The Assassin Read Online Free PDF

him.
    I should probably introduce myself. My name is Tommy Carmellini, and I work for Jake Grafton, sort of. Officially I’m a tech-support guy, but Grafton, who is the agency’s head of European Operations, wants me to do nontech chores for him from time to time, so when I’m not bugging embassies in Bulgaria or tapping phones in Buenos Aires, I trail around with him doing whatever he tells me.
    Today he led me across the paved parking lot behind Winchester’s mansion and past the row of limousines and their chauffeurs, who were standing around visiting and smoking and wiping invisible road grime from their chariots with white linen towels. As we went by the manicured flower beds, I nodded at the gardener, a lady in a wide-brimmed straw hat kneeling in the dirt, digging up the dying fall flowers, and followed my boss into the mansion.
    The place was stunning. The back of the building held the living quarters, kitchen, dining room and guest rooms, while the front was one huge room. The second-story living quarters had a balcony in the room, the ceiling of which was at least three stories high. The largest white marble fireplace I have ever seen was on the left wall; the other two walls consisted solely of soaring glass windows—the entire walls. Sunlight streamed in. The ceiling pitched down away from the fireplace, and through the windows to the right, where it was lowest, I could see a patio, a pool and a cabana of some sort.
    The floor of the room was broken up into seating areas, one around fireplace, one around a wet bar and piano and one around a library collection housed in bookcases under the balcony. Several nice bronze sculptures sat on coffee tables, and a large stone one stood in one corner. It was an Indian chief, I think, or perhaps a wood sprite.
    I decided the architect either was a really far-out, avant-garde genius or had a serious drug problem.
    The house sat on a low hill, so there was a view. Looking between the mature trees in the lawn, way out there I could see Long Island Sound.
    I would have liked more time to gawk, but it wasn’t in the program. Huntington Winchester, whom I recognized from his pictures, shook Grafton’s hand and introduced him to the people standing around the fireplace area. Being the hired help, I hung back; no one tried to introduce me.
    A dog came over to check me out. She was a collie, reasonably well groomed, dressed in a nice collar. She did her sniffs and moved on. I didn’t try to make a friend. It’s not that I don’t like dogs, but I can never bring myself to pet strange dogs. Been bit too many times, I suppose.
    Grafton had given me the names of the people, so it was easy to put faces to them. Simon Cairnes, the American banker, was a tall, erect, elderly man with an enviable mane of white hair. He walked with the help of a cane.
    Near him was Oleg Tchernychenko, the Russian who lived in England. He was a medium-sized guy, lean, in his fifties, dressed in a Scottish golfing outfit. Amazingly, even in duds like that, he fit right into this eclectic crowd.
    Next Grafton shook hands with Wolfgang Zetsche, the German shipping magnate. He was a skinny, feisty fellow, full of nervous energy. This guy, Grafton had told me, was a lady-killer of some renown, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at him. Well, maybe the ladies would, but his charm escaped me.
    Jerry Hay Smith, the American journalist, was also a little shrimp of a guy. He was in his early forties, I thought, whippet thin, a Boston Marathon type. I thought he was also probably one of those guys who go through life with something to prove and wearing a perpetual chip on their shoulder. He almost elbowed Zetsche out of the way so he could pump Grafton’s hand. He was wearing a cheap sports coat that he might have stolen from a used-car salesman.
    The Swiss banker, Rolf Gnadinger, was wearing an Italian silk suit that must have set him back a couple of thousand euros. Unfortunately he had a paunch that was a