Thriller (57 page)

The officer waved her ahead. She released a breath and eased

to a stop next to the booth, left hand on the wheel.

“What’s your citizenship, ma’am?” the kindly old officer asked.

“U.S.” She glanced in the right-side mirror. Jeffrey had risen

from the ground. His stare carried a malevolence she could feel.

Bastard. Go away. While you still can.

The customs officer glanced into the back seat now, too, where

Deidre slept. At the same time, he noticed Jeffrey, hands in the

oversize pocket of his sweatshirt, not moving, saying nothing.

The officer became more alert. “How about the child, ma’am?”

Another officer came out of the building, hand on his gun, waiting. They had seen him try to enter her car. It was working. Plan

B was working.
Thank God.

“U.S., too.” Small rivulets of sweat tickled her armpits.
Let us

go, Jeffrey, and live to try again.

“Picture ID?”

Karen reached into her handbag, retrieved the passports and

handed them to the officer. He examined the blue-jacketed folders. “Your name is Karen Ann Brown? And hers is Deidre London?”

“Divorce,” she said. Jeffrey simply stood there. What was he

thinking? Was he willing to die to thwart her?

The officer glanced at Jeffrey again. “Do you have her birth

certificate?”

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She furrowed her brow with consternation. “I didn’t think

you’d need it.”

He closed the passports and gestured toward the building. “I’m

sorry, ma’am. Park over there and go inside where they’ll verify

your identification.” Then he nodded at Jeffrey, who stood stockstill, feet braced shoulder width apart, hands still inside his big

front pocket. “Do you know him?”

Now. Now was the time. “He’s got a gun.”

Before the officer could react, Jeffrey slowly extracted his hand

from the sweatshirt and pointed the gun at her head.

“Get down! Get down!” the officer shouted, squatting beside

the car’s engine block, the only place safe from gunfire.

Jeffrey chose death. The deafening noise of shots rang out.

Bullets entered the rear glass. One grazed her arm as she fell

sideways. Another exited inches from where her head had

been an instant before. The pain seared through her as blood

soaked her blazer and ran down her arm. Deidre began to

scream.

Border guards acted immediately. They shouted for Jeffrey to

drop his gun. He didn’t. A guard shot and hit Jeffrey in the leg.

He went down, and kept shooting. Bullets tattooed the back of

the sedan.
Idiot! You’ll hit Deidre!

After an excruciatingly long few seconds, the customs officer

in the booth drew his weapon, and two additional officers ran

out from the building. “Drop your gun! Drop your gun!”

Karen looked into Jeffrey’s eyes. Either of them could have

changed things at that moment. But they didn’t. She jammed the

accelerator to the floorboard. The sedan lurched forward, broke

through the wooden gate and raced onto American soil.

Jeffrey shot at Karen’s car again. As she’d known they would,

the guards returned fire.

Karen mashed the brake, jerking the sedan to a stop behind

the solid walls of the U.S. Customs station. Applying pressure

to her throbbing, bleeding arm, she managed to open the back

door and unsnap Deidre’s seat belt. She slid the hysterical child

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onto the pavement. Determined, Karen held Deidre close until

the deafening gunfire stopped.

In the brief silence, Deidre’s screams became sobs. Karen struggled to rise while holding the girl, despite the searing pain in her

arm, and stumbled back to the kiosk. Jeffrey lay on the ground,

blood running from his mouth, lifeless eyes staring straight at

her. Her first thought was,
Thank God
.

Karen’s anger flared, leaving no room for remorse. He’d chosen to die rather than let Karen take Deidre. He’d intended to get

all three of them killed.

A few weeks later, Karen joined Brenda, who sat watching Deidre on the Land of the Dragons playground. The family resemblance was unmistakable. Both were clearly from Beverly

London’s gene pool. In Deidre, Karen saw some hint of Jeffrey,

too. How could a wonderful child have emerged from two such

damaged parents?

“She looks happy, doesn’t she?” Brenda asked with a wistful

tone. Deidre was in counseling and taking medication that the

psychologist hoped would help her to work through the traumas she’d endured at her parents’ hands.

To reassure her, Karen said, “Don’t worry so much. She’s

young. With luck and love, she won’t remember most of it.”

A tear rolled down Brenda’s cheek. Her lips quivered. “She

won’t have much to remember about her mother.”

Karen closed her eyes against tears of her own. She had risked

her life so that Deidre might thrive. Now, all she could do was

hope. “It’s up to you to keep Beverly alive for her.”

Together, they watched Deidre climb the rope ladders and

slide down the dragon’s tail, laughing when she landed on her

butt in the sand.

“Beverly was so smitten. And he loved her, too.” Brenda

stopped, bewildered. “What went wrong?”

Karen rubbed her sore arm to stop its pulsing. Like Jeffrey’s

effect on his child, Karen’s wound would hurt for a long time and

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leave a permanent scar. She rejected sweetening the truth. To defeat Jeffrey forever, Brenda must do her part. “She knew he was

dangerous before she married him. She ignored her instincts

and deceived herself. The best thing you can do for Beverly now

is to make sure Deidre doesn’t repeat that pattern.”

And I’ll be watching.

Numbered Account
was Christopher Reich’s first book. And

not just his first work to be published, but the first Reich ever

tried to write. He never took an English class in college. The

drawers of his work desk did not contain drafts of earlier novels, short stories or aborted screenplays.
Numbered Account

was it for him. One chance to make it as a writer or return

to the salt mines of the financial world—more mergers and

acquisitions—more back to work. “The struggling writer, the

starving artist…that’s the other guy,” Reich liked to say.

Numbered Account
came from Reich’s own wanderings of

the snowy, cobblestone alleyways of Geneva, on his way to

and from work at the Union Bank of Switzerland. There, he

learned the sophisticated art of handling money for the richest people in the world. For Reich, the seeds of
Numbered

Account
were planted on his first day of work. But it was six

years later before he realized that some people are cut out for

fourteen-hour days and he wasn’t one of them. So Reich decided to write a novel and always knew that it was going to

be a thriller. To his credit,
Numbered Account
went on to become a
New York Times
bestseller.

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Assassins
, the story for this collection, finds the hero of

Numbered Account,
Nick Neumann, back on Swiss soil with

a new mission. This is the first time Reich has written about

Nick since 1997. All thriller writers know that it’s never wise

to fall in love with any particular character. Who knows

when they might turn a corner and walk right into a knife,

or a gun, or a poison-tipped umbrella?

So Nick Neumann should tread carefully.

Nick Neumann sat stiffly in the corner booth, back pressed

against the leather banquette, shoulders pinned in the finest

Swiss tradition. He was tired and hungry, and he wished the dinner would come so he could get on with the job. He placed his

hands on the tablecloth, willing himself not to adjust the cutlery

or examine the stemware. The heavy sterling knives and forks

and spoons were, he noted, perfectly placed. The glasses were

made of Austrian crystal, and absent the slightest smudge. Whenever he wondered how he had survived so long, the answer always came back the same.

Details.

Turning his head, he let his eyes wander the restaurant. At a

few minutes past seven, the Kronenhalle was nearly full. It was

a Friday, and the weather had been unseasonably cool for early

October. He had always thought of the Kronenhalle as a coldweather restaurant. The tightly placed booths, the bold lighting,

the crisp tablecloths, the bustle of waiters across the hardwood

floor, the chef guiding his gleaming wagon down the narrow

aisles, and of course, the hearty cuisine. All of it conspired to cre-
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ate a cozy formality, a warm and convivial antidote to rain and

snow and biting wind.

Expertly, he scanned the dining room for a familiar face. The

men were ruddy, well fed and prosperous. The women were elegantly dressed, and, if not as beautiful as their Parisian or Roman

counterparts, as immaculately coiffed. He recognized no one and

admitted to relief. Anonymity was a cornerstone of his profession.

Neumann checked his watch. He had ordered eleven minutes

ago and his appetizer had not yet been served. Not long by any

measure, but he was more nervous than the assignment demanded, and anxious to see it to its completion.

Zurich.

Years ago, he had lived in this city. He had worked at a prominent bank. He had fallen in love. He had killed a man and put

another in prison. His stay had been short—a few months, no

more—but his memories of it had proven long-lived. It was

those memories that made him restless and antsy. Not for the first

time, he wondered if he should have turned the job down.

Just then, the table rocked slightly as the chef arrived with his

wagon. A wineglass teetered and Neumann rushed to stop it

from overturning.
Point against.

“Gerstensuppe?”
The name on the smock read “Stutz.”

Wrong man.

“Bitte,”
said Neumann, not caring to meet his gaze.

With ceremony, the chef dipped his ladle and poured a generous cup of soup. The aroma of beef stock and barley tickled

Neumann’s nose. The brass stockpot was polished as well as a

symphony instrument.
Point in favor
.

Neumann picked up his soupspoon and began to eat. He noted

the broth’s consistency, the pleasant aftertaste of sherry and mark.

The temperature was ideal. The flavor full bodied but clean. Invariably, he dined alone. It was one of the challenging aspects of

the job. Still, if he must dine by himself, at least he dined well.

He never arrived in a city without having laid out his culinary

itinerary in advance.

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Details.

Tonight, the
gerstensuppe
would be followed by a warm
nus-

sli
salad with chopped bacon and crumbled Stilton cheese, and

as an entrée, the specialty of the house,
zurigeschnetzltes mit

rosti
. For dessert, there would be chocolate mousse and coffee.

Besides an aperitif of champagne, he did not drink. A man in his

profession was wise not to dull his senses.

It was then that he saw him.

There, across the room, removing his trench coat and hanging it on the rack, was Milos the Greek. He was grayer, his posture bent more than in the past, but it was him, all the same.

There was no doubting the sharp nose, the tortoiseshell glasses,

the hair combed and parted with military precision. Neumann

had taught himself never to stare, but for a moment he couldn’t

help himself.

The Greek was in Zurich.

Calmly, he continued with his soup. He tore off a roll and buttered his bread. He sipped his flute of champagne. But all the

while he kept a discreet eye on the Greek who, like him, was

seated alone at a table in the main
salle
, back to the wall with a

view on the entry and exit. Another man with a past. A fugitive

unsure where and when an enemy might appear with retribution

foremost on his mind. A professional who did not welcome surprises.

When Neumann looked up from his soup, the Greek was

smiling his sly smile, his hard gray eyes locked on his own. He

had been spotted, too. A shiver passed through him. Recognition was a constant risk. Some wore disguises: wigs, mustaches,

spectacles. Some even tinted their hair and dressed against type.

But not the Greek. He’d never made his identity an issue. Neumann had decided he wouldn’t either. For better or worse, his

face was a liability to be factored into his assignments.

Neumann raised his eyebrows and gestured toward the empty

seat across from him. For a moment, the Greek hesitated. There

was no etiquette governing what two men in their profession were

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to do should they meet. They had never been formally introduced, yet by reputation they were well acquainted. These days

it was a small world, and in their rarefied circles, smaller yet.

The Greek was renowned for his hawk’s eye. It was said that

he was able to spot the smallest slipup, the split-second lapse that

led to a target’s demise. When he found the killspot, he was merciless.

Neumann knew his own reputation, as well. They said he had

an uncanny ability to pinpoint the larger flaws, the structural