The Assassin Read Free Page A

cup of gourmet coffee. After he paid, he went to the stand where thermos bottles of cream, skim milk and 2 percent were located. He poured in a little skim milk.
    As he turned around with coffee in hand, a man said, “Come with me. Let’s get outta here.”
    Winchester followed the man, who was a little over six feet and lean, with thinning hair going gray.
    Out on the sidewalk, Winchester got a better look at the man who had spoken to him. His short hair was combed straight back, his nose was a trifle large, and he had the coldest set of gray eyes Huntington Winchester had ever seen. He was wearing jeans and a dark blue jacket. Under the open jacket he wore a golf shirt. The skin on his face, neck and arms was weathered—at some time in the past, probably a lot of times, he had been exposed to too much sun.
    “Name’s Grafton,” the man said. “I think there’s a boardwalk just up the way where we can talk.”
    Winchester walked along, his coffee in his hand. When they were both leaning on a rail looking at the bay, the man named Grafton said, “I hear you have a proposition.”
    Winchester glanced around to ensure there was no one in earshot and repeated the plan he had told the president. “I asked our mutual friend to find someone who could pull it off,” he said. “Apparently he thinks you are the man.”
    During Winchester’s explanation, he examined Grafton, who had his hands folded, his forearms on the rail. He was wearing a wedding ring and a cheap watch on a flexible band—no other jewelry. He looked, Winchester thought, like a truck driver, one close to retirement.
    Grafton said nothing, just looked at the bay and the boats and the people strolling on the boardwalk. “Mr. Winchester,” he said after a while. “I came today to size you up. I am not committed to anything, and you aren’t. Right now we’re just doing a little preliminary shuffling to determine if we really want to dance.”
    “What do you want to know about me? Ask away.”
    “There’s nothing to ask. I did a little research. You were born in 1955 to Robert and Harriet Peabody Winchester. You were the second of three sons. Your older brother is a banker with Merrill Lynch and your younger brother is a thoracic surgeon. You were educated as an engineer at Boston College, worked for several oil firms for the first five years after you got out of school, then founded a company that made oil field equipment. You sold that company ten years later for cash and stock, about six hundred million dollars’ worth. You bought another company, grew it, bought out a couple of competitors, and are now supplying oil field equipment to major producers all over the world. You have a net worth in excess of two billion dollars.”
    Grafton’s lips moved into a smile. The gray eyes crinkled, but they had no warmth.
    Winchester wasn’t impressed. “You could have gotten that information off the Internet.”
    “As of the close of business last night, you had a checking account balance of six hundred thirty-two thousand, three hundred and twelve dollars at the Bank of Boston. Your wife, Ellen Stalnaker Anderson Winchester, filed for a divorce on the nineteenth of October, but this isn’t the first time. Eleven years ago you had an affair with your secretary.
    Ellen found out about it and filed for a divorce then, but you reconciled. You gave the secretary a hundred thousand in return for a release of liability, fired her and haven’t ever seen her again.”
    “Okay, okay. I’m impressed. Just who are you, anyway?”
    “Name’s Jake Grafton.”
    “Were you in the Army?”
    “Navy.”
    “Retired Navy?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Do you work for the government now?”
    “CIA.”
    “Got some ID on you?”
    Grafton removed his CIA building pass and handed it to Winchester, who inspected both sides of it. It was about the size of a credit card, but heavier, and had Grafton’s photo on it. Under the plastic, out of sight, were magnetic strips