Assassin's code jl-4

by Jonathan Maberry

  I will rip your throat out and drink your life.

  Hearing someone say that was bad enough, but people in my trade tend to talk all kinds of over-the-top trash. Fine. However, having someone with fangs say it is a whole different thing. You didn’t just shake that off. Even though I knew- knew — there had to be a rational explanation, no matter how exotic the science, it still hit me harder than it should have. It was so weird, so real that it awakened an atavistic dread that took me all the way back to the cave. Like I was some grunting Neanderthal huddling by a meager fire while outside strange and unnameable sounds came out of the midnight darkness.

  My inner voices-Cop, Warrior, and Civilized Man-were all silent. Afraid to speak to me, unable to tell me what to do.

  “Joe Ledger,” I told myself, “you have got to get the hell out of Dodge.”

  I said it aloud because I needed to hear my own voice sounding nice and normal. It didn’t. I sounded scared and shaken and that didn’t help a goddamn bit.

  I got to my feet and fell right down on my ass again, and the sound provoked a weak woof from Ghost. His eyes were still closed, though.

  Next time I tried to get up I did it slowly. My hands were shaking and they were ice cold.

  Making sure to stay away from the window, I bent and dragged Ghost out into the hall and kicked the door shut. None of the other doors on my floor opened, which was the plan. When our local contacts had picked this hotel for Echo Team they’d rented all the rooms just to leave them empty. Most of the floor below me was empty too. No witnesses, no curious faces peering out from between cracked doors. I doubt anyone knew about what had just happened except the sniper, me, and whoever sent the son of Dracula in there.

  There was nothing in the room that I needed more than I needed to get gone. My cell was in my pocket, but now was not the time to make a call. Besides, I think my hands were shaking too badly even to hit speed dial.

  It took Ghost another minute to wake up and two more before he could stand. As soon as he was on all fours, we crept down the back steps to the laundry room. I wanted to clean us both up and get myself together before we went looking for a safe house.

  Ghost had his tail between his legs and in my way so did I.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Kempinski

  Munich, Germany

  June 15, 9:54 a.m.

  The young man sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the pistol he had just finished loading. It was a slim, lightweight. 22. Easily concealed, simple to operate. He had used guns like this for years. He had killed with them. Men and women. Many of them.

  He even knew most of their names.

  The fact that he did not know all of their names was like a nail in his head. The floor around the bed was littered with crumpled up sheets of paper on which lists of names had been scribbled. On the first few sheets, the names that he could remember were written in a neat, flowing script. On the more recent ones they were scrawled in haphazard fashion. More than once the tip of his pen had gouged into the notepad, cutting fresh pages like blades on flesh.

  The young man knew about that, too. He had used knives more than once.

  Even a garrote.

  The most recent page lay crumpled on the floor between his bare feet. Beside it lay yesterday’s bottle of Scotch. Today’s was in splinters at the base of the wall where it had been thrown.

  There were other bottles too. The room was a disaster, the trash can the only place uncluttered by discards. It stood empty, like a statement, by the open refrigerator door. Inside the fridge, a week’s worth of leftovers had become worlds for new life forms, and the odor was appalling.

  The young man did not care.

  “Dr. Sirois!” he shouted suddenly, remembering another name. With fevered hands he began his list again. Seventy- eight names now. Seventy-eight.

  He wrote them as carefully as trembling fingers would allow. As neatly as his mind would allow, but by the time he was halfway done the list even he couldn’t read most of what he’d written. He’d lost count somewhere in the forties and tore the page from the pad, crushed it in his fist, and hurled it as far as he could.

  Then he screamed.

  “ Seventy-eight, you sodding freak! ”

  Seventy-eight was too much. He knew that. Too many deaths. Too many murders. Far too many to atone for. There was no way anyone could be forgiven for that many deaths. A saint would burn for half as many, and he knew that he was far, far from that kind of grace.

  Seventy-eight. Too many.

  But not enough. There were more. He could remember them. He could remember the trigger-pulls, the plunge of blades. But why couldn’t he remember their names?

  He screamed again, an inarticulate plea to a God he knew would not spit on him.

  When the phone rang, his screams died in the humid air of his hotel room. There was a ghost of an echo, and then silence.

  Until the second ring.

  The young man stared at the phone.

  Not the hotel phone, which had been silent since he checked in three weeks ago.

  Not at his personal cell phone, which lay smashed on the floor under the shoe he had used to destroy it.

  No, this was the other cell. A bright purple one with a ruggedized rubber shell. The one he had picked up a hundred times, ready to make a call, ready to beg for forgiveness, but which he had put down each time.

  The phone kept ringing.

  It had not rung for weeks. Not since he had left the private villa that sat in the shade of the Kolakchal Mountain, Jamshidiyeh Park in Tehran. Not since he had been caught reading the encrypted computer files. Hacking those files had taken months. Reading them had broken his heart. Being caught reading them had resulted in a terrible fight. Shouts, hard words, and a single punch-the hardest the young man had ever thrown-that left the owner of those files dazed and bleeding on the floor. The words that man had said as the young man backed away from the horror of what he had just done-those words had opened up a fissure in his mind. They had broken something that the young man knew could not be mended.

  Maybe not even by God Himself.

  The purple phone kept ringing.

  On the eleventh ring, he answered it. He did not speak, did not say hello, did not ask who was calling. There was only one person who could possibly have this number.

  “Toys,” whispered Hugo Vox. “C’mon, kid… say something for Christ’s sake.”

  Toys bent forward as quickly and sharply as if he had been punched in the stomach.

  “Toys!” begged Vox. “Are you there?”

  Into the phone he said, “No.”

  And he disconnected the call.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Private Villa Near Jamshidiyeh Park

  Tehran, Iran

  June 15, 9:59 a.m.

  Hugo Vox drew in a ragged breath and let it out through his nostrils, feeling his whole body deflate.

  That single word.

  No.

  Vox stared at the coded cell phone on his desk. It lay beside a bottle of Scotch and a tumbler that was nearly empty. Vox snatched up the glass and drained the last of the Scotch, shivering as the ice rattled against his teeth.

  He refilled the glass, drank half of it, set it down.

  His sleeve was still rolled up and he looked at the injection mark, then touched the others beneath his shirt. They still hurt, but other things hurt worse.

  “You miserable backstabbing little fuck,” he said aloud. The house, however, was empty. Toys had been gone a month now, and Vox knew that he would never be back. On the computer monitor in front of him was the log-in screen of the bank to which he’d wired the billion he’d given to Toys after the Seven Kings fell apart. One hundredth of the assets Vox had in over seven hundred global markets, banks, and trusts. When Toys had left him, Vox had been determined to switch all but a penny out of it. That would have made a statement, sent a message.

  So far he hadn’t done it, even though he log
ged in to the banking site as often as six or seven times a day.

  The fact that he could not yet do it irritated the shit out of him.

  “You goddamn Judas,” he growled. It was far from the first time he’d said that.

  What troubled Vox most was his own reaction to Toys’s betrayal. He should have been doing an Irish jig instead of sulking. Toys had found exactly what Vox had wanted him to find. Upier 531, the Upierczi, the Holy Agreement. All of it, exactly as planned. Vox still could not understand why Toys had reacted so… weirdly. This was exactly the sort of thing Toys had been involved with his whole adult life, first as Sebastian Gault’s personal assistant and since then as Vox’s protege and unofficially adopted son. This was Toys’s fucking heritage. All he had to do was join him for this last little bit of fun and the kid would have access to the other ninety-nine billion dollars.

  How could anyone piss on that?

  He closed his eyes and remembered the fight they’d had.

  Vox had been in the kitchen at their villa, removing cardboard containers of takeout food from a cloth bag and placing them on the table. Humming to himself, happy with the way things were going with Grigor, and with that numb-nuts Charlie LaRoque. When he heard Toys open the cellar door, he looked up and smiled.

  But the smile died on his lips.

  “What the fuck-?”

  Toys stood swaying in the doorway, his eyes red-rimmed, cheeks streaked with old and new tears. A pistol hanging limply from his hand, the barrel pointed at the floor.

  “Hey, kiddo,” Vox began, “what’s-?”

  Toys tossed a ring of keys onto the counter. Duplicates for the keys to Vox’s office and the cabinet with his computer files. Vox shrugged; he’d known that Toys had made dupes. There were faint smudges of wax on two of the keys from where Toys had made impressions for copying.

  “So what?” he asked.

  “Upier 531.”

  Vox removed a container of rice from the bag. He glanced from Toys to the pistol and back again. “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Why do you think? What kind of question is that? You think I want to die?” demanded Vox. “You think I’d let myself rot if there was a way out?”

  “That’s not what I’m asking,” said Toys. “You know it isn’t.”

  “What do you think it’s about? What’s it ever about? You went into my banking records, right? You saw the deposits and the transfers. Christ, is this about the split? Are you turning on me over your share?”

  “It’s not about the money.”

  “The fuck it’s not about the money, you little shithead,” Vox fired back. “Okay, so I promised you a hundred billion when I died, and I’m not giving you a hundred billion ’cause I’m not fucking dying. Those injections are giving me a new shot, kiddo, and I’m fucking taking it-and I’m keeping the money I earned because now I’m going to have a chance at spending it. So, boo hoo, I’m a bad man. Are you trying to tell me you can’t live off of one billion? Are you standing there and telling me that? You wouldn’t have a fucking dime if it weren’t for me. I treated you like my own son, you ungrateful shit. I’m giving you a billion fucking dollars, though. Who else ever gave anyone that kind of cash? It’s already transferred to your account.”

  “It’s not about the money,” Toys repeated, his face growing red. “It’s about where it’s coming from.”

  Vox barked out a harsh laugh. “Oh, please, do not even go there.” He paused and shook his head. “Look, don’t think I don’t know that you’ve been getting all moody and guilty lately. Ever since Gault died you’ve been watching way too many televangelists. It’s creepy and it’s silly, but I figured if it works for you, then who am I to tell you how to whitewash your soul. It’s your money now, and a billion dollars buys a lot of forgiveness.”

  In two quick strides Toys closed the distance between them and struck Vox across the mouth. Not with the pistol. He used his open hand, a single whipcrack of a slap that spun Vox violently around and sent him crashing into the table. It tipped under his weight and Vox fell amid a torrent of exploding cartons of food and cutlery. He landed heavily, his face and chest splattered with hot soup and rice and cooked lamb. Vox screamed and slapped at his skin. But before he could recover, Toys bent down and shoved the barrel of the pistol hard against Vox’s temple.

  “Shut your mouth,” whispered Toys in an icy hiss. “So help me God, Hugo, if you say one more word I will kill you.”

  Vox groaned and pawed at his mouth. His lip was pulped and bleeding and he stared at the red smear on the back of his hand. Despite Toys’s warning, Vox growled, “If you want all of it then take it and fuck you. The bank codes are in-”

  “I have the bank codes,” snarled Toys, “but I don’t want your sodding money. Piss on you and every penny of it. Keep it and choke on it.”

  Vox turned his head, ignoring the presence of the gun, and he glared up at Toys. “Then what do you fucking want?” When Toys did not speak, Vox chuckled. “Well goddamn,” he said wonderingly, “I can see it in your eyes, boy, you really have lost your fucking mind and found Jesus. Ho-lee shit. I thought it was a scam. I thought you were running some kind of schuck, or maybe going through some kind of spring cleaning of the soul. Shit, I thought it was a frigging phase and-”

  “A ‘phase’?” echoed Toys softly.

  “Of course,” snapped Vox, “and that’s what it damn well is. You’re feeling some dumbass Catholic guilt because I filled your head with a bunch of bullshit about Judas last year when I was trying to get you away from that dickhead Gault. There was a point to all that, kiddo, and I thought you understood it. What, did you think I was proselytizing? I was trying to get you to understand about necessary sacrifice and how sometimes we all have to make a hard choice. Was I wrong about you? Are you too fucking stupid to understand that?”

  “No,” murmured Toys, “I understood you perfectly.”

  He cocked the hammer of the pistol, and it was the loudest sound Vox ever heard.

  “Listen to me, Hugo,” Toys said, so very softly. “Try to understand. Try, for once, to listen objectively. Don’t filter it through your own agenda. Just this once. Can you do that?”

  Vox cleared his throat. His face and back hurt. The food was trickling down inside his clothes. “Yeah, sure, kiddo. Say your piece.”

  Toys leaned so close that his voice was a hot breeze on Vox’s ear. “You lied to me, Hugo.”

  “Fuck it, kid, I lie to every-”

  “Shhhh. Don’t say anything. Just listen.” The barrel of the gun slid along the line of Vox’s cheek. “I never wanted your money. You thought I did because that’s all you’re capable of thinking. I almost pity you. Even Sebastian wasn’t like that. At least he could love something. Amirah… your mother. Sebastian loved her. But you, Hugo? You don’t love anything. I doubt you ever have.”

  Vox started to say something, to protest that statement, but Toys leaned toward him, forehead to forehead, the pistol now touching the point of Vox’s chin.

  “Please,” begged Toys, “please don’t say anything. Don’t say that you love me. I’ve heard that. You said it a thousand times. That you love me like a son. Don’t let me hear you say those words. I can do more than kill you. I will if you say that.”

  Vox said nothing.

  “I’m not like you, Hugo. I’m not like Sebastian, either. I’m not strong in the same way… but I’m not weak in the same way, either. I didn’t know that before. I thought I was weak, I thought I was broken. A broken toy. Quaint, I know. Corny. But it isn’t the way things are, and I didn’t know that until I read the files. I could have forgiven you about the money. After all, it’s not even your money to give. It’s all stolen, it’s all blood money, and I have enough blood on my hands as it is. I could have forgiven you about Upier 531. A gene therapy that could cure your cancer? Something that could make you live for years? Maybe forever? That’s wonderful, Hugo. That’s magic, even if it’s unproven. I could forgive any risk you’d ta
ke to change that.”

  Tears welled in Toys’s eyes and fell on Vox’s cheek.

  “But the price you were willing to pay. Good Christ, Hugo. All those people? What is it with you? What was it with Sebastian and the Seven Kings? Are people unreal to you? Do you think they’re simply bit-part players in your personal drama? No-don’t say anything. I know the answer. That’s exactly what you, and what people like you, think. No one else is real, no one else matters. Only you, your power, your profit, and whatever pieces of the world you can steal.”

  He sniffed, but the tears still fell. Vox was frozen to stillness.

  “Hugo… you think that I’m like a son to you. Or, you thought so. When you found out you were dying I was the only way for you to become immortal. Fathers do that with their sons. That’s what you thought you were going to leave behind. Me-a clone of you, someone to carry on the things you’ve done your whole life. More murders, more plots and plans. More chaos. When you looked at me, that’s what you saw.”

  Toys pressed the pistol harder against Vox’s chin.

  “How could you hate anyone so much that you would want them to be like you?”

  A last tear rolled from Toys’s eye and fell, striking Vox on the lips.

  Toys straightened and stepped back, his arm out, gun pointed, the barrel trembling but only slightly.

  “You are a monster, Hugo,” murmured Toys. “I’m not.”

  Vox sat up and wiped away the salty tear on his lips. He sneered at Toys. “Yeah? Then what the fuck are you?”

  The answer was there in the young man’s eyes for Vox to read. The hand holding the pistol stopped trembling, the black eye of the barrel stared without pity.