The man was standing next to an oak, a small one that was beginning to lose its leaves for the winter. The tree’s tall branches above, shorn of their leaves, let through a fragmented pattern of light. Enough for Parker to see the man’s face.
Knez.
The man leaned against the tree, watching the house. Across the street, and above them, the glow of a computer illuminated a figure in the apartment. Suddenly the person behind the computer moved, and as she did, the man in the dark recognized that she was not who he thought she was. His body language immediately read agitated.
What will he do?
Parker watched as the man looked first down the street, then behind himself, and finally turned, seemingly directly at Parker. He stared into the darkness where Parker hid. Parker froze, not daring even to breathe. The man continued to stare for what seemed an eternity. He displayed a puzzled face, being unable to recognize something he should have known. Then he reached. He reached deep into the pocket of his long black raincoat and pulled out a pistol that looked like a Russian automatic. From another pocket he pulled out a long tube, black and metallic. He slid the tube onto the pistol, causing it to be well beyond the frame of the gun itself. Knez pulled the movement of the automatic pistol back, chambering a round, and then slowly slid it forward.
His intentions were clear.
Parker waited until Knez turned back toward the house with the woman and the child, innocents whom the Black Swan would surely not spare.
There would be only one opportunity, one step, one movement, and it had to be decisive.
The man intended to move to a car parked in the center of the street. It was a well-used minicar, painted a horrific orange-brown. He stopped at the edge of the car, sliding down for a second below its horizon as he scanned the street. Just as he was beginning to take his next step, a cat in an alley far away screamed out, causing the man to pause and look around again, up the street, down the street, and back to Zdravo in the house behind the computer.
Parker feared for her. She was now within range. A bullet could tear through the glass, slam into the side of her head, and she would be on the floor dead before Parker could even stop it.
For the moment he waited, only moving slightly when his opponent did, each step carefully placed. He placed each foot gingerly, one step at a time, so no dried limb or leaf would crackle.
It seemed the man had finally reached a decision. He moved toward the front door, more quickly now. He stood in the shadow, grabbed the doorknob with his right hand, turned the knob as far as he could, and then brought his full body to bear on the door. The frame was old and quietly cracked under the pressure.
Parker knew the time to act was fleeting. If he let Knez upstairs, it would be too late.
From upstairs came Zdravo’s voice. “Sadik? Sadik, is that you?”
With those words, Knez would know he was in a trap. The woman should not be calling to her husband at the front door — not when Knez had watched the man walk inside only minutes before.
Knez turned and fired randomly into the dark. The silenced bullets whizzed by Parker, who leaned to the side of the door. One round tore through the front of Parker’s shirt, but Knez immediately turned to fire in the other direction, covering all bases. As soon as Parker detected Knez’s turn, he tore through the doorway.
Knez reacted and got off one more round, which shattered the beer bottle, but the glass was thick and the broken end transformed into a lethal razor.
In the instant between the time a man could fire one round and then another, Parker shoved the broken glass deep under Knez’s chin. Its shard cut deep into the throat, sliced the arteries, and caused blood to project out like water from a sudden cut in a hose. Parker gripped Knez’s gun hand, turning the barrel away, but the man’s strength was already gone.
He gasped, then mumbled a string words, scarcely intelligible except for one:
“Sadik?”
The sticky blood quickly covered Parker’s hands as he dragged the limp body out into the street. It was all done in near silence. A man lost his life while others slept nearby.
Parker looked around and pulled the body across the street to the lot. It was fortunate that it was the beginning of winter, as not even the children played in the gardens in the late fall. A body could remain hidden there for several days, possibly a week. Parker didn’t need nearly that much time. He pulled the dead weight into a hole next to the compost pile. In preparation for winter the gardener had dug it so deep that a man could stand in it up to one’s knees. The trench had been dug so as to aerate the plot. It became the perfect grave. He quickly covered the man with the remaining leaves and dirt, leaving the pistol lying on his chest. When discovered with the Russian pistol, the first assumption would be a bad drug deal with the Russian mafia. As no one would miss Knez, the investigation would take much more time than Parker needed.
He cut back across the street, seeing no sign of life anywhere. The front door was not damaged to the degree he thought. It could easily be repaired in the morning.
“I need a bucket.”
Zdravo was already at the top of the stairs with a pail of water. It was as if she had done this before. “Use this and I will get more.”
He poured the water across the entranceway, diluting the blood, and then down the walk. He handed her the bucket and again she brought another. They repeated the effort until the last remnants of Knez had been washed away.
Parker pulled the door shut and was able to jam the lock partially closed. They didn’t need much time. In a day, they would be gone.
Zdravo was still waiting, sitting on the top stair. Her face had that same ashen look of fear.
“Who was he?”
“Knez.” Parker spoke quietly. Despite the death of a man nearby, they tried not to wake the baby.
“Why did he try to kill us?”
“He knew I was not Sadik.”
“Oh. But why now? Why try to kill you now?”
“How did he know I was not Sadik?” Parker asked her, as she slid down into a chair, limp with fear.
“I don’t know. I did not even know that he knew my husband.”
“He knew Sadik.” Parker answered the question. More important, he answered the other question. “And he knew I was not Sadik.”
“So why was a member of the Black Swans looking here, now?” She would ask innocent questions because she was innocent.
And then Parker remembered. There was a connection.
“I was being checked out. And I know who wanted me checked out. And I think it was stopped.”
If Knez told others of his suspicions it was not stopped and once Parker stepped into Pakistan he was dead.
There was a connection between this dead man and the Chechen.
CHAPTER 28
Billie Cook waddled down the hallway with one hand holding a medical chart and the other her morning Starbucks. The waddle came from an old herniated disc, exacerbated years ago when she tried to stop a patient who fell out of bed without the bed rails up. He’d landed on her, and the rest was history. Like it or not, the odd walk had become her trademark. Fortunately, Billie wasn’t the type to care about that sort of thing. From a small town in Texas just outside Lubbock, she had gone straight into the Navy’s nursing program after graduating from Texas Tech. Her cropped gray hair, with a little trace of the black hair from years ago, framed her square face and blue eyes. She was from the plains of Texas, spoke directly, and remained a standout intensive-care nurse at Bethesda Naval Hospital.