Free Two Graves by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child Page A

recorded on hidden security cameras. The idea pleased him not a little. Later, looking at those images, people would say things like,
What a superior fellow he is!
and
What taste he has in clothes!
They would all be very, very interested in him. His picture might even be in the papers.
    Right now, however, in the particular place he stood, the camera recording that stretch of corridor was directly over his head, and he was in its blind spot.
    Still he waited. And then, at the precisely necessary moment, hebegan walking back down the hall with a purposeful step. At the very moment he came to the door of Room 1422, it opened and a woman in a bathrobe bent down to pick up the
Wall Street Journal
. Without altering his pace or making any sudden movements, he veered into her, pushed her into the room, at the same time whipping his right arm around her neck and squeezing so tightly she could make no noise. With his left hand he gently closed the door and did the chain.
    She struggled mightily as he dragged her into the center of the carpeted room. He enjoyed the flexing of her muscles as she fought him; enjoyed the heaving of her diaphragm as she tried to make a sound; enjoyed the twisting of her torso as she attempted to shake him off. She was a fighter, athletic, not one of those fat old women in the elevator. In this he was lucky. Her age was perhaps thirty, with agreeably blond hair, no wedding ring. Her bathrobe became undone in the struggle, allowing him to see her as God had made her. He continued squeezing her, tightening the choke hold until she got the message and ceased her struggle.
    Then he loosened his hold just slightly, enough so she could breathe but not enough for her to scream. He allowed her to draw in a gasp of air, then another, before tightening once again.
    They stood there, locked together, her back pressed to his chest, as she trembled all over and finally began to collapse, her legs buckling in sheer terror.
    “Stand up straight,” he commanded.
    She obeyed, like the good girl she was.
    “This will only take a moment,” he said. He needed to do it, he wanted to do it, but something in him also wanted to prolong this exquisite moment of power over another human being, this basking in the vicarious thrill of her terror. It was surely the most wonderful feeling in the world. It was certainly his favorite.
    But it was time to get down to business.
    With a certain regret, he removed a small, specially sharpened penknife from his pocket. He reached out to the side and, in a quick, almost ritualistic gesture, deftly inserted the blade into her throat. He held it there for a loving, lingering moment, listening to the gargle ofher pierced windpipe. Then he made a quick lateral motion that severed both the windpipe and the carotid artery, exactly as one would stick a pig. As her body began to spasm he quickly released her and skipped back while she fell forward, away from him, the blood erupting in a controlled direction. It would be wrong to get blood on his suit—very wrong. They would disapprove.
    She fell facedown on the rug, not too hard, the kind of
thump
that those directly below might ascribe to an overturned piece of furniture. Alban waited, watching with great interest until the death struggle had ceased and the body bled out.
    Again he checked his watch: seven forty AM . Schön.
    Kneeling, almost as if in prayer, he took a small leather-wrapped bundle from his pocket, unrolled it on the rug, and laid out his few essential tools. Then he began to work.
    He would be enjoying that Starbucks doppio in the lobby by eight.



2
    …
O NCE AGAIN, THE MISTS CLEAR, AND THE MAN SMILES. He thumbs the safety off his handgun and takes aim.
    “Auf Wiedersehen,”
he says. His crooked smile widens as he savors the moment.
    The young woman, her hand still in her bag, finds what she needs, grasps it. “Wait. The… the papers. I have them.”
    A hesitation.
    “The papers from… from Laufer.” She recalls a name