Page 92 of Assassin Anonymous

He shrugs. “I pieced it together.” Then he smiles and gestures toward the windows. “Isn’t this place the tits? Fourteen hundred feet above the park. Three floors. Seven bedrooms, four bathrooms. Seventeen thousand square feet total with the highest residential terrace in the world. Which surprised me, because you’d figure they’d have something like that in Dubai, right? But then again, who wants to be closer to the sun in the desert? I just moved in, but I got the tree set up. ’Tis the season. Now, if I told you how much this place cost, you wouldn’t believe me.”

He looks at me with the energy of a child showing off a drawing of a puppy that looks like a melted puddle of mud with legs. When I don’t bite, he pouts his lips and frowns.

“Two hundred fifty million. Paid in cash. Not bad, right?”

I look for something to use as a weapon. Stuart doesn’t look to be carrying anything. Kozlov might have a weapon, I can’t really tell from here. I’ve got jack shit. An empty room and a woman who is more acquaintance than ally, tied to a chair.

“So, let’s start from the top,” Stuart says, “I started the Via Maris as a way to sell drugs. Lots of money in drugs. But it developed into a Craigslist for life and death. Which was great. More money for me. I mean, the processing fees alone.” He leans back in his chair, gesturing with his hands as he speaks. “But the bigger it got, the more I started to think, there’s a chance to make a real difference here. Looking at all the chatter on the boards, seeing who was getting taken out where, I realized I could predict which way the political winds were blowing. I began to recognize the ebb and flow of the world’s power structures. And I saw an opportunity.”

“What kind of opportunity?”

“You think governments kill bad people, Mark? They do not.” He shakes his head. “They kill troublesome people. The Agency isn’t trying to make the world a better place. They have an agenda. What if we could restructure the way that worked? What if instead of oil executives using the hammer of the gods—using people like you—to destabilize the Middle East to shift the market, what if we went after those same executives, who were using their power and influence to destroy the planet? Instead of killing a political leader because they dared to question the efficacy of capitalism, we could leave them in power and take out their enemies, so they could empower their own followers to fight the system. We could level the playing field. Make things right.”

“And what’s right, to you?” I ask.

“Anything we want.”

“You keep saying we.”

He sticks a finger in the air and says, “We’ll get to that.” Then he stands and strolls over to the window, clasping his hands behind his back and gazing out over the city, like it’s something to be conquered. “In order to do this, I need to break the Agency. Create a vacuum, which I would then fill.” He turns and offers me a rattlesnake smile. “I’ve been doing what I could, setting them against the Russians, letting both sides tire each other out. Make my job a little easier. But I needed a more targeted strike. I had to find an Agency employee to cause them some inner turmoil.” He claps his hands. “So I got in the Paper Cranes forum. Figured I could not-so-gently persuade them to get back in the game. The whole serial killer thing was a bit. I could never pass for an assassin. You’d sniff me out. But a serial killer? Serial killers have gotten in before. And all of you would think I was grotesque, so none of you would look at me directly. It would provide me with just enough cover to hide in plain sight. Granted, I had to kill a few people, to establish a pattern and plausibility, get past the vetting process with Kenji, but it was worth it. Because I got luckier than I could have imagined.” He raises an open palm toward me. “You.”

“Not gonna lie, bud, doesn’t feel that way to me.”

“I bet. Anyway.” He jerks his head to the imposing figure across the room. “I hired Kozlov to cause you some grief. I figured it’d smoke you out, and in turn, the Agency. I orchestrated that whole thing with throwing the suspicion on Kenji, too. You should have been watching over Gaius’s shoulder while he was working. He called me up on a chat immediately.” Insult creeps into his voice. “There’s no god mode. There’s no tracing anything back. I told him to tell you the thing with the username. I just needed to break you out of this bullshit recovery thing, get you back on the horse, as it were, and wait for you to dismantle the Agency. Because even if you didn’t suspect them, you’d realize they wouldn’t let you live, and then it was you or them.” He shakes his head. “I thought you’d raze that place to the ground. I really thought I would have broken you by now. That part of the plan didn’t work out. Still, I can work with this.”

I readjust myself in the chair a little, wonder if I could tackle him, but no, Kozlov is still waiting in the wings. Best to keep him talking. “To do what, exactly?”

He turns to me and sighs, thrilled to finally be explaining this. I bet he’s rehearsed this in front of a mirror. “We’re going to use all the data I’ve collected through the Via Maris to start our own Agency. All in one centralized, online, easy-to-access location. Now, every leader needs a team. You’ll be my chief of operations. Kozlov, our man in the field. That’s a pretty good starting point, right?”

Oh.

“You think I’m going to come work for you,” I tell him.

“With me, Mark. With me. You’re the best.” He bows a little, the gesture meant to be respectful, but given the circumstances I can’t interpret it as anything more than obscene. “I want you to teach me how to do what you do. I want you to steer the ship through choppy waters. You don’t even have to kill anyone for now.” He waves a dismissive hand. “You can stick with…whatever this phase is.”

“It’s not a phase.”

“Mark,” he says, his face twisting like he’s in pain. “Mark, please.” He takes a deep breath and screams, “If you really wanted to make amends you would turn yourself in.” He settles himself, and his voice drops back to normal. “Been dying to say that, ever since the first meeting I attended. Seriously, this whole recovery thing, it’s weird. You know that, right?”

“Standing in front of a judge isn’t going to fix the problem. The problem is me.”

He rolls his eyes. “I’m tired of unpacking feelings. Look, I ordered Chinese, figured we could all sit and eat and talk logistics, but it seems like you’re still coming around to the idea. Fine. In the meantime, we need to straighten up a bit.” He raises his voice. “Viktor? She’s all yours.”

Kozlov smiles, cracks his knuckles, and advances on us.

I stand in front of Astrid.

“Gonna have to go through me,” I tell them.

“I don’t need you to save me,” Astrid whispers.

“At this very second, I think you do,” I tell her.

“She would have gutted you if she had to, Mark,” Stuart says, drawing closer to me.

“She didn’t,” I tell him. “Your man did.”

Stuart nods. “Fine fine fine.”

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