Authors: Christopher Reich
He approached the house with measured steps, hands digging into his trench coat. The lights were out, which he thought typical for the dead of night. He rang the bell and stepped away from the door. No one answered. He heard no voices, no steps moving around inside. After two minutes, he walked to the end of the block and cut through the alley running behind all the homes. Malloy’s car was parked in the space in back, along with a second car which Connor assumed belonged to his wife. A sturdy flight of steps led to the back porch. He tried the door and to his surprise found it unlocked. This was not typical for the dead of night. For a former Navy SEAL working in a classified position, it was downright unthinkable.
Connor kept his hand on the doorknob, listening for any sounds from within, but it was impossible to hear anything above the thumping of his heart. He tightened his fingers around the knob and pushed open the door. The smell hit him as soon as he stepped inside. He rushed to cover his mouth, steadying himself on the kitchen sink. It was a smell like nothing he’d known before, sour and rank and evil and altogether overpowering. He gazed out the kitchen window. Under the half-moon, the alley was as still as a grave.
“Malloy!” he called.
No answer.
Connor stepped tentatively toward the swinging door that led to the living room. He carried no weapon. There was normally little need, and he knew himself well enough to realize that he’d probably end up shooting himself instead of his assailant. The swinging door opened with a creak, and he passed through the living room. A can of soda was on the table next to a bowl of popcorn. He climbed the stairs to the second floor, wincing as the odor grew stronger.
“Malloy! It’s me, Frank Connor. You okay?”
The voice bounced off the walls, and Connor felt like a rube for talking. He paused before the bedroom and took a moment to fold his handkerchief properly and place it over his nose and mouth. On the count of three, he opened the door.
“Oh Christ,” he said as he caught sight of the two bodies and the smell hit him full on. He stared at the bodies for a second, maybe less, before his eyes began to water and he had to turn away. It was plenty long enough to see that it was Malloy and his wife, and that their chests had been carved open from sternum to pubis and their organs ripped out and flung on the floor. It was long enough to see the maggots writhing in the offal and to confirm what he’d known since he’d stepped into the house.
Malloy and his wife had been killed, and he was responsible.
Jake “the Ripper” Taylor stood at the entrance to the alley, keeping watch on the Malloys’ rear stoop.
“He’s inside. What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing for the moment.”
The Ripper stared at the upstairs bedroom window. He knew that Connor was finding the bodies now, admiring his handiwork. He had a sharp, nearly uncontrollable desire to add Connor’s body to his canvas. The fat man would squeal when the blade opened him up.
“You sure? I can go in and take care of things real quick. No one’s gonna know.”
“He’s too valuable in place. Kill Connor and we upset the apple cart.”
The Ripper didn’t care about the apple cart. He cared about thrusting his knife deep into Connor’s belly, feeling that first bit of resistance before the muscle gave way.
“See where he goes and get back to me.”
“Yeah, boss. You got it.”
The Ripper hated taking orders from a woman, especially a dark-skinned hottie like her. One day he was going to have his way with her. His knife would enjoy that.
Jonathan passed through immigration control
without difficulty. The Swiss passport von Daniken had provided matched that used to obtain Revy’s Pakistani visa. Asked if he had anything to declare, he shook his head and was waved through. A skyscraper of a man wearing a black turban towered among the sea of people waiting beyond the cordon outside customs control. Seeing Jonathan, he raised a hand. “Dr. Revy?”
“Yes,” said Jonathan. “Good morning.”
“My name is Singh. Mr. Armitraj sends his regards. He looks forward to greeting you at Blenheim. Come with me.”
Singh lifted Jonathan’s Vuitton suitcase as if it were a feather and carved a wide path through the milling crowd. Jonathan followed close behind. Singh’s assumption that the tall, blond Westerner had to be Revy suggested that he didn’t know precisely what the Swiss surgeon looked like. It was a momentary reprieve. The real test would come when Jonathan met Balfour.
Four men in identical tan suits accompanied Singh, and they formed a loose phalanx as they made their way out of the airport building. The security men weren’t the scrappy, unshaven sort Jonathan was used to seeing hanging around street corners all over South Asia, looking for their next mark. They were young, fit, and neatly shaven. A jacket flapped open, and Jonathan caught sight of a compact pistol.
Twin white Range Rovers idled at the curb with an honor guard of airport police. Singh opened a door and Jonathan climbed in, the Sikh pressing in close behind, his bulk crowding the backseat, his perfectly wrapped turban brushing the roof. One of the bodyguards
jumped in front and offered Jonathan a warm towel and a bottle of water.
The car left the airport and joined the highway, crossing a dun plain dotted with ramshackle huts and plots of tilled land. Smoke from a hundred solitary fires curled into the air, like a legion of genies escaping their bottles. Closer, foot traffic crowded the shoulder—farmers leading goats, merchants bearing baskets of goods, children hawking soft drinks as automobiles passed at a hundred kilometers per hour. The fallow plain gave way to asphalt. The city sprang up in fits and starts, until all at once he was engulfed in a teeming urban center, part colonial, part modern, all of it laced together by the din of extreme poverty.
The air conditioning was blowing, so Jonathan cracked the window. The scent of exhaust and open sewers and charred meat and wood smoke invaded the car. The smell was the same everywhere in the third world and Jonathan felt himself slipping into the landscape, growing at ease. The farther away he journeyed, the more at home he felt.
And then they were leaving the city, climbing into the Margalla Hills. A long, brown, unlovely lake appeared on their right. It was Rawal Lake, whose shores were the desired area of Pakistan’s rich and famous, and even more of their infamous. They drove past a succession of mansions set on the lakeshore, all done in the Mogul style, smaller, drabber cousins of the Taj Mahal. The road swung to the north. The vehicles left the highway and started up a razor-straight road advancing deeper into the rolling hills. A tall chain-link fence rose in the midst of grassy fields. The vehicles drove faster. The gatehouse passed in a blur, but not so fast that Jonathan failed to glimpse the guards carrying automatic weapons or the machine-gun nests on either side of it. Farther along he spotted a black jeep bounding across the terrain, a .30 caliber machine gun mounted on its back, the men driving wearing folded safari hats. The Rat Patrol had left North Africa and come to Pakistan. There was another fence, this one electrified, according to a warning sign, and topped with barbed wire. He wasn’t visiting a home but an armed encampment.
A final burst of acceleration. The vehicles crested a ridge. The road dropped down the other side, and Blenheim came into view. Connor had provided photographs, but nothing could prepare Jonathan for the scale of it, the sheer weirdness of seeing a replica of the Duke of Marlborough’s famed estate six thousand kilometers from England. They rumbled over a wood plank bridge and entered the gravel forecourt. A slim, small man stood by the front door, waving exuberantly. He wore a white suit and white necktie and a red carnation in his lapel, and the wattage from his smile could light a small village.
Don’t be fooled by his behavior
, Connor had warned.
One minute he’ll hug you and swear to you that you’re blood brothers. The next he’ll have his man, Singh, put a kukri to your throat and slice it clean through with a single stroke. And he’ll be smiling all the time. Manners are his armor. They shield him from his enemies and protect him from his past
.
The Range Rover came to a halt. Singh opened the door and Jonathan stepped out. Balfour remained where he was, not making a move. The waving stopped and he stared hard at Jonathan, the smile still plastered to his face.
He’s seen a picture of Revy
, thought Jonathan.
He knows I’m a plant. Any second he’s going to tell Singh and that will be that
. But instead of panicking, Jonathan relaxed. This was what Emma had done for eight years. Never once had he caught her acting. He could do it, too.
Selecting a smile to match Balfour’s, he approached his host. “’Allo, Mr. Armitraj. A pleasure!” he said in his best Suisse Romande accent.
Still Balfour didn’t move. He gazed at Jonathan gravely, then signaled to Singh and spoke to him sharply. The Sikh shot Jonathan a glance, and Jonathan struggled to guard his smile. He remembered Connor saying that the good news was that he wouldn’t spend time in a Pakistani prison and the bad news that Balfour would execute him on the spot. He caught a shadow from above and observed a sniper on the rooftop, a rifle pointed at his chest. Balfour’s voice rose, and the security men came closer, like jackals scenting a kill. The smile grew excruciating.
Balfour shouted a final exclamation, and Singh turned and walked directly to Jonathan, halting a body’s width away. “Please do not move,” he said.
Jonathan readied himself, loosening his shoulders, feeling an electric jolt in his fingertips.
And then Singh reached into his side pocket, withdrew a carnation similar to Balfour’s, and placed it in Jonathan’s lapel. “My apologies. M’ lord requested I give you this on your arrival.”
“A carnation,” added Balfour, striding toward Jonathan while glaring at Singh. “Symbol of Blenheim.” He grabbed Jonathan’s hand. “Welcome to my home, Dr. Revy, and call me Ash. None of this Mr. Armitraj nonsense. That’s what the police put on their warrants. I thought we’d already gone over that.”
“It is difficult for a Swiss to avoid formalities,” said Jonathan, amazed that he’d found any words at all.
“One more reason why I love your country.” Balfour took his arm and guided him toward the front door. “This way. I want to show you the operating theater. Everything is exactly as you specified. I hope you don’t mind if we get started right away.”
“Of course,” said Jonathan. “But I am here for two weeks.”
“My schedule has been advanced.”
“No problem at all. We can have everything ready in a few days.”
“Not in a few days, Dr. Revy. I’d like to undergo the procedure tomorrow evening.”
“Not possible,” said Jonathan, brooking no retort. “I operate in the morning. I’m freshest then. As for you, it’s essential that your stomach is empty. You’re not to eat a thing for twelve hours before receiving general anesthetic.” The actor in Jonathan wanted to bang a heel on the ground for good measure, but the ground was gravel, and he didn’t want to be melodramatic. “Besides,” he said, less forcefully, “that doesn’t even give us time to complete your blood work, let alone complete our consultations.”
“The blood panel is already back from the lab,” said Balfour. “The results are in your room.”
“Oh?” Jonathan hadn’t read anything about Balfour’s blood work
being completed ahead of time. One of the last notes exchanged between the men suggested that Revy would oversee a blood panel upon his arrival. “Excellent, yes, yes, yes,” he said, summoning the verbal repetition that was Revy’s trademark. “Hmmm, it’s clear we don’t have any time to lose.”
Balfour guided him through the portico and into the foyer. As the heavy wooden door closed behind him, he saw the first of the armed men standing inside the cavernous minstrel’s gallery, and Jonathan knew he had just stepped into a prison.
Before the surgical suite came
the tour of the estate.
Balfour had dropped Jonathan’s arm and strode a pace ahead through the long hallways, dropping tidbits of information about the rooms and decorations like a distracted docent. There was the library, where every book had been imported from the Duke of Bedford’s residence at Woburn Abbey. There was the living room, with a portrait by Sargent and a landscape by Constable. There was the study, and in it Winston Churchill’s desk from the office in Whitehall where he had written his “Nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat” speech at the beginning of the Second World War.
He’s an inveterate liar
, Connor had told Jonathan.
You’ll catch him out a dozen times, but don’t say a word. It’s his fantasy world, and he doesn’t like it disturbed
.
As they continued through the house, Balfour pointed out those areas that Jonathan was free to visit and those that were off-limits. The media room was open territory, and Balfour stopped long enough to demonstrate his prowess at Call of Duty on a ninety-six-inch wall-mounted plasma screen and to boast about the ear-splitting surround-sound system.
The disco likewise was his to roam freely. It was barely one in the afternoon, but house music was blaring and three blondes dressed in beaded evening gowns and sipping flutes of champagne stood in the center of a black marble dance floor, moving their hips and trying hard not to appear bored. Balfour introduced them as Kelly, Robin, and Ochsana and told them that Jonathan was his most important guest and was to be shown every conceivable courtesy. The women offered soft handshakes and glances that left little to the imagination.
For his part, Jonathan said he was delighted and estimated that the combined work done on the three of them exceeded $100,000 worth.
But when Balfour came to a staircase leading to the third floor, he stopped cold and addressed Jonathan in a singularly inhospitable voice.
“My office is upstairs. It’s where I conduct all my business and handle my personal affairs. You are to consider the entire third floor off-limits.”
Never kowtow to him
, said Connor.
You’re everything he aspires to be. Wealthy, educated, European. He’ll be looking to trump you any way he can, but don’t let him. It’s weakness he hates
.