China Strike

by Matt Rees

  The siren was loud now. Verrazzano left Turbo and dragged at Jahn’s sleeve. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  They crossed Venloer Strasse and headed into Hütz’s street. “Why did you need to reload?” Verrazzano asked.

  Her face registered an instant of shock. Then she said, “I fired off those rounds at the Krokodil, the ones that went through the door of Hütz’s office. I don’t like walking around without a full deck when the Krokodil’s nearby. So I switched magazines.”

  “Did you see him? The killer?”

  “I heard the shots. But I didn’t see him. When I came around the corner, Turbo was already dead and scalped.”

  They went back to Hütz’s office. The woman and child were still in the corner. Verrazzano’s face told her what had happened. She covered her mouth with her hand and hugged the boy to her.

  Verrazzano retrieved his H&K from Hütz’s hand and holstered it. Turbo was gone, and that was a problem for his operation. But Hütz was safe. The child was alive. That was something. He stepped out into the street. When he killed Maryam Ghattas, he had driven down to the Corniche and stared through his tears at the deep blue of the Mediterranean. The light was gray in Cologne, but he sensed all the shame he had felt back then, and his eyes were wet. The wind through the railway arches chilled him. He wiped his knuckle across his eyes.

  He tried to figure how the Krokodil got around him. The last he saw him, the Krokodil had gone down the alley. Going south. Verrazzano had followed Turbo right away. The Krokodil hadn’t had time to make the loop ahead of him, unless he was some kind of superhuman. The Krokodil was one of Wyatt’s boys. He wasn’t super, but neither was he human.

  Still it troubled Verrazzano. How did the Krokodil weave through these streets to kill Turbo without being spotted? And how did he know to come to Cologne? He wondered if the assassin had seen Hütz’s phone number on the whiteboard in the office at the Jansen Trapp factory too. He had assumed Du An rubbed off the German woman’s name to protect her. But maybe the killer erased it so Verrazzano wouldn’t see it and wouldn’t follow the lead. He tried to remember if Hütz’s full name had been on the whiteboard. He was sure it had been only her first name. Could the Krokodil have known of her connection to the Chinese programmers? If not, the killer had made a big bet on the chance that she was linked. Either that, or someone had told him about it.

  The Krokodil was gone. Turbo was dead. There was just one more Chinese programmer out there, and she would die soon. That programmer was the only one who knew how to stop the attack that Wyatt was about to launch all over Europe and America. But Special Agent Dominic Verrazzano was clueless and stymied on a side street in a German city in the dark. He swayed with exhaustion. He was beyond the fatigue that manifests itself in the lactic-acid grip on the hamstrings during a long run or the burn in shoulders struggling to lift more weight. It was the desperate weariness of a soul surveying the landscape of malevolence and disorder in which it exists and hankering for the freedom of the grave.

  Jahn came to his side. “What next?”

  It took him a moment, but he brought himself back to action. “Get Hütz and the boy. We’re taking them with us.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Verrazzano reached the Audi amid a sudden burst of heavy rain over the Rhine. The downpour pitted the great river like the skin of the Krokodil. For an instant, he gazed at the wide water and thought that he could no more stop its motion toward the North Sea than he could end the assassin’s killing spree. Then he shook his head and unlocked the convertible. Restaurants lined the embankment up to the Hohenzollern Bridge, where the trains rumbled out of the main station across to the giant conference hall on the eastern bank. The rain had cleared the sidewalk and the steps up to the cathedral. He slipped into the driver’s seat and pressed the ignition button.

  The storm drummed on the soft top. He put the car in reverse and turned in his seat to look out the rear window. The right back seat dropped forward. A Glock 19 came out of the space where the seat had been. Then the Krokodil eased his torso out of the trunk and held the weapon on Verrazzano. “The scalp,” he croaked. “Hand it over.”

  Verrazzano frowned. The Krokodil didn’t have Turbo’s scalp? So who did? “I’m not the guy running around two continents leaving dead people with bad haircuts.”

  The Krokodil kept the Glock steady and aimed at the ICE agent. The orange streetlamps came on despite the early hour, lighting up the rain on the side window to speckle shadow over the Krokodil’s face. He eased through from the trunk. The car filled with a ripe scent. The Krokodil grunted as he unfolded one leg across the back seat. His eyes glinted with the concentration of a chess master. Verrazzano held still.

  “Wyatt promised you something?” Verrazzano said. “What’s he going to do? Buy you a warehouse full of that drug that’s eating you alive?”

  “You can’t make me angry enough to make a mistake,” the Krokodil growled. “There’s no room in me for no more than I already got.” He brought his other leg through from the trunk.

  “He’s going to cure you. Is that it?” Verrazzano shook his head. “Don’t believe anything he says.”

  “The hell do you know?” The Krokodil sat upright behind Verrazzano. “Just drive.”

  “How’d you start shooting up? To shut everything away. All the horror. Right? You were in Iraq, Afghanistan. That’s where Wyatt found you.”

  The Krokodil jerked his Glock into Verrazzano’s neck.

  “You’re not going to kill me,” Verrazzano said. “You’re going to keep me alive because you think I know where Turbo’s scalp is. Anyhow you couldn’t kill me if you tried.”

  The breath came hot and filthy over Verrazzano’s shoulder, clouded with anger and hate. “You want to bet?”

  “Wyatt screwed me over too. He told me I was working for the government. Special Ops. Special targets. Big policy stuff. Secret orders from the Oval Office itself. What’d he tell you?”

  “To go kill a bunch of Chinamen.”

  “I guess he refined his methods since he worked with me. Wyatt stands to make a lot of money, right? What’d he promise you? Are you ready to do something that could cost tens of thousands of lives for that—whatever it was? Are you ready to die for that?”

  “I am dying to be dead, man. I don’t care what for.” He pressed the Glock harder into Verrazzano’s neck. “Where’s the scalp?”

  “The scalp of the guy you killed today?”

  “The Chinese guy. Where’s his scalp?”

  “Why’re you asking me?”

  “I got you beat, old man. I’m asking you because maybe you want to save your life.”

  “Calling me ‘old’ doesn’t encourage me to make you happy.”

  “You don’t got the scalp?”

  “I repeat: I do not know where Turbo’s scalp is.”

  “If you don’t got the scalp, then you don’t got nothing. Except no time to live.” He twitched at the barrel of the Glock to indicate that Verrazzano should turn the car. “Drive. We’re going back to that German woman’s office.”

  “I’m not taking you there.” Verrazzano put the car into drive and rolled forward.

  “I told you, I want the scalp.”

  “It’s not at the office.”

  “Drive.”

  “Okay.” Verrazzano made half a turn. He pointed the car toward the river and stamped on the accelerator. The Audi jumped the curb and skidded across the sodden grass and mud.

  The Krokodil reached over, grabbing at the hand brake.

  Verrazzano clamped his grip down on the Krokodil’s wrist. He kept his foot on the pedal. The car slewed over the pedestrian walkway and hammered through the light metal handrail.

  The rumbling of the wheels on the cobbles cut out. For an instant, they were in the air and it was silent, then the nose plunged into the Rhine and the mass of water arrested their speed. The river surrounded them. The convertible roof creaked.

  Verrazzano grabbed the Krokodil’s h
ead and pulled it forward. He shoved the man’s shoulder low to divert the pistol. “Why do you need the scalps?”

  The Krokodil writhed and bellowed. Verrazzano knew he didn’t have long before the roof gave way. The pressure of the water would crush them, hold them down, and drown them under the synthetic fabric. The Krokodil would know that too, but he wasn’t giving up.

  “Why does Wyatt want the scalps?” Verrazzano said.

  “He doesn’t. It’s just me.”

  “Wyatt only wants the Chinese dead?”

  “The scalps is just my thing.”

  “Then why didn’t you scalp Su’s wife in New York?”

  Even while they wrestled, there was enough hesitation in the Krokodil’s answer for Verrazzano to know that he was lying. The scalps were the key. “She’s just a bitch. I want men’s scalps,” the Krokodil said. “Like a warrior.”

  The car struck a rock and tipped on its side, settling on the riverbed. The shift in the angle of the vehicle freed the Krokodil from Verrazzano’s body weight. He rolled on top of Verrazzano, butting his jaw. The darkness of the river lit up with a flash of pain.

  Verrazzano blinked hard. He saw a heavy knife in the Krokodil’s hand. It swung at him, then cut into the roof of the car. Icy water spat through the gash. The Krokodil made another chop and shoved himself through. Verrazzano grabbed at the man’s legs, but the Krokodil kicked him away and was out in the river.

  The car filled completely, just as Verrazzano filled his lungs. Bullets from the Krokodil’s pistol ripped the dark water around him. He struggled through the tear in the convertible roof, which was crushed down about him now. He let himself rise to the surface.

  He came up, staring around for the Krokodil. He picked him up at a narrow set of steps ten yards along the embankment. Verrazzano went back underwater to stay out of sight and swam for the steps as the rain came down harder.

  A train threw sparks from its overhead cable and rolled out of the main station in the direction of the railway bridge. The Krokodil climbed the grass bank at the side of the bridge’s first pillar. He looked back.

  Verrazzano reached the top of the steps and jogged toward him along the embankment. “I can help you,” he shouted.

  The Krokodil may have heard him, through the rain and the approach of the train. Verrazzano couldn’t be certain. He reached the bottom of the slope and called again. The Krokodil showed no surprise to see Verrazzano still alive, but he watched him long enough for the ICE agent to know that the assassin had believed him to be dead. Then the Krokodil swung over the barrier and rolled onto the tracks.

  Verrazzano scrambled up the muddy grass. It was him up there, a boy like him who had given what no one should ever be expected to sacrifice. Given it to the military, to the country, and received nothing in return. That’s why the Krokodil had been prey to the only person who showed him kindness and respect, a colonel who turned out to be the worst abuser of a man’s trust you could find. Verrazzano shouted for the Krokodil to come to him. He seemed to experience all the secret terrors that had afflicted the Krokodil, compounded with his own memories of battlefield horror. He slipped on the mud, dragging himself to the side of the rails.

  The train came slowly, accelerating only enough to get across the river to the next stop at the conference center on the other side.

  Verrazzano staggered to the edge of the bridge. The Krokodil lay on the crossties, his eyes closed against the heavy rain. Verrazzano lifted himself over the handrail. “I can help you.”

  The train was less than ten yards away. The Krokodil raised his arms and held them flat to the rails above his head. He turned his face to Verrazzano and opened his eyes. He registered the compassion on the ICE agent’s face, and he smiled. He moved his mouth, exaggeratedly. Verrazzano read the word on his lips: “Gotcha.”

  The locomotive passed over the Krokodil. Verrazzano recoiled from the crushing weight of the rail cars as they squealed by him. When the last one passed, the Krokodil was gone. Verrazzano figured he had reached up and grabbed the slow-moving train by the axle like a thirties hobo, hauling himself away from the wheels and onto the coupler.

  He watched the train reach the conference center station. A moment later, it was gone again.

  CHAPTER 17

  The offices of Bainc Príobháideach overlooked the picturesque gorge that wound through the middle of Luxembourg City. The Alzette meandered past the old breweries, converted now to restaurants, five hundred feet below. Beyond the high span of the Pont Rouge, the towers of the European Court of Justice and the other institutions of the European Union climbed out of the forest of Kirchberg. In the reception area, Kinsella gazed at the skyline through a wide picture window. She perched on an ultramodern couch that looked as though it had been designed by a toddler with a very thick crayon. Above her, a sketch of a medieval cathedral seemed lonely in the center of the wall. She twisted to examine the signature. Jesus, it’s a Warhol, she thought. There sure is plenty of money in private banking. Then she whispered, “Dirty money.”

  “There’s no other kind, darling. After all, laundering it to make it clean is a crime.” A tall man in a silvery gray suit crossed the reception with his hands held out before him, going in early for the shake. “Dermot McCarthy. This is my shop. They told me two of you were coming. But there’s only you? Well, you must be Special Agent Kinsella.” He had a rising and falling Irish accent that seemed designed to remind you that his native country was a land of peaks and glens.

  “Is it that obvious that I’m Irish?” Kinsella accepted his hand.

  “It’s obvious that you’re the one of the two named Noelle. Where’s your colleague, William?”

  Waiting outside in case you try to run. “Sightseeing.”

  He led her down a silent corridor and into a big office. The furniture might have been rescued from a palace in some fallen Central European empire. He settled behind the gilt desk, crossed his leg, and steepled his fingers. His eyes were comfy in the hammocks of gray skin slung beneath them. He gestured to the chair across the desk.

  Kinsella sat. A tumbler of whisky was ready for her. Beside the glass lay a red binder.

  “I’d have just as soon sent you the material by Federal Express.” McCarthy tipped his head toward the binder. “It’s all in there.”

  “The dirty money?” Kinsella reached for the binder and opened it.

  “Well, you have to allow me to keep a few secrets. Dirty money’s like a dirty mind. We are all in possession, but some of us prefer to maintain a little mystery.”

  Kinsella scanned the first of the two dozen sheets of paper in the binder. She came across the identity page of a passport. “This is Nabil Allaf?”

  “The account holder’s passport details and a copy of his passport. The rest of it is mostly documents that are required of us by Luxembourg banking laws. You won’t find much of interest there. Toward the end is a record of transactions. Beyond that, we haven’t had much contact with Mister Allaf. People don’t come to a private bank in Luxembourg to chat and swap photos of their kids.”

  The passport page showed a Syrian travel document in Arabic, French, and English. The photo was of a blank-faced man in his early fifties with pale skin and a trim goatee overlaying a fleshy jaw. “He gives his occupation as ‘government employee,’” Kinsella said. “The Syrian government?”

  “I believe that’s correct, but now that you mention it, I can’t be sure. Nonetheless, his place of residence is Damascus, and when there was an actual government there to employ people, it was, indeed, the Syrian government. In the current situation—well, I couldn’t say exactly who or what is the operative administration there.”

  She flipped to the last page. “Didn’t you wonder why a Syrian government employee would be depositing amounts greater than two hundred thousand dollars every month for—for six months.”

  The teeth McCarthy flashed were the brown of old ivory. “Noelle, darlin’, I agreed to give you this information as part of an arrange
ment that your colleague Special Agent Haddad made between me and the United States tax authorities. It’s already more than I actually have to do to help you. So I’ll ask you to be patient with an old private banker—with the emphasis on ‘private.’ I’m breaking the habit of a lifetime here.”

  “So you just don’t ask questions. That it?”

  “You develop a sense of people in this trade.” McCarthy pursed his lips against his steepled fingers. “I’ve had men come in here carrying sacks of dollars and reeking of the cocaine cartels. I’ve turned them away. Even when they threatened me with physical violence. I don’t seek trouble, you see. But unless there’s something about them that sets my antennas jumping, I provide them with my bank’s services.”

  “Did Nabil Allaf not set your antennas jumping?”

  “Nothing about the initial deposit made me suspicious.”

  “Except that it was a Syrian government employee who deposited—” She glanced at the papers. “Two hundred and forty-two thousand dollars. Do you know how much a Syrian government employee makes?”

  “I don’t know what kind of employee he was. As I’m sure you’re aware, governments don’t just pay people to issue driver’s licenses and sweep the streets. Maybe he had a more lucrative role.”

  “Didn’t you ask him?”

  “As I mentioned, I didn’t meet your man.”

  “So you didn’t have an opportunity to use your antennas?”

  The Irishman smiled thinly and was quiet.

  “How did the guy open the account? Over the phone?” Kinsella read through the pages of forms filled out by Allaf. The handwriting was fluid and extroverted, leaning to the right in old-fashioned copperplate.

  “The account was opened over the phone. You’re correct there.”

  Kinsella raised her eyes. She had heard the overly deliberate phrasing that meant McCarthy was trying to be cagey. “Someone else opened the account? Not Allaf himself?”