I am a killer now, I thought, and another calming voice rose in my head: Stop it. You did what you had to do. Keep doing what you have to do.
Killing slices your life into a before and after. I was firm in the after, because the alternative was to be the body lying in the cool porcelain tub.
I leaned against the wall and let my gaze focus on the intruder’s face. He was around my age, midtwenties. Olive-skinned, with dark, short hair. Big ears, a wide mouth, a Roman nose that I’d broken with my kick. He wore black jeans, a black T-shirt, a black denim jacket. Dark, heavy boots. I searched him. A heavy knife in the boot he’d never had a chance to go for, of Swiss manufacture. An extra clip for his gun in the jacket pocket. A cell phone, small, light, not packed with features, just a plain, cheap model that was practically disposable. No passport, no ID, so presumably he’d left those stashed someplace. On his upper arm there was a small, delicately crafted tattoo. A stylized blue nine, in a curving beauty. The top curve of the nine was an orange sun, with short spiky rays.
Nine and sun. Nine suns. Novem Soles. My head felt a little swimmy.
I checked his wallet. A wad of dollars, another wad of euros. Wedged in the folded corner of one of the euro bills I found a rail ticket, used, from Paris to Amsterdam.
The ticket was three days old. He’d come to Amsterdam from Paris and then here, one could presume.
A man, sent from Europe, to kill me.
I had a problem. Someone had taken the bait. Howell would want to know. But given August’s warning, maybe this guy wasn’t from the scarred man. He could be Company, stationed in Europe, dispatched by one of my detractors who still thought me a traitor.
I opened his phone. The only referenced activity was a text, sent from the phone six hours earlier. The text read: Arrived at JFK. I recognized the country code for the Netherlands. I pressed the number to send another text. What the hell.
Let’s play, I thought.
Capra done, I typed. But problem. Followed by surveillance. Clear now but they may have seen face.
Within one minute the phone vibrated in my hand.
14
The text message displayed: Do not return now. Lay low. Destroy this phone and I will destroy mine. Call backup number in three days. Good luck.
Well, that was not helpful. English sent to a Dutch phone number meant little. Practically everyone in Holland spoke English; including any Company operatives there who might consider me a traitor worth killing. And if the person on the other side decided to call this number and saw that the phone still received calls or texts-hmm, he’d realize his buddy had disobeyed orders and figure out that said buddy might be dead.
Understood, I texted back, hoping to get more.
I hope he suffered, was the answer.
Wow.
He did, I texted back. I knew this was a huge risk; it might raise suspicion that I wasn’t following orders.
The call failed. The other end had broken or dismantled the phone; I was texting to ether.
I turned on the lights in the apartment. I found the bullet buried in the bookcase; it had sliced into a copy of Great Expectations. I pocketed the bullet and threw the shredded book in the trash under the kitchen sink.
I went and stared at the body. How was I going to get it out of here? There was not only the matter of the neighbors, but Howell’s watchers might check the apartment at any time when I was at work, and I wasn’t inclined to call Howell and say someone took the bait until I knew who this someone was.
My link to Novem Soles, whatever it was, was that someone in Amsterdam wanted me dead and thought they had gotten their wish.
I could call August. But what could he do?
For the next hour, I retrieved the bullet from the mattress, made the bed, tidied the apartment, then sat and paced and thought about what to do with this dead body.
There was a quiet knock at the door. It was four in the morning. I took the intruder’s gun and went to the side of the door.
Howell’s soft voice came through the wood. “Sam?”
“Yes.” I wasn’t sure I wanted to open it.
“Are you okay? I got a report your lights have been on for a while.”
“I can’t sleep.”
“Open the door.”
I tucked the silencer-capped gun in the back of my pajama pants and made sure the T-shirt covered it. I opened the door. Howell stood there, in jeans and a black sweatshirt. “Is everything okay?”
I let him step inside and then I shut the door. I hoped he didn’t have to use the bathroom.
“You get a call if I leave my lights on?”
“Yes. Especially on a day like today. When you tried to run.”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“You’re not up thinking about a new way to run?”
“No. It’s just standard-grade insomnia that is the curse of accused traitors. I hope to get an Ambien endorsement next week.” I kept my voice steady, so unbelievably I-am-a-statue steady.
“You’re tense.”
“You showing in the middle of the night reminds me that I’m basically still your prisoner. Tension is a by-product.” I shook my head. “Honestly. I can’t believe you get up out of bed in the night to come check on me.”
“You matter to me, Sam. I know you want to believe the whole world is your enemy, but I’m not.”
I wanted to believe him. I could hand over the intruder’s phone and, you know, validate Howell. Show him the Novem Soles tattoo and say, well, you asked if I’d heard of it and now I have. Make him happy. But Howell and his peers had been so ready to believe the worst of me for so long, I had no reason to trust them. And whoever was gunning for me thought that I was dead. I had to take advantage of that temporary illusion.
I had to move. Quickly.
Howell said, “Well, if you’re all right.”
“I appreciate the concern.” I didn’t look at him. It just occurred to me that maybe I had marks on my throat from the intruder’s attack or bruises on my face. I hadn’t looked in a mirror. “I think now I can sleep. I mean, knowing that your team is watching over me. You all are better than a night light.”
He shook his head at my sarcasm.
If they’d watched everyone enter the building, then they’d notice on their logs that a guy in dark clothes who’d entered at some point hadn’t left. Questions would be asked, probably by the morning. I didn’t have much time. I met Howell’s gaze.
Howell looked at me and he tried, God help him, a smile. “I know this is a pressure cooker. Just be patient, Sam. The truth will come out.”
“I’m sure of that, Howell. I’m all about the results.” The results were in the tub. And I smiled at him, the tentative way you do when you want a job and you’re not sure the interview went well.
He left. I went back into the bathroom and I looked at the dead guy for a minute. I looked at the useless phone number on his cell and then I took apart the phone. I didn’t want whoever wanted me dead to be the least bit suspicious. I went next door to an apartment under renovation and I picked the lock, then I carried the body there and put it in the bathtub. I cranked the air-conditioning to its highest setting. The body would start to stink in the next day, which was Saturday, but the remodelers didn’t work weekends so as not to disturb the current tenants, so I might have two days before the body was found, if I was extremely lucky. Fine. I would be gone by then.
I put the pieces of the cell phone into a plastic bag I could throw away after I left the apartment. I didn’t want the Company finding it after I was gone; I didn’t want them on my trail.
I went back to bed, and I thought that having killed, I would never sleep again. But I slept the deep and restful slumber that comes after making a hard decision.
15
My spark of inspiration came from a complaint Ollie had made about some missing imported whisky. Because there are thousands of containers holding crates of fine whiskies shipped from Ireland and Scotland, and nearly nine billion metric tons of all sorts of cargo shipped on the seas every year. These goods are mostly carried in two hundred million containers-twenty-foot- or forty-foot-long steel coffins you can fill with whisky or shoes or computers or frozen meat or whatever. Even me.