I had to find out who Death was. That was the key to full recovery.
I got out of bed and went to the bathroom. Stared at myself in the mirror. My eyes—well, they appeared as they always did. My skin—not as pale. That was progress.
“I’m going to beat you,” I said aloud, even though I knew no one could hear me.
No one except Death.
TWENTY-EIGHT
It was the day of Wilkins’s meeting.
Agent 47 fashioned himself a new costume. It wasn’t safe to be a bellhop anymore, so he managed to obtain a used waiter uniform—white shirt, black pants, apron—and a white server hat to cover his bald head.
Another problem was that the Nicosia police were all over the premises. The bellhop 47 had tied up and left in a guest room had been discovered the night before. The victim made a statement that he was assaulted by a hotel guest who proceeded to steal his uniform. The police were looking for a tall man dressed as a “gaucho.” The bellhop’s description was wildly inaccurate, even suggesting that the perpetrator had “long, curly black hair” beneath the bandanna.
So far, Colonel Ashton’s corpse had not been discovered. When Katharina, the masseuse, arrived at room 433 for the alleged reserved VIP appointment, Boris Komarovsky informed her that there was a mistake. But when he saw how attractive she was, he allowed her to come inside and perform the massage anyway. He tipped her handsomely for a happy ending, thus ensuring Katharina’s silence about the incident. She never went back to the spa that night.
* * *
As for Helen McAdams, Wilkins had told her she could take the day off and lounge by the pool if she wanted, but the dedicated Church of Will member and employee had no intention of doing that. She wanted to be close to her mentor and be on hand should he end up needing her after all. Despite her natural shyness, Helen managed to assume some authority over the various bodyguards and security detail that had been assigned to the reverend. She found that she had a newfound ability to delegate instructions and give orders with confidence and firmness, which was uncharacteristic for her. In fact, even Wilkins had commented that Helen had “changed” over the last few weeks. He noticed that she had blossomed from her customary introverted self.
The truth of the matter was that she was happier than she had ever been in her life, and it was all due to Stan Johnson. While it was still early in their relationship, Helen was convinced she had found a soul mate in the quiet, intense farmer from Iowa. He was definitely an odd duck, but, then again, so was she. They fit together nicely. Helen was comfortable around him. Ever since they had revealed to each other their dependence on drugs, she felt even closer to him. She wanted badly to help him kick his habit. This desire gave her a new purpose, something that fed her own battle against past demons.
She was a bit concerned that Stan had no interest in sex. Helen firmly believed that this would change, especially after he went into recovery from the painkillers. They shared so much else, why couldn’t they become intimate? Helen thought she understood him. Stan had experienced many hard knocks and apparently had suffered from a broken heart once or twice during his history. The Church of Will taught her that these things could be mended. Charlie always said to “find the Will inside oneself” and all things would come to light. The Church’s many tenets provided believers with the tools to search and locate that Will. Up until recently, Helen diligently practiced the teachings, for months and months, and hadn’t succeeded. She had made no progress until Stan came into her life. For some reason, his arrival at Greenhill opened the well. It was if she had found the pipeline to a rich and abundant source of new emotions and ideas. She discovered her Will.
Helen couldn’t wait to leave Cyprus and get back to Greenhill. She missed Stan terribly. She was tempted to phone him, but she resisted the urge. She wasn’t even sure what the time difference was between Virginia and the island. Last night she’d actually thought she saw him in the hotel. The bellhop she’d encountered outside the gym looked exactly like him. The man could have been Stan’s twin brother. It was uncanny. Of course, it wasn’t him at all. How could it be? Helen chalked it up to a trick of her imagination. She had been thinking about Stan all day, so naturally her mind deceived her. Afterward she found it funny.
Was she in love? Possibly. She didn’t want to use that word yet. Stan obviously wasn’t ready for it. She wouldn’t dare say it to him—it would probably scare him away. Helen would wait until he was comfortable enough to be intimate with her. Sex often broke down barriers, although she admitted it sometimes also built them.
She decided to take it one day at a time. Stan was a kind soul. She knew it. He had some secrets, to be sure, and there were things in his past that were dark and mysterious—even dangerous. But she would draw him out eventually. She believed in her heart that Stan Johnson was a good person. And that he was capable of love.
47, wearing his staff disguise, accessed the immense kitchen on the ground floor through the double doors in the Salon, where breakfast was the main attraction. He simply walked through the restaurant as if he knew what he was doing, entered the kitchen, and started loading a cart with plates, napkins, silverware, and other items that would come with a catered order.
“What are you doing?” a man in a chef’s hat asked.
“They need this over in the business center,” the hitman replied. “Some kind of VIP thing going on.”
The chef obviously didn’t recognize the tall waiter, but employees came and went in a big hotel; it was impossible to keep track of everyone.
“Very well,” he said as 47 wheeled the cart out of the kitchen.
Now suitably camouflaged with not only clothing and makeup but props, the assassin could move freely about the building and no one would look twice at him. He was just another lowly kitchen worker moving a cart of dishes from one place to another. There was so much going on in Nicosia’s largest and most luxurious hotel that such a sight would not be out of place. As an extra precaution, though, he slipped three steak knives and three forks into his pocket. One never knew when a weapon might be necessary.
47 noticed the police presence in the lobby and in some of the corridors. Had they finally found Ashton’s corpse? If so, would that affect Wilkins’s plans for the day? There was only one way to find out, and that was to check out the business center to see what was happening.
It was located on the ground floor and consisted of several meeting rooms, a boardroom/conference room, and a choice of dining spaces used for corporate gatherings. Wilkins had booked the Ahera meeting room and the boardroom. When 47 wheeled his cart into the hallway outside the Ahera, he saw that the reverend and his guests had just completed a meal there. The hitman pretended to rearrange the dishes on the cart while eyeing the men as they left the Ahera and walked down the corridor to the boardroom. Several men wearing uniforms stood at the entrances. Patches on their shoulders indicated they were employed by CYPRUS A-1 SECURITY COMPANY. 47 also recognized a couple of Greenhill bodyguards supervising the operation.
At last, Wilkins himself emerged from the Ahera. He was deep in conversation with a Saudi man dressed in a bisht, the traditional cloak of prestige, and the ghutra an iqal headdress. 47 thought he might be a prince or another member of royalty. The assassin wasn’t close enough to catch any of their conversation. He continued to work with the dishes and silverware until all of the VIPs were inside the boardroom. The door was shut, and the Greenhill bodyguards stood sentry.
Interesting.
He rolled the cart into the Ahera and froze.
Helen.
He hadn’t expected to see her. She was supposed to have the day off.
She was dressed in a smart business suit and stood with a clipboard in hand as she talked to a Greenhill staff member 47 recognized as George somebody, another one of Wilkins’s personal assistants. Hotel employees were busy clearing away the used breakfast settings; 47 assumed that Helen and the other assistant had been present at breakfast but had been left behi
nd once the meeting in the boardroom began. The assassin wheeled the cart closer to the pair, and then he squatted on one side, his back to them, to “arrange” the dishes again as he focused on the conversation.
“… don’t understand why we’re here, George,” Helen said. “Did you hear what he told me? ‘Go swim in the pool.’ He doesn’t want me around today. Why?”
George shrugged. “I’m as clueless as you are. At least he kept you busy yesterday. I haven’t done a darned thing since we arrived.”
“But why does Charlie want to meet with those guys from OPEC and those foreign banks? I thought we were supposed to be going on campaign stops.”
“Honey, this is a campaign stop. Don’t you get it? All those guys have deep pockets. They’re here to give Charlie a lot of money.”
She shook her head. “I guess I don’t understand politics. Why are they giving him money?”
“Let’s hope he gets what he wants,” George replied. “Charlie’s in a terrible mood.”
“I’ll say. I don’t think he’s ever snapped at me like he did this morning. Where could the Colonel be? How could he just disappear like that?”
Agent 47 smiled inwardly. Unbeknownst to everyone, the good colonel was still stuffed in the closet upstairs in the spa.
“Come on, I’ll join you at the pool,” George said. “Lord knows I have nothing else to do.”
The pair left the meeting room. Agent 47 started to wheel his cart out of the Ahera when one of the hotel employees stepped up to him. She was a heavy woman in her forties with fierce brown eyes and a permanent frown.
“What are you doing? Are you going to help us or not?” the woman said.
The hitman shook his head. “I have the wrong room. I’m supposed to take these somewhere else.”
“Where? You know all catering goes through me.” She looked him up and down. “Where’s your name tag? Do I know you?”
“My name is John Duncan.”
“Are you new, Mr. Duncan?”
“Yes, ma’am. Yesterday was my first day.”
The woman put hands on her hips. “No, it wasn’t. We didn’t start any staff yesterday, and I should know. You’d better come with me.”
Now what?
Agent 47 had to accept the fact that he’d been caught. She was going to march him out into the corridor, where the security detail stood at attention. The woman headed for the door and looked back at him. “Well? Are you coming, Mr. Duncan? If that is your real name?”
He had no choice. The assassin grabbed a china plate and held it behind his back as he followed her. She led him out into the corridor and then called to the two beefy men outside the boardroom. Three of the Cypriot hired guns stood nearby.
“Gentlemen, I think you need to speak to this man,” she announced. But as she turned to indicate “John Duncan,” the waiter smashed the plate on top of the woman’s head. He knew it wouldn’t kill her, but it did the job of knocking her out. Her body crumbled into a pile of arms and legs.
“Holy shit!” one of the guards managed to cough as he drew a handgun from inside his jacket. He was the fastest of the five men. By the time the other four registered what they had just witnessed, 47 had removed the three steak knives from his pocket. Like a circus performer throwing blades at an associate strapped to a spinning wheel, the hitman snapped the utensils at the first, second, and third man.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
Each knife neatly penetrated the soft bull’s-eye between each man’s Adam’s apple and the top of his sternum. The guard who had successfully drawn a gun dropped it and fell against the wall. The other two spun around in a macabre and slightly humorous dance before they, too, collapsed.
Three down, two to go.
Best to change tactics. It kept opponents guessing.
Agent 47 pulled the three forks from his pocket, positioned two in his right hand and one in his left, prongs out, and charged the two men. Being inexperienced work-for-hire employees of the Cyprus A-1 Security Company, neither had thought quickly enough to draw a gun or even put up defensive fists.
The hitman simultaneously buried two forks in the soft tissue on the underside of the first man’s lower jaw and the other fork in the second man’s Adam’s apple. Knowing that the latter fellow would most likely scream in pain, 47 immediately bent his arm and elbowed the man hard in the stomach, knocking the breath out of him. The guard leaned forward, providing 47 with the opportunity to clasp his fists together and clobber the guy on the back of the head. He was dead before he hit the floor.
The man with the forks in his jaw struggled to pull them out, but 47 had submerged the utensils so deeply that the task was impossible. He fell to his knees and looked at 47 in shock and horror. The hitman held the man’s head steady with his left hand and grabbed the forks’ handles with his right.
Another shove did the trick.
Only then did the world’s greatest assassin take a look behind him to confirm that no one had seen the act. It had been messy but silent. He would have liked to see Charlie Wilkins’s face when the meeting was over and his cabal of criminal financiers stepped out of the boardroom to find a slaughterhouse in the corridor.
Agent 47 moved quickly down the hall, pulling off the white apron that was now soiled with blood. He wiped his hands, tossed the garment in a garbage can next to the elevators, and calmly stepped into a car going up. Three guests were inside. They paid him no mind.
In his room, he dressed in his black suit and red tie and gathered his belongings. The hitman reflected on what was really going on in Cyprus. Charlie Wilkins was soliciting campaign money from foreign contributors, obviously men of dubious morality. 47 was certain that these were men who had an interest in the future of the United States government. They all had a stake in what happened economically and politically. They wanted to see the revolution succeed.
Agent 47 didn’t care. America’s destiny didn’t concern him.
As he took the elevator to the lobby, checked out, and rode a taxi to Larnaca Airport, he realized he hadn’t experienced any painkiller side effects since he awoke that morning.
Perhaps he was superhuman after all.
TWENTY-NINE
Charlie Wilkins’s entourage flew home the next day, despite the investigation going on in Nicosia regarding the murder of five security men and assaulting a female hotel employee outside the reverend’s meeting. Police had interrogated Wilkins and the other participants for hours. No one had seen anything. Nobody heard a sound. There were no surveillance cameras in that hallway, so law-enforcement officials were mystified. But given Wilkins’s high-profile status, they were convinced he was somehow involved, if only in an indirect way.
Several of Wilkins’s VIP associates left the hotel as soon as the bloodbath was discovered. Many of them had questionable legal standings, so the last thing they wanted was to be caught up in a multiple-murder investigation. Boris Komarovsky, however, was detained by authorities regarding Bruce Ashton’s disappearance; Katharina the masseuse had broken her vow of silence after the Americans had left and admitted to authorities that she was called away from Ashton’s appointment by a mysterious concierge. When Komarovsky’s criminal background came to light, he was arrested on charges of international racketeering. Again, this didn’t reflect well on Wilkins.
Before leaving Cyprus, the reverend held a press conference at the Larnaca Airport, denying any responsibility for the killings. He was quick to blame his “political enemies” in Washington, saying that they feared his rise in popularity. “They’re running scared and are resorting to drastic measures,” he declared. “First they kill Dana Linder, and now they try to besmirch my good name by involving me in these heinous crimes.” The tactic worked. The reverend was so well loved in America that his supporters had no doubt that he was innocent of any wrongdoing. As for Boris Komarovsky, Wilkins denied knowledge of the man’s ties with the Russian Mafia. It was Komarovsky’s bank that Wilkins was dealing with, not the man personally.
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It was only after the Americans had arrived back in Virginia that the Colonel’s body was finally uncovered in the spa closet, where curiously no one had looked. Interpol went ballistic. The media was ecstatic and the incidents made international news. Cypriot politicians decried the fact that Wilkins and his people had been allowed to leave the republic before questions had been answered. Still, the entire affair was a mess. Wilkins’s political opponents milked the incident for everything it was worth. The reverend was accused of improper fund-raising and associating with criminals.
At first Helen was disillusioned. She hadn’t understood why they went to Cyprus in the first place, and the Colonel’s disappearance and the subsequent murders had disturbed her deeply. She thanked God that she had followed Charlie’s orders and gone to the hotel’s pool that morning. She hadn’t seen the abattoir outside the boardroom, but the description in the newspapers horrified her.
Wilkins made a speech to his staff aboard the Learjet. He assured them that they were moving forward and the events in Cyprus would not halt his march to the White House. He said he had confidence in the Cypriot police and Interpol. In fact, he had hired his own private investigator in Cyprus, a man named Karopoulos. He would find Ashton, get to the bottom of the murders, and exonerate Wilkins of any involvement.
Helen had no choice but to believe it. Charlie Wilkins was still her mentor and reverend. He was the Church of Will, and it was the Church that had helped her in her time of need. By the time they landed at Greenhill, Helen had regained her complete faith in the man.
What was more disturbing was that Stan Johnson was nowhere to be found and hadn’t been seen in days.
When Helen arrived at work on the morning after the return home, the reverend appeared haggard and stressed. Apparently he hadn’t slept. The loss of his friend the Colonel—not to mention the murders in the hallway—had upset him greatly. The entire staff had been put on damage control since the homecoming the day before. Helen herself had only three hours of sleep. The jet lag adversely affected her, she was worried about Charlie, and she was concerned about Stan.
Raymond Benson Page 18
