Diary of an Assassin (21 page)

CHAPTER
56

Henri sat in the chair just inside the terminal for three hours before he had to get up and use the bathroom. He walked over to a McDonald’s and ordered oatmeal with strawberries and an orange juice. A friendly TSA officer came up and began speaking to him about how one gets into Interpol and what credentials one would need to apply. Henri was polite and told him everything he wanted to know, but his eyes remained on the entrance and the metal detectors.

By now, the
FBI was here. Several plainclothes agents were stationed inside and outside the terminal. Henri, who wouldn’t be involved in the takedown, really had no place here, but he wanted to be here and see for himself. He had to see the cuffs placed on Gustav and him hauled down and put in a cell. Otherwise, he wasn’t going to believe it.

As Henri walked down the terminal and
returned to his seat, one allowing him an unobstructed view of the entrance, he saw a man in a white shirt and black suit walking toward him. The man sat next to him and didn’t say anything at first.

“You know,” Henri said, “J
. Edgar Hoover is dead. You don’t have to use his dress code anymore.”

“We’ve met once before,” the man said
. “You taught a seminar on facial sketching at Quantico.”

“That seems like a lifetime ago. Were you a cadet?”

“They’re called special agents in training and yes I was.”

“So what can I do for you?”

“There are eight terminals. What makes you so certain he’s coming into this one?”

“This is where the flights for Africa leave from.”

“Why is he going to Africa?”

“He has a kinship with that place.
Heart of Darkness
and such.”

“Never read it. What part of Africa?”

“Algeria.”

“They don’t have reciprocity with the United States. They won’t extradite him if he gets there.”

“Well then we’ll just have to make sure he never gets there, no?”

The man glanced to him and then away. “I was on the special task force that helped capture him the first time. Before he was extradited to France and that idiot judge granted him bail. I understand he was serving a life sentence
on something else before you let him out?”

“I was not the one that let him out. That little gesture is courtesy of your Department of Homeland Security.”

“I wasn’t told about that.”

“What you haven’t been told can fill volumes, Special Agent. Now if you’ll excuse me I’d like to get back to watching the entrance.”

The man watched him a moment before rising and walking off, melting back into the crowd though Henri knew Gustav would spot him in less than a minute. Then again, he was acting erratic and making completely irrational decisions. Killing when he didn’t need to, kidnapping someone for no apparent purpose. Maybe he would just walk in here and try to engage in a shootout. Henri had considered the possibility and brought it up with TSA but they weren’t willing to close the airport on his word.

His cell phone rang and he saw it was Vanessa. He let it ring a couple of times and then answered.

“Are you back yet?”

“Yeah, I just walked into my apartment. Guess what? Mitchell was killed.”

“Phelps? How?”

“How do you think? Santos called me and said I should leave town for a while.”

“Where was he killed?”

“In his office.”

“In DC?”

“Yes.”

Henri jumped up. “Get out of your apartment now, Vanessa.”

The line went dead.

CHAPTER
57

When Vanessa went through the metal detectors she couldn’t help but glance back once to Henri, who was watching her. She smiled at him before heading out to her gate. It was completely unfair that men seemed to grow more handsome as they aged. But then again they were cursed with sexual obsession that ran their lives in a way that a woman could never experience or understand.

She recalled a study that had occurred at her university where an extremely attractive twenty-
five-year-old female went up to strangers, men, and told them she was attracted to them and asked if they would like to go to her apartment and have sex. Over seventy percent of the men agreed. When the same study had been done with a male, a Brad Pitt look-alike, exactly zero women had agreed. Not a single one. It seemed that the priority of the sexes was completely off balance and she was surprised they were able to even live in the same society much less in the same homes.

As she waited at her gate for her flight, she kept looking back. A small part of her thought that Henri might come to her. What they would say to each other or do after that she wasn’t sure, but she thought that perhaps he still felt the way she did. She had chosen work over him once and she regretted
it now. The career turned to nothing and Henri was still the same man she had loved so long ago. Or at least thought she loved. It was brief as they’d only known each other a month before their weekends spent together, but it was the closest she had felt to a man.

As her flight was called, she kept looking behind her, but he never came. She
boarded and sat in her seat, leaning her head back to try to sleep. The flight was an hour and ten minutes and she wanted to sleep the entire time. But a large man with a briefcase that he wouldn’t let go of sat next to her and immediately struck up a conversation.

“Where you headed?”

“Same place you are,” she said, her eyes still closed.

“I meant your final destination. Mine’s Miami.” She didn’t respond and he continued. “Yup, gotta get to Miami quick. Got
a big real estate deal about to go down. I buy houses in the ghettos and then fix ’em up and flip ’em. Good living in that. It’s actually better after the crash. It’s one of ’em businesses that gets better when the economy gets worse. I buy houses now for fifteen grand that woulda cost me fifty just two years ago.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but I’d just like to sleep if you don’t mind.”

“Oh, yeah, sure.”

Within five minutes, the man had struck up a conversation with another man seated on the opposite side of her. She exhaled, realizing sleep
would be impossible, and rose, heading to the bathroom. In the little mirror they had up, she checked her hair and make-up, something she almost never did, to kill time. One of the stewardesses stood near the bathroom and she smiled.

“You look tired
, hon,” she said.

“Rough day at the office
.”

“Yeah, tr
y bein’ groped and yelled at by these drunk assholes.” She took out a package of gum and put a stick in her mouth. She offered one to Vanessa, who took it and leaned against the bathroom door.

“Don’t suppose you could get me another seat, could you?”

“It’s a full flight. Sorry.”

“
I know. I tried to get first-class but there was nothing left. Not a big deal in the scheme of things.”

She went and squeezed between the two men
as they discussed what cities have the best bars to get drunk in. They were both in sales and both tried to speak to her several times. She began reading a book on her cell phone and tried to ignore them as much as possible.

By the time the flight ended, she realized they had done one thing for her:
they had made her completely forget what was going on in her own life. Now it hit her that Mitchell was dead, the Messenger was dead, and Santos had left town—if what he’d told her on the phone was true. You never really knew in this town. Everyone had their own agendas and fought tooth and nail to achieve what they wanted.

She hailed a cab out on the curb and gave her address. The cabbie would stare at her in the rearview mirror and ask her about the relationships she was in. Though men had hit on her since she was eleven years old, it never ceased to amaze her that that was the only thing they saw.
Despite all her attributes and memories and skills and experiences and perspectives on life and the universe, and the million other subjects she was interested in, all they saw was a pair of tits.

When the cab stopped, s
he still tipped him well before stepping out into the night. The air was cold but the sky was clear and the crescent moon above was bright. She looked at the Big Dipper a moment before going into her home. As she opened her door and stepped inside, she remembered that Henri was still at the airport and probably hadn’t heard about Mitchell.

Walking into the kitchen, she took out her cell phone and dialed his number.

“Are you back yet?” he said as a greeting.

“Yeah, I just walked into my apartment. Guess what? Mitchell was killed.”

“Phelps? How?”

“How do you think? Santos called me and said I should leave town for a while.”

“Where was he killed?”

“In his office.”

“In DC?”

“Yes.”

“Get out of your apartment now, Vanessa.”

She was about to respond when
she saw something out of the corner of her eye, behind the island in the kitchen. They were feet. She walked back there and saw the body of a man lying on her kitchen floor. Blood was pooling around his head. She hung up the phone without saying anything and laid it down on the counter.

Vanessa bent down over the man. He
was young, his eyes were open, and he was holding a handgun. She reached for her phone when she heard a noise behind her and turned. Gustav sat at her dining room table in the dark. A young woman was in the seat next to him, staring down at the placemat in front of her.

“He beat me here,” he said.

“What are you doing here?”

“I think it is more interesting
to ask what he was doing here, no?”

“I want you to get out of my apartment, Gustav. Our business is through.”

He made a sucking sound through his teeth. “I do not believe it is.”

“Why’d you kill Mitchell? He never did anything to you.”

“He hired me.”

“So what?”

“So I am doing housecleaning.”

She folded her arms. “The expression is cleaning house.”

He shrugged and stood up. The young girl at the table looked over as he pulled the pistol out of his waistband and held it low.

“You kill for a living and yet you look at me as
if I am evil.”

“I kill when necessary in the interests of my country,” Vanessa said.

“Is that what they told you? That this is for your country? That is what they tell poor fools that die in deserts and jungles because a politician wants them to. That is what you do: you serve the whim of the powerful and help them be remembered. It is pointless. You are pointless. But do not feel bad. So am I.”

He began lifting the weapon. The girl at the table screamed, “No!” and jumped at him. She pushed the gun down and wrapped her arms around him.

“Run!”

Vanessa didn’t wait. She sprinted for the front door and shut it behind her just as she heard the spit of the silenced pistol. Darting for her elevator, she hit the down button and waited.
She looked back to her door and heard a scream. The door flung open and Gustav stormed out.

Vanessa ran for the door leading to the stairs. She shut it behind her and turned
the lock. Through the viewing window she could see Gustav begin to run toward her. She threw off her high heels and descended the stairs two at a time. The stairs were cold to the touch, and she could hear Gustav trying to break through the door behind her.

Her apartment was four flights up
. She rounded the third floor and kept going. She got down to the second floor and then took that door and ran down the hall. He would be waiting on the first floor.

She sprinted past a couple in the hallway coming out of their apartment. Heading down the hall to the emergency exit, she stopped
and looked for Gustav behind her before continuing through the exit outside.

Running down a flight of stairs, she ended up at the back of the building. A groce
ry store neighbored her building and she ran for the fence. As she climbed up and pulled herself over, she felt a burning in her calve like a hot knife had entered her and she screamed as she toppled over on the other side. She lay on her back, staring up at the night sky for a moment before she pulled herself to her feet.

A black figure, hidden by the shadows, was
stalking around the apartment building to where she was. She used the fence to straighten up and then started limping toward the grocery store. Using cars in the parking lot for balance, she hobbled inside.

One of the employees was straightening up the shopping carts and saw her
. His eyes went wide as he saw the trail of blood behind her.

“Do you have police here?” she said.

He nodded without saying anything and pointed to a police officer that was leaning over a counter and speaking with one of the cashiers. Vanessa walked over to him.

“My name is Vanessa Hailsto
rm and I—”

Part of t
he officer’s head exploded in a waterfall of blood and brains. His corpse toppled onto the counter as the cashier screamed. A round entered her open mouth and blew out the back of her head, sending the body flying back into the next cashier’s aisle.

Vanessa
hurried up one of the aisles as best she could, but she couldn’t go much faster than a hobble. She turned and saw that no one was following her. Blood filled her right stocking and she left a red footprint as she walked. She got to the end of the aisle and turned right. A muzzle pressed against her chest.

He didn’t say anything as he pulled the trigger. She didn’t hear the round that entered her heart but she did smell the gunpowder. She was suddenly on her back but didn’t remember getting there. Her head felt light and a
surge of euphoria made her smile before she closed her eyes.