The light stayed still in the car, and the target still sat on metal steps that had been folded out from the side of the car as if it had stopped at a station. He leaned forward, hands clenching and unclenching in his pockets. “It has to be here,” the man whispered over and over.
It didn’t matter what he was talking about. Ozan had a job to do. He leaped over the broken bricks and into the room. He landed with each foot flat on a different train tie. The time for stealth was past.
The hammer arced down.
The target lifted his head, quicker than Ozan expected.
Hammer met bone. Bone gave. But not the skull. The man had deflected the blow with his right arm.
The man’s left fist connected with the side of Ozan’s head. Ozan’s ears rang, and he stumbled back.
The man was on him then, knocking him to the dirt.
Ozan rolled to the side, but the man fell onto him. His wounded arm dripped blood in Ozan’s open eyes. Ozan blinked it away and twisted the man’s wounded arm. It felt hot, as if the man had a fever. Broken bones grated against each other. The man screamed and reared back.
Ozan pulled away from him and reached for the hammer. The man tried for it, too, but Ozan was quicker. The hammer connected with the side of the man’s head. Blood and gore spattered up onto Ozan’s hands.
The target fell backward against the side of the car. His hands jerked once, and then he was still.
Neatly done. Efficient. One blow.
But this shouldn’t look efficient.
Ozan brought the hammer down five more times. The man’s head stopped looking as if it had ever been human by the third blow. That was what crimes of passion looked like — too much force, wasted energy.
Ozan released the hammer and let it drop into the thick dust next to the body. He did a quick inventory of his own injuries. Nothing serious. A bruise on the side of his head and a cracked rib. He could finish the job and walk away.
No danger now. Without moving his feet, he surveyed the room. The skeleton on the floor belonged to a soldier. Based on the uniform, the man had died here before Ozan was born. Next to that skeleton rested another wearing a stained white lab coat with a dark hole in the shoulder surrounded by a dark blotch. An old bullet hole. What had brought these men to this place? What had brought 523 here?
It must not be relevant to his job. If it were, then he would have been informed.
The artistic part of the job was done. All that remained now were loose ends. First, he searched 523’s pockets. He found, and took, a map of the tunnels and a wad of crumpled one-dollar bills. He didn’t find any other documents, classified or otherwise, but he searched inside and underneath the train car just in case. He found broken alcohol bottles, pens, and a few sheets of aged blank paper with the White House seal. He took those, too. But he found nothing interesting, and nothing modern.
That was a problem. He’d hoped to find those papers.
He had one more task, one he’d almost forgotten because it was so out of his usual routine. He flipped a plastic bag inside out and used it to scoop up a sample of 523’s warm brain tissue. He turned the bag right side out again and sealed it, then put it inside a second bag. He’d have to get the sample into a special chilled container and mail it to his client, proof that the job was complete. Brain tissue seemed an odd choice for DNA testing, but he couldn’t imagine what else they might want it for, unless they’d messed with the man’s brain.
Ozan drew a twenty-dollar bill from his front pocket. He’d never touched it with his bare hands so it wouldn’t have his fingerprints. He folded it and tucked it into the dead man’s pocket. He dropped another bill on the floor.
Three more bills were in Ozan’s pocket, and he fished them out. Dropping his right hand into the man’s blood, he held the bills with his bloody fingertips, careful to smear them enough that it would be hard to tell if he’d worn gloves.
After a murder like that, the killer would be frightened, running. Ozan sprinted toward the door, lengthening his strides to appear taller. He already wore shoes a size too large. The inserts crammed against his toes made it easy to run in them.
Bending, he swept away the prints of the third man, the one who’d stood and watched the target and the room. If the body were ever found, he didn’t want things to be complicated. Whoever that man was, he was lucky.
Ozan smashed the lantern against the wall, and it went dark. Then he headed for the outside by the shortest route, making sure to step in the dirt to leave a good print here and there. If it ever came to it, the police should be able to track the panicked killer aboveground.
Soon he’d be outside. He took off his gloves, carefully turning them inside out and tying the ends closed. He wiped his face and hands with his antiseptic wipes and secured them all in a paper bag. He’d drop it into a dumpster with his ripped and dirty jacket. He’d be an ordinary man out for a stroll in the early morning quiet. He’d leave the too-large shoes he’d worn for the murder and a few bloody bills next a homeless man who slept near this very exit. Then he could go home.
Contentment filled him. He’d completed his task early, and he’d never killed a man with a hammer before. He’d liked it. If only he had someone to share his joy with, but there was just Erol, and he would never understand. Erol must be protected from this side of his brother, always.
Still, he’d done a good job. As much as he knew that he could demand the rest of his fee and move on, a niggling doubt in the back of his mind told him that he must stay a few more days and search for the papers. He would play with Erol and enjoy the pleasures that New York had to offer.
A bark broke through his concentration. Ozan froze, listening.
Another bark. Someone with a dog was behind him, by the murdered man.
Now he had a difficult decision to make. Should he stick to his original plan and leave, or should he go back?
If the man with the dog was a friend of 523, he might have passed him the classified papers.
Their retrieval wasn’t mandatory, but Ozan liked to be thorough.
He turned around and headed back down the tunnel toward the barking dog.
Chapter 9
Edison at his side, Joe hiked through the tunnels toward his destination. The only illumination came from his flashlight — a bubble of brightness that disappeared a few paces ahead of and behind them. Unlike the tunnel on which his house sat, which was covered with simple planks, sharp stones covered the ground here. Two lines of silver tracks ran down the tunnel’s center, and a third rail sat to one side. Remembering his training, Edison avoided the third rail and walked by the opposite side track.
Joe had paced around his house for a couple of hours, wanting to go back and check out the abandoned train car again, but afraid that Rebar would still be there. Then he’d tried to sleep. Eventually he’d given up and convinced himself that he would just go and take a peek. If Rebar was still there, he’d go to bed and try later. The trains would be running soon, and that would probably chase Rebar back outside.
It seemed like a good plan in his well-lit parlor with the electric fire crackling by his feet and stout steel doors between himself and danger. Now, in the tunnels, where a crazy man with a hammer lurked, it seemed like the worst kind of stupidity.
Still, for the first time in a long time, Joe had a mystery to explore.
As they drew closer to the field of tracks where he and Edison usually played fetch, he slowed. Edison stuck close to his heels, as if sensing that this was serious business.
He’d run. At the first sign of trouble, he’d run. If he maintained enough distance between them, Rebar wouldn’t catch him. Besides, the man was probably long gone. Joe wished that he believed his own words.