The Bible of Clay (24 page)

in front of them, Tom Martin sat back to listen, with some curiosity, to the apparently absentminded old man who had insisted on seeing him.

"Tell me, then, Mr. Burton—how can I be of help?"

Hans spoke calmly. "I'll get right to the point. I know that your company sends men into zones of conflict, so to speak. You have a small army that travels and works both in groups and as individuals. I know that you provide security, but if we do away with the euphemisms, we might say that people get killed in your line of work. Your men, for example, kill other men in order to protect the people who hire them or to defend material interests, be they buildings, oil fields, whatever."

Tom Martin listened with a mixture of perplexity and amusement. Where was this old fellow going with all this?

"Mr. Martin, I need to hire one of your men to kill a man. Actually, he'll have to kill more than one person
—
I don't know exactly how many right now, maybe two, maybe five; I'm not sure."

The president of Global Group couldn't hide his surprise at this man's request. A distinguished-looking old man in tweeds, who'd called for an appointment under the name Burton and was now sitting quietly before him sipping coffee, was looking to hire an assassin. Just that simple.

"Excuse me, Mr. Burton—you did say your name was Burton?"

"You can call me that," Professor Hausser said.

"That is, your name is not really Burton. . . . Well, but you understand, sir
—
I need to know who my clients are."

"You need to know that they'll pay you, and I will pay you very generously."

"Why do you want to kill someone?"

"That is none of your business. Let us just say that there is a person whose interests have clashed with mine and some of my associates' and that he has had no scruples in using methods against us that every legal system in the world would consider illegitimate. But he is a powerful man and cannot be reached by the authorities or punished by legal means. Therefore, we want to eliminate him."

"And these other people you also want to eliminate?"

"His family members. Any that can be found."

Tom Martin sat in silence at that, a bit taken aback by the calmness with which this man was asking him to commit half a dozen murders. He had made the request, in fact, with the same tone of voice that he'd have asked for a drink in a bar or said hello to the doorman in the morning—in the kindliest, gentlest way, almost offhandedly.

"Could you tell me what exactly this man has done to cause you and your friends to want to kill his entire family?"

"No. Just tell me whether you'll take the job and, if so, how much it will cost."

"Really, Mr. Burton, I'm not running a murder-for-hire agency here—"

"Oh, come now, Mr. Martin. I know who you are, and I know that your people are considered the very best; everyone praises your company's quiet efficiency. I was told I could put the matter to you directly, without beating about the bush, so that's what I'm doing."

"And the person who recommended me told you that this is a company that hires out killers?"

"Mr. Martin, you don't know me, so you don't trust me. I understand that. But what do you call what your men do in the diamond mines when they machine-gun a poor black man for getting too close to the security fence? And what about those protection teams for businessmen who don't hesitate a second to pull the trigger if their boss tells them to?"

"I need to know who you are, a reference
..."

"I can't provide you with that, I'm sorry. If you're afraid this may be a trap, don't worry. I'm an old man; I probably don't have much time left, and what time I do have I want to dedicate to settling an old score. That's why I've come here."

Tom Martin sat again in silence, looking at this old fellow who carried himself with such aplomb. No, he wasn't a cop, Tom was sure of that. Finally, his curiosity got the better of him and, putting aside his own security rules, he decided to risk it.

"Who is the man you want killed?"

"You accept the job, then?"

"Tell me who he is and where he is."

"How much will it cost?"

"In principle, we have to scout the locations, then decide how and when to approach the subject, and that costs a lot of money."

"A million euros for the man, and another million for his family?"

The president of Global Group's eyes widened. Either the old man was tempting him with the money or he had no idea of the market price for this work.

"You have that much money?"

"I have three hundred thousand euros on me now. If we shake hands on this, I'll give it to you as a down payment. The rest, as the job is done."

"Who do you want to kill, Saddam Hussein?" "No."

"Who is this man? Do you have recent photos?"

"No, I don't have any photos of him. He'll be an old man, older than me—around ninety. He lives in Iraq."

"In Iraq?" Martin's surprise now bordered on disbelief.

Hans opened his briefcase. "Yes, I believe Iraq. At least, one member of his family has a house there. Here are some photos of his house. I'm not positive whether he himself lives there or not, but the person who does is a member of his family, and she is to die too—but not before she leads you to your objective."

Tom Martin picked up the photos of the Yellow House that had been taken by the men on Marini's team. He examined them carefully. The house was a colonial-looking mansion, well protected, judging by what the cameras had caught.

In some of the photos, an attractive woman in Western dress appeared; she was accompanied by an older woman wearing a burka that covered her from head to toe.

"This is Baghdad?" he asked.

"That's right—Baghdad."

"And this is the woman," Martin stated more than asked. "Yes. We believe she is a relative. She has the same last name. She can lead your men to him." "What is the name?" "Tannenberg."

The president of Global Group pondered that for a moment. This was not the first time he'd heard that name. Not long ago his friend Paul Dukais had asked him if he had any men he could send to infiltrate an archaeological expedition organized by this woman, this Tannenberg, who apparently wanted to keep something that didn't belong to her, or at least not just to her.

From what he was seeing, the Tannenbergs had enemies everywhere, ready to do whatever it took to get rid of them. Did this man want the same thing Dukais did, or was his beef a different one?

"Will you take the job, then?"

"Yes."

"Wonderful. Let's sign a contract."

"Mr. . . . Mr. Burton, you don't sign this sort of contract." "I am not going to give you a single euro if we don't have a contract."

"We can draw up a general contract—say, to investigate a certain individual in a certain place."

"Yes, but the individual's name can't be in it. I want absolute discretion."

"You are asking for a lot.
..."

"I am also paying a lot. I know that what I'm paying is much more than you generally charge for this kind of work. So for two million euros, you will do things as I want them done."

"Of course, of course."

"And another thing, Mr. Martin. I know that you're the best, or so you're reputed to be. I am paying you so generously because I don't want failures and I don't want betrayals. If you betray me, my friends and I have much more money than this—enough to find you under any rock where you try to hide, if we should be forced to. There will always be someone ready to do the work, even someone inside here."

"I won't be threatened, Mr. Burton." Martin pronounced the name with a clear hint of irony. "You don't want to do that, or this conversation is over."

"But it's not a threat. I just want things clear from the beginning. At my age, I'll never be able to spend the money I have, and you can't take it with you, can you, Mr. Martin? So I'm investing it in order to see that my last wishes are respected—while I'm still alive, that is."

"Mr. Burton, or whatever your name is, in my business we don't betray our clients. How long would we last if we did that, eh?"

Hans Hausser gave Martin all the information he had. It wasn't much.

Two hours later, Hausser left the offices of Global Group, sensing that at last they were close to the hour of revenge.

He wandered about aimlessly, sure that Martin had had him followed. He walked into the Claridge Hotel and made his way to the restaurant, where he had lunch, though he didn't have much of an appetite. Then he went into the lobby and got into an elevator; anyone following him would think he was staying here, so he pushed the button for the fourth floor. There he got off and went to the stairs, where he walked down to the second floor. Once there, he caught another elevator and went down to the garage level.

A valet asked where his car was parked, but Hausser didn't bother to respond—he simply smiled, as though he didn't understand English. At his age, he knew he looked like some dotty old man. He wandered through the parking lot and then up one of the ramps outside. At the first corner he turned and walked away from the hotel. He hailed a taxi and asked to be taken to the airport. His flight for Hamburg was to leave a few hours later. From there, he would take another flight to Berlin, and from there, to his home in Bonn. He didn't know whether he'd managed to shake Tom Martin's men, but at least he'd made it hard for them.

"It's me."

Carlo Cipriani recognized his friend's voice. He knew Hans would be calling, since he'd received a coded e-mail and had replied with the number of the new cell phone where he could be reached. Then he'd throw the phone in the trash, the calling card into the Tiber.

"Everything's fine so far. Tom Martin's taken the job, and he'll be going to work immediately."

"There were no obstacles?"

"He was surprised, but Mr. Burton was very persuasive." Hans Hausser laughed delightedly.

"When will he have something? "

"In two or three weeks. He has to put a team together, send it out.
...
It takes time."

"I hope we've made the right decision," Carlo mused.

"We're doing what we have to do, and surely we'll make a mistake somewhere along the line, but the important thing is to keep going. We can't afford to stop."

In the background on the other end of the line, an impersonal voice was announcing the departure of the flight to Berlin.

"I'll call you as soon as I know something. Call the others."

"I will," Carlo promised.

Hans hung up the public telephone from which he had made the call at the Hamburg airport. He'd call Berta from Berlin. His daughter was worried by all these comings and goings, and she had started to insist that he tell her what was happening. So far he had lied, telling her that he was traveling to meet some former colleagues, retired like him, but Berta didn't believe a word of it. Of course she could never have imagined her father going to London to hire a hit man. She would have sworn that her father was a man of peace—at the university he had always been among the most vocal protesters against any war or expression of violence, whatever it might have been. He had been adamant in his defense of human rights around the world, signing petitions, attending conferences, and contributing money to good causes; his students worshipped him, and the university had made him professor emeritus. He still gave a course or two every semester—no one had wanted him to retire completely.

Mercedes Barreda rushed into the bedroom. She'd left her purse on the bed, and now her disposable cell phone was ringing.

She fumbled at the closure, then dumped the purse's contents on the bed, terrified that the phone would stop ringing before she could answer it.

"Calm down," she heard Carlo say, even before she could catch her breath to say hello.

"I had to run," she said.

"It's all right—we've started things rolling."

"Is everything going well?"

"No problems so far. In a couple of weeks we'll know more." "So long
..."

"Don't be so impatient. What we want to do isn't easy."

"I know, but sometimes I'm afraid I'll die before we finish this."

"Look, I fear the same thing. I even have nightmares about it—but now we're almost there."

When the conversation ended, Mercedes fell back on the bed. She was bone-tired. She'd been inspecting a couple of projects that her construction company was involved in, and then she'd had a meeting with several of the architects and quality inspectors who worked for her.