James Patterson - Kill Alex Cross

In the corner, several unmarked cardboard boxes were stacked against the wall. This was the poison, wasn’t it? A great deal of it. Two large empty canvas duffels and a plain black briefcase sat on the dresser. Once the perfunctory greetings had been made, they got to work on the death hit. Tariq and the other man began unpacking cartons while the young woman went to the briefcase and flipped it open for Hala to inspect.

“Weapons,” the young wife said shyly, nervously.

“Yes, weapons. We’re at war with America. Oh, hadn’t you heard?”

Nested in the case’s foam liner were a bowie knife in a leather sheath, a tightly coiled garrote with small wooden handles, a Taser, a Sig Sauer combat model pistol. The kit also included six fifteen-round magazines and a suppressor.

Hala picked up the Sig, keeping her eyes raised, as she’d been trained to do. Her hand found one of the magazines, slapped it into place, then twisted the suppressor onto the threaded muzzle.

Tariq caught her eye and smiled. He liked her with a gun. Liked the ease with which she fondled the weapons. She was the soldier, not him. She was the trained assassin as well.

“This will do,” Hala said, mostly for his benefit, and set the Sig back down.

“Here.” Tariq handed each of the women a pair of latex gloves and a blue filtration mask. “We should get started on the rest of our task.”

“Be careful. Very careful,” Hala warned the other couple. “Do not touch your skin or eyes once we begin. I’m serious about that.”

For the next several hours, they were all extremely careful. The two women cut dozens of squares from a roll of fine-mesh cloth and laid them out in rows on the bed. Tariq instructed the male, as the two of them painstakingly measured out white crystalline powder from large plastic canisters, mounding the substance in the center of each cloth square. The cloth was then tied at the corners into tight bundles and secured to one of several lengths of clear nylon line.

Every string of ten bundles was placed into its own plastic bag.

The bags were then tucked into duffels.

They finished their task at just past midnight. Tariq opened a window and lifted his mask to indicate it was safe for the others.

Their host was grinning as he took off his own mask. He clapped a hand onto Tariq’s shoulder.

“Brother, I know I’m not supposed to ask where you’re taking these, but I can’t wait to find out. We’re all very excited about this.”

Tariq only stared at the man’s hand until he took it away.

Hala answered for them. She picked up the loaded Sig from the dresser and pointed it at their hosts.

“Sit down, both of you,” she said. “We’re not quite done here. I said, Sit down .”

“I said, sit.”

“What do you think you’re doing?” the fat man asked, even as he sat obediently on the bed. Hala kept her gun trained between his eyes, the same ones that had been undressing her all night.

“We watched two of our own die at the airport last week,” she said. “I thought they had done something stupid to get themselves pulled out of line, but apparently not. Someone’s talking to the Americans. There’s been a leak. The Family is sure of it.”

“And they think it’s us? ” the man asked incredulously. “That isn’t possible. It’s ridiculous.”

“It’s all been spelled out,” Hala told them, referring to the disk they’d been given. “Not just our instructions, but everything you two have been doing since you came here.”

“Sister, I swear — we’re with you!” the wife blurted. “We are Family, too.”

“No,” Hala said, waving her pistol at the woman’s ridiculous chest. “You’re whores to the American cause. Traitors .”

“It’s not true,” the man insisted. “No... no.”

The two were so intent on their denials, they didn’t even seem to notice what else was happening in the room.

Tariq had taken a plastic canister to the sink and begun mixing a small amount of the white powder into two glasses of water. Now he was using someone’s pink toothbrush to stir each one into a cloudy mixture.

He carried the glasses over to the couple on the bed.

“Don’t make a fuss,” he said. “Just drink this down. Have some dignity.”

There was fear, but also anger in the fat man’s eyes. “Or what? You’ll shoot us?”

Hala said, “It’s preferable that you do this quietly, but if you need encouragement, I’m supposed to remind you of your family back home.”

“ But this is a horrible mistake! ” the wife babbled on. “We haven’t done what you said. We are loyal to the cause.”

“That’s very touching,” Hala said. “But it doesn’t matter to me or to The Family. Not anymore. Now I’m going to count to five.”

“Please—”

“ One .”

“I’m begging you! Sister?”

“ Two .”

The man snatched both glasses from Tariq. He pressed one into his wife’s hand. “We have no choice, Sanaa. Think of Gabir. Think of Siti.”

“Think of three ,” Hala said as she continued the countdown. She had no pity for these people. They were disloyal, and they were weak. This mission was too important to risk a mistake. “ Four .”

The man tilted his head back and shot the mixture down like whiskey. Then his hands were on his wife’s, helping her to do the same.

The woman gagged, sobbing as she drank the milky liquid, but it went down. Enough of it, anyway. Right away, her lips went pink. Her breath started coming in sharp rasps. “I’m dying,” she whispered. “ Why? Why must I die? ”

The husband looked up at Hala with hatred in his eyes. “ Assassin ,” he said.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Hala told him, and gestured at the empty glass in his hand. “You’re no murder victim, you fool. You’re a suicide statistic.”

Tariq took the two duffels and carried them to the door. Hala stayed where she was. There was pleasure in watching these people die, but it was also her job to see it through.

The wife was the first to spasm, violently, bucking and kicking until she collapsed to the floor. The husband, maybe twice her size, hung in longer. He watched Hala with huge bug eyes — as she calmly watched him. His sense of taste and smell would be gone by now, no doubt. The eyesight would fade next. Then the hearing, just at the very end —

“Hala!” Tariq raised his voice. “It’s done. Let’s go. Please, let’s go!”

She picked up the weapons case and slowly backed toward the door, observing all the way. With one last spasm, the fat man lurched forward. He landed facedown on the carpet and was still beside his wife.

“ Now it’s done,” Hala said, and turned to leave. “I thought that went rather well. We’re getting better at this, don’t you think?”

I woke up in a bad mood that morning. Grumpy, cranky, in need of caffeine. Unusual for me, but there it was.

Most days, Nana and I spend breakfast talking about the day ahead, or debating some foolishness from the headlines. But it was the headlines that were making me angry now.

I hid behind my Post and steamed, reading about how the “authorities” weren’t getting anywhere with the four-day-old Coyle kidnapping.

Somewhere around my second cup of coffee, I heard a little tap on the other side of the paper.

“You learning anything new in there?” Nana said. “Or just stewing?”

“I’m stewing. I don’t want to talk about it,” I said.

“Talk about what?” said Jannie, coming in from the hall. I could hear her brother Ali bringing up the rear, thunk-thunking that backpack of his down the stairs. The kid had barely started elementary school. How much stuff did he need? Sounded like about fifty pounds of books.