CHAPTER 7
09:15 CET
Less than a mile away Alvarez looked down at the corpse on the steel tray before him and sighed heavily. The wrinkled skin was pale, the eyes closed, the lips tinged with blue. A small red hole marked the skin of the left temple. Entry wound. The hole in the right temple was larger, rougher. Exit wound.
‘Yeah,’ he breathed. ‘That’s the poor bastard.’
The French assistant mortician responded with a brief nod. He stood a few feet away, on the other side of the table, a young man in his twenties, and despite the cool temperature Alvarez could see there was sweat on his brow. The mortician shifted his weight, fidgeted. Alvarez pretended not to notice.
The American realized he wasn’t helping calm the kid. Alvarez knew he had a face that seemed to be perpetually scowling and made people who didn’t know him better feel uncomfortable. Even smiling didn’t help, and his size only exacerbated the problem. Alvarez had a neck wider than his skull and shoulders that filled a door frame. When it came to confrontation his appearance gave him an edge, but the rest of the time it was simply a hindrance. He had to work twice as hard as anyone else just to get people to trust him.
He had the pathologist’s report in hand. He glanced over the details to where it described the bullet wounds. There were two more to the chest. He gestured.
‘Show me.’
The mortician looked around nervously before carefully gripping the white stain-proof sheet. He folded it backward from the body’s neck to reveal the torso.
Alvarez examined the two neat holes in the sternum. ‘They look small calibre to me. Twenty-twos?’
‘No,’ the mortician answered. ‘All three wounds. Two to the chest, one to the head. 5.7 mm rounds.’
‘Interesting.’ Alvarez leaned forward for a closer look. ‘What kind of range are we looking at?’
‘No powder burns so it wasn’t point blank, other than that I can’t tell you. Listen, I’m just an assistant here. I’m not a ballistics expert. I… I don’t know very much.’
No shit, Alvarez thought. He considered for a moment. That the rounds were 5.7 mm meant an FN Five- seveN, one of the world’s slickest and most expensive handguns. He pictured the scene in his head. Double-tap to the heart, then, as the victim was prone, head to one side, the killer put one extra through the frontal lobe. Not taking any chances. Alvarez was no stranger to professional killings, and this execution was about as thorough as they came. He blinked the image away.
‘Look,’ the mortician began, ‘my boss is going to be back soon.’
Alvarez could take a hint. He opened his wallet.
Outside the hospital he buttoned up his coat against the drizzle. Where the hell was Kennard? It took a couple of minutes before the dark sedan pulled up outside.
‘Sorry,’ Kennard said, as Alvarez climbed into the passenger seat.
Alvarez rubbed some of the rain from his buzz cut. ‘It’s Ozols,’ he said. ‘He’s dead.’
‘Jesus,’ Kennard exhaled. ‘The package?’
Alvarez shook his head. He summarized what he’d seen.
‘What do we do?’ Kennard asked.
Alvarez chewed on his thumbnail for a moment. He reached into his jacket for his cell phone. ‘I’ve got to speak to Langley.’
CHAPTER 8
09:41 CET
Hotel Abrial was located on the Avenue de Villiers, north of the Seine. Victor had caught a second taxi at the museum, and it was a long, slow drive through the Parisian traffic. The driver was thankfully silent, and Victor gave him a moderate tip. A generous tip or no tip at all and the driver might remember him if asked at a later date.
Victor noted that it was a nice area, glowing with all the positive things that tourists tell their friends about Paris but without the rain, the dirt, and the sour-faced Parisians. Victor made his way along the busy street, passing the hotel. He found a pharmacy a couple of blocks away where he purchased a bar of soap, disinfectant, tweezers, cotton balls, and deodorant. He then found a quiet bar where he bought a lemonade and used the bathroom to wash himself.
He then turned his attention to the wooden splinters embedded in his face. At the time adrenaline had blocked the pain, but Victor no longer enjoyed such luxury. The splinters were small but rough and snagged in his flesh. With gritted teeth he drew them from his cheek with the aid of the tweezers. He would have preferred to get it over with quickly, but he had to work slowly to avoid their breaking. When the last one was out, he held a cotton ball soaked with disinfectant against the tiny wounds for as long as he could stand it.
If the bullet had struck the door frame a few inches higher, he would’ve been pulling splinters from his eyeball instead of his cheek. Not a pleasant thought. He withdrew a small bottle of eyedrops from a pocket and splashed some silicone solution onto his hands and rubbed it in. It dried in seconds. He allowed himself to light a cigarette outside and smoked it leisurely as he walked along the sidewalk. The hit of nicotine was just what he needed. Being alive felt good.
He promised himself it would be the first and last one today. He’d been trying to keep up a one-a-day rate for the last week and was determined to stick with it this time, maybe even cut down further in a couple of weeks. Or maybe not. Either way, he wasn’t going to ruin the postbattle elation worrying about his little addiction. Victor discarded the smoked cigarette, momentarily feeling bad for littering but eased his guilt by conscientiously disposing of the toiletries, but in several different trash cans.
The hotel lobby was simple but tasteful, thankfully quiet. He caught the eye of a happy-looking receptionist behind the desk who was scratching his bleached goatee and walked over.
‘Puis-je vous aider, monsieur?’ the guy asked.
‘Oui, avez-vous un t e l e phone public?’
The receptionist pointed to the far end of the lobby, toward the sign for the bathrooms. ‘L a — bas.’
Victor thanked him and crossed the lobby. Around a corner there were two outdated payphones. Victor checked the inside line number for room service and called it. A cheery female voice answered.
‘Hi,’ he said back. ‘I have some laundry to deliver, but I can’t read the room number.’ He gave the reference code on the receipt.
There was a strained sigh. ‘I wish they’d sort that out.’ Victor heard fingers punching keys with rapid efficiency. ‘Mr Svyatoslav.’ It took a couple of attempts to pronounce. ‘He’s in room 210.’
It was a pleasant room with a comfortable-looking bed, spacious en suite bathroom, and elegant decor. Victor switched on the TV and used the remote to flick to a news channel. So far nothing about the shootings. He doubted it would be long before a story about the killings aired. He turned the set off and looked around the room. The assassin hadn’t been in any hurry to leave. Clothes hung on the outside of the wardrobe, toiletries still lined the sink in the bathroom. Maybe he had planned to do a little sightseeing after he’d shot Victor. A foreigner in Paris, why not take in some of the culture? Now the only sightseeing he’d be doing would be in hell.
Victor looked forward to the postcard.
He expected the other assassins would have rooms at different hotels throughout the city. Less conspicuous that way, especially for a multinational group whose members, Victor believed, didn’t know one another before they had been assembled to kill him. Without any clues to where they had been staying, he would have to make the most of his current location.
There was nothing on the tables by the bed or in the drawers next to it. He ran his fingers between the mattress and the frame, finding and removing a brown leather wallet that was empty except for a few euros. No passport or plane ticket. He supposed that would have been too easy.
Victor searched the room thoroughly, first checking the toilet tank to see if the assassin used the same security methods as himself, but nothing was hidden there. A shame. It would have been nice to share a little
