The English Assassin

forward and took hold of the Basque’s throat with his left hand, squeezing his larynx to the breaking point. Then he pushed the man down onto the bed, settling atop him with one knee on his abdomen. Navarra writhed, struggling for air, the look on his face a combination of panic and utter resignation.
    The Englishman thrust the knife into the soft tissue beneath the Basque’s rib cage, angling upward toward the heart. The man’s eyes bulged and his body stiffened, then relaxed. Blood pumped over the blade of the knife.
    The Englishman removed the knife from the dead man’s chest and stood up. The girl scrambled to her feet. Then she stepped forward and slapped him hard across the face.
    “Who the hell do you think you are?”
    The Englishman didn’t know quite what to make of this woman. She had just watched him stab her lover to death, but she was acting as if he had tracked mud across her clean floor.
    She hit him a second time. “I work for Aragón, you idiot! I’ve been seeing Navarra for a month. We were about to arrest him and take down the rest of his cell. Who sent you here? It wasn’t Aragón. He would have told me.”
    She stood there, awaiting his reply, seemingly unashamed of her nudity.
    “I work for Castillo.” He spoke calmly and in fluent Spanish. He didn’t know anyone called Castillo—it was just the first name that popped into his head. Where had he seen it? The bakery? Yes, that was it. The bakery across the street.
    She asked, “Who’s Castillo?”
    “The man I work for.”
    “Does Castillo work for Aragón?”
    “How should I know? Why don’t you call Aragón? He’ll call Castillo, and we’ll straighten this mess out.”
    “Fine.”
    “Call him on that telephone over there.”
    “I will, you fucking idiot!”
    “Just do it quietly, before you alert every tenant in the building that we’ve just killed a man.”
    She folded her arms across her breasts, as if she was aware of her nakedness for the first time. “What’s your name?”
    “I’m not telling you my name.”
    “Why not?”
    “How do I know you really work for Aragón? Maybe you work with lover boy here. Maybe you’re a member of his cell. Maybe you’re going to call some of his friends, and they’ll come here and kill me.”
    He raised the bloody knife and ran his thumb across the blade. The girl scowled. “Don’t even think about trying it! Fucking idiot!”
    “Get Aragón on the line. Then I’ll tell you my name.”
    “You’re going to be in big trouble.”
    “Just get Aragón on the phone, and I’ll explain everything.”
    She sat down on the edge of the bed, snatched up the receiver, and violently punched in the number. The Englishman moved a step closer and placed his finger on the cradle, severing the connection.
    “What do you think you’re doing? What’s your name?”

    The assassin brought the blade across her throat in a slashing movement. He stepped back to avoid the initial geyserlike burst of blood; then he knelt before her and watched the life draining out of her eyes. As she slipped away he leaned forward and whispered his name into her ear.
     
    THEEnglishman spent the rest of the day driving: the fast road from Vitoria to Barcelona, then the coast highway from Barcelona across the border to Marseilles. Late that evening he boarded a passenger ferry for the night crossing to Corsica.
    He was dressed like a typical Corsican man: loose-fitting cotton trousers, dusty leather sandals, a heavy sweater against the autumn chill. His dark brown hair was cropped short. The poplin suit and brimmed hat he’d worn in Vitoria were resting in the rubbish bin of a roadside café in Bordeaux. The silver wig had been tossed out the car window into a mountain gorge. The car itself, registered to a David Mandelson, one of his many false identities, had been returned to the rental agent in town.
    He went below deck to his cabin. It was private, with its own shower and toilet. He left his small leather grip on the berth and went up to the passenger deck. The ferry was nearly empty, a few people gathering in the bar for a drink and a bite to eat. He was tired after the long drive, but his strict sense of internal discipline would not permit him to sleep until he had scanned the faces of the passengers.
    He toured the deck, saw nothing alarming, then went into the bar, where he ordered a half-liter of red wine and fell into conversation with a Corsican named Matteo. Matteo lived in the northwest