The shockwave ruffled his shirt and made his ears pop. Glass rained down on the street. Bricks punched through windshields of parked cars. Flames spewed from the blasted-out windows. Thick smoke billowed into the night sky.
Reed closed his eyes and pictured the delicious moment when the light switch would have been flicked and the flesh stripped from Tesseract’s obliterated bones. It would have been quite a sight, Reed was sure, even if he had never been comfortable using bombs. They went against his doctrine as an assassin. They were too obvious, too indiscriminate, with too much chance of collateral damage. They were the weapon of a terrorist, not a contract killer of unparalleled ability.
The initial stunned silence that followed the blast was quickly replaced by hysteria. Another one of the deplorable side effects of explosive devices. They had a nasty habit of upsetting bystanders. Around him everyone was on their feet, staring, pointing, some screaming. He was pleased to see that the falling debris had injured no one on the street, though if anyone was unfortunate enough to be walking past the room’s door when the bomb went off, they would have been disintegrated. At least they would have died instantaneously. No suffering. That mattered to Reed. The adjacent room would also be demolished, but there had been no guests next door. Reed had checked first. He never killed innocents unless it was unavoidable. He was a professional, not a psychopath.
It had been just enough C-4 to guarantee ripping Tesseract into countless unrecognizable chunks and sufficient accelerant to make certain both sets of remains were incinerated. That had been the unmovable stipulation from the client. He wanted absolutely no traces. With limited time and resources, and with an accomplished adversary to consider, Reed had no choice but to use explosives and fire to make the bodies unidentifiable.
Reed took a moment to finish his drink before standing. There was no way Tesseract could have survived a blast of such magnitude, so Reed’s work was complete and another worthy scalp added to his already-impressive resume. It was lamentable that it was such a good trap that his prey would never have known he had walked straight into it. The Englishman collected the book and the newspaper and left an especially generous tip.
He made his way through the shocked crowds outside the hotel, walking slowly, enjoying the warm night air in a charming city, unaware he was not the only person on the street unconcerned by the blast.
CHAPTER 66
Arlington, Virginia, USA
Friday
12:30 EST
Ferguson sat, chewing quietly, at a corner table in the lounge of his gentleman’s club. He was enjoying his favourite meal, a steak tartare accompanied by a large glass of Burgundy. He had his phone switched to silent so that he could eat his food without interruption. Growing older Ferguson had discovered he preferred to do more and more things alone. Too much of his life had been spent in the company of idiots for him to waste his remaining years. He particularly liked to eat by himself without having to chat business or banalities between swallows.
His phone flashed, but Ferguson ignored it. The club was mostly empty, just a handful of retirement-age men like himself spread throughout the grand mahogany-panelled room. There was a huge real fire roaring in the marble fireplace set into one wall. The club was his personal retreat, and he had been frequenting it for nearly two decades, watching the other faces grow older, the waistlines wider, and the conversation quieter.
Ferguson felt tired. He hadn’t been sleeping that well. He maintained a persona of utter calm, and for the vast majority of the time that calm was genuine, but there were occasions when his interior was not quite as steady as his exterior led people to believe. With so much at stake and playing so close to the line it was hardly surprising.
It almost defied belief that Tesseract had managed to stay alive so long. But, Ferguson reasoned, in his own past he had received his fair share of good fortune with operations, so he supposed it was only natural to have such bad luck with this one.
Ferguson placed another piece of uncooked meat into his mouth and chewed. He hoped that it was only a matter of time before Tesseract and Sumner were dead, and, once he no longer had to worry about some assassin who refused to die, he could look forward to a very rosy retirement. Just so long as he got his hands on that flash drive.
Sitting on the bottom of the seabed was at least a hundred million dollars’ worth of technology. Ferguson was so close to being rich beyond his wildest dreams he could taste it. So far he had simply been unlucky, that was all. Ferguson was sure of it. The tartare steak was difficult to swallow.
His phone flashed again, and Ferguson saw Sykes’s name on the screen. The gutless fool had been trying to get through to him all morning. It was obviously something important, or in Sykes’s mind important, but Ferguson wasn’t in the mood to hear about another screw-up just yet.
If anything else went wrong, Ferguson would be having some more difficult nights. Should everything be wrapped up cleanly, there would still be all that came before it to tidy up too. Even if Alvarez ended up nowhere, Chambers and Procter wouldn’t simply let things lie. As much as Ferguson disliked them, Procter in particular, he was painfully aware that the fat fuck and anorexic bitch were shrewd and determined individuals.
With Procter’s great big nose sniffing around, Ferguson knew he was going to have to draw this thing to a resolution with absolutely no loose threads. Otherwise Procter would keep tugging away until the whole thing was pulled apart. The only way to put the issue to bed was if someone took the heat for hiring Tesseract. There had to be a bad guy.
A conversation a few decibels on the wrong side of polite interrupted his thoughts. He looked up to see Sykes arguing with the maitre d’. Ferguson sighed and gestured for Sykes to be allowed to pass.
Ferguson made a point of eating and not looking at him as Sykes took a seat opposite. A file dropped onto the table.
‘Merry fucking Christmas.’
‘I beg your pardon.’
Ferguson glanced upward to see Sykes’s smiling features. His face looked like it belonged in an ad for a range of male grooming products for the not-so young and not-so good-looking.
‘Christmas has come early,’ he announced. ‘It’s over.’
‘What?’
‘It’s over.’ Sykes declared again
The sixty-seven-year-old heart inside Ferguson’s chest started to beat faster. ‘He’s dead?’
Sykes’s face stretched even further. ‘Blown to fucking smithereens.’
‘Sumner?’
‘Dead too. Reed got them both. There’s not enough left of either to identify. Nothing will come back to us. Ever.’
Goose bumps rose down Ferguson’s back. ‘Thank God,’ he said, joining Sykes with a smile of his own. ‘That boy is worth every penny. I do hope the Brits appreciate his skills.’ He paused for a moment to enjoy the sweet taste of victory. ‘I was almost concerned there for a moment.’
Sykes laughed. ‘You’re telling me. My heart’s been in my mouth for over a week.’
‘Relief feels good, doesn’t it, Mr Sykes?’
‘Fuck, yeah. But it gets better.’
‘He has the drive?’ Ferguson asked, excitement in his voice.
Sykes nodded. He pointed at the file.
Ferguson raised his eyebrow and his forehead wrinkled. He reached for the file. ‘Already?’