‘I like…I like your mustache, young man,’ she said, with an attempt at levity. ‘Are you a fan of Groucho Marx?’
Abaddon stopped at the desk, right hand on the Glock’s grip inside the suit jacket. ‘No, I’m not, lady. I’m a fan of Joseph Stalin.’
The woman’s hands flew to her mouth. ‘Oh, that…that will never do. Democrats abhor dictators.’ She grabbed a paper cup and swallowed a mouthful of the contents. ‘I’m sorry, would you like some? It’s vodka and…and orange.’
‘No, thanks,’ Abaddon said, leaning forward.
‘But it…it doesn’t do anything,’ Rhoda Rabinovich said. ‘It’s useless. It’s…it’s over.’ Then she stood up, her hands scrabbling in the desk drawer.
The killer watched in astonishment as the woman pulled out what looked like a novelty paper knife and thrust it deep into her chest.
‘That fucker…’ she gasped. ‘He brought…me this piece of…shit back from…Spain.’ Her eyes widened and she fell forward on the desk with a crash.
Abaddon was surprised, but not enough to forget what was to be done. The window frame looked secure, and the desk would be a good counterweight. Going back to the briefcase, the killer took out a black spray can, then pulled the painting of autumn in New England from the wall opposite the windows and set to work. It wasn’t long before the shape of a black cross with the equal sides narrowing toward the center appeared on the wall, the white paint providing good contrast. Using a second can, this one red, Abaddon added the words Mein and Kampf on either side of the Iron Cross. Then the killer stripped Rhoda Rabinovich of all her clothes, leaving the knife embedded between her remarkable breasts, and wrote the required words with a red indelible marker pen, the first on her belly and the second on her back.
After putting the spray cans and pen back in the briefcase, Abaddon tied one end of the rope from the briefcase tightly around her neck and the other to the desk leg. The precalculated length seemed to be right. The locks on the windows were easy to disengage. Cold air blew in from the Atlantic. The killer took a shorter piece of rope and attached it to the handle of the sliding window, then lifted Rhoda Rabinovich up to the ledge and stood her against the vertical part of the frame. Her high heels remained on the floor. Then Abaddon took out the combat knife and ran the blade across the rope-a cut had been made previously, but it felt like the victim was even lighter than the briefing had said. Perhaps she had lost weight because of how the faithless senator had treated her. Such is troubled love.
Leaving the office lights on, Abaddon stood at the door listening, and then unlocked it, pistol at the ready. There was no one around. The assassin opened the door beyond the receptionist’s desk and dropped the victim’s clothes in the toilet. After exiting the office, it took just over a minute to go down the stairs and exit the building, the Glock out of sight. Abaddon was near City Hall when the first scream rang out.
The killer turned, suppressing a smile. This was working out even better than expected. A woman in the square had noticed the naked figure in the window even before Rhoda Rabinovich fell. The only question now was, would her head stay on or not? Either way was acceptable to the killer’s employers.
More screams echoed around the concrete walls, and suddenly they went up in pitch. Heading away, Abaddon glanced back and saw the senator’s aide and former lover plummet earthward after the partially severed cord gave way. Then the carefully measured length of thicker rope broke her fall. Her head stayed attached to the rest of her body, which swung slowly from side to side like a grotesque pendulum. There was no way the details of this murder would be kept from the media.
The assassin walked swiftly on, smiling under the bristling mustache, as the clocks of Boston’s many churches started to sound the hour.
Never send to know for whom the bell tolls, she thought, piqued that the victim had done the best part of the job.
Four
Karen was lying on the sofa with a blanket over her. Her eyes opened.
‘Sorry. Go back to sleep.’
‘It’s all right,’ she murmured. ‘Your son’s finally stopped doing somersaults. Kiss?’
I went over and gave her what she wanted. As her time came closer, she had become more insecure, something I would never have expected when she had been the stern, driven detective. I was doing the best I could to support her, but she really needed to be in familiar surroundings so she could nest and prepare herself. Bastard Sebastian.
‘How was it?’ she asked, taking my hand.
‘Okay.’
Karen wasn’t buying that. ‘You had a hit, didn’t you?’
I glanced away. The last thing she needed now was to worry about me.
She squeezed my hand. ‘I’m a big girl, Matt,’ she said, pulling me closer with surprising strength. ‘We’ve talked about this. We’ll get through it together. You tell me what happens to you and vice versa. That’s the deal.’ She tugged me downward and kissed me on the lips.
I felt my eyes dampen. Karen had been kidnapped by the Rothmanns earlier in her pregnancy and the fuckers had put her through the brainwashing process. No one knew what effects the drugs and machines would have had on our son, even though both Rivers and the obstetrics team expressed confidence for his health, at least on the surface.
‘Don’t worry, my love,’ she said, putting her lips to my eyes. ‘We’re doing fine, all three of us. You’ll see. We’ll beat this. We’ll beat them all.’
I leant against her and felt the bump where our son was sleeping under my abdomen. God, I loved Karen. Without her, I wouldn’t have got this far in the therapy.
She laughed, her breath tickling my ear. ‘Now go and get me a sandwich, male slave. I’m ravenous.’
I went into the kitchen. The camp staff had been bringing us the makings of all our meals since Karen first refused to eat the food that came on covered plates from the mess hall. I put together some ham and cheese sandwiches and took them back to the living room. Then, my voice low, I told her about the trigger. I didn’t say the word out loud in case she had been programmed with it, too-Rivers would follow that up after she’d given birth.
We had just finished eating when the doorbell rang. Although the Feds could have walked in any time they liked, they preserved the fiction that our quarters were private, despite the cameras and microphones. I opened up.
‘Hi, Matt.’ Special Agent Julie Simms, a nondescript woman in her late thirties, was one of the FBI team. She handed me an envelope. ‘Enjoy,’ she said, turning away.
‘What is it?’ Karen asked.
I ran my eyes down the communication and laughed. ‘It’s from Peter Sebastian.’ I handed over the sheet of official paper. ‘Progress at last.’
‘My God, he’s giving you unarmed combat sessions even though he knows how dangerous you can be?’
‘It’s about time I got back into shape. You know what this means?’
‘We’re going to get out,’ she said breathlessly.
‘I reckon so. He knows that Sara will come after me, so he wants to get me back to full fitness.’
Karen’s face fell. ‘In that case, he should be giving you a small arms refresher course, too.’
I knew that wasn’t likely, given that we were still finding triggers in our minds. There could have been hundreds of others, even though I had escaped from the Rothmanns’ camp before the conditioning-what they delightfully referred to as ‘coffining’-was complete. But that wasn’t what was worrying me. The idea that crazy Sara might be on my tail when our son was a tiny baby horrified me, as did the fact that I was partially responsible for the threat. If only she’d been killed alongside her sick brother…
I knew what I would have to do when we were released-find her before she got to us, and deal with her once and for all. I would never forgive myself if something happened to the woman I loved and our son.
‘Matt,’ Karen said, ‘I don’t want to think about the Soul Collector.’ She never called Sara by her real name. ‘Come here.’