by Tom Wood
The safe looked thirty years old. Thankfully it looked like a group 2 — the most common of the two safe types, and the least secure. There would no countermeasures he would have to worry about, no antitamper acid release to destroy the contents. Still, without the proper tools, it could take him hours to crack. Trust a CIA front company to have a safe almost as old as he was. The powerful laptop in his backpack was no more use to him than a paperweight.
Which left Victor with three ways of breaking into the safe: explosives, drilling, or lock manipulation. He had neither explosives nor a drill, so he was going to have to do it the old-fashioned way. Victor laid out the high-tech tools for the job: a pad of graph paper, a pencil, and a stethoscope.
Traditional combination locks all worked in the same tried and tested manner. When the dial was turned, an attached spindle turned the drive cam, which then turned the combination wheels. Into each wheel a notch was cut, which when the correct combination was dialled, would all align perfectly. Resting just above the wheels was a small metal bar, called the fence. When all the notches aligned, the fence fell into the created gap, allowing the bolt securing the safe door to slide across and the safe to be opened.
Victor took off his jacket and folded it to use as a makeshift cushion. He was going to be kneeling down for a long time.
The first step in cracking the safe was to determine how many wheels the safe contained. Each wheel behind the dial corresponded to a single number in the combination. Just like the wheels, the drive cam had a notch cut into it, for the fence to fall into when the correct combination was dialled. Between the fence and the door bolt was a lever, which, as the drive cam was turned, would make a small clicking sound when the nose of the lever made contact with the drive cam’s notch.
Victor used the stethoscope and listened carefully for the clicks — one when the nose of the lever fell into the notch, called the right click, and a second when the nose exited the notch, called the left click. The numbers on the dial corresponded to these clicks, and the space between them was called the contact area.
Once he had determined where the contact area was, Victor set the dial to the exact opposite position, known as parking the wheels. Then, slowly, he turned the dial clockwise. Each time the dial passed the parking position there was a small click. Victor counted how many clicks there were before they ceased. Victor counted three clicks, one for each wheel, so he knew he was dealing with a safe that had a three-number combination.
Victor reset the safe by turning the dial clockwise several times. He then parked the wheels at zero and slowly turned it counterclockwise. Each time there was a click, one for both the left and right side of the notch, he plotted the numbers on a graph until he had completed a single circumference.
He started the process again, resetting the wheels, slowly turning the dial counterclockwise, but starting at three numbers counterclockwise from zero. This way meant that the contact area where the lever and notch met would be different. He again plotted the position of the clicks on the graph.
Victor repeated the process at intervals of three until all the points on the dial had been plotted. Finally, the laborious and painstaking process was finished and he had two graphs, one showing the positions of the left clicks, the other showing the positions of the right clicks. He joined up the points until he had two zigzags.
The numbers plotted on the two graphs converged exactly at three points, one for each wheel and therefore combination number. Victor made a note of these three numbers and wrote them down in all six different combination possibilities. He tried them out one at a time. On the fourth combination the safe opened. He looked at his watch. It had taken him seventy minutes. Not bad.
Inside the safe were five taped stacks of cash, a folder, and a bottle of gin. Each stack of cash equalled five thousand euros. Victor placed them in the backpack and opened the folder. It was full of files. They followed the cash. He exited the office and began descending the stairs.
Paperwork had never been Victor’s strong point, but the broker would be able to dissect the files in no time and find out what they needed. He was glad he’d teamed up with her. Alone he would have never gotten this far. He would still be running blind, going nowhere, waiting for the CIA to find him. Several times she had proved herself to be an extremely valuable associate — partner even, though it felt strange to accept that she was.
He didn’t want to admit it, but she was more than just that. Not a friend yet, but a companion, someone he actually wanted to talk to, though he still found it difficult to communicate with her. This was partly because of the effect she had on him and partly because of Victor’s nature. When he played a role, he could be articulate and charming with the opposite sex if it was necessary, but when playing himself he was clumsy and awkward. He was badly out of practice, though he had never really been in practice.
He’d been denying the attraction, but he knew it was there. His gaze lingered on her whenever she wasn’t looking. The glimpses of her body made his pulse quicken more than any hooker ever had. But it wasn’t just the desire she stirred in him. She was the only woman in his life, ever in his life, who knew what he really was, and even knowing that she didn’t look at him with disgust. Before he’d left he even saw empathy in her face as she looked at him, even if compassion didn’t normally sit well with his loner survivalist mentality.
Victor had told himself over and over that he didn’t need anyone in his life, for anything. Maybe that had been the case once, but maybe it was wrong now. Or perhaps it had always just been easier to convince himself that he didn’t need anyone than to admit the truth.
He exited the warehouse, realizing he was looking forward to seeing her when he got back to the hotel. He frowned. It was a bad idea, Victor told himself, don’t go there.
Only he wasn’t listening to that particular voice any more.
CHAPTER 64
01:1 °CET
Rebecca yawned. Her eyes were sore. He’d been gone about an hour, and she had no idea when he was coming back. He had been evasive when she had pressed him for a time. As long as it takes, was the best answer he gave her. She wanted to be awake when he came back, so she picked up the phone and called room service for a triple espresso. If that didn’t keep her awake, nothing would.
She had settled on watching a news channel. It helped her eyelids stay up, even if the stories held no interest for her. Hurry up and get back, she thought. She didn’t like being on her own, even in the relative safety of the hotel room. Don’t open the door to anyone, he’d told her. She was starting to find his paranoia unbearable.
But then she had seen his scars. It had been a revelation. Rebecca couldn’t imagine the kind of existence that would cause someone to carry so many injuries. And if he carried that may physical wounds, how many psychological scars were there inside his head? She realized, almost to her amazement, that she actually felt sorry for him.
She thought back to what happened in the bar, the way he’d intervened on her behalf. Was that because he actually wanted to help, or was it just to maintain their low profile? At the time she’d been insulted that he hadn’t let her fight her own battle, thinking maybe even hitmen could have chivalry, misplaced as it was, but then she had realized he was more than likely just protecting himself by keeping her out of trouble. Now, she was sure he had simply been looking out for her and that thought touched her.
Twice now he had, in a way, rescued her. She smiled. Like a guardian angel. Though a guardian angel of death would be a better description.
Would he kill her when this was all over? It was a question she’d asked herself a dozen times or more over the last few days. Initially, even after he’d said she would never see him again, Rebecca had expected he would put a bullet in her skull the second he didn’t need her any more. The idea of seducing him in an effort to keep her off his list of targets had once been in the cards — she’d seen the way he looked at her — but she hadn’t had the courage.
No
w, after the way he’d avoided telling her his name, she was certain he didn’t intend to kill her. If he’d told her, she would become even more of a risk to him, and his professional mentality would force him to eliminate that risk. He didn’t want to do that. Maybe he had once planned to kill her but not any more. She smiled at that, knowing he liked her, even if he would never admit it.
She was under no illusion about who he was or what he did for a living, but maybe there was something approaching a human being behind all that, after all. Maybe, when this was all over, she might find out what that human being looked like.
When her coffee arrived she was already half asleep. Rebecca opened the door and took the cup and saucer from the guy, her eyes squinting from the hallway lights behind him. She went back into the room to get some money for a tip.
Turning around she saw that he was now inside the door. Though her vision was blurry she realized he looked too old to be a hotel waiter. His hair was black but his skin tone was light, not Greek. Suddenly afraid, she stepped back away from him, further into the room.
His expression showed nothing as he closed the door behind him. He moved forward smoothly, unrushed. She saw his eyes: icy blue. They were the eyes of a man without a soul.
Rebecca prayed that the man whose name she didn’t know would come back at that moment, but there was no sign of him.
This time he wasn’t going to save her.
CHAPTER 65
01:49 CET
The main light was off when Victor returned to the room. Good. He’d told her not to put it on. Secondary lights only. They were off too. He heard the shower running. He hadn’t told her never to use one. If someone came for her he doubted it would make a difference either way.
‘It’s me,’ he said.
No answer. She couldn’t hear him over the noise of the shower. There was a crack in the curtains. A trace of moonlight shined through into the room. Light from the bathroom slipped under the door. There was just enough illumination for him to see that nothing was out of place. He was cautious, though — he always was. In the darkness he walked over to his bed, the one farthest from the door. He flicked on the lamp. The room stayed dark.
Sighing, he walked around the bed to the second lamp next to the broker’s bed. They always used double rooms with two beds. It was hard enough to sleep knowing she was in the same room without her being in the same bed too. After all the years of sleeping alone Victor didn’t know if he could with someone next to him. He didn’t want to try and fail, to know just how far removed from normality he really was.
He flicked the switch but it stayed off too. Victor turned around. The light in the bathroom was on, so the electricity was working, but both lamps were out. It seemed like too much of a coincidence.
The knife appeared in his hand.
He moved over to the main light switch. It was against protocol to turn it on if a smaller light source was available, but there wasn’t one. His hand reached out, his finger touching the switch. But he didn’t flick it down. Something was very wrong.
It felt as if he had been guided toward it. He could be mistaken, but he wasn’t about to take the chance. He moved his hand away from the switch and took the slim flashlight from his pocket. He shined the light at the switch. It was just an ordinary light switch, no different from how it had been when they had first entered, except the screw heads looked scratched. He shone the light at the floor underneath the switch. It took him a few seconds before he noticed the minuscule white speck on the carpet. He squatted down and touched it with his finger. Plaster.
The room had been immaculate when they had arrived.
His pulse started to rise. There were no sizeable wardrobes, no room underneath the beds. That left the bathroom.
Victor turned on the TV, cranked up the volume. He moved back to the bed. He had the flashlight in his left hand, the knife in his right. He moved silently over to the bathroom door, standing facing it. He had a horrible feeling about what he was going to see inside. His stomach was tighter than it had ever been.
He kicked the door open.
The bathroom was small. There was no one hiding in there, no one waiting.
No one alive anyway.
She still looked good, even with wet hair draped across her face. Her head was resting on the lip of the bath as if she were resting, but at an impossible angle from the rest of her body. The water from the shower splashed on her face and the wide, open eyes. Victor approached slowly and turned off the shower.
No amount of controlled breathing could slow down his heart rate. Victor squatted down next to the bath, the knife slipping from his fingers. He knew it was pointless, but he checked her pulse anyway. Her skin was still warm. He reached out a hand and brushed the blonde hair from her face. She’d complained when he’d ordered her to bleach it. He gently closed her eyelids. She looked asleep, peaceful. He stayed looking at her far longer than he knew was prudent.
He retrieved the knife from the floor and stood back up, his knuckles white. He felt sick. Victor left the bathroom, cold anger in his eyes.
There were no defensive wounds, no evidence of a fight of any kind, no traces of blood, no skin under her nails, nothing to suggest she had even fought back. Victor knew her well enough to know she wouldn’t have died without a fight. But against whoever killed her that fight had been over the second it had begun. The killer was good. And he was still near. The broker wasn’t the only target. He had come for them both. Victor turned around, looking back at the light switch.
There would be a trip switch behind it, rigged up to a detonator that would explode when electricity was passed through it. In turn the explosion would detonate the plastic explosive packed behind the wall, enough to ensure no one inside the room survived the blast. It would have killed them both, had she had gone to Olympus with him. But she hadn’t. He’d told her to stay. It was safer.
The killer was outside. He wouldn’t have just set the bomb and left, hoping it would be successful. He would need to make sure. He was nearby, watching, waiting. He would only leave when the fireball burst through the window.
Victor wasn’t going to keep him waiting.
He used the knife to unscrew the light switch, and carefully he removed the front plate. Inside it was exactly how he imagined it would be. A detonator was attached to the main wiring and implanted into a large quantity of what looked like American C-4. It wasn’t in a block; it had been carefully kneaded and pushed into the cavity behind the wall. There looked to be several pounds’ worth. With it were plastic soda bottles filled with diesel to ensure the explosion caused a relentless fire, presumably to incinerate their corpses and leave no trail back to whomever started this. He expected other bottles were hidden around the room and in the bathroom too.
The killer, watching from nearby, would have seen Victor enter the hotel. If he did not see the explosion soon he might work out what had happened. Victor couldn’t allow that. He unplugged the TV, cut the lead from the back of the set, and stripped off the plug, leaving him with three feet of cable. He unplugged the room’s phone and moved it closer to the door. He then tore off the phone’s plastic exterior and attached the wires at the end of the TV cable leading to those inside the phone. The other end he attached to the detonator after carefully removing the original wires. When everything was secure, he plugged the phone into the socket next to the TV.
When the phone rang, the electricity passing through its wires would blow the detonating charge. The plastic explosive would follow. Victor quickly gathered his things and left. He didn’t have time to waste.
He had a call to make.
*
Even in the middle of the night the various bars and cafes that lined the street were still open and busy, Cypriots and tourists having a good time. Reed sat at a table outside one of the leastraucous establishments, quietly sipping from a tall glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. He had a book on the table before him that he hadn’t read but that helped explain his unsocia
ble presence. He knew the waitress still wondered why he had been sitting there most of the evening, but this time tomorrow Reed would be back in England enjoying a large glass of Hennessy Ellipse Cognac.
From where he sat he could see the dark rectangle that was the window to Tesseract’s room. Reed’s pulse was three beats per minute higher than normal as he waited for the big bang. He was expecting it soon since only minutes earlier he had watched Tesseract arrive back at the hotel. That he had no other name to call his prey caused a small measure of annoyance to Reed. Rebecca Sumner had been unable to tell him despite his considerable efforts to convince her to. In the end he believed her that Tesseract had refused to reveal his real name. Which was fitting he supposed. Men like Tesseract, like himself, did not have real names.
He had asked her other things as well. How old was he? What was his history, his training, his background? Reed liked to have such information about his targets, and even more so when a target was a fellow professional killer of obvious, if in no way comparable, skill. The dossier his employers had provided on Tesseract was woefully inadequate, and Reed took no pleasure in killing people he felt he did not properly know. Alas, she had not been able to tell him anything aside from the barest of details, nothing of significance he had not already known. She had not lied. People never lied to Reed. He was most persuasive.
The shockwave ruffled his shirt and made his ears pop. Glass rained down on the street. Bricks punched through windshields of parked cars. Flames spewed from the blasted-out windows. Thick smoke billowed into the night sky.
Reed closed his eyes and pictured the delicious moment when the light switch would have been flicked and the flesh stripped from Tesseract’s obliterated bones. It would have been quite a sight, Reed was sure, even if he had never been comfortable using bombs. They went against his doctrine as an assassin. They were too obvious, too indiscriminate, with too much chance of collateral damage. They were the weapon of a terrorist, not a contract killer of unparalleled ability.
