger, Bosa jumped up and stalked down the aisle. “Fourth, each of us has to keep our tablet pieces with us so they’ll efficiently make their way to the winner. And fifth, we have to check in every twelve hours to the blackmailer’s anonymous e-mail address. It’s a means for him to keep tabs on who’s alive, and it gives the winner a way to set up a meet to exchange the tablet pieces for the
Catalog.
”