Making sure to stay away from the window, I bent and dragged Ghost out into the hall and kicked the door shut. None of the other doors on my floor opened, which was the plan. When our local contacts had picked this hotel for Echo Team they’d rented all the rooms just to leave them empty. Most of the floor below me was empty too. No witnesses, no curious faces peering out from between cracked doors. I doubt anyone knew about what had just happened except the sniper, me, and whoever sent the son of Dracula in there.

There was nothing in the room that I needed more than I needed to get gone. My cell was in my pocket, but now was not the time to make a call. Besides, I think my hands were shaking too badly even to hit speed dial.

It took Ghost another minute to wake up and two more before he could stand. As soon as he was on all fours, we crept down the back steps to the laundry room. I wanted to clean us both up and get myself together before we went looking for a safe house.

Ghost had his tail between his legs and in my way so did I.

Chapter Thirty-three

Chapter Thirty-Three

Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Kempinski

Munich, Germany

June 15, 9:54 a.m.

The young man sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the pistol he had just finished loading. It was a slim, lightweight .22. Easily concealed, simple to operate. He had used guns like this for years. He had killed with them. Men and women. Many of them.

He even knew most of their names.

The fact that he did not know all of their names was like a nail in his head. The floor around the bed was littered with crumpled up sheets of paper on which lists of names had been scribbled. On the first few sheets, the names that he could remember were written in a neat, flowing script. On the more recent ones they were scrawled in haphazard fashion. More than once the tip of his pen had gouged into the notepad, cutting fresh pages like blades on flesh.

The young man knew about that, too. He had used knives more than once.

Even a garrote.

The most recent page lay crumpled on the floor between his bare feet. Beside it lay yesterday’s bottle of Scotch. Today’s was in splinters at the base of the wall where it had been thrown.

There were other bottles too. The room was a disaster, the trash can the only place uncluttered by discards. It stood empty, like a statement, by the open refrigerator door. Inside the fridge, a week’s worth of leftovers had become worlds for new life forms, and the odor was appalling.

The young man did not care.

“Dr. Sirois!” he shouted suddenly, remembering another name. With fevered hands he began his list again. Seventy-eight names now. Seventy-eight.