LACKING VIRTUES (15 page)

He heard the floor squeak.

His heart started to beat more rapidly. How long till the Halcion worked? A half hour, an hour? He wished it would hurry. There were always harmless little noises at night. They sounded ominous, and you always felt a jolt of adrenaline when you heard them, but they were never anything to worry about.

Yet there was always that nagging doubt until you knew for sure.

He felt a chill go down his spine. He wanted to return to the bedroom, crawl under the covers and hide his head.

The leather sofa emitted a tiny groan, a sound he knew well. Someone – or something – was in the living room. But who? What? The doors and windows were locked, he’d been careful to make sure of that ever since he had been summoned to the Hilton. The chances of a burglar were minimal. Maybe an animal had crawled down the chimney, or Sean was sleep-walking.

Just find out what it is and you can go to bed.

He started toward the hallway.

He smelled tobacco. A rush of horror took his breath away. There
was
an intruder in his house. He wished he had a gun. He wanted to flee out the back door but how could he? His wife and son were asleep in the house.

He grabbed the fire extinguisher they kept wedged in the space beside the fridge and tiptoed down the hallway to the living room. He flicked on the light switch and his blood froze. A stranger was sitting on the sofa, casually smoking a cigarette.

He wasn’t armed, thank God for that. Wayne jerked the safety ring from the extinguisher. “What the hell are you doing in my house?”

“Good morning, Wayne. Have a seat, please. I would like to do this quietly. No need disturbing the others.”

Wayne put a hand on the book case to steady himself. It was the voice from his endless nightmare.

“Mr. Hecht,” he stammered. “What are you doing here? Do you need more information?”

The man smiled pleasantly. He had thin lips and hair combed straight back. He looked very cosmopolitan, very poised. “No, Wayne. You have met your last obligation.”

“Then
why
are you here?”

“You must be quiet, Wayne, very quiet. If you make a sound, you will leave me no choice. Do the right thing. Put the extinguisher down. Save your wife and son.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Tell me what you want. Just tell me. You know me. You know I’ll do it.”

“I told you, Wayne. Put the extinguisher down.”

“Listen, Mr. Hecht. Be reasonable. I gave you everything you wanted. I’ll never talk.”

Hecht laughed softly. “Are you begging for your life, Wayne?”

He was shaking violently now, he couldn’t hide it. If he was going to fight, he’d better do it before he passed out. He readied the extinguisher. “I’m begging you to get out of here.”

“Shhh! The others.”

Wayne gaped, paralyzed, as Hecht slid a long slender switch blade from his pocket. He snapped it open, then picked up a sofa cushion with his free hand.

“Drop the extinguisher, Wayne,” he whispered.

Wayne gritted his teeth and squeezed the trigger. A stream of foam shot out of the nozzle. Hecht backed up in slow motion, protecting his face with the cushion.

The stream soon fizzled, and Hecht threw his shield into the heap of foam on the floor. He was angry, his face contorted with silent rage.

“Wayne?” Lori called from the bedroom. “Wayne, are you all right?”

“Get out of the house!” he shouted. “Run for help.”

“Wayne! What’s wrong?” 

She was coming, he could hear her bare footsteps on the parquet floor. He could also see Hecht, a foam man with a clean face and a malevolent smile circling like a panther to the point where the hallway opened into the living room.

“Lori, watch out! Stop!”

“Wayne!” She ignored him, came toward him, sleepy-eyed and confused.

Hecht pounced on her from behind. It all happened so quickly Wayne wasn’t sure he had hurt her. Then she fell and he saw the blood spurt from her back.

Sean burst into the room, looked around and started screaming at the top of his lungs.

Wayne no longer knew what he was doing. He hurled the heavy metal extinguisher at Hecht’s head. Hecht ducked out of the way. Wayne picked up an end table.

“Run, Sean!” he cried. “Run!”

Before the boy could flee, Hecht caught him by the hair, yanked his head back and slit his throat. Sean made a gurgling sound as Hecht shoved him away.

“You’ve made a mess of it, Wayne. It was not very courageous of you. But you’re a nice fellow, even Ingrid thought so. I hope you’ll forgive me if I shower in your home and borrow some of your clothes. Now, take your shot. Let’s get it over with. I’m on a tight schedule.”

Hecht was moving slowly, deliberately toward him, stiletto drawn.

Wayne hurled the end table. Hecht stepped out of its path and kept on coming. Wayne bolted for the terrace door. He hadn’t gone two steps when he felt a slight thump between his shoulder blades. A burning sensation shot through his back and chest, not acute, not horribly painful. His vision blurred. He knew he was falling but it felt more like floating on air. When he hit the parquet floor he heard the crack of his head, a distant muffled sound. He could see his hands in front of him. They were clawing at the corner of an area rug, though he had not told them to claw. Then he watched them stop clawing, though he had not told them to stop, and darkness engulfed him.

***

After Claussen had driven off with the garage door opener, Stein went to the kitchen and took his bottle of clear schnapps from the refrigerator. He placed it on the Formica table but did not open it. He would have a drink after he went over his pro-versus-con list one more time.

His doubts about Claussen had started when the son of a bitch said he was working for himself. If that was true, thought Stein, pacing the length of the room, then why would Claussen bother to pay him another $300,000 for a job he had already done? Because they were both from the eastern part of Germany? Because they had served the same cause for 30 years?

Give me a break.

Claussen was going to come back to the shop, but it wouldn’t be to pay him. It would be to kill him. Stein wasn’t an idiot. He could see the handwriting on the wall.

They were pouring the second basement full of concrete because Operation Litvyak was over. They wouldn’t be needing sabotaged aircraft parts any longer – which meant they wouldn’t be needing Stein. He would be a liability, a useless leftover who might rat if he got caught.

Who could say, maybe he would. Old allegiances went to hell when everyone was out for himself. The idiots were the ones who kept on believing in loyalty. Loyalty to what?

He had played dumb until now, but he had not
been
dumb. The proof of this was in the pudding. When Claussen pulled into the loading bay, Stein would greet the arrogant bastard with a stream of .38 bullets. The way he saw it, someone was going down to his concrete grave this morning. The only question was
who
, and Stein intended to make sure it wasn’t him.

A lot of pros, but what were the cons to eliminating Claussen? The rental car? Not really. He’d drive it back where it came from during the after-hours drop.

Claussen was traveling in the States with multiple identities, all of them bogus. He had shown Stein a few of his passports and matching driver’s licenses, and they were as good as in the old days. This meant Claussen still had access to the KGB or Stasi forging apparatus. The man who had flown to the United States on Lufthansa was not the man who had rented the Buick; and the man who had rented the Buick was not the man who had booked the hotel room wherever Claussen was staying. And none of the men were Claussen. If someone who did not exist disappeared, the authorities would not miss him – at least not the American authorities.

Who would?

Only those who knew Claussen was here.

Stein stopped pacing, took a glass from the cupboard and tapped it on the table. This meant Volkov, which
was
a problem. He would send someone over, or come himself, to find out what had happened and whether he still had exposure.  It would be a monumental pain in the ass. He didn’t relish the thought of lying to that prick.

But how bad could it be? Most of the modified aircraft parts to which they had just given serial numbers would soon be in circulation. Several huge air disasters in quick succession would create enough havoc in the U.S. to show that Operation Litvyak, if needed during the USSR era, would have been a success.

Volkov was sick with pride.  He’d be glad the planes came down as long he could be sure  all remnants of his unholy creation had been destroyed.  He didn’t give a damn about Claussen.  As long as Stein could prove that Claussen was dead and that the parts warehouse was under 20 feet of concrete, he wouldn’t be in the crosshairs.

He uncorked the schnapps, corked it back up and started pacing again. Let’s come at it from the other side, he thought. What if he was wrong? What if Claussen planned to pay him off and go back to Germany like he said? What were the disadvantages of killing him under these circumstances?

Same as before: the bother of having to answer to Volkov, the return of the rental car. Avoiding these minor hassles was hardly worth the risk of waiting around to find out if his suspicions were justified. Claussen was a cunning son of a bitch you didn’t want to underestimate. He could turn the tables on you at the eleventh hour. Stein had seen it happen to others. The way to deal with him was exactly as Stein had planned. He would hide in the bay and let Claussen have it the instant he got out of his car.

When would Claussen be back? He’d said seven thirty, so it wouldn’t be then. Perhaps six, perhaps nine. The best thing for Stein to do was to be ready for anything. He would go to the bay now and wait. If he fell asleep, it wouldn’t matter. The noisy metal door going up would wake him in plenty of time.

He felt better. He had his direction. Claussen had finally run up against a man with the brains and courage to challenge him. It would, he thought, be satisfying to see the expression on that arrogant bastard’s face when he realized he had been outmaneuvered for the first – and last – time in his life.

Stein heard a car in the alley. A dog barked. He started for his revolver but the car drove on past.

Five thirty, and already he was jumpy.

He poured himself his usual double shot and belted it down as he always did, not holding it in his mouth.

He knew the instant he swallowed.

He tried to spit it out. Nothing came up, not even saliva. He jammed two fingers down his throat to induce vomiting. All he produced was a searing belch that reeked of bitter almonds.

A fire like a river of molten iron followed the course of the cyanide down to his stomach, consuming him from inside out. He clutched his neck with both hands, a fiery rage boiling within his pain, and dropped to his knees.

His lungs stopped working. He could do nothing, absolutely nothing, he was suffocating and burning to death at the same time. For a man who considered helplessness life’s greatest indignity, it was a hell of a way to go.

Chapter Sixteen