Gary Ponzo - A Touch of Deceit

By now, you must be receiving intelligence suggesting that they cannot find the missiles that will destroy your home. They won’t, Mr. President. And even if they do there is nothing they can do to prevent its launch. They can only expedite it.

I look forward to your press conference.

KK

Fisk shook his head. “Good old fashioned Georgetown education. The asshole knows his politics.”

Merrick looked at him. “He’s right about one thing.” He pointed up. “If this baby takes a hit tonight, I might not be impeached, but I could start packing my bags. It’s six weeks until the election and I haven’t left this damn building in three days. I could count on one hand the amount of votes I’d be certain of, and I’m including me and my wife.”

Fisk scratched his ear. “If you withdraw troops from Turkey, you’re fucked. You would forever be the President that cowered to terrorist demands.”

Merrick nodded, still staring at the E-mail. The reward was nowhere near the risks, reputation or not. Didn’t he have a responsibility to protect U.S. citizens?

“On the other hand,” Fisk added, “if we’re able to find these guys and put this issue to bed, you’d be the President who caught Kemel Kharrazi-the world’s most notorious terrorist.”

Merrick sat back in his chair and folded his arms, still regarding Kharrazi’s words on the screen in front of him. “Missiles.”

“What’s that?”

Merrick pointed to the screen. “He said missiles. As in more than one.”

Fisk patted his friend’s back. “Don’t worry, John, we’ll get him.”

Merrick turned toward him. “You know something that I don’t?”

Fisk picked up a file and began reading, as if the question was never asked.

Merrick pulled a half-unrolled package of Tums from his pocket and with practiced agility popped one into his mouth and crunched down hard on the chalky tablet. “Boy, Sam, this better be good.”

Nihad Tansu had taken a lab coat from the supply room and hid a couple of scalpels in his outside coat pocket for easy access. As he approached Julie Bracco’s hospital room he walked directly toward the stocky officer guarding the door. He made no pretense to avoid a confrontation. The man stared at him as he smiled a greeting. “Hello, Officer, I’m Dr. Marshall. I believe Marie called you about my visit.”

Tansu had his hand in his coat pocket, ready for a quick nick of the carotid artery. To his credit, the man did not appear comfortable with the last minute addition. He kept a stoic expression, as if he was waiting for Tansu to crack; but Tansu stood his ground, a cheap forgery of a smile planted on his face.

The officer said, “Can I see some I.D.?”

Tansu pulled his fake identification from his pocket and handed it to the man. The officer looked at the photo, then Tansu. Finally, he handed the card back to Tansu and nodded toward the door. “Go ahead.”

Tansu had altered his appearance slightly, dying his hair blonde and adding blue contact lenses. He knew that would be all he needed to get close enough to Julie Bracco to slit her throat.

Tansu abruptly entered the room, hoping that a quick confident entrance would seem more routine. He smiled at the woman sitting up in the bed, but the woman’s head was slumped to the side. Was she dead already? He was actually disappointed that he hadn’t had the chance to be the instrument of her death. Especially after she had the nerve to survive one of his best shots at a moving target.

“She’s been asleep for almost an hour, Doc,” a voice came from corner of the room behind him. A man dressed in a white robe sat cross-legged in a shiny, padded chair scrutinizing the inside of a newspaper. The man had gauze dressing covering half of his face and a long cast on his left leg. A wooden cane leaned against the wall beside him. The man never took his attention away from the newspaper.

“I’m Dr. Marshall,” Tansu said.

The man grunted something that sounded like, “‘Nice seeing ya.’”

The newspaper had a full-length picture of a horse on the cover. The horse posed for the picture with a bouquet of flowers across his back where the saddle normally went. Next to the horse was a tiny midget of a man with a pink shirt.

“Nasty break you got there,” Tansu said, looking at the man’s leg, trying to decide who he should kill first.

“Snapped my metacarpal,” the man said from behind the newspaper.

Tansu shook his head. The man was far too preoccupied to care what he was doing. He turned toward Julie Bracco and made sure the man’s view was blocked. He removed the scalpel from his pocket and palmed it as he leaned over her limp frame. Her face was turned away from him leaving her neck exposed. Tansu felt like a vampire in an old black and white movie, approaching his victim with much the same passion for blood. He quickly glanced back at the man who was still buried deep behind the newspaper. He raised his right hand with the scalpel while his left hand held her head in place. “Mirdin, Mrs. Bracco,” he whispered in her ear.

Suddenly, Tansu found himself lunging for the floor. His head bounced hard on the linoleum. He quickly turned to his side to see what happened. The man in the robe was wagging a finger at him. The straight part of his cane was in the palm of his hand. He had yanked the curved end around Tansu’s ankles and pulled his feet from under him.

“What are you doing?” Tansu said.

“The metacarpal bone is in my hand,” the man said, standing over him, holding up his free hand. “The metatarsal is in my foot. Capisce?”

Tansu saw the man favoring his good leg and realized that he could easily overtake him. The man reached down and picked up the scalpel from the floor. He looked at it with amusement. “Doing a little emergency surgery, Doc?”

Tansu slowly got his legs under him and remained in a crouch position, ready to strike. He was about to jump when he noticed that the man was now holding a gun. A gun with a silencer attached. Tansu was beginning to understand that this man was no ordinary patient. The man held a finger to his mouth. “Shhh, be real still. I’m not going to turn you in.”

Tansu was listening. He knew the man wasn’t a police officer, so maybe he could make a deal with him. In reality, all Tansu wanted was an opening. Just one little mishap or lax moment. He felt the outside of his pocket to make sure the other scalpel was still there. It was.

The man motioned Tansu to get to his feet. “You and I have a lot in common, Mohammed, or whatever your name is. By the way, if you’re from Turkey, does that make you an Arab?”

Tansu didn’t answer.

“Oh, fuck it, you turds are all the same-talk, talk, talk. Can’t shut you guys up.”

Tansu had his hand in his coat pocket now and was removing the plastic sheath from the tip of the scalpel blade.

“Anyway,” the man said, “all I want is a few answers to some simple questions and I’ll have you back on the street in no time.” The man smiled at Tansu. He smiled like a fool without any knowledge of Tansu’s physical abilities. Still, Tansu wished he knew who the man was.

Marie Clarendon sat at her reception desk facing the front door of Johns Hopkins Hospital. She was going back and forth between typing an admittance form for a new patient and sneaking glances at her pocket mirror. She kept pulling her skin back on the side of her face the way Dr. Marshall had done. She was imagining how many years her face could have back, when a man in a green sweatshirt walked through the automatic sliding glass door.

Marie snapped her compact shut and immediately returned to her paperwork. The man walked with a slight limp and went directly to the receptionist’s desk.

“Marie?” the man said.