Page 19 of Nobody's Hero

Smerconish leaned forwards. ‘How?’ he urged.

‘Because ten years ago, I killed her,’ Koenig said.

Chapter 16

‘You mean youfigurativelykilled her?’ Smerconish said. ‘Otherwise, that doesn’t make a whole lick of sense.’

‘No, I mean literally,’ Koenig said. ‘Iliterallykilled her. But yes, I also figuratively killed her.’

‘I’m glad you’ve cleared that up,’ Draper snorted.

‘Please explain,’ Smerconish said.

Koenig did. He explained that the US Marshals were occasionally required to protect a witness who simply couldn’t be protected. Regardless of the precautions taken, their safety couldn’t be guaranteed. The people hunting them were too motivated. They had unlimited resources. They would do anything to get at the witness protection list. Nothing was off limits, including targeting a marshal’s family.

A few years before he disappeared, Koenig had been tasked to come up with a way of faking someone’s death. The ultimate way of hiding someone was making it seem like they no longer existed. He’d thought it was a theoretical exercise. The parameters were specific: what would convincehimsomeone was dead. That ruled out burned corpses, shotgun blasts to the face, no-body drownings. Eventually he’d said that it might be possible, under desperate circumstances, to fake someone’s death by shooting them in the back of the head. It involved a reduced-capacity round from a handgun, a section of false skull, a bag full of the intended victim’sactualblood, and a public execution. He was asked how dangerous it would be. Koenig explained that a shot to the head powerful enough to penetrate a section of false skull and a blood bag would probably still have enough power to penetrate the person’s actual skull. He couldn’t recommend such a drastic option, but he’d been asked for his opinion. He was thanked for his work and asked to forget all about it.

And he had.

Until a man who never offered his name (but who had been vouched for by Mitch Burridge, Koenig’s director and a man he trusted) said he had a situation. He needed a woman to disappear. He wanted Koenig to fake her death using the method he’d theorised the year before. Koenig refused. He said it was too dangerous. His method had been an intellectual exercise. Nothing more. The man said the woman understood and accepted the risks. Koenig said he wanted to meet her. He didn’t think shedidunderstand the risks. So, he met her. Once. He wasn’t told her name and he didn’t know who she’d pissed off, but the woman said death was her only option. If Koenig couldn’t fake it, she’d have to die for real.

After two hours, Koenig finally agreed to kill her.

‘You shot her in a New York park?’ Smerconish said.

‘I did.’

‘She obviously survived?’

Koenig nodded.

‘And that’s the last you ever saw of her?’ Smerconish said.

‘It was.’

‘You didn’t ask around, try to find out why her death needed to be faked? Because if you did, I forgive you. I’d have been curious too.’

‘You’re a spook, I’m not.’

‘Who set up the meeting?’ Smerconish asked.

‘Never found out,’ Koenig replied. ‘But five gets you six, he was one of the names on your list.’

‘Would you recognise him?’

‘I would.’

Smerconish pulled a standard letter-sized document from the car safe. ‘Their names and positions have been redacted, but these are photographs of everyone on the list.’ He handed it to Koenig.

The four photographs were laid out in a grid, like a yearbook page. Koenig’s photograph was bottom right. It had been taken from his old SOG ID card. Koenig pointed at the guy next to him, his bottom-row buddy. ‘Him,’ he said. ‘He’s the man who arranged it all.’

Koenig didn’t expect to be given a name, and Smerconish didn’t disappoint him.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘That’s somewhere to start. Thank you for your help. We’ll take it from here. Is there anywhere we can drop you off, Mr Koenig?’

‘This woman was the bravest person I’ve ever met,’ Koenig said. ‘If she had flinched when I pulled the trigger, she would have died. The fact she’s reappeared in such a public way means she felt it worth the risk. That means we need to find her. Fast. I got the feeling it wasn’t her safety she was trying to protect. I think she had a secret. That means we may not be the only ones looking for her.’

‘We’ll find her,’ Smerconish said. ‘We have our best people on it.’