Critical Space ak-5

by Greg Rucka

  But I didn't have the time, and as I sat in the rental car, peering at the house through the binoculars, I could feel the nervousness rising. It wasn't just what I had to do next that was causing it; it was the knowledge that the clock was running, that Oxford was certainly in New York, and maybe closer to Mahwah than I wanted, that perhaps he was already doing all of those things I didn't have time to do myself. Another city across the world, another man was marking another target, and if I didn't hurry things up, there wasn't going to be anything I could do to stop him. I was beginning to regret having told Scott to wait for me before approaching Gracey and Bowles.

  I was running out of time.

  ***

  I started with a drive around the area, then abandoned the car half a mile up the road and moved in on foot for a closer look. It was late afternoon by the time I actually stepped onto the grounds, and there was a chill breeze coasting off the lake. I put on my new pair of gloves and took in as much as I could.

  The villa was stately, with grounds that wound down to the shore of the lake. A boathouse rose beside a private pier, and moored to it was a boat the size of the La Petite Marie, but of a quality to suggest it would rather sink than be tied near its lesser cousin. The grounds were pristine, and even with winter closing in, looked capable of withstanding nature's entropy for a while longer. There was a back door that led onto a small patio for summer dining and, farther along, another door, smaller, that looked to be the servants' entrance.

  The structure itself was built of gray stone with dark wood framing its portals, and all of the doors looked heavy enough to withstand gunfire, although I doubt that had ever been a consideration of the owner. Twice I saw people moving around inside the house, once a man, wearing a black suit, and once a woman, also in black, though this time in a dress.

  At seven-nineteen, a black Bentley pulled up in front of the house, and I watched as the driver let M. Laurent Junot out of the car. If the photographs from Moore's file were to be believed, I had the right man, white, in his mid-forties and balding. Junot's shoulders were rounded and his back was straight, and he walked like a man who spent all of his days and perhaps the majority of his nights sitting at a desk. Nothing about him struck me as out of the ordinary, and I thought that if I was Oxford, that would be just as I wanted it.

  When Junot reached the house, he was greeted by the man in the black suit, and apparently whatever words they exchanged were brief, because Junot barely broke stride as he continued inside. The driver then brought a black barrister's case from the car to the other man, and they spoke for a while longer before the driver returned to the Bentley. The woman came outside, spoke to the man who now held the case, and then headed for the garage. The man with the case went back inside as the driver moved the Bentley out of the drive and into the garage. I caught a glimpse of a Porsche also parked in the garage before the door shut. Beside the garage were two other cars, an older Audi and a Peugeot.

  The woman followed the driver, and when he emerged again she gave him a kiss on the cheek. He opened the passenger door on the Audi for the woman, then got in himself. They drove away.

  Lights continued to burn on the first and second floors of the house, and I retreated to the cover of some red spruce and pines that formed a privacy screen along the south side of the estate. If my surveillance so far had worked, there were only two people in the house, and one of them was my target. That was manageable, but I needed to be sure there were only two of them inside. For a few seconds I toyed with retreating to a phone, trying to reach Alena to talk it out with her.

  I knew what she would say, though. I knew exactly how she'd get inside if she were in my place, if the clock was pressing for action. Not liking what I would have to do wasn't going to change anything, and the sooner I accepted that, the easier it would be to do the rest. It was a question of efficiency, and I knew the value of that – it had been Alena's guiding principle; if Bequia really had been – as Bridgett had told any and all who would listen – my indoctrination, then that lesson had indeed taken firm hold.

  For another hour and a half I watched the house from the perimeter, catching glimpses of silhouettes moving past windows. It grew into full darkness, and my hands and feet began to ache with chill. No exterior lights came on to illuminate the grounds. I hadn't seen any security lights mounted on or around the house, although if that was because they'd been deemed unnecessary by the occupant or rejected out of a sense of aesthetics I would never know. Shortly before nine-thirty I crept onto the grounds, trying to get a closer look.

  As I was working my way around to the back of the house, lights began going off on the first floor. I stopped and listened, and my heart began to race. Perhaps twenty seconds passed before I heard the service door open, and I ducked low. The man in the black suit had emerged, was now turning in the doorway and calling out "good night" in German. I heard the electronic sound of an alarm arming, and that was what spurred me, finally, told me that there would be no better time than the present.

  I was on him before he'd closed the door, pressing the barrel to the back of his head with one hand, grabbing him by the throat with the other. With my index finger and my thumb I squeezed either side of his larynx, keeping him silent, and before he had begun to respond I had him back through the door, pulling him up at the threshold, and I was inside the villa.

  ***

  The sounds of running water stopped as I left the kitchen. I emerged in a room with an elaborate sideboard and a crystal chandelier suspended over the polished rectangle of the table. Light filtered in from the main hall, and I could see the edge of a flight of stairs running to the floor above. I moved quietly and quickly, the sound of my feet disappearing into the layers of carpet, halting at the foot of the stairs to see Junot passing above me. He was in silk pajamas, a book in his hand, and he didn't break stride and he didn't see me. Forty seconds later I heard a switch being thrown, and another light went off, dropping darkness down the steps.

  The grandfather clock in the hall chimed the hour. I started up, hearing the stairs squeak beneath me, and I shifted my weight and tried to stay light on my toes, and the noise continued, but wasn't as loud. Coming around the landing at the top, I saw another spill of light, this flowing from beneath a closed door, probably the bedroom. I waited and didn't move. The last chime of the clock striking ten echoed and faded.

  I heard the sound of paper brushing paper, pages turning in a binding. The ticking of the clock below seemed to grow louder.

  I kept waiting.

  The grandfather clock marked a quarter past, and then half past. The light stayed on. When the clock chimed a quarter to, as the last tone vanished from the air, the light beneath the door went out.

  The grip of the Browning had grown warm in my hand. An ache crawled across my shoulders, tracing a line from the trapezius on down. I began marking the time in my head, counting the ticks of the clock. There was no noise coming from the bedroom.

  The thought struck me that I could well be wrong, that Junot wasn't who I wanted at all, that I should be in the house of some man in South Africa instead. I didn't like that thought, but it persisted, and I wondered if I had missed something, wondered what else I should have done.

  When the clock chimed eleven, I moved to the bedroom door and put my hand on the knob, and again settled my weight.

  I spent the next six minutes opening the door, moving the handle from its position parallel to the floor to perpendicular to it, applying constant pressure until I felt the latch slip from its housing. The door opened silently, from a fraction to a sliver to an inch. My eyes had long since adjusted to the darkness, and through the gap I could see a portion of the bed, the shape of a form in it. Just from the sound of him I knew he was asleep, I knew he had no idea I was there.

  The sensation of power in that instant was acute and absolute, the feeling of control so complete it seemed to radiate from my body outward, to everything I could see, everything I could touch. In my chest I felt
something else, something that reminded me of grief.

  It was easy to reach the bed, to stand beside him and look down on him sleeping, and just as easy to raise the gun in my hand. The lamp beside the bed was an orb seated on a pyramid base, with a digital clock glowing at its center. A push-button at its side brought it to life, the bulb increasing in strength like a rapidly rising sun. As color began to bleed into the room I brought the barrel down across his nose, not swinging hard, not needing to.

  M. Laurent Junot awoke bleeding, crying out and starting up, then crying again in horror at the slick of blood running over his lips, and the sight of me, in his home, with the Browning pointed at his face. His mouth worked, then shut, and another noise escaped him like distant tires squealing around a turn. His eyes, blue and wet, searched me first for recognition, and failing that, for understanding.

  "I'm not him," I said in English. "But you know that already."

  There was comprehension in his face, and then he tried to conceal it, backing up beneath his sheets until his pillows parted behind him, one of them thumping to the floor. His tongue stabbed out over his lips, then retreated.

  When he began to open his mouth again I pounded my left hand into the softness of his stomach, once. The pain and the pressure sent him lurching forward, mouth gaping, breath coming free in a rushing gasp. With my left I grabbed him by the collar of his pajamas, feeling silk threads pop as I yanked him out of bed, pushing him onto the floor. He sprawled, hands scrabbling at yet another Oriental rug, and when he got his middle off the ground, I kicked him in the ribs, putting him on his back, then immediately bending over him and pulling him to his feet once more. He couldn't support his weight, and I shoved the Browning into his stomach and with it pushed him against the wall, my left hand going to his forehead, forcing his face back and level, forcing him to look at me.

  "I'm not him," I said again. "Do you understand?"

  Junot tried to nod, realized he couldn't. He coughed, and it was painful for him, because the spasm of his muscles made him need to move, and I wouldn't let him. He forced out enough air to say, "Yes, yes. I understand."

  "You're going to give me all of his money," I said, and I took the gun from where it was pressed against his belly and rested it instead against the lower orbit of his left eye. "You're going to do it now, or we'll repaint your fucking bedroom in an interesting new shade called Hint of Banker's Brain."

  He sagged and I put more pressure on the bone beneath his eye, and he scrabbled and found his footing and straightened again. The blood from his nose was staining his pajama top to the hem.

  "Say you understand," I told him.

  "Yes, yes, I understand," he said.

  I shoved both the gun and my hand against him, then pushed off, and he slid down the wall partway before he could catch himself, his legs working on the rug to find traction. He got upright once more, nodding at me, raising his hands.

  "I have a computer in the study," he said. "My computer – I can access accounts from there."

  Again using my left, I grabbed the pajama collar and twisted it so he would turn. The collar was wet with his blood. With the Browning against his skull I marched him to the door.

  "Lead," I said. "And nothing for nothing, asshole, but you're not quick enough to get any ideas."

  "No, no ideas," he echoed, his voice meek.

  We crossed the hall at the head of the stairs, leaving the light of the bedroom behind us. Another door was ahead, and he reached for the knob, opened it, moving slowly. The caution wasn't simply for my benefit, I knew; he was trying to think of an advantage, a plan, any way out of this that would keep him from doing what I was forcing him to do.

  "Turn on the light," I said.

  The switch was to the left of the door, and he fumbled for a moment before finding it. A lamp in the corner came on suddenly bright, and I tightened my grip and reapplied pressure with the gun to keep him from moving. He tensed when I did, but didn't try anything.

  The study was less ornate than I'd have thought, but just as perfectly appointed as every other room I had seen. Bookshelves covered three walls, floor to ceiling, like wallpaper, broken only at one point by a large display case of wristwatches by Patek Philippe. The case was ornate, as detailed as the timepieces inside, and turned slowly, keeping each watch wound. The desk was modular and black, and it should have been out of place, but wasn't. The computer on it was black, too, the monitor thin and sleek.

  I pushed him toward it, and when he tried to sit in the chair, I hooked it with my right foot and shoved it out of the way.

  "Stand."

  He began to nod twice, then switched the computer on with a slow and deliberate press of his right index finger.

  "It will take a minute," he whispered.

  I didn't say anything, knowing that he wanted me to. Beads of sweat formed at his hairline; I watched as they met the barrel of the Browning and broke to either side. The computer ground through its boot cycle, its internal fan not quite as loud as the rasp of Junot's frightened breathing.

  When the monitor asked for his password he began typing, didn't even hesitate. The program he was after was marked on the desktop, and the interface window opened and I knew enough to know I was looking at what I was after.

  Junot cleared his throat. "I… you understand, I cannot do it all from here… some money, yes… but… but in the morning, if we were to go to my bank, you see, it would be…"

  So that was going to be his play, that was what he'd been thinking of as we'd crossed the hall. I grinned.

  "How much money?"

  "Only two, three million dollars, perhaps." He sounded apologetic.

  I moved the gun from his neck down along his spine, until it was in the middle of his back.

  "You're lying," I said. "I want all of it."

  "No, monsieur, please under…"

  "Shut up!" I shouted, and he did, and he cringed.

  I waited a couple of seconds, letting him wonder if I was going to kill him. I let the silence build.

  "How much?" I repeated.

  "Maybe four or five…"

  I punched him in the left side with my left hand, where I had kicked him, and he groaned and bent, and I pushed the gun harder into his spine.

  "Listen to me, you soon-to-be-quadriplegic," I said. "Don't try to tell me that if you get a call at three in the morning from a man you fear more than Satan himself saying he needs twenty million dollars transferred to Bogota in ten minutes you can't do it, because we both know that's a fucking lie. You will transfer his money, all of it, to the account I tell you, or I'll start pulling the trigger and I won't stop until I hear the hammer go dry."

  He had begun trembling halfway through my tirade, and when I finished he simply began typing. His voice was shaking like his body when he asked me for the account number, the name of the bank. I gave both to him, the account I'd established earlier that day, and he bent over the keyboard and his fingers fumbled on the keys, but I watched the monitor, and I saw the numbers moving, and I knew I had him.

  It took him under three and a half minutes, and when he was done, I had twenty-seven million, three hundred and forty-two thousand, eight hundred and sixteen dollars and seventeen cents more in my account than when I'd arrived. I waited until he had logged out and shut down the computer before letting up on the gun in his back.

  When the monitor was charcoal again, Laurent Junot lowered his head and said, "Monsieur…please, I do not want to die like this…"

  I pulled him back from the desk, stepping away as I turned him to face me. "You tell him anything about me, that I was here, anything at all, and I'll come back and put so many holes in you, your body will whistle in a breeze."

  The idiom seemed to confuse him, or perhaps he was too afraid to understand. The blood from his nose came in slow drops that broke free when he nodded.

  "Please," he said again, and it was pitiful, and it made me sick.

  For a moment I looked at him, wrecked and terrified
, and felt the same burden of grief and power I'd had when I'd seen him asleep in his bed. Then I flipped the Browning in my hand and struck him with the butt. He saw the movement coming, but was too slow to do anything in his defense, and perhaps his hands were coming up to protect his temple.

  The butt of the pistol cracked against his skull, the shudder of metal meeting bone, and he toppled to the floor, landing hard enough to rattle the case of watches on the wall.

  I needed a moment before I could bring myself to crouch beside him, to check him for a pulse. Like the manservant below, he was still alive, and like the manservant below, I hoped the only thing I'd left Junot with was a rotten headache.

  I switched off the lights before leaving, exited the villa through the same door by which I'd entered. When I got outside, my watch said it was three minutes past midnight.

  The air was cold and I started shaking as soon as it hit me, and I felt giddy, almost drunk, and I nearly tripped twice as I made my way the short twenty feet to the edge of Lake Geneva. I threw the Browning into the water, followed it with the duct tape, then turned and made my way back to the car, half-jogging, half-walking. It was where I'd left it parked, and I started the engine and pulled out, and my foot felt heavy on the gas. The streets were mostly deserted, and I took them carefully, mindful of the posted limits.

  At the rental agency, I left the car in the lot and the keys in the slot, then stripped off my bloodied gloves and dumped them in a trash can on the corner before hailing a cab. The lobby of the Intercontinental was quiet and deserted but for the attendant at the desk, who greeted me in English as Mr.

  Murphy, and who had to say it twice before I realized she was talking to me.

  "Enjoying Geneva?" she asked.

  "Time of my life," I assured her, and went up to my room.

  It took me a while to fall asleep, staring at the ceiling, feeling the sorrow gnawing at my bones.

  Chapter 7