Warren Murphy - The Last Alchemist

Of course, if he launched a grenade into the house now, they would probably scatter in confusion and he could pick them off. Probably. But he was not alive because of probabilities.

Besides, he had help now, a man who truly knew how to use power. And Francisco Braun knew how to use what he had. He was never one who preferred to get his hands dirty when he didn't have to.

Already he had an advantage over the two men in the house below him. He knew how dangerous they were. But they had no idea how dangerous he was, or that he was going to kill them. They couldn't even know he was there. That had always been more than enough of an edge to make Francisco victorious. There was no reason to believe it would change now. He would know them, they would not know him, and then he would kill them. He had been lucky that they had shown themselves, lucky that he had not gone in first.

He returned to the trunk of the car, took out a briefcase, and opened it to two long black lenses that clicked into each other. Then he carefully screwed them into a large frame camera, to which he attached a light but steady tripod.

It was cool in the Pennsylvania hill country, but the air was not refreshing. The stench of distant slag heaps from old coal mines created an odor like rotting coffee grounds smoldering in the center of the earth. The small house looked warm and friendly with logs burning in the fireplace of the living room. Francisco Braun focused the camera on the living room. Above the fireplace mantel was a photograph. When he could read the photographer's name in the corner of the photograph, he knew that the lens was in correctly. He moved the focus back to the door.

And then in a split second, with less concern than a carpenter hammering in the thousandth nail of a roof. Francisco Braun shot out the living-room window with a handgun that he had back in his pocket even before the echoes of the shots returned from the dark Pennsylvania hills.

The older and younger man were out of the front door before all the glass had settled, and Francisco's camera whirred off twenty-five shots in one second. By the second second, he had the camera in one hand and the door to his car open in the other. Before the third, he was driving away as fast as the car could pick up speed.

Outside McKeesport, Pennsylvania, he slowed down and took the film out of the camera. By the time he reached New York City, and the home of Mr. Caldwell, he was cruising comfortably. He called for an appointment with Mr. Caldwell. Mr. Caldwell sometimes called himself an American. But Francisco knew he had to be something else. Mr. Caldwell had never asked to be called Harrison. The problem with Americans was they wanted to be everyone's friends. Mr. Caldwell had that wonderful ability not to want that. That made working for him easier. You knew Mr. Caldwell was Mr. Caldwell. He was not your friend.

"This is Francisco Braun. I would like to see Mr. Caldwell at his convenience," Francisco said into the telephone with raised braille numbers in the dial handle. These could be punched in the dark, quite necessary because the phone was in the photographic darkroom set up in his Upper East Side New York apartment. Mr. Caldwell had put him there, with a direct-access line, the day after he had called Francisco his "sword."

"We will give an audience this afternoon," said the secretary, and Francisco got the hour, without wondering what "audience" meant. He had his pictures, twenty in less than a second, each taken faster than an eye could blink or an eardrum pick up sound.

In photography, as in the rest of life, Francisco had learned that an advantage was always balanced by a disadvantage somewhere else. In other words, nothing was free. Despite the incredible clarity of his lenses and the large format, the high speed of his rapid shots needed a film so fast and volatile that the photographs ultimately came out with little more clarity than a child's snapshot. But that would be enough to start a search into the backgrounds of these men, if Mr. Caldwell was as powerful as he seemed. Money, after all, was power. To find out about the backgrounds of these men, Francisco would, of course, find out exactly what they could do, or where they would be or who they were. And when one built enough advantages, one struck. This for opponents who were a cut above. The rest of mankind could be dispatched at whim, at gravesides or meeting halls, or wherever.

There was a calm in the beautiful blond face of Francisco Braun as the strip of film moved through the developer and then into a rinse, and finally into the chemicals that would stop the developing process so no more light could affect the images. This would fix the negatives. With the best negatives, he would make prints, and then he would have his victims' faces set before him to study at leisure. More important, this would give him something to pass on for identification.

He liked the intricate power of Bach on stereo as he worked. It soothed the inner elements of his mind. It saved him from whistling. It set the mood. These would be extraordinary kills, not common disposals. He remembered the smooth way the Islamic Knights were dispatched. He wished he had had his camera out then. But he had not expected them to fail. There had been too many, no matter how incompetent. Incompetence after all, was why he had chosen them.

A strange thing came up on what appeared to be the best negatives. The face of the white appeared to be looking toward the camera. Three frames. Full face. That was an improbable fluke. Impossible, really, because no one was going to notice what was on a distant hill in one second, especially in the confusion of the aftermath of having a living-room window shot out. Francisco had seen it before-in panic and confusion the heads would bob about in every direction. Only because the camera was so fast could it appear that a person actually had noticed, then looked at, the camera. Pictures did lie.

This would always be clearer in the print, even with the lesser quality of the high-speed film Francisco used. The eyes would be open, almost dead, because they were really unfocused. The face, of course, would have the mouth wide open, because in panic, people stopped breathing through their noses and used their mouths. The body, too, would testify to the panic. The trunk would be moving in one direction and the arms flailing about in another. Of course, on this negative, it looked as though the target was somewhat composed. But that might have been due to his extraordinary ability at hand fighting, perhaps some automatic body control. Of course, he could not be composed, and that would come clear in the prints.

Francisco ran the negatives into a drum which could print before the negatives were dry. He punched in the numbers of the box that he kept close by. The box was not for film. Nor did it hold any other photographic accoutrements. Instead, it kept a single Waterford crystal glass of red wine barely chilled. Life, after all, was made up of these moments. He was always between one kill and another. Why not take the pleasure of Bach and a good Beaujolais while waiting?

Unlike most wine experts, Francisco preferred his red wine without the customary breathing period of an hour. He liked that extra bit of sharpness. And he always had only one glass and never more. He poured the rest of the wine down the developing sink.

The drum whirred, Bach sang through the instruments over the centuries, and the red wine flowed over Francisco's tongue, then ever so gently through his body. When the drum clicked, Francisco knew two things: that the pictures were printed and that he had one-half glass left to enjoy.

With precise movements he removed the three frames, laid them out, and turned on the light.

The heavy Waterford crystal hit the floor but did not crack. The wine spilled out. And it was not the target's mouth that was open in confusion, but Francisco Braun's.