The Assassins (6 page)

He turned on the GPS. With a faint
beep,
the screen came to life, showing a grid of the state of Maryland north of Eva’s house. His pulse quickened—a green dot, which meant some kind of vehicle, was heading away on Route 650 at 63 miles per hour. Ryder smiled grimly. Eva left the tracker because she had planted a bug on herself. With the tracker, he could follow her.

Sprinting out the front door and through the cold afternoon light, he jumped behind the wheel of his pickup and sped off.

12

Washington, D.C.

Set in the heart of historic Capitol Hill, the organization known as Catapult operated out of one of the area’s century-old Federalist brick houses. The sign above the door announced the Council for Peer Education, apparently just another group that had settled here so it could conveniently lobby the White House and Congress. In truth, Catapult was a CIA black unit charged with taking aggressive covert action to direct or deter negative events around the planet.

Arriving at the side entrance, Tucker Andersen tapped his code onto the keypad and waited until the iris-reader recognized him. When a soft
click
announced the door was unlocked, he walked in. Staffers moved briskly through the corridor, carrying folders color-coded to denote security levels. The old house seemed to vibrate with energy, and Tucker thrived on it.

In the reception area, Gloria Feit peered up from behind her big metal desk, slid her rainbow-framed glasses down her nose, and assessed him. “You appear healthy,” she said tartly. She was in her late forties, a small woman with crinkled smile lines around her blue eyes. Wearing a black wool jumper and a long-sleeved white shirt, she looked more like a nun than a covert officer with a black belt in karate.

“What did you expect—a bullet-riddled corpse?” He unknotted his muffler and unbuttoned his wool overcoat.

“With you I never know,” Gloria said airily. “Here’s what we’ve collected so far about the Carnivore.”

“Thanks.” He took the stapled sheets she held out to him.

“Bridgeman’s waiting for you.” That was Scott Bridgeman, Catapult’s new director.

Repressing a sigh, Tucker nodded.

“Tucker, I thought it was you.” The familiar voice was behind him.

Turning, he saw Bash Badawi striding toward him. Bash was one of Tucker’s infiltration artists. A lean, loose-jointed jock with straight ink-black hair, Bash had recently wrapped up a long-running operation in Rome. He had been home three weeks and was restless.

“Need any help?” Bash asked. “A mission? A quick trip to Peshawar?”

“You’ve got to decompress, Bash,” Tucker warned. “Take it easy.”

Gloria intervened: “Tucker, the boss wants to see you. Remember?”

“Okay, okay. I’m going.” Tucker walked around her desk and tapped on the Catapult director’s door.

“Come in.”

Tucker entered. Scott Bridgeman had the best office in the three-story building, with large windows overlooking the tree-lined avenue. All of Catapult’s window glass was bulletproof and distorted to prevent anyone from seeing inside or successfully using a demodulator to eavesdrop on conversations.

“Have a seat, Tucker.” Bridgeman put down his pen. With regular features, wheat-blond hair, and bulging muscles, he was handsome enough to be a Calvin Klein model. Despite the handicap of good looks, he had proved to be deft in fieldwork, able to vanish into the background of almost any setting. The reverse was true at Catapult, where his presence was unmistakable and constant.

“Glad to.” Tucker tossed his overcoat onto one of the chairs facing the desk and sank into the other. He was tired from all of the day’s running around.

“Okay, so let’s have the latest.” Bridgeman leaned back, hands clasped behind his head.

Tucker described his noontime meet with the Padre in the movie theater. He explained how the barrel of armaments had landed on the Gaza seashore. “Of course, the Padre wanted something in exchange for the intel—the Carnivore. I asked Gloria to put together a preliminary report about the Carnivore.” He started to slide it across the desk.

Bridgeman waved it away. “No, tell me.”

“The short version is the Carnivore has been an international assassin for close to forty years. Sometimes he was useful to us. Sometimes not—”

Bridgeman sat forward. “The Carnivore turned up in the Library of Gold operation and delivered intel to you—even though only members of your team had access to it. How did the Carnivore get the intel? The answer has to be from one of your people.
My
people now. There was no other source. We’ve got a goddamned mole in here somewhere. Does this have you pissing your pants, Tucker? It does me.”

Tucker was silent. Scott Bridgeman was just thirty years old, and yet he was running one of Langley’s top clandestine units. Langley no longer had the wide array of experienced top management choices of years past.

Tucker responded patiently: “On the other hand, the situation could be innocent. There were people along the line who knew—people in the military, for instance. What’s important is the intel was decisive in bringing the operation home. The Carnivore was a volunteer and unpaid, and his reward was to get shot up rather badly. Still, once I was back here, I opened an investigation into whether one of our people was collaborating with him. The investigation got sidetracked when some of our hotspots flared up. Of course I’ve told Gloria to reactivate the probe.”

Bridgeman glared. “We need fast answers.”

“Gloria knows that.” Tucker considered whether to disclose the latest wrinkle, about Judd Ryder’s imposter. Not even Gloria knew about it.

Beneath his blond crewcut, Bridgeman was studying him. His eyes narrowed. “Why didn’t you take this job when it was offered to you, Tucker? You’re a legend. You could be the one sitting here.”

“Being assistant director keeps me in the office more than I like,” Tucker said honestly. “With your job, I might as well chain myself to my desk.” Fieldwork kept him sane. He liked the changes of scenery, meeting new people, the chance to test himself up front and personal against intelligent and dangerous enemies.

“How am I supposed to manage you, Tucker? You don’t tell me what you’re doing until you’ve already done it. I just got a call from Matt Kelley.” Kelley was the director of the Clandestine Service. “He told me you’d been at the ME’s and ordered them to keep the investigation into Judd Ryder’s double a secret. Matt asked me whether I knew my arse from my ear.”

That was Matt through and through, Tucker thought, his face expressionless.

“You used the excuse of national security, for chrissakes,” Bridgeman went on. “You had absolutely no authority to do that. Besides, you know damn well Judd Ryder isn’t clean—he got into some serious trouble in Iraq.”

“But he saved us more than once in the Library of Gold mission,” Tucker reminded him.

Scott’s lips thinned. “He did blood work for army intelligence in Pakistan and Iraq. There’s no way anyone can ever completely trust an assassin, not even one of our own. They have nightmares, flashbacks. They get jumpy and react crazily. They’re unpredictable and get used to killing. You were lucky he was stable enough to be useful when you took him on as a contract employee.”

“I’ve known Judd all his life. He’s as stable as you or me.”

Bridgeman shook his head. “There’s bad family history there, too. His father turned out to be an international criminal.”

“I doubt Judd knew anything about what his father was doing. Judd inherited ten million dollars from him, but instead of retiring to the Riviera or blowing it all on gambling or drugs, he started a foundation to build schools in disadvantaged places. He put the whole inheritance into it. And it’s a working foundation, not one of those tax dodges. He personally manages the projects. He hammers nails and paints walls. He just got back from Baghdad, where he’s started an elementary school in one of the poorest neighborhoods.”

“Good for him. Send him back to Baghdad. I don’t want him hurting Catapult.” Bridgeman leaned forward, his jaw jutting. “You were protecting Ryder with the medical examiner, even though you knew I’d never approve. The murder of the double is a police case. I want you to call the ME, apologize, and tell him you were out of line.”

“The ME’s a showboat. He’ll instantly go public about Ryder.”

“Probably, but at least he won’t drag Langley into it.”

Tucker swallowed back his anger. “You’re right—I should’ve reported what I was doing, but there was little time, and it doesn’t mean I’m wrong. At least one international assassin—the Padre—is operating on U.S. soil.”

“You know damn well it’s the FBI’s job to investigate inside our borders.”

“We don’t always share our intel with the Bureau, and vice versa. And when we do, there’s often a time lag.”

“The Padre is off the table. He hasn’t done anything wrong here.”

“That we know of,” Tucker countered. “Worse, we don’t know what he’s got in mind, other than tracking down the Carnivore.”

“He’s given us valuable information.” Bridgeman’s tone was steely. “You have no real evidence he’s out to wipe the Carnivore. And even if he is, the Carnivore could be thousands of miles away. Do you really want to waste our people’s time on something as flimsy as this? Until you can bring me something that walks, talks, and bleeds, don’t tell me one of your guesses is real.”

Tucker looked down at his hands, folded neatly in his lap. He often sat that way when under attack. Some people crossed their arms, an unconscious gesture of self-protection, shielding their most vulnerable organ, the heart. Others put their hands to their throats or fiddled with their hair. Long ago Tucker had decided to appear relaxed, so he let his hands curl comfortably in his lap, which forced his shoulders to loosen. The discipline of it distracted his mind from the assault and allowed him to focus.

Tucker spoke calmly. “You called me a legend. You said I could be the one sitting in your chair. If either of those is true, then perhaps I’m worth listening to on this issue. I’m going to approach it another way.… To be a good spy, you have to be smart, hardworking, and talented. To be a
great
spy, you’ve got to have one more quality—instinct. ‘Gut,’ if you will. I figure you have good gut.” He had seen no evidence Bridgeman had any gut at all, but his goal was to put Bridgeman in a more receptive mood.

Bridgeman gave a slow nod. “Go on.”

“My gut is screaming there’s something very big going on here, and the Padre’s hunt for the Carnivore is the tip of the damn iceberg. To begin with, they’re titans in the underworld of assassins. They don’t waste their time with turf wars. There’s no money in it, and somebody’s sure to die. When you work at that rarified a level, it could be you. So what’s happened that’s so big that it’s provoked the Padre to go after the Carnivore?”

Bridgeman was silent.

“Next question, who killed Judd’s double?” Tucker continued. “And who was the intended victim—the double or Judd? On the same day all of this happens, the Padre asks my help to find the Carnivore fast. The logical answer is the Carnivore killed the double believing it was Judd, because he was worried Judd could tell the Padre how to get to him. The Carnivore is obsessed with security. It’s one of the reasons he’s been untouchable for so many decades. He’s used more pseudonyms than a brush has bristles. How about his real name? No way. His nationality? Please. This is the way I see it: The Carnivore knows the Padre is after him. He needs to eliminate any possibility the Padre can find him. The Carnivore’s last job was with Judd, Eva Blake, and me. Judd claims the Carnivore didn’t tell him anything about where he lived. He didn’t tell me either. So that leaves Eva Blake. Judd is on his way to see her now. The Carnivore spent time with her. He could’ve told her, and if he did, then he’s got to be worried she told Judd and maybe me.”

“Are you thinking he’ll come after you?” Bridgeman asked curiously.

Tucker shrugged. “What matters is something big is going on between the Padre and the Carnivore. Judd has already been dragged into it. Let’s let him dig around and maybe save us some aggravation.”

Bridgeman looked away. Tucker had made an important point, but Bridgeman seemed to be having a hard time agreeing.

“Matt Kelley can get the ME to back down,” Tucker went on. “If you don’t want to ask Matt to do it, I will.” He had just pulled out his trump card and laid it firmly on the desk. Matt Kelley was not only the director of the Clandestine Service, he had also been Tucker’s prot
é
g
é
some twenty years before. There was no way Bridgeman could let Tucker go over his head to Matt.

Bridgeman spoke as if he had just had a brilliant idea. “This is potentially too serious a situation to let the ME grandstand about it. How long does Ryder need?”

“A week.”

“A week?” Bridgeman sat back and rubbed a hand over his face. “Christ. I’ll talk to the ME and see if I can get it for you. But your boy, Ryder, better damn well move fast. His first day is closing out.”

13

Montgomery County, Maryland

Houses and offices passed in a blur as Judd Ryder raced his pickup north on Route 650. Constantly checking the tracker Eva had left him, he drove at 80 miles per hour and watched for the state police. After fifteen miles the landscape grew rolling and rural, the four-lane highway narrowed to two lanes, and he still had not caught up with her. He gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles ached.

Finally the green dot on the tracker showed her vehicle had turned off the interstate. At a white-steepled church Ryder did, too, following east on a county road. That was when the moving dot on the tracker froze. As it remained motionless, he stared, riveted—her vehicle had stopped.

Relieved, he sped his pickup into a forest and then down across a stone bridge. Timbered hills rose around him, and he saw an entry not much wider than a residential driveway. Next to it was a small sign:

The Esti Hunt Club

Private—No Trespassing

Accelerating past, he parked off the road, slung on his pack, and walked back, the tracker in hand. Taking out his Beretta, he plodded into the forest. Winter sunlight shone down through the trees in silver shafts. From behind a large oak he assessed the hunt club’s entry. Tall steel gate. Attached intercom. Closed-circuit security cameras high in trees on both sides.