It was almost too good to last, and she worried what was next. Lately, she'd caught him looking at her as if weighing whether to say something, and she felt sure that a couple of times he was about to "pop the question." The idea had filled her with both dread-she'd avoided matrimony like she avoided stepping in the result of someone failing to curb his dog-and, surprisingly, excitement. She'd even tried out the name-change thing. Mrs. Gilbert Murrow didn't work, but Ariadne Stupenagel-Murrow had a sort of magnificently multisyllabic cadence to it.
Ariadne knew that Gilbert was worried about her safety because of the stories. He pointed out a story in the Times that noted that journalism was one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.
"Yes, but not so much here in the United States," she assured him. "Don't worry, honey bunny, killing reporters only brings more reporters and most bad guys know that." She knew that only went so far, and he didn't buy it at all.
The truth was, she didn't know the identities of the men giving her the information for her latest series. One she figured was a fed, maybe FBI, maybe Homeland Security. Someone who didn't like what was going on in the aftermath of the St. Patrick's hostage situation.
The other source spoke with what sounded like a Russian accent. She pressed to meet with him, but he'd refused.
Okay, enough business for one day, she told herself. One last look in the mirror and she pronounced herself fit for duty.
Out on the rooftop, the assassin struggled to finish off the little man, who was putting up a surprisingly spirited battle-stomping on his feet, and fighting against the garrote like a marlin on the hook.
The job had been more difficult than anticipated from the beginning. The woman was supposed to have been alone and her murder staged to look like another Manhattan break-in where the tenant walked in on a burglar and was killed. He'd also intended on raping her for good measure. He supposed some of his colleagues in the assassination business would think that was unprofessional, but he was a man who liked a little fun with his job, and thought it worked well with the break-in scenario.
The assassin had reached the rooftop by first breaking into an apartment on a lower floor and accessing the fire escape. When the boyfriend arrived at the apartment, he'd cursed but hadn't panicked. If necessary, he'd shoot them both, though he hoped to catch them one at a time so that he could use his favorite weapon, the garrote. It was so much more personal.
The killer was a big man, six foot two and 250 pounds of muscle, but he was having a devil of a time trying to choke the life out of the little shit. Blood was flowing from a cut on his target's hand, and it made the rope slippery. He felt his grip giving way as they crashed into a trellis covered with the vines of a climbing rose. The thorns bit into his back as his arm muscles complained about the unexpected workout.
Maybe I'll just drop him over the edge, he thought. He forced the thrashing man over to the retaining wall. But just when he thought he could force him over, the punk-ass boyfriend put his feet on the ledge and shoved back.
"Oof," the assassin grunted as his intended victim landed on his stomach, but the effort seemed to have taken quite a bit out of his opponent as well. Furious, he rolled over on top of the man, and then knelt on his back to get more leverage as he pulled the garrote tight. "Come on, guy, let's just finish this," he pleaded, winded from the effort.
"Hey, asshole!"
The killer heard the voice behind him and reacted instantly by shoving his victim forward and standing. Without hesitating, he whirled with a back kick that should have caught the woman in the head. But she wasn't standing where she'd been when she spoke, and he struck nothing but air.
Then there was a moment when time stood still and he found himself facing a beautiful Amazon in a push-up bra, crotchless panties, garters, and nylons. But he also noted that the look on her face wasn't one of fear, as he would have expected; it was pure, unadulterated rage.
Only then did he see the baseball bat-the wooden Louisville Slugger. A baseball fan, he recognized Joe DiMaggio's signature on the barrel right before it caught him in the mouth, driving his front teeth down his throat, smashing his nose into a pulp, and propelling him backward toward the ledge.
Dazed, he was, however, not finished. He reached for the pistol in his waistband. But as well trained and fast as he was, he was no match for the angry woman.
"Nobody…" the big blonde snarled. The bat whistled down and caught him on the wrist, crushing the bone. The gun flew out of his hand.
"Fucks…" A backhand blow with the bat caught him on the elbow of his other arm, making it impossible to lift that hand to ward off the next blow, which caught him in the rib cage.
"With my…" The last blow caught him in the side of the head and sent him over the wall and into space.
"Boyfriend," Ariadne concluded as she looked over the edge at the body lying on the sidewalk five stories below. A woman who had been walking her poodle past the building started screaming and frantically yanked on the leash as her dog tried to inspect the pool of blood spreading from the corpse.
Ariadne turned and ran back to Murrow, who was staggering to his feet as he pulled the garrote off his neck and threw it to the ground. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wrapped it around his injured hand. Then, with her arm around his shoulders, they walked over to the wall and looked down.
A crowd had gathered around the body and several people were looking up and pointing at the faces of the man and woman on the rooftop of the building above them. Several were on their cell phones, apparently summoning the sirens that could be heard in the distance.
Murrow pulled back from the edge and looked at Ariadne. "Wow, that's some outfit," he croaked with admiration. "But the cops will be here in a few minutes. You might want to cover up."
"You think?" Ariadne asked as she went inside, picked up the telephone, and dialed 911, turning back to face him.
"Well," Murrow gulped, "only as long as you promise to wear it again sometime."
As Murrow and Ariadne pulled back from the parapet, a man who'd been sitting in the back of a stretch limousine down the block and on the other side of the street reached forward and knocked on the partition. "Let's go," he said when the driver lowered the glass.
"Yes, sir, Mr. Kellagh," the driver replied.
As the car pulled away from the curb and rolled past the crowd around the body, Kellagh shook his head and muttered, "Myr shegin dy ve, bee eh."
3
Surrounded by darkness, it took a moment for Lucy Karp to realize that she was in the trunk of a car. Unable to see, she paid closer attention to her other senses-heard the whine of the wheels on the road, and smelled the old rubber of the spare tire and the fumes of a leaky exhaust.
Hope I don't die from carbon monoxide poisoning, she thought, then realized that she was not thinking in English. Euskara? Why am I thinking in the Basque language?
That she understood what she was thinking came as no surprise. She was a hyper-polyglot, a term used by linguists for someone capable of speaking six or more languages fluently. In Lucy's case, she was a hyper-polyglot times ten, having learned nearly sixty unique languages in her twenty-one years, plus a number of variations. In fact, her "gift" qualified her more as a language savant; unlike someone who studied and practiced languages to become fluent, she could pick them up simply by listening to others speak, sometimes in an afternoon.
But why Euskara? Maybe I got hit on the head?
Lucy didn't dwell on her mind's choice of language for long. She had a more serious predicament and needed to think clearly, but her heart was pounding like a drum. Taking a cleansing breath as she'd been taught by John Jojola, a Pueblo Indian police officer from Taos who had become something of a spiritual advisor to Lucy and her mother, she calmed herself and concentrated on noting details that she hoped might somehow help her situation. She could tell it was a big car from the size of the trunk and the heavy, solid ride. American-made…probably a Cadillac or Lincoln.