Diary of an Assassin (22 page)

CHAPTER 58

Henri used his badge and the FBI contact to get on the next flight to DC. He warned the agent at the DC airport about Gustav and the agent informed him that he would get a couple of people down there.

The flight was packed and
Henri sat in the back of the plane, his leg bouncing up and down so much the person next to him glanced over. Waiting for the flight to take off was the most anxiety he had felt in a long time. In a way, he missed it. The chase. These days, his job was mostly paperwork and supervision of new detectives, and getting into the field was a pleasure he had forgotten all about. Pleasure may not have been the right word. Exhilaration maybe.

The flight was agonizingly slow though it was just over an hour
. They landed ahead of schedule. As soon as he was in the terminal, he called his assistant. Though it was five in the morning in Paris, they had an understanding that he was to leave his cell phone on at all times.

“Allo?”

“J'ai besoin de vous pour trouver une adresse pour moi, à Washington DC,” Henri said, jogging to the rental car booths.

“Pour qui?”

“Vanessa Hailstorm, Homeland Security.”

“Un moment…vous prêt?”

“Oui.”

“Five sixteen Barker Lane apartment 4E.”

“Five sixteen Barker Lane apartment 4E.”

“Oui.”

“Merci. Maintenant dormir un peu.”

Henri hung up and
attempted to rent a car. The salesman kept trying to sell him upgrades like insurance or a larger car and he grew frustrated and pulled out his badge, saying he needed the car immediately. The clerk told him to wait a moment and returned with the manager.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the manager said, “but we can’t rent a car to you.”

“Why not?”

“We’ve had…issues with law enforcement damaging our vehicles. If you like
, I can call a cab for you.”

“You’re joking.”

“I’m sorry, sir. It’s company policy. If you’d like to speak to our district manager, I’m sure I could get—”

Henri sprinted away and out of the terminal. He saw a car with a single male inside and he ran up to the door and pulled the man out.

“What the hell are you doing?”

He slammed the door shut and locked it as the man
started banging on the window. He sped off out of the airport and onto the interstate. There was no GPS in the car so he had to pull up the app on his phone. His eyes darting between his phone and the road, he punched in Vanessa’s address. It was twenty-one minutes away. He decided he would get there in ten.

Henri rolled down the window and the
night air whipped through the car. He had tried calling Vanessa half a dozen times, but after ringing, it always went to voicemail. He called the police and asked if they could check on her apartment. He was on hold with dispatch when a woman’s voice came on.

“Sir?”

“Yes,” he said.

“The address you gave us, I
do have a unit already in that area. Right next door actually, so they’ll get over there in a minute and check on her.”

“I appreciate that. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Ah, excuse me, one more thing, when you said next door, do you mean the next apartment?”

“No, sir. There’s an emergency at the grocery store next to the complex.”

“Okay,” Henri said, his stomach dropping, “thank you.”

Watching his speedometer, he saw that he hit over eighty miles an hour on a somewhat crowded interstate. Several times he had to weave in between cars or go up on the shoulder, but he arrived at his exit quickly and then sped down the street and through two red lights before coming to Vanessa’s apartment complex. He said a quick prayer, thanking the Lord for not letting him get pulled over in a stolen car, and then jogged up the entrance.

The
building’s front door was locked with a keycode and he had to wait what seemed like a long time for a tenant to pass through and open it. They tried to close the door behind them, so he pulled out his badge and walked past them and to the elevator.

The fourth floor was quiet and smelled faintly of dust. The
rustic building reminded him of someplace his grandmother might live. It wasn’t the young, hip place he had imagined for Vanessa. He came to 4E and stopped, putting his ear to the door. He listened for a while but couldn’t hear anything. The doorknob turned all the way when he tried it, and he opened the door and went inside.

Henri took out his weapon and was suddenly appreciative of the fact that law enforcement in the United States could carry firearms on planes. In France, it was not the case. He shut the door behind him and stood in the dark, unsure what exactly he was waiting for. He walked around to the hallway
, hoping to hear the shower running and see Vanessa’s cell phone on the kitchen counter. There was nothing but silence.

He checked the bathroom and then the bedroom. An office was off to the side and he went in and switched on the lamp on an old oak desk. The office was small and immaculate
, bookshelves taking up all the walls. Henri browsed through them. They were mostly books on geography, geopolitics, economics, and anthropology. He went to the computer and turned it on. It was passcode locked, so he turned it back off and turned the lamp off before walking out of the room.

Entering
the bathroom again, he washed his hands, something he hadn’t done in a day. He looked at himself in the mirror and then walked out. He headed for the kitchen. The fridge held a few beers, and he took out a bottle and popped the top, taking a long drink. He tried Vanessa’s cell phone again but it just went to voicemail.

As he was about to leave, he saw a pair of shoes sticking out from behind
the island in the kitchen. He walked to them and stared at the body that lay on the floor. The blood had congealed into a thick gelatin and Henri turned away and walked out of the apartment.

He
knew Vanessa was dead.

CHAPTER 59

At the grocery store next to her apartment, Henri confirmed that Vanessa Hailstorm had been killed. He sat in his car a long time and couldn’t bring himself to start it. When he finally did, he saw that he was running low on gas.

Henri tried to rush to the airport but his movements were slow and he found it difficult to pay attention to the road enough to navigate traffic. He
reminded himself that a young girl’s life was at stake and that helped focus him enough to get there relatively quickly from Vanessa’s apartment.

He went inside and looked for the FBI agents he had been promised: none were there. He sat in a seat and exhaled loudly as his knees cracked.
Something that had just started occurring this year.

Henri felt exhausted: mentally and physically. He felt like he didn’t have the energy or the desire to chase Gustav any longer.
He just wanted to go home and take a bath and be with his family.

An image of a young woman flashed in his mind, dead in a rental car with a bullet in her brain. He forced himself to get up and find the TSA office.

Henri stood outside the terminal, sipping coffee out of a paper cup. Two federal agents were inside and TSA had a photograph of Gustav. Henri decided he would be out here when everything happened. He wouldn’t be inside, and he wouldn’t let Gustav see him. He had wanted to be there and tell him he was under arrest, thinking that it would somehow bring him satisfaction. But it wouldn’t matter. Not in the long run. There were thousands of Gustavs and stopping one made little difference.

Gustav would see him out here
, though. Henri thought it best if he sat in some quiet corner inside one of the terminals, and he entered the airport and sat near a kiosk. He leaned back in the seat and rubbed his eyes. Sleep was just on the horizon, pushing itself forward. If he lay down, he knew it would overtake him. He rose and bought another cup of coffee then leaned against the wall behind the seats instead of sitting.

The buzz of the airport would come in waves. Crowds from recently landed planes
would swamp the terminal and an excited energy would flood the space, affecting everyone inside. But then as quickly as they had come, the crowds would dissipate, and then there would be nothing but the quiet hum of pilots and stewardesses talking softly as they went to their gates.

Seconds turned to minutes
, which turned to hours. Henri would walk around the terminal to stay awake, but after an hour or so, that would be ineffective. He drank enough coffee that his hands were trembling and he had to use the toilet. He ate a meal of roast beef and salad and took another walk before lying down across several seats. He would close his eyes and drift off to sleep before his eyes would dart open again. It wasn’t until daylight broke through the windows and pierced his closed eyelids that he understood Gustav wasn’t coming.

He sat up and spoke to the federal agents. They assured him they would keep an eye out and that TSA would keep the photo. Henri thanked them, and then
strode to the counter and purchased a ticket to Charles De Gaulle International in Paris. His flight would be leaving in three hours, so he decided to return his rental car and then take a walk outside the terminal to get air. A man was smoking on the corner and Henri stopped next to him.

“May I have a cigarette?”

The man nodded and pulled one out. As Henri put it to his lips the man lit it for him.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, brother.”

“I
keep attempting to quit but it doesn’t seem to be working.”

“It’ll do that to ya. You French?”

“Yes.”

“I always like
d the accent. I used to wish I had it ’cause I thought it would get me more pussy. Chicks dig that accent.”

Henri shrugged. “In France they like German accents. Whatever is unfamiliar I suppose.”

The man puffed on the cigarette. “Still want a French one.”

“You could fake it.”

“Nah, I ain’t gonna be someone ain’t me. What part a France you from?”

“I was born near
Bordeaux in a town called Lormont.”

“Yeah? What was that like?”

“It was good. I miss it.”

“Why don’t you go back?”

“It’s not the same. That type of town doesn’t exit anymore. It had one baker, one doctor, one mechanic…you don’t have that anymore. It’s all just corporations now. Faceless.”

“I hear that. I’m from Montana and had nothing in the town I grew up in. Then they built a
Wal-Mart and now they got nothin’ but fast food and billboards.” The man took another puff. “That’s a damn shame to treat a woman like that.”

Henri followed his eyes
to a car pulling into the parking terrace across the lot from them. A young woman was in the passenger seat and it looked like she was struggling with the driver, a male. The woman tried to open the door and the male grabbed her by her hair. As the man hauled the woman back inside, Henri got a good view of him.

It was Gustav.

CHAPTER
60

Billie
put her arms around him as the woman ran. Gustav pushed her off and pinned her against the kitchen counter. Billie screamed as the pistol grazed her breast. Gustav’s face contorted in anger but he pulled the pistol away and instead slapped her hard against the face, sending her to her back on the kitchen floor.

“Wait here,” he said. “If you run
, I can find you.”

Billie lay on the floor, crying into her hands. She heard the door shut but she couldn’t move. She felt that it would be easier if she were dead
, the motivation to keep going fading inside her.

After a while, she pulled herself up and wiped away the tears with the back of her hand. She went into the living room and stared at the door.

“Fuck him.” She sprinted for the door. Running down the hall, her footfalls heavy against the floors, she made it to the elevators and pressed the button. She pressed it impatiently until it arrived. She hopped on and went to the first floor.

Glancing around only briefly, she ran outside and into the night. A sense of relief washed over her. People were walking on the sidewalks and cars were driving by. But she knew
the relief was illusory: this…thing would kill her in front of a hundred people as easily as he would if they were alone.

She ran to the first couple she saw and screamed, “Please, please
, I’ve been kidnapped.”

“Whoa, calm down
.”

“No, no, you have to get me outta here,” she said, frantic
ally. “We have to go right now. He’s coming back.”

The female pulled out her cell phone and dialed nine
-one-one.

“No,” Billie screamed, “that won’t help. We have to go please, we have to go.”

“Hey, I said calm down. It’s okay. The cops’ll be here in a minute. No one’s going to hurt you with twenty people around.”

“We have to go,” she said, pulling on
the male’s arm.

“Let go of him
.”

“You fucking asshole,” Billie screamed as she ran from them and
into the intersection. The light was green but she stepped out into the intersection anyway, holding out her hands. A Buick slammed on its brakes and blared its horn. Billie ran around to the driver’s side. An old man in a suit rolled up his window. Billie tried to open the door but it was locked. She screamed and pounded on the door but the man only stared wide-eyed at her. He pulled away with her still pounding on the windows.

She tried to stop the car after him
. A middle-aged woman with kids was driving. She kept going, not even looking at her. A woman in the third car stopped and rolled down the window.

“You all right?”

“I’ve been kidnapped,” she said, crying. “Please get me outta here.”

“Oh my gosh. Get in.”

The woman opened the passenger side door and as Billie got in, she took out her cell phone and dialed nine-one-one. Billie sat in the passenger seat curled up as the car began to move again. Then it stopped. She looked around, wondering why they weren’t going anymore. She turned to the woman to tell her to hurry up when she saw Gustav standing at the open window. The woman was staring at the roof, the handle of a knife sticking out of her throat.

Billie screamed and opened the passenger door. She got out as a car was passing and it swerved away from her
, crashing into another car in the far lane. All the vehicles behind them hit their brakes, and Billie ran between the lanes screaming.

She glanced back once and saw Gustav
take out his pistol and place the barrel against the forearm of his left arm to keep it still. He was taking aim. She dove underneath a car just as the first bullet shattered the windshield she had been standing next to just a moment ago. She got to her hands and knees and crawled on the pavement. No one got out of their cars. She would reach up to a door handle and it would be locked, the driver avoiding her gaze.

She was hysterical now
, unable to control her screaming. She crawled until her knees were cut and bloody and her hands had small pebbles embedded in them. But she didn’t look back. She went as fast as she could and then turned a corner before standing up and running.

Not two seconds into her run, she felt a burning sting in her upper thigh and her left leg
ceased to respond. She collapsed and hit the ground hard, chipping her front teeth on the pavement. She tried to crawl again but agony thundered through her leg and up into her hip. She shrieked and rolled to her side.

Gustav
stood over her. A man on the sidewalk ran up and said, “What the fuck are you doing?”

Before he was even close enough to see exactly what was going on, he had a round through his
throat and he fell to the curb as everyone else panicked and ran. Gustav looked down at her, mumbling to himself.

“That woman,” he said, “that woman is dead. You killed her, you killed her.”

Billie screamed, her eyes closed. “I didn’t fucking kill her! You did, you motherfucker.”

Gustav picked her up and stepped into the road. A car swerved to miss them and
was just barely able to come to a stop. Gustav shot the driver through the window and dragged out the corpse. He shoved Billie into the passenger seat and began to drive.

He locked the doors as Billie
simply sat and cried. She screamed, “Just fucking kill me!” and it made him laugh.

They drove on the freeway
, and several times Billie tried to open the door, but he would grab her or slap her. She tried getting into the backseat to open those doors but he pulled her back and hit her across the face.

Out of energy,
Billie felt even the terror had been replaced with exhaustion. She collapsed against the seat and couldn’t move, numb except for the throbbing pain in her leg. She was bleeding out, and only the dim recognition that she would die dawned on her.

“Why?” she said. “Why me? Why?”

“You have a purpose, and everything you have done in life has led you here. It was inevitable. All your actions, all your decisions, were all meant to bring you here.”

“You’re fucking crazy.”

“That doesn’t change that you are here with me.”

“Just kill me, please just kill me.”

“Not yet.”

Sirens zipped past them on the opposite side of the freeway. Billie could hear a helicopter
somewhere in the sky.

“They’re going to find you,” she said.

“No, I do not think they will,” he said, pulling off the freeway and into a residential area.

They drove for a long time
, and he had his hand on her arm, ensuring that she didn’t move. Several times he pulled out a cell phone and checked directions but eventually she could see airplanes landing and taking off and knew they were headed for the airport.

As they pulled in and went up to the parking terrace, she knew he woul
d kill her here. He wouldn’t risk being on a plane with her. He would shoot her and leave her in the car.

As they passed a checkpoint, she threw herself against him and slapped her hand against
his door several times before hitting the unlock button. She turned and grabbed the door handle to the passenger door. It opened. She was nearly out when he grabbed her hair and pulled her back inside.