The fact that it was the same man in both shootings wasn’t in question. Two shots, one to the face, a second to the chest: that appeared to be the killer’s trademark. When Cramer had attended the SAS’s Killing House in Hereford, he too had been trained in the ‘double tap’ — two shots fired in quick succession. However, the SAS instructors had stressed the importance of aiming at the torso so that there was less chance of missing — head shots were deemed too risky.
The killer had walked into the lawyer’s office and shot him dead in front of his secretary. The secretary’s description of the killer was detailed, but unhelpfuclass="underline" brown hair, brown eyes, just under six feet tall, lightly tanned skin. Any or all of those characteristics could be altered, Cramer knew. Hair dye, coloured contact lenses, lifts in the shoes, sunbeds or tanning cream. There was an artist’s impression based on the secretary’s description, and a computer-generated photo-fit, and while they did resemble each other, they had little in common with the pictures in the other files Cramer had read.
All the files on killings which had taken place in America contained FBI Facial Identification Fact Sheets, which had been filled in by investigating agents prior to the photo-fits being generated. They contained a list of facial features, and witnesses were asked to tick the pertinent boxes. Cramer took the sheets from the various files and compared them. They were just as disparate as the photo-fit pictures. The shape of the head could be categorised as oval, round, triangular, long or rectangular. All of the boxes had been ticked by at least one of the witnesses. The mouth could be classed as average, both lips thick, both lips thin, lips unequal, large or small. Most of the witness reports ticked the lips as average, but there was at least one witness who ticked each of the other categories. The consensus seemed to be that the man’s eyebrows were average, his ears were average, his chin was average and his nose was average, but there was no consistency. Two witnesses said the man had a double chin, one said his eyebrows met in the middle, another said he had protruding ears. Cramer was beginning to understand what the Colonel had meant when he’d said that they had plenty of descriptions but no real idea what the assassin looked like.
He finished drying himself and then looked around for clean clothes. There was none, the chests of drawers and the wardrobes were empty. Cramer shrugged and pulled on the clothes he’d arrived in. It seemed that the Colonel hadn’t thought of everything.
As he went down the main staircase he smelled bacon and when he walked into the dining hall the Colonel was already there, sitting at one of the long refectory tables and tucking into a fried breakfast. The Colonel picked up his coffee mug and nodded at the stainless steel serving trays which were lined up on a table by the door. ‘Help yourself,’ he said. ‘If there’s anything else you want, Mrs Elliott will get it for you. She’s quite a cook.’
Cramer walked along the row of trays. There were fried eggs, scrambled eggs, crisp bacon, sausages, tomatoes, fried bread, even kippers, enough to feed a battalion. Cramer wasn’t hungry but he knew that he’d have to eat. He spooned some scrambled eggs onto a plate and went over to sit opposite the Colonel. Mrs Elliott bustled out of the kitchen carrying two steaming jugs. ‘Coffee or tea?’ she asked. She sniffed and Cramer had the distinct impression that she could smell the whisky on his breath.
Cramer asked for tea. The Colonel waited until she’d gone back into the kitchen before asking Cramer how he’d slept. Cramer shrugged. ‘Same as usual,’ he said. The Colonel didn’t have to point out the bags under his eyes, Cramer had seen them staring back at him as he’d shaved.
‘Did you get a chance to read any of the files?’
‘Half a dozen, in detail.’
The Colonel put down his mug of coffee. ‘Any thoughts?’
Cramer shrugged and stirred his eggs with his fork. ‘Half of the hits were in the States, right? That suggests that the killer is an American.’
‘Maybe. Or it could imply that Americans are more willing to hire professionals to do their killings.’
Cramer nodded. ‘I can’t work out why he shoots them in the face first. You know the drill. Two shots to the chest, then one to the head to make sure, if you have the time. But only if you have the time. In the Killing House it’s two chest shots, then on to the next target. We don’t have the luxury of head-shots.’
‘Which means what?’
‘Which means, I suppose, that he’s not SAS-trained,’ answered Cramer. ‘In fact, I can’t think of any Special Forces group which trains its people to go for head-shots.’
‘Perhaps he didn’t agree with the way he was trained,’ said the Colonel as Cramer put a forkful of eggs in his mouth and swallowed without chewing. ‘Remember, he’s always very close to the target. Within ten feet, often closer. At that range, head-shots are less chancy.’
Cramer shrugged and stirred his eggs again. They were good scrambled eggs, rich and buttery with a hint of cheese, but he had no appetite. ‘It’s a question of training, though,’ he said. ‘If it’s drilled into you to kill one way, it’s damn difficult to do it any other way.’
‘We can talk that through with the profiler when he arrives,’ said the Colonel, placing his knife and fork together on the plate. As if by magic, Mrs Elliott appeared and whisked it away.
‘Profiler? What’s the deal there?’
The Colonel wrapped his hands around his steaming mug. The dining hall was cavernous and the propane heater at the end of the table provided little in the way of warmth. ‘The man we’re looking for is a professional assassin, there’s no doubt about that. That’s how the police would look at it. A psychiatrist might take a different view. He could look at him as a killer who keeps killing. A serial killer. And serial killers develop patterns. By analysing those patterns we might be able to build up a picture of what makes him tick. The FBI has a team of specialists based in Quantico who profile serial killers for police forces around the country.’
‘And one of these profilers is working on our killer?’
‘The FBI did the initial profiling, but now we’ve got a guy who used to work for the Bureau helping us,’ said the Colonel. ‘Name of Jackman. He used to be one of their best operatives, now he runs a private profiling agency in Boston.’
Cramer swallowed another mouthful of eggs without chewing. ‘A private serial killer profiler?’
‘He offers recruitment advice to companies, stops them hiring bad apples. He gets called in to help movie stars with problem fans, stalkers and the like. And he’s helped resolve several kidnapping cases where the police haven’t been called in. Some of the biggest insurance companies use him.’
Cramer frowned. He washed his eggs down with his tea. ‘I don’t get this, Colonel. Why isn’t the Bureau helping us?’
‘The FBI have less than a dozen profilers on staff and a single manager and they’re on a tight budget. They do a total of about eight hundred profiles a year but they have to turn away at least two hundred. The Bureau’s total budget for profiling is just over a million dollars a year, despite all the publicity the unit gets. They don’t even have the time to do written profiles on a lot of the cases they handle — they offer advice on the phone to law enforcement agencies all across America. But Jackman can give us as much time as we need. He’s had access to all the case files for the past three months. I want you to meet him before we put you in place.’