Target: Alex Cross Read online

  So Lawlor had decided to stay in Washington for three days before going to New York, where he planned to spend a long weekend. He would return to Amsterdam through Newark the following Monday.

  He went to the kitchen and checked a laptop computer open on the counter. It showed a heavily encrypted internet browser linked in real time to one of his bank accounts in Panama. Nothing yet.

  What the hell is taking so long?

  Then again, Lawlor had sent an encrypted copy of the thermal-imaging scope’s memory file only three hours ago. He didn’t know why that was necessary. Walker’s death was all over cable news. It should have been enough.

  He felt a buzzing in his pocket. He dug out a burn phone, checked the caller ID, and allowed himself a smile.

  “I’m here, Piotr,” Lawlor said in Russian.

  “Sergei,” Piotr replied. “You’ve made my world happier.”

  “I don’t see the results in my account.”

  “Large transfers take a while these days if you want them to move anonymously. In the meantime, are you free to meet and discuss your future?”

  Lawlor checked his watch. “If it’s this evening.”

  “That works. George Washington Hotel rooftop bar. Eight p.m. And you’ll soon be receiving a token of appreciation for a job well done.”

  Lawlor smiled, said, “Thoughtful of you.”

  “Even wolves have moments of kindness.”

  Lawlor hung up and went to the bathroom to shower and shave.

  When he was done, he padded back through the apartment, towel around his waist, and heard a ding.

  He loped over to the laptop and was more than pleased to see that 1.4 million euros had just landed in his Panamanian account.

  I like that, Lawlor thought. I like that a lot .

  And who knew what Piotr had in mind for him now?

  Someone in the lobby buzzed his apartment.

  Lawlor stiffened. Very few people knew he was in the United States, let alone in Georgetown, let alone in this apartment. Other than Piotr and the blokes he’d rented from, of course, and—

  The buzzer went off again.

  He shut the laptop cover, went to the front hallway, and pressed the intercom.

  “Yes?” he said. “Who is it?”

  A woman with a Southern accent drawled, “A gift from your happy agent.”

  A gift from his happy agent? This kind of tip was unexpected but not unheard of in an assassin’s line of work, especially if the strike had been of a sensitive nature, which this one had been. Still, he felt more than a little uneasy.

  “Well?” the woman purred. “Are you going to accept? Or should I go away and tell him you weren’t interested?”

  Lawlor hesitated, then thought: How long has it been? Three weeks? No, at least four.

  He thumbed the buzzer, said, “Third floor, end of the hall.”

  CHAPTER

  11

  EXCITED BUT CAUTIOUS , Lawlor hurried to the bedroom and pulled on dark slacks and a black V-neck T-shirt. He crossed to a suitcase and got out a small knife in a sheath hanging off a strap. He put it around his ankle, then found a small Ruger nine-millimeter pistol that he stuck in his waistband at the small of his back.

  A gentle knock came at the apartment door. He slipped on running shoes, padded to the door, peered through the peephole, and saw a very chic woman in her thirties wearing a long black faux-fur coat that went well with her jet-black hair, high cheekbones, ruby lips, and pale skin.

  Spectacular, he thought as he turned the door handle. Bloody work of art.

  She stepped in. Lawlor smelled her perfume and her own intoxicating smell.

  He closed the door, took her hand, spun her around, and pushed her firmly against the wall.

  “Hey!” she protested, though she didn’t struggle.

  “Hands up against the wall,” he said. “I need to check your purse and pockets.”

  “For what?” she said, raising her hands.

  “Things I don’t like.”

  He took the purse from her and set it aside. Then he patted her down from behind; he found nothing.

  “Turn and open the coat.”

  She sighed, pivoted, and undid the two hooks holding the coat shut.

  The flaps fell away, revealing a very fit body in lacy black lingerie, stockings, stiletto heels, and nothing else.

  “Surprise,” she said, smiling.

  “Sorry, my sweet,” Lawlor said. “Old habits.”

  “You were a cop?” she asked, looking nervous.

  “Soldier,” he said before picking up the purse and opening it.

  “Where are you from?”

  He didn’t answer as he went through the purse, finding a cell phone, two condoms, a black elastic hair band, a small bottle of lubricant, a pair of thin latex surgical gloves, a small lint brush, a shower cap tucked in a sleeve that advertised the Willard hotel, a container of breath mints, and a tube of lipstick.

  “Gloves?” Lawlor said.

  She smirked. “Some gents enjoy a little prostate massage.”

  Lawlor grunted. “None of that.”

  She shrugged. “Are we done or do you want to do a full strip search?”

  “We’re done,” he said, handing her the purse.

  “You’re not much for setting the mood,” she said, taking it.

  “Give me time.”

  She grinned saucily at him.

  He gestured toward the hallway, said, “Can I take your coat?”

  “It’s part of the show,” she said, and she giggled pleasantly as she headed down the short passage into the sitting area. “Nice place.”

  “Airbnb,” he said.

  “No kidding?” she said, sounding impressed. She looked around before walking to the thermostat. “Mind if I make it … hot in here?”

  “By all means.”

  She fiddled with the gauge and then turned to regard him. She seemed to like what she saw. “You work out?”

  “I do. You?”

  “Every day. You’re British?”

  “Long time ago. You?”

  “Florida. You an actor now or something?”

  Lawlor cocked his head.

  “Your ‘happy agent’?”

  “Oh, he’s more like a broker. I do security work. He sets me up with the gigs.”

  “Sounds dangerous,” she said, crossing the room to a small leather club chair and setting her purse on an end table. “Stressful.”

  “Sometimes,” he admitted. “Can I get you a drink? Vodka?”

  She smiled as she patted the chair. “This is about your stress, not mine, baby. Be a doll, now, sit right here and let me take care of every little thing.”

  Lawlor looked at her, thought, Gotta be four weeks at least.

  He went and took the seat. She tugged off a lace-and-leather glove with her teeth, got out her cell phone, and tapped at it until Ariana Grande started to sing “Love Me Harder.”

  She set the phone down on the side table, slipped the glove back on, and danced with the music, gliding her hips from side to side, gripping the lapels of the fur coat, and teasing him with more glimpses of what he’d already seen. She straddled his legs and ground ever so softly against him while leaning in for a kiss.

  Under her weight, Lawlor felt his pistol press into his back, and he shifted slightly before letting her lips meet his. When she drew back, the assassin was already aroused. She ran her leather-clad fingers down his chest, stopped above his waist, then stood again, her humid eyes on him as the music picked up.

  Singing the chorus, she took a few steps back and let the coat fall open. “Like what you see?”

  “I’d have to be an imbecile to not love what I’m seeing, lass.” He chuckled.

  She liked that. She danced over, trailed her hands across his chest again, then slipped around the back of the chair. She leaned over and nuzzled his neck, letting her hair fall against him.

  “This is going to feel so good,” she whispered in his ear. “So
good.”

  He shivered when she ran the tip of her tongue along the top of his ear. “It is good right now.”

  “Just you wait, doll,” she murmured, then she straightened and flipped a loop of piano wire over his head.

  CHAPTER

  12

  DURING HIS SEARCH , Lawlor had not detected the length of piano wire that had been slipped into the lining of the right sleeve of Kristina Varjan’s coat. But the instant Lawlor felt the wire touch his throat, he seemed to know what he was in for.

  Like the professional he was, Lawlor did not thrash or reach up and try to grab at the wire as Varjan cinched the loop tight and wrenched it back. Instead, he arched hard in her direction.

  Gun at the small of his back, Varjan thought, remembering the way he’d shifted when she’d straddled him. Gun now!

  Lawlor’s left hand came up with a small Ruger pistol; he twisted it her way and fired a split second after she flung herself to her right, still holding on to the wire. The pistol barked. The muzzle blasted so close to her ear, she thought her eardrum had ruptured.

  Years of training forced her to swallow the pain and fight. As Lawlor choked and tried to aim at her again, Varjan let go of the wire with her left hand and used it to chop savagely at the curve of his neck, right where it met his shoulder.

  The blow stunned his whole arm. The pistol went off a second time, but the bullet flew well wide of her. She chopped again and again until Lawlor dropped the pistol.

  Varjan grabbed hold of the piano wire with both hands this time and threw her knee into the back of the chair; she heard Lawlor choke hard, and then the slick sounds of the wire cutting through his skin and into muscle.

  Lawlor arched again, came up with a knife from somewhere, and tried to stab her. He missed.

  She stepped away from the blade and wrenched and twisted the wire as hard as she could, then heard a noise like melon rind separating as the garrote broke through Lawlor’s trachea. He made gurgling and gasping noises, stopped trying to stab her, dropped the knife, and began to thrash and try to dig the wire out of his neck with his right hand.

  Every movement made the wire cut deeper; the struggle made the end come that much quicker. Thirty seconds later, Lawlor collapsed and died.

  Varjan let go of the wire and fell to her hands and knees, chest heaving, her fingers numb, sweat boiling off her brow. She stayed that way, panting, for several moments before her instincts kicked in.

  The gunshots had changed everything. She was aware of time and of the impending threat. She glanced at her watch: 4:12 p.m.

  Still breathing hard, she went to her purse, which had fallen to the ground in the struggle, and retrieved the latex gloves and the shower cap. She stripped off the leather gloves as she hurried back to the apartment door and put on the latex gloves and the shower cap while taking glances out the peephole and listening. No doors had opened. No one was in the hall looking. But what if people downstairs had heard? What if they’d made a call?

  She looked at her watch again. A minute and forty seconds had passed since she’d checked, and it had been perhaps a minute before that when the pistol was shot twice. She left the door, crossed to the drapes, and looked out; she saw a few pedestrians on the sidewalks below but heard no sirens.

  Just in case, she pushed up one of the sashes so she could hear the street and returned to stand in front of Lawlor, who was bent over to his left, his eyes dull and bugged wide, his face a pallid blue.

  The piano wire had severed his carotid at the end. The blood was all down the front of him, pooled in his lap.

  She used the lint brush to quickly remove any strands of hair or flakes of skin she might have left on his clothes. Then she went to the sink cabinet and found kitchen garbage bags.

  Varjan plucked out two and left one on the counter. She brought the other one to Lawlor’s side, removed the piano wire from his neck, and bagged it.

  She went to the front door and looked out the peephole. Nothing. She listened at the window. Quiet.

  She found an abrasive cleanser with bleach in the bathroom, and she used it and a damp sponge to wipe down the places she’d touched the dead assassin, even those places already covered in blood. She also wiped the rug where she’d knelt and sweated, then she put the sponge in the bag with the piano wire.

  Nearly fifteen minutes had passed since the shot, and still she heard no sirens.

  Emboldened, Varjan quickly searched the rest of the apartment and found a high-dollar thermal-imaging rifle scope in the nightstand drawer. She put it in her purse along with Lawlor’s cell phone and passport. She examined the contents of his wallet, took five hundred in cash, and left the rest.

  Varjan was about to put Lawlor’s laptop in the other garbage bag but decided to raise the lid first. To her surprise, the screen showed not a password prompt but a bank account in Panama that held more than one million euros and a million British pounds.

  When she realized the link to the account was open and active, Varjan almost laughed out loud. Within five minutes, she had emptied the account and transferred the funds to an account of her own in El Salvador.

  When she figured in the payment for killing Lawlor, it was easily the most profitable day of her career.

  Her cell phone rang. She started, but answered.

  “We are good?” Piotr said.

  “We are good,” she said, dropping the Southern accent as she signed out of the bank’s website and erased the history. “I’m just about to leave.”

  “The phone? His laptop?”

  “Already packed. I’ll drop them where you left the coat.”

  “I like that.”

  “Piotr, should I be looking over my shoulder now?”

  “I do not understand.”

  “Of course you do. He wasn’t just here for fun, and I pay attention to the news.”

  “You were strictly cleanup, and there’s no reason to clean up the cleanup.”

  Varjan didn’t trust Piotr because she didn’t trust anyone, but she let it slide. “Payment?”

  “Within the hour?”

  “Fine.”

  He cleared his throat. “Are you committed to leaving the States, or would you consider other proposals?”

  She thought about the money she’d just looted from Lawlor’s secret account, the money she’d receive within the hour, and the money she had stashed in various places around the world.

  “Depends on the time frame,” Varjan said. “And the money.”

  “Four days from now, seven-figure payday, specifics to follow,” Piotr said. “I am sure you can amuse yourself somewhere on the East Coast in the meantime?”

  She smiled and headed toward the door. “Yes, this I am sure of.”

  CHAPTER

  13

  AS A CROWD of people moved past us toward the Verizon Center in Gallery Place, I looked incredulously at Bree.

  “You’re kidding me,” I said. “Michaels actually told you to solve Walker’s murder in order to prove you were worthy of being COD?”

  “I’m supposed to serve his head to Ned on a platter,” Bree said, upset. “I don’t get it. I thought I’d been doing a solid job.”

  “You’ve been doing a great job.”

  “I think he wants me to replace you, and you’re irreplaceable.”

  “Well, thank you for that, I think, but you’re a damn fine investigator, Bree. If he’s redefining your job, go with it.”

  “And how exactly am I supposed to find Walker’s killer?” she said, crossing her arms. “Charge in, tell you and Ned and the FBI and the Secret Service and the Capitol Police, ‘Butt out, Chief Stone is here’?”

  I grinned. “I could actually see you pulling that one off.”

  “Big help you are,” Bree said, and she looked so forlorn I hugged her.

  “We’ll get through whatever comes our way,” I said, rubbing her back. “As long as we’re together, we’ll be—”

  “Dad, c’mon! The game’s gonna start!”

>   I looked up the sidewalk toward the Verizon Center and saw Jannie in a blue down parka waving at me.

  “Be right there!” I said, and then I put my knuckle under Bree’s chin. “Let’s set this aside for the next hour and a half, okay? Our boy’s in town.”

  Bree nodded and smiled. “And I’m grateful for that.”

  “Me too,” I said, putting my arm around her shoulder.

  We walked to the Verizon Center, a massive athletics complex in Northwest DC, and gave the ticket taker our tickets. Pounding techno music poured out of the speaker system. We found Jannie, Nana Mama, and Ali sitting in a cluster in the tenth and eleventh rows above center court.

  “How’s it looking?” I asked, taking a seat beside my grandmother, Bree sitting down behind me with Jannie and Ali.

  “Davidson versus Goliath,” said Nana Mama, who’d been a basketball fan forever. “And I hate to say it, but with a few notable exceptions, Davidson wasn’t looking too strong during warm-ups.”

  “Where’s the faith, Nana?” Jannie said, sounding irritated. “We could see the breakthrough tonight. Anything’s possible once things start.”

  “The way Georgetown’s been playing?” said Ali, who watches a lot of basketball with my grandmother. “Davidson’s going to get stomped.”

  The music changed, the recording taken over by a live pep band playing, “Final Countdown.” Members of the Georgetown University Hoyas men’s basketball team charged onto the court with a full light show in progress.

  The local crowd went wild, clapping and stomping their feet while the Hoyas went through a few last-minute layup drills.

  “Here come the Wildcats!” Jannie said.

  The Davidson College team ran out in their sweats and started their own final warm-up drills. As Nana Mama had said, with a few notable exceptions, the Wildcats looked nervous.

  My oldest child, Damon, was one of the exceptions. A six-foot-five guard and three-point specialist who usually came off the bench, he entered the court looking all business and ready.