Blowout

engaged in some therapy. He felt compassion for this waif, this young woman who’d fallen for a man who’d used her and then had died. Dr. Hicks went on to tell her that she would feel good about herself now, that she was hungry. A pepperoni pizza at the Quantico restaurant, The Boardroom, was what she wanted, and Savich would buy it for her. He looked over at her parents, who were listening to every word and nodding. He told Annie her parents would like the pepperoni pizza, too, that they were here for her, that they loved her and would stand by her.
    Unfortunately, Savich thought, when he finally managed to get away from Quantico, Danny O’Malley’s Gucci briefcase, his cell phone with its memory chip, a throwaway cell phone, and the skinny little black book were gone.
    FBI H EADQUARTERS
E ARLY T UESDAY MORNING
    S AVICH STOOD at the head of the conference table, looked out at the sea of faces.
    “MAX has found an assassin who is a high-probability fit for our murderer. He has used the alias Günter Grass, middle name listed as Wilhelm. He has used the same M.O. as our killer on a number of victims—a garrote, up close and personal, and mostly in high-risk settings. The two have always gone together for him.”
    “Hey, that name sounds familiar,” said another agent.
    “Yes,” Savich said. “The real Günter Wilhelm Grass won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999. Maybe some of you have read his first novel, The Tin Drum. He’s also a poet, novelist, playwright, even a sculptor. He has described himself as a ‘ Spätaufklärer,’ a belated apostle of enlightenment in an era that has grown tired of reason.
    “No one knows why the killer selected this name as his primary alias. I’d imagine he admires something about Günter Grass, or about something he wrote. Steve and the behavioral sciences group at Quantico will be telling us more about that. No one knows his real name. He only goes by the name Günter.
    “Last night I spoke to our local Interpol guy here in Washington, Johnny Baines, to Jacques Ramie in Lyons, and to Hans Claus in Berlin. Günter Grass isn’t on their current radar because he hasn’t been active in well over ten years, at least not that anyone knows of. That’s why it took MAX a little while to find him.
    “The German and French authorities are certain that no such person or anyone similar is connected to any known terrorist cell.
    “So the question is, where has the guy been? What’s he been doing? Where is he now? Still in Washington or long gone? And how did the person behind the two murders even know about a guy like this, a professional assassin?”
    Jimmy Maitland said, “Of course, there is no one by this name currently here in the U.S., no passports or visas issued in that name. Bottom line, we know who he is, but we have no clue where he is.”
    Ben Raven asked, “No old photos? Nothing?”
    Savich nodded. “I’m passing out a grainy old photo that Jacques Ramie sent over. They tried to clean it up digitally, but it’s still not good. You’ll see that it’s a photo of a much younger man. He’s big, you can tell that much, and looking at the clothes, it would put the photo in the mid- to late eighties. Even though he’s older now, he’s still got to be pretty strong to take out Justice Califano and Danny O’Malley.”
    Jimmy Maitland shook his head. “The thing about picking high-risk places—it’s very rare for a professional. A professional is in and out, clean and fast, gets the job done. But our guy’s got to have this adrenaline shot. We’ve never run into anything like that before.”
    “Calling himself Günter Grass, that’s just nuts,” said another agent.
    “He’s giving everyone the finger,” Jimmy Maitland said. “Done it for years; unfortunately, he’s gotten away with it. He’s still free. Estimates on how many people he’s killed, Savich?”
    “Jacques believes it to be around twenty. Günter was active until the late eighties, none of them high-profile killings—drug dealers, international mafia, those sorts of hits. Then nothing. Until Justice Califano.”
    “He probably made himself a big bundle and retired,” said Jimmy Maitland. “Changed his name. He could be living anywhere in the world, or he could be living down the block from one of us, as far as we know.”
    “And that brings up another thing,” Savich said, and sighed. “According to Interpol, the man is fluent in four languages—German, French, Italian,