Derek Haas - Columbus: A Silver Bear Thriller

COLUMBUS

COLUMBUS

DEREK HAAS

PEGASUS BOOKS
NEW YORK

FOR MICHAEL, WHO DIRECTED.
AND FOR MOLLY, WHO PRODUCED.

IF YOURE ASKING ME TO LOOK BACK ON MY LIFE AND FIND ANSWERS TO YOUR QUESTIONS, OR IF YOURE HOPING FOR AN EXPLANATION OR AN APOLOGY FOR MY ACTIONS, YOU ARE GOING TO BE DISAPPOINTED. I have not softened. I have not changed. Once I commit to killing a target, death follows.

I told you not to like me.

It is overcast in Rome. A wall of gray clouds have rolled in and settled over the city like a conquering army. Shop owners and businessmen cast upward glances, trying to gauge whether or not rain is inevitable. They think maybe the sky is just posturing, threatening, but they unpack their umbrellas just the same.

I am dressed in the dark slacks and long-sleeve sweaters commonly worn by locals this time of year. My Italian has steadily improved, though my accent will never be without flaw. I had hoped to master the inflections, to be able to pass myself off as a native, but my speech pattern lacks authenticity, and I am easily pegged as an English speaker within a few short sentences. This has hampered my ability to blend in, which Ive always worn like a protective coat in the States. As such, I have learned to say as little as possible.

I make my way up a street named the Largo Delle Sette Chiese, and head for a small restaurant crammed to the breaking point with tables and customers and food and waiters too busy to give a damn about smiling. The menu is authentic Roman, as is the customer service; servers drop off plates and silverware and expect patrons to set the table for themselves. Most tourists arent smart enough to frequent the place, the Ar Grottino der Traslocatore, preferring the homier pasta and fish shops around the Spanish Steps or near the Colosseum.

I drop into a wooden chair across from my fence, my middleman, an astute, stoic businessman named William Ryan. He has been my fence for a couple of years now, and though we relocated to Europe together following an assignment where my old fence was gunned down and I killed my father with my bare hands, our relationship remains strictly a business one.

How was your flight?

Mercifully short.

Ryan had bought a home in Paris in the expensive Eighth arrondissement, above an art gallery near the Bristol Hotel. We meet in Rome whenever he wants to hand me a new assignment. Files are only passed in person, never mailed. I have asked him to move to Italy, but he prefers the amenities of Parisian living.

I trust youre ready to go back to work, Columbus?

It has been two months since my last assignment, the execution of a corrupt Belgian police superintendent in Brussels. He had been a vain man who thought himself untouchable up until the moment I touched him.

A waiter breaks off to take our order and soon fills the table with straccetti alla rucola and bistecca di lombo.

Yes. As soon as possible.

I can only take off a couple of months before I get restless, itchy. Anything more and I feel my edge slipping. Once the edge dulls, it can take drastic measures to sharpen it.

Ryan extracts a thick manila envelope from a leather satchel. To anyone watching, we are simply businessmen conducting business in the bustle of a packed Italian restaurant. It is too noisy for other customers to hear our conversation, though we would never discuss anything suspicious in public.

I transfer the envelope to my lap, and it feels like a brick has been placed there, solid and heavy. An image pops into my head, a man being crushed to death under stones while groaning more weight through clenched teeth. Where is that from? Something I read a long time ago, perhaps when I was incarcerated at a juvenile detention center named Waxham in western Massachusetts. I was sent there, along with my only friend, for killing one of our foster parents after suffering years of brutality. That place was responsible for my education in more ways than one, a rung on the ladder to where I stand now.

Ryan picks over his food. The client pays a premium.

Where do you gauge the level of difficulty?

Medium.

I nod, absorbing this.

We finish our meal without talking, and when the waiter clears the table and takes Ryans cash, we stand and shake hands.

The job is in Prague. If you need anything additional from me, dont hesitate.

Thank you.

The logistics are covered in the file. Take care, Columbus.

You too.

We head away in opposite directions.

The name at the top of the page is Jiri Dolezal. His file indicates he is a Czech banker, a man whose hands are buried up to the wrists in drug rings and prostitution rings and pornography rings and anything else illicit into which he can force his way. He is a bad egg, and it is obvious if he is suddenly discovered with his shell cracked, the Czech police will sniff around just long enough to look like they give a shit before labeling the case unsolved.

Ryans file on the subject is thick and thorough. My former fence, Pooley, excelled at putting these files together, documenting as many facts about the target as possible and compiling them into a dossier to give me a detailed glimpse into a marks life. But Ryan is a true master craftsman, I have to admit; his work in this areathe depth of information he uncoversis extraordinary, uncanny, far surpassing even Pooleys best efforts.

The pages inside the file serve two purposes. The first is practical: I need to look for the best place to strike the target and make my subsequent escape. Any piece of information might help. The route the target takes to work. The restaurants he frequents. The blueprints of his house, his office. Even personal information like the names of his children or his nieces and nephews or his dying father can feasibly come into play, can put the target at ease, can get me invited into his house or his office where I can shoot him without impediment. The more information Ryan provides, the less I have to rely on dangerous improvisation.

The second purpose the file serves is psychological. It is difficult to explain, but the job I dothe professional killing of menexacts a mental toll. The only way to diminish this toll is to make a connection with the target, to find some evil in the mark and exploit that evil in my mind. An olive-skinned Italian man named Vespucci explained this to me a lifetime ago in a small apartment in Boston when I first walked this path. He said that I must make the connection so I can sever the connection. He said he could not explain why it was so, just that it was. I heard from Ryan that Vespucci had died recently, though I didnt hear how. I wonder if that old man went down swinging, or if he was finally crushed beneath the weight of his personal stones.

Still, there is one incongruous nugget in Dolezals file. Mark frequents a rare bookstore in Prague located on Valentinska. He collects Izaak Walton and Horace Walpole.

The information seems odd to me, like a flower emerging through the crack of a sidewalk. Nothing else in the dossier suggests Dolezal is more than a humorless thug. His life seems regimented, colorless; and yet, here is something unconventional. A collection indicates a passion. So why rare books, and why these authors in particular? Make the connection. I need to make the connection, get inside the targets head, so I can sever the connection.

I enter a tiny shop in Rome on the Via Poli named Zodelli. The cramped room is lined with shelves, all holding leather-bound books behind glass enclosures. The bulbs are dim, and it takes my eyes a moment to adjust to the absence of light. A gray-haired woman sits behind a desk, marking a ledger with a pencil. I greet her in Italian and she looks up and smiles perfunctorily, then calls out Risina!