The Mark of the Assassin (47 page)
Softly, she beat her palms along the wall until she touched something cold and hard.
Elizabeth took down the bow. It was five and a half feet long, standard length. She reached up and grabbed hold of the arrow. The shaft was aluminum with feather fletchings. She took the arrow between the first two fingers on her right hand and with her thumb felt for the string notch behind the fletchings. She had done this countless times, so doing it in the dark was not a problem, even with shaking hands.
The woman kicked the door, but the old hook held.
Elizabeth fixed the arrow to the string and braced the shaft against the fingers of her left hand, which was clutching the bow. She pulled the arrow back halfway, then took a deep breath. The bowstring was old and brittle; it might simply snap when she pulled it to the tension required to shoot an arrow. Please, Elizabeth thought, fingering the string. I need one more shot from you.
But could she really do this? She had never killed a living thing, never dreamed of hunting. Her father wouldn’t hear of it, in any case. Once he caught one of her boyfriends stalking a deer with her bow and arrow and banished him from the house for the rest of the summer.
The woman kicked the door. The latch broke and the door crashed open.
Elizabeth’s body went rigid. She felt as if she were made of stone. She forced herself to breathe slowly. Do it for Michael, she thought. Do it for the children inside you.
She drew the arrow back hard on the string and pushed open the door with her foot. She saw Astrid Vogel, framed against the doorway, both hands on her gun, near her face. Astrid turned toward the sudden noise and leveled the gun with outstretched arms.
Elizabeth released the arrow.
The arrowhead struck Astrid in the base of her throat and drove her back, pinning her to the open door. Elizabeth screamed. Astrid’s eyes opened wide and her lips parted.
Somehow, she managed to hold on to the gun. She raised the weapon and started firing. The silencer damped the explosions to a dull thud. Elizabeth threw herself back into the closet. The shots splintered the door, shattered the bedroom window, and tore plaster from the walls. She fell to the floor and curled herself into a ball.
Then it stopped. The room was quiet except for the wind and the clicking of Astrid Vogel attempting to fire an empty gun. Elizabeth got to her feet, took down another arrow, and stepped out of the closet.
Astrid had ejected the spent cartridge and was digging in her coat pocket for another clip of ammunition. Blood pumped from the wound in her throat. She managed to pull the new clip from her pocket.
Elizabeth said, “No, please don’t. Don’t make me do it again.”
Astrid looked at her, then at the arrow in her throat. The clip fell from her grasp; then the gun tumbled to the floor. She breathed deeply twice. Blood gurgled in her throat.
Finally, her gaze went blank.
Elizabeth fell to her knees and was violently sick.
Michael, back downstairs in the basement, could hear October’s footsteps above him, picking his way through the living room furniture. Michael knew October would be methodical and careful. He would search the house, room by room, until he found his target. To survive, Michael would have to outsmart October once again, the way he did on the footpath in Virginia. October was operating in alien territory. Michael could find his way through the house with his eyes closed. He would use that to his advantage.
October had moved from the living room to the kitchen. He called out, “I have your wife, Mr. Osbourne. If you come down now, unarmed, with your hands in the air, no harm will come to her. If you make me hunt you down like an animal, I’ll kill her too.”
Michael said nothing, just listened to October’s progress through the first level of the house.
After a moment October said, “I remember that night in London too, Mr. Osbourne. I remember the sound of your screams along the river. She was a beautiful woman. You must have loved her very much. It was a pity she had to die. She was the first and only woman I ever killed, but I will not hesitate to kill your wife if you persist in this nonsense. Give yourself up, or she dies with you.”
Michael felt anger rising within him. Just hearing the man’s voice after all these years filled him with horror. He tried to suppress it; he knew that was exactly the reaction October was trying to incite. If he lost his composure—if he acted with emotion instead of intelligence—he would die. He also knew October had no intention of allowing Elizabeth to live.
“It must have hurt very badly to lose your lover like that, shot down like a dog, right before your eyes,” October said. “I heard they had to pull you from the field. Send you back to headquarters. I heard it ruined you. Just think how you’ll feel if I kill another one of your women. You won’t want to live after that, I assure you. So just give yourself up, Mr. Osbourne. Make it easy for both of us.”
Michael heard a scream from the guest cottage: Elizabeth’s scream.
“Sounds like things are getting interesting outside, Mr. Osbourne. Pick up the telephone, call the cottage. Tell your wife to give herself up, and she won’t be harmed. You have my word on that.”
Michael walked across the room and pressed the TALK button on the intercom. Very calmly he said, “Your word means nothing to me, Nicolai Mikhailovich.”
“What did you call me?” October yelled back, after a moment’s hesitation.
“I called you Nicolai Mikhailovich. It’s your real name, or did the wonderful people of the KGB keep that information from you? Nicolai Mikhailovich Voronstov. Your father was General Mikhail Voronstov, head of the First Chief Directorate of the KGB. You were his bastard child. Your mother was his mistress. As soon as you were old enough, your father gave you to the KGB to raise. Your mother ended up in the gulag. Would you like me to continue, Nicolai Mikhailovich?”
Michael released the button and waited for October’s reaction. He heard a door being kicked open, a ceramic lamp crashing to the floor, the dull
thump
of a silenced weapon being discharged. Michael was getting to him.
thump
of a silenced weapon being discharged. Michael was getting to him.
“Your teacher was a man you knew only as Vladimir. You treated him like a father. For all intents and purposes, he
was
your father. When you were sixteen you were infiltrated into the West through Czechoslovakia. You were ordered to kill your escorts. One of them was a woman, which makes you a liar as well as a murderer. You buried yourself in the West. Ten years later, when you were a man, you started killing. I could name most of your victims if you’d like, Nicolai Mikhailovich.”
was
your father. When you were sixteen you were infiltrated into the West through Czechoslovakia. You were ordered to kill your escorts. One of them was a woman, which makes you a liar as well as a murderer. You buried yourself in the West. Ten years later, when you were a man, you started killing. I could name most of your victims if you’d like, Nicolai Mikhailovich.”
Michael heard a window shatter and more rounds embedding themselves in the wall. He heard an empty cartridge fall to the floor and a fresh one rammed into place. Then he heard sirens a long way off and another scream from the cottage.
He pressed the intercom again and said, “Who hired you?”
More shots.
“Who hired you, goddammit? Answer me!”
“I don’t know who hired me!”
“You’re lying. Your entire life is a lie.”
“Shut up!”
“You’re trapped here. You’ll never get off this island alive.”
“Neither will you, and neither will your wife.”
“Astrid’s been gone a long time. I wonder what’s keeping her.”
“Call the cottage. Tell your wife to give herself up.”
Michael set down his cellular telephone and picked up the receiver of the regular hard-line phone. He heard October pick up an extension. The telephone rang once and Elizabeth answered, breathless.
“Michael! My God, she’s dead. I killed her. I shot her with an arrow. Michael, God, I don’t want to be here with her. Oh, Michael, it’s horrible. Please, I don’t want to stay here with her.”
“Go to the dock. Take the dinghy out to the
Alexandra.
Wait there until the police arrive.”
Alexandra.
Wait there until the police arrive.”
“Michael, what are you—”
“Just do what I say. Go to the
Alexandra
! Now!”
Alexandra
! Now!”
Elizabeth set down the telephone and walked to the window. She had known Michael more than six years. He had sailed on the boat countless times with her father. He knew it was called the
Athena,
not the
Alexandra.
It was possible he made a mistake because of the pressure of the situation, but she doubted it. It was intentional. It was for a reason. He wanted her to stay in the cottage, but he wanted October to think she was heading for the boat.
Athena,
not the
Alexandra.
It was possible he made a mistake because of the pressure of the situation, but she doubted it. It was intentional. It was for a reason. He wanted her to stay in the cottage, but he wanted October to think she was heading for the boat.
She watched the main house through the window. She listened to the sirens draw nearer. She wanted to get out. She wanted a cigarette to mask the smell of Astrid Vogel’s blood. She wanted this nightmare to be over. A few seconds later she saw the screened door of the veranda swing open and the man called October running across the lawn toward the dock.
Delaroche plunged through the darkness. Wind ripped at the trees and nearly knocked him from his feet. The dock stretched before him into the darkness. Fifty yards from shore the sailboat swayed at its mooring, mast swinging like a pendulum in the whitecaps, halyards screaming in the wind.
Michael Osbourne’s voice, distant and metallic, ran through his head like recorded announcements in a train station.
I called you Nicolai Mikhailovich. It’s your real name.
Delaroche thought, Goddammit! How could he know?
The KGB had made him one promise: His existence in the West would be so secret only a handful of people within the hierarchy would know the truth. So secret he had been permitted to kill his escorts to the West that night in Austria. Had they lied? Had someone betrayed him? Was it Vladimir? Or Arbatov? Or the traitor Drozdov? Had Drozdov found the truth buried in the files at Moscow Center and sold it to his new masters in the West? Delaroche vowed to kill Drozdov if he ever got off Shelter Island alive.
The revelation that the CIA had a dossier made Delaroche feel physically sick. Did they have a photograph, too? Usually, it was Delaroche who used the dossiers, Delaroche who leafed through the dark pages of a man’s life until he found the weakness that would prove to be his undoing. Now, Delaroche knew his enemies had assembled a dossier on
his
life, and Osbourne had used it against him.
his
life, and Osbourne had used it against him.
I called you Nicolai Mikhailovich.
Reflexively, the killings ran through his mind. He tried to shut it off, but the faces appeared one by one, first vibrant and alive, then burst by three bullet wounds. Hassan Mahmoud, the Palestinian boy. Colin Yardley and Eric Stoltenberg. Sarah Randolph. . . .
He could hear Michael Osbourne’s screams echoing along the Chelsea Embankment.
It’s your real name.
Some nights Delaroche had a dream, and the dream played out in his imagination now. The men he had killed would confront him, armed with silenced automatics, and he would reach for his Glock pistol or his Beretta and find only paintbrushes. Then he would reach for his backup weapon and find only a palette. “We know who you are,” they would say and begin to laugh. And Delaroche would raise his hands and shield his face, and the bullets would tear through his palms and bore through his eyes, and he would sit up in bed and tell himself it was only a dream, just a stupid fucking dream.
Delaroche charged across the sloping lawn, feet flying over the wet springy turf, until the smack of his feet along the wooden dock shattered the nightmare image of his own death. He could hear the dinghy banging against the pylons of the dock, but the engine was silent. A few seconds later he reached the end of the dock and looked down, gun leveled into the darkness.
The dinghy was empty.
“Drop the gun!” Michael shouted over the wind. “Lie flat on the dock, facedown, and do it very slowly.”
Michael stood at the foot of the dock, October at the end, fifty feet away. His left arm hung at his side; his right arm was bent at the elbow, and the gun was near his face. He was motionless. By the sound of the sirens the police were on Shore Road now. They would arrive in a matter of seconds.
“Drop the gun now!” Michael yelled. “It’s over. Just do what I say.”
October lowered his right arm until it hung straight at his side. The police reached the front gate. Michael heard the cottage door swing open. He turned in the direction of the sound and caught a glimpse of Elizabeth’s beige sweater, flashing through the darkness.
He shouted, “Stay back, Elizabeth!”
October dropped into a crouch and pivoted. The arm swung up. Michael fired several shots with the Browning but they all sailed over October’s head. The assassin fired three times through the darkness. One shot found its mark, tearing into the right side of Michael’s chest.
The Browning tumbled from his hand and clattered along the dock. Michael fell onto his back. His right arm went numb; then he felt an intense, searing pain in his chest.
The rain beat down on his face. Tree limbs twisted in the wind, and in his dementia Michael thought they were giant hands clawing at his body. He drifted toward unconsciousness. He saw Sarah walking toward him on the Chelsea Embankment, her long skirt dancing across buckskin boots. He saw her exploded face. He heard Elizabeth’s voice, calling from a long way off, incomprehensible. Finally, it cut through the fog of shock.
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