She would not have to decide for many years, but she wondered what she would say to her child when he asked about his father. Would she tell him the truth? Or would she invent some acceptable version of events? Somehow, she didn’t think she could stretch her imagination that far. After all, there was nothing acceptable about the things she had done. While her actions had never concerned her before, she couldn’t help but wonder—in light of her recent discovery—whether it was time to put it all behind her.
It was something she’d have to consider, but for now, there was work to be done, revenge to be had. As she stared through the light dusting of snow on the windshield, a distant figure emerged from the predawn gloom, his feet pounding a steady rhythm on the pavement, his shoulders bouncing beneath ethereal light. He was obscured by a sudden gust of loose white powder, but then he reappeared, right on schedule, drawing ever closer.
Without shifting her gaze from the man jogging south on 17th Street, Nouri Hussein reached for her gun and pushed it under the folds of her coat. Then she opened the door and stepped onto the icy pavement.
The runner approached, unaware, and the snow came down in a great white cloud, obscuring the rising dawn.
If you enjoyed The Assassin, read on for a special preview of Andrew Britton’s exciting new thriller featuring Ryan Kealey:
THE INVISIBLE
A Kensington hardcover on sale in March 2008
PROLOGUE
THE KARAKORAM HIGHWAY (KKH), PAKISTAN
In Rebeka Česnik’s opinion, the view, even when seen through the cracked window of the ancient bus winding its way down from Kashgar to Islamabad, was simply magnificent. Perfect. Stunning in every conceivable way. These were the words she had used to describe every trip she’d ever taken, and her effusive comments always made her friends and relatives smile, though it had taken her quite a while—the better part of her life, in fact—to understand just why that was.
Her mother had been the one to finally let her in on the joke. That had been a few years earlier, shortly after Rebeka joined Frommer’s as a travel photographer. At the time, the observation had struck her as not only true, but slightly humorous. Even now the memory made her smile, but she couldn’t dispute her mother’s words.
It’s a good thing you took up photography instead of writing, she had said, because no matter where you go, your descriptions are always the same. Every place you visit is just as perfect as the last.
It was a true enough statement, Rebeka supposed, though she’d never really dwelled on her lack of verbal creativity. All she cared about was her traveling and her art, and to her great satisfaction, she’d been able to make a successful living with both. She’d always had the ability to pick out a unique, compelling scene, but that wasn’t enough for her. Nor was it enough to satisfy her extremely demanding employers. Instead, her goal was to pull the reader into the photograph, to draw him away from the article itself. It was a lot to aspire to, as the magazines she worked for employed some of the best writers in the business. Moreover, it was nearly impossible to capture the grandeur of the things she saw on a regular basis. Still, judging by the awards and accolades she had racked up over her short career—including the prestigious Hasselblad award in 2006—she had managed to make her mark in an industry brimming with talent, and that was no small feat.
Rebeka had embarked on her current career after winning a regional photography contest at 17 years of age. She’d started shooting on an amateur basis in 2002 with a secondhand Minolta Dynax 8000i. The camera had been a gift from a spoiled cousin who’d since moved on to more expensive hobbies, and she’d fallen in love with it instantly. Her love of travel, however, dated back to her childhood, and she sometimes wondered why it had taken her so long to work her two favorite hobbies into what had become a spectacular career. She had grown up on the Soca River in the Julian Alps, not far from the famed Predjama Castle, and she credited the gorgeous scenery of her childhood with sparking not only her interest in nature, but her desire to see as much of it as possible.
Since leaving Frommer’s the previous year, she had embarked on freelance assignments for Time, Newsweek, Le Monde, National Geographic, and Naša žena in her native Slovenia, just to name a few. Those assignments had given her the opportunity to visit 14 countries over the course of 2 short years, in addition to the 12 she’d already seen, and she had thoroughly documented her journeys—not only with her camera, but also in her journal, by far her most treasured possession. Every assignment carried with it the promise of a new adventure, but as she stared out the window, ignoring the unpleasant sway of the bus on the steep mountain road, she couldn’t help but think that the snow-capped peaks surrounding the Hunza Valley had surpassed her wildest expectations. A brief shower earlier in the day had given way to a spectacularly clear blue sky, and the afternoon sun made the snow-topped spires in the distance glisten in ways she could never hope to capture on film. It didn’t happen often, but there were times when she knew she could never do justice to the scenery, and while those moments were among the most thrilling of her personal life, they were hard to accept professionally. Still, she wouldn’t have traded the sight for anything.
After a while the bus rocked slightly to the right as it swept around the mountain, and the splendid sight of Tirich Mir—the highest peak in the Hindu Kush range—faded from view as the bus began the long descent into Khunjerab National Park. Disappointed with the change in scenery, Rebeka turned in her seat and let her gaze drift over her fellow passengers. The vehicle was filled to capacity, which wasn’t surprising, given the time of year. Many were climbers destined for the world’s most challenging peaks, and they were only assured of permits during the summer months. She had traveled with these people for weeks on end, and she’d come to know most of them fairly well.
Sitting directly across from her was Beni Abruzzi, the rakish, handsome, long-limbed climber from Brescia. He was talking—with animated gestures, as always—to Umberto Verga, his stocky Sicilian cousin. Umberto rarely spoke, and when he did it sounded more like a series of grunts than actual speech, but Beni was only too happy to pick up his cousin’s slack. He’d served as a caporal maggiore, an infantry corporal in the Italian army. He’d also spent some time in Iraq, a fact he’d mentioned more times than Rebeka cared to remember. Abruzzi had spent hours bragging about his military exploits, and while Rebeka believed most of his stories, she wasn’t impressed in the least. Unsurprisingly, the Italian’s gaze was presently fixed on the trio of pretty Norwegian nurses who had joined them in Tashkurgan. That had been two hours earlier, 40 minutes before the bus crossed from China into Pakistan via the Khunjerab Pass, the highest point on the Karakoram Highway.
There was also the downtrodden group of Danish climbers who’d arrived at K2 four days earlier with the goal of summiting, only to turn back at base camp in Concordia, and a small knot of aging Canadian trekkers. There was even a renowned American geologist by the name of Timothy Welch. The professor emeritus from the University of Colorado seemed to spend a great deal of time staring at his hands and muttering under his breath, which Česnik found both amusing and a little unnerving.
Beni managed to catch her eye, but she turned away before he could fix her with his usual lascivious stare. To cover her reaction, she hastily pulled her journal out of her Berghaus pack, undid the clasp, and started to scribble a few notes, catching up on the events of the last few days. It was hard to concentrate under the lean climber’s intense gaze. She’d done her best to make her disinterest clear, but her efforts had clearly been wasted. Although she was just twenty-three—the same age as Abruzzi—Rebeka had accomplished a great deal in her young life. For this reason, she tended to look down on many people her own age. She knew it was snobbish, but she couldn’t help it; she was a driven woman, and that meant things like men, sex, and partying didn’t figure high on her list of priorities.
At the same time, she knew her looks had given her a considerable boost in her current career—that they
would have helped her in any career. She took this in stride, though, and it didn’t change the way she viewed her success. After all, she’d seen the recent U.S. edition of Outside magazine, and her picture on the page of contributing journalists had not been any larger than that of the editor-in-chief, a decidedly unattractive Swede in his mid-sixties. This discovery had only confirmed what she already knew: that it was her talent—not her looks—that had made her one of the world’s most sought-after young photographers.
She looked up, startled out of her reverie as the bus shuddered, the driver downshifting suddenly. Craning her neck, Rebeka saw a number of vehicles parked alongside the road up ahead, men milling about on the paved surface. As the bus rolled forward, the scene came into focus, and she saw something that chilled her blood.
Rifles. Every man in sight was heavily armed, and there were plenty of men. Judging by the low rumble of voices in the surrounding seats, everyone else was just as confused and concerned as she was. Passports and visas were frequently checked on the KKH, but this wasn’t one of the scheduled stops. As far as Rebeka knew, they still had miles to go before they reached the next Pakistani checkpoint. Tensions between General Musharraf’s government and that of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had been rising steadily over the past few months, but this was the first time she’d seen any tangible evidence of the escalating situation.
She only hoped she was right, that it wasn’t something else entirely. Bandits had always been a problem on the Karakoram Highway, though guarding against them was usually just a matter of taking the proper precautions, such as not traveling alone or after dark. As it stood, it was mid-afternoon, still light, and they were nowhere near the line of control—the heavily-guarded border that separates the disputed territory between Pakistan and India. In short, these were about the best conditions a traveler on the KKH could ask for.
The bus ground to a gentle halt, and the doors at the front banged open. The air in the vehicle seemed unusually thick, and no one was making a sound. Rebeka realized they were waiting to see what would happen, just as she was. But then a man appeared at the front, and the collective tension seemed to drain away. The man standing next to the driver and surveying the passengers was wearing the uniform of a Pakistani army captain. Rebeka felt her breath come a little bit easier, and she wasn’t concerned in the least when the captain asked them all to disembark and present their passports. Realizing that the soldiers might poke through their belongings, she slipped her journal under her coat. She wouldn’t be surprised to get back on and find some items missing from her pack, and while most of it was replaceable, the journal was the one thing she couldn’t bear to lose.
She was sitting near the back of the vehicle, so she had to wait for the passengers up front to disembark. As they began to line up on the side of the road, documentation in hand, Rebeka saw a rare opportunity and decided to take it. The soldiers seemed to be unusually wrapped up in their task, so she dug out her camera—a Canon EOS 1V with an 85mm lens already affixed—and carefully lifted it above the ledge of the window. She took a few quick shots with the flash disabled, hoping to capture her fellow passengers’ frustrated expressions. It wasn’t part of her assignment, but she happened to know a freelance writer who was doing a story on corruption in the Pakistani army, and she thought she might be able to get some mileage out of the photographs.
Once she’d fired off a half-dozen shots, Rebeka quickly lowered the camera and checked to see if anyone had noticed. It didn’t look like it, but either way, she had run out of time; the front of the bus was nearly empty, and a young soldier was striding toward the open doors.
Rebeka quickly ejected the film, dropped it into a spare tube, and slipped it into her pack. She had just gotten to her feet when the soldier reached the back of the bus and gestured toward the camera. Shouting something she didn’t understand, he grabbed her free arm with his left hand, then reached for her camera with the other. She pulled it away instinctively, but he leaned in and managed to knock it out of her hand. Then, as she watched in disbelief, he kicked it toward the back of the vehicle.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she shouted in English, tugging free of the soldier’s grasp. “Do you have any idea how expensive that was? As soon as we get back to Islamabad, I’m going to—”
She never got the words out. The soldier slammed a fist into her stomach, then slapped her hard across the face. Rebeka’s knees banged against the edge of the seat as her body followed the blow. She hit the plastic cushion hard, tears springing to her eyes as she struggled for air. Momentarily stunned, she didn’t fight as the soldier reached down and wrapped a hand in her hair, yanking her to her feet. Hunched forward and crying out with pain, she reached behind her head and frantically tried to pull his fist apart as he marched her to the front of the vehicle. Once they had reached the driver’s seat, he released her and shoved her hard down the stairs.
Rebeka tumbled through the open doors. As she hit the ground awkwardly, something gave way in her shoulder with an audible pop. Although her head was swimming with confusion and fear, she instantly tried to prop herself up using her right elbow. It was completely instinctive, but it was also a huge mistake; her shoulder instantly screamed with agony, and she screamed in turn, collapsing onto her side. Ten seconds later, the young Pakistani stepped off the bus and walked past her, carrying the broken remains of her camera.
Her fellow passengers were starting to resist, having realized that something was wrong. Shifting her weight to her left elbow, Rebeka managed to sit up and take in the scene, though her vision was still slightly blurred. She watched as Umberto Verga stepped forward and spat a few words in halting Punjabi to one of the guards, who immediately tried to push the hefty climber back into line. Verga barely moved, but his face turned red with indignation. Taking another step forward, he slapped aside the barrel of the Pakistanis rifle. Rebeka watched in a daze as Verga repeated his question in English, and although he was standing about 30 feet away, he was shouting so loud she could hear every word.
“What the fuck did you hit her for?” the Sicilian bellowed, spit flying out of his mouth. His heavily-bearded face was just a few inches from that of the soldier. “Who do you think you are, you little shit? Do you have any idea what you’re starting here?”
She was vaguely surprised to see Umberto jumping to her defense, especially since he had never muttered more than a few words in her direction. But her surprise quickly turned to horrified disbelief when the Pakistani took two steps back, whipped the AK-47 up to his shoulder, and squeezed the trigger. A number of rounds punched into Verga’s barrel chest. The Sicilian took two uncertain steps back, then spiraled to the ground, shock carved into his weathered face.
For a moment, there was nothing but stunned silence. Then the passengers started to scream, everyone running in different directions. Unfortunately, there was nowhere to go. Nothing but flat plains in every direction, all of which led up to mountainous peaks, and the soldiers had clearly planned for this possibility. They had arranged themselves in a semi-circle around the bus, and they didn’t seem to panic as the passengers scattered. Instead, they fanned out to a greater degree. Strangely enough, nobody fired a shot. Above the panicked screams, a sonorous voice pleaded for calm in cultured English.
Rebeka, still propped up on her left elbow, watched it all unfold in a dreamlike state. Part of her was hoping she was right, that it was just a dream, but she couldn’t deny what had happened to Umberto Verga, and she couldn’t deny what was happening now.
A sudden noise caught her attention, and she realized the bus was pulling away, the rear tires kicking up a spray of crushed gravel. She felt pebbles stinging the right side of her face, then heard a high-pitched whine as the vehicle shifted into second gear. A hoarse voice carried over the cacophony, giving a command in Punjabi. It was the same voice that had called out in English earlier, but it had taken on a different, harder tone. The next thing she heard was the sound of gun-fire, immediate
ly followed by splintering glass. There was a loud thump, the sound of a vehicle crashing into a shallow ditch. Then there was nothing, save for a few distant sobs and the steady hum of an idling engine.
Looking around, Rebeka saw that the soldiers had taken on a less threatening posture, their weapons pointed toward the ground, faces fixed in neutral expressions. The leader seemed to be holding court, his rifle slung over his chest, hands raised in a calming gesture. He was speaking in English, but Rebeka couldn’t make out the specific words, her ears still ringing from the earlier blow. Whatever he was saying seemed to be working; her fellow passengers had mostly lapsed into silence and were moving back toward the soldiers cautiously. As Rebeka watched from a distance, Beni Abruzzi stumbled forward and dropped to his knees beside his cousin’s body, his mouth working silently. The other passengers seemed equally glued to the disturbing sight, but nevertheless, they kept moving forward. It was as if they recognized the futility of running; that for the moment, their best option was to comply, to adhere to their captors’ demands.
Captors. The word seemed to lodge in her head for some reason, even though these men were dressed as soldiers. To the north, a rapidly approaching truck was kicking up plumes of dust on the KKH, its windshield sparkling in the pale yellow sun. The armed Pakistanis didn’t seem to notice the vehicle, which gave Rebeka a very bad feeling. After what they had just done, they wouldn’t be looking for extra attention. As her head cleared, the truth started to dawn, piece by piece, like a jigsaw puzzle coming together before her eyes. Only this puzzle was forming a picture she didn’t want to see: the soldiers were expecting the truck.
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