When his contact, a sweaty Portuguese man named DaCosta, finally showed, Veder didn’t complain, didn’t comment. He waited until DaCosta sat down and ordered a beer. When the beer arrived and the waiter had gone, DaCosta opened the conversation.
“You had a pleasant trip?”
Veder said nothing.
From experience he knew that DaCosta would jabber on for several minutes, complaining about the heat or the inconvenience of travel, bragging about golf scores or women, expounding on the peso and the dollar. Veder let him ramble. To engage him on even the smallest point would invite a conversational tangent that would drag this out even further. When DaCosta finally wound down, the fat little man shifted from chatty tourist to businessman. He looked around to make sure there was no one in easy listening distance of their table and then reached into an inner pocket of his white tropical suit to produce an envelope from which he removed several four-by-six-inch color prints. He placed them one by one on the table as if he was casting a fortune. There were seven faces. Five men, two women, each of them middle-aged or older.
He recognized four of the seven faces, though Veder glanced at them without showing any interest and looked at DaCosta, cold, waiting.
“The job is all of them,” said DaCosta.
“One location or separate?”
DaCosta licked his lips. “At least five locations, though there may be one chance of getting at four of them in the same room at the same time. A funeral always draws a crowd, yes?”
Veder sipped his water. “Seven targets mean seven paychecks.”
“You agreed to do this job.”
“No, I agreed to meet you and hear about the job.”
“You always do the job…”
“Only when I agree to it,” Veder said calmly. “I haven’t agreed to this yet.”
“It’s not too big for you, is it?” DaCosta was grinning as he said it.
Veder said nothing.
DaCosta drank some of his beer. Veder waited him out, certain that DaCosta was authorized to pay full price for all seven hits but equally sure that the man was trying to work out some way to skim the fee.
“Who are the targets?” Veder asked, trying to move this along while making sure not to betray his interest.
DaCosta went through them one at a time, giving him the names and a brief history. He laid the photos out like a hand of seven-card stud.
“That’s only six,” Veder said. He nodded toward the last picture in the row and made sure that his voice betrayed nothing of what he felt. “Who’s that one?”
“Ah,” said DaCosta as he raised his eyebrows and lowered his voice, “that’s a much more challenging target.”
“Challenges can be expensive.”
DaCosta made a face, clearly sorry that he’d used that phrasing.
“What’s this man’s name?” Veder said, looking at the picture. The man had a stern face with hard lines and an uncompromising stare. Veder had an excellent memory and he knew this face from a long time ago. He’d seen it once, only briefly, in the crosshairs of his scope; but there had been too many people in the crowd and his shot was not guaranteed, so he hadn’t taken it. It was one of only three kills he had been unable to complete, all during the same series of assignments. Then things had changed and that assignment came to an abrupt and bloody end, his employers dead or scattered.
DaCosta hesitated. “That’s where it gets complicated.” He winced at having to use that word. “This man is a big shot in a new government agency put together by the Americans. Like Homeland, but smaller, more aggressive. This man is the head of it and his group has a history of interfering with my client’s projects. His death will stop any further involvement… or at least slow it down to a manageable pace.”
“His name,” Veder prompted.
“He has a dozen names depending on who you ask. When my client first met him he was known by the code name ‘Priest.’ ”
“Does he have a real name?”
DaCosta shrugged. “I don’t know for sure, but lately he’s been calling himself ‘Mr. Church.’ ”
Veder studied the picture. Yes, this was a face he knew. His employers had feared this man above all others. Veder thought it interesting that Fate or chance had cycled this target — and the two others whom he recognized — back into view after all these years. It felt very clean, very tidy.
“Seven kills, seven fees,” he said flatly, his tone carrying a terminal finality to it that even DaCosta was sensible of.
“Sure, sure,” DaCosta said with just a hint of reluctance. “No problem.”
Veder looked at the photos for a while, particularly the American with the many names, and finally picked them up.
“No problem,” he agreed.
Part Two
Killers
There is no flag large enough to cover
the shame of killing innocent people.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“A fucking unicorn?” I said. “What kind of bullshit is this?”
“It’s not bullshit,” said Hu. “At least Mr. Church is taking this very seriously. He—,” but his words were cut off by the theme music for Darth Vader. Hu looked at his cell phone. “Speak of the devil.”
“That’s your ring tone?” I asked.
“Just for Mr. Church,” explained Hu as he flipped open the phone. “Yes?… Sure. Okay, I’m keying you in now.”
The image split to include Mr. Church seated in his office. “This conference call is scrambled so everyone can talk openly,” he said.
“What’s with this video crap—?” I began, but he held up a finger.
“First things first. You’ll be happy to know that Sergeant Faraday’s condition has been upgraded to critical but stable. He has lost his spleen, but the doctors are optimistic about the rest.”
“Thank God… that’s the first good news today.”
“Unfortunately it’s all of the good news I have to share,” Church said. “The NSA is still trying to storm the gates and the President has not yet revived sufficiently to take back control of the office. So, we’re all still fugitives.”
“Peachy. Have any of our guys been taken?”
“Unknown. Ninety-three percent of the staff are accounted for. The remaining seven percent includes a few agents who have likely gone to ground. And all of Jigsaw Team.”
“Shit.” I chewed on that for a moment. There was no way the NSA had bagged Hack Peterson’s entire team.
“What’s your opinion of the hunt video?” Church asked.
“It’s horseshit,” I said. “They can do anything with CGI.”
Hu shook his head vigorously. “It’s not computer animation. We had three guys here from Industrial Light and Magic — you know, George Lucas’s special effects guys? — and they—”
“How the hell’d you get them?” I interrupted.
Church said, “I have a friend in the industry.”
I suppressed a smile. Church always seemed to have a friend in “the industry,” no matter which industry was in question.
“Can you get the Ark of the Covenant?” I asked dryly.
“The real one or the one from the movies?” Church asked with a straight face.
“Point is,” Hu said, taking back the conversation, “these ILM guys watched the video on every kind of monitor and through all sorts of filters and meters. We even did the algebra on the shadows on its mane hair based on movement and angle of the sun. Bottom line, it was real.”