Spy Sinker (32 page)

There must be no mistakes this time. Thurkettle picked up the shotgun and aimed low. Tessa seemed to see him. She grinned as he pulled the trigger twice, hitting her with both shots. As she went down, the gorilla fired again and this time his round put out one of the Wartburg's headlights. Thurkettle didn't like the way it was developing. Given the darkness one or two of these people could get away. But he wasn't by any means certain how many people were there.

There were more shots, fired in rapid succession, a sign of nerves. Stinnes probably, he could be trigger-happy. One of them had to find a mark. The gorilla screamed, ran, stumbled and crashed into the mud. Thurkettle stayed in the darkness. Somewhere in this muddy arena Bernard Samson lurked, and Samson was a pro. Then Stinnes stepped out to make sure the gorilla was dead. What a reckless thing to do. Thurkettle remained very still in the darkness and kept silent.

'It's safe,' called Stinnes. He beckoned to a second man: a tall fellow in a smart trenchcoat: Kennedy.

'How many did they send?' Kennedy asked. He looked round nervously and the light from the single passing headlight caught his face. From his position Thurkettle could see both men clearly and identified them beyond chance of mistake: yes, Erich Stinnes and Harry Kennedy.

Then Fiona Samson walked forward. Some instinct, or understandable trepidation, made her walk so as to avoid the pool of light. London must have briefed her to go for the van, for she was heading towards it, past the men, when two shots were fired. They came from somewhere so close to Thurkettle that the sound made him jump hah
⁰
out of his skin. Fiona Samson disappeared. Damn!

Bang. Some damned great handgun. Kennedy jumped back, arms flailing like a rag doll as he was knocked over, and lay in the mud as still as a bundle of old clothes. He was unmistakably dead. Sometimes it goes like that, a lucky accident and one shot is enough.

Bang. Again the cannon went off. Stinnes lurched round, firing his gun with one hand and clutching his neck with the other, the blood spraying through his fingers. It went everywhere and spattered Fiona. That shot was enough to tell Thurkettle that these were not lucky accidents. There was someone, a too damned close to him someone, who'd silently clambered up on to a piece of heavy machinery to get a better vantage point; some cold-blooded someone who didn't say hands up; someone who hadn't perfected his shooting on the range: Samson.

Thurkettle's mouth went dry. He always made it a rule not to tangle with professional hit men or pros like Samson. It was bad enough facing these KGB goons but Samson was a number one no-no.

The remaining headlight of the Wartburg was switched off. It was dark now except when the lights of passing traffic swept across the mud and debris and the bodies. Thurkettle froze and hoped he hadn't been spotted. Neither Bernard Samson nor his wife had been told of Thurkettle's role in this drama. Only Tessa and Stinnes had expected him to be here, and they were both dead.

Thurkettle crouched lower behind the tracks of the bulldozer and looked at the eastern horizon. Soon it would be dawn. He didn't want to be here when it got light: any passing driver on the Autobahn might spot him. Cops might arrive. 'Are we going to wait here all night, Samson?' he called finally. 'You can take the woman and take the Ford and go. Take your gorilla too. I don't want any of you.' When there was still no response he called, 'Do you hear me? I'm working your side of the street. Get going. I've got work to do.'

It was a breach of contract but only a minor breach: the two Samsons were on the side of the man who employed him. They'd just have to keep their mouths shut. Anyway by the time they were debriefed Thurkettle would have his money and be over the hills and far away.

Fiona Samson might still have been sitting there had she not used every last atom of will-power to get to her feet. Something inside her had snapped. Was this the breakdown of will that she had been dreading for so long? Inside her head there was a noise that she couldn't recognize. It blotted out her thoughts and distorted her vision. She didn't know who she was and couldn't remember where she was supposed to be.

With the sluggish posture of a sleep-walker Fiona Samson emerged from the dark. Spattered with blood, and stumbling in the soft ground, she inched towards the Ford van. She was totally disabled by seeing Kennedy, dear sweet Harry whom she loved, so brutally shot dead, and not by an avenging husband but by a professional and indifferent one. Tessa too. The sister she cherished more than she could say was dead in a pool of blood.

This was that
Last Judgment
she'd discovered with such a shock. Here were the monsters come to torment her for all eternity. Wracked with sin, she had stepped beyond the cosy world of the Pariser Platz into the bloody nightmare on the wall, and there would be no escape. Her mind numbed, and suffering an anguish from which she would never completely recover, she moved through her frenzied world like an automaton.

Bernard Samson watched Fiona get into the van. Then, suspicious to the last, he ran to get behind cover. When no shots were fired at him he climbed into the Ford van beside his wife. The engine started and, slowly and carefully, bumping over the pot-holes, the van moved off. Only when the site was clear did Thurkettle decide it was safe enough to emerge from his hiding place.

Left alone, Deuce Thurkettle took off his trenchcoat so that only his coveralls would get soiled. He got his hacksaw and hastily but carefully started his grisly work. When the head was severed he dragged Tessa's body into the car and arranged it with the skull he'd brought with him. The other bodies – the man in the gorilla suit, Harry Kennedy and Stinnes – ended up in the deep part of the excavations.

Thurkettle heaved a sigh of relief as he threw his blood-saturated coveralls into the muddy ditch with them. He tossed the guns after them and, using the shovel, covered everything there with mud and debris.

Setting fire to the car was easier. He watched the Wartburg burn and made sure that everything inside it was going to be thoroughly consumed in the flames. Only then did he mount his motor cycle and ride away to collect his money.

Werner Volkmann was sitting in a Skoda car at the Ziesar exit ramp, as arranged with Thurkettle. Werner had spent the evening at a fancy-dress party of which he was the nominal host. He had drunk only mineral water but now he was tired. Werner had always wanted to be a secret agent. He'd started doing little jobs for the British when he was still a teenager and the whole business of espionage still intrigued him. This was the finale. He knew that. The D-G had shaken hands with him and muttered something about an award: not money, some sort of medal or certificate. On his last visit to California Bret Rensselaer had said what Werner recognized as a final goodbye. By tomorrow morning Werner would be back in his West Berlin hotel and a private citizen again: his career in espionage over. He'd never tell anyone. Secrets shared were not his idea of what secrets should be.

He looked at the pistol that London Central had supplied to him that morning. He'd hoped they would give him something that would satisfy his romantic yearnings: a lovely Colt Model 1911, a stylish Walther P.38 or a classic Luger. Instead London had sent him another of these cheap little 'chamberless expendables'. It looked like a gadget used to ignite the flame on a gas stove. Its surface was hatched to provide a grip but also to eliminate any surface upon which a fingerprint could remain. It used triangular-sectioned cartridges – 'trounds' – in a 'strip clip', and almost everything was made by a plastics corporation in America. It was new, unidentifiable and in perfect working order, but it did not give Werner the satisfaction that he would have got from an old-fashioned weapon. Oh well, one had to move with the times. He put the gun in his inside pocket where it would be easy to reach.

Dawn was breaking as Werner spotted Thurkettle arriving on his motor cycle. He waved airily to Werner and gave a little flip to the accelerator. Deuce enjoyed riding the big bike but now the time had come for him to dispose of it. He'd parked a Volkswagen camper nearby. As soon as he'd collected his payment from this lugubrious schmo, he'd walk to where he'd left the camper. In it there were clean clothes, soap, towels and food. Buried nearby he'd left a Swiss passport wrapped in plastic. The passport had a visa for a three-week camping tour of East Germany. He'd shave off his beard, change his appearance and drift around seeing the sights like a tourist until the heat died down. Then he'd drive north and take the ferry boat to Sweden.

Thurkettle got off his bike and walked over to the car. The rain had soaked him to the skin and the exertions had left his muscles stiff. He remembered that the VW camper had a shower in it, and wondered how long it would take for the water to get hot.

Werner lowered the car window. 'Was there any difficulty?' he asked.

'Nothing I couldn't handle. But Fiona Samson is dead,' said Thurkettle. It was what he'd been told to say. 'One of the Russkie goons wasted her. Bernard Samson got away: so did some other woman. I don't know who she was: she was in a long yellow dress. She went with Bernard Samson.'

Werner knew who the other woman was: it was Tessa. He'd seen her leave the party with Bernard. 'Fiona Samson is dead? Are you sure?'

'It's not something I'd make a mistake about,' said Thurkettle. He smiled: he liked secrets. The switch of identities he'd arranged for the two women was a secret Prettyman had told him to keep entirely to himself. 'All the others are dead.'

'Kennedy too?'

'Yeah, Kennedy too. And a guy dressed as a gorilla. There was a shoot-out. I was lucky to get away in one piece.' He always embellished events when he came to collect his fee. Clients always wanted to feel they were getting value for their money. 'Those Russkie sons of bitches came there all set to blow me away. If I hadn't been there, Bernard Samson would never have made it.'

'My God! Poor Fiona,' said Werner. He'd come to adore her over the months they'd worked together. She should never have taken on a task like that, the strain was too much for her. He'd seen her fading under the stress of it. At one meeting recently she had had a momentary black-out. She'd said it was too many late nights and made him promise to keep it a secret. Poor Fiona. He got out of the car and went round to the trunk. It was raining. He looked round him in the brightening dawn. There wasn't much time.

'Yeah, well, that's the way it goes,' said Thurkettle philosophically. He smiled at Werner. He seemed like a genial fellow and Werner smiled too.

'I didn't realize it was still raining,' said Werner.

'Is that right?' said Thurkettle, who was soaked to the skin.

'Do you want to sit in the car and count it?' Werner asked. 'I don't want to stand here getting wet.' He was going through his keys to find the one for the trunk.

'We'll just take a peek at it so I can see it's real.'

'It's real,' said Werner. 'Used notes. Exactly as you specified. I got it from the Commerzbank on Friday.'

He reached into the trunk of the car to get a leather document case. Carefully he put the case into Thurkettle's hands, saying, 'Don't rest it on the car. The paintwork is brand new.'

Thurkettle smiled pitifully. He was used to the sort of nervousness that Volkmann displayed. Clients were always timorous when dealing with a hit man. He held the case with both hands while Werner bent forward and fiddled with the lock. 'It's a combination lock,' explained Werner. He could smell the blood and filth on Thurkettle's clothes: it was the stink of the slaughter-house. 'You can make the combination into anything you choose. I made it 123. You can't forget 123 can you?'

'No,' said Thurkettle. Werner snapped the lock open, and pulled up the lid. There it was: fifty-dollar bills: line upon line of them. 'You can't forget 1, 2, 3.'

It was while Thurkettle was standing there, holding the new leather document case with both hands, that Werner, gripping the curious-looking gun so it was hidden under the case, pulled the trigger. A strip clip of eight rounds fired as fast as a machine gun. They all went into Thurkettle's belly.

Eight rounds. It was only a little 'expendable', but at point-blank range a weapon doesn't have to be a masterpiece of the gunsmith's art for its effect to prove fatal.

The impact of these little medium-velocity rounds did not knock Thurkettle down, he just staggered backwards a couple of paces still holding the case in both hands and staring at Werner in uncomprehending disbelief. Thurkettle's jerky movements caused the money to spill over, and a gust of rainy wind started to carry it away. Thurkettle watched his money blowing away. He grabbed at some notes but winced in pain. This couldn't be happening to him. He was shot. Thurkettle was a professional killer and this jerk was a nothing…

As he staggered back, more and more money fluttered away and he tasted the blood gushing up into his mouth and knew he was done for. By now he was clutching the document case against his chest as if it might prove protection against more shots or comfort him in his final moments, and he embraced it tight like a lover, and the bloodsoaked money fell around his feet.

It was just before he fell down that Deuce Thurkettle understood exactly how he'd been tricked. His eyes opened wide in fury. Deuce Thurkettle was the only one who knew for certain that Fiona Samson was still alive. Even this clown who had shot him thought that Samson had escaped with Tessa.

Well, he'd tell the world. He opened his mouth to tell the truth but only blood came out. Lots of it. Then he toppled to the ground.

Werner threw away his little 'expendable'. That was the convenient thing about them. He watched Thurkettle die, for he knew that London would want a positive answer. Werner didn't feel compassion for him. He was a psychopath and society is better off when such people are dead. Any last feeling he might have shown for Thurkettle had been removed when he heard that.Fiona was dead. He'd told Thurkettle that getting Bernard and Fiona to safety was of paramount importance and he'd failed to do it.