The Assassins’ Game

Caleb let the heavy, brass, lion’s head knocker fall once, reverberating through the lower hall of the building. He heard the muffled whirr of a well-concealed surveillance camera. Considering Jorgen Pedersen’s age, he refrained from dropping the knocker a second time. They knew he was at the door. He heard Jorgen’s plodding footsteps approaching.

The thick, oak door creaked open, releasing a musty odor. Knowing Thorndike was watching, Caleb patted the door twice as he entered. Might as well goose the old bastard one more time, he thought as the door swung shut behind him.

Jorgen Pedersen, looking suitably older than on Caleb’s last visit, gestured toward the staircase to the second floor and Thorndike’s office. Caleb stood back, allowing Jorgen to lead the way. Jorgen probably thought the gesture was of respect. Caleb, however, knew more about the old soldier than Jorgen realized. There was no way he would walk in front of Pedersen.

In his younger years, Jorgen Pedersen’s name alone carried a menacing message. He had been able to deal with virtually any challenge Thorndike presented. Even professional assassins shriveled when Pedersen appeared. And his violence in those days knew no bounds.

Thorndike was closing the monitor screen on his desk when Caleb entered the room. Caleb felt Thorndike’s watery gaze follow him to a visitor’s chair. The old man’s hands were folded on the desk. He sat, staring at Caleb, his creation, his assassin, sizing him up, determining the best approach to the large subject joining them in the room.

“You’re back,” Thorndike said finally, unclasping his fingers and laying his hands palm down on his thighs. “Long time gone.”

Caleb nodded. Silence clamored about them, begging to be broken.

Thorndike cleared his throat. “And how were Gabrielle’s parents taking her death? You did go to France, didn’t you?”

“What was your relationship to Egon Richter … and his son?” Caleb asked his voice harsh and demanding, ignoring Thorndike’s opening gambit. Thorndike sat up straighter at the sound of Richter’s name. Then he sank back into his leather chair.

“Richter?”

“Yes. He’s dead by the way.”

“Dead? You killed him? Where was he?”

“You didn’t know?”

“Richter. Ah, crypts open when you mention that name. Bodies fly around the air,” Thorndike’s papery, blue-veined hand, whirled in the air as he spoke of Richter. “He was the most evil man I ever worked with, you know?”

“What do you mean worked with? You knew him and did business with him? That butcher?”

“He was a source, a double agent for OSS. My contacts with him, were … were … in the field,” Thorndike spoke as if he were clearing fog from his memory, pulling places, people, circumstances and rationales into focus. “ … and he would provide troop movement information, ordnance reports, and we would deposit large sums of money in a Swiss bank account,” Thorndike could not meet Caleb’s stare.

“You say you met him, ‘in the field’. Exactly in which fields were these meetings held?”

“He was always on the move. He told us where he was going next and we would arrive after he did his work. Out … in the field,” Thorndike said.

“You mean where the bodies were dumped, where the trenches were filled with dead women and children and lye to decompose the innocent? You met him there?” Caleb standing, leaning into Thorndike’s space across the desk, his face rigid with fury. “You stood atop the innocent dead and did business with their murderer?”

“Yes,” Thorndike whispered. His eyes, snake-like, darting anywhere, but into Caleb’s face. “Nobody went there after the troops had finished their work. It was safe for us to meet and talk.”

Caleb sat down, hands in his lap, repressing an urge, a mandate from his soul, to slice Thorndike’s head from his shoulders. Thorndike struggled to regain his composure; his control over his dangerous agent. “He was a valuable source and we were committed to protecting him.”

“Even after the war?”

“Yes. That was the agreement. We had to honor it, you know?”

“You have been protecting this monster for fifty years to honor a deal with Satan?”

“We lost track of him twenty-five years ago. The Jews have been hunting him. The Neo-Nazis seem to have been involved in protecting him. That’s why the assassins have been targeted and eliminated. Except you. I protected you. Even though they wanted you.”

“Me?” Caleb said, leaning forward. “Why me? How did they learn about me? You told them? You sacrificed me to a Nazi war criminal for termination?”

“Your parents,” Thorndike said, holding his hands up in a feeble, pleading gesture of defense. “I never told Richter a thing, but he knew your parents were onto a lead which would bring them to his door.”

“His son, he sent his son to kill them,” Caleb said.

“Yes.”

“You bastard. You knew and you could have stopped him.”

“No. The son wanted revenge for his father, the way the world’s services were hounding him, vilifying him in the press, and sending their assassins after his scent,” Thorndike said, pressing back in his chair. “There was no stopping him.”

“Now he wants me,” Caleb said.

“You killed his father.”

“No,” Caleb said slowly, a cruel grimace of a smile curling his lip, a hollow chuckle from the grave. “I … didn’t kill your friend”

A tremor jingled through Thorndike’s innards. The last of the moisture in the old man’s body was squeezed out his pores.