Killed in Action Read online

  “He has an assistant named Samantha Gregson, who was sitting at your desk.”

  “She must’ve moved in when I moved out.”

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Emma glanced around. The decibel level in the pub was like being at an Iron Maiden rock concert. “It was no big deal.”

  Silver Skull had moved to the bar and ordered a drink, a B-52, one-third shot of Kahlúa, one-third shot of almond, and one-third shot of Baileys Irish Cream.

  Emma sighed. “We’d polished off the bottle of Rémy Martin between us. The lights in the office were mostly out. Control was sitting on the edge of his desk. I remember his face was shiny and he was breathing a little heavy. He leaned down and kissed me. I kissed him back. He moved his hand down inside my shirt. I took his other hand and brought it up under my skirt. He pulled off my black panties, but then it was like he suddenly came up for air. He took his hand from my breast and his other hand from under my skirt and retreated to the window. I put my panties back on and left a couple buttons open on my shirt, just for appearances. I remember rain was streaking the window with crushed jewels. He never said a word about what had just happened. Forty hours later the bastard fired me.”

  “He’s disappeared.”

  The bartender dropped Emma’s second gin and tonic off to her. She squeezed fresh lemon into it, staring at McCall. “You mean he dropped off the grid the way you did? Control would never leave The Company. It’s what he lives for.”

  “That late-night session between the two of you never happened.”

  “I don’t remove my panties for just anyone. Well, that’s not true. There was this bloke I met two nights ago who had broken down in Hampstead and I gave him a lift to the garage, and things got a little hot and heavy back at my place while the mechanic fixed his motor. I told him I’d call him, but I scribbled his number on a box of Dim T Chinese and it went into the rubbish.”

  “Control hasn’t disappeared. He’s been deleted.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “He was never in intelligence. He never lived in Virginia. He’s not married to his wife, and there were never any children. He never existed.”

  Emma stared at him. “That’s not possible.”

  “Someone at The Company has gone to great lengths to make it possible. And the only human being who actually knew Control’s name—his real name—died in my arms sixteen hours ago. So if there’s any more you can tell me about your erotic late session with the old man, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Bloody hell.” Emma took a swallow of her drink.

  McCall had watched the white-blond man make his way through the patrons three-deep at the bar. He had an Irish American accent that was melodious. “Excuse me.”

  He leaned right over Emma, smiled at her, grabbed a bar coaster, ignored McCall, and moved to one of the small tables. He sat at a cloth-covered stool and looked into the pub with his back to them.

  “There was one other memory he shared that night,” Emma said suddenly.

  McCall looked back at her. “What was it?”

  “A place he liked to go. No one else knew about it.”

  “A safe house?”

  “No, it was off-the-books. It was somewhere he’d visited as a boy. He said he wasn’t very old, maybe four or five. It was in the countryside, a big old house surrounded by forest. There was some workroom where his father made scale models, ships I think, where you fitted them into bottles. Control had liked looking at the models when his father was asleep, but he said he had to be careful not to be caught. I think he had his own key to the workroom. He loved wandering through the woods having grand adventures. There was another place he wasn’t allowed to go where there were swings and old rotting buildings, high-up towers and dangerous curves, but I couldn’t make out what he was talking about. He liked to sneak in there.”

  “This wasn’t far from his house?”

  “I don’t think so. He also said he had found a special place in the woods. He had his own staircase.”

  “His own staircase?”

  “It wasn’t high up, not many steps. He said it didn’t lead anywhere.”

  “It must’ve led somewhere.”

  “No, he said it had no beginning and no end.”

  “Where was this house?”

  “Somewhere in Virginia? He said something about ‘leopards.’ That they were coming for him, but he had a pal with him in the woods, some RAF flying ace from World War Two who took him on adventures and kept the leopards from attacking them. He was a kid then, you know? Kids make shit up.”

  Emma finished her second gin and tonic and pushed it away from her. She looked a little woozy. “I think Jeff must’ve poured me a triple. I’m going to the loo.”

  She jumped off the barstool and dashed for a corridor to the restrooms. McCall noted that Silver Skull had finished his B-52 cocktail and was making his way to the doorway out onto Brewer Street. So maybe he didn’t have anything to do with Emma Marshall.

  McCall’s cell rang. He moved out of the pub onto Brewer Street, pausing below the sign of what was presumably the Duke of Argyll. Through the pub windows he watched for Emma’s return as he answered his cell.

  “This is Robert McCall.”

  Helen Coleman said, “I knew when you didn’t call me that I had lost my son.”

  McCall had been dreading the call. He had set out to find Josh Coleman. It didn’t matter that he had rescued his client’s son only to have him die in his arms. He had failed her.

  “I heard from Colonel Ralston. Your pilot landed in Berlin and got in touch with the Pentagon. He told them he had the body of Captain Josh Coleman in a helicopter. He was waiting to get a small commercial jet to bring him back to the States. Your pilot didn’t tell Gunner much, except that Josh was dead. He said you did all you could for him.”

  “It wasn’t enough.”

  McCall heard Helen’s voice tighten with suppressed emotion. “You told me that finding Josh in Syria was a very long shot, Mr. McCall. I kept hoping against hope. But I guess the odds were too great. I want to talk to you about what happened to Josh. Maybe after the funeral.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  He was still looking through the bright pub windows. There was no sign of Emma. She might have been throwing up in the ladies’ room, but something was sending alarm signals through his head.

  “I will see you in New York, Helen.”

  McCall disconnected. He pushed through the throng of people back into the pub. Emma’s spot at the barstool was still vacant. The bartender was looking after her bag where she’d left it. McCall made his way to the restrooms. He pushed past two gorgeous models who only had eyes for each other and knocked loudly on the ladies’-room door.

  “Emma?” he shouted. “Are you okay?”

  There was no response. One of the models said, “Some of us have to pee, too, you know.”

  McCall put weight against the old door and the hook, and the eye gave way. He burst inside. The ladies’ room had two stalls. A young woman in jeans, a black turtleneck, and lots of jewelery was coming out of the first stall. She looked mildly surprised as she looped back up her belt.

  “You shouldn’t be in here, but your friend was a little green around the gills when she came in.”

  McCall threw open the door to the second stall.

  It was empty.

  The window was open, mainly because of the warm night.

  McCall pushed out of the ladies’ room and found a rear exit from the pub.

  The narrow cobbled alleyway outside was deserted. McCall ran the length of it to a cross street. Two shadowy figures were manhandling Emma Marshall between them. She was doubled over, but suddenly she pulled out of their grasp and hit the first man across the face. She kicked the second man in the balls and staggered back down the street, but she didn’t get far. She fell to her hands and knees and was sick in the gutter. It gave the thugs time to reach her.

  McCall re
ached them first.

  They were in their twenties, six-foot-three, and they were twins. Both of them had the same cropped white-blond hair and were mirror images of each other. They wore black. They were half turned around to McCall, so they formed a half circle. McCall recognized their moves immediately. Krav Maga.

  Twin #1 threw a fist, which McCall sidestepped, smashing an elbow into his face. It shattered his cheekbone. At the same time, Twin #2 hit McCall with the heel of his palm. It rocked him back. Twin #2 leaned down and wrapped his hands around McCall’s throat. Instead of trying to clutch at the choke hold, McCall used his hands in a hooked shape to tear the assailant away. He locked his elbows around the back of Twin #2’s neck. The grip was unbreakable. McCall dropped to a midcrouch, sending the thug to the cobblestones, knocking him unconscious.

  Twin #1 was turning back. McCall kicked Twin #1’s knee that was facing the wrong way. It cracked sickeningly. McCall followed with a palm strike just above Twin #1’s ear. He staggered and pulled out a wicked paring knife from his pocket. He slashed at McCall’s throat. McCall spun the knife away and swept Twin #1’s legs out from under him. He crashed beside his brother, his head hitting the sidewalk. He didn’t move.

  McCall straightened.

  The fight had lasted for two and a half seconds.

  McCall picked Emma up. She held on to him, gasping for breath.

  “They were waiting for me in the ladies’ room. One of the Bobbsey Twins was the creep I gave a lift to when he had his car towed. That’ll teach me not to give blow jobs to strangers who look like aliens.”

  “Come on.” McCall moved her back down the street.

  “What happened to me?”

  “Your drink was spiked.”

  “You mean like a roofie? I didn’t see either of them in the pub.”

  “It was someone else.”

  They moved down the cross street into the alleyway. Laughter wafted over from outside the pub. A pair of headlights suddenly blinded McCall. A Honda Civic jumped the sidewalk. McCall pushed Emma down to the cobblestones. He got out the way before the car could pin him against the building. He staggered and his right foot hit against an open cellar door. The figure was out of the Honda now, keeping the engine running. He kicked out languidly.

  McCall was propelled into empty air.

  He twisted so that he wouldn’t break his back. He tumbled down the flight of wooden stairs and landed heavily. He looked to his left and recognized he was in the cellar of the Duke of Argyll pub. He scrambled back, but pain shot through his left ankle, which he’d twisted in the parachute jump in Syria. Above him, a figure climbed carefully down into the cramped space. McCall saw the close-cropped white-blond hair and the gray of his lightweight suit.

  The silver skull gleamed on the man’s right hand in the semidarkness.

  Memento mori.

  McCall pulled himself up, clutching one of the fifteen-gallon steel kegs. Silver Skull jumped down the last two stairs. He attacked, throwing hammerfist strikes at McCall’s head. McCall parried them with fast reflexes, but the assassin followed with knifehand strikes aimed at the mastoid muscles at McCall’s neck, jugular, and collarbones. McCall fought them off and executed a kick to the man’s left knee. It did only minimal damage, but gave McCall the chance to hobble on his injured ankle farther into the darkness of the beer cellar.

  The two fighters struck with lightning ferocity at each other, probing for weaknesses, until McCall literally climbed up Silver Skull’s body and ramped up over it, sending them both crashing down to the cellar floor. The assassin kicked at McCall’s throat, just missing his jugular. McCall tried to get the man’s head in a leg lock, but Silver Skull was stronger and scrambled out of it. Both of them leapt to their feet. Silver Skull came at McCall with a raw fury now, lashing out with punches and hammerfists, going for the nerve endings. McCall parried the blows, then dropped to his knees as if his ankle had given out on him. At the same time he pulled the paring knife from his pocket. Silver Skull caught hold of McCall’s hair, savagely throwing his head back, but he didn’t see the blade in McCall’s hand. McCall cut through the silk material of Silver Skull’s trousers and cut the tendons in his left leg to the bone. Silver Skull looked down, not knowing for a moment where the pain was coming from. He let go of McCall’s hair. McCall, still on his knees, ripped through Silver Skull’s right pant leg and sliced through to the tendons there as if they were made of tissue paper. With the tendons severed to both the assassin’s legs, Silver Skull toppled backward toward the floor of the cellar. McCall rammed the paring knife up through his throat. Blood gushed out of the assassin’s mouth, nose, and ears. McCall knew he was dead before his head slammed into the cement.

  CHAPTER 28

  McCall sat back onto the bottom of the stairs and wiped off the serrated blade of the paring knife. He went through Silver Skull’s pockets and found nothing in them, no wallet ID, no passport, just some English pounds and euros. He climbed up the wooden steps and emerged into the night air. The blue Honda was still on the sidewalk, its engine running. McCall leaned in and pulled out the key. Emma had pulled herself into a standing position by this time.

  “He came out of nowhere!” she gasped.

  “He was in the pub watching you.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  “Had no choice.”

  Emma focused on the paring knife with the serrated edge in his hand. “Bloody hell! That’s my paring knife! I’ve got a matched pair in my kitchen! Where the hell did you get that?”

  “I took it off one of the twins who attacked you.”

  “Cheeky bugger. He must’ve stolen it from my flat.”

  McCall put the paring knife in the pocket of his leather jacket. He closed the iron cellar doors and latched them with the padlock. The publican would find Silver Skull’s body, but maybe not yet.

  “Stand right here,” McCall instructed her. He ran to the top of the street and turned the corner. The two assailants who’d been lying in the gutter had disappeared. He ran back to Emma. “The other two are gone.”

  McCall opened the Honda door and went through the glove compartment. It was a Hertz rental, and he only found the rental agreement and an A-Z of London. McCall slammed the car door and put his arm around Emma’s shoulders. They walked back into the pub, and Emma retrieved her bag. McCall surreptitiously slid the paring knife into it before she closed it up.

  One of the other bartenders came over. “Another round, love?”

  “Bad tummy,” Emma said. “Might have been the Indian meal I had earlier.”

  McCall hustled her outside. A black London cab had just disgorged two couples right in front of the pub. McCall took Emma to Charing Cross Hospital, where they pumped her stomach. She walked out of the ER a little weak, but she was steadier. McCall hailed another cab and took Emma to her flat on Templewood Avenue just below Hampstead Heath. He kept the cab waiting. When she came down five minutes later, she had a small overnight bag with her. McCall gave the cabbie instructions and they pulled away from the curb.

  Emma asked, “Where are you taking me?”

  “To stay with your mother.”

  “Just kill me now.”

  “How isolated is she?”

  “She lives in Camberley in a little cottage about three miles from the Frimley Road. She walks to the shops, avoids the neighbors like the plague, and has a mean bulldog named Churchill who’d tear your throat out as soon as look at you. But looks can be deceiving. He walks with a limp, has a wonky eye, and spends all of his time out in the garden destroying my mother’s rosebushes.”

  “If you see anyone at your mother’s house or in the High Street who doesn’t look like they should be there, call me. I’ll let you know when it’s safe for you to return home.”

  McCall dropped Emma at the H10 London Waterloo hotel. It was too late for her to go anywhere else tonight. He told her he’d pick her up in the morning. If she saw anything suspicious, if she thought anyone was following her, she would ca
ll his cell. She knew the number. Emma reminded McCall that she had been Control’s executive assistant for how many bloody years and she knew the warning signs for trouble. Then she admitted those instincts hadn’t helped her in the Duke of Argyll pub when memento-mori man had spiked her drink. She promised to be careful, and he left her in the lobby of the hotel.

  McCall spent one night at the Strand Palace Hotel, then in the morning he picked Emma Marshall up and they walked down Waterloo Road to Waterloo Station. He took her to the platform to catch the 7:30 a.m. train to Ascot, where she would change trains to Camberley. Emma had color back in her face, but her ebullient cheerfulness had abandoned her. Her voice was quiet, her manner subdued.

  “Thanks for saving my life. I’ve never seen you in action before. Rambo and the Transporter all rolled up into one. Will you find Control?”

  “I’ll find him.”

  Emma kissed him on the lips because that was the way she kissed anyone who was not a complete stranger and merged with the passengers on the platform. McCall saw her climb onto the train. He waited until the train pulled out of the station.

  McCall sat down outside the Caffè Nero in Waterloo Station. He swept the concourse, but didn’t see the white-blond twins among the crowd. He took something from the pocket of his leather jacket. It caught the light: the silver demon-claws skull that he had taken from the ring finger of the assassin’s hand in the pub cellar.

  McCall had also slipped off the assassin’s silver ring that said REMEMBER THAT YOU MUST DIE. He turned the silver skull ring over. On the back were seven etched symbols that McCall had never before seen. They resembled Egyptian hieroglyphics.

  But would they lead him to Control?

  * * *

  The sun beat down, heating up the new day. The carpet shop was hidden away in the bazaar in one of its myriad streets, which he accessed at the Nuruosmaniye Gate. At the back of the shop, where no tourist went, he wheeled his bicycle down a rickety staircase to a workshop.

  Where he’d taken the bicycle apart.

  It was like dismantling an old friend.

  He took off the pedals first, reminding himself that the right crank on the side chain was threaded normally, and that the left side was threaded backward. Using a pedal wrench, he unscrewed the pedal at the edge of the crank arms. He removed the wheels by loosening the nuts attaching their hub bolts to the frame and the fork rear and front brackets. He unscrewed the brake lever from the handlebars, disposed of the brake pads, slipped off the stem, removed the seat, then deflated the two tires. Once he got the tire lever under the cinch part of the tires, between the rubber tire tube and the metal rim, and worked the tire so that a part of it was over the rim, the rest was easy.