Savannah, code named Lisunov Li-2, was waiting for his father’s murderer around the corner of a building that looked out onto a dark and narrow street that he had cased a few hours beforehand and that Reed would be forced to cross.
When Savannah saw him coming, he acted quickly, cutting Reed’s throat with a knife so quickly that he did not even utter a sound; then Savannah made it look like a mugging and threw the murder weapon in a manhole five blocks away from the murder scene.
The lifeless body of Richard Reed was found by a madly barking dog that pulled his master to the spot. At 8:00 am Colonel Walton I. Reed was informed of the murder of his son at CIA headquarters.
Savannah immediately left Washington for New York; he felt that the fact he had terminated Reed had simply been his duty, but he was left unsatisfied and his demon, though it had calmed down, remained burning quietly but intently within. It wasn’t over, not yet.
It was already late when he arrived in New York. He stopped to sleep in the first hotel with a room available near Madison Square Garden, again paying in advance in cash for another two nights under the alias Smith. He could not immediately return to London because he might arouse suspicion, but he would still be departing one day early at the last minute from the airport to make his exit from the country even harder to predict.
Mark knew that they would discover the body quickly, and that Colonel Reed would immediately activate his network to find his son’s killer.
36
“This was not the work of a mugger, Roger,” Walton I. Reed said to his best friend while he was drinking his third bourbon in a bar at Langley. “Trust me, this was a professional job; the pathologist found an extremely violent and precise stab wound that only a trained military man could have made. Richard didn’t have time to breathe, he was killed instantly, suffocated by his own blood and never felt a thing.”
“Do you have any suspects?”
“In our business we always have suspects. Do you remember Jenkins and Savannah? The two agents who spoke with Richard in the cafeteria and lied.”
“Could you repeat that second name, please?”
“Savannah...”
“Walton, do you know that Savannah is considered one of the best new British agents?”
“Really? Please, tell me about him.”
“They say he caught Uday Bouda, and that he has been following in his father's footsteps.”
“Go on. What else do you know?”
“There are rumors that he is the son of a former American agent and that he has friends in high places. But you know, some of our guys were assigned to help the British and as a result there was a lot of gossip and loose talk about the place…that shouldn’t happen in our organization. The rumors turned out to be a bunch of crap, so I’d take them with a grain of salt. Why should Savannah be involved with Richard? Just because they were in Afghanistan at the same time?”
“Well, in fact, there is no evidence. “
“UNODC has publicly mentioned Richard's help in the fight against drug trafficking, and they did it during the international meeting. You should be proud of your boy. Most likely he stepped on too many toes over there, most of the drug traffickers are former mujahideen trained in guerrilla warfare and, among other things, need I remind you that we trained them?”
“But why kill him in the U.S. and not wait for him to return to Afghanistan?” Col. Reed wondered aloud.
“Richard was well known and had bodyguards that he paid personally; they would have arranged a large-scale ambush that would never have gone unnoticed. Everyone knows everything about everyone over there, and it takes nothing to bribe a person and to screw up a secret that has been protected for years. Here, on the other hand, it is a breeze to slaughter someone at night on a dark and deserted corner.”
“That's true, I guess. A Detective Scott Martin took over the investigation. Do you
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