The Hit List (27 page)

'So did I,' said Slater, clasping the other man's hand. iBelieve me, so did I.'

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He turned to Chris. 'The knife,' he said. Thank you. It saved our . ..'

'Bacon?' asked Chris with a wry smile.

'I was trying to avoid using that word,' said Slater. 'But yes.'

'I don't want to spoil the party,' said Eve. 'But where's Terry?'

'Left to follow Branca five minutes ago,' said Chris. 'She came out of the apartment dressed up to the nines, and headed north on foot.'

'Terry followed her on foot?'

'No, he'd hired another car this afternoon. Said he'll call in as soon as he's got anything to report.'

Eve nbdded and punched out a number on her mobile. 'Why don't you take a shower and change?' she suggested to Slater.

Slater agreed gratefully. The edges of the room were beginning to blur. Fishing the Stechkin and the Tokarev from his pockets he dropped them on the bed next to Leon. 'From Serbia, with love.'

Leon looked down at the heavy automatics. 'This is not fashionable weaponry,' he observed.

'These guys have fairly old-fashioned values,' said Slater.

For ten full minutes he stood beneath the power shower in Leon's room, letting the hot water blast away the sweat and fear of the day.

He returned, smartly dressed, to find a pot of freshly brewed coffee waiting on a tray. Leon had disappeared.

'How are you feeling?' Eve asked, cautiously.

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'Better,' said Slater. 'Up to keeping going?' 'Sure.'

Eve looked at Chris, and then back at Slater. 'The sition is this. I've just been talking to Andreas at the ter-Lux and he needs back-up for tomorrow jrning. Two people. The problem is there's only je room free there -- and that's a double. Now the eal arrangement is that Chris or I go with Leon or $rry and let you recharge your batteries. The trouble we've lost Terry for the time being and we're sure that a mixed-race or two-woman couple Id stick out. The staff would remember us and it's important that that doesn't happen. So, basically' ie folded her arms across her chest - 'it's you and again. Up for it?' I'Sure,' said Slater.

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ELEVEN

'So, where are we going for our week of passion?' Slater asked, pulling out into the fast lane to overtake a line of slow-moving trucks.

'Better make it somewhere boring,' said Eve. 'How about London?'

'Why not Venice?' suggested Slater. 'Lovers always go to Venice.'

'Maybe, but that wouldn't explain why we were taking an eleven-stone trunk with us. My suggestion is that Neil Clissold and Eve Benbow are two single English people, working in Paris, who have come together as a result of a shared love of old books. As we're going to spend a few days together in London, we're taking a trunkful of books back with us.'

'So where did we meet?'

'At the flea-market, let's say. At the Porte de Clignancourt.'

'So what were we buying?'

'You were buying, let's see, books about Indochina, perhaps - and the battle of Dien Bien Phu. I was after, um. . .'

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Chris Ryan i illustrated guide to old rose varieties?' suggested

jt would be nice,' said Eve. 'What made you >fthat?'

to spend school holidays with my mother's JfShe had a big book, all in French, about roses.' C. So what happened? How did we actually make *?'

i asked me in English to pass you a book from a f^asked how you knew I was English, you told me snch don't wear Clarks desert boots. We had together that night at... Fuck off!' se me?' j, not you. That guy flashing at me.'

cool it. We don't want anyone taking our r. Where were we?' tiding where to have dinner.'

ate at a brasserie on the lie St Louis. A place i all the rugby supporters go.'

and it was deafening. There had been an ational, France had won, and we had to shout at Sther. We drank too much Alsatian beer and ate luch pork.'

; is definitely the theme of the day, isn't it?' |does seem to be,' Slater agreed. 'How much r, do you reckon?'

1, the last sign said Aeroport Charles de Gaulle Jometres, and according to Andreas the hotel is two kilometres from the airport, and sted.'

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Dusk was falling when they finally pulled up at the front entrance to the Inter-Lux. The hotel was vast, spotlit, and American-styled, and while two porters struggled inside with the heavy trunk a driver relieved Slater of the keys to the Peugeot. When men like Fanon-Khayat went to ground, he mused, they did so in comfort.

Arm in arm, he and Eve sauntered through the lavishly appointed hotel entrance and checked in under the names in their false passports. In an alcove, apparently reading a tourist brochure, sat Andreas, and when they had been given their room-key, their tour of the lobby's amenities and luxury concession-booths took them straight past him.

'Room- nine thirty-three,' murmured Eve. 'Give it ten minutes.'

They made a leisurely progress to the lifts. The trunk reached their room before they did, and Slater handed the waiting porters a hundred francs each. Given the dead weight of the thing he reckoned they'd earned it.

Parting the curtains, Slater looked out over several smaller hotels, the still-busy motorway and the lights of the airport complex. He was no longer feeling tired, and in some curious way the day's events seemed to belong to another time-frame. He felt razor-sharp - as alert as he'd ever been. Part of him knew that this feeling was false and a symptom of stress-fatigue; part of him didn't care.

Andreas was business-like. 'Fanon-Khayat's in his room on the fourth floor. Room four-twenty

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Hasn't come out since he checked in this loon. Given that this is an airport hotel, gh, I shouldn't think that anyone's surprised at keeping odd hours. How are we doing for >ns?'

got the nine-mil Clock and ammunition,' said 'We thought it would lessen the risk of promise if we didn't bring more than one firearm. ; do you reckon the options are? Would he open )r if one of us knocked?' doesn't know that I followed him here,' said 'but I think we have to assume that an plained knock would spook him. He's got a "Do Disturb" sign on his door, and it's a good bet that led.'

we pick his lock?' asked Slater. :'s right in the middle of a corridor,' said Andreas. locks, as you've seen, are those plastic card We could get in if we had a programmer and a fcard, but. . .'

room-staff have master-keys, though,' Eve cut >uld we steal one?'

ible,' agreed Andreas. 'But hard to do without F-member noticing. I've checked the cleaners have the key-cards on little chains attached to t-loops or round their necks.' fc-alarm?' suggested Eve. 'Let it off, rush in and out in all the confusion?' :'d be hotel-staff checking in all the rooms,' idreas. 'I thought of the fire-alarm, but we'd

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never be able to get rid of the body in time. It's a last resort, I agree, but--'

'As we said, there must be people checking in and out at all hours,' Slater said. 'So the rooms must need to be made up at all hours. So there must be cleaners here at all hours.'

'I've got an idea,' Eve said. 'I'm going straight down. Four-twenty-seven did you say?'

That's right.'

When she had gone, Andreas turned to Slater. 'You look completely spaced out,' he grinned, shaking his head. 'I got the basic story from the OP team. How you were almost made into pork scratchings and how Eve blew the bad boys away with her little ceramic Clock.'

'I've never, ever been so glad to see anyone in my life,' said Slater. 'I was just about to cut my wrists with the knife Chris gave me. That farmyard was the most sinister place I've ever been, and that includes Iraq.'

'Eve's pretty resourceful,' Andreas agreed. 'I'd put money on her getting into that room within five minutes.'

It was closer to ten minutes, but eventually Eve rang Andreas's mobile. She was whispering.

'I'm in his bathroom. Fanon-Khayat's asleep. Can you guys come down? The door's on the latch.'

They took the lift down, and Andreas led Slater to Room 427, They could hear Fanon-Khayat's snores from the deserted corridor, and silently they let themselves in and relocked the door. On the bed, in

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Chris Ryan

ressing gown, Fanon-Khayat lay openmouthed. lls strewed the bedside table and the curtains had en drawn on the gathering dusk. On the TV screen I porn channel was playing, and a woman in a St

oian's style schoolgirl costume was being

sively buggered by a man in a cowboy hat.

ttething about the cowboy looked strangely

liar to Slater. Vt the other end of the room, Eve stood by the open ' room door.

7ith the pillow?' Slater whispered.

be nodded.

was over fast. Slater held Fanon-Khayat down, lie Andreas stifled him with the down-filled pillow. Lebanese weakly kicked and bucked beneath

, Slater concentrated on trying to remember where

tad seen the cowboy before. Concentrated on

ftcing himself from the present moment, the ent killing.

without success. He was unable to remember ^ he'd seen the cowboy before, and he was unable

cape the moment. Eventually Fanon-Khayat was , and Andreas lifted the pillow.

s, guys,' Eve said, checking the dead man's

: for a pulse as if she were a nurse, finding none, |teplacing it on his chest. 'I was pretty sure bringing |4n would be better than my shooting him and jttig a mess of the sheets and walls and so on.' fe've got a bit of time,' Slater said. 'He won't have |red any room-service if he was asleep. And the

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sign on the door will keep people away. How did you get in here, in the end?'

'Well,' she smiled. 'I found a nice Portuguese lady cleaning a room out in the next corridor, and asked her what time the shops in the lobby shut. Told her I'd seen a rather nice Bottega Veneta bag I fancied. She said she thought the boutiques were still open, and I nipped down and bought the bag.'

'That's it?' asked Andreas, indicating a smart creation in woven leather.

'That's it,' said Eve. 'A snip at 450, pounds give or take a quid or twenty. I thought it might be nice for Debbie -- a little something from Paris at the taxpayers' expense.'

'What about Ray?' asked Andreas. 'We can't not get him a present. That would be discriminatory.'

'Do you want to hear the rest?' asked Eve.

'Sorry,' said Andreas. 'Go on.'

'When I came back, I showed the housemaid the bag. She said it was terrible how expensive things were in the lobby - that they were a tenth of the price in the supermarkets, and so on. I then told her I'd done something really silly, that I'd left my key inside my room, and that my husband was asleep and I didn't want to wake him - he tended to be a bit grumpy first thing, you know how men are - so could she very sweetly let me in with her pass key? Well, she was fine about it -1 could see her calculating that someone who'd just spent over four thousand francs on a handbag was pretty unlikely to be a sneak-thief- and old FanonKhayat

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: was snoring away so loud you could hear him half down the corridor. So she let me in with her key, voila, we parted the best of friends.' fAnd she's not going to mention this to anyone?' ed Andreas. 7hy should she? Stuff like this must happen all the

- stupid rich people forgetting their keys. Just to how stupid and rich I was I gave her a five sd-franc note. She won't mention it. Anyway, I was, there he was, and the rest you know.

accomplished.' The three of them set to work, collecting everything aected to the dead man and placing it on the bed. Sdn't take long - he hadn't even brought a change iothes. He had, however, brought his passport, ig licence, phone, credit cards and the silenced j|Sauer, all of which Andreas now pocketed. For the twenty-four hours he was going to occupy the fel as Antoine Fanon-Khayat - it was for this reason i he had not booked himself into the hotel when he fed. The dead man had brought one other thing, which

found in the breast pocket of a jacket slung over air. A compact disc, which Eve immediately feeted.

ission accomplished?' Slater asked her. fell, there's a bit of tidying up to do, but basically , As soon as we've packed this guy away we can go to the restaurant and have a good meal. Would two nip upstairs and get the trunk?'

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Slater nodded, and he and Andreas took the lift to the ninth floor. Inside his and Eve's room, Slater unlocked the trunk. Inside were two sleeping bags and a large double duvet. From each of the sleeping bags he dragged a twenty-litre plastic jerrycan of water.

'Heavy in, heavy out, eh?' said Andreas.

'That's right,' said Slater, lugging the jerrycans towards the bath. 'It would look a bit odd if our trunk somehow put on eleven stones in weight overnight. If anyone asks me and Eve about it we're book collectors. Book collectors having a passionate sexual affair.'

'When did you last read a proper book?' smiled Andreas. v

'I'm reading one by Salman Rushdie right now,' said Slater.

'Fuck off!' said Andreas.

The water gurgled from the jerrycans and splashed into the bath. 'Just check, would you, if Leon remembered to put in a knife,' said Slater. 'We'll need to hack these up to make room for FanonKhayat.'

'He remembered,' said Andreas, tossing a Stanley knife on to the bed. 'He's Mr Forward Planning, is Leon. He also knows Paris like the back of his hand, which is useful when you need trunks and jerrycans at six o'clock on a Saturday evening.'

Finally they were ready.

'You call the lift and hold it open,' said Slater. 'I'll get the trunk over there.'

They had to let three lifts go but eventually an.

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one arrived, and they got the trunk down to

427 unobserved. Both Slater and Andreas were

Sous that porters, rather than guests, hauled the

in five-star hotels. Eve and Andreas emptied the trunk, Slater 1 to manhandle the dead man into the smaller of to sleeping-bags. With Andreas's help, he then Ivred the first sleeping-bag into the second, [ the hacked up pieces of plastic jerrycan in after crammed the mummy-like result into the , With the duvet tightly packed around the body allow no shifting when the trunk was carried, . was then forced shut.