The Mark of the Assassin

famous
    people: Monica with James Beckwith, Monica with Director Ronald Clark,
    Monica with a famous actor, Monica with Princess Diana. In the
    notoriously camera-shy world of intelligence, Monica was a veritable
    cover girl. Entering the room, Michael smelled coffee brewing--a rich
    dark Italian or French roast--and from somewhere he could hear quiet
    orchestral music. Adrian Carter arrived next, looking very hung over. He
    sniffed at the air, smelled the coffee, and frowned. Monica arrived
    last, five minutes late as usual, followed by Tweedle-dee and
    Tweedle-dum, each clutching a leather folder. They sat at the conference
    table, Monica at the head, the factotums at her right hand, Michael and
    Carter at her left. A secretary brought a tray of coffee and cream and a
    plate of dainty cookies. Monica gaveled the proceedings to order by
    tapping the tip of her stiletto gold pen on the polished surface of the
    table.
    "Where's McManus?" Carter asked. "He had to go downtown to the Hoover
    Building on an urgent matter," Monica said tonelessly. "Don't you think
    the FBI's representative to the Counter-terrorism Center should be
    sitting in on this meeting?"
    "Anything the FBI is required to know will be passed on to them in due
    course," she said. "This is an Agency matter and will be dealt with as
    such."
    Carter, unable to hide his anger, gnawed on the nail of his forefinger.
    Monica looked at Michael. "After the incident on the ferry you were
    ordered to return from London immediately and report to headquarters.
    You disobeyed that order and went to Cairo instead. Why?"
    "I believed I could uncover valuable information concerning an active
    investigation," Michael said. "I didn't go because I wanted to see the
    pyramids."
    "Don't be a smartass. You're in enough trouble as it is. What did you
    learn in Cairo?"
    Michael placed the photographs given to him by Muhammad Awad on the
    table and turned them so Monica could see. "Here's Hassan Mahmoud, the
    man found dead in the Whaler, meeting with a man named Eric Stoltenberg
    in Cairo a few weeks before the attack on the jetliner. Stoltenberg is
    former Stasi. He worked in the department that supported national
    liberation and guerrilla groups around the world. He's freelance now.
    Muhammad Awad, before he was shot on the ferry, said Mahmoud had joined
    forces with Stoltenberg."
    "Two men having coffee in a Cairo cafe is hardly proof of a conspiracy,
    Michael."
    Michael held his temper. Somewhere during her ascent to the top, Monica

had mastered the art of derailing her opponent in mid-thought with a
    barb or a shallow contradiction. "I went to Cairo because I wanted to
    talk to Stoltenberg."
    "Why didn't you pass on the information to Carter at the Center and let
    someone from Cairo Station handle it?"
    "Because I wanted to handle it myself."
    "At least that's honest. Continue."
    "By the time I got to Cairo, Stoltenberg was dead." Michael dropped a
    photograph of Stoltenberg's ruined face on the table. Carter looked away
    and winced. Monica's face remained placid.
    "He was shot three times in the face, just like Hassan Mahmoud, just
    like Colin Yardley."
    "And just like Sarah Randolph."
    Michael looked down at his hands, then at Monica. "Yes," he said. "Just
    like Sarah Randolph."
    "And you believe these killings are all the work of the same man?"
    "I'm certain of it. He's a former KGB assassin, code-named October, who
    was inserted into the West as a young man and planted deep. He's a
    contract killer now, the world's most expensive and proficient
    assassin."
    "And this you learned from Ivan Drozdov?"
    "That's correct."
    "Your theory, Michael?"
    "That Muhammad Awad was telling the truth: The Sword of Gaza did not
    carry out this attack. It was the work of some other group or
    individual, done in the name of the Sword of Gaza. And now October has
    been hired by this group or individual to liquidate the team that
    carried out the attack."
    Michael paused for a moment, then said, "And eventually he will come
    after me."
    "Would you like to explain that?"
    "I think they tried to kill me once already, on the ferry during the
    meeting with Awad. They failed. I think they'll try again, and this time
    I think they'll give the job to October."
    There was a long pause. Conversations with Monica were always punctuated
    by moments of silence, as though she were receiving her next lines from
    a stage prompter in the wings. "Who's they, Michael? What they? Where
    they? How they?"
    "I