by Tom Wood
The assassin had made a telling error in having personal items with him on a job. It was inexcusable, if understandable. After all he did not plan on being killed. And dead it hardly mattered anyway if someone found out who he was. That reaffirmed what Victor already knew about the team. They were independent contractors, not affiliated with any organization. If they had been, the assassin would have been more careful. So who assembled them? Someone with resources, someone with means. Hiring assassins wasn’t as simple as flipping open the phone book and looking under A.
Victor made enemies just doing his job, but only someone who knew he was going to be in Paris could have had killers stationed in the city. As far as he knew only two people fell into that category. His client and his broker.
The person who had supplied him with the job he knew only as the broker. This was the individual who acted as the middleman between Victor and the person who actually wanted the job done. The client. Victor didn’t know the identity of either. Victor likewise didn’t know why the client wanted the target dead, except it had something to do with the item now in his jacket pocket.
What association the broker had with the client Victor didn’t know. Sometimes brokers were individuals, free agents; other times they worked for a country’s intelligence services, private security firms, organized crime, or other groups. Or they might be associated with the client through other business practices, such as a lawyer or consul, or the client may have been passed to the broker through other intermediaries.
There was always the risk a broker was in fact some member of a police or intelligence force who had somehow found out about Victor and was hiring him so they could apprehend him. One of the many dangers of the freelance trade. The broker who had passed this job to Victor had been a first-timer, at least in his dealings with Victor. He knew nothing about the broker except that the efficiency and professionalism demonstrated suggested they had dealt with hired killers before.
Victor took out the flash drive and examined it closely. Just a memory stick — not very exciting, but he guessed the information it contained was to someone. He was supposed to stash the drive at a secure site of his choosing and contact the broker with the location so it could be picked up.
The broker had petitioned for a personal handover of the drive, but Victor never met anyone directly connected to his work unless he also planned to kill them. Not only did he want to avoid having anyone see his face, but a prearranged handover would always present a perfect opportunity to ambush him. Now it appeared an ambush was exactly what would have occurred had Victor gone along with the broker’s request. Since he’d refused to comply, they’d been forced to try to kill him immediately after he’d killed Ozols, while they still knew his location. If they had waited until he’d stashed the drive and contacted the broker, they might have lost him for good.
If the motive for wanting him dead was to ensure that any subsequent investigation or reprisals could not be traced back to them, then it was understandable but stupid. Aside from communiques over the Internet there was no connection between Victor and the broker and absolutely no connection between Victor and the client. This method protected all parties. Or maybe it was simpler than that. Maybe they just didn’t want to pay him the second half of his fee. Still, hiring a whole team of assassins couldn’t have been cheap, even for ones he doubted charged anywhere near as much as he did.
In the lobby he gave Svyatoslav’s details to the desk clerk and asked to check out before adding, ‘You have some of my things in the safe.’
If the clerk decided to check the photograph in the passport against the man standing in front of the desk there could be no mistaking the two. Victor reached into his coat to flick off the. 45’s safety but decided against it. The clerk was young, skinny. He wouldn’t put up much of a struggle.
The clerk returned a few seconds later and handed Victor a passport, plane ticket, and credit-card wallet. There was no change in the clerk’s cheery expression. Victor was satisfied he hadn’t bothered to make any checks. Victor had a look at the items, as might anyone concerned about leaving something behind. He noted the plane ticket was for Munich, business class. Inside the wallet were two credit cards. Both cards and plane ticket were for Mikhail Svyatoslav. Victor placed the wallet and ticket in his pocket. No keys. Too late to worry about where they might be now.
He signed out and paid the bill with the more worn looking of the assassin’s credit cards after subtly checking the signature on the back. His forgery wouldn’t get past a handwriting expert but it was close enough for a clerk who looked like he would have trouble reading the articles in a porn magazine.
The clerk handed him a copy of the bill, which Victor saw included the assassin’s address, and said, ‘We hope you had a pleasant time in Paris.’
He sounded genuine. Victor considered how genuine he would have been had he known that moments before Victor had been deciding how best to kill him.
Victor raised an eyebrow.
‘It’s been stimulating.’
CHAPTER 9
13:15 CET
‘What the hell is going on here?’
Alvarez and Kennard stood on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore. In front of them the crowd was three ranks deep before a police barrier. The road had been cordoned off on either side of the hotel. Alvarez could see numerous uniformed and plain-clothes officers and crime-scene personnel going about their duties.
Kennard got off his phone and turned to Alvarez. ‘From what I can make out something crazy happened here this morning. I’m hearing eight people dead — shot — and one suspect at large who may sound familiar.’
‘Holy crap, John.’ Alvarez looked at Kennard expectantly. ‘Are we sure it’s the same guy who capped Ozols?’
The younger man nodded. ‘The shooter shares the same taste for exotic projectiles. Apparently several people were shot with 5.7 mm subsonics. It’s too early for them to have matched the bullets yet, but…’
‘The chances of two separate gunmen both using that specific round in Paris on the same morning-’
‘Are slim at best.’
‘Skeletal, even.’ Alvarez did his best to peer over the heads of the spectators who were eager for a glance at something juicy. ‘When did all this go down?’
‘Sometime in the AM is the best anyone can tell me. So not long ago.’
‘Before Ozols got clipped?’
‘Not sure, at least an hour later I think.’
‘We’ve got to get inside there.’
Alvarez pushed his way through the crowd. He was a big man by anyone’s reckoning. He had wrestled his way through college, strictly Greco-Roman, and at six even and two ten he still looked like a warrior, even if his black hair had developed more than a few grey friends. His size could be intimidating, and he had exploited that plenty of times before, but these days Alvarez realized it was far better for people to underestimate him than to be afraid of him. At times like this, though, he put his bulk to good use.
He met a palm the instant he reached the line. Alvarez showed his credentials. After examining them for a moment the guy gestured for his superior. The Frenchman who sauntered over was middle aged, short, meticulously groomed, looking annoyed at actually having to do something. Alvarez still had his hand up and the policeman squinted at the opened wallet for a few seconds.
‘Yes?’ he asked simply in English.
‘Are you in charge here?’
The guy nodded. ‘I’m Lieutenant Lefevre.’ He paused. ‘What can I do for you?’ He added the second part almost as an afterthought.
Alvarez put his wallet away. ‘I’m with the United States Department of State working out of the American embassy here in Paris. I believe your suspect for this shooting may be the same individual who killed a contact of mine earlier today, a Latvian national by the name of Andris Ozols.’
Alvarez could tell Lefevre knew of the connection already, but he doubted Lefevre knew what Ozols had been doing in Paris. ‘So?’ he as
ked simply.
Alvarez wasn’t exactly surprised, but he would have liked a more encouraging response. ‘So,’ he echoed, ‘it’s in both our interests to pool our resources on this. If I can take a look around the hotel I-’
‘I’m afraid that’s impossible.’
‘Why, did you not hear what I just said?’
Lefevre shifted the weight between his legs, which, judging by his gut, was considerable. ‘This is our investigation. You have no jurisdiction in this country.’
Alvarez resisted taking the bait; instead, he took a breath and said evenly, ‘I’m not looking to steal your suspect from you or your credit, I just want to help find him. And crazy as this sounds, I thought we might help each other to achieve that.’
‘Thank you for the offer,’ Lefevre said, with no attempt at sincerity. ‘If your assistance is required you can be assured we’ll ask for it.’
He turned around and headed back toward the hotel.
‘What a dick,’ Alvarez muttered after he’d gone.
He pushed his way out of the crowd less politely than he had made his way in. He got out his cell phone and looked at Kennard.
‘Okay, time for plan B.’
CHAPTER 10
Charleroi, Belgium
Monday
17:02 CET
The kid behind the counter took Victor’s money without looking up from his graphic novel. With one hand he opened the register, dropped in the euros, and handed Victor a slip of paper without speaking a single word. Victor took a seat at one of the computers farthest from the entrance, selecting a position where he could still see the door without having to turn his head.
The computer monitor seemed a recent purchase, but dust had collected in the grooves of the keyboard. The plastic was yellowed and shiny from overuse. Victor, typing quickly, entered the tendigit code from the piece of paper and hit enter.
The Internet cafe had half a dozen other customers. They were all young. A Chinese teenager, her hair streaked with pink, entered while Victor waited for the browser to appear. An exchange student perhaps. After a cursory glance he paid her no attention.
He would have preferred a more crowded establishment to provide anonymity, but no one paid him a second of attention. The kid by the door hadn’t taken his eyes from the comic since Victor had paid. The front cover was all huge breasts and curved swords. In five minutes Victor would be gone, and five minutes after that he would be forgotten entirely.
A light rain fell. Through the window Victor could see pedestrians hurrying along the street outside, some with umbrellas, the unlucky without. No one seemed to be observing the cafe.
The rational part of his brain told him that no one could have followed him across the border, but there was a certain level of paranoia necessary for survival in Victor’s work. He understood that he was most at risk not when he was obviously vulnerable but when he felt safe.
After leaving the second hotel Victor had spent an hour on the Paris metro going back and forth between stations and changing trains at random to elude any possible shadows. It was highly unlikely that there were yet more people available to follow him, but protocol demanded caution at all times. And this was no time to abandon methods that had kept him alive for almost a decade in a profession as unforgiving as they came.
The Heckler and Koch he’d taken from the female assassin was thrown into the Seine after being wiped down thoroughly. A mile upstream his second FN Five-seveN suffered the same fate. The passport he’d been travelling under was burned and another taken from a safety-deposit box he rented under a false name. He had boxes in several European capitals and other cities around the world. In Victor’s experience prevention was always better than cure, and his earlier encounter vindicated this philosophy.
He’d discarded the nonprescription glasses and taken out the blue contact lenses before having a backstreet barber cut his hair clipper short and shave him with a cut-throat razor. On a wallmounted television Victor had watched a news item about the hotel shooting. So far the police had released few details. The dead man in the alley received no mention, probably because a mass murder was far more exciting to the viewers.
Victor had purchased a new suit from a department store and another shirt and a pair of shoes, each from a different shop. If he purchased them all from the same place the shop assistant might remember him. His other clothes were bagged and left in an alleyway to be recycled by the city’s tramps. The only physical evidence that he’d ever been in Paris were the corpses he’d left behind.
Perhaps if he’d stayed he might have found more out about his attackers, but while he remained in France he had to protect himself against both his hunters and the authorities. Outside it was one on one. Much better odds.
He had been careful at his hotel to make sure the security cameras hadn’t captured a good shot of his face, but maybe the receptionist or a guest would remember his features. The beard, glasses, hair, and coloured contact lenses would all help corrupt any artist’s sketch, but even so he would probably need surgery to change his face. He sighed heavily. It was a necessity that over the years he’d been forced to accept, even if he would never fully get used to it. The face that stared back at him in the mirror was no longer his, altered so many times he couldn’t remember what he truly looked like. Sometimes he was glad of that.
The Internet browser finally loaded up, and he entered the address for a proxy server where he had an account under a false name. Then, using the proxy server to disguise the computer’s IP address, he typed in the Web address for an online role-playing game forum based out of South Korea.
The game was hugely popular, and the forum had hundreds of thousands of registered users. The forum had its own sophisticated security system to prevent hackers disrupting its service. Not so good against governments, but with the amount of traffic that passed through the forum’s server it would be near impossible for anyone to intercept his communications.
Victor entered his login details and selected the instant-messaging option. He preferred it over a traditional message board, where posts can be stored almost indefinitely. With instant messaging the data passing between the computers left no trail at the forum for someone to discover. The only traces left would be at his computer and at the receiving computer his broker used.
Once he’d logged in he saw that the only name in his contact’s list was online.
The broker.
Victor double-clicked the name, opening up a chat window. He typed a message. To further hamper the odds of the NSA or GCHQ picking up on such conversation, he always avoided any of the obvious tags government supercomputers were programmed to look for. No Allahu Akbar or the like.
I had a problem.
The reply was almost instantaneous: What’s happened?
There was another firm in on the deal.
What are you talking about?
Seven rival sales reps, well briefed on my pitch. They waited until after my morning meeting and offered me a new position. Of the permanent variety.
The response took a few seconds. I’m sorry to hear that.
Be sorry for those reps. I was out of their price range.
Did the deal go through?
Yes, he typed. The customer found my offer irresistible.
Did you collect the item?
Victor thought for a moment being typing. I have it.
What do you need from me?
An explanation.
I don’t understand.
Then allow me to enlighten you. Besides myself, the only people who knew where I would be finalizing the deal are you and whoever you work for.
What are you getting at?
I’m not in the habit of sabotaging my own contracts.
This is not what you think.
Then what is it?
Whatever happened had nothing to do with us.
Victor sat back. The use of the word us made him think that the broker and the client were more closely connected with each oth
er than he had thought.
Victor didn’t type anything.
The broker continued. I know nothing about what happened except for what you’ve just told me. You have to trust me.
If there was a button to simulate a loud laugh on the broker’s computer, Victor would have pressed it.
I prefer to trust myself.
So how can I convince you?
You’ve had your chance.
What about the item?
I won’t be delivering it.
There was a long pause. Please reconsider.
At best you were so incompetent as to allow a third party to find out about our arrangement. At worst just stupid enough to try and undercut me. Regardless, this is where we part company.
Wait.
You won’t see or hear from me again, Victor typed. But I may be seeing you.
He logged off as the broker was still typing a reply. It felt good to end with a threat. An old friend used to tell him any victory, however small, was still a victory.
The broker had said us. It could have been a momentary lapse in concentration revealing the broker and client had colluded to set him up, or it could be nothing. There was no way to be certain at the moment.
A noise made him look up. The annoying novelty ringtone of a cellular phone. The Chinese student fumbled in her pocket to retrieve it. Victor typed in another memorized Web address. There was a momentary delay before the new site appeared on the screen. He clicked one of the twenty links available and watched as the program downloaded.
It was only a few megabytes in size and it took just seconds on the cafe’s fast Internet connection. Victor then ran the program. He watched passively as a grey box popped up and a rapid stream of numbers and file names appeared, scrolling downwards. Two minutes later the program had run its course, having deleted all records of recent Internet activity from the computer’s hard disk. The program had not only deleted these records but also overwritten with useless data those sectors of the hard disk where the Internet records had been stored. It had then deleted that data and overwritten it again. This process repeated itself thousands of times in rapid succession, ensuring that the original data could never be recovered.
