Nobody’s Hero (Ben Koenig #2)

Chapter 16

‘You mean you figuratively killed her?’ Smerconish said. ‘Otherwise, that doesn’t make a whole lick of sense.’

‘No, I mean literally,’ Koenig said. ‘I literally killed her. But yes, I also figuratively killed her.’

‘I’m glad you’ve cleared that up,’ Draper snorted.

‘Please explain,’ Smerconish said.

Koenig did. He explained that the US Marshals were occasionally required to protect a witness who simply couldn’t be protected. Regardless of the precautions taken, their safety couldn’t be guaranteed. The people hunting them were too motivated. They had unlimited resources. They would do anything to get at the witness protection list. Nothing was off limits, including targeting a marshal’s family.

A few years before he disappeared, Koenig had been tasked to come up with a way of faking someone’s death. The ultimate way of hiding someone was making it seem like they no longer existed. He’d thought it was a theoretical exercise. The parameters were specific: what would convince him someone was dead. That ruled out burned corpses, shotgun blasts to the face, no-body drownings. Eventually he’d said that it might be possible, under desperate circumstances, to fake someone’s death by shooting them in the back of the head. It involved a reduced-capacity round from a handgun, a section of false skull, a bag full of the intended victim’s actual blood, and a public execution. He was asked how dangerous it would be. Koenig explained that a shot to the head powerful enough to penetrate a section of false skull and a blood bag would probably still have enough power to penetrate the person’s actual skull. He couldn’t recommend such a drastic option, but he’d been asked for his opinion. He was thanked for his work and asked to forget all about it.

And he had.

Until a man who never offered his name (but who had been vouched for by Mitch Burridge, Koenig’s director and a man he trusted) said he had a situation. He needed a woman to disappear. He wanted Koenig to fake her death using the method he’d theorised the year before. Koenig refused. He said it was too dangerous. His method had been an intellectual exercise. Nothing more. The man said the woman understood and accepted the risks. Koenig said he wanted to meet her. He didn’t think she did understand the risks. So, he met her. Once. He wasn’t told her name and he didn’t know who she’d pissed off, but the woman said death was her only option. If Koenig couldn’t fake it, she’d have to die for real.

After two hours, Koenig finally agreed to kill her.

‘You shot her in a New York park?’ Smerconish said.

‘I did.’

‘She obviously survived?’

Koenig nodded.

‘And that’s the last you ever saw of her?’ Smerconish said.

‘It was.’

‘You didn’t ask around, try to find out why her death needed to be faked? Because if you did, I forgive you. I’d have been curious too.’

‘You’re a spook, I’m not.’

‘Who set up the meeting?’ Smerconish asked.

‘Never found out,’ Koenig replied. ‘But five gets you six, he was one of the names on your list.’

‘Would you recognise him?’

‘I would.’

Smerconish pulled a standard letter-sized document from the car safe. ‘Their names and positions have been redacted, but these are photographs of everyone on the list.’ He handed it to Koenig.

The four photographs were laid out in a grid, like a yearbook page. Koenig’s photograph was bottom right. It had been taken from his old SOG ID card. Koenig pointed at the guy next to him, his bottom-row buddy. ‘Him,’ he said. ‘He’s the man who arranged it all.’

Koenig didn’t expect to be given a name, and Smerconish didn’t disappoint him.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘That’s somewhere to start. Thank you for your help. We’ll take it from here. Is there anywhere we can drop you off, Mr Koenig?’

‘This woman was the bravest person I’ve ever met,’ Koenig said. ‘If she had flinched when I pulled the trigger, she would have died. The fact she’s reappeared in such a public way means she felt it worth the risk. That means we need to find her. Fast. I got the feeling it wasn’t her safety she was trying to protect. I think she had a secret. That means we may not be the only ones looking for her.’

‘We’ll find her,’ Smerconish said. ‘We have our best people on it.’

Draper shook her head. ‘No, you don’t. Koenig’s the best you have. And he’s met her, which means when he finds her, she might not kill him.’

Smerconish went silent. Neither Koenig nor Draper broke it. After a minute he nodded, once, like he’d come to a decision. ‘There’ll be diplomatic passports waiting for you at the airport,’ he said. ‘Go to London. Report to the embassy. A woman called Bernice Kopitz will be expecting the pair of you.’

Koenig wondered if it had been Smerconish’s plan all along. He guessed he’d never know.

‘I can’t go,’ Draper said. ‘I have far too much on right now.’

‘And he’s not going without you,’ Smerconish replied. ‘The UK is an important ally and I need you there to make sure we don’t have another Gauntlet, Texas, on our hands.’

‘I’ll need to go home first then,’ Draper said. ‘I wasn’t expecting to be away for more than a few hours.’

‘Your bag is already at the airport, Miss Draper. We had someone contact your assistant. She’s packed some hand luggage for you. If you need anything else, ask Bernice. She’ll get it for you.’

Which kind of answered Koenig’s question about whether this had been Smerconish’s plan all along. The DIA spook might not know what was going on, but he knew enough to know he needed boots on the ground in London. And if those boots were worn by a woman with her own intelligence agency and a man the New York mob used to call the Devil’s Bloodhound, then all the better. Koenig was tempted to punch Smerconish in the bladder. He hated being manipulated.

Instead, he said, ‘How big is this diplomatic pouch I keep hearing about?’