Diary of an Assassin (13 page)

CHAPTER
33

Gustav parked in front of the motel’s main entrance and sat in his car. The motel appeared to be at least fifty years past its prime and garbage fluttered in the parking lot. The property had a pool and an older woman lay in a deckchair. Gustav could see her varicose veins from where he was: blue snakes running up and down her legs. It disgusted him and he looked away.

A second floor was identical to the first with the exception of small balconies. People were leaned against the railings, looking down
below to the street, searching for any entertainment. A few appeared drunk and several, he guessed, were high on the drug of choice. He assumed heroin, which wasted the days away painlessly.

His eyes scanned the parking lot and then each
of the motel’s windows. He stepped out of the car and stood next to it. He was wearing a sports coat, but the weather, which had been cloudy most of the time he was here, now offered a warm heat. He took his coat off and put it in the backseat of the car before walking to the lobby.

A man stood behind the front counter
, flipping through a pornographic magazine. He glanced up, uninterested, and then went back to his magazine.

“Hello,” Gustav said.

“Twenty-five a night or seventy-five a week. We can also rent by the hour.”

“I’m actually looking for someone. I believe they may be staying here.”

“I don’t talk about no guests to people that aren’t guests.”

Gustav took out a billfold and threw a hundred dollar bill on the counter. “One man and one
woman.” He took out his phone and showed him a photo of Stephanie Johnson. “Are they here?”

“Yeah, they’re here.”

“Which room, please?”

“That I can’t tell ya. I don’t know who you are. See if I knew who you are then I could tell ya.”

Gustav exhaled. “Is that your attempt at humor? This must be a local phenomenon. Unfunny jokes by small men.”

“I told you what I’m gonna tell ya.”

Gustav’s eyes locked on a pen on the counter. He grabbed the man’s wrist—pulling it down against the counter and holding it in place—picked up the pen, and slammed the tip through the back of his hand. The metal tip scraped the top of the counter through his flesh. The man screamed. Gustav pulled the pen out but held his hand in place.

“Which room, please?”

“One zero three. Down the hall to the right,” he squealed.

“Room key, please.”

Gustav let the man go after he was handed a card. He walked down the hall, passing two doors before arriving at 103 and putting his ear to the door by the peephole. He couldn’t hear anything. He checked his watch: it wasn’t likely they were sleeping. He pulled out his pistol and stood to the side of the door. Sliding the card into the lock, he pushed the door open after the click.

It was dark inside.
The blinds were drawn and the only light coming in was around their edges. He slid into the room, his back to the wall, and listened. After a long while, he looked in the bathroom and moved the shower curtain aside with the barrel of his weapon. He checked under the beds and then sat down.

Some men were gathered outside around a car, flirting with
a few women who were in the driver and passenger seats. He could hear another voice as well. It was softer and in the background, and he couldn’t determine where it was coming from.

He realized it was his own voice.

Reaching his hand up, he physically closed his mouth and prevented it from moving. He took out an amber bottle and popped two white pills before going to the sink in the bathroom and cupping his hands underneath the water. He took two large gulps and stared at himself in the mirror as he dried his hands on a towel. He looked older, he thought. He’d aged ten years in five.

He flipped the light off and walked back into the hall, closing the door behind him. As he walked out of the lobby, he pointed his pistol to the
front-desk clerk, who was on the phone with the police. Gustav fired two rounds without looking, hitting the man twice in the chest. The phone ripped out of the wall as the man flew back and to the ground.

He went out to his car, and waited.

CHAPTER
34

After three beers, Rhett had finished half his meal. Stephanie spoke nearly the entire time. She talked about law school, about how Paul, nearly fifteen years her senior, had managed to seduce her at the firm they both worked at, how her mother had raised kids while working two jobs and going to school at night.

She inhaled her burrito with a side of rice and when they were done, Rhett paid and they began walking back to the motel.

“What was your wife like?” Stephanie said.

“She was…intense. She was the type of person that couldn’t start something without finishing it
, and she always had to be the best at whatever she did. I was much more relaxed than her so we balanced each other out.”

“How did she pass?”

Rhett didn’t answer.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, it’s okay. I just realized I’ve never talked about this with anyone.”

“
Uh-oh.”

He looked up to see several police cruisers in the motel parking lot. An ambulance was
parked beside the curb along with a van from the Medical Examiner’s Office. Everyone from the motel was out, watching the men work.

An EMT
pushed a body out on a gurney, a white sheet over it with a dark stain on the chest. The sheet was only half-way over the face and they could see the front-desk clerk’s solemn face peeking through. Stephanie covered her mouth with her hands in shock.

“We need to leave,” Rhett said, taking her arm.

He turned her around and pulled her as they walked at a quick pace. She kept glancing over her shoulder but he kept his eyes forward, fixed on the intersection up ahead. He listened to what was going on behind him and he heard a car start and pull out of the motel. He glanced back.

“When we get to that intersection we’re going to turn right and then run,” he said quietly.

He could feel each heartbeat as the intersection grew nearer. He casually stepped to the right, and with a quick glance behind him, they turned the corner.

“Now, go. Run!”

They broke into a sprint. Tires screeched behind them. The car swung right at the intersection and hit another car. Rhett glanced back and saw it pull away from the accident to keep following them.

“Down here.”

He pulled her behind him as he ducked in between two houses. He ran up one of the driveways as the car’s headlights turned on them.

Hopping a chainlink fence
, they ran around to the back of the house. The car had stopped and pulled out of the driveway. They ran up to the patio and he tried forcing the sliding glass door open, but it wouldn’t budge. He pulled out his weapon and fired a round at the lock, the small hunk of metal falling to the wooden patio. They threw the door open and vanished inside.

Two people, older, sat on furniture that was covered with plastic. They were both smoking and had beers out on the coffee table. Staring at them in disbelief, the couple didn’t say anything as Rhett ran past them to the front door.

“Sorry,” Stephanie said as she ran by.

Rhett opened the door and looked out. The car was gone. He pulled Stephanie out onto the porch
, searching up and down the street but he didn’t see it.

“Let’s go.”

Walking to the sidewalk, they turned and bolted in the opposite direction of the motel, Rhett’s eyes darting in all directions.

“Aren’t we going to get our things?” she asked.

“No.”

They were up about half a block before headlights
flashed on across the street, and the car peeled out of a driveway, barreling toward them. Rhett grabbed Stephanie and flung her out of the way as he ran to the right, drawing the car’s attention. It sped toward him and he leapt just as it crashed through the fence behind him and into a yard. The car spun on the grass as Rhett reached for Stephanie’s arm. They darted up the road.

Crossing the street, they
turned into an alley behind a grocery store. He looked back and saw that the car was gone, the owners of the home standing outside, looking at the damage to their property. Rhett turned toward the grocery store entrance and they went inside. He went to the electronics section and picked out a pay-as-you-go phone. At the register, he began transferring his contacts.

“What are you doing?”

“They’re tracking us somehow. My phone’s encrypted but I think they hacked it and that’s how they’re doing it.”

When his contacts were transferred and he
had emailed himself contents from the notebook applications, he reset the phone and threw it in the trash as they headed outside. Walking slowly through the parking lot, he watched the cars as they pulled in. He took out his weapon, and approached a car with a couple in it that had just pulled up.

“No,” Stephanie said, holding his arm.

“We need a car.”

“Not by stealing it.”

He watched as the couple got out and walked past.

“Let’s call a cab,” she said. “I know someplace safe we can go.”

CHAPTER 35

Henri sat at a coffee shop and sipped an espresso and nibbled biscotti. He had two files open on his laptop: Isaac Rhett and Gustav Fabrice. It was amazing how similar the men actually were.

This information was not cheap to get and French
intelligence made it clear to him this was a favor that they expected to collect on one day. The information in the folders was classified, but anything could be bought from any agency. Government employees made just enough to get by, and when people were just getting by, deals could be made.

He had once
corrupted a CIA operative when he was in the intelligence field before joining Interpol. A young man by the name of James. The man had worked at a telecommunications company as a cover, and Henri had discovered him through contacts at the company. He befriended him and they began frequenting bars and picking up girls or playing tennis and watching movies. Henri understood that undercover work was difficult. Not because of the work itself, but because you can’t be honest with anyone. You have to have a mask on at all times and this creates an intense loneliness. After a brief friendship, James confessed to him why he was in France.

Slowly, Henri convinced him that the French government was
far superior to work for and more lucrative. The boy turned and began feeding him information.

Henri
didn’t feel remorse at the time for betraying his friendship because he knew it was in the best interests of his country. At that age, he would have done anything for his country.

What a fool I was
, he thought.

Henri took another sip of the espresso, which was bland, and began reading the files again. All
of Isaac Rhett’s family had passed away as had Gustav’s. Isaac was raised by his grandparents, as his parents were both alcoholics who were in and out of his life. His last-known address was in Alaska: Henri guessed it was a fake.

No information was available about Gustav’s early years. He didn’t
appear on the map until secondary school—the equivalent of high school—when he became a national chess champion: chess a skill he and Rhett shared. After high school he obtained a degree in literature from the University of Paris, which he attended on a scholarship, and then he had a period of no history for almost ten years. A complete blank with no known addresses, phone numbers, or places of employment. The next time he came back on the radar was when he began work for the Central Intelligence Agency in their paramilitary division: the same division Isaac Rhett had been recruited into. Henri wondered if the men knew each other.

He
picked up his phone and dialed. A man answered in English.

“Yes?”

“This is Henri Abbott. I am calling with a request.”

“Of course, Inspector. What can we do for you?”

“I am attempting to locate a man named Isaac Rhett with a birthday of nine twelve seventy-nine. His last-known address is false.”

“One moment please.”

Henri looked out the window at the people passing by. It always fascinated him that he could take a short plane ride and be in a completely different culture. One that held different values and prejudices. The difference between Paris and New York was not very substantial. All big cities were essentially the same. But though he worked in Paris three days a week, he lived in a village of two hundred, and Manhattan seemed as alien to him as any foreign planet.

“Inspector Abbott?”

“Yes.”

“We have the information you have requested. A false credit card known to be associated with Mr. Rhett was used at the Garden Line Motel
ninety-seven miles from your location. Shall I forward the address to you?”

“Yes, please. And thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

“That was all.”

Henri hung up, paid, and headed out the door. The hotel was only a couple hours’ drive from here.