Blood of the Assassin

CHAPTER 2





Two Weeks Earlier, Prague, Czech Republic

The bridges spanning the Vltava River in Prague were quiet at dawn as the sun’s tentative rays burned through the clouds that lingered over the city like a fog, an occasional drizzle marring the otherwise tranquil Monday morning. Traffic would begin clogging the arteries into the city center in a few more hours, but for now the roads were largely empty except for an occasional delivery truck bringing produce to the restaurants that ringed the downtown.

A black Mercedes sedan rolled across the Charles Bridge, the sole vehicle on the massive span, moving slowly as it approached the ministry buildings so as not to jostle the passenger, who was sipping coffee and reading the newspaper. His hours were unconventional for a public servant, but Milan Rejt was no ordinary bureaucrat. As the finance minister for the Czech Republic, he controlled the destiny of the nation, and typically worked twelve-hour days – a man consumed by his work. And in the turbulent times of the last few years, his duties had never been more important: to guide the nation through a period of upheaval and change, as lesser economies succumbed to the global malaise that had infected Europe.

A short man in his fifties with an arrogant bearing and hawk-like eyes, his diminutive stature deceived nobody into taking him for granted or underestimating him. He ruled his kingdom with an iron fist, and nothing of any note took place in the financial system without his express approval.

His cell phone chirped, and he punched it on as he eyed the stately skyline. “Yes?”

“Sir, I’ve taken care of everything for your meeting this morning. The other ministers will be here by nine, and I’ve arranged for the press to gather forty minutes before the ceremony so that you can hold a press conference,” his assistant said.

Milan glanced at his watch – his subordinate was already at work at six, which was unusual. However, today was no ordinary day; it was the culmination of two years of negotiations, struggle, and cajoling. Everyone on his staff had invested the same kind of effort he had, and he expected nothing less from them than absolute loyalty – and the same brutal hours he kept.

A career with Rejt guaranteed lucrative government positions regardless of what party was in power; no matter who was sitting in the driver’s seat, they would need money, and Rejt controlled the Treasury purse strings with the tight-fistedness of a medieval money-changer. He had spent the last fifteen years in the government corridors, guiding policy to benefit the interests of the Czech people – and, of course, his own network of rich and powerful associates.

He sank into the butter-soft leather seat and nodded as he listened on the telephone. When he spoke, it was with quiet approval.

“Excellent. I’ll be there in a few minutes. I trust you have the paperwork we discussed yesterday ready for a final review?”

“Of course, sir. I have it prepared for you, on your desk.”

“Good. I’ll see you when I arrive.”

Rejt didn’t wait to hear the response, having stabbed the phone off with his last syllable. He looked down at his hand-made Italian shoes, shined to a gleam by his valet, and smiled with satisfaction. Not bad for a humble academic, an economist who had struggled fresh out of school under the Soviet system, and who hadn’t known the right people to garner one of the cushy administrative jobs that entailed decent pay, privilege, and little actual work. But when the regime changed and the Russians were suddenly gone, he had been in a perfect position to become a simple administrative assistant to one of the founders of the new government, and once his taste for power had been whetted, he had never looked back.

He took another sip of coffee and closed his eyes.

Today would change everything. He had never been closer. Years of work, and he would be the one who put his stamp of approval on the agreement, which couldn’t have been ratified without his backroom jockeying and the pressure that only he could bring.

A pigeon strutted its early morning mating dance, its cooing a rhythmic lament as it swept back and forth across the roof, the shy object of its affection watching from its perch on the metal edge, eyeing the male’s bombastic display with approval. Step step step swoop and coo, wings to the side, its chest puffed out, fanning the area in what was surely an impressive avian maneuver.

The man watched the show twenty feet away with dry amusement, and then returned to his errand. The breeze was around twelve miles per hour, and he turned the upper knob on the scope several clicks to compensate. Distance, he knew, was two hundred fifty yards from his position on the roof of one of the Wallenstein Palace buildings undergoing renovation. An easy shot with this rifle. Hardly worth his special talents, although he wasn’t going to argue with the million euro fee he would earn for a morning’s work.

He had been waiting for two hours, having posed as a workman the prior week in order to get a feel for the best available position for the hit. This was a tricky shot, at an odd angle from his hiding place, but he had pulled off far worse from much greater distances. And at the end of the day, all his client cared about was the final result. The instructions had been very clear: the assassination had to take place this morning, and no other.

Which was fine by him.

Werner Rauschenbach prided himself on his ability to pull off difficult sanctions, and considered himself to be the best. He’d made a small fortune from his career as a high-priced assassin specializing in political and mob-related executions. The former Soviet republics were rife with gangs battling for supremacy, and every few months he got a call seeking his assistance in the elimination of a rival or a non-compliant politician. He had started off at fifty grand a hit a decade earlier, and had worked his way up now to where an ordinary contract drew between two hundred and fifty and five hundred thousand euros; a higher-visibility target, like the one today, could run as high as a million.

At least it wasn’t raining hard, or worse yet, snowing. That could complicate matters for his getaway. Ready for the action to begin, he slid back the rifle bolt and chambered a round – likely the only shot he would need to fire.

He shifted on the roof tiles and took another look through the scope. Everything was perfect; now he just needed the guest of honor to show up, and he could finish and get out of there.

His breathing accelerated when he saw the Mercedes swing around the corner and move to the front of the building. He knew the car well – one of his hallmarks was research and planning. Executing the target was usually the easy part. Getting away in one piece was a little more problematic. In this case, it was made doubly difficult because of the location: there weren’t a lot of places to hide, and his next best choice had been up on the hill, over seven hundred yards away. Not an impossible distance, by any means, but at two hundred yards he could practically throw a rock and hit the man, so he had erred on the side of caution.

The luxury sedan rolled to a stop near the steps at the front entrance, and the driver got out and walked to the rear door, pausing for a moment before opening it.

Rauschenbach squinted and aligned the crosshairs on the driver’s head, which in the high magnification looked like it was only a few feet away. His finger moved to the trigger, and he waited for his target to appear.

Rejt set his paper down on the seat of the Mercedes and took a last sip of coffee before heaving himself out of the vehicle. On the sidewalk, he handed his driver his empty cup, and for a brief moment, as the sun kissed the garden across the street, the palace standing proudly in the background, he was struck by the beauty of the country – his country, for which he had worked so hard.

The slug tore the top of his head off, instantly terminating brainwave activity, already dead before he hit the ground. The driver ducked and watched his boss crumple in front of him, having barely registered the sound of the shot that ended his life – a sharp crack from near the same gardens Rejt had been admiring.

The driver sprang to the car, putting its bulk between him and the shooter, and fumbled for his cell, dialing the emergency number once his fingers began working again. The shock from the bloody killing only a few feet away caused his hands to tremble almost uncontrollably, and it was all he could do to hold the phone to his ear and demand help from the duty officer who answered.

Several police officers, stationed outside the ministry, jogged to the car from their positions by the front doors, and upon seeing the carnage, drew their pistols and scanned the rooflines for signs of a gunman, but decided to wait for backup before they tried to tackle him – wherever he was.

Rauschenbach was already moving off the roof seconds after he’d seen the minister’s head explode, and was lowering himself to the ground on the far side of the building with a rope, having left the rifle on the roof. He’d used an Accuracy International AWM rifle filched from the German army, which he could easily replace, and preferred to carry nothing from the hit – he built the cost of whatever tools he needed for a job into the budget, ensuring that there was never a trail back to him.

He dropped to the ground and sprinted to a BMW S1000R motorcycle parked adjacent to some scaffolding, and with a glance at the crumpled tarp that he knew covered a dead security guard, pulled on a black helmet, and started the motor with a roar. After looking around one final time, he slammed the bike into gear and twisted the throttle, tearing up the sidewalk before hurtling off the curb and onto the street.

The wail of sirens in the background was drowned out by the sound of the engine as he raced through the gears, bouncing down the cobblestone streets as he wound his way along the twisting route to the highway that would take him out of town. He was just breathing a sigh of relief when a police car swung out of an alley immediately behind him with its lights flashing and siren screaming, and a male voice blared over the public address system in Czech.

“Stop where you are. Pull to the side. Motorcycle. Pull over now. That is an order.”

Rauschenbach considered his options, and then revved the engine into the redline and made an unexpected hard left, flying up a narrow byway barely wide enough for two people. The police car skidded to a stop and reversed, blocking the entrance, and he glanced at his mirror for a split second before pouring on the gas. One of the cops had his pistol out. Werner didn’t want to test the police’s marksmanship skills – it was those sorts of stupid, unexpected surprises that could get one killed.

The little alley veered left and he ducked down as he urged the motorcycle on, the walls streaking by him in a blur, and then he was out of the passageway and bouncing on a manicured lawn, trying frantically to maintain control of the handlebars as the wheels slid on the slick grass. Another police car came around the corner of a nearby building on two wheels, and he fought to steer the motorcycle to the far street on the other side of the park. A third police car blew down the road he was racing towards, and he gripped the brakes, swinging the bike around. His eyes scanned the perimeter of the park in front of him, and then he made his decision and gunned the engine. The bike leapt forward and he pounded up a set of stone stairs, a squabble of sparrows scattering skyward at his approach.

Rauschenbach darted across the road just as another police car veered onto it, and he swerved to miss the vehicle as he made for the labyrinthine streets only a few hundred yards away. The motor howled as he twisted the throttle, and he disappeared around another ancient building just as one of the officers opened fire at him. Chunks of stone flew off the centuries-old façade, and then he was gone, the sound of his revving engine the only trace of his passage.

Four minutes later he got off the motorcycle in an empty church parking lot and walked to a parked light blue Renault coupe. He stripped off the worker’s coveralls he was wearing, balled them up, and threw them into the nearby bushes. His blue pinstripe suit and conservatively striped tie were slightly rumpled but serviceable, and as he eased behind the wheel of the little car he caught a glimpse of his gray eyes in the mirror, the small scar above the right eyebrow an almost imperceptible reminder of a past close call from his days in the military. His salt-and-pepper hair framed a ruggedly handsome face, square jaw, high cheekbones, a slight tan – the picture of a respectable businessman.

He turned the key and put the car into gear, exhaling with relief. The job was done, and he would be in Dresden within an hour and a half, even allowing for some holdup at the border. He was carrying one of his many identities, this time a Dutch passport, and had a rock-solid alibi for his time in the Czech Republic if anyone questioned him. A seller of pharmaceuticals, he’d filled his trunk with samples and literature, and even the most aggressive border agent would come up dry after a few minutes of searching.

He hadn’t stayed free, a frustrating rumor for the authorities, by accident. Nobody had any current photos of him, and any old ones would have done no good – extensive plastic surgery had altered his features to the point where his own mother wouldn’t have recognized him. He was a cypher, a ghost, who slipped across borders with ease, and carried out the most difficult contracts without drama or complications. He smiled to himself at his professional nickname: Der Eisenadler. The Iron Eagle. Indestructible, the ruler of the sky. And now with over fifty hits to his credit over an illustrious career.

Not bad for a simple boy from the Berlin slums and a disgraced ex-cop. A millionaire. Homes in Spain, Germany, and Italy. And a book of business from satisfied customers that ensured he had as much work as he wanted. His neighbors knew him as an import/export executive, always traveling, obviously well-to-do, who kept to himself and never made trouble. Which was close enough to the truth, he supposed. He imported cash into his bank account, and exported death.

A commodity that was in constant demand.