“You need to access the files now,” Kennard said. “I was told you’d have the password.”
The British guy looked at Kennard for a few seconds then turned on the smartphone and opened the files. Kennard watched his eyes absorb the information, the man’s face illuminated by the glow of the screen. The smartphone contained several files that Kennard had received from his employer. He had no idea what the files contained; the phone was password protected. It was no doubt the operation plans so someone could assess who was to blame for the fuck up. The fact that Kennard’s contact was British meant that it had probably been a joint black-bag op with MI6. And one with potentially severe repercussions, hence all this cloak-and-dagger bullshit. But he was only guessing, and in Kennard’s experience it didn’t pay to do too much thinking in his job.
The Brit stared at the smartphone for a long time before finally looking up. He gestured to the American.
“I think you should read this as well.”
Kennard nodded as the phone was handed to him. Text filled the small screen. Kennard tried to absorb what the document said, but the light stung his eyes. It had details: height, weight, hair color, biographical information, what looked like a CIA record. It was someone’s dossier. There was a photo, slowly coming into focus. A face. His face. Two words above it. Two horrible words.
John Kennard.
Kennard was an experienced case officer, highly trained. He didn’t hesitate. He dropped the phone and immediately went for his gun. But the man was already coming forward, too fast to be believed, doing something with his hands, just a blur of movement Kennard didn’t understand. The man grabbed Kennard’s wrist as the gun came out of the holster.
He tried to get the gun up, angling it so he could take a shot. The man was too strong, too close, Kennard couldn’t see where the gun was pointing. He fired anyway.
The bang was excruciating, the flash made him blink. He’d missed. The bullet harmlessly shattered tiles around the sink. Kennard fired again. This time the bullet hit a urinal, smashing it into pieces that fell clattering to the floor.
He grabbed desperately at the man’s arm with his free hand. Kennard was at least three inches taller and far heavier, but he was outmatched by his attacker’s leverage and balance. Then he realized-he didn’t know where the man’s other hand was.
The breath caught in Kennard’s throat as the blade entered his abdomen, knife easily slicing through skin and muscle. Explosions of agony rushed through his body. His gun fell from fingers too weak to hold it. Kennard gasped as the blade was pulled free and driven back in again and again. And again. The knife plunged so deeply the tip scratched the back of his pelvis.
Kennard sank downward, eyes wide, hands still grabbing uselessly at the man who was killing him. The knife was pulled free a final time, and Kennard slumped onto his knees. He clutched at the torn shreds of his stomach, fingers warm with blood and touching slick innards no longer inside him. Kennard didn’t scream. He couldn’t.
He felt fingers on his head, grabbing and pulling upward. Then, on Kennard’s own hair, the man carefully wiped the blood from his knife.
When the weapon was clean, the man released him. The blade didn’t look like metal-matte black. Kennard watched the man fold the blade away and replace the knife in a wrist sheath hidden on his left forearm. The man moved back over to the washbasin and once again began to methodically wash his hands. Kennard watched helplessly, clutching at the slippery, ragged mess of his stinking guts. He felt so tired.
By the time the man had finished drying his hands, Kennard’s head hung limply forward. He heard the click of the man’s shoes on the tiled floor, saw the dull black leather as the man walked past him. Kennard heard the creak as the man pushed through the gate, and the slowly lessening sound of his ascending the stairs.
Kennard reached inside his coat for his cell phone but couldn’t find it. His wallet was gone too. He hadn’t even noticed. He saw it on the floor nearby, empty. To make his death look like a mugging, he realized. The smartphone had gone too.
Kennard didn’t move, didn’t try to crawl away. There was no point.
He knew he didn’t have a chance.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Marseilles, France
Friday
05:03 CET
Rebecca Sumner adjusted her glasses and scrolled down the information displayed on her laptop’s screen. An American citizen from California attached to the U.S. Embassy had been stabbed to death in Paris last night, just a few hours ago. The police believed it to be a mugging since the dead man’s wallet and phone had been taken. Further in the text it stated that the man worked as a cultural attaché at the embassy, which meant he might actually have been a cultural attaché or, in typical agency style, it could have been a cover for his true position. His name was John Kennard. The name meant nothing to her.
Rebecca felt the beating of her heart begin to quicken. The timing of it seemed wrong, so close to Monday’s massacre. Her orders had been to stay put and await further instructions, and she had been doing just that. But then the unexpected communiqué had arrived in her in-box and her control hadn’t gotten back to her about it. And now this. It seemed like too much of a coincidence to be unrelated, or was she just being paranoid? She sat at her desk in the sparsely furnished apartment she had called home for the past few months. The glow of the monitor illuminated her face. She had no other lights on.
She didn’t know the name of her control, had never met him. Their only communications had been over secure satellite phone links and the Internet. She didn’t know who else was working on the operation or who had ordered it. She was on need to know, and apparently she didn’t need to know very much. What she did know, but which no one had told her, was that the op was off the books, way off the books.
It had been nearly five days since everything had gone so wrong, and Tuesday had been the last day her control had contacted her with the directive to hold her position and await new orders. So she had. For four days she had lived off of whatever was in her cupboards, never venturing outside, always at her computer, always waiting. Twelve hours ago something had happened that changed everything. The killer had sent her a message. That hadn’t been in the script.
So she’d disobeyed orders and contacted her control by e-mail within minutes of the killer’s message arriving. It always took a few hours for the control to get back to her, but, half a day later, there was still no reply. Her actions had been a clear breach of the strict protocol by which the operation had been run, but she felt the communication had warranted it. Surely it was a chance to get back on track. She had assumed that she’d received nothing further because those in charge were working out what she should reply back with. But then this John Kennard had been killed.
On the phone her control had spoken with a West Coast accent; she’d guessed he was an LA native. She stared at the screen for another minute, searching for information. John Kennard was from California, the report said.
Maybe the reason why her control hadn’t gotten back to her was because he’d been stabbed to death in Paris last night.
If this Kennard was really her control, then why had no one else contacted her after he’d been killed? It was over seven hours since his time of death. Plenty of time for her to get a phone call or e-mail. It was late here but not in the States, and no one slept for long on something like this anyway. Her control would have superiors who must know about her role in the operation. But what if no one else knew the control was dead? The op couldn’t be salvaged if no one knew what was going on.
If they needed to speak, her control always phoned her, but he had given her a special number to call in case of dire emergencies, a cell phone number, and she considered this about as big an emergency as it could get. Rebecca picked up the phone.