He stared at the screen, committing to memory the exact spot where the man was lurking this very night. Some obscure point in the mountains, several kilometers from the main coastal highway. Thinking he was safe and hidden. It gave András a pleasurable feeling of power.
Good. It was all good. This was becoming so easy, it might not even be a worthy challenge, he reflected with faint amusement. But he would gladly exchange challenge for speed. It reflected well upon him in any case. And his work here was done.
He took the laptop, stowed it, and stood. He looked down at Hegel, trying to think if there was any reason on earth, any reason at all, not to kill him. The man saw death in his eyes and held up his hand to ward it off. András had seen that classic gesture many times.
“There’s more,” he said hastily.
András fondled the knife in one pocket. “More? What more?”
“Don’t kill me. Help me get away from here, from Georg, and I’ll tell you everything I—”
“Don’t try to bargain with me, fool,” András said. “You will tell me everything you know now, or I will cut off your dick and choke you to death with it. What more do you have?”
Hegel swallowed repeatedly. “The child,” he said hoarsely.
András frowned down at him. “What child?”
“She has a child. Steele. She adopted a girl. Three years old.”
András began to grin. Ah, yes. This would make the old man very happy. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know exactly. She appeared on the airport security cameras in Sea-Tac International three days ago. I had three men following Janos in an attempt to locate Steele and the child. He killed the men, took Steele and the girl, and from that point, all I know is that he climbed on a plane in Portland with Steele alone. Somewhere between Sea-Tac and Portland International Airport, they left the child with someone. I do have some archived footage from the night between those events, and I know he spent them at a luxury resort between Tacoma and Seattle,” Hegel babbled on. “A place called the Huxley. I assume they left the kid with someone during that interval, but I didn’t investigate any further because Luksch just wanted Steele. Nothing else.”
András sat down on the chair, chewing the inside of his lip.
“She has, ah, dark curly hair,” Hegel added, a note of desperation in his voice, the sound of a man with no bargaining chips left. “She’s small, very thin for her age. And she’s extremely—”
Thhtp. The silenced Glock drilled a bullet between Hegel’s eyes. The man flopped back onto his pillow and gazed blankly into the air.
“Thank you,” András said softly.
He gazed at his handiwork for a moment. The slumped body on the bed lacked dramatic impact. He really ought to put a bit more artistry into it. He didn’t have time to get truly creative, but the boss always appreciated that personal touch.
András shrugged off his jacket to save the bloodstains, clicked open his case and took out a small saw and a pair of industrial strength rubber gloves. A few minutes later, he was relatively pleased by the artistic effect of Hegel’s head, nestled in the center of the blood-soaked coverlet, severed hands clasped piously beneath his chin. He snapped a picture on his cell phone, encrypted it, sent it to the boss. The old man needed a pick-me-up. Waiting made him frantic.
András heard an unintelligible sound, turned, found that the man in the other bed was awake and staring at him, eyes bugged out.
Automatically, András aimed the gun at the man’s forehead—and then paused, taking note of the lopsided mouth, the fellow’s garbled attempts at speech. Stroke. András’s grandfather had suffered from a stroke when András was a child. He still remembered the horrified fascination he’d felt at the old man’s distorted face, his helpless frustration. His vain attempts to communicate.
It made him almost nostalgic. Poor old Grandfather.
No need to risk another shot. Each time the silencer was slightly less effective, and this poor old man would never be able to describe him. András tucked the gun into his jacket, leaned over the man’s bed and put his finger to his smiling lips.
“Shhh,” he murmured. “Not one word, eh? Our little secret.”
The man’s eyes and mouth kept stretching wider. A red mote in his eye began to grow and grow. His eyelid filled with blood. It welled over and trickled down his pale cheeks, like a miraculous blood-weeping statue of the Virgin. He was having another catastrophic stroke before András’s eyes.
András could not help but smile at the irony of it. It was one of those days. He was riding great cresting waves of death. Exhilarating.
Ah, yes. Which reminded him. Green Bathrobe. Details, details.
He slid into room 14. Green Bathrobe was asleep, as were his two roomates. András took a pillow from the unoccupied bed and pressed it over the man’s face, counting with slow, deadly patience while his mind churned, compiling a list of professionals in the Seattle area.
Someone who could locate and discreetly extract Tamar’s child. The boss would want her, the way a greedy brat wanted toys and chocolate.
Admittedly, he didn’t have much time left to play.
And András would be the one to deliver this treat. A turn of the knife to show the old man his error in having favored Georg over András as successor after Kurt’s death after years of loyal service.
Some silent moments later, the other inhabitants of the room still slept, and Green Bathrobe’s pulse was absent.
András slid back down the hall like a shadow again, his hand on the butt of his gun. Daring fate. Let someone come out of the nurse’s station and force him to shoot again and again. To leave a pile—no, a towering mountain of bleeding bodies in his wake.
Once he started riding that wave, he never wanted to stop.
Chapter
21
Harry Whelan was having a stressful day. Assistant managing the Huxley on a busy day with two weddings and a banquet made him brusque. When Nancy, one of the check-in clerks, asked him to deal with a cop who had questions about a guest, he was short with her.
“Tell him we don’t give out information about our guests,” he snapped. “It’s Huxley security policy. As you know.”
“I did, but he kept insisting—”
“Does he have a warrant? Tell him to get a warrant.”
“Please, Harry, I did, but he won’t listen to me. Will you come talk to him? He’ll listen to you.”
Harry groaned, but Nancy was so cute with big blue eyes and substantial breasts that strained her green uniform vest to the limit of what was professionally appropriate. He was actually contemplating breaking his no-dating-in-the-workplace rule and asking her out. He hustled down the hall to the front desk, puffing out his chest.
A burly man with a beard waited. He smiled at Harry, who did not smile back. Not when his time was being wasted. “Can I help you?”
The man held out his hand, and Harry shook it. “Raymond Clive, FBI,” he said. “Are you the manager, Mr. Whelan?”
His nametag read AM, which should be clear enough, Harry thought. “Assistant Manager,” he specified.
“May I speak with you in private?” Clive asked.
“I might as well tell you right now that it’s the Huxley’s security policy not to share information about our guests with any—”
“Please, Mr. Whelan. Can we speak privately?” The man leaned over the counter and pitched his voice lower. “It’s a delicate matter.”
Harry