Perfect Assassin

Pierce took the file. “Has Holic talked?”

“I’ve interrogated him a number of times since we locked him up. He claimed from the moment we captured him that the file wasn’t authentic. I didn’t believe it. I had no reason to until yesterday.”

“Have you talked to him since Bromly was hit?”

“Last night I flew up to Clume to see him. And now, after talking to you, I think you’re right. Holic has a new agenda.” Merrick opened his drawer and pressed Play on the tape recorder. “I took a recorder with me last night and taped my conversation with him.”

Within seconds Holic Reznik’s Austrian accent filled the room.

“You’re back, Merrick. Does that mean the killing has begun? Your silence must mean it has. And now you’re here to ask me who has filled my shoes, ja?”

“Who is your replacement, Holic? Who has the kill-file?”

“If I tell you it would end all the fun. I told you that your kill-file was a fake, but you didn’t believe me. Do you believe me now? The look on your face tells me you do.”

“Who is your replacement, Holic? Give me the name of the man who has taken up your cause.”

“A ten-million-dollar question. Are you willing to match that?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Look at my hands. I can barely feed myself thanks to Bjorn Odell and that bitch, Nadja Stefn. I’m too young to live my life sucking my food through a straw. A heavy price to pay for killing a few insignificant people, don’t you think?”

“I’ll ask again. Who has the original kill-file? Who shot Alton Bromly?”

“Perfection has replaced perfection, that’s who. Like fine wine, it’s all in the fruit and how it’s taken care of while it matures on the vine.”

“You talk in riddles.”

“A riddle that, if you figure it out, will answer your question, Merrick. But you won’t be able to. I own the winning hand in this game, and you know I do or you wouldn’t have flown up here to pay me a late-night visit.”

“You’re telling me ten million dollars will call off your dog?”

“The money means nothing without a pair of working hands to spend it.”

“Meaning?”

“You have an expert team of surgeons at your disposal. They operated on my hands not long ago. But I think they can do better. They could give me back full use if they knew what was at stake, don’t you think?”

“What?”

“You heard me. My hands restored to full use by the best surgeon you employ.”

“Impossible.”

“Then I guarantee that the killing will continue, Merrick.”

“This is madness, Holic. End this insanity.”

“Only you can end it. Another agent will fall soon. Then another and another. Did you count the names on the list? The list I altered so you could check them off as they fall. It’s a very long list, isn’t it? Who do you think will be next? Take a guess. A wild guess is all you have, but maybe you’ll get lucky. The odds are against it. Your list was meant to torment you and your superiors, nothing more. To give you names without dates. Ingenious, don’t you think? Has it been keeping you up nights? You look tired, Merrick. It’s like a puzzle that doesn’t fit, ja? Let me assure you that it will never fit until the last man falls.”

“You’re crazy.”

“No, I’m a perfectionist, and without my hands I’ve been forced to find an alternate to remain in the game. After all, my reputation is at stake. How could I surrender without giving back to you as much as you’ve given me? The clock is ticking, and this time, time is on my side.”

Merrick turned off the recorder and looked at Pierce. “After talking to you, I have to agree that Holic doesn’t know how to lose. That he will continue to play his sick game until he’s dead. It’s true our medical staff has the technology to restore mobility to his hands, but—”

“Then Onyxx would be responsible for putting a gun back into the restored hands of the devil.”

“My superiors would never go for that.”

Pierce stood. “Of course you’re right. But then their names aren’t on that list. It’s damn easy to make decisions when your own ass isn’t the one being pinched.”

Merrick caught the censure in his agent’s voice. “The rules here are black and white, but necessary. If we make deals with every criminal we apprehend, where would that leave us? The bottom line is we have the assassin under lock and key. The entire mission wasn’t a failure. Holic is ours.”

“And from his iron cell he’s unleashed a competent replacement. One that appears to value perfection as much as he does.”

Merrick swore. “I’ll admit, at the moment, Holic has us by the balls.”

“Then we can only hope that his successor slips up. And if he doesn’t, you better start looking for another team to replace us, because we’re in for a slaughter.”

Chapter 2

Thomas Walrich’s body was discovered ten hours after he toppled face-first into the Amo River in Florence, Italy. A bullet traveling two hundred and eighty yards struck him in his right temple and he went swimming a second later clutching a briefcase, his mousy-brown toupee clinging to his forehead.

After his final exit, and sudden plunge into the Amo, both the briefcase and the toupee were swept away with the current. The briefcase was recovered two weeks later in Empoli. The toupee, caught in a yacht’s twin caterpillar engine, ended up in the Tyrrhenian Sea, lost forever.

The authorities notified the appropriate agencies after recovery of the body. A positive identification was made, and within twenty-four hours Adolf Merrick received a phone call telling him that another operative had fallen—the stats on his death cloning those of Alton Bromly’s. It seemed that Holic’s replacement was on target again, and Merrick would be forced to make a check mark on his useless copy of the kill-list.

This time, Thomas Walrich, an American agent on secret assignment in Italy.

That made two assassinations within three weeks. Pierce was right: at this rate they were in for a slaughter.

Suddenly Holic’s words came back to haunt Merrick. The clock is ticking, and time is on my side.

Adolf reached for the phone and called Pierce. He relayed the information, sending his agent now on to Italy to follow up and escort Walrich’s body home the minute it was released. Then, in the quiet of his office, he sat back and stroked his short gray beard.

He had to admit that the Chameleon was still controlling his life. Hell, all their lives, if the bastard was still alive. But how could that be?

“You’re dead, and yet you live.” Merrick muttered the words, then closed his eyes. He rubbed the back of his neck, the pain hammering his temples warning him that he hadn’t been sleeping well again, and as a result his tension headaches were back.

“Will you ever be gone from my mind, you evil bastard? You’ve taken everything from me. Everything important, and still you continue to torment me. Will this nightmare never end?”

The phone rang again, and this time Merrick hesitated before answering it. He glanced at the number as it came up and when he recognized it, he frowned in puzzlement. It was Sarah Finny, and for a moment he wondered why she would be calling him. Then he glanced at the calendar and saw that it was Thursday, and below the day’s date he’d written, Dinner with Sarah at 6:00.

He checked his watch. Saw that it was past seven. Wincing, feeling like an ass, he hesitated a few seconds longer before picking up the phone.

“Hello, Sarah.”

“Adolf, is everything all right with you? I thought we were—”

“Yes, everything is fine, Sarah. I’m afraid I’m a bit rusty at this sort of thing. Dinner completely slipped my mind. I rarely have appointments outside the office.”

“This was dinner, Adolf, not an appointment.”

“Of course. That’s what I meant to say. I haven’t been asked to dinner since Johanna and I… Ah, do you still want me to come, or is it too late? If you’d rather cancel, I understand.”

“I’ve spent two hours in the kitchen. The food is—”

“I could be there in twenty minutes. But I understand if… Okay, I’m on my way.”

The night Jacy Moon Madox got the first call it started to snow in the mountains. But snow in late September wasn’t unusual, not in the high country of Montana.

His brother had sounded drunk on the phone, but that wasn’t unusual either—Tate was a beer drinker and not just a two-bottle limit with dinner.

Out of bed and out of sorts, Jacy pulled on his jeans and took Highway 2 to 89. Once he reached Browning he headed south. The Sun Dance Saloon was on the outskirts of Heart Butte on the Blackfoot Indian Reservation. It was a dark, honky-tonk, old-West beer-and-chili joint with saddles for bar stools, booths lining the walls, a circular dance floor and a half dozen pool tables.

He had picked up the phone at ten-thirty, and it was almost midnight when he parked his black pickup in front of the Sun Dance, climbed out.

“Hey, Moon.”

“Tommy.”

Jacy nodded at the barrel-chested Indian as they passed on the front porch. To the locals Jacy was simply addressed as Moon. It didn’t matter that he’d left the rez at the age of fifteen to join the Hell’s Angels with his brother Tate, or that half the blood flowing through his veins was from a German immigrant, the now-deceased forest ranger, Corbel Madox. All who lived in these parts knew Jacy had been born under a full moon to Nola Youngblood. And if that wasn’t significant enough, he was Koko Blackkettle’s grandson, the visionary who could see things before they happened.

Jacy limped through the saloon’s front door with a scowl on his face. He searched the dark corners and saw Tate seated at a booth off the end of the bar, a number of empties lining the table in front of him.

He slid into the seat opposite his brother, and just as he was about to speak, his phone rang for the second time that night. He pulled it from his pocket and checked the caller’s ID. Grunting when he saw it was Merrick, he answered his phone with an edge to his voice.

“This better be important, it’s the middle of the damn night out here, and remember I don’t work for you anymore.”

“I needed to talk to you.”

“If it’s about what we chatted about weeks ago—”

“Another agent fell today. One of ours.”

“And he was on the list?”

“Yes. Tom Walrich.”

Jacy didn’t recognize the name, but that didn’t mean much. There were hundreds of agents floating in and out of Onyxx headquarters.

“I just called to update you. Thought you should know.”

Make me feel guilty for retiring and try to pull me back in, Jacy thought. But he wasn’t going to take the bait. He would never be a hundred percent again, and that’s what Onyxx agents were all about. He wasn’t one of them anymore, and Merrick needed to accept that and forget about him.

“If you’re not coming back in, watch your back out there. You’re on the list. Retired or not, if and when your number’s up, it’s up. And right now we can’t do a damn thing but watch and wait.”

“Who’s working on the case?”

“Pierce has agreed to step in, but if you come up with any ideas, I would appreciate it if you’d contact him or me. You still have a file on this one, right?”

“It’s in my computer.”

“And you’ve got both of our numbers?”

“You know I do.”

“Good. Well, that’s it, then.”

“That’s it.”

There was a moment of silence as if Merrick wanted to say more, then the line went dead. When Jacy shoved the phone back in his pocket, Tate had finished his eighth beer and was starting on number nine.

Jacy asked, “Is the old woman really missing, or was the call just a ploy to get me here so I can take you home again after you pass out?”

Tate set down his bottle after chugging half. “It’s true. Koko’s gone.”

“How can she be gone? Grandmother was up at my place raising hell all afternoon. She didn’t mention she was going anywhere.”

“When she got back from your place she made supper, then went and sat down in her rockin’ chair. I never thought much about where she sat until she started to make those noises. You know the ones I’m talkin’ about. She was seein’ somethin’ again.”

Jacy swore, knowing where this was leading. “You’re telling me she had another vision?”

“And this one put a burr under her real quick.”

When Tate reached for his beer, Jacy knocked his hand away. “So where did she take off to?”

“I don’t know. Don’t think she really knew. Those pictures she sees never make too much sense in the beginnin’. You know that.”

“So where is Koko now?”

“She said a bird was callin’ to her in the mountains.”

“Which mountain?”

“She never said. I don’t think she knew.”

“But you let her go anyway?”

“She took off before I had a chance to pull on my boots. When I got outside she was gone.”

“No tracks to follow?”

“I didn’t see any.”

“You’re an Indian. Tracks are supposed to be your specialty.” Jacy’s sarcasm was offered without a smile.

Tate leaned forward. “Not all of us are as gifted as you, little brother.”

“Apparently not.”

Tate swore. “I have a gift.”

“High tolerance. And I’m not talking in reference to pain.”

“I can straddle a Harley twin-V drunk on my ass going a hundred and keep it on the road.”

“A useful talent when you got the police taking chase.”

“You’re damn right. A huckleberry picker, I’m not. Or a trapline savage. You’ve turned into a rude sonofabitch, Moon. You never used to be such an asshole.”

“I’ve always been an asshole.” Jacy shoved the beer bottle in Tate’s direction. “Here, have a little more. You’re obviously not drunk enough.”

“Insultin’ bastard.”

“I call a turd a turd.”

“You name-callin’ me?”

“No.”

“You’re just still pissed off about that limp you got as a souvenir for services rendered. You should have done the time like me, and told that agency to go to hell. You’d have been out in a year.”

Jacy ignored the jibe and went back to the reason Tate had called him. “You should have stopped Koko before she left the cabin.”

“Stop the old woman? Like I could have done that. When she has her mind set, no one stops Koko. She would have cut me where I stood if I had gotten between her and the front door.”

Tate was six foot and weighed two-eighty. Koko was all of ninety pounds, and that was with her pockets loaded down with rocks.

“And you know me and the woods don’t like each other much.”

Jacy rubbed his clean-shaven face, more than a little frustrated with his brother. But it was true. Tate could get turned around in his own backyard. Put him on his Harley cruising a freeway, though, and his brother could tell you which direction he was going by the smell of the wind he was bucking.

Still, he should have stopped the old woman. Koko was seventy-six and had no business taking off in the middle of the night to answer a damn vision on a mountain.

“She packed her rucksack. Took some food.”

“Anything else?”

Tate scratched his chin. “Her medicine bag and a couple of blankets. That knife you gave her was on her hip.”

“Dammit, Tate, we’ve been getting snow in the high country for a long week. What the hell were you thinking, letting her go?”

His brother pointed to a two-inch cut on his muscular arm. “Koko did that three months ago, remember? Took after me with that knife when I told her I wasn’t goin’ to haul her to Brownin’on the back of my Harley. I ended up bleedin’ like a stuck pig all the way to town with her ridin’ behind. That was the day she had that vision of Delsin Yellow Wolf. And it was the real deal, you know. He’d damn near cut his arm off in that meat saw. Koko saved him, like she did Pekono and Lucky years back. And Maggie and Earl’s brother, Pinky.”

Jacy glanced at the flesh wound on Tate’s arm. “What I remember over that deal is you getting gut-sick over a damn scratch.”

“I never got gut-sick.”

“If you bled, you got gut sick. You never could stand the color red in liquid form unless alcohol was in the mix.”

“You’re an asshole, Moon, bringin’ up a man’s weakness in public.”

“And you’re an asshole for letting Koko take off in the dead of night.”

The brothers stared a hole through each other for a long minute. Then Jacy stood. “Which way did she go?”

“Like I said, I couldn’t tell.”

“Did you even look for tracks?”

Tate stood, tipping his chair over. He hoisted his jeans over his beer belly, then tossed his head, sending his long Native-American hair rippling over his shoulders and down his back. “Insultin’ me a second time is a mistake, little brother.”

“You plan on taking me on drunk?”

“Like you said, I ain’t that drunk yet.”

“Meaning you’re really going to get gut-sick when I pop you in the nose and blood starts flowing?”

“That’s it, you got a fight comin’ your way.”

“Earl just got this place put back together from the last time we went head to head,” Jacy reminded. “You got a problem with me, we’ll settle it outside.”

The all-night crowd headed outside the minute they saw the brothers on their feet. Tomorrow’s news would keep the Sun Dance busy, and if you had seen the scrap firsthand chances are you would get offered a free drink or cup of coffee to tell your side of the story.

Tate knocked his shoulder into Jacy as he staggered past him, then out onto the front porch.

Jacy limped after him, his thoughts on his grandmother instead of the fight. He recalled that the morning news had reported fresh snow on Sinopah Mountain. He was trying to recall how much when he stepped out into the predawn crisp air and straight into Tate’s fist.

Prisca liked to fly. The idea of traveling to places unknown had been exciting at first. But today she didn’t like flying at all. The aircraft was too small, and the pilot almost as young as she was—that meant his experience was in question. He had also insisted that they leave the airport after dark.

The idea of flying into the unknown—the Montana mountains in the black of night—had made her nervous before she boarded the toy airplane. Still, she had few choices open to her, and so she’d climbed aboard wishing she had fortified her courage with a stiff drink. Too bad she wasn’t a drinker.

She should be thankful that this particular independent pilot wasn’t asking questions.

She had flown into Missoula after two unsuccessful weeks of hunting for Bjorn Odell. It was as if the Onyxx agent had disappeared off the face of the earth. Upset, but not giving up, she had decided to bypass number twelve on the list and concentrate on number twenty-one—the controller who had aided Bjorn Odell’s mission from afar.

From what she knew of controllers, after having watched Otto in action, she understood that without one at the helm of a mission nothing was possible. Odell might be the person directly responsible for her mother’s death, but Jacy Madox had put Odell on target.

She hoped the information in his profile was accurate and that he was still living in northern Montana somewhere near East Glacier. That is, unless he’d moved, as it appeared Odell had done.

The pilot, Marty, seemed to know the area she’d inquired about. She had taken that as a good sign. His plane, though small, looked seasoned, and he’d taken off with the experience of a pro.

But what was that noise she kept hearing?

Otto had been calling her cell phone since she’d left their flat in Vienna in the middle of the night. Of course she hadn’t answered him—not even the dozens of text messages he’d left. He sounded more than a little upset, and that’s why she hadn’t told him her plan, and she didn’t intend to speak to him until she’d done what she’d come to do. Not until her personal business was finished.

He wouldn’t be able to follow. She had taken precautions—changed her name twice—careful not to leave a paper trail of any kind.

She nodded as the pilot pointed to the black shadowy peak ahead. She had told Marty that she was a wildlife photographer on an assignment. He seemed eager to buy into her story, had gladly accepted the cash she’d offered. She’d even brought a camera along. After all, a photographer without her equipment would look suspicious, and the equipment had made it easier to conceal her father’s gun.

The aircraft gained altitude as it passed over a mountain range. Marty called it the Flathead Range. She had noticed a constant change in temperature since leaving Missoula. She shivered in her seat and instinctively pulled the black stocking cap further over her ears.

The airplane caught an air current, and she felt it in her stomach. More noise. A constant rattling now.

She snuggled into the seat, determined not to worry. Nothing was going to go wrong. It couldn’t. She had a date with death, and she was the executioner.

Chapter 3

Koko followed the mountain trail from memory. It was narrow and overgrown, a steady climb upward. It was pitch-black out and cold enough to see her breath. The scent of snow was in the air, but she paid no attention to the time of day or the weather conditions.

The vision was strong and she felt the urgency of it. That’s why she hadn’t questioned it, not even with the knowledge that she was racing toward something that hadn’t happened yet. That was the case sometimes, and she knew there was a reason for it. Soon she would know what it was.

Her visions often came in bits and pieces, and she had to trust the process—believe. There was always a purpose to everything—what had passed and what was yet to be.

The higher she climbed the colder the air became. She stopped and buttoned up her faded blue coat, then pulled her pink wool scarf out of her pocket and covered her head. She tied the ragged ends under her wrinkly chin, then dug deeper in her pocket for a pair of finger-worn gloves.

She kept her aging eyes alert as she moved along the trail, concentrating on the vision and the heat that surrounded it. When she reached the southern slope of the mountain, she was halfway there. Breathing heavily, she kept the same dogged pace as she skirted rocks and the gangly lodgepole pines that were common to the Rockies. In some spots the animal trail went straight up, but Koko didn’t turn back.

After two more hours, she reached a snow-covered ridge and looked across the ravine. That’s when she saw it—the vision come to life. It was so clear this time that it knocked her to her knees.

She staggered back up, realizing it wasn’t the vision that had put her to the ground. The picture was no longer inside her head. It had finally materialized into a living thing. She was witnessing some kind of catastrophe.

The explosion shook the ground and rose into the heavens in an orange and red fireball.

Jacy was standing at the bar nursing his swollen jaw and cursing Tate when he got the third call of the night. It was around one-thirty, and this one was from the Bureau of Land Management chief in charge of search and rescue in and around Glacier Park.

He was out of breath and talking fast into the phone, two things that set Jacy immediately on edge. Billy Mason Crow Feather wasn’t easily upset.

“A small plane went down, Moon. Contact was lost around eleven-thirty.”

“Do you know who it is?”

“Marty Stollen. He reported engine trouble around eleven-twenty, and then nothing. His location is vague on account of you know Marty and his equipment. That plane should have been junked two years ago.”

“Passengers.”

“No confirmation on that.”

Jacy knew the plane in question and the owner. Marty’s single-engine Cessna had been grounded for repairs dozens of times. A hunting guide, Marty lived on a shoe-string budget and baler twine.

“We think he went down on Sinopah, but he could have gone past and lost it near Rising Wolf. Can you lend a hand, Moon? Hell, you know both areas better than my men. If that’s where he’s at, he’s damn near sitting in your backyard.”