Hour of the Assassins (48 page)

Authors: Andrew Kaplan

After Bel-air, he drove through Brentwood and Pacific Palisades, where the houses weren't quite so grandiose and the curves were steeper. He reached the beach and turned north on Pacific Coast Highway. The blue-white disk of the sun retreated toward the blue line where the ocean touched the sky. Well offshore, he could see the distant silhouette of an oil tanker heading south toward San Pedro. As he approached Malibu, a highway sign warned of rock-slides and he felt somehow that everything was falling apart.

Cantilevered houses tilted precariously along the bluff overlooking the highway and he wonderd if the people who lived in them ever felt like Humpty-Dumpty. All along the road stringy-haired, wet-suited surfers were loading their boards in the backseats of convertibles. Near the Malibu pier a restaurant sign proclaimed “Fresh Fish,” as though it were a new species. He saw a dark Buick sedan parked near the beach house and cautiously parked on the shoulder. He checked the mirrors, but it looked all right.

He approached the house from the side and found a partially opened window. He listened breathlessly, but any sound from inside was swallowed by the insistent rumble of the surf. He eased the window open, drew out the S & W, and silently climbed over the sill. He was in an empty bedroom and then he heard a sound from the direction of the living room. He crept to the bedroom door and peered into the big living room. It was empty and he removed his shoes. He darted into the living room and saw Smiley Gallagher's massive back on the balcony. He was intently scanning the beach through a pair of binoculars. Caine crept carefully through the house, checking all the rooms. Smiley was alone.

He walked up to Smiley and stuck the muzzle into Smiley's back. Smiley jerked and Caine poked him harder.

“Nice and easy, Smiley,” Caine said.

“Is that you, Johnny?” Smiley said, without turning around.

“Take your gun out with two fingers of your left hand and hold it out by the muzzle.”

Smiley tensed, then he slowly held out the gun.

“Now toss it behind you and don't get cute,” Caine said.

Smiley flicked the gun backward and it bounced silently on the living-room carpet. The copper-colored sun hovered on the horizon like a new-minted penny, balanced on edge.

“Where's C.J.?” Caine demanded.

“On the beach. You can see her through the field glasses. Do you know what you're doing, Johnny boy?” Smiley said.

“Inside,” Caine snapped and backed carefully away from Smiley. The two men faced each other in the dim shadows. The sky was slashed with red, as though it had been stabbed. The two men looked like burning figures in the dusk light

“Where are your handcuffs, Smiley?”

Smiley shook his pudgy face and smiled to indicate he didn't have any. Caine cocked the hammer of the S & W.

“Would you rather I shoot you?” Caine asked, and Smiley hurriedly reached into his jacket pocket and brought out the cuffs and key. Caine cuffed Smiley's hands behind him and pocketed the key.

“We'll get you, Johnny. You know it as well as I do,” Smiley said. Caine shrugged and yanked the phone from the wall.

“Give it up now. Maybe I can swing a deal for you,” Smiley said.

Caine laughed. He bared his teeth and glared at Smiley, his eyes like burning coals in the dying light. Then he suddenly stepped forward and savagely kicked Smiley in the groin. Smiley pitched forward and rolled on the ground squealing in a high-pitched scream.

“Why, Johnny? Why?” Smiley managed to gasp.

“Because I don't have a tiger cage handy, you son-of-a-bitch,” Caine retorted, and kicked Smiley again.

Smiley screamed. He went on screaming until Caine's cold-cocked him with the butt of the S & W. Smiley's unconscious body lay on the floor like a massive animal carcass, his breath sonorously whistling in his throat. Caine walked out to the balcony and spotted C.J. standing on the sand. She was wearing rolled up jeans and an oversized man's plaid flannel shirt, her long hair blowing in the wind and flickering like flame in the coppery light. Caine stuck the gun in his belt and walked down the balcony stairs to the beach.

At first she didn't see him approach. She was staring vaguely at the lights strung along the Malibu pier, her body tense and awkward, like a seagull poised for flight. She was waiting as only a woman can wait, straining with every molecule of her body, for the sound of a footstep. When she saw him, she hugged her arms, as though she were cold. The hiss of the ebbing surf sounded in his ears like a long sigh.

“I thought we had something, you and me,” Caine said.

“So did I,” she said, her voice sad and wistful.

“Wasserman is dead. Give me the stamp, or I'll kill you, too,” he said, unbuttoning his jacket so that she could see the butt of the S & W.

“I need it. Now that everything is busted wide open, it's my only chance to get away. So if you're going to kill me, do it now. They're going to get me anyway. If someone is going to do it, I want it to be you,” she said breathlessly.

“Then you do have the stamp?”

C.J. nodded, her jaw set defiantly.

“Where is it?” Caine asked.

“I have it here,” tapping her shirt pocket. “It shouldn't be too difficult for you to take it from me.”

“All you ever cared about was the money! You had to be a whore about it, didn't you?” he said, anger rising like bile in the back of his throat, almost choking him.

“Wait,” she snapped defiantly, her eyes gleaming. “Before you kill me because of some damn male code, let me say one thing. It was the only logical thing to do. Wasserman never told me anything about the Starfish until just before I left for Lima. You were alone and outnumbered, with the U.S. government, the damned CIA, the Nazis, the Peruvian Army, and God knows what against you. You didn't stand a chance. Wasserman threatened to kill me if I didn't do it and offered me the stamp if I did. I made the only logical choice. You'd have done exactly the same thing in my place. Tell the truth. Wouldn't you?”

And then Caine was laughing, helplessly, wonderfully, for what seemed like the first time in years. She was absolutely right, of course. He'd have done exactly the same thing in her place. He sat down on the sand and shook his head derisively. She squatted beside him and finally began to smile. For a long moment they gazed in silence at the sea turning to reddish rust in the sunset. She rested her hand on his knee as lightly as a butterfly.

“I did it, but I didn't like it, Johnny,” she said softly.

“I wasn't too crazy about it myself,” he said.

“What are we going to do now? They'll all be after us,” she said finally. Her watery eyes were flames in the burning dusk. If she was a Venus flytrap, she was a good one, he thought wryly.

“Do you like to ski?” he brought out suddenly. A sandpiper ran along the water's edge, chasing a retreating wave, then plunged its long bill into the wet sand. A large wave, veined with foam, curled onto the beach and the sandpiper ran before it.

“It's even better than sex â¦ almost,” she said. She reached over and touched his cheek lightly, as if to brush away a dirt smudge. He glanced at her and then back at the ebbing tide.

“First, New York, to pick up new cover identities. Then Zurich, with the stamp. After that, the Alps. Okay?” he said.

He looked at her and could almost hear that little computer of a brain ticking away as she smiled at him and nodded yes. Caine smiled. It was going to be an interesting trip.

AFTERWORD

This is a work of fiction and, with the single exception of Dr. Josef Mengele, any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. The description of Mengele's crimes and other activities up to 1973, in Part I of this work, is based on eyewitness accounts and published material. As of this writing, Josef Mengele is still alive and is living in Paraguay.

Both ODESSA and the
Kameradenwerk
still exist. These powerful Nazi organizations are often involved in intelligence and political activities and their influence is widespread.

There is a Schweitzer Medical Institute located near Pucallpa in the Peruvian Amazon. In addition the Mobil/Union Group, a consortium of American oil companies, has made an oil strike in the Amazon and is presently engaged in exploration and drilling activities. To the best of my knowledge, neither of these organizations has ever been involved in any way with the Nazis.

The Starfish Conspiracy is a complete fiction.

Andrew Kaplan

June 1979

About the Author

Andrew Kaplan is the author of two bestselling spy thriller series, Scorpion and Homeland, as well as three earlier novels,
Dragonfire
,
Hour of the Assassins
, and
War of the Raven
, which was selected by the American Library Association as one of the one hundred best books ever written about World War II. His novels have been translated into twenty languages. A veteran of the US Army and Israel's Six Day War, he has traveled the world as a freelance journalist. Visit him at
www.andrewkaplan.com
.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Lines from “Starfish” in Encyclopaedia Britannica. 14th edition (1973) Used by permission.

Cover design by Barbara Brown

ISBN: 978-1-4976-7793-7

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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