At 9:35 a.m. there was a knock at the door of room 417. Zimler opened it to reveal the slightly rotund, bespectacled Romanian with the small satchel under his arm.
“I am Yergi. You are…the Algerian?”
Zimler nodded and ushered him in. Pointing to a coffee table in the living room area, he persuaded the currier to set his package down.
The professor was clearly nervous. His eyes scanned the room, then his host.
“Funny, y-you don’t really look Algerian…,” he stammered.
Zimler smiled, then walked over to the balcony’s French doors and swung them open to let in some fresh air.
He began with a question. “The information you have in the package,” he began, pointing to the satchel, “is it up-to-date?”
“Yes, very much so. The Russian agent whom I obtained it from vouched for its authenticity. I have quite a bit of information here for you, including the basic research and development agreement between Mr. Jordan and the Pentagon in reference to his work on the Return-to-Sender technology. Of course, no one has the actual schematics for the system…but this should provide you with an excellent starting point…” Yergi was hoping this would all be over soon. “So, in regards to my payment—”
“Did you bring your passport, as I requested?” Zimler responded.
Despite the cool morning Bucharest breeze flowing into the room, the Romanian was nevertheless starting to feel the first signs of sweat beading on his forehead.
“I need to verify you are who you say you are,” Zimler continued.
“Of course.” Yergi fumbled a little and then removed his passport from his coat pocket and offered it to Zimler, who proceeded to flip through it.
“You haven’t been to America then?”
The already uncomfortable professor now added confusion to his growing list of anxieties.
“No, why?”
“I was hoping you could tell me a little something about any experiences you might have had there. I plan on going there myself someday.” Zimler smiled, handed the passport back, and turned toward the balcony.
“A good view of the Piata Revolutiei, wouldn’t you say, Yergi?” He motioned the professor over toward the open French doors.
Yergi, of course, was already familiar with the view. In fact, he had taken Elena to the restaurant located on the same floor of this very hotel on their first date. He’d wanted to impress her, and it had obviously done the trick. What she didn’t know was that Yergi had a student who worked at the restaurant who had offered up a free meal in exchange for a passing grade.
Still, the view was spectacular, and it was indeed turning out to be a beautiful day.
Then Zimler added something unexpected: “Oh, look over there, is that your car…being towed?”
Yergi scurried toward the open doors and glanced in the direction of the street on the north side of the square.
“No, I don’t think…I’m afraid I don’t see what you are talking about—”
Before Yergi could turn around, Zimler, now behind him, looped a garrote over the man’s head and around his neck—like a noose.
Yergi’s first reaction was to grab at the steel cord constricting his throat and try to dislodge it. Panic set in instantaneously. He desperately wanted to breathe, but couldn’t. He then reached back and seized the arm of the Algerian. It was like steel. He was beginning to lose consciousness in the grip of his assassin.
Zimler knew from years of experience that the process of extracting life from a body in this manner would take less than two minutes.
Vainly the Romanian attempted to cry out to the people below who were within earshot of the room’s open balcony doors, but he could only manage a few faint gurgles. He continued to grab futilely at his neck and the Algerian’s arm.
Zimler pulled harder.
Yergi’s knees buckled.
The waves rolled gently toward the shore under the Adriatic sun. The day was very still. Yergi could smell the sea air; feel the warmth on his skin. And there she was, Elena, with her American baseball cap, waving at him and smiling. It would be the last image to cross his mind.
A moment later, the struggling stopped…along with his breathing. Yergi’s lifeless body slumped to the ground.
The assassin calmly rose to his feet, brushed off his wrinkled linen pants, straightened his silk shirt, wound the cord in a loop, and placed it back in his pocket. He then plucked the passport from the Romanian’s hand and grabbed the satchel from the table.
Again, making sure the hallways were clear, Zimler hooked the Do Not Disturb sign around the doorknob before closing the door firmly behind him with his latex-protected hand.
Quickly returning to his own room, Zimler stripped off his shirt, pants, and shoes and shoved them into a plastic bag, which he then stuffed into his Louis Vuitton suitcase. He dressed in another set of clothes and headed downstairs to the lobby to check out.
“Pleasant visit?” the hotel clerk inquired in a thick Romanian accent.
“Very,” Zimler responded, smiling broadly.
The assassin calmly walked out of the hotel and down the street. In an alley three blocks away, behind the Calea Grivitei, he slipped the plastic bag from his suitcase and placed it in a trash dumpster just as a garbage truck turned onto the street for its weekly pickup.
Minutes later, in the back of a cab heading south on the Blvd. Dimitrie Cantemir, the Algerian opened the satchel and removed a portion of its contents. The photo resumé of Joshua Jordan was the first item to catch his attention.
Zimler’s eyes narrowed into laser-sharp focus as he studied the target.
He then put the resumé and other papers back into the satchel and closed it up.
“Please hurry,” Zimler remarked to the cab driver, “I have a rather busy day ahead of me.”