William Dietz - Hitman - Enemy Within

So there the “record producer” was, lying in a chaise longue and soaking up the warm Moroccan sun when his phone began to beep. The assassin flipped the device open and brought it to his ear.

“Yeah? Talk to me.”

Hundreds of miles away, deep within the Jean Danjou ’s hull, Diana looked up at one of the twenty-four monitors arrayed around her. The shot was being relayed to her from a spy sat, and, thanks to lots of magnification, she could see 47 and the scantily clad young people sprawled all around him. Groupies, for the most part, who, having followed their favorite bands to Fez, were in need of a place to stay. Having been taken in by a free-spending producer known as “The Jammer,” they had unwittingly become an important part of 47’s cover.

“You look comfortable,” Diana commented. “ Too comfortable for someone who is supposed to be at work.”

The assassin said, “Screw you,” and directed a one-fingered salute up at the sky. If any of the young things sunbathing all around the agent thought that was strange, they gave no sign of it.

Diana chuckled.

“Sorry to bother you, 47, but it looks like you’ll have to postpone the exercise scheduled for tomorrow, in order to deal with something more urgent.”

The operative swore silently. Al-Fulani was scheduled to be present as the event got under way the next evening. He planned to kill the businessman’s bodyguards as the Moroccan left the stage, hustle Al-Fulani into a stolen limo, and drive him out into the countryside. A workable plan with a decent chance of success.

“Whatever it is, it can wait,” the assassin said evenly. “Opportunities like this one don’t come along every day.”

“No,” Diana replied patiently, “they don’t. And we’re sorry, but there won’t be much point to snatching Al-Fulani if he’s dead. Which will almost certainly be the case if the Otero brothers come after him.”

Agent 47 took a sip of iced tea as one of his well-endowed guests stood long enough to drop her thong. Then, having straddled a long-haired musician, she began to lick his face.

“The Otero brothers?” the assassin inquired mildly. “Who are they? A new boy band?”

“No,” Diana replied firmly. “They work for the Tumaco cartel in Colombia. They specialize in killing judges, government officials, and anyone else who gets in the organization’s way. And based on the latest intelligence, it looks like they have orders to hit Al-Fulani. It seems the cartel wants a cut of the money the Moroccan makes by smuggling drugs into Europe, and he refused. That’s where the Otero brothers come in.”

The assassin felt a rising sense of frustration. No matter how hard he tried to move this assignment forward, it always seemed to slip back. Now, instead of abducting Al-Fulani as planned, The Agency wanted him to protect the miserable bastard!

But Diana was right. It would be pretty hard to pry information out of a dead man. And if the Oteros showed up in the middle of the snatch, then everything would go straight to hell. The risk factor had just ratcheted up to an eleven.

“So how’s the internal audit going?” the agent inquired, as the couple to his right began to make noisy love.

“They haven’t found anything so far,” Diana admitted. “Which makes your initiative that much more important. Check your inbox. You’ll find everything we have on the Oteros waiting there. Including their love affair with explosives. Bombs big enough to bring down entire buildings, blow up airplanes, and demolish bridges.”

Someone else might have interpreted that particular approach as demonic overkill, given the amount of collateral damage that would be involved. But 47 saw the strategy for what it was. After all, why sneak into a well-protected casino and inject the owner with an overdose of insulin, if you can just hire some poor slob to drive a truck loaded with explosives into the parking lot underneath the building? And detonate the load from a hotel room blocks-perhaps even miles-away.

But that sort of thing wasn’t tolerated everywhere. Sometimes the subtle approach was necessary. Which was why individuals like 47 were so sought after.

The woman was picking up the pace, her head was thrown back, and she was making high-pitched whining noises as her breasts flopped up and down and her friends looked on.

“I’ll look forward to meeting the Oteros,” the agent said dryly. “Is there anything else?”

“Yes,” Diana said. “There are four brothers—and each one of them is worth $250,000.”

“Then there’s a client other than ourselves?”

“Yes,” the controller replied. “A certain agency within the American government would love to see the Tumaco cartel fail. And they don’t like the Oteros, either.”

“Well, there isn’t a whole lot of time, but I’ll do what I can,” he promised.

“Mr. Nu will be pleased,” Diana said evenly. “And one other thing…”

Agent 47 looked skyward.

“Yes?”

“Tell the young woman to your right that she’s getting a sunburn.”

There was only one large public square within the city of Fez; that was where most of the main events involved in the music festival were scheduled to be held. And as Agent 47 exited a cab deep within the area known as Fes El Bali, he saw that preparations were nearing completion. The streets that emptied into the square had been blocked with police barricades, a huge stage had been set up at one end of the plaza, and the area was thick with workmen.

Having paid his fare, the assassin made a beeline for the closest security checkpoint. He wasn’t carrying any weapons other than a garrote, and was relying on the ID card that dangled from his neck to get him in.

The queue continued to move ahead in fits and starts as a policeman examined the cards proffered by the people who had lined up in front of the operative. Then came the moment of truth as 47 stepped forward.

The ID was the rightful property of British folk singer Peter Samo, who was currently passed out on Agent 47’s couch. It had been altered by the simple expedient of pasting a picture of the Jammer persona over the photo of a petulant Samo. It was an amateurish job by most standards, but the panoply of henna tattoos that covered the Jammer’s hairless skull, face, neck, and bare arms proved such a distraction that the cop barely glanced at the card before waving him through.

Which, to 47’s way of thinking, was a clear indication that if the Otero brothers wanted to sneak into the square, they certainly could. And quite possibly had, since the setup phase of the festival was the perfect time to plant a bomb for detonation the following evening. The easiest way to prolong Al-Fulani’s life, at least for the moment, would be to remove the device. Or, if the bomb was too complex for the agent to handle, an anonymous call to the police would take care of the matter as well. Once that problem was out of the way, the assassin could turn his attention to finding the Colombians. A necessity if he were to prevent the Oteros from activating some sort of backup plan.

The problem was that there were literally hundreds of places to conceal one or more bombs on, under, or in the vicinity of the stage. Which meant there was lots of work to do. By far the easiest and most effective place to plant explosives would be directly under the performance platform, so the assassin resolved to begin his inspection there.

It was dark under the stage, and a maze of crisscrossed supports made it difficult to move around. But thanks to a penlight and his willingness to crawl through small spaces, 47 was able to thoroughly inspect the area under the platform. Half an hour later, without having found a bomb or any signs of suspicious activity, he was forced to brush off his clothes and return to the stage, where a team of electricians was working on the sound system.