Assassin (22 page)

“Mr. Ambassador,” a Fox News reporter at the rear of the crowd shouted, “Your remarks are clearly a departure from what we’ve been hearing out of Washington. Does the secretary of state approve of your position? We are hearing, sir, that she definitely does not.”

“I have expressed my personal views to the secretary. I am sure—Excuse me. Something is—Jesus Christ!”

Merriman staggered back from the podium, bending as if to untie his shoes. There was thick white smoke around his feet, seeming to come from the sole of one of his shoes, his right shoe.

“Holy God!” McIntosh screamed at the television, jumping to his feet. “Willie Pete!”

“What?” Delacroix said.

“White phosphorus!” the man yelled over his shoulder as he crashed, shattering wood and glass, through the French doors leading to the garden. Delacroix remained seated, her eyes glued to the television. Like her own eyes, the screen was filled with madness.

Merriman rolled on the ground in agony. The DSS agents were screaming at the press and embassy staff to get back. Every agent knew white phosphorus, colloquially referred to as Willie Pete, when he saw it, knew it had a six-second fuse and a casualty radius of thirty yards or more. They also knew the chemical ignited upon contact with air and instantaneously reached a temperature of three thousand degrees, enough to burn through steel armor.

An aide, who’d been standing just behind the ambassador, had the large pitcher of water from the podium and was approaching Merriman. Zachary and Duncan were frozen in place, watching in horror at the sight of their father writhing on the ground, thick white smoke streaming from his shoe.

“No!” McIntosh shouted, racing towards the aide with the pitcher. “Water is useless! You have to smother it! Christ! Get those kids out of here! Don’t let them see this!”

Merriman rolled towards his boys, his face a mask of pain. Aides were desperately trying to cover their eyes and pull them away from him, but the boys were kicking and screaming to be let go, trying to pull their arms free, looking back and crying out to their father.

Daddy! Oh, Please, Daddy! Please don’t die, Daddy…

The only possible way to extinguish white phosphorus was by smothering it. Ripping his suit coat off, knowing it was probably already too late for that, Agent Rip McIntosh dove onto Merriman, rolling with him, trying desperately to smother the goddamn Willie Pete with his jacket and his body. McIntosh was slapping at the ambassador’s shoe soles, ignoring the flecks of phosphorus already burning gaping holes in his bare palms.

That’s when the white phosphorus packed into the heels of both of Ambassador Merriman’s shoes burned completely through. Once exposed to air, it ignited into a flash of searing flame. The two Americans rolling on the ground were instantly incinerated, their bodies unrecognizable three seconds later.

The cameras were still rolling, broadcasting to every corner of the globe the image of the two screaming boys being dragged away from the charred black sticks that had once been an American ambassador and his would-be savior.

The beautiful
hashishiyyun
extinguished her cigarette in the crystal ashtray that bore the engraved seal of the American State Department. She rose from her chair and plucked the sprig of lily of the Valley from the buttonhole of her jacket. Tossing the fragrant flower into the ashtray, she took one final look out into the garden and then strode from the room. She made her way through the embassy, past screaming and panicked staffers, and down the service hallways leading to the kitchen. There was a small vegetable garden just outside the kitchen door. She walked through the garden and into the sycamore trees along the wall. She flung her shoulder bag over the wall, and, in a matter of seconds, Lily was over the wall herself.

Twenty minutes later she was standing at the peeling double doors of a crumbling nondescript building at the end of a dark cobblestone
allée
on the Ile de la Cité. The door cracked open and a tall woman in magenta let her inside the shadowy foyer. It was the beautiful Aubergine. High priestess of the
hashishiyyun
safe house in Paris.

A
LEXANDER
H
AWKE SEIZED
K
ERIM IN A BEAR GRIP, CLASPING
both arms around his violently twisting body, pinning his arms to his sides, and saying to the man standing above with the machine gun, “If you want me, you have to go through him.”

The man laughed.

“We’re all going the same place tonight, my friend.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Paradise by any other name,” the man said with a smile in his voice, “would smell as sweet.”

“Doesn’t matter a damn to me, Shakespeare.”

“I am a Sheikh, not Shakespeare. I write only death sentences.”

“Spare me.”

The man grunted as he bent down and lifted the metal hatch-cover by one corner, positioning it with his foot, keeping the gun on Hawke and his own struggling son. He fitted one edge of the cover into the hatch and let it fall with a heavy metallic clang.

“No!” Kerim cried in the sudden darkness. “Father!”

“You heard Papa, Kerim,” Alex said. We’re all in the same boat, as it were.”

“I can’t breathe!”

“Then drop the bleeding pistol like I told you to do. Ready?”

“Shit!”

“Exactly my feeling.”

Hawke tightened his grip sharply and the boy dropped the Browning. Hawke immediately released him, seized the weapon, and brought both his knees up off the floor, catapulting Kerim over his head and slamming him against the bulkhead. There was a whuff of expelled air, a groan, and then silence. Hawke sat up and turned to face the one-time officer of the Dark Harbor PD.

Single portholes on either side of the engine room allowed him just enough moonlight to make out the dark shape crouching by the portside engine. One hand out, crabbing across the greasy metal floor, the boy was searching for something to throw at him, no doubt. Looking for a loose wrench or a screwdriver. Above, sounds of Kerim’s father moving about, making final preparations for his oceangoing jihad. A scraping noise above just then, a large piece of furniture being shoved into place, sealing the hatch-cover.

The stink of motor oil and fear sweat down here would make the hold a lousy tomb.

“Don’t even think about it!” Hawke said, squeezing the trigger. The vicious crack of the round was enough to send Kerim scuttling back into hiding behind one of the diesels. Hawke felt the sensation of water now moving past the hull. After a second, he heard the thin whirr of the electric prop coming from the stern. Kerim’s father was out on the swim platform, steering
Running Tide
into the westerly current where it would soon drift down on
Blackhawke.

If Hawke had this scenario right, time was rapidly running out.

He fired another round and blew out the porthole just above the boy’s head. “Hello?” Hawke said, “Still with me?” He squeezed the trigger once more and heard the sharp click of a dry-fired hammer. Empty.

“Y-yes?” the boy said, as the weapon clattered across the steel deck.

“Has to be a rechargeable flashlight mounted somewhere on the engine room bulkhead, Kerim. Where?”

“I d-don’t know.”

“Right. I forgot. You’re a policeman, not a sailor.”

“I like being a policeman.”

“You should have thought of that earlier.”

“I like Maine, too. I like America. I don’t want to die. I have…a friend. The most beautiful girl. Her name is Millie and—”

“Let’s make sure I understand this. A cop running around the Maine woods in a suicide belt who loves America.”

“My father, he made me do this. Wear the belt. He hates America. He and my mother have killed many Americans. When she injected the children at the—”

“The woman who posed as the nurse, murdered all those children. That was your mother?”

“Y-yes.”

“And the girl who killed the Slade family. Your sister.”

“Yes.”

“Chief Ainslie never suspected you? Surely there was a background check.”

“We come from Pakistan. But we lived in Athens for many years before coming to this country. My father met a man there. The Emir, he was called. He and my father killed a poor farm family named Savalas and we took their identities. I’ve been a police officer for five years. Three locations. Decorated for heroism in Seattle. A fire.”

“And your mother?”

“She is a registered nurse. Trained at Mt. Sinai. Really. Good cover.”

“Christ.”

“Yes. We are highly trained. We spend years learning how to weave threads into the fabric. Once we strike, we move on to another town and begin again.”

“Schoolchildren, Kerim. Babies, damn you!”

“My people have suffered, too. This is blood vengeance. We seek only justice.”

“You call it justice? Your mother poisons children. Your sister slaughters a mother and two children sleeping in their beds. Bloody hell, boy, it’s murder!”

“I—saw them in that house. The children. It was horrible. I believe that—I am sorry for what my sister did. Truly sorry.”

“Beyond nauseating what now passes for evangelism. Religious fascism. Talk fast, Kerim. Tell me what you and your father are doing on this boat. Now.”

“We have—a bomb.”

“Bomb. I assumed as much. Where?”

“Up in the bow. He packed TNT up there. Almost half of a ton—”

“Who dies for righteousness this time? The good citizens of Nantucket Island?”

“No. You, Mr. Hawke.”

“Me? I’m hardly worth the effort.”

“Our plan is to go along beside your boat. Pretending to have engine trouble. Then explode the bomb.”

“And you’re just along for the ride.”

“My father, he knows my true feelings. He made me wear the belt always so I would not warn Chief Ainslie what we were—there is a lock on the belt. I cannot remove it. He has a remote detonator always. He says he will sacrifice me if—if I try to…”

The boy was whimpering now, rocking back and forth with his arms around his knees. Pitiful, if not pathetic.

“Christ. The TNT, Kerim, focus on that. Is it on a remote as well?”

“No. A timer.”

“Where’s the timer?”

“Up there. Wired to the explosives.”

“Don’t move,” Hawke said, “I’ll be right back. Try not to blow yourself up while I’m gone.”

Blackhawke
was completely vulnerable right now, Alex thought, feeling his way forward, moving as quickly as possible in the tight quarters of the dark engine room. Good Christ Almighty.

Security levels were at full alert, well and good, but a million-dollar lobster yacht with a Maine hailing port in gold leaf on her transom just might be sufficiently far-fetched to get through.

He found the half-ton of justice neatly packaged in waterproof oilskins, enough to level a city block. The water flowing outside the hull was moving faster. They would be getting close to
Blackhawke
now. Christ. He’d never find the timer in time. Hawke scrambled back to the love-struck terrorist.

“We’re all out of time, Kerim. The explosives are definitely on a timer, not an impact detonator, is that right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“When is it set to explode?”

“At exactly four a.m.”

Alex looked at his watch. Less than six minutes! They were drifting now, floating with the current towards
Blackhawke.
Suddenly, a powerful searchlight swept across
Running Tide,
lighting up her engine room. He heard the muffled voice of one of his own crewmen, hailing the disabled vessel over a loudspeaker. The voice lacked the authoritarian harshness of a direct challenge. They were clearly buying this act. It would be a close thing. Looking feverishly about, he saw the outline of a small door in the aft bulkhead. It must lead to the crawl space beneath the after deck where he’d boarded. There were two access hatches there, aft of the pilothouse, opening directly up onto the outside deck. He’d seen them when he first boarded.

“One more question, Kerim. Who sent you and your family to America? This Emir?”

“No. Another man. He is called by some the Dog.”

“Is this Dog still alive?”

“I believe that he is, yes, sir.”

“What is his real name?”

Silence.

“You dare not speak it, or you don’t know?”

“Yes.”

“All right. I’m going to get us out of here. It will most likely be necessary for me to kill your father. Do you want to come along or not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do what I tell you, then. You say you can’t get rid of that bloody vest?”

“No, sir. It’s locked to my body.”

“Christ. Let me take a look. Good God, it’s…”

“Secured with a metal pin through my pelvis. My mother implanted it.”

Hawke looked at the boy’s punctured hip, unable to speak. What kind of mother could do that to—he heard voices above. Time to move. “All right, Kerim. Let’s go.”

“Ahoy,
Running Tide!
” came the muffled voice of one of his crew. “Captain! Do you require assistance?”

No reply.

The door, fitted into the bulkhead and leading aft, was, as Alex had prayed, not locked. Hawke went through first, followed closely by Kerim. They crouched in the semidarkness of the crawl space, listening. One of the two hatches above was forward of the spot where the boy’s father was now standing.

Hawke drew a breath. The boat’s stern had dipped ever so slightly. The terrorist’s weight had just shifted aft. He must have climbed up onto the transom. Hawke could almost see him, waving his hands, his face a mask of embarrassment and abject apology. The question was, would Tom Quick recognize the Middle Eastern inflection in his voice or would it be lost in the wind? The man’s speech patterns were definitely not Down East Maine.

Hawke pressed one hand up against the underside of the hatch cover and applied pressure. It moved.

“Kerim,” he whispered, looking at the glowing numerals of his dive watch and then at the dark figure crouched beside him. “I’m going up through this hatch. Give me thirty seconds, then you use the other hatch. Come up fast and roll to either side. No matter what you see, just get yourself overboard and swim away from this boat as quickly as you can.”

Hawke wouldn’t wish seeing your own father die on anyone. He’d been there. He saw it still. He would always see it.

Kerim said nothing, just stared at Hawke with an unreadable expression. Alex looked at the sweep second hand of his watch. Coming up on four minutes before the hour. Bloody hell, it might already be too late.

Hawke coiled his body, squatting deeply to get as much leverage out of his legs as possible. He reached up and placed both palms on the underside of the hatch cover, filled his lungs with air, and then exploded upwards in a single fluid movement.

He heaved the heavy cover out of the way as he rolled left across the deck. Kerim’s father, now disguised in the dead man’s yellow slicker, stood atop the transom shouting to a crewman aboard
Blackhawke.
The gleaming black side of her massive hull loomed above the small yacht’s deck. There were perhaps twenty feet of water remaining between the two rapidly closing vessels.

The hatch cover landed with a thud and the Arab jerked his head around, astounded at the sight of Hawke rolling across the deck. He glanced hurriedly at his watch, then looked back up at the crew lining the rail above him, clearly unsure of which way to play this out in the time and distance remaining.

Running Tide
now lay directly alongside
Blackhawke
’s towering hull, dwarfed by the yacht. A crewman above was throwing down a line as the terrorist pulled a pistol from inside the yellow slicker and swung the muzzle of the gun towards Alex, who was now rolling right. He squeezed off two shots, the rounds ripping into the teak deck less than a foot in front of his target. Hawke scrambled to his feet, raised the Browning, and put two rounds through the terrorist’s heart. The wallop of the parabellum hollow points slammed the dead man backwards, pinwheeling him into the water.

“Kerim!” Alex shouted, scrambling over the transom and onto the swim platform. “Go! Go!” He twisted the electric motor’s throttle and the Hinckley moved off. It was painfully slow.

The shadowy figure of the boy appeared. He climbed up out of the hold, rolled across the deck, and got unsteadily to his feet.

“Jump!” Hawke said. “Get away as fast as you can!”

“I don’t—the belt! The weight. I don’t know if I can swim.”

“Yes you can. Use your arms. You’ve got to go, now.” Hawke turned away to get his bearings. He heard a splash and saw Kerim’s head bobbing above the surface a few feet away. He was paddling frantically, coughing and swallowing water. He wasn’t going anywhere, but he was afloat.

Alex Hawke knew he now had perhaps three minutes, maybe less. He pushed the electric motor’s tiller hard over and twisted the throttle, angling his bow away from
Blackhawke.
Every searchlight was trained on him now and sirens were wailing from stem to stern. Crewmen lined the rails on every deck, all of them with automatic weapons trained on the suddenly suspicious vessel. Battle stations.