Summit Kill

By Clark Howard

One man fights to foil a wild plot for worldwide destruction in this action-packed thriller from “a superlative storyteller” (Publishers Weekly).

Herr Inman has a plan and the resources to pull it off.First there will be five assassinations of powerful world leaders—including the pope—then three atomic bombs aimed at major cities. In the resulting chaos, Inman will take over the world . . .

Christian Alsen is a mercenary hired by Inman to put the scheme in motion. Instead, he sets out in search of a way to stop this madman . . .

Summit Kill is a thrill-a-minute, high-stakes tale from an Edgar Award–winning and Barry, Anthony, and Shamus Award–nominated author

• Language: English
• Publisher: MysteriousPress.com Open Road
• Release date: May 26, 2020
• ISBN: 9781504060714

Clark Howard

Howard Clark was a coordinator for War Resisters' International and embedded in civil peace initiatives in Kosovo throughout the 1990s. He is a founder of the Balkan Peace Team, and the author of People Power (Pluto, 2009).

Book preview

Part One: Tahiti

Chapter One

It seemed to Inman that he was forever looking out windows.

Aboard airplanes, as he was at that moment. Or as a passenger in an automobile somewhere. Or looking down at the street from some strange hotel room. His view of the world seemed always to be separated by glass, almost as if he were a spectator rather than a part of it all.

The No Smoking light flashed on above his seat, drawing his attention away from the window. He extinguished the cigarette he had been smoking, and in anticipation of the next instruction, snapped his seat belt in place. A moment later the Fasten Seat Belt light came on. Inman checked his watch, estimated that the flight would be landing about fifteen minutes later than scheduled, and turned back to the window.

Just past the tip of the jet’s starboard wing and far below Inman could see the island of Tahiti. Christian is down there somewhere, he thought. Not thought, really, but felt. Something inside, some part of his complex system of instincts, made him sense that this was where his search would end. Here on a French Polynesian island thirty-seven miles long and twenty-five miles wide, nestling in the south Pacific Ocean, comfortably removed from so much of the world’s anger.

Inman’s search for Christian Alsen had been a long one in terms of miles. It had begun in Cuba, led him then to the tiny republic of Ghana—it was there that he had learned of Graumann’s death—and then taken him back in the same direction from which he had come, to Mexico City. As long as Graumann had been alive, Christian’s trail had not been difficult to follow. Hans Graumann was known among mercenaries and freebooters as Fidel Castro was known among revolutionaries. And because Christian had been a freebooter with Graumann since the concentration camp at Ohrdruf, to follow Graumann had been to follow Christian. It was only after the fighting in Ghana, when Graumann had been killed, that the trail of Christian Alsen had become obscure.

Inman’s lead to Christian now was a postal box number in Papeete where funds were sent to him each month from the Banco Norte Americano in Mexico City. The funds originated, Inman knew, from a trust account in Stockholm where Christian, Graumann, himself, and other freebooters had kept their earnings from the war criminals hunt in the late forties and early fifties; from the Mau Mau business in Kenya; from French Indochina and Argentina and Cuba and wherever else they had fought and bled for passing glory and permanent gold. It had cost Inman a substantial bribe to a bank official in Mexico City to secure the forwarding address of Christian’s monthly withdrawal, but he was certain it would be money well spent. The Papeete postal box would be the final link in the chain that led to Christian Alsen: Inman was convinced of it. For the first time in his search, he felt close to Christian.

The big blue and white Pan Am jet touched down at Faaa Airport fifteen minutes past its scheduled arrival time. Inman debarked and crossed the landing apron with the other passengers. At fifty-one, his hair was swept with gray, he had a duodenal ulcer, and the little finger was gone from his left hand; but he walked as erectly and with as much vigor as a man a generation younger. The rapid graying of his hair did not bother him; he was still a handsome man, attractive to enough women to satisfy both his body and his ego. The ulcer, which required almost daily care and abstention from several of his favorite excesses, was more a bloody nuisance to him than a physical ailment. As for the missing finger, which had been shot off during an Arab-Israeli skirmish more than twenty years earlier, he had long ago learned to do without it. He was righthanded with both women and weapons, so the minor handicap of a slightly impaired left hand did not bother him physically. Psychologically, he was self-conscious of the appearance of the hand; with its end digit gone it looked too slim and frail to suit him. For that reason he kept it casually in his pocket a good deal of the time.

Inman entered Tahiti’s small but modern aluminum-and-glass air terminal and fell into the line that was forming at Immigration. The immigration officer was a Frenchman about the same age as Inman, though not in nearly as good condition. He wore khakis and a flat, round cap once associated only with Foreign Legionnaires. When Inman reached the officer, he handed him his well-worn passport.

You are Swiss? the immigration inspector said.

I believe that’s what the passport indicates, yes, Inman replied. He had little patience with petty officials who questioned the obvious.

Is your trip for business or pleasure? Immigration asked mechanically.

Pleasure.

How long do you plan to remain in French Polynesia?

No more than seven days.

The Frenchman thumbed through the passport to the first blank space and stamped the page. Enjoy your visit. Next, please.

Inman passed through to Customs, where the Pan Am flight’s baggage was being unloaded. He found his suitcase, a large black Hartmann made of industrial belting leather, which he had owned for seventeen years. He carried it over to the counter at the clearance exit. The customs inspector was a Tahitian, fat, frowning, wearing a short-sleeved white shirt with a badge pulling down one pocket.

Do you have any guns in your luggage? he asked.

No, Inman lied.

Any knives?

No.

Liquor?

No.

The Tahitian licked a green sticker and slapped it on the bag. Inman grimaced in distaste, picked up his bag, and passed out of Customs. He crossed the immaculate but somehow cold, sterile lobby and left the terminal.

Outside, putting on sunglasses against the brilliant South Pacific sunlight, he handed his bag to a pareu-shirted taxi driver. Take me into Papeete, please, he said as he got in the taxi. The Royal Hotel.

Inman settled back in the seat as the taxi left the airport and climbed a paved incline to the island’s main highway, some forty or fifty feet above the sea level landing strip. It was April and both sides of the highway were vividly alive with a profusion of hibiscus and bougainvillea and poinsettias, all wild and thriving lushly. Intermingled with the many flowers were croton shrubs in the red, blue, green, and yellow colors which Gauguin painted but which for so long no one believed. Inman, his head resting against the seat and turned slightly toward the window, was aware of the riot of color as the car wound and wove the three miles of twisting road to town, but he was totally unimpressed by it. He had traveled too much of the world in his lifetime, seen far too many highways outside far too many airports to be moved by any of it any longer.

Besides, his thoughts were distracted by the prospect of seeing Christian Alsen again after so many years.

The last time the three of them had been together—Inman, Hans Graumann, and Christian Alsen—had been thirteen years earlier. They had stood together as part of a group of freebooters in a corner of a dimly lighted prison yard in Jerusalem. It was not yet midnight; the desert sky was black, the prison yard gray and bleak: a patch of sandy dirt, crude stone walls, barbed concertina wire stretched out warningly.

The group watched as from a nearby doorway the war criminal Eichmann was led across the yard to a gallows. He was a slight, mediocre figure of a man: balding, wearing glasses, with a pronounced goiter at the front of his throat.

No wonder we could never find him during the five years we spent in South America, Hans Graumann observed. "Could anyone possibly look less like a mass murderer?"

Mass murders aside, Inman said, "he doesn’t even look like a Nazi. Bormann, now, that’s a different story. Bormann reeks of the swastika."

Standing between the two older men, his expression intense as he watched the condemned man walk to the gallows, Christian Alsen had said, half to himself, "I wish we had caught him. Or if not him, then Bormann. Or one of the big ones. If we had, perhaps we never would have gone back to Argentina after Indochina. Then we would not have fought in the revolution down there, and we wouldn’t have lost Erika."

Graumann put a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. What happened to Erika was destined to be, Christian. She chose to live as we lived. She knew how close to death she would always be.

Silence fell over the yard as Eichmann stepped up to the rope. He had in one hand a bottle of red wine, which he had asked for and been given an hour earlier, when he had been told that his final plea for mercy had been denied and that execution was to be carried out that same night. Now he drank a final time from the bottle and handed it, still a quarter full, to one of his guards. As his wrists were tied behind him and his ankles and knees bound, he stood erect and disturbingly calm, almost as if he were directing the proceedings; as if he were in charge, after so many deaths, of now still another.

A black hood was offered him, and he said in German, I do not need that. Then the noose was slipped tight to his throat, and in a voice as dignified as the rope would permit, Eichmann said, After a short while, gentlemen, we shall all meet again. Such is the fate of all men. Long live Germany, long live Argentina, long live Austria. I shall not forget them.

With that, when it became clear that he had no further words to speak, the trap was sprung and he was dropped.

Two hours later, in the bar of the King David Hotel, the three men drank and talked.

He died well, Graumann said over his whiskey.

As well as it’s possible to die, I suppose, Inman grudgingly agreed. He sat back in his chair and looked at his two comrades. Listen, I’ve been thinking. I was talking earlier about Bormann. He’s the last big one still out now. The Israelis would pay a pretty lot to get their hands on him. What if the three of us team up again and go after him—

You know Hans and I can’t go back to Argentina, Christian reminded him. There’s a price on our heads. We freebooted for Peron, remember?

Yes, but I fought for Lonardi, Inman said. "Suppose I could get pardons for you? Suppose I arranged it so that you could go back—"

We still would not go, Graumann said. He glanced at Christian. Because of Erika.

Inman sighed and returned to his whiskey. "Where will you go then?" he asked after a while. Graumann and Christian shrugged in unison.

Back to Cuba probably, Graumann said.

Why? Inman asked caustically. To retire?

You’re not going back then? said Graumann.

Inman shook his head. I think not. It’s become a bloody bore, training bearded Cubans day in and day out, and all the while knowing damn good and well that they’ll never use that training for anything except to train others just like them. He sat forward and made circles with his whiskey glass. I’ve no patience for it any more, he told them. "I want to do something positive again. Have some kind of goal."

Like finding Martin Bormann? asked Graumann.

That’ll do for a start, yes. Until something better comes along.

Well, I hope you find him, said Christian Alsen, raising his glass in salute. If you do, we can all meet here again to witness another hanging.

Yes, good luck in your hunt, Inman, said Graumann. If it weren’t Argentina, Christian and I might come along. But— He spread his hands resignedly and smiled.

I think you’re just using that as an excuse, Inman said easily. I think you actually like the soft life in Cuba. Maybe I wasn’t too far wrong when I asked if you planned to retire.

Maybe you weren’t, Graumann replied without offense. I’m not getting any younger, you know.

Do you know anyone who is? said Inman.

I know someone who isn’t, said Christian. Me. As a matter of fact, I just turned a year older. It’s past midnight so it’s the first day of June. My birthday. I’m twenty-six.

That had been in 1962, and Inman had not seen Christian Alsen since. And he would never see Hans Graumann again, because Graumann had died freebooting in Ghana four years later.

Inman’s thoughts returned to the present when he became aware that the scenery beyond the taxi window was no longer moving. The car had stopped, and the Tahitian driver was gazing out at the Papeete harbor. They were parked on the Quai du Commerce, in front of the Royal Hotel. The meter was still running. It registered 400 francs. Inman’s mouth tightened slightly at the indifference of the driver letting him sit there like that for God knew how long. Glaring at the man, he drew a thick wallet from his inside coat pocket and quickly, expertly thumbed through the U.S. dollar bills, British pounds Sterling, and Mexican peso notes. With the practiced expertise of the world traveler he was, Inman extracted a ten-peso note, two one-peso notes, an American dollar, and one British pound. He handed the odd mixture to the driver.

I have no French money, but I believe you’ll find that this comes to 411 francs when converted. May I have my bag, please?

A moment later, leaving the Tahitian suspiciously examining the money, Inman entered the hotel and said to the man at the desk, My name is Inman. I cabled from Mexico City.

The clerk silently checked a card file, nodded to himself, and pointed to a registration pad on the counter. Register there, he said indifferently.

Inman registered, was assigned a front room on the second floor, carried his own bag through the lobby and up the stairs, found the room, and let himself in. Thinking about the immigrations agent, the customs inspector, the taxi driver, and the desk clerk made him wonder with increasing impatience just where in the hell all the smiling, cheerful, happy-go-lucky natives were that he had always associated with the island of Tahiti. Everyone he had met so far had been either aloof, brusque, indifferent, or downright rude. Probably the French influence, he concluded grumpily. He had never cared for the French-particularly the women. He had found that they weren’t nearly what they were reputed to be, sexually or otherwise. Most of them were too sharp-tongued and bitchy.

Inman wasted little time getting used to the room. He oriented himself to its geography in a matter of seconds: bathroom on the left, closet on the right, bay windows facing the harbor, no connecting door to either adjoining room. Good. He unlocked and opened his suitcase on the bed, hung up his two spare suits and all-weather raincoat, put his shirts, socks, and underwear in the bureau, and his extra shoes on the floor of the closet. He took his shaving kit into the bathroom and lined its contents neatly on the shelf over the basin. Then he went out and sat down on the bed, lifted out the shaving kit’s false bottom, and removed a plastic-wrapped .38-caliber Beretta automatic pistol with two extra loaded magazines taped to its handle and barrel. Leaving the weapon and ammunition in the plastic, he lifted the corner of the mattress and hid the package between the box springs and mattress.

When all his unpacking was done, he sat down at the room’s tiny desk and took out a sheet of hotel stationery to write the note to Christian. He began without hesitation, for he had composed the note many times in his mind. He wrote:

Christian, my friend—

I am here at the hotel in Papeete. It is important that I see you as soon as possible. Please contact me however you wish.

Your old comrade,

I.

That would do it, Inman thought. It was brief and to the point but contained enough mystery to pique Christian’s curiosity. Even if Christian had no desire to find out why Inman was there, he would have to satisfy himself as to how Inman had found him. For his own peace of mind, his own security, it would be essential for him to know who Inman represented; and above all, who else now knew where Christian Alsen was hiding.

Yes, it was a good note, Inman told himself. And it would be effective. Christian would be lured out into the open again; Inman would see him, talk with him, evaluate his present capabilities; and if Christian had not changed much over the years (if he was still pretty much the perfectly balanced warrior he had always been) then Inman would enlist him in an intrigue to end all intrigues, a plot to end all plots, a plan that was the ultimate in revolutionary action.

It was a plan that Inman called the Summit Kill.

And it was a plan that Christian Alsen, if he was still the Christian of old, would be perfect for, Inman thought.

He sealed the note in an envelope and addressed it to the letter box where Christian received his monthly drafts. Within the hour he would personally have the envelope placed in Christian’s box. And unless Christian had slipped badly, it would be only a very short time before someone—whomever Christian had bribed in the post office-would get word to him that a stranger had left a letter for him. After that, it was only a question of how contact would be made.

Idly, Inman wondered how Christian would react to the plan. Probably negatively at first, he thought. But that was to be expected; after so many years away from the wars of the world, away from freebooting, a man would naturally be hesitant about returning. But Inman was prepared for that. He had a special incentive to offer Christian, an incentive that Christian would not be able to resist. Inman could offer him something that Christian had once valued more than anything in the world. And if he still wanted it, he would, to get it, have to participate in Inman’s plan.

On the other hand, if after all was offered, Christian could not be induced to join the conspiracy, then Inman would have to kill him.

Chapter Two

Shortly after seven o’clock that evening, the phone rang in Inman’s room. He was lying on the bed, fully dressed except for his coat, studying a map of the island. He reached over and lifted the receiver before it could ring a second time.

Hello,

Inman?

Yes. Christian?

Are you alone, Inman?

Yes.

All right. There’s a man outside your door. Open the door and go with him right now. He will take you to a place where I will meet you.

All right, fine, said Inman, He glanced at the open transom above the door. Whoever was out there would be able to hear him talking. Just give me a moment to put on my shoes.

He sat up and quickly slipped the plastic-covered Beretta from between the mattresses. Holding the telephone receiver to his ear with a hunched shoulder he unwrapped the weapon and silently eased a magazine into its grip. There was a soft click as it engaged.

How have you been all these years, Christian? he asked as he stood up and put the gun snugly under his belt just over the area of his left kidney. He took a clean, folded handkerchief from his right hip pocket, put the extra magazine inside its deepest fold, and returned it to his pocket.

Are your shoes on yet, Inman?

Yes, I’m all ready, he said. He shoved the plastic wrapping under a pillow.

Then hang up and leave immediately.

All right. Goodbye.

He put the receiver back and went directly to the door, picking up his coat and putting it on as he walked. When he opened the door, he found a tall, muscular Tahitian standing with folded arms facing him. The man had thick lips and a massive, hairless chest which was exposed beneath a buttonless pareu shirt.

Inman smiled. "I take it you’re