Raffey had started to kick and caught the coffee table in front of the couch. It swung his body sideways and his next kick toppled the ginger jar lamp on the end table. It hit the floor with a terrible crash. In his attempt to stop him, the man had loosened the grip on the towel and Raffey’s scream accompanied the crash.
Abrim stopped dead in his tracks when he heard the calamity and went back and pounded on the door, “Is everything all right in there?”
The man behind the couch punched Raffey in the face as hard as he could and Raffey slid down to the floor like a sack of hammers. Rubbing his fist, the goon nodded to Hanna to open the door and let the man inside. He stepped to the right of the door and snapped open a stiletto-type knife. Hanna saw the shiny blade and knew at once what she had to do.
“No, please help me, he’s passed out,” she said as she opened the door. Abrim saw Raffey barely moving on the floor. “Could you just help me get him on the couch to sleep it off?”
Abrim was no more than four feet into the apartment when the blade entered his lung between the sixth and seventh vertebrae. The killer’s hand came down on the man’s mouth at that same instant to stifle the scream. But Abrim was a big hulk, and even though fatally wounded he shook off his attacker like a rag doll. Hanna grabbed the vodka bottle and hit him hard on his temple. The bottle shattered and he went down on his back. She thrust the broken end of the bottle into Abrim’s neck, severing both his carotid arteries, which sprayed blood all over her. The man held his hand over Abrim’s mouth. In ten seconds his legs kicked one last time. He was dead.
When Hanna rose to wipe the blood from her face, she saw that Raffey was gone. The window to the fire escape was open. She turned to her partner, and cursed in German, “Verdammte Scheiße! You idiot.”
Raffey, choking, spitting blood, and gasping for air, was hobbling with a limp from jumping the last six feet off the fire ladder. He bounced off cars and storefronts as he staggered down the empty 3 a.m. Genève streets.
At seven thirty, Hiccock powered up his SCIAD terminal at his desk. At the top of the list was a report from a leading synthetic materials chemist. Bill read with great interest that electric ice, Bill’s pet name for the electroexpansive fluid of the kind Percival had flung at him, was non-existent in the commercial chemical field. The writer had never heard of or even considered the possibility of such an invention, but theorized that in order to have that kind of molecular slowing coefficient, some sort of nuclear agent must be employed.
Even at Bill’s elevated level of scientific knowledge, in his mind he substituted the words ‘chemical reaction’ for ‘molecular slowing coefficient,’ and ‘radioactive’ for ‘nuclear.’ Percival had walked through the entire White House security system’s radiation, biological, and chemical detectors. Had it been a radioactive or chemical catalyst, the clear liquid in a plastic vial would have had Percival in irons. The rest of the chemist’s report actually questioned whether Bill had seen what he reported seeing. It wasn’t that the report’s author doubted Bill’s word, rather that he had been the victim of a trick or sleight of hand. Bill considered this for a moment but dismissed it, because Joey had seen the same thing, but from an angle behind Percival. As a cop, he would have noticed a ‘switcheroony’ or up-the-sleeve move. Bill wrote back a quick, terse thank you and a mention he’d have to check on his recollection.
Bill was scanning the rest of the SCIAD traffic when Cheryl came in with her morning cup and his. “Cheryl, Percival Cutney’s at the St. Regis — I need to talk to him, now.”
The Stallion helicopter was winding up on the aft deck helipad of the USS Ronald Reagan as Joey and Brick hit the flight deck from the main bridge stairway. The Mediterranean Sea was rocking and roiling and Joey was glad his transportation was taking off and not trying to land on the pitching deck. As they neared the chopper, they raised their voices.
“See ya next time we make port in Virginia, Joey.”
“Drinks are on me, Brick.”
Joey climbed into the hatch of the Navy’s workhorse, and a seaman handed him a helmet, secured his seat restraint and plugged in the helmet headset. The pilot came over the helmet as the engines revved and the bird lifted up and tilted toward Europe.
“Mr. Palumbo, welcome aboard. The gipper got us to within one hundred twenty nautical miles of RAF Station Eastchurch, so we’ll be airborne for about forty-eight minutes. There’s water and some snacks in the armrest. Let us know if you need to use the head; I’ll have someone hold you tight while you aim it out the door.”
“Thanks. I won’t be drinking any water then.”
Navy humor, Joe thought as he watched the thousand-foot plus Nimitz-class carrier shrink down to the size of a discarded cigar in the water before the craning of his neck was stopped by his helmet.
He opened his iPad and continued making notes on Commander Klaven. His headphones crackled. “Mr. Palumbo, I have an encrypted radio message coming through for you.”
“Okay.”
“Joey, it’s Bill. Change of plans.”
“What’s up?” Joey yelled over the engine noise.
“Percival is gone. I need you to pick up his trail in Paris.”
“Paris? I’m heading for RAF Station Eastchurch, Dover.”
“Not anymore you’re not. I am re-routing you to France. I’ll have more info waiting for you with a state department driver when you land. Good luck.”
Joey looked forward, as if he could see the pilot, “Hey, Lieutenant, do you have enough gas in this thing to make France?”
VII. NO ESCAPE
Not accustomed to being awakened at 3 a.m., The Engineer knew the call would be bad news. A minute after he hung up, he placed a call to a number he had stored in his head. “There’s been a complication.”
“What is the nature of this complication?” The Architect said.
“The target has escaped.”
“This is not good. I thought the team you hired was good at its craft.”
“They are the best!”
“This woman, this psychotic killer who was released from the Stasi when the Berlin wall fell, she is to be trusted, this animal who kills for pleasure?”
That last reference rattled The Engineer. He had recruited Maya because her homicidal tendencies were necessary to make the threat credible.
“She asks no questions and is only too happy to kill for money. The real nature of our mission is safe with her.”
“Except, we have lost our prime subject.”
“It was an unforeseen circumstance, but the leverage part of the mission has gone well. We will soon have all corrected.”
“I never believed in your heavy-handed tactics, but I assumed you knew what you were doing. I shall not make that error again.”
“You may rest assured there will be no further problems.”
“For your sake.” And then he ended the connection.
Raffey made it home on the tram. In the hallway mirror, he touched his swollen black and blue cheek and winced. Blood had dried and caked down his neck from his cut lip. He reached for the phone to call the police and stopped halfway. He was a major team member on a scientific enterprise of massive import. He needed to be mindful of his budding reputation Even in liberal-minded Switzerland, being rolled by a hooker and her pimp would not look good on his record and would surely get him demoted or expelled from the project.
Then where would he go? What kind of work could he find? He placed the phone down quietly so as not to disturb his sister and her sleeping daughter upstairs.