Eye for an Eye (24 page)

*   *   *

S
ū
n M
ă
had removed his tuxedo jacket. He paced Borchardt’s basement security room. Two of Borchardt’s security men were seated, monitoring video screens. Standing behind them was another man. He was short, wiry, crew-cut, young, and Chinese. He was dressed in black tactical military clothing. This was the lead MSS agent in London, one of the ministry’s top assassins in all of Europe.

The agent stood, arms crossed, behind the seated security men. His eyes darted about the panoply of screens, keeping an eye on Dewey’s bedroom while also monitoring the party, which was beginning to thin out.

“You need to go,” said M
ă
, speaking in Mandarin to the agent. “Now. The chances of being seen are practically nonexistent.”

“Mr. Ambassador,” the agent responded, without moving his eyes from the screen, “if I need your advice, I will ask for it.”

The agent stared at a pair of screens that displayed the terrace. A small crowd continued to hover near a fountain.

*   *   *

In the alley behind Borchardt’s mansion, a white truck was parked. On its side was written
MAYFAIR & LIME CATERING CO. LTD
.

Inside sat four MSS agents, awaiting the go from the agent in the basement.

Each man wore the same black tactical military outfit, running shoes, and clutched automatic weapons—close-quarters combat submachine guns, with suppressors screwed into the muzzles.

Night-vision optics were strapped to each man’s head, ready to be pulled down at a moment’s notice.

The four killers sat in silence, earbuds in, waiting.

*   *   *

Half a world away, Fao Bhang was seated in the conference room next to his office. Ming-huá was with him. They were patched into Borchardt’s VPN, monitoring the operation in real time. It was 6:00
A.M.
in Beijing.

On the wall, a large video screen was live-linked to Borchardt’s security system. The screen displayed a dozen different views, tiled across the screen. In the upper left corner was the live feed of Dewey’s bedroom, now dark.

A triangular speaker phone sat on a table in front of Bhang and Ming-huá.

“What floor is he on?” asked Bhang, leaning toward the mic.

“Three,” came the voice of the agent in London, “in back.”

“I believe we’re close,” said Ming-huá.

He pointed at the screens. At least three-fourths of the screens were devoid of activity. One screen showed the front steps of the mansion. Couples were filing out.

“Is that a tactical order?” came the voice of the agent in London.

Bhang pointed at a screen showing a man and a woman kissing in a shadowy corner of the back terrace.

“No,” said Bhang sharply. “Mr. Borchardt was kind enough to notify us. In return, what he asked for was discretion and cleanliness. We wait until the party is over.”

*   *   *

Borchardt stood near the front door, saying goodbye to his guests as they filed out. The party was coming to a close, though many people still continued to mill about. The sound of a Mozart sonata, played with utmost skill by the violinist, lent a soothing, elegant air to the din.

When one of Borchardt’s servants walked nearby, Borchardt snapped his fingers.

“Go tell the violin to pack it up,” he said. “Last song.”

*   *   *

Dewey lay in bed for just over an hour, eyes open, staring at the dark bedroom, with the sounds of the party echoing softly up from the terrace and gardens at the rear of the estate.

In the dark, he climbed from his bed. He pulled on his jeans, T-shirt, and a pair of running shoes from his duffel. He went to the window and stepped behind the curtain.

Quietly, he climbed onto the brass banister and stared down at the gardens below. The party had thinned out. Only a few couples were still on the terrace. The music from the violin abruptly stopped.

Dewey reached up and placed his hands on the eave. He wrapped his fingertips around the front of the eave. He stepped off the banister into the open air, clinging onto the eave with both hands. For several seconds, he hung from the eave, dangling above the gardens three stories below, then threw his right foot up onto the eave. He pulled himself up to the roof.

The roof was pitch-black. Floodlights every six feet cast light up, out, and down from the flat roof, toward the gardens, the sides of the house, and, in front, at Upper Phillimore Gardens.

He stood in the shadows catching his breath.

He moved quietly across the roof to the front of the mansion. He leaned over the edge, clinging to the roof eave, and lowered himself. He was hanging now, staring into a well-lit room, inside of which stood a large red billiards table. A couple, a young blond man with glasses and his tuxedo jacket off, and a woman in a pink dress, was in the room. She was watching him prepare to hit the ball.

Dewey inched along the roof eave, dangling three stories over the sidewalk. He could see people below, couples talking, a man walking a black Labrador retriever. Down the sidewalk, at the entrance to Borchardt’s, a pair of armed guards stood watch.

The next window was dark. Dewey swung in and dropped, grabbing the railing. His feet slammed into the limestone beneath the window, barely missing the glass. Slowly, cautiously, he lowered his hands from the banister to the landing where his feet were. He clutched the edge of the landing, then lowered himself again, so that he now hung outside a window on the second floor.

As he dangled in the dark, he scanned the room. It was the biggest bedroom in the house. It was also the only bedroom that wouldn’t have security cameras peering in; Borchardt liked his privacy.

Dewey felt for the railing with his shoe. He stepped delicately atop the railing, then climbed down onto the small terrace in front of the window.

From his pocket, Dewey removed a small ice pick, which he’d taken from the bar. He stuck it into the seam between the upper and lower windows.

Dewey knew Borchardt had a state-of-the-art security system, more than capable of detecting penetrations at doors and windows. He guessed that the system would be off for the party. He popped the latch, then lifted the window open.

*   *   *

The agent in the basement security room pulled a pair of thin leather gloves from his pocket and pulled them on. He reached to his ear.

“We’re near hard count,” said the agent, scanning the screens, which were mostly blank and lifeless. “The right gate is the open access. Move in one-minute intervals along the right side of the gardens to the door closest to the swimming pool. I’ll meet you inside the door. Give me a weapons check.”

*   *   *

Inside the delivery truck, the four agents, one by one, checked their machine guns, then responded to the lead agent.

“Over one.”

“Two.”

“Over three.”

“Four, out.”

Each man pulled the night optics down over his eyes.

*   *   *

“Hold,” said the lead agent. He continued to stare at the screens. He saw movement in one of the rooms.

“What’s that?” he asked in English, pointing.

“Staff,” said one of Borchardt’s men with a heavy Russian accent. “Cook.”

The agent swung his submachine gun from around his back, to his front. He checked the magazine without looking, then pressed his ear.

“On my go,” said the agent in Mandarin. “I want dark COMM. No talk. We move on my lead.”

*   *   *

Dewey moved silently to Borchardt’s bed. He opened the drawer of a bedside table. Beneath a book, a handgun lay in the drawer: Glock 24 with a suppressor. He checked the magazine, making sure it was good to go.

He went to a closet, pulled a shoelace from one of Borchardt’s shoes, then put it through the trigger guard and tied a knot around his neck so that the Glock now hung at his neck. He stuffed an extra mag in his jeans pocket.

Dewey got down on his knees and looked beneath the bed. He reached under the bed and pulled out an MP7A1.

Dewey knew Borchardt was paranoid. He didn’t think he was this paranoid.

At the window, he took the ice pick and jabbed it into the curtain. He tore off a long strip of silk from the curtain. He tied it through the MP7’s trigger guard, then made a knot. He made a sling, wrapping it around his neck. He strapped the MP7 across his back, then tightened the sling.

*   *   *

Bhang lit a cigarette as he waited in the conference room, watching the operation unfold.

Ming-huá glanced up at him.

“Are we good?” he asked.

“Something doesn’t feel right,” said Bhang, deep in thought.

“What do you want to do?” asked Ming-huá. “I can abort.”

Bhang shook his head without saying anything.

“Proceed,” said Bhang.

Ming-huá turned and leaned into the mic.

“Lead one, you have tactical authority,” said Ming-huá, into the mic. “You’re hot.”

*   *   *

Borchardt sat in the library, leg bouncing nervously, sipping a vodka, staring at the Chinese ambassador, S
ū
n M
ă
, who paced back and forth across the room.

“The guests are gone,” said M
ă
, looking at Borchardt. “Honestly, what can be taking so long?”

Borchardt stared at M
ă
.

“Stop talking,” said Borchardt. “I told you, I don’t want to know about it. I don’t want to hear about it.”

“I apologize,” said M
ă
.

Borchardt shut his eyes. He took another sip of his drink, trying to quell the guilt he now felt.

“Tell me about the party,” said Borchardt. “How was it? Did the guests enjoy themselves?”

“Yes, Rolf,” said M
ă
, smiling, attempting to relax. “It was a wonderful evening. The food was absolutely out of this world.”

*   *   *

Dewey climbed back out through Borchardt’s bedroom window. He stepped up to the railing. He reached up to the eave and pulled himself to the third floor. From the third floor landing, he grabbed the eave and lifted himself back onto the roof.

He sprinted in the darkness to the rear of the roof.

The terrace and gardens were empty. A staff member carried a tray of glasses toward the house.

Dewey leaned down to the edge of the roof.

*   *   *

The lead agent scanned the video screens one last time. He unlatched his night optics from his belt and pulled them over his head, then down over his eyes. He walked to the door and exited into a darkened basement. He flipped on the optics.

“Go,” he said.

*   *   *

The order came to the four agents in the truck. The agent closest to the rear of the truck opened the door.

He pointed at the agent across from him. That man jumped from the truck to the ground. He scanned the alley, then moved to the gate. He opened it and skulked in silence along the right edge of the property, clinging to the shadows. He came to a swimming pool, moved around it, and entered the mansion through a glass door.

In one-minute intervals, the other agents followed.

The four men gathered inside a darkened greenhouse, next to the swimming pool. They waited in silence.

Lead one, the agent from the basement, arrived a few seconds after the last man from the truck. He signaled for the agents to follow him.

They moved two by two, with one man trailing, down a dark hallway to a stairwell, then climbed quietly, one step at a time, up the stairs. At the third floor, the lead agent halted the others with a hand signal. They listened for more than a minute, hearing nothing except the occasional clink of glasses or a faint voice from downstairs.

*   *   *

Dewey stood next to the bed. He was drenched in sweat and breathing hard.

He untied the sling from around his neck, then the shoelace, putting the Glock between his jeans and his back.

He went to the bed and stuffed pillows under the sheets to make it look like he was asleep.

He moved to the corner, feeling the wall for a light switch. Just before the corner of the room, he found it.

To his left, six feet away, was the door. In front of him was the bed. He checked the magazine on the MP7, then moved the safety off. He set the fire selector to full auto. He spread his feet and waited.

He gripped the SMG in his hands, right finger on the ceramic trigger, and thought of Jessica. He could never get her back. But tonight would begin the healing process. He heard his own breathing, counting as he breathed in and out, trying to calm his rapidly beating heart.

He heard a noise from the hallway. The distant creaking of wood, like someone had stepped on a loose board. Dewey suddenly heard the metal of the doorknob as it turned. Dim light came in through the crack as the door opened.

He counted the first man, then another, and still a third. They moved in silence, like ghosts. He saw the outline of suppressors sticking out from machine guns, then the telltale geometrics of the night optics on their heads.

The three agents moved to the end of the bed, raising their weapons, preparing to fire.

A fourth man entered and stood at the door.

It’s all you can do, Dewey. It’s all you could ever do.

Dewey put his left hand to the light switch. One of the gunman, at the back of the bed, nodded to the others. The metallic thuds of suppressed submachine-gun fire echoed softly in the room as they triggered their weapons at the bed, full auto, sweeping across the mattress, leaving no area unscathed.

Dewey flipped the switch. The room burst yellow as light filled the room.

He pulled the trigger. The MP7 didn’t have a suppressor. The staccato peal of submachine-gun fire was shocking. Dewey took down the agent at the door, then swept the MP7 right, head-high, across the three gunman, who, in the confusion and in the sudden light, started pelting the walls with slugs. The three men tumbled to the ground amid the sound of shattering glass and gunfire.

Dewey sprinted to the door and, clutching the butt of the MP7, reached around the doorframe, trigger depressed, firing on full auto. He caught the last killer at the end of the hallway, ripping slugs through his legs, sending him tumbling to the ground.