CHAPTER 42
The grounds of the chateau covered twenty acres. From where McCall stood he could see the imposing mansion far below, probably over a mile away and down in the valley, emblazoned with spotlights. There were people on the front lawns, vehicles moving up a long driveway, security everywhere. To the east and north of the chateau were heavily wooded areas. A hill rose up on the east. Here, on the west side of the estate, the hill was almost a mountain, climbing up through more thick woods, winding gravel and dirt paths laced through them. There would be no way to get onto the chateau grounds from either mountainside—theoretically. McCall was sure that Control had done a sweep on the east and west grounds anyway. They would have been pronounced clear on both sides.
The Company might even have had intel about an abandoned oil pumping station a few miles from the chateau. There were probably other landmarks in the area, either operating or abandoned, none of which would have been of any interest to Control. He could not have known that a series of fractured and empty oil pipes led from that disused pumping station, burrowed in the ground, toward the chateau—and that one of them came out on the property’s west side, providing a potential assassin access to a fortified area without tripping any alarms or having to move past any security. But Alexei Berezovsky had known. No wonder he’d had Elena killed to get back that flash drive with the pumping station pipes highlighted on it—although without the map on the pumping station wall, the intel on that flash drive was virtually useless to Control.
Far below, McCall could see limos heading up to the magnificent old chateau. Troops and Policie České Republiky lined the entire driveway route. He looked up onto the roofs of the mansion. He couldn’t see them, but he knew Company snipers were on those roofs with high-powered rifles with nightscopes on them. Constantly surveying the scene around the arriving dignitaries.
But not looking west up to the side of a mountain.
McCall looked above him. He could not see Diablo in the trees, but he didn’t expect to. He only could calculate what sniper position he would use if he was going to assassinate a target at the front of the chateau. He found one—a copse of thick trees where a stone wall meandered in and out. The angle would be right.
McCall started to climb up the hill directly above him, through the trees, his breathing labored from the journey through the pipes. He had started out the night with two guns, a Beretta 9 mm and a Ruger .357 Magnum. Now he had no guns.
Shit happens.
So he had to get right behind the assassin, very close.
* * *
Control watched the arrivals from a small parlor off the main hallway of the chateau, on six different monitors from cameras set up around the mansion. The Secret Service were in charge of the security for the Summit Conference; Control and his Company agents were there for added manpower, experience, and to appease Congress in the wake of recent terrorist attacks. Control had already sent ten agents out on four sweeps of the extensive grounds. The east and west sides of the chateau grounds were impassable, but he’d sent agents up those hills anyway. All clear. The north side of the chateau was very heavily wooded with no way in from behind a ten-foot stone fence that had more surveillance cameras on it than the Pentagon. The only egress into the chateau was from the south, where the big iron gates stood announcing Letenské Chateau. The driveway wound through the extensive grounds from a narrow country road. There were video cameras on the ornate gates and Control had fitted six more of them along the driveway up to the chateau. He’d scanned tapes on the traffic in and out of the chateau for the last sixteen hours. Sixty percent of it had been the press and media. All of their IDs had been run and verified. No unauthorized personnel had been allowed onto the grounds. His men were patrolling behind the perimeter set up by the Secret Service. There were practically more Czech troops and Policie České Republiky here than press and dignitaries.
There had been no intel about any terrorist attack on the Summit Conference. The usual chatter and saber rattling, but nothing that had sent up any red flags at The Company. But because of the eleventh-hour amendment to the guest list, security had been ratcheted up even higher. The vice president had come down with a tummy bug. He’d been throwing up for twelve hours and did not make the trip to Prague, with regrets.
So the President of the United States had changed his schedule and decided to attend the summit.
It had been a very last minute decision, the president barely expected to arrive in time for the start of the conference. Intel that he was coming had been restricted to very few people. It had not been reported on any of the major worldwide news outlets or local news broadcasts. He could not be a target of any assassination attempt that had been months in the planning. But Control could feel his stomach muscles tied in knots. His instinct told him something was wrong. It was based on no intel whatsoever. It was just a vague feeling of apprehension.
But staring at the various monitor screens, there was nothing at all to warrant the foreboding. Everything was going like clockwork. The secretary of state was about to arrive. Five minutes after him the President of the United States would be stepping out of a limo in front of the chateau and Control would be in the background, watching as he shook hands with their chateau hosts and was escorted inside, with a phalanx of Secret Service agents around him. No one in the crowd outside the chateau could get to the president or any of the other world leaders. Control’s gut feeling was a sniper’s shot. But from where? The grounds of the chateau were protected and had been searched four times. This was the safest place in the Czech Republic.
Control wondered if the ulcer in his stomach had started to bleed again.
* * *
The stone wall was four feet high. Jovan Durković knelt at it, trees crowding in on both sides. Below the wall was a precipitous drop twenty feet down the steep slope to a flat plateau in the trees. There were landscaped gardens there around a white gazebo, but the gazebo was falling into disrepair. Many of the slats were missing and a section of the gazebo itself had fallen in at the back. There was a rusting black wrought-iron table in the wooden shell and four wrought-iron chairs. The gardens around it were choked with weeds. No one had lounged here for a pleasant afternoon of tea or lemonade in a long time. There was a much gentler incline two hundred yards to Durković’s left, even a path, although that was also overgrown with weeds. He figured you would need an army of gardeners to keep the grounds of this chateau flowering and blooming. Obviously the owners were only interested in what was a few hundred yards around their magnificent house. Which suited Durković just fine. They would not be sending Secret Service agents up here to look for potential assassins. Perhaps there had been a sweep of the entire grounds, but that would have been hours ago, as soon as the Secret Service and the Policie České Republiky had arrived.
Durković had put together the AWC M91 breakdown rifle. It was a new one he had bought in Berlin, having had to leave his prior weapon in the back of the Volga at the Disaster Park outside Moscow. It was the same model and year. He liked the feel of it. It was like an old friend in his hands. He knelt at the stone wall, noting that it was crumbling in places. No maintenance was being carried out on this mountainside. Whatever was there was being left to rust and rot. He’d been careful to find a position on top of the wall that was solid. His right leg was folded beneath him. His left foot was flat on the hard ground. His left elbow was propped on his left knee. He made a minor adjustment to the MARS6-WPT night-vision scope and looked through it.
He had it sighted on the top of the chateau. There were three roofs, the main one and the two roofs over the east and west wings. He saw black-suited snipers on all three of the roofs. There were six men to a roof, two of them facing north, south, east, and west. Durković knew the ones on the east and west sides would be the least diligent. The likelihood of a threat coming from either side was minimal. The Secret Service snipers, or Special Forces soldiers, or whoever were on those roofs, would be concentrating their attention on the approaches from the north and south. But even through the nightscopes of the snipers looking west, there was no way Durković could be seen in his position in the dense copse of trees shrouding the crumbling stone wall.
He was invisible.
They would not know where the shot had come from. And by the time they figured it out, impossibly on the west slope of the grounds, he’d be inside the pipe and headed back to the oil pumping station.
He moved the scope down to the front of the chateau. There must have been a hundred people along the driveway and on the immaculate front lawns, most of them media and press, lots of Secret Service and some other personnel he didn’t recognize. They were searching the crowd for potential threats. He had nothing to worry about from them.
Limos were pulling in. The President of China, Xi Jinping, had just disembarked from the back of his limo. Some delegate from the White House was greeting him. Durković loved the leader’s titles. Xi Jinping was the general secretary of the Communist Party of China and president of the People’s Republic of China. A dictator and a president—also head of the military, Durković was certain.
Behind the Chinese leader’s limo another one was pulling up. A Secret Service agent opened the back door.
The United States Secretary of State climbed out.
He was a little stooped over and stiff from riding in the car. He’d probably just got off a plane from Washington, D.C., several hours in the air. He stretched and shook hands with a young man in a dark suit waiting by the side of the driveway. Durković knew it would be there, but he rode the scope up the young man’s face to his left ear to a close-up of the listening aid, just for the hell of it.
Durković could afford to take his time. He would kill the secretary of state just before he walked through the main doors of the chateau. If it looked as if people were going to be in his line of fire, he would shoot him down earlier. But he liked to savor the knowledge of the kill until the last possible moment. The sniper’s true omnipotence. He was above the crowd, above the importance of individual lives. He was over a mile away, and yet, through the scope, as close and personal as a man could get. The targets never saw it coming. Never had a split second of realization their meaningless lives were about to end.
But when he wounded them first, then they knew. Then the awful truth clawed at their throats and churned in their stomachs. Then they screamed in their heads for mercy, for more life, so many things they still had to accomplish, so many loved ones they wanted to see again, even if it was only for a few seconds.
Too late.
Durković noticed there was some excitement in the crowd.
It would not be over the American secretary of state. Yes, an important world figure, vital to American relationships abroad, but hardly a man to rouse the press out of their ennui. Although he was very important to Durković, as he represented a twenty-million-dollar payday.
A limo was pulling up behind the one that had just disgorged the secretary of state. Secret Service men, and one woman, Durković noted with interest, were trotting along with the limo on both sides. The vehicle came to a halt. The back door was opened. The crowd of media reporters surged forward, held back by the Policie České Republiky and a perimeter line of more Secret Service agents along both sides.
The unmistakable figure of the President of the United States stepped out of the back of the limo.
Durković was astounded. His intel from Berezovsky had not included the most powerful human being in the free world. Yet there he was, larger than life in the nightscope of his MARS sight. Durković would carry out his assignment. He would kill the United States Secretary of State.
But right in front of him was a fifty-million-dollar bonus.
That was the price some terrorists had put on the world leader’s head.
Durković kept his scope on the President of the United States.
* * *
It had taken McCall twenty precious minutes to climb up the steep slope of the hill. Some of it had paved stairs that had helped him, but they petered out and he was climbing up a path overgrown with foliage. He was east of the dense copse of trees where the stone wall meandered in and out. It was the best place for a sniper to set up. It was protected by trees, the stone wall would steady the barrel of a sniper’s rifle, and if any eyes were on this side of the hill from the roofs of the chateau—which McCall thought unlikely—they would never see the assassin.
McCall circled on around until he was directly behind the copse of trees. He watched where he walked. The ground was strewn with small, loose rocks and tripping over them, or even kicking one of them, could be fatal.
He moved into the trees.
He stopped and looked directly ahead, then scanned to the left and right. He didn’t see Diablo. But he knew he was there. McCall walked forward, quickening his pace, the clock in his head counting down to zero. Far below he saw movement in front of the chateau. Limos arriving and people moving back and forth and the media with their cameras and video teams and the Secret Service and Control’s agents trying to cover everyone at once. It was a madhouse, one McCall didn’t have to be close to to see in his mind.
He had no idea who Diablo’s target was. It could be the President of the People’s Republic of China, or the Prime Minister of India, or someone in the American contingent, the secretary of state or the vice president. It didn’t matter who it was.
McCall wasn’t going to let the assassin carry out his mission.
And then he saw him.
The man was compact, dressed in black. His hair was dark and long. He was virtually invisible in the darkness. He knelt at the stone wall with a sniper’s rifle resting on it. It looked to McCall like an AWC M91. He could see the shape of the MARS nightscope at the top of it.
McCall knelt and untaped the Circus Faka throwing knife from his calf. He threw off the taped ends and held the knife tightly in his right hand.
He straightened and moved silently through the trees toward Diablo’s motionless figure.
* * *
Durković was torn. Which of them to kill first? The secretary of state was his assignment and he would take care of business, of course. He saw the secretary had stopped to exchange a greeting with Xi Jinping. Secret Service agents hovered, but there was a spirit of camaraderie and the secretary of state was in no mood to be hustled inside. Diablo had a clear shot at him and would have for another five seconds at least. That was all the time he would need. No wounding or maiming with this target. A clean kill shot. The assassination would cause instant pandemonium and Durković wanted to be moving back to the empty oil pipe as soon as he’d packed up his breakdown rifle, which would be another seven seconds.
He moved the MARS nightscope back to the President of the United States.
A fifty-million-dollar bonus on the night.
He lined up the crosshairs on the president’s head.
His finger tightened on the trigger.
* * *
McCall was two steps away from the assassin in the darkness. The moonlight through the branches of the trees created thin spars of light across Diablo’s back. McCall had not made a sound, but the assassin suddenly stiffened and swung around.
McCall lunged at him with the knife.
A split-second too late.
Durković smashed the M91 rifle barrel across McCall’s head, then slammed the rifle stock into his solar plexus, doubling him over. McCall blindly lashed out with the knife, stabbing it into Durković’s right shoulder. The sharpened and honed blade cut through the fabric of his jacket and deeply into his flesh.
The wound appeared to have no effect on him whatsoever.
But he dropped the high-powered rifle onto the ground.
Durković caught McCall’s wrist in a viselike grip and twisted. The knife went flying, hitting the ground beside the stone wall. McCall, still bent over, kicked the assassin in the balls, which only seemed to stagger him for a moment. McCall threw himself backward. He fell to the rock-strewn ground, pivoted on one leg, and was up on his feet before Durković could come at him.
McCall saw his face for the first time. It was angular, a stubble of beard on it. His eyes were wild with rage. He was breathing in heavy pants, as if the kick to the nuts had taken a lot of oxygen from his lungs.
He came at McCall like a bull, his arms swinging, throwing punches. No martial arts moves, no finesse, no sizing up his opponent. Just raining blows, like an old-fashioned street fight. He got in some punishing shots to McCall’s body. McCall blocked the next punches. He got in two fast Choku-zuki strikes with his left fist to Durković’s ribs, snapping his wrist at the last second, like a key turning in a lock. Then a Mawashi-zuki roundhouse punch with his right fist to the side of the assassin’s head. Durković took a step back, shaking his head as if a fly had buzzed in his ear. He showed no pain at all. He just refocused on McCall and came back at him.
McCall’s right heel hit a rock on the ground and he stumbled.
Durković took advantage of the loss of concentration and smashed a fist into McCall’s face. It sent him reeling. Two more vicious punches brought blood gushing from McCall’s nose and split the skin above his left eye. The fourth punch was aimed at his cheekbone. If it had connected it would have shattered it. McCall barely sidestepped the blow, barreling into Durković, trying to throw him off-balance.
The assassin lifted McCall right off his feet and threw him back like he was a rag doll. McCall hit the ground hard. A rock split open the skin above his right eye. Blood dripped down into both his eyes now. He saw Durković’s distorted figure looming over him, blocking out the splintered moonlight. McCall tried to turn, but the assassin kicked him hard in the ribs. McCall felt at least one rib crack.
Another kick.
Another rib fractured.
McCall grabbed the assassin’s leg and wrenched it up, hurling him to the ground. It gave McCall enough time to dive to where the blade of the Circus Faka knife glistened. Durković took a moment to get back to his feet. He saw McCall grab the knife and lunged at him.
On the ground, McCall stabbed the knife into Durković’s leg and out again. It was as if it hadn’t happened. McCall didn’t think the assassin even knew it had happened. He was just filled with rage and frustration. With a bellow he dragged McCall to his feet by the turtleneck. He lashed out, gripped the Faka knife in McCall’s hand by the blade, and wrenched it free. The blade cut deeply into Durković’s right hand, but it was as if that hadn’t happened, either. He ignored the blood running hot through his fingers.
Instead of using the knife on his adversary, Durković contemptuously threw it over the stone wall. It skittered down the steep incline and came to a rest inside the broken gazebo at the bottom. The assassin dragged McCall closer to him, his breath stinking of cigarettes. He squeezed his hand into McCall’s throat. The agony was devastating. McCall felt his knees buckle. Durković swung him around and dragged him toward the edge of the precipice where there was a gap in the stone wall.
McCall came alive in the assassin’s grasp. He fell to the ground, swinging his foot up into Durković’s solar plexus with both hands gripping the lapels of his coat. The assassin’s own momentum threw him over McCall’s head. He crashed down, right on the edge of the rock face.
McCall crawled forward, trying to drag himself back from a black abyss. His face was bleeding badly and his head was swimming. He threw blood out of his eyes. His throat throbbed painfully. He didn’t understand. He’d stabbed the assassin twice. He was weakened, but otherwise the pain appeared to have no effect on him.
McCall turned, on his knees, to see Durković getting back to his feet on the edge of the steep incline at the break in the stone wall. McCall couldn’t let this bull come back at him again with fists flying. He was on the point of passing out, his ribs were fractured, and he could barely see or stand. His legs were like lead.
McCall barreled into the assassin before he could completely straighten up.
He took them both over the precipice.
They tumbled down the incline, turning over and over, hitting the gazebo directly below. Part of the fragile wooden structure splintered apart, raining wooden spars around the two fighters. They fell about six feet apart from each other. McCall turned painfully in the wreckage and saw the glint of the Faka knife. He lunged for it, but Durković leaped onto McCall’s back, like a panting, sweating, stinking dog, throwing an arm around McCall’s throat that already felt like it was on fire.
The assassin’s feet found the ground. He reared back and thrust his knee into McCall’s back, almost breaking it.
McCall gagged as he was being strangled.
Darkness rushed in. His head pounded. Nausea welled up in his throat.
McCall threw his right hand up to the assassin’s throat, his thumb jabbing the hichu point where Durković’s bull neck and chest met, just below the Adam’s apple. The assassin’s trachea passed right below this point. He grunted, gasping. McCall flailed back at the same time with his left hand, finding the dokko point under the outer ledge of the earlobe at the base of Durković’s left ear. He gouged his thumb into it. The assassin’s grip around McCall’s throat loosened.
Just enough.
McCall jabbed both thumbs back into Durković’s eyes. He fell back and McCall squirmed out from under his crushing weight. He rolled over and climbed painfully to his feet. Durković climbed to his and the two fighters circled each other in the wreckage of the gazebo. The assassin was bleeding, unable to put much weight on his right leg. He picked up a spar of the gazebo that had two large two-inch nails sticking out of it.
He swung it at McCall’s head.
McCall ducked under the blow and grabbed Durković’s right wrist. He found the gaishoho pressure point, two and a half inches above the wrist, between the radius and ulna bones. He pressed his fingers hard into it. The assassin’s arm went numb immediately. McCall ripped the piece of wood from Durković’s nerveless fingers and thrust him back. Then he swung the spar at Durković with everything he had.
The two-inch nails drove into the flesh above the assassin’s left cheekbone, embedding the wood right into his face.
Durković staggered, staring at McCall, as if he didn’t believe what he had just done. Then the assassin simply pulled the nails out of his face and tossed the spar aside. His breathing was labored, and he limped more heavily on his right leg, but otherwise he showed no sign of the agony he must be feeling.
McCall got it.
This man felt no pain. McCall couldn’t remember the name of his condition, sensory neuropathy, something like that. A very rare condition. That’s why he wanted his victims to suffer and didn’t execute kill shots. He wanted to watch their agony, an agony he himself could never feel.
Blood poured down the left side of Durković’s face where the two-inch nails had gone in. He grabbed a large piece of splintered wood and swung it at McCall. McCall kicked out and broke the spar in half. Durković stood motionless for a moment, staring at him.
And grinned.
Like a vision from Hell.
McCall was nauseous and fighting to stay conscious.
He had murdered Serena.
He had murdered Elena.
When Durković lunged forward to finish McCall off, he did it slowly. Even if he didn’t feel the pain, his body did, and it was slowing him down. McCall executed a Mawashi-zuki roundhouse kick to the assassin’s chest, which was the equivalent of being hit full force with a baseball bat. Durković staggered back and hit one wall of the gazebo, smashing it. It caved in more of the wooden ceiling that rained down onto both of them. The assassin looked disoriented in the plunging debris.
McCall glanced down.
The Faka knife had caught the periphery of his vision, gleaming in the moonlight.
McCall fell to the ground. It might have looked to Durković as if he’d stumbled and passed out. McCall grabbed the Faka knife and crawled forward as Durković threw off more of the wooden ceiling that still crashed over him. McCall was just behind the assassin, on his right side. He took the Faka knife, raised it high, and stabbed it down with all of the force he had left into the assassin’s right shoe. The blade stabbed through the leather, through Durković’s foot, between the big toe and the next digit, pinning the assassin’s foot right to the wooden floor of the gazebo.
McCall rolled away and grabbed the edge of one of the wrought-iron chairs to pull himself up. His ribs were aching, his throat and head were throbbing, and he could barely see through the blood in his eyes. Nausea was coming over him in waves.
He turned back to see Durković throwing the last of the splintered wood from his body. McCall came back at him and hit him twice in the ribs on either side, short vicious blows. He heard the assassin’s ribs break. McCall got in two more brutal punches now that the vital organs weren’t protected by the ribcage.
Durković staggered.
He still didn’t know he was pinned to the wooden floor of the gazebo.
The assassin grabbed at McCall’s jacket. It was as if he was moving in slow motion. McCall rained blows into his stomach and lungs. The assassin reared back. McCall swung a right fist at Durković’s face and dislocated his jaw. With a bellow, Durković grabbed McCall’s lapels, catching them and hurling him back.
McCall hit the wrought-iron table. A searing pain exploded through his body that was overwhelming.
He wondered if he’d broken his back.
The world before him was blurred and receding fast on all sides.
The assassin tried to move forward, only then realizing that his right foot was pinned to the wooden floor of the gazebo.
He looked down, surprised.
McCall hit him with an Empi-uchi elbow strike in the face.
It shattered his cheekbone.
He followed it with a Shuto-uchi knife hand strike to the assassin’s throat.
He fell back.
McCall stumbled, in great pain, looking down.
Durković tried to regain his balance.
McCall dived to the gazebo floor and pulled the knife out of Durković’s shoe. He jumped up and ducked under a clumsy right cross and sliced the knife blade across Diablo’s forehead. Blood spurted over the assassin’s eyes, blinding him.
He stagged, disoriented.
McCall stabbed the knife through Durković’s forehead, driving the blade up into his brain.
The assassin, his foot freed from the wooden floor, toppled back, smashing through the last wall of the gazebo. His body went into a series of spasms on the ground. McCall staggered back, barely able to breathe, fighting to come back from the darkness that threatened to engulf him.
Slowly the world in front of him came back into focus.
Durković stared up at him, his eyes no longer wild, just confused, as if he was trying to work out a difficult math problem. He focused on McCall’s face for one second more. Then he slumped dead with the knife sticking obscenely out of his forehead.
McCall stepped out of the shattered gazebo, carefully, so the darkness did not rush back in on him. He looked down the hill. Far below, through more trees, he saw the Secret Service ushering the President of the United States, the secretary of state, and the President of China to the doors of the chateau. No one was looking up. No one had seen the fight. The gazebo was hidden by trees from anyone’s view below.
McCall knelt down and went through the dead assassin’s pockets. He came up with ID papers and a passport. Jovan Durković. His home address was listed as Stepanovicevo in the Novi Sad municipality of Serbia. McCall thought the passport and ID papers were probably genuine. Durković had no need to hide behind a forged passport. He was a phantom who came and went as he pleased. He was never seen or caught.
Until tonight.
McCall left the passport and ID papers for Control to find. He’d leave the AWC M91 breakdown rifle for him, too. He’d also leave the Circus Faka knife in Durković’s head.
McCall straightened and looked down at the assassin’s lifeless body for a long moment.
Then he turned away and wiped the blood from his face. Some of it had already congealed. He wondered if he’d have the strength to crawl back through the oil pipe to the abandoned pipeline station. He could, of course, just make his way carefully down the hill right to the chateau driveway, with his hands held high, no weapons, no threat, and wait for Control to come out of the mansion for him.
To be debriefed.
To admit he had come in from the cold.
To acknowledge that he was back in the game.
McCall walked to the other end of the smashed gazebo and down the concrete steps that led to the next level where the rusting oil pipe was hidden in the rocks.