As the hours dragged on, having examined and rejected hundreds of faces, Marla was beginning to wonder if 47 would ever appear when a man matching 47’s height and build casually strolled into her field of view. A German tourist, judging from his clothing. But that meant nothing. When Marla put the spotting scope on the man’s face her suspicions were confirmed! Beard or no beard, that was the man she’d seen in Yakima and Seattle! The very sight of him caused her heart to pound with excitement as her quarry turned to eye the mansion.
That was the moment when a second German tourist-dressed in identical fashion-arrived from the other direction.
Now, with two look-alikes on the street below, and both in motion, it would have been nearly impossible to tell Cooper how to distinguish between them. And to do so quickly enough to ensure the results she wanted. So Marla gave the only order she could logically give.
“The German tourists! The ones wearing the loud shirts! Kill both of them!”
Cooper’s rifle was silenced, and there was plenty of background noise, so no one heard the subsonic 7.62 mm NATO round as it sped through the space that the first German tourist’s head had occupied a fraction of a second earlier, and slammed into the second one.
The force of the impact threw the tourist to the ground and people ran every which way. Marla came unglued as the first man disappeared.
“You were too slow!” she shouted angrily. “You were supposed to kill both of them and you let one get away!”
“Don’t be stupid,” Cooper countered crossly as he continued to sweep the street below. “There wasn’t enough time to acquire both targets.”
“Well, acquire this,” the furious Puissance Treize agent declared as she drew the Walther and began to fire.
The first shot wasn’t fatal, so Cooper began to turn toward his attacker, but it was too late as four additional 9 mm rounds tore into his body. Finally, having put a final slug into the sniper’s head, Marla provided the only epitaph the Brit was likely to receive: “Bloody idiot.”
If the first tourist had truly been 47, Marla was convinced that she’d lost her only real shot at him. But then a voice crackled over the walkie-talkie clipped to her belt. The words came in short bursts—and were accompanied by the sound of heavy breathing.
“This is Ammar. He’s on the run. But we’re right behind him.”
That was when Marla knew 47 was still alive. A real tourist might have taken cover, but wouldn’t be on the run. “That’s brilliant!” she said excitedly. “Don’t lose him. Where are you?”
“We’re heading in the direction of the souk Dabbaghin,” came the confident reply. “He’s running like a rabbit!”
“A very dangerous rabbit,” Marla cautioned. “I’m on my way.”
Idiot!
As he took a right, followed by a left, Agent 47 was angry. Not at the men who were following him. But at himself. He’d been stupid enough to walk right into their trap. Rather than prepare for the reconnaissance the way he normally would have, the assassin had gone for an after-dinner walk, and chosen to stroll past Al-Fulani’s mansion on the way back to the hotel. A stupid impulse that had very nearly gotten him killed.
But how had she known he was coming? Had Marla caught a glimpse of him during the last few days? Had Rollet sold him out? Or was this latest fiasco the work of the very traitor he was looking for? There was no way to know, and no more time to think about it, as a bullet pinged off the wall to his left and forced him to concentrate on the business at hand. The assassin pushed a man out of the way and ran even faster. A woman went down as he slammed into her, a man swore at him in Arabic, and another gunshot sent people fleeing for cover.
Sirens had begun to bleat, but they were back in the Ville Nouvelle, where the real German tourist was being tended to and the police were trying to sort out the situation. The man he had modeled himself after-the one he’d previously seen in the lobby of his hotel-had unwittingly paid for 47’s life with his own. The agent knew that he had to lose this particular disguise at the first possible opportunity.
Even though he was outnumbered, 47 still had some advantages, not the least of which was the fact that his pursuers had allowed themselves to become strung out. This provided the assassin with an opportunity to lay a quick trap of his own, as one fellow rounded a corner and came to a momentary stop directly beneath a streetlight. The long-barreled Silverballer barked twice. The target staggered and went down.
That was 47’s cue to take off again, conscious of the fact that reinforcements were on the way and might cut off his line of retreat.
Ammar began to round the corner, spotted the crumpled body, and pulled back again.
“He shot Dabir,” the security operative said into the radio. “So be careful.”
“Keep after him!” Marla’s voice insisted through Ammar’s radio. “Don’t let him out of your sight!”
“You stay off the radio!” Ammar snapped arrogantly, as another man, Jumah, caught up with him. “We’ll take care of this. Return to the mansion.”
“What’s going on?” Jumah wanted to know, his brown eyes alight with excitement. “Did you take a shot at him?”
“No, he was gone by the time I arrived,” Ammar temporized. “You take the lead. I need to catch my breath.”
Jumah, who was the youngest man on the team, and, Ammar knew, eager to establish his own reputation, took off at a sprint. Ammar waited for the telltale sound of a gunshot, and when none was forthcoming, followed in Jumah’s footsteps.
As he did he glanced back at the body and watched as a pair of preteen boys materialized from the gloom, beginning to rifle through Dabir’s pockets.
He swore bitterly. Dabir was his brother-in-law, and there would be hell to pay once he got home.
Fez was home to many derbs, or districts, each having its own epicenter with a mosque, bakery, and public fountain. And that’s where Jumah found himself as the street he had been following delivered him into a square that boasted a large fountain.
But his quarry was nowhere to be seen, and since there were at least four other passageways that led out of the open area, he had no choice but to stop and look around. The security agent turned a full circle, noticed that the square was deserted, and wondered why.
Jumah was still pondering this when a voice came from behind him. The words were in French.
“Are you looking for me?”
Jumah whirled and was in the process of bringing the Jordanian-manufactured 9 mm VIPER up into firing position when he saw that a man wearing a brightly colored shirt had risen from the waters of the fountain and was peering down at him. Even worse was the fact that the stranger was holding two semiautomatic pistols.
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes,’” the man said evenly, and he fired both weapons. The heavy slugs pounded Jumah to the ground as gunshots echoed between the surrounding buildings, and the VIPER skittered away.
“Jumah?” A male voice inquired from one of the dead man’s pockets. “What’s going on?”
Agent 47 returned one Silverballer to its holster, jumped down onto the cobblestones, and carried out a quick search of Jumah’s body. Having appropriated the walkie-talkie, the assassin fled.
More sirens had joined the chorus as Ammar entered the empty square. The Moroccan saw Jumah and felt a momentary pang of guilt, knowing it could have been his body lying there.
Then, having detected a flicker of movement on the far side of the square, Ammar ran over to the fountain. Careful to keep his head down, he began to circle it. Having lost two of his men, it was clear that Fulani’s sharmuta was correct. The European was dangerous.
“Ammar? Fahd? Answer me!” The whore’s voice came over the radio, thick with fear.
But Ammar knew the man they were chasing must have taken Jumah’s radio, so he sent one last message to Fahd, ordering him to maintain radio silence. A strategy that was likely to work both for and against them, to the extent that it kept Ammar and Fahd from coordinating their movements.
To hell with the woman.
Having followed his prey’s watery trail into a narrow passageway, Ammar felt cautiously hopeful. The ground was dry, and the infidel was wet, which meant Ammar had tracks that were easy to follow, at least temporarily. The wet prints led him up a long flight of stairs and under a two-hundred-year-old arch before they suddenly disappeared.
That brought the security agent to a cautious halt. He was examining the well-lit patch of ground in front of him when a fiber-wire noose dropped over his head and began to tighten around his neck.