“Yes, that was puzzling. My men reported that they never saw her. They killed Draymont downstairs,stuffed the money in his throat, and left.”
“Youkilled a lot of people, Perlman, or whatever your real name is.”
Perlman sat down across from Decker. “What you don’t understand is that the number of people dead is of no significance. This is a war, Mr. Decker. And in any war therearecasualties. The key is to have more on the other side than on your own.”
“How many people died from the secrets you blackmailed Tanner into leaking to you?”
“Apparently not enough, since the Soviet Union fell anyway.”
“We did a search on you. Everything was perfect, all the way back to childhood. Too perfect. So perfect it had to be made up.”
“Good, thank you for that. Though technically retired, I will have our people inject such flaws in future background profiles.”
“How did you kill Kanak out in the Atlantic? Were you hidden on the boat, or did you overtake him in yours?”
Perlman shook his head, a weary expression on his features. “What does it matter? After all we did for him. Stumbled onto an incredible opportunity in Miami that ended up making him rich. And he wanted to betray all that simply because he was dying and felt the need to publicly confess. Well, people die every day. As did he.”
“He wanted to save his soul in the eyes of God.”
Perlman pointed a finger at Decker. “That is why religion is so dangerous. It makes you do stupid things. That is why I am an atheist. As Marx said, religion is the opium of the masses.”
“And what happens with me? My partner knows I came here and why. If I don’t show back up, things will get really bad for you, really fast.”
“You have no proof of anything. I could let you go right now and you can go and spew all the theories you want, claim that we all confessed, and what will it amount to?”
“Not much.”
“But I am a man who does not care for loose ends. And you like to go for walks on the beach at night. There is a beach here. You will walk on the sand.” He pulled out a syringe from a drawer of a credenza. “And then your heart will feel funny, like it is racing. You will not be able to breathe. You will stumble and fall and that will be that. And you are a large man and not a young one, so nothing unusual about such a man having a heart attack. And by the time the postmortem is done, what is in this syringe will no longer be detectable in your body.” He uncapped the needle. “So, shall we begin your last walk, Mr. Decker?”
Decker looked at each of the men. “I suppose I can’t convince you to turn yourselves in?”
Perlman shook his head and smiled. “I don’t believe there is a phrase for that in Russian.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think so.” He rose. “Well, okay, I’m sick of this case. Let’s do it.”
The door was kicked in and a team of armored personnel poured into the room pointing automatic weapons. Perlman’s accomplice quickly dropped his gun, and Perlman the syringe, as they backed up against the wall.
Perlman snapped, “What is going on? You have no right to be here. This is a private house. This man broke in and we were simply defending ourselves.”
One of the armored people took off their helmet. White brushed hair out of her eyes. “You good, Decker?”
“Much better than I was a minute ago.”
Perlman shouted, “You will leave my house now. You have no proof of anything.”
Decker walked over to the table and picked up his gun. He turned, pointed the gun right at Perlman, and pulled the trigger.
Perlman screamed and fell to the floor, his hands over his face.
Instead of a bullet coming out of the gun, though, they all listened to the conversation that had gone on in the room before White and the others had shown up.
“A recording device disguised as a gun?” said Perlman in disbelief.
“It smacks of the old Cold War days, doesn’t it?” said Decker. He lowered the gun and turned off the recorder by pulling the trigger again. “And just so you know, Deidre Fellows is alive and well. As soon as she became a key witness, we put her under protection.”
“But my man, the news feed,” snapped Perlman.
“Yeah, your guy is in custody. We caught him sneaking into the grounds, made him talk, and then we used his phone to text you that the mission was complete and he was leaving the country as planned. And the news feed was set up by the Bureau to make you think what we wanted you to think.”