The Mark of the Assassin Read online

  Michael ignored the remark. Wheaton always seemed to take too much pleasure at the professional misfortune of colleagues. He had come up through the Soviet directorate, when Michael’s father was senior staff at Langley, and had worked overseas in Istanbul and Rome. His job was to recruit KGB officers and Soviet diplomats, but he proved so inept he quickly received a series of dismal fitness reports, one written by Michael’s father. Wheaton was transferred to headquarters, where he thrived in the backstabbing, patrician atmosphere of Langley. Michael knew Wheaton resented him because of his father, even though the lousy fitness report probably ended up saving his career.

  They arrived in Grosvenor Square. Wheaton and Michael entered the embassy side by side, Wheaton’s men following. Michael had the strange feeling of being under arrest. Wheaton went straight to the secure tele-conference room. Carter and Monica Tyler appeared on the screen as Wheaton and Michael sat down in plush black-leather chairs.

  “I’m glad to see you’re all right, Michael,” Monica said. “You’ve had a remarkably harrowing couple of days. We have a lot of ground to cover, so let’s begin with the obvious question. What went wrong?”

  For ten minutes Michael carefully recounted what happened on the ferry: Awad, the Palestinian girl named Odette, the motor yacht, and the gunman. He described the shooting, the bullets passing through Awad’s body into his vest. He described the explosion, and how the men on the boat provided covering fire for the gunman’s escape. Finally, he described the last battle with Odette, and how Graham Seymour shot her to death.

  “What was Graham Seymour, an officer from MI-Six, doing on that boat in the first place?”

  Michael knew he could gain little at this point by lying. “He’s a friend. I’ve known him a very long time. I wanted someone watching my back I could trust.”

  “That’s beside the point,” Monica said, with practiced impatience. Monica, as a rule, disliked field operations and the officers who carried them out. “You included an officer from the service of another country without the approval of your superiors at headquarters.”

  “He works for the British, not the Iranians. And if he hadn’t been there, I’d be dead right now.”

  Monica pulled a frown of irritation that made clear she would not be swayed by arguments based on emotion. “If you were so concerned about your security,” she said tonelessly, “you should have requested backup from us.”

  “I didn’t want to go in there with some heavy squad that Awad and his team could make a mile away.” That was only part of the truth; he wanted as few people as possible from London and headquarters involved in the operation. He had worked in the field, and he had worked at headquarters, and he knew Langley leaked like a sieve.

  “It sounds as though Awad and his team identified your good friend Graham Seymour,” Monica said contemptuously.

  “Why would you assume that?” Michael asked. Wheaton fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat and Carter, four thousand miles away in Langley, did the same thing. Monica Tyler did not take well to questions from staff; even rather senior officers like Michael. She had the certainty of conviction that is an unfortunate by-product of innocence.

  “Why else did one of their gunman attempt to kill you? And why else would Awad set off a bomb strapped to his body?”

  “You’re assuming the gunman was Sword of Gaza. I think that assumption is wrong. The shooter made no attempt to spare Awad’s life. He tried to kill me by killing Awad first. The woman was standing behind me the entire time. If they wanted me dead, she could have done it, and I would have never known what hit me. And when the shooting started, she went after the gunman first, not me.”

  “She eventually went after you.”

  “Yes, but only after Awad set off the explosion. I believe she assumed the gunman was one of ours.”

  “Did you see his face?”

  “No, his head was covered by a balaclava.”

  Monica leaned over and whispered in Carter’s ear. Carter raised his hands and moved them about his head and face. Michael realized he was explaining to Monica exactly what a balaclava was. Monica paused for a moment, studying her hands, then said, “What did Awad say to you before the trouble began?”

  Michael went through the details of the conversation in painstaking detail. He had been trained to commit large amounts of information to memory, and when he worked in the field he had a legendary ability to produce nearly verbatim transcripts of meetings with agents. Carter used to call him “the human Dictaphone.” Michael told them everything Awad had said—about Heathrow, about the air strikes, about Hassan Mahmoud’s expulsion from the group—with one glaring omission. He did not tell them about the photographs of Mahmoud’s meeting in Cairo with Eric Stoltenberg.

  “Do you believe he was telling the truth?” Monica asked.

  “Yes, I do,” Michael said flatly. “I’ve always been skeptical about the Sword of Gaza claim of responsibility. I’ve made no secret of that. But if it wasn’t the Sword of Gaza, who was it? And why would they make a false-flag claim?”

  And who the hell tried to kill Muhammad Awad and me aboard that ferry today?

  Carter and Monica conferred quietly for a moment. Wheaton glared at Michael professorially over his half-moon reading glasses, as though Michael had just given the wrong answer to a critical question on an oral exam.

  “There’s something else we need to discuss with you, Michael,” Monica said. Then she added gravely, “It’s very serious in nature.” There was something in her boardroom tone that immediately set Michael on edge.

  “Early this morning, an officer from British SIS paid a visit to a defector named Ivan Drozdov. It seems Drozdov missed his weekly check-in, something he never does, and SIS became worried. The officer broke into his cottage and found him dead. Shot to death. SIS and local police immediately investigated. Yesterday, Drozdov was seen in a local café with a man matching your description. SIS would like to know if you went to see him yesterday. And, frankly, so would we.”

  “You know the answer is yes, because you had me under surveillance from the time I left London until I returned to Heathrow.”

  “If you were under surveillance, it was not ordered by me or anyone at headquarters,” Monica shot back.

  “It wasn’t London Station,” Wheaton said.

  “What the hell were you doing meeting with Drozdov without our authorization or the authorization of SIS?” Monica asked. “And by the way, what did you talk to him about?”

  “It was a personal matter,” Michael said. In the video monitor he could see Adrian Carter looking at the ceiling, blowing air through pursed lips. “Drozdov worked for Department Five of the First Chief Directorate of the KGB, the assassins. I’ve been working on something for several months and I wanted to discuss it with him. I assure you he was alive and well when I left.”

  “I’m glad you think this is amusing, Michael, because we don’t,” Monica said. “I want you on the first flight back to Washington tomorrow morning. Consider yourself on administrative leave pending an investigation of your conduct in this affair.”

  The screen went blank. Wheaton wordlessly held out his hand. Michael reached beneath his sweater and handed Wheaton the loaded Browning automatic.

  Wheaton had wanted Michael in the safe flat for his last night in London, but Michael told him in no uncertain terms to fuck off, and he had returned to his small hotel in Knightsbridge overlooking the park. Early that evening, slipping out onto rainy pavement, he immediately spotted two of Wheaton’s watchers, dozing in a parked Rover. Shopping for Elizabeth in Harrods, he spotted two more. Walking south on Sloane Street, he picked off a fifth watcher on foot.

  There were also two men in a Ford, this time dark blue.

  Who are you? Who hired you? If not Wheaton, then who?

  Shaking surveillance was not difficult, even professionals. Michael held the advantage, for he had trained with them at the Farm and he knew their tactics. For one hour he moved about the West End in ge
ntle rain—by foot, by bus, by taxi, the tube—through Berkeley Square, Oxford Street, Bond Street, Leicester Square, and the outer reaches of Soho. He found himself at Sarah’s flat. The Lebanese takeaway had gone vegetarian, a monument to Sarah, perhaps. Bob Marley throbbed through a half-open window hung with dirty drapes. Sarah’s window. Sarah’s drapes, probably.

  Sarah Randolph made one terrible mistake, Drozdov had said. She fell in love with her quarry.

  She had been a lie, a myth created by his enemies, tragically heroic in her boundless naïveté. She had betrayed him, but she was not real. He could not love her, nor could he hate her. He only felt sorry for her.

  Wheaton’s watchers were long gone, so he took a taxi to Belgravia. Field men, like thieves, develop clandestine ways of penetrating their own homes for the inevitable day when a lifetime of betrayal comes calling. Michael knew Graham Seymour’s method: through a mews and over the whitewashed garden wall with the help of a rope ladder left for such an occasion. Michael used the ladder now to scale the wall, then dropped through the darkness onto Graham’s stone terrace. Graham answered Michael’s rap at the French doors armed with one of Helen’s Swiss-made kitchen machetes. They talked upstairs in the drawing room, Michael’s drenched coat steaming at the gas fire, Graham’s German stereo blasting Rachmaninoff to cover the conversation.

  They talked for nearly an hour. They talked about what happened on the ferry. They talked about Sarah. About Colin Yardley and Astrid Vogel and the man in the dark who fired three bullets into Yardley’s face. About the men on the motor yacht and in the Fords—the white minivan and now the blue one. Michael needed money. Helen was rich, and Graham always kept a spare thousand or two in the safe for emergencies. Passports were no problem. Over the years Michael had used his contacts inside friendly services to build a collection of false travel documents. He could travel as a Frenchman or a Spaniard, a Greek or a German. Even an Israeli. Call Elizabeth, Michael said. Tell her I’ll explain everything when I get back. Be careful of what you say on the line. Don’t tell her where I’m going or what I’m doing. Tell her I love her. Tell her to take care.

  They ate penne puttanesca and salad and drank red wine. Helen and Graham spoke as if Michael weren’t there. Michael felt as if he were watching a horrid daytime drama on television. He devoured two plates of the pasta, which was surprisingly good.

  After dinner, Graham announced suddenly that he wanted to see a new film showing at the Leicester Square cinema. Helen enthusiastically agreed. They cleared away the dishes and went out. Michael watched them climb into Graham’s BMW from the darkened drawing room window and pull away from the curb. A car engine turned over somewhere in the darkness. Michael watched as it slipped into the quiet street, headlights doused.

  He went out through the French doors, across the garden, up the wall, and down the other side on the rope ladder. On the King’s Road he caught a taxi and went to Victoria Station. He purchased a ticket to Rome with the cash from Graham’s safe. The train was leaving in an hour. Wheaton, if he were smart, would be watching the airports and the rail stations.

  Michael purchased a waterproof hat at a kiosk and pulled it low over his brow. He went outside and waited in the rain. Five minutes before the train was due to depart he went back inside the station and walked quickly to the platform. He boarded the train and quickly found an empty compartment. He sat alone in the half darkness for a long time, listening to the rhythmic clatter of the train, looking at his reflection in the glass, thinking about it all. Then, as the train cleared the Channel tunnel and raced southward across France toward Paris, he fell into a light, dreamless sleep.

  29

  LONDON

  The Director watched the ITN ten o’clock news as his chauffeured silver Jaguar purred through the streets of the West End. He had dined poorly on overcooked lamb at his Mayfair supper club, where the rest of the members believed he was a successful international venture capitalist, an accurate description of his work to a degree. A handful suspected he had done a lap or two for Intelligence once upon a time. One or two knew the truth—that he had actually been the director-general, the legendary C, of the Secret Intelligence Service. Thank God he had worked for the Service in the old days, when the Department officially did not exist and directors had the good sense to keep their names and photographs out of the newspapers. Imagine, the head of the Service granting an interview to the Guardian—heresy, lunacy. The Director believed spies and intelligence services were rather like rats and cockroaches. Better to keep up the pretense they don’t really exist. Helps a free society sleep better at night.

  The attack on the Dover-to-Calais ferry dominated the news. The Director was furious, though his tranquil face projected nothing but bored insolence. After a lifetime in the shadows his dissembling was art. He was narrow of head and hips, with sandstone hair gone to gray and bleached surgeon’s hands that always seemed to be holding a smoldering cigarette of a length fit for a glossy magazine advertisement. His eyes were the color of seawater in winter, his mouth small and cruel. He lived alone in St. John’s Wood with a boy from the Society for protection and a pretty girl who did paperwork and looked after him. He had never married, had no children, no known parentage. The office jesters at the Service used to say he had been found in early middle age in a basket on the banks of the Thames, dressed in a chalk-stripe suit, Guards tie, and handmade shoes.

  He switched off the television and looked out his window, watching the London night sweep past. He detested failure more than anything else, even betrayal. Betrayal required intelligence and ruthlessness, failure only stupidity or lack of concentration. The men he had dispatched for the job on the ferry had been given every resource needed to guarantee success, yet they had failed. Michael Osbourne clearly was a worthy opponent, a man of talent, intelligence, and ingenuity. Osbourne was good; his killer would have to be better.

  The car drew to a stop outside the house. His driver, a former member of the elite Special Air Service commandos, escorted the Director to the front entrance and saw him inside. The girl was waiting, a toffee-colored Jamaican sculpture called Daphne. She wore a white blouse, unbuttoned to the ledge of her ample breasts, and a black skirt that fell midway across bare thighs. Sun-streaked brown hair lay about square shoulders.

  “Mr. Elliott is on the line from Colorado, sir,” she said. There was a trace of East Indian lilt in her voice that the Director had spent thousands of pounds in speech therapy to eliminate. Names were permitted inside the Mayfair residence, for it was swept for bugs regularly and the walls were impermeable to outside directional microphones.

  The Director went into the study and punched the flashing light on his black multiline telephone. Daphne came into the room, poured a half inch of thirty-year-old scotch into a tumbler, and handed it to him. She remained in the room as he spoke, for there were no secrets between them.

  “What went wrong?” Elliott said.

  “Mr. Awad brought protection, and so did Mr. Osbourne. And on top of that, he’s damned good.”

  “He needs to be eliminated, especially after what he learned this morning on that ferry.”

  “I’m well aware of that, Mr. Elliott.”

  “When do you plan to mount another attempt?”

  “As soon as possible,” the Director said, pausing for a nip of the scotch. “But I want to make a substitution. Osbourne is rather good. Therefore, the opposition needs to be very good indeed. I’d like to give the task to October.”

  “His price is very steep.”

  “So are the stakes at this point, Mr. Elliott. I hardly think now is the time to quibble over an extra million or two, do you?”

  “No, you’re right.”

  “I’ll prepare a detailed dossier on Osbourne and send it to October, via encrypted electronic mail. If he chooses to accept the target, the game will be on, and I anticipate Mr. Osbourne will be eliminated in short order.”

  “I hope so,” Elliott said.

  “Count on it,
Mr. Elliott. Good night.”

  The Director replaced the receiver. Daphne stood behind him and rubbed his shoulders. “Will there be anything else this evening, sir?” she asked.

  “No, Daphne, I’ll just see to a little paperwork, then turn in.”

  “Very well, sir,” she said and went out.

  The Director worked in his study for twenty minutes, finishing the scotch, watching American news accounts of the ferry explosion on his satellite system. He shut off the television and went upstairs to his bedroom suite. Daphne lay on her back on the bed, blouse unbuttoned, one long leg crossed over the other, twirling a strand of hair round a stiletto forefinger.

  The Director undressed silently and put on a silk robe. Some wealthy men amused themselves with horses or motorcars. The Director had his Daphne. She had removed her clothing; it lay next to her on the bed. She was gently stroking her nipples, her stomach, the tops of her thighs. Daphne was a tease, even with herself. The Director climbed into the bed and trailed a finger at her throat.

  “Anything, my love?” she asked.

  “No, petal.”

  The Director’s ability to make love to a woman had been severely impaired, the by-product, he assumed, of a lifetime of lies and betrayal. She reached beneath his robe, taking him inside her long hands.

  “Nothing at all?”

  “Afraid not, my love.”

  “Pity,” she said. “Shall I?”

  “If you’re in the mood.”

  “You are a silly boy, sir. Want to help or just watch?”

  “Just watch,” he said, lighting a cigarette.

  Her hand slipped between her thighs. She gasped sharply, her head rolled back, her eyes closed. For the next ten minutes he took her the only way possible, with his eyes, but after a while his mind drifted. He thought of Michael Osbourne. Of the failed assassination on the ferry. Of the man called October. It would be an interesting fight. One would not survive. If it was Osbourne who died, the Society would endure and Mitchell Elliott would make his billions. If it was October. . . . The Director shuddered at the thought. He had worked too long, too hard, for it all to fall apart. Too much at stake, too much invested, for failure now.