Page 80 of Nobody's Hero
This time Hobbs didn’t hesitate. The instant his gag was removed he screamed, ‘Jakob Tas!’
Chapter 85
The quickest way to verify the information was to split up Hobbs and Nash and ask them the same questions. They carried Nash, still secured to the kitchen stool, to the room Margaret wasn’t using. They put her on the bed.
It was clearly Nash’s room. It had a younger vibe than the one Margaret was resting in. Maybe too young. Like she played on being daddy’s little girl. Got what she wanted that way. There were stuffed toys on a chair and Spice Girls posters on the walls. A pair of brown Dr Martens under her dressing table. A mug with ‘Girl Power!’ written on the side. Stained with tannin. If Koenig had gone into this bedroom blind, he’d have figured it belonged to a fifteen-year-old in the nineties.
But it wasn’tallteddy bears and Baby Spice. There was also a complete set of first edition James Bond novels on a display shelf. A serious collection. AndMoonraker,The Man with the Golden Gun,Goldfinger, and a couple of others had yellow spines. Probably served two purposes. The yellow would keep Hobbs out of her room. Ensured her privacy. More importantly, first edition Bonds were a shrewd investment. They were finite. A first editionCasino Royalewent for over sixty thousand bucks in 2019. And unlike portable assets like gold and jewellery, books didn’t attract scrutiny at international borders. Koenig doubted an underpaid and overfed customs agent would know the difference between a highly collectibleDr Noand a mass-producedLive and Let Die. Even the scholars couldn’t agree. A couple of these in her hand luggage and she’d be walking around with six figures’ worth of undeclared currency.
They returned to the living area. Draper leaned against the kitchen island. She studied Hobbs the same way a vivisectionist studies a squirrel monkey.
‘I need to tell you two things,’ she said eventually. ‘The first is that Koenig and I don’t exist. Koenig shot your daughter and I waterboarded her, but no one will look for us. We won’t have to explain our actions to anyone. Koenig’s a ghost, and I’m so well protected there’s more chance of the president having to answer for this. Do you believe me?’
Hobbs nodded.
‘The second thing is that you and Harper will need to work hard to stay alive. My default position is that I want to kill you. Now, I’m the first to admit that I’ve got a somewhat checkered past, but compared to you I’m a fucking saint. You and your daughter are monsters. I’d be doing the world a favour if the last thing I do today is open your throats with Koenig’s knife.’
This was the Jen Draper show. Koenig kept his mouth shut. He couldn’t have added anything that would have scared Hobbs any more than he already was. Draper had delivered her monologue in such a casual, singsong way that her tone didn’t match her message. But Koenig knew Hobbs believed her. Hell,hebelieved her. If Draper didn’t get what she needed, Hobbs would die tonight. His daughter would die tonight. And then Draper would walk away.
‘Here’s what’s going to happen,’ Draper said. ‘You’re going to tell us about every job you’ve been hired to do in the last five years. Every single one. We decide if it’s relevant, not you. We’re then going to question you. And then we’re going to question your daughter. If her answers don’t match yours, you both die. You don’t get a chance to confer, you won’t be allowed to amend your answers. These are the rules of the game – do you want to play?’
‘On one condition,’ Hobbs said. ‘Harper gets immunity.’
Draper snorted. ‘This isn’t the Make-A-Wish Foundation, asshole. Five minutes after we leave, some people are going to arrive. They won’t be the cops and they won’t be feds. They won’t even tell you who they work for. You’ll be transported to a place that isn’t on any map, where you’ll be questioned under the banner of the Patriot Act. For as long as they fucking want. Unwittingly or not, you’ve threatened this country’s national security. You and your daughter are now enemy combatants. So, no, Mr Hobbs – even if you know who the Zodiac Killer is, Harper is not getting immunity.’
She said, ‘Now, why don’t you start by telling me who Jakob Tas is?’
Chapter 86
‘It’s over,’ Carlyle said. ‘They don’t know anything.’
It was true. Although Hobbs had told them everything, it was clear he and Harper were subcontractors. Bit players. They didn’t know why their targets had to die, only that they did. Jakob Tas had contacted them through a trusted intermediary, and they’d met in the bar of a Holiday Inn in North Dakota. They’d negotiated a fee, although Hobbs got the impression Tas would have agreed with whatever he’d asked for. Money didn’t seem to be in short supply. Hobbs was given a burner phone and a list of people to kill. The ‘how’ was up to them, but their deaths were to look accidental or self-inflicted. Nothing that raised suspicion. A payment of $250,000 landed in their offshore account within twenty-four hours of each death. In two years, they’d killed nineteen people. Koenig did the math: $250,000 multiplied by 19 was $4,750,000, almost as much as he was worth to the Russians.
Carlyle checked each name against criteria known only to her and nodded every time. As the interrogation went on, her expression grew darker. She didn’t know the people Hobbs and Nash had murdered, but they meant something to her anyway. She could see a pattern they couldn’t.
Chuck Hiatt from Arizona had been their most recent murder. According to Hobbs, seven days ago he’d had a nasty accident. He’d fallen out of the window he was cleaning and snapped his neck. Clumsy. Hobbs and Nash had spent a week in El Cuyo, a quiet beach town on Mexico’s Yucatan coast, before heading back to New York and into their waiting arms. If they’d gone straight home after the Chuck Hiatt job, things might have turned out differently.
‘Who’s next?’ Koenig asked.
‘We were done,’ Hobbs said. ‘Chuck Hiatt was the last name. It’s why we had a vacation.’
‘I need you to call Jakob Tas,’ Koenig said. ‘Tell him you need to meet. Say there’s a problem with one of the jobs. That you left evidence behind that might identify him.’
‘I can’t. I don’t have the burner any more. Getting rid of it was a condition of the job.’
‘Use another phone. In fact, because you were doing as you’d been asked, you’dhaveto use a different cell.’
Hobbs shook his head. ‘Won’t work,’ he said. ‘Tas only answers numbers he recognises.’
Koenig frowned.
‘What’s his number?’ Draper said. ‘I’ll get my guys on it.’
‘It’s no longer in service,’ Draper said, reading from her own phone. ‘My tech guy ran the number; it went dead four days ago. Hasn’t been used since.’
‘Fourdays?’ Koenig said. ‘Not seven?’
Draper checked her phone. ‘That’s what the email says. Why?’