“You don’t. Legion doesn’t know who I am, and I don’t know who he is. We have no way to contact each other. Once the contract is accepted and payment is made, the target is as good as dead.”
“So, you just sent two million euros into cyberspace with no guarantees? That seems a little trusting. What if he screws up? Or just walks with your money?”
“Then it will be the end of his business. Word spreads quickly in the circles I run in. Similar, I imagine, to your network. But it’s never happened. Legion never fails.”
“There’s got to be some mechanism for canceling.”
The smile appeared again. It shook a bit, possibly because Ruiz hadn’t used those particular muscles in years. “Not that I or anyone else knows of. But even if I could call him off, that wasn’t part of my deal with you. I gave you the information you asked for and the fact that Claudia Gould will soon be dead has no bearing on anything.”
Rapp sighed quietly and pointed to a laptop built into a swing-arm attached to Ruiz’s wheelchair. “So, you deleted all the emails related to this?”
“The ones to Legion. That’s the agreement. But not the others. Why would I?”
So you don’t get caught contracting a hit, Rapp thought, but then saw the error in his logic. What did this geriatric piece of shit care? If the Spanish authorities put him in prison, he’d probably be running the place inside of two weeks.
“Print them out.”
Instead of refusing, he did so with as much glee as a man like him could conjure. He’d called down the wrath of God on the woman Mitch Rapp loved and there was nothing Rapp could do about it. To a man like him that was heroin.
Sheets of paper started coming out of a printer near the foot of the bed and Rapp scanned them before shoving them in his back pocket. There was a hand towel hanging on one of the rails and he took it, walking around the back of Ruiz’s chair and clamping it over his mouth and nose.
The Spaniard fought for one last time in a life filled with violence. Rapp focused on keeping the towel in place with as little pressure as possible and preventing the old man from banging up his flailing arms. While it would be pretty clear what had happened there, best to keep the physical evidence to a minimum.
As Ruiz himself had predicted, he didn’t last long. Rapp kept the towel in place for another thirty seconds after the man had gone limp, just to make sure. When he finally pulled it away he saw that the old bastard had died with a smile on his face.
Rapp descended the stairs and found the English-speaking guard standing in the entry hall.
“What’s your name?”
“Alexandre Fabre.”
Rapp handed him a sticky note with a name and phone number scrawled across it.
“Do you know who that is?”
“Jordi Cardenas? Of course. He is the director of our intelligence services.”
“And an old friend of mine. If you should have any problems that you think might have something to do with me, that should be the first number you call. His assistant will put you right through.”
He was understandably confused but pulled out his wallet and put the piece of paper safely inside.
CHAPTER 25
NORTH OF CAPE TOWN
SOUTH AFRICA
THE trail became steep enough that Cyrah Jafari had to use her hands for balance as she continued upward. The area was a rock-climbing destination that had faded in popularity due to frequent car break-ins and then been abandoned entirely after a deadly mugging.
That was two years ago, but the parking area was still there, well out of sight of the highway. Disused trails were still passable with some effort and the views were spectacular. A solid workout after too many days of inactivity and a perfect location for what she had to do.
The path flattened but also narrowed, tracking a bulging cliff face on one side and a hundred-meter drop-off on the other. Skies were uncharacteristically gray and she found herself looking into them often, calculating the chance of rain. Climbing down was always harder than climbing up and wet surfaces would add a little excitement to what was scheduled to be a tedious day.
Another half hour took her to a summit of sorts—the top of a tall cliff that still had steel climbing anchors glued into it. The views were intermittently obscured by mist, but with that came an enhanced sense of anonymity. The very thing she was there seeking.
Cyrah wasn’t really worried that she was being actively watched, but casual surveillance was an increasing problem in the modern world. Shared networks, Google, security cameras, and a hundred other things constantly conspired against the oppressive secrecy that her operation was built on. That secrecy, combined with a one hundred percent success rate, was what allowed her and her people to operate in a completely new way. One that their competition lacked both the skill and creativity to emulate.