Diary of an Assassin (10 page)

CHAPTER
23

Gustav Fabrice sat in the backseat as the driver played a rock station
through the CD player. He wasn’t allowed music in the psychiatric unit of La Santé and even though he normally didn’t like rock, he was thoroughly enjoying this particular band.

“Who is this?” he said in his accented English.

“Creedence Clearwater Revival. CCR.”

“CCR. Please turn it up.”

Outside, passing by the windows, was the America he had always pictured when he thought of the States. Farms and cows and tractors. He’d been to America only once before but that was in Los Angeles for a connecting flight to Hawaii before moving on to Japan. He had decided that when this was over, he’d like to spend some time here.

He stretched his neck from side
to side, cracking it both ways, and looked up to the moon.

The driver answered a phone call and spoke for half a minute before saying, “Your men have arrived. We just need to identify the exact home they’re staying at.”

“Stop here.”

The car slowed and turned into a little grocery store. The logo on the glass doors was of a chubby little animated man smiling and giving two thumbs up.

“I’ll be right back.”

Inside,
Gustav stopped at the entrance and glanced around. He never entered a room without planning a quick exit route. He walked around slowly, observing the fresh fruit and the meats. He had learned in La Santé to disassociate himself from food. He had to, as the guards, as punishment, would deprive him of food for days at a time. He had to train his mind to believe that food was unnecessary.

An elderly man came out of the back just as Gustav bit into an apple.

“Nice, isn’t it?” the man said.

“Pardon me?
”

“The apple. It’s called a Jazz apple. Good stuff.”

“It is very pleasant, yes.”

“Here, try this.” The man reached over to a small display behind the counter. It consisted of golden pears
that appeared like small oranges. He took out a folding knife from his pocket. “Jordanian pears,” the man said, cutting off a piece and handing it to Gustav.

He ate it and was surprised
by how much juice was contained in such a small slice. “Le meilleur que j’ai jamais mange. It is the best I’ve ever had.”

“Oh, French. Never learned myself. My wife
, though, God rest her soul, taught English in Bordeaux for a year. She loved French.” He put out his hand. “Name’s Mark.”

Gustav took a step forward. “You have been here a long time?”

“Yeah,” he said, lowering his hand, “thirty-eight years.”

“I am looking for a man that may be here. He is known by many names but you
will probably know him as Frederick Compton, or Isaac Rhett.”

Mark stared at him a long while. “And what would you want with him?”

“I am an old friend,” Gustav said, taking the pear and knife out of the man’s hands. He cut off another piece of pear and slipped it into his mouth. “We have much catching up to do.”

“Hm. Well, I can’t help you there.”

“But you know the man, yes?”

“Yeah, I know Isaac. But I ain’t seen him in, oh, a good fifteen years.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. Now if you’ll excuse me I got to take inventory for the day.”

The man took out a clipboard and went down one of the aisles, counting bags of potato chips. Gustav watched him as he took another slice of pear. Suddenly, he threw the knife into the air and caught the blade between his fingers. He flung the knife with a flick of his wrist. The tip of the blade entered into Mark’s facial nerve on the right side. He fell over, his face frozen in an expression of shock.

Gustav walked over and pinned the man’s right arm down with his foot.
His face was contorting from the pain as Mark attempted to shout for help or scream. Gustav reached down and pulled the blade out. Mark instantly sucked in breath as if he had been drowning and then screamed.

“Hurts, no? I was once stabbed there several times. I have actually lost the ability to move
the right side of my mouth. I am unable to smile, but as I like to remind people that ask, I am also unable to frown. But I can grin, slightly. And you, mon ami, are making me grin.”

“What the hell do you want?” he said, panic in his voice as a trickle of blood slipped down his cheek.

“Where is Isaac Rhett?”

“I haven’t seen him for fifteen years. I swear to you. He used to come by here as a kid.”

“You are lying. I can…smell it on you.” Gustav held up the knife and swung down, the tip entering just above the shoulder blade into the trapezius muscle.

Mark screamed again as Gustav twisted the blade.

“Please! Please stop, I don’t know where he is.”

“
You are lying!” He twisted the blade again, shouting, “Tell me where he is.”

Mark writhed and screamed and kicked, but he wouldn’t talk. Gustav took out the blade and pressed the tip into his groin. “You are tough and do not wish to betray your friend. That is commendable. But every man has a point beyond wish he will break. That point is right here,” he said, pressing the tip in just far enough to break the skin.

“He’s at a farm.”

Gustav withdrew the blade. “Where?”

“Up the road two miles. The Goodmanson’s old farm,” he said.

Gustav stood and threw the knife on the ground. “Thank you.” As he was walking out, he turned at the door and faced Mark. “One more
thing, mon ami.” He pulled a 9mm out of his waistband and fired three rounds into the old man’s forehead.

The smell of gunpowder rose into his nostrils and he closed his eyes a
nd inhaled the scent as if he were smelling flowers.

“Bonne journée, mon ami.”

CHAPTER
24

Rhett turned all the lights off.
In the basement, set aside in a little alcove, his grandfather’s rifle collection lay untouched. He grabbed the shotgun and headed upstairs. At the front door, he used wire and a thin wooden rod his grandmother would use to beat wet clothes on a clothesline. Fishing the wire and the rod through the trigger-guard, he tied the other end to the doorknob and leaned the shotgun back against a chair.

He took Stephanie’s wrist and ran into the bedroom.

“Grab only what you need.”

“What’s going on?”

“Shh.” Rhett closed his eyes and listened. Up the road a little way, he could hear a car engine. Taking his pistol and one change of clothing, he ran out of the house, Stephanie trailing behind him.

Gustav waited in the car as his men got out and began circling the
farmhouse. It was a quaint little place and it brought back memories of summers spent in vineyards at Burgundy. He rolled down the window so he could listen and enjoy the night air. The sweet-scented air was what he missed most when he was locked away. The air at La Santé consisted of little more than rebreathed, putrid air from hundreds of inmates packed tightly together.

Six men approached the farmhouse from all sides. Gustav couldn’t help but laugh at their attire: they were wearing all black with camouflage painted on their faces. He thought they looked like soldiers out of some old comedy movie.
This was going to be a disaster, but he wasn’t trying to kill Rhett. He wanted to watch him, to see how he would react to the situation.

Gustav pulled out his weapon and
switched over to the driver’s seat.

One man gave a hand signal and then
crept to the front door. Two men prowled nearby, another stood watch, and two circled out back. The man at the front door counted down on his fingers from three. When he hit zero, he rammed his heel into the door just under the doorknob. The door swung open and a loud boom and a flash of light interrupted the darkness.

The man flew off his feet and onto his back. The other men opened fire with their SMGs. Within seconds, the house was riddled with bullets as all the windows shattered and things flew off the walls inside.

A car started a little ways from the barn. Gustav glanced over just in time to see it peel out and speed past the men, who were caught off guard. The car had nearly passed them before the men turned and started firing at it.

Gustav calmly started his car, and began to follow.

Rhett swung a hard right when he was on the road, rounds bouncing off the car or imbedding themselves into the body. One round hit the rear window and raced through the car and right out the windshield. Stephanie crouched on the floor in front of the passenger seat. When Rhett was far enough away that the firing had stopped, she climbed up.

“Where are we going?”

“Where’s your passport?” Rhett asked.

“At home. Why?”

“We can’t go there. We have to get you a new one. The man we’re going to see tomorrow can make one for you.”

She was silent a while, staring out the window at the darkness. “What
’s the end?”

“The end? The end is you disappear. You start a new life in England or Spain or Africa, wherever you want.”

For the first time, she began to cry. Rhett didn’t know how to react so he said nothing.

“Sorry,” she said after a few minutes.

“It’s okay.”

“I just don’t understand why this is happening to me. I’ve never hurt anybody in my life.”

As he got onto the freeway, Rhett glanced behind him but the road was clear except for a car far off in the distance. It was a three-hour drive to where they were going and he would need to stop for gas soon. He wanted to be out of the county within forty-eight hours.

“
Am I going to die?” she said, staring out the window.

He glanced to her and then back to the road. “No, you’re not going to die.”

CHAPTER
25

It was nearly midnight by the time Rhett drove into an affluent neighborhood in Riverdale. The homes were large and had enough space between them that one occupant couldn’t look into the home of another through his windows. The streets were wide and there was little light pollution so the stars shimmered in the black sky.

Rhett
turned into a driveway and parked. “Wait here.”

All the lights were off in the home
. He knocked and then rang the doorbell. Lights went on upstairs and he could hear somebody coming to the door.

An old woman in a bathrobe answered.

“Isaac? Do you know what time it is?”

“I do, Mrs. Giac
coni, I’m sorry. But it’s really important I speak with Anthony.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“Someone has hacked into my bank accounts. I’m afraid all my savings are gone unless I can speak to Anthony right away.”

“Oh dear. Well, yes, of course you can speak to him
. He’s down in his room.”

“Thank you.” He motioned for Stephanie to come as well. “This is my cousin Stephanie.”

“Hello, Stephanie, pleasure to meet you.”

The old woman held the door open for them as they stepped inside.
At the foyer, one set of stairs led to the main floor up a level and another set led to the basement. They took the stairs to the basement.

It was dark except for a blacklight
, and some sort of odd, musical noise was playing over the surround sound. The only illumination other than the blacklight was from the monitors of four homemade computers.

Anthony
Giacconi sat at one of them, poring over code. At another to his left, a porno was playing.

“Your
grandmother know you watch that stuff?” Rhett sat down in a beanbag chair. Stephanie chose to stand.

“She never comes down here,” Anthony said, his eyes not leaving the screen.

“I don’t blame her. It smells like ass down here, Anthony.”

“I’ve been coding for three days straight. New program I can use to hack into the mainframe of
any bank on Wall Street.”

“You get sick of the poor life?”

“I’m not poor, thank you very much. I sold some programs to Google and you’re now looking at a man of substantial means. I’m just going to fuck with them. I’m going to transfer around accounts and make trades and stuff. By the time they figure out what’s going on, they’ll have to shut down to purge the system.”

“Whatever floats your boat I guess.”

Anthony rolled his wheelchair out from under the table that held all his computer equipment. “Oh, hello. Why didn’t you tell me you had a lady with you?” He pressed a button on the keyboard and the porno turned to a music station.

“You look good,” Rhett said. “You’ve put on some weight. Still pasty white
, though. You have to get out more.”

“I don’t really like going outside. Lotta germs in nature. You guys want a Code Red?”

“No thanks. I’m here for something else.”

“What’s up?” he said, rolling over to a fridge and getting a drink for himself.

“We need a passport and identification for her.”

“No prob.”

“And I need you to look at this.”

Rhett pulled out his phone and opened the black app. Anthony took it and
began testing its functions. “Is this how you communicate with the Messenger?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm, it’s encrypted. Let me mess with it.”

He plugged the phone into one of his computers
, and the app and about a page of code came up. Anthony began swiftly erasing bits of code and writing in new ones. He glanced over to Stephanie, who had moved some clothes out of the way and sat down on a small couch.

“It’s
using a simple algorithm to bounce the signal around so I can’t trace it. I need like, three or four hours with it.”

“I need the location of the Messenger.”

“I can get you the location of where he last texted you from, but I have no idea where he would be now unless he sends you another text.” He glanced to him. “What’s going on anyway?”

“A long story for another time.”

“Suit yourself. Come back in a few hours.”

“I’ll be back in the morning.”

Rhett rose and thanked him as they walked out of the house. They were driving before either of them spoke.

“Who was that?” she asked.

“An old friend. We both worked at the same agency once. He does work for me sometimes.”

“How’d he end up in a wheelchair?”

“He’s always been in one. He was born with a degenerative disease of the spine. He’s outlived all the doctors’ predictions.”

A Marr
iot Courtyard was off the freeway just a mile up the road. Rhett abandoned the car behind a gas station before they walked over to it: they couldn’t drive around in a car pockmarked with bullet holes. Tomorrow, he would have to get a new one.

They checked in
, Rhett using a credit card that belonged to a Nathan Hillcrest. The room held two beds and Rhett collapsed onto one as Stephanie climbed into the other in the darkness, not bothering to take her shoes off.

It’d been a long time since he’d slept in the same room with a woman. He watched her a few minutes and then took out his pistol and tucked it underneath the pillow.