The Perfect Assassin (23 page)

Earlier, she’d found herself staring at the phone, seriously considering a call to her mother, who had to be worried sick by now. David had specifically warned her against it, reasoning that any angst her mother was going through now was nothing compared to the mourning of a dead child, which might be the case if any traced calls gave away their location.

Humphrey Hall compensated for its lack of ambiance by having an abundant supply of hot water. Christine soaked in the shower for a full twenty minutes, allowing the warm, high-pressure stream to work deep into her muscles. She let her mind wander home, contemplating what she might be doing in a week or a month; sooner or later the nightmare would end and she could get back to her life. A rotation to all-night shifts in the ER would seem mundane now. Christine followed with even better thoughts. Home with her mother cooking Christmas dinner; having coffee, bagels, and aimless, giggling banter with her sisters at Le Café Blanc.

When Christine left the shower, clouds of steam permeated the suite and meandered out the half-open window in the next room. On the bed, she opened her small rollerbag, the one David had bought for her at a secondhand store. They hadn’t purchased any clothes specifically to sleep in, so she put on a loose-fitting pair of cotton sweatpants and a T-shirt, also from the secondhand store. It was gloriously comfortable. Christine didn’t take anything else out of the suitcase and she repacked the dirty clothes she’d been wearing earlier.
Never leave anything behind without reason. Always be ready to go on a moment’s notice.
Reluctantly, she was learning.

She went to the living room and relaxed on a couch, wondering what other diversions might work. The phone still beckoned, but she’d promised not to try. The morning’s local newspaper sat on a table by the door, but that wouldn’t do. It would undoubtedly contain an article she had no interest in seeing at the moment. The same went for the television. Christine envisioned two grainy photos behind a news anchor, one of her and one of David.
“Be on the lookout for these two outlaws …”
Just like Bonnie and Clyde. Had it gone that far yet? She didn’t want to know.

Christine felt a chill as brisk evening air began to settle in through the window. She wondered if it would be all right to close it. Surely David had seen the signal by now. With a sigh, she decided to leave it open. She retrieved a blanket from the bedroom, settled back on the couch and tried to drift toward the good thoughts.

The knock roused her from a deep sleep. It took a few moments for Christine to orient herself. She glanced at her watch and saw it was nearly ten o’clock in the evening. Another gentle knock.

She got up and made her way to the door, keeping the blanket wrapped around her shoulders to ward off the cold that had descended on the room. Her eyes were narrow slits as they adjusted to the light and her hair lay severely askew, having dried while she slept. She opened the door without asking who it might be.

When he saw her, he grinned.

“What’s so funny?” she said.

“Nothing. It’s just that you look …” Slaton paused and the grin suddenly disappeared.

“What? Is something wrong?”

He seemed uncomfortable. “No. No, never mind.” He eased by her into the room. “It’s cold in here.”

Christine wondered what that was all about. Since he was obviously trying to change the subject, she decided not to pursue it.

“I know. I wasn’t sure if I should close the window.”

Slaton moved around the room, turning out all the lights. When he was done, only one shaft of light remained, emanating from the adjoining bedroom. Next he went to the window and closed it, leaving the drapes halfway open.

“Sorry, it’s my fault,” he said. “You’re not used to this kind of thing. I should have told you to close this up after an hour. You did the safe thing, though. That’s good.”

“You’ll make a spy out of me yet,” she mused.

Slaton looked out the window and beckoned Christine over with his hand. He pointed across to The Excelsior. “See the room directly across? The one with the light on?”

“On the third floor?”

“Right. It’s a suite like this one. A living area and one bedroom, only the bedroom has a window as well, off to the right, see?”

“Sure.” The lights were off in the bedroom, but Christine could see the vague outline of a big bed and a few pieces of furniture. “Compared to Humphrey Hall it looks a bit more … I think the English would say,
posh
? Next time let’s do this the other way around.”

“Next time.”

“So now what? You think if these people can trace you to The Excelsior that they’ll come looking for us?”

“If they can trace the documents, then yes, I’m sure of it.”

“That could take days, couldn’t it?”

“Possibly. But like I said, we have to stay out of sight anyway. This way we use the time productively.”

“So you’re just going to sit there and watch?”

“I know it sounds boring, but that’s what people like me spend a lot of time doing. Why don’t you get some more sleep. Sorry I had to wake you.”

His eyes were alternating now between the room at The Excelsior and the street below. Christine looked at his profile in the dim light. His beard was thickening, each day’s growth further eclipsing his facial features. Only the eyes were clearly visible, and they were obscure in their own way, seldom giving insight to the soul beneath. Christine went back to the couch and got comfortable.

“You’ve got to rest sometime, too,” she said. “Wake me in a couple of hours and I’ll take a shift.”

“All right,” he replied.

She knew he wouldn’t.

There was no noise this time, but rather a hand on her shoulder, a gentle squeeze. The room was completely dark, but Christine’s night vision was well adapted. She saw him move to the window. He said nothing, but curled his index finger to draw her over. She got up against her body’s weary protest, and went to stand next to him.

His attention was fixed on the room at The Excelsior. Christine studied it closely but saw nothing new. It was vacant and still, the lights burning steady in the main room. Suddenly she was afraid. Bile began to churn in her stomach. Then it happened.

Two men burst in the door. They were wearing ski masks and had weapons leveled, sweeping across the room in search of a target. Within seconds they ran to the unlit bedroom. Christine jerked involuntarily as a faint strobe of light lit the bedroom for an instant, followed by a half dozen more. She knew it was from the guns, but there was no sound. Even from this far away there should have been some kind of sound. The guns must have been silenced.

A light came on in the bedroom as one of the men went to the bed and threw back the covers, revealing two long sets of pillows. Something like snow seemed to be floating eerily over the bed, and Christine realized it was a cloud of feathers, remnants of the bedding that had just been annihilated. The two men saw they’d been taken. They looked around the room frantically, then glanced out the window toward the street. Christine knew there was no chance she and Slaton could be seen in their dark nook, but she froze instinctively. The gunmen exchanged a few hasty words, then left the room as quickly as they’d entered, turning out the lights and closing the door neatly behind.

Christine could do nothing but stare at the darkened windows across the street. Whatever doubts had remained were now gone. She had just witnessed her own execution.

The world seemed to spin and then a strange vibrating sensation caused her to look down. Her hands, shaking uncontrollably, were enveloped in his. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself.

Slaton brought a thumb and forefinger up, gently lifting her chin until she met his gaze.

“We have to go now,” he whispered.

Christine nodded. Her reply was even and controlled. “Yes. We do.”

Chapter Eleven

It was nearly midnight as a lone Chevy Suburban crept across the Libyan Desert south of Tripoli. To go any faster was out of the question. The “road,” as it was referred to locally, was in miserable shape. Recent heavy rains had added deep ruts to the already rocky trail surface. It was more of a path, really, an old trader’s route that meandered through the desert in such a way as to avoid the highest hills and the deepest
wadis
. With no moon to help, the desert was particularly dark, and the big truck’s headlights bounced along through the surrounding blackness, illuminating only the most obvious trouble spots.

The driver kept to his pace. In the rear, Colonel Muhammed Al-Quatan frowned impatiently. The fact that they were three hours late could easily be blamed on the flight that had been so annoyingly behind schedule in delivering their guest. None of the truck’s occupants knew their good fortune — it was the closest Libyan Air Flight 113 from Paris had been to being on time all week.

The driver brought the big vehicle to a crunching halt. Since leaving Tripoli there had been constant banter between the two Arab men in front, and now with a fork looming in the road ahead, they began to argue over navigation, each pointing adamantly in a different direction. Colonel Al-Quatan interjected in rapid-fire Arabic, his authoritative tone doing more to settle the dispute than his words. The driver gloated obviously and the pounding journey resumed.

Al-Quatan settled back into his seat, idly wondering where they found some of these imbeciles. Many of the newest ones were almost children, a fact that would unbalance any sense of right or honor in a more conventional commander. But this was not a conventional war, and no commander could ignore the arsenal they provided. That odd, almost divine self-discipline that let them walk into a crowded café with five kilos of high explosives strapped to their chests. Al-Quatan knew he had such men and women in his camp. Unfortunately, for every one of
them
he had ten idiots like the ones up front, a fact that constantly sidetracked him from more important matters. He glowered silently, just waiting for one of them to make another mistake. If they made fools of themselves again, he would take the butt of his pistol and make a very sorry example out of somebody.

Al-Quatan took another discreet look at the truck’s fourth occupant, who sat beside him, the one he’d been sent to retrieve. Since leaving Tripoli, the man had been quiet. His round, dark eyes were now cast aimlessly out the window, looking for —
what?
A way out? It was too late for that. A friend? Not for a thousand miles, if there were any left. Perhaps just a rock to crawl under. At least he’d had the balls to come, Al-Quatan thought. Or perhaps he was just scared out of his mind. The man’s physical appearance was not in keeping with his post. He was a sergeant in the Israeli Defense Forces, yet looked nothing like a soldier. Probably five-foot-five, he carried forty extra pounds in all the wrong places. His eyes and hair were dark, yet his skin pale and taut — a man who spent little time outside an air-conditioned office cubicle. Al-Quatan thought he looked soft, like a large spoiled child who’d been ruined by too many trips to the sweetshop, not a square-jawed warrior from Aman, Israel’s vaunted military intelligence arm. Shrewd and cunning, then? Clearly not, based on the hole he’d dug for himself.

No, Al-Quatan had been blessed by Allah with a knack for sizing up people, and this one was a weakling. Clay ready for firm hands to mold. Perhaps the Zionists weren’t ten feet tall after all. At any rate, he had at least been respectful, which was more than Al-Quatan usually got from foreigners. In particular, he disliked the Europeans. The French, the Germans, the Brits — they were all so maddeningly arrogant. But the dog sitting across from him had its tail between its legs, and Al-Quatan couldn’t wait to see him squirm under Moustafa Khalif’s merciless heel.

The Colonel took out a pack of Marlboros, tapped the box until one protruded, then held it out to the Israeli. It was a gesture of kindness akin to what a condemned man might get from the commander of his firing squad.

The man’s eyes focused on the offer. “No, thank you,” he muttered in rapid English.

Al-Quatan shrugged, took one for himself, lit up, and took a long draw. He wore a very satisfied expression. “We are nearly there,” Al-Quatan announced. “Moustafa Khalif wishes to see you right away.”

Sergeant Pytor Roth nodded and straightened up in his seat. He looked out across the Libyan desert, still unable to detect any lights on the horizon. There hadn’t been any for over two hours. The drive from Tripoli had been longer than expected, but then the roads were in abysmal shape. From the airport he knew they’d gone south toward Marzuq on what was one of the few high-quality roads in the country. Eventually they’d turned onto a semi-improved dirt road and made reasonably good time. The last hour, though, had found them traveling on a surface that was far better suited to camels than large sport utility vehicles. It was another glaring disconnect in a country that seemed to be trying to catch up with the rest of civilization in one giant leap. Roth mused at the progress represented by the big black Chevy Suburban. The Americans might be infidels, but exceptions were apparently made for reliable transportation. Twenty years ago it would have been a rattle-trap Russian Zhil limousine. And twenty before that, strictly dromedary.

The flight from Paris had been equally strange. Absent were the Italian suits and gold-trimmed briefcases. Those few legitimate businessmen who ventured here generally preferred the big European carriers. The passengers on Libya’s state airline had been young students, weary vacationers, and a significant contingent of swarthy characters who seemed to eye one another continuously. Each was no doubt engaged in his or her own brand of illicit behavior, and the specter of professional overlap had weighed heavily throughout coach; the black market, smuggling, and terrorism were a way of life in these parts.

Roth looked at his watch and wondered how much deeper into this godforsaken sandbox they’d have to go. He’d seen Libya in satellite photos, yet Roth never imagined he’d get to see it up close. He wondered idly what corner of the country they were in now, but the thought passed quickly. Knowing wouldn’t do him any good. The possibility of escape was nil. He was deep inside the Libyan Desert, in the hands of his swornenemies. And he was about to make them an incredible offer. If they accepted, Roth would be driven back to the airport with the promise of becoming a wealthy man. If they refused, he wouldn’t see the light of the next morning.