Retribution

The tube continued beneath London until the last few stops. When it emerged aboveground, the late-fall fog was penetrated only by the glow of city lights. Parker stared at the beads of water streaking across the moisture on the windows. The wind pushed the droplets across the glass in streams. He leaned back on the subway seat, closing his eyes to the rhythm of the tracks. He looked down at his watch. It had only been a few hours. The fighter jet was cramped, but at forty-six thousand feet, using the jet stream, it took less time than a movie on the transatlantic flights for his return from New York. The oxygen in the face mask gave him a sense of euphoria as he looked down on the slower 747s and 767s below. But he hadn’t slept now for more than twenty-four hours. He didn’t want to waste one moment with Clark on something as unimportant as sleep.

Good God. This line of thought was a grave mistake. He couldn’t afford to have Clark on his mind now.

The subway train’s brakes squealed like fingernails on a chalkboard. A jolt brought the train to a stop.

Parker pulled up the collar to his Barbour jacket as he stepped into the fog.

The man waited there, out of view, in the corner of the station.

Parker sensed his presence. A hunter always knew when he was being hunted.

The glow of the streetlight barely made it to the sidewalk below. Parker saw the shape of a police officer near the entrance to the pub, in the opposite direction of the stranger. The officer stood below the overhang of a building, giving him some shelter from the drizzle as it came down. He waved his hand to the officer as he did whenever he passed. It didn’t hurt for the police officer to know him. Parker knew the officer had registered him in the policeman’s mind. The first time Parker had passed through the station, the officer stared at him. He could see in the moment of a glance that his look, his height, his frame were all being registered for future reference.

The street was pitch-dark, like spilled ink, in the spaces between the streetlights. Parker kept his pace, moving along the sidewalk, careful to keep the shadows at a distance. A dog knocked over a trash can in an alley, causing a loud metallic racket. He stayed on his side of the street. Lights came on with the noise, curtains moved; people looked out toward the sound.

Parker noticed the faces in the windows. The men had beards; the women were dark-skinned with black hair. The neighborhood was consistent. It was as it had been described. Walthamstow was the East End in the sense that here the newest immigrants attracted each other like magnets. In this decade, it was the home to Muslims from Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.

In the light, on the far side of the street, Parker saw a movement. It was his shadow. Trying to keep up with Parker’s pace. He moved faster.

Mossad?

Could be, if Scott were to be believed.

It doesn’t feel like Mossad.

Parker cut across the street, walking directly below the lamp, making sure that the man would see his direction. The sign below the light marked Forest Street. The flats were all stacked together like bricks lined up, row after row, with the doors barely separated by a window or two. Many of the flats were dark as it neared midnight.

One light was on.

She didn’t have to do that. Parker sensed from the small things that Mrs. Zabara had had enough of death in her young life and just wanted to do the simple things. Leave a light on for the man who she was supposed to call her husband.

Their flat was across from a small park that everyone used as their vegetable garden. It was started in the Great War. In this case, the space for two of the flats was left open to serve as a public park. Each of the tenants had a small plot, some no bigger than the size of a throw rug in a small room, with barely enough space to turn around in, but still a place of earth that was tilled and cultivated and produced a summer’s variety of tomatoes, squash, beans, and even corn. The plots were elevated and framed by large timbers stacked in long boxes. In the back, a compost pile came up to a man’s chest. In the summer, the gardens were lush and full. Now, as winter came on, the farm looked empty and dark. In fact, it was pitch-black, as it had no lighting.

That’s where I would be. A small-caliber shot, with a can, through the back of the head. The silencer, with the right bullet, loaded with less than a full load of powder, would make no noise. It would speed through the moist air, leaving a streak for just a split second. But even with the light load of powder, the well-aimed shot would puncture the back of the head and tear through the brain.

Parker stepped into the alcove that protected the door. Inside, it didn’t have a trace of light, but the space was no larger than a telephone booth. He unlocked the door with a key that she left in a crack in the brick to the far right of the door. He had to do it by mostly the feel of the small key. In the low light he could see it was bright, as it had been cut just for the new tenants.

Parker stepped in, quickly pulled the door closed, and locked it. As he did so, he put his foot behind the door the moment it closed to brace for any attack. He slid to one side of the door. It was a perfect opportunity for an attack.

But this time the assailant had failed to make his move.

Parker climbed the stairs to the second floor. Zdravo stood there at the top of the stairs in her nightgown, like a Praetorian guard protecting the emperor. Here, the emperor was her dead sister’s baby.

“Smracuje se.”

“Jes.”

He pointed his finger to his mouth.

“I need you to go to the front with me.”

He led her to the front room, to the desk near the window, and there sat down at the desk. She stood next to him. Parker opened the notebook computer that the newspaper had given him. The room was dark except for the glow of the screen. He turned it to the side and, with him in the shadows, he pulled her over into the seat. Parker slid up against the wall, in the darkness, and moved toward the back hall.

“Where you go?”

“I will be back. Stay there. Don’t move.” He put his finger to his lips.

“Jes.” She understood danger.

The hallway cut through the center of the flat; in the rear a short, steep stairway led downstairs. Parker had struck his head on the overhang the first time he’d tried to descend the stairs.

Tonight he instead turned the knob to the back bedroom and quietly swung the door open. He closed it behind him, listening to a child’s deep breathing in her bed. His eyes were adapting to the darkness and, as he moved across the room, Parker passed the child’s small bed. Beyond, a small window was slightly cracked, letting in the cool, damp air. Again in a slow and deliberate movement, he used the fulcrum of his arms to curl the window open, sliding it upward just enough for a man to pass through.

On the roof, Parker immediately felt his feet slipping on the slate shingles; remembering his skiing days, he turned his foot across the drop and carefully put only the right amount of pressure to keep the hold. It felt much colder outside now, as he was moving without his jacket. Already he found his skin damp—his shirt neared the point of being soaked.

Parker got to the edge of one roof and slipped again across the edge to another roof. He repeated this several times until he came to an alleyway that cut in between the row of flats. Here, he worked his way, slowly, down the roofline to the corner, where he muscled his body around, holding on to the drainpipes only by his fingers. The copper pipes cut, but he knew how to concentrate and breathe, ignoring the pain, as he walked himself down, end over end, hand over hand, on the pipeline until he came to the descending drainpipe. It was still a long drop down to the stone pathway between the buildings.

In the alleyway, Parker didn’t make the mistake of coming to the front to see if the man was still there. He knew a murderer would remain there if it took all night. A skilled murderer would wait until just before dawn to strike, and then only do so if everything were judged to be just so.

Parker turned instead to the right and headed back into the alleyway. At the end he stopped for a moment, put his back to the wall, and slid down into a crouch. The wall was wet with moisture, which soaked through his shirt, but he took the time to steady himself for what was to come. Parker visualized the path he would take, cutting up through the buildings to the street on the far side. Once there, he would cut up a block, well beyond his street, double back to the alleyway on the far side, and come in from behind the park.

He moved slowly, controlling his breathing, stopping in the dark corners to sense any movement. Parker crouched down for a second time, looking around. He knew that he would need a weapon. He was near the corner of the building where the trash was stacked in boxes. A carton of beer bottles balanced on top. Parker silently slipped one from the case. It was an amber-colored beer bottle made of thick glass. It had the perfect swing weight to it and was heavy on the end with the thick glass on the bottom.

Again, Parker moved forward slowly. His movement reminded him of a combat patrol. Move deliberately, stay low, be silent. Move too quickly and you were dead. He slid down the back of the building, staying in the dark, adjusting his eyes, as he slowly moved along. In the dark, away from the corner light, he cut across the street and followed the apartment building from the other side. He extended his hand in front of his face, moving at a snail’s pace, feeling his way until eventually he touched the leaf of a large brown hydrangea that stood much taller than him. He remembered the plant. It was near the rear of the garden across the street. Parker continued to move slowly, patiently, around the corner of the plant, but stopped when he caught a faint whiff of cigarette. His heartbeat increased when he realized that he was close, very close. The stranger was within reach. Parker froze in place, watching, waiting.

The man was standing next to an oak, a small one that was beginning to lose its leaves for the winter. The tree’s tall branches above, shorn of their leaves, let through a fragmented pattern of light. Enough for Parker to see the man’s face.

Knez.

The man leaned against the tree, watching the house. Across the street, and above them, the glow of a computer illuminated a figure in the apartment. Suddenly the person behind the computer moved, and as she did, the man in the dark recognized that she was not who he thought she was. His body language immediately read agitated.

What will he do?

Parker watched as the man looked first down the street, then behind himself, and finally turned, seemingly directly at Parker. He stared into the darkness where Parker hid. Parker froze, not daring even to breathe. The man continued to stare for what seemed an eternity. He displayed a puzzled face, being unable to recognize something he should have known. Then he reached. He reached deep into the pocket of his long black raincoat and pulled out a pistol that looked like a Russian automatic. From another pocket he pulled out a long tube, black and metallic. He slid the tube onto the pistol, causing it to be well beyond the frame of the gun itself. Knez pulled the movement of the automatic pistol back, chambering a round, and then slowly slid it forward.

His intentions were clear.

Parker waited until Knez turned back toward the house with the woman and the child, innocents whom the Black Swan would surely not spare.

There would be only one opportunity, one step, one movement, and it had to be decisive.

The man intended to move to a car parked in the center of the street. It was a well-used minicar, painted a horrific orange-brown. He stopped at the edge of the car, sliding down for a second below its horizon as he scanned the street. Just as he was beginning to take his next step, a cat in an alley far away screamed out, causing the man to pause and look around again, up the street, down the street, and back to Zdravo in the house behind the computer.

Parker feared for her. She was now within range. A bullet could tear through the glass, slam into the side of her head, and she would be on the floor dead before Parker could even stop it.

For the moment he waited, only moving slightly when his opponent did, each step carefully placed. He placed each foot gingerly, one step at a time, so no dried limb or leaf would crackle.

It seemed the man had finally reached a decision. He moved toward the front door, more quickly now. He stood in the shadow, grabbed the doorknob with his right hand, turned the knob as far as he could, and then brought his full body to bear on the door. The frame was old and quietly cracked under the pressure.

Parker knew the time to act was fleeting. If he let Knez upstairs, it would be too late.

From upstairs came Zdravo’s voice. “Sadik? Sadik, is that you?”

With those words, Knez would know he was in a trap. The woman should not be calling to her husband at the front door—not when Knez had watched the man walk inside only minutes before.

Knez turned and fired randomly into the dark. The silenced bullets whizzed by Parker, who leaned to the side of the door. One round tore through the front of Parker’s shirt, but Knez immediately turned to fire in the other direction, covering all bases. As soon as Parker detected Knez’s turn, he tore through the doorway.

Knez reacted and got off one more round, which shattered the beer bottle, but the glass was thick and the broken end transformed into a lethal razor.

In the instant between the time a man could fire one round and then another, Parker shoved the broken glass deep under Knez’s chin. Its shard cut deep into the throat, sliced the arteries, and caused blood to project out like water from a sudden cut in a hose. Parker gripped Knez’s gun hand, turning the barrel away, but the man’s strength was already gone.

He gasped, then mumbled a string words, scarcely intelligible except for one:

“Sadik?”

The sticky blood quickly covered Parker’s hands as he dragged the limp body out into the street. It was all done in near silence. A man lost his life while others slept nearby.

Parker looked around and pulled the body across the street to the lot. It was fortunate that it was the beginning of winter, as not even the children played in the gardens in the late fall. A body could remain hidden there for several days, possibly a week. Parker didn’t need nearly that much time. He pulled the dead weight into a hole next to the compost pile. In preparation for winter the gardener had dug it so deep that a man could stand in it up to one’s knees. The trench had been dug so as to aerate the plot. It became the perfect grave. He quickly covered the man with the remaining leaves and dirt, leaving the pistol lying on his chest. When discovered with the Russian pistol, the first assumption would be a bad drug deal with the Russian mafia. As no one would miss Knez, the investigation would take much more time than Parker needed.

He cut back across the street, seeing no sign of life anywhere. The front door was not damaged to the degree he thought. It could easily be repaired in the morning.

“I need a bucket.”

Zdravo was already at the top of the stairs with a pail of water. It was as if she had done this before. “Use this and I will get more.”

He poured the water across the entranceway, diluting the blood, and then down the walk. He handed her the bucket and again she brought another. They repeated the effort until the last remnants of Knez had been washed away.

Parker pulled the door shut and was able to jam the lock partially closed. They didn’t need much time. In a day, they would be gone.

Zdravo was still waiting, sitting on the top stair. Her face had that same ashen look of fear.

“Who was he?”

“Knez.” Parker spoke quietly. Despite the death of a man nearby, they tried not to wake the baby.

“Why did he try to kill us?”

“He knew I was not Sadik.”

“Oh. But why now? Why try to kill you now?”

“How did he know I was not Sadik?” Parker asked her, as she slid down into a chair, limp with fear.

“I don’t know. I did not even know that he knew my husband.”

“He knew Sadik.” Parker answered the question. More important, he answered the other question. “And he knew I was not Sadik.”

“So why was a member of the Black Swans looking here, now?” She would ask innocent questions because she was innocent.

And then Parker remembered. There was a connection.

“I was being checked out. And I know who wanted me checked out. And I think it was stopped.”

If Knez told others of his suspicions it was not stopped and once Parker stepped into Pakistan he was dead.

There was a connection between this dead man and the Chechen.