kinship with the man he’d killed.
Every other feasible hiding location proved to be empty. The hotel safe then. That made sense. No chance of the maid or anyone else walking away with something valuable or incriminating.
The assassin had made a telling error in having personal items with him on a job. It was inexcusable, if understandable. After all he did not plan on being killed. And dead it hardly mattered anyway if someone found out who he was. That reaffirmed what Victor already knew about the team. They were independent contractors, not affiliated with any organization. If they had been, the assassin would have been more careful. So who assembled them? Someone with resources, someone with means. Hiring assassins wasn’t as simple as flipping open the phone book and looking under A.
Victor made enemies just doing his job, but only someone who knew he was going to be in Paris could have had killers stationed in the city. As far as he knew only two people fell into that category. His client and his broker.
The person who had supplied him with the job he knew only as the broker. This was the individual who acted as the middleman between Victor and the person who actually wanted the job done. The client. Victor didn’t know the identity of either. Victor likewise didn’t know why the client wanted the target dead, except it had something to do with the item now in his jacket pocket.
What association the broker had with the client Victor didn’t know. Sometimes brokers were individuals, free agents; other times they worked for a country’s intelligence services, private security firms, organized crime, or other groups. Or they might be associated with the client through other business practices, such as a lawyer or consul, or the client may have been passed to the broker through other intermediaries.
There was always the risk a broker was in fact some member of a police or intelligence force who had somehow found out about Victor and was hiring him so they could apprehend him. One of the many dangers of the freelance trade. The broker who had passed this job to Victor had been a first-timer, at least in his dealings with Victor. He knew nothing about the broker except that the efficiency and professionalism demonstrated suggested they had dealt with hired killers before.
Victor took out the flash drive and examined it closely. Just a memory stick — not very exciting, but he guessed the information it contained was to someone. He was supposed to stash the drive at a secure site of his choosing and contact the broker with the location so it could be picked up.
The broker had petitioned for a personal handover of the drive, but Victor never met anyone directly connected to his work unless he also planned to kill them. Not only did he want to avoid having anyone see his face, but a prearranged handover would always present a perfect opportunity to ambush him. Now it appeared an ambush was exactly what would have occurred had Victor gone along with the broker’s request. Since he’d refused to comply, they’d been forced to try to kill him immediately after he’d killed Ozols, while they still knew his location. If they had waited until he’d stashed the drive and contacted the broker, they might have lost him for good.
If the motive for wanting him dead was to ensure that any subsequent investigation or reprisals could not be traced back to them, then it was understandable but stupid. Aside from communiques over the Internet there was no connection between Victor and the broker and absolutely no connection between Victor and the client. This method protected all parties. Or maybe it was simpler than that. Maybe they just didn’t want to pay him the second half of his fee. Still, hiring a whole team of assassins couldn’t have been cheap, even for ones he doubted charged anywhere near as much as he did.
In the lobby he gave Svyatoslav’s details to the desk clerk and asked to check out before adding, ‘You have some of my things in the safe.’
If the clerk decided to check the photograph in the passport against the man standing in front of the desk there could be no mistaking the two. Victor reached into his coat to flick off the. 45’s safety but decided against it. The clerk was young, skinny. He wouldn’t put up much of a struggle.
The clerk returned a few seconds later and handed Victor a passport, plane ticket, and credit-card wallet. There was no change in the clerk’s cheery expression. Victor was satisfied he hadn’t bothered to make any checks. Victor had a look at the items, as might anyone concerned about leaving something behind. He noted the plane ticket was for Munich, business class. Inside the wallet were two credit cards. Both cards and plane ticket were for Mikhail Svyatoslav. Victor placed the wallet and ticket in his pocket. No keys. Too late to worry about where they might be now.
He signed out and paid the bill with the more worn looking of the assassin’s credit cards after subtly checking the signature on the back. His forgery wouldn’t get past a handwriting expert but it was close enough for a clerk who looked like he would have trouble reading the articles in a porn magazine.
The clerk handed him a copy of the bill, which Victor saw included the assassin’s address, and said, ‘We hope you had a pleasant time in Paris.’
He sounded genuine. Victor considered how genuine he would have been had he known that moments before Victor had been deciding how best to kill him.
Victor raised an eyebrow.
‘It’s been stimulating.’
CHAPTER 9
13:15 CET
‘What the hell is going on here?’
Alvarez and Kennard stood on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore. In front of them the crowd was three ranks deep before a police barrier. The road had been cordoned off on either side of the hotel. Alvarez could see numerous uniformed and plain-clothes officers and crime-scene personnel going about their duties.
Kennard got off his phone and turned to Alvarez. ‘From what I can make out something crazy happened here this morning. I’m hearing eight people dead — shot — and one suspect at large who may sound familiar.’
‘Holy crap, John.’ Alvarez looked at Kennard expectantly. ‘Are we sure it’s the same guy who capped Ozols?’
The younger man nodded. ‘The shooter shares the same taste for exotic projectiles. Apparently several people were shot with 5.7 mm subsonics. It’s too early for them to have matched the bullets yet, but…’
‘The chances of two separate gunmen both using that specific round in Paris on the same morning-’
‘Are slim at best.’
‘Skeletal, even.’ Alvarez did his best to peer over the heads of the spectators who were eager for a glance at something juicy. ‘When did all this go down?’
‘Sometime in the AM is the best anyone can tell me. So not long ago.’
‘Before Ozols got clipped?’
‘Not sure, at least an hour later I think.’
‘We’ve got to get inside there.’
Alvarez pushed his way through the crowd. He was a big man by anyone’s reckoning. He had wrestled his way through college, strictly Greco-Roman, and at six even and two ten he still looked like a warrior, even if his black hair had developed more than a few grey friends. His size could be intimidating, and he had exploited that plenty of times before, but these days Alvarez realized it was far better for people to underestimate him than to be afraid of him. At times like this, though, he put his bulk to good use.
He met a palm the instant he reached the line. Alvarez showed his credentials. After examining them for a moment the guy gestured for his superior. The Frenchman who sauntered over was middle aged, short, meticulously groomed, looking annoyed at actually having to do something. Alvarez still had his hand up and the policeman squinted at the opened wallet for a few seconds.
‘Yes?’ he asked simply in English.
‘Are you in charge here?’
The guy nodded. ‘I’m Lieutenant Lefevre.’ He paused. ‘What can I do for you?’ He added the second part almost as an afterthought.
Alvarez put his wallet away. ‘I’m with the United States Department of State working out of the American embassy here in Paris. I believe your suspect for this shooting may be the same individual who killed a contact of
