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“Amanda, I’m going to take a walk. Would you swing by and see if our friend is going to join me?”
“I’d love to, Harry.”
The assassin rounded the corner, careful to keep his chin down. There was a tendency in his line of work to overthink things. Much of this stemmed from the fact that most of the people were either former intelligence operatives or military. In Harry’s case it was the latter. When you worked for a big government the resources were vast. Field equipment was tested and retested under every conceivable condition, billions of dollars worldwide was put into the development of new ways to communicate and better ways to encrypt. The problem as Harry saw it, though, was that as much—or more—money, was spent on new eavesdropping technology and vastly powerful and complex decryption systems. The National Security Agency of America alone had dozens of satellites circling the planet that were designed to do one thing—record people’s conversations. They had the world’s most powerful computers ensconced in football-field-size subterranean chambers under their headquarters in Maryland.
These Cray supercomputers churned away day after day, night after night, sifting through e-mails, radio transmissions, and phone intercepts. Highly specialized programs were written so the computers could home in on the key words bomb, gun, kill, and assassinate in every foreign language of interest. Certain types of transmissions were prioritized. For America, anything coming out of Iran, North Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, or Pakistan, for example, was kicked to the top of the queue. Anything intercepted in those countries via secure and encrypted modes was further kicked up the queue. And so it went, with the programs designed to focus on the methods used by people who were trying to keep secrets.
All of this left Harry with a simple question. If superpowers, with nearly unlimited financial resources and brainpower, could not keep secrets from each other, what hopes did a two-person operation have to stay up on the technology and out in front of those spending billions? The answer was easy. He couldn’t, so the only solution was to go in the opposite direction. The spy agencies around the world didn’t care about inane conversations by business associates or lovers. The trick was to stay with the herd. Use the same mode of communication everyone else used and stay away from any discussion of the real business at hand. Consequently, upon arriving in London, they had purchased new phones. They signed a yearlong contract even though the phones would be used for a week at the most.
He walked quickly but calmly down St. Martin’s Street and then cut over to Whitcomb. A few minutes later he was walking along the north end of the park. The Turk would be a few blocks behind him at this point. They would enter the park from different spots and meet where the older man liked to stop and feed the ducks while chattering on his phone. At Marlborough Road he came upon a small black delivery van, which his partner was driving. He stuffed his folded copy of the Times under his armpit and popped the back cargo doors. Reaching in with a gloved hand he grabbed a sash of balloons and closed the door. The delivery van drove off without a word while he crossed the street to the park.
This part made him a bit nervous. A man dressed in business attire with a long black coat and hat carrying a cluster of balloons was not your everyday sight. He was sure to catch a few stray glances, but like most things in life it was a trade-off. He kept the collar of his coat turned up, his chin tucked against his chest, and his shoulders hunched. All he had to do was make it one block with the balloons.
His eyes swept the surrounding landscape, looking out from under the brim of his hat for the bulbous cap of a bobby or any other patrolmen that might be about. The light post he was interested in was situated just past a park bench. It offered a commanding view of the park and it was easy to see why the authorities had decided to mount cameras on it. As he neared the device he slowed a bit and then extended his left hand far above his head while letting the helium-filled balloons rise into the air. They were tied off in a concave shape so that the middle balloon was shorter than the other six. They formed a perfect basket, and settled in gently around the tinted shield of the camera pod.
The assassin never broke stride. Never looked back. The Turk was already in sight coming toward him from a little more than two hundred meters away. Harry reached the main path that ran east-west and turned to the left. The Turk was now less than two hundred meters away and he was stopping to buy some warm pistachios from a street ven
dor. Harry watched him take a stale bag of crackers to feed the ducks just like he’d done the two previous mornings. Good, he thought to himself. Keep your routine and everything will turn out just fine. Sure enough, the Turk continued on for a bit and then left the path for the lake. He stood near a willow tree and began spreading the stale crackers about, popping pistachios into his mouth and talking on his phone.
Harry reached up and tapped his Motorola earpiece once, which re-dialed the last call he’d made. A second later his partner answered.
“Amanda Poole speaking.”
“Amanda, it’s Harry. How is everything?”
“Everything is just fine. Your party favors came in and they work perfectly.”
That meant the balloons had stayed in position. “Good.” He stole a peek over his left shoulder. “Is anyone else coming to our gathering?”
“Everyone who was invited has replied.”
The distance was now just under a hundred meters. He turned off the path and started walking toward the lake. “What about crashers?”
“Not a one on the horizon, but if I hear anything I’ll let you know immediately.”
“Good.” As he ducked around a hedgerow his left hand slid between the folds of his coat and retrieved a silenced Walther PPK 9mm pistol. The weapon was quickly placed inside the folded newspaper. He clutched the paper and covered gun to his chest and with his right hand slid one rubber band and then another over the outside of the paper. The assassin started his turn before he reached the water’s edge and brought the newspaper up as if he were reading it. “Any other calls this morning?”
The woman responded, “None that I can remember. The rest of the morning is wide open.”
“Let’s hope it stays that way.” He looked over the top of the newspaper and sighted the Turk a short distance ahead.
His heart was not racing, his gloved hands were dry, and his senses were highly alert. He heard every noise, saw everything ninety degrees in each direction, and had a complete mental picture of what was going on behind him. The distance was now less than twenty meters and no one else was near the target. His pace quickened slightly to take advantage of the man’s isolation. At ten meters, he could hear the Turk clearly. He had decided on this angle because he wanted the Turk to see him coming. This would seem normal, whereas if he sneaked up behind him he could end up alerting his quarry.
He glanced over the top of the paper and made brief eye contact with the man he was about to kill. Casually, he pretended to return his attention to the paper. He glanced across the lake and then to the left. There were a few people about. None of them were close and he doubted they were paying attention. He was now only steps away, and he could see from his peripheral vision that the target was turning away from him. Humans, the only animals in all of nature who willingly turned their back to a potential predator. Harry was almost disgusted with how easy this was going to be.
Stepping toward the target, he followed him quietly for a few steps as the man walked toward the weeping willow. This was turning into a joke. The tree with its drooping wispy branches was the closest thing the park had to a dark alley, and the Turk was headed right for it. He stopped just short of the outer ring of branches and started to look toward the lake, undoubtedly expecting to see the pedestrian who had interrupted his privacy continuing on his way.
The assassin did not extend the newspaper-encased weapon. He was too practiced for anything so obvious. He merely tilted the paper forward until the angle matched the trajectory that he wanted the bullet to travel. He squeezed the trigger once, and stepped quickly forward. The hollow-tipped bullet struck the Turk directly in the back of the head, flattening on impact, doubling in circumference, and tearing through vital brain matter until it stopped, lodged between the shredded left frontal lobe and the inner wall of the skull. The impact propelled the financier forward. The assassin had his right hand around the man’s chest a split second later. He glanced down at the small coin-size entry wound as he went with the momentum of the Turk’s dying body. The newspaper-laden hand cut a swath through the dense branches of the weeping willow, and two steps later he laid the dead man to rest at the foot of the tree. Harry quickly checked himself for blood even though he was almost positive there would be none. The bullet was designed to stay in the body and cause only a small entry wound.
With everything in order, he left the dead body and the shelter of the tree and began retracing his steps. A hundred meters back down the footpath he asked his partner, “Are you free for an early lunch?”
“I am, as a matter of fact.”
“Good. I’m done with things here. I’ll meet you at the usual spot in a quarter of an hour.”
“I’ll see you there.”
On the way out of the park Harry walked past two of London’s finest. They were standing under his bouquet of balloons staring up in consternation and talking with some higher-up back at the station house via their shoulder-mounted radios. When the taller one of the two tried to jump up and grab the strings, Harry had to stifle a laugh. It was the most amusing thing he’d seen all morning.
