Which was fine by April Hardesty. These particular employers were, after all, her principle source of income... and that income was significant. Besides, they always gave the most interesting assignments.
Relying on her acute senses, her knowledge of the house from photographs she’d found down at the city hall in the town some miles away, and the feeble light of the fickle moon, April Hardesty negotiated her way to the side door, the entrance to the kitchen. From the side of her belt, she pulled out her tried and trusted lock-pick. She made short work of the thing; it was a simple tumbler arrangement and gave way easily to her skilled ministrations.
She found herself in a large, dark scullery. Carefully, she closed the door behind her, and then stalked through the darkness, careful not to knock over any pots, spill any pans, dislodge any glasses. The scent of the day’s dinner still clung to the place: some sort of curry. A green vegetable? Perhaps spinach, with cardamom. Yes, and cinnamon—she definitely smelled cinnamon in the air.
She purposefully ate sparingly before an assignment, and then, mostly starches for energy, and so the smells were especially pronounced to her. They made her hungry. But then, it wouldn’t do to stop and raid the icebox here, would it?
Now the question on April Hardesty’s mind was, Where was the other guard? According to intelligence, the Hazzars had round-the-clock armed guards on shifts while they waited out this first phase of threat to their lives, and April had planned accordingly. The one outside was easy enough to wait for and spot, but she was certain there must be regular communication between him and the other guard, so there was absolutely no time to dally.
Carefully, she opened the swinging door between the kitchen and the dining area, and made her way through the large room. It was dim, but certainly better lit than the kitchen, so she was easily able to avoid the obstacles. It wasn’t only her training in the British Army and British Intelligence that gave her this edge; it was her own athletic sleekness, her lightness—which was all to the good, since these oaken floorboards were old and decidedly creaky.
At the far end of the dining room, she heard the sounds.
Sounds coming from another room on the first floor.
Faint gasps and groans. She wondered what they could be and then she smiled to herself, realizing what they were and that they weren’t what they sounded like.
April Hardesty took the hallway slowly, all her instinctual radar attuned for trip-wires, alarms of any kind. The hallway leading out to the large living room was dim, the living room itself dimmer, but she could make out blocks of old furniture: high-backed chairs, divans with curlicued feet, ornately framed pictures hanging amidst the baroque of old-fashioned wallpaper. This was the family vacation-estate of an old Boston family inclined toward literary patronage; it was this family that had given the Hazzars harbor in their time of need. This, according to her employers’ intelligence network, which, she gathered, ran very deep into the upper echelons of the rich. If a Rockefeller or a Kennedy sneezed, they knew about it. They knew about it because they were rich themselves, old money, she gathered. Old money, new money-it was all the same to April Hardesty: plain old delicious money. And what better way than this to get it?
April Hardesty was thirty-two years old and in the best shape of her life. Born in Ulster, Northern Ireland, of an unholy marriage between a Catholic man and a Protestant woman, she had grown up amidst the strife of that divided land; playing amongst the rubble of IRA bombs; dodging rubber bullets and throwing rocks one day, in a protest against the bloody Papists the next, wearing an orange armband. Early on she saw the vanity of hate and became inured and amoral. As a young girl, she’d lost her virginity to a handsome IRA rebel; and from him she learned books’ worth of dirty fighting tricks. But he abandoned her, and so she abandoned the IRA, using her Protestant connections and British citizenship to join the British Military where she became a student of every other kind of fighting. She’d fought in the Falkland Islands; she’d been stationed all over the world, in United Nations peacekeeping forces; and for the Brits she’d served in the Far East, Canada, India—sopping up martial knowledge like a sponge. She had even served back in Northern Ireland again, though in Belfast, not Ulster. And she’d shot her own people with great mirth.
At the end of her military stint, she’d gone independent. This was because she’d been contacted secretly earlier; inquiries had been discreetly made concerning her availability for mercenary work. Her expertise had not gone unnoticed by scouts.
She’d done a year in South Africa, learning more not just about personal martial arts but about power, about the way it was wielded. And somehow, even as she earned much money doing it, she became even more hardened, more cynical. Finally, after her mercenary stint, enjoying some of her earnings while sunning herself in the South of France, she’d been approached by her present employers. The Colleagues, they’d called themselves, although sometimes they referred to themselves as the Publishers….
“Have you ever considered,” they had asked, “a career in editing?”
Thus came fun and fortune to a lass from Northern Ireland. As a child and a young girl, April Hardesty’s escape from the bloody real world had been in the romantic arms of books and telly. Her favorite heroines had been Mrs. Peel of the “Avengers,” TV series and Modesty Blaise of her own series of books and movies.
Now, ringing her own changes, she was Mrs. Peel without use for alcoholic old Steed; she was a Modesty Blaise for the nineties...
And April Hardesty reveled in every minute of it.
The sounds she had heard were coming from another room, an offshoot of the foyer. She approached it warily; chances were that this was where the other guard was, but she had learned from years of experience to never take such things for granted. She approached the open doorway cautiously, peering carefully into the room.
The sounds were louder here: panting, grunts, groans—moans of sensual pleasure. Only not live—all with a muted tinny sound that April Hardesty could only interpret one way. Sure enough, at one end of the room was an old Sylvania color television set, hooked up to a VCR. And on the screen were a pair of human bodies, pornographically dancing that age-old dance of copulation.
Sitting in a chair faced away from her was the other guard. He was a curly haired guy and he was holding a bottle of Samuel Smith ale in one hand. To his left was a bowl of popcorn.
Hmm, thought April Hardesty. Perks of the job!
Well, the climax would come for this fellow a little sooner than he’d expected. Yes, you take this kind of cushy job, you expect a little boredom, and so a guy’s gotta get a little entertainment, right? Who would expect some first-class professional international assassin to not only find this nutty Arab guy’s location here in the middle of nowhere, but actually come creepy-creeping up behind his guard while he was taking a well-deserved coffee break?
She snuck up softly and slowly behind the man, selecting a very special device for him. Had there been silence in the room, she might have utilized the knife again, or perhaps her silenced Walther PPK. But since he’d obliged her by providing auditory cover, she’d use her favorite form of quick, efficient death-dealing.
Before the guy had a chance to even whisper a prayer, April Hardesty had the garrote around his neck. With surprising strength and skill, she twisted the wire around his throat and then pulled on the tabs. The fellow hardly got a chance to gasp and spasm, before she pulled his windpipe. A few seconds later he was unconscious; a little more properly applied pressure, and he was dead.
She took a deep breath, even as the well-endowed couple on the TV screen messily finished their celluloid act.
The air turned foul; the guard had voided himself of bodily wastes. An unpleasant effect of garroting; but certainly there was no way smell was going to warn her target upstairs!
She turned and started padding up the stairs, folding up the garrote and putting it back in place on her belt after wiping the blood off in a linen handkerchief.
&nb
sp; Then she reached for what was underneath her coat, knowing that there would be no reason now to deal with what was ahead of her in a silent way.
At the top of the stairs, April Hardesty stopped.
She saw no lights seeping from any of the several doors lined along the corridor.
She knew she’d seen two lights on from outside.
Time for a reality check.
She did a quick survey of her mental map of this place, and then overlaid it onto the hallway before her.
Yes, and there it was: a dogleg down at the end. Of course, that was where the man’s study would be. She crept down the thinly carpeted corridor, her ears pricked up for any sounds of movement. True, there was no need for silence now, but that didn’t mean that she could afford to be careless!
At the end of the corridor she bent over, found the two lights, and then paused, gearing herself up for this next, most important phase of her mission.
The first of the doors was open. April Hardesty peeked in, saw that it was the bedroom, and she saw as well what she’d expected—Abdul Hazzar’s wife, covered by the multicolored lights of late-night television. Dark hair, longish nose, dressing robe, lying in bed, eyes closed, sleeping. An easy mark...
But only a secondary target.
The woman was far too close to her husband to go first, especially with the method that April Hardesty had planned. Like the Jewish Angel of Death, she passed over the doorway.
For now.
Further down the hall, a horizontal rectangle of light slipped from the door that was slightly ajar. As she approached it, April Hardesty could hear the polite strains of a Liszt piano piece sieve through the opening. Even out here, she smelled pipe tobacco, and as she looked in, she immediately noticed the bluish pall of smoke that hung in the air. Closer, she could also perceive the smell of strong Turkish coffee.
A man sat at a large oak rollback desk, bent over a pad of paper, writing. Hardesty pushed the door silently open a little wider and saw that beside the man was a Compaq MS-DOS computer, turned off at the moment.
The man was burly. He had deep black hair lightly salted with gray, and a beard with a gray patch down one side. He wore thick-framed black glasses and was scribbling on a yellow legal pad with a blue Bic pen. To one side of his hand was a demitasse of coffee and a large glass ashtray with a large briar pipe leaning against a groove.
Abdul Hazzar.
He was wearing a silk robe over a white shirt and dark pants.
On his feet were leather slippers. He stopped writing for a moment and regarded his efforts, then started tapping a thick finger, its nail bitten to the quick, in time to the Liszt rhythm. Tacked to the walls were odd charts—astronomical? Astrological? Spread on the coffee table behind him were three decks of what appeared to be Tarot cards. Also, there was a pouch from which Runic stones were spilled, and other odd objects, apparently for divination.
April Hardesty felt a sudden surge of love for the man, a strong connection, perhaps psychosexual, perhaps even mystical. She felt a rightness about the task ahead of her—but she felt a need for communication as well. She knew she would cherish these moments for as long as she lived. They would be exquisite, delicious—and she intended to savor them.
She felt like a part of a beautiful Whole, an important player in something much larger than herself.
She pulled out the AK-47, pushed open the door, and stepped through the doorway.
She clicked the magazine and safety into place, and aimed.
Hazzar snapped his bearlike head around, starting from his chair. He had dark, expressive eyes, and they were filled with an immediate fire of thrilling fear. His face twisted with pain as he looked up and saw her. Then with doubt. Then with understanding.
“Hello there, Mister Hazzar,” she said in soft tones. “I’ve been dispatched to dispatch you, I believe.”
He nodded and swallowed hard. “I did not expect a woman.”
There was something in his eyes besides surprise—a non-acceptance, an attempt to grope with something fundamental yet elusive.
“Perhaps my employers are politically correct, hmm?”
“I don’t understand.” The man shook his head. “They would never send a woman for what they felt was God’s punishment.”
“That depends on whom you mean by ‘they.’”
“You are not of the Faith.”
“No.”
“This does not make sense. They would not hire someone else, surely, on such a supposedly holy undertaking.” He spoke with bite and sarcasm.
“There are other sorts of holiness beside the dogma of Mohammad.”
“You are here to kill me?”
“Yes. “
“Then why do you wait? Why don’t you get it over with?”
“Perhaps I read one of your books once.” She motioned the bore of the gun down at the coffee table. “Never knew you were into this sort of stuff. Where’s the chicken guts?”
The man nodded slowly, as though suddenly comprehending something. “You are English, no?”
“Maybe.”
“I saw you. In the stars I saw you, and in the cards. But I did not recognize you. There was such a mass of information. It was overwhelming.” He sighed, looking infinitely sad. “The guards?”
“Dead.”
“A shame. And my wife?”
“Sleeping. “
“Spare her. I beg you. She’s an innocent.”
“No problem,” she lied. She was still a little bit baffled about what the bloody hell this fellow was talking about. It wasn’t exactly in her cards, so to speak.
“It is still incomprehensible to me—a woman doing bloody work! And yet…” Realization dawned upon his face. “Ah! Ibegin to see… It becomes clear to me!”
“Excellent. Another agency than you expected.”
“And not for money!”
She was surprised by that. She didn’t understand.
“Of course it’s for money. Everything’s for money in this world. “
“You, perhaps... but there is far more at stake for the people who hired you.” He nodded his middle-aged head sagely, wagging a fatherly finger at her. “It is all made clear. I have seen much in the time that I have spent here on this island, cut off. I have dealt into areas beyond the ken of general mortals.”
Funny thing. This guy seemed to be onto the very notion that she had about these so-called Colleagues, these Publishers. But he couldn’t possibly know about them.
Bollocks. She had time. She was interested. She’d hear him out.
“Go on.”
“Yes, that’s the book I’ve been writing recently. I have seen my death in the cards and the charts, but I prayed that it would not be so soon. Oh well, I am wiser now... It is of little matter.” He sighed and took the small cup of Turkish coffee, drained it. Carefully, he put the cup back on the saucer and turned his attention back to his executioner. His dark face now bore a look of total resignation, perhaps even peace. “You serve a principality of power—a principality of evil beyond my political understanding, do you not?”
She laughed. “It’s beyond my understanding as well, I think!”
“Yes, it is all very clear. For whatever reasons, this organization would have me dead—not because I have offended the people of my former religion, but to tum Western opinion against them!”
April Hardesty nodded. “Yes. That’s pretty much what I had figured.” Uncanny! She was honestly intrigued by this individual’s depth of perception.
“Oh, child, but there is more! Much more! You are not merely a pawn... You are a slave!”
“I’m a bloody free agent!” she said, a bit irked.
“You think so? That is not what I have seen in the cards.”
“Well fuck your bloody cards then. They pay me, I provide services.”
He nodded with frightening understanding, his dark eyes boring into hers in a way that made an uncontrollable shiver run the length of her spine. She found herself momenta
rily fascinated by those eyes. She could do nothing but listen to what the man had to say.
“I have seen ships of light in the sky. The chariots of Ezekiel. These are the future of your employers. And I have glimpsed your future as well. You are a puppet of these dark men. And your destiny shall not only be unholy, the way to it shall be through hell itself.”
It was then that she noticed that the man was reaching behind him, off to the side of his computer.
“Not bloody likely, mate!” she said, and squeezed the trigger of the AK-47.
The bullets chunk-a-splatted out, cutting across the man’s chest, picking out divots of flesh and blood.
Abdul Hazzar gasped. The gun he’d been going for behind the computer slipped off and clumped to the floor. April Hardesty squeezed off another splatter of bullets and the dying body hopped like a marionette pulled by spastic strings.
Leaking blood, eyes wide open, the man slumped into his chair, tom and dead.
The smell of blood was sweet in the air, mixed with the smell of the smoke.
“Bloody ships of light?” muttered April Hardesty under her breath. “What are you talking about, you fat bastard? Hmm?”
But the glazed eyes just stared back at her, without any hint of answer in them.
A frightened scream sounded from down the hall. The little woman of the house.
“Williams! Marcel! Help!”
That’s right, thought April Hardesty. Call for your dead security forces first… and then go for the phone. That will give me just enough time.
Shaking off her principal target’s strange words, April Hardesty turned and carried her gun from the room to finish off the job.
Chapter 5
The Tidal Basin of Washington, D. C., is a manmade tributary of the Potomac River, situated beside the Mall with the Lincoln Memorial on one end, the Washington Monument in the middle, and the Capitol Building on the other. Along the sides of the well-tourist-traveled Mall are the National Gallery, the various buildings of the Smithsonian Institution, and of course the White House. The Tidal Basin is an unavoidable sight for the road traveler leaving or approaching southwest Washington.
The UFO Conspiracy Trilogy Page 79
