Assassins - Ian Watson & Andy West (14 page)

At the very least, Jack surmised, Abigail was
a lens through which the origin and motives behind
Eagle
Teacher
might be discerned, a lens he very much needed to see
through.
And she could still be taught that resisting him wasn’t
at all wise.

He punched a button on his desk-phone.

“Leviticus,” he said slowly. Using
code-names, even in the office, added to the aura of fear he liked
to project.

“Cut fawning! I’m giving you a break. You’re
back on the street. Yeah, thank me later,
if
you don’t screw
up! I’m sure you remember the guy who damaged your nose. Yeah, him.
Search his apartment. And while you’re about it, trash the place.
Hey, I’m offering you revenge and a second chance too, all in one
shot! Yeah. No. Find anything you can to do with the case, and
whatever else that might be embarrassing. If there’s anything even
remotely dodgy, make sure some uniforms find it too. Come to think
of it, even if there’s
nothing
dodgy, make sure uniforms
find something. Unregistered gun, small stash… Yeah, Yeah. That’s
the idea. Do it today, now… as soon as he goes out to work or
whatever.”

He would start by isolating Abigail. That was
the way to go. She’d recruited her boyfriend to the cause, whatever
her cause might actually be, so he was fair game.

He punched the phone again.

“Hi Jenny.” She didn’t have a code name of
course, although he’d thought of some, mostly very un-biblical.

“Yeah, rain again. Yeah, tough. Look, I want
you to start a new subject file. Er… Paul Summers, reporter at the
Boston Globe
. Yeah, anything and everything you can, just to
kick us off. Okay. That’ll be fine. Okay, thanks.”

Southern Ethiopia:
July 1158

Hakim surveyed the naked prisoner huddled in the main
monkey cage. Subjected to daily spear-jabs, aimed only to torment
him yet never to injure him too much, afflicted by numerous monkey
bites and scratches, subsisting on whatever monkey food he could
scavenge, he was a pathetic figure. In fact absolutely wretched,
his scrawny flesh covered in scabs and suppurations. Ah, the
indomitable nature of the human spirit, thought Hakim. How ironic,
how vile, that the doomed will still struggle for survival. Yet, in
this prisoner’s position, what would he himself do? Would he have
the courage to starve himself? Or refrain from drinking the unclean
water? Maybe try to swallow his own tongue in order to choke
himself?

Roxbury, Boston,
Massachusetts: May

Walid al-Areqi pulled his robe closely about him as
he strolled along Columbus Avenue. The late night air was quite
nippy, more like Fall than Spring, and rain seemed to be
threatening as dark, raggy clouds hid the stars. An empty yellow
cab cruised by at no great speed, but Walid could tell that the
vehicle was registered in Cambridge, thus it couldn’t legally pick
him up in Boston even if he waved; and anyway he ought to walk
home, for the exercise. A sudden downpour wouldn’t harm him. Years
ago, he might have interpreted a vacant cab ignoring a signalling
man, dressed such as he was, as ethnic prejudice. Now, he knew much
better. How many rages and acts of violence in the world were due
to mere misunderstandings?

So he was very pleased he could help Abigail
to cast some enlightenment and also to further their blossoming
friendship. Via her publications, a greater understanding of
Islamic literature would penetrate western minds. And how curious
that the obscure topic she was currently pursuing with such
tenacity was connected to the perplexing scholarly problem he’d
been wrestling with himself – the alternate and mysterious, almost
buried Ismaili interpretation of
the waters of life
. Yet it
seemed this was so, and it gratified him to have made some
reportable progress. He should also introduce her to Kamal as soon
as may be. It gratified him too to flatter Abigail a little,
emphasising her Frenchness, her looks. Then a wry smile escaped
him. How ridiculous! For a man his age to act so, just because she
was pretty.

Rain began to spit. Though only to spit.
Under a streetlamp a king-size discarded pizza box grinned, graphic
eyes of sliced pepperoni, nose of chilli pepper, smiley tomato
paste mouth. Walid felt a sudden, childlike impulse to kick the box
along the sidewalk. That wouldn’t be very dignified! Besides, maybe
a rat had slunk inside the gaudy cardboard, smelling a faint odour
of food. Even so, his feet performed a little jig and he recalled
games of football long ago in dusty, war-damaged places.

He passed a parked black SUV in which someone
was sitting. Momentarily their eyes met. A round-faced Asian of
some sort, with light-chocolate skin, so it seemed in the poor
light. Maybe Filipino or Indonesian or from somewhere thereabouts.
The man seemed to have one eyebrow above another on the right side
of his face, which looked a bit weird; though the Asian then looked
away.

Walid proceeded in a reverie and turned into
a dark alley that was his usual short cut. He was a third of the
way along when bright lights flooded the narrow corridor of brick
and concrete from behind him, the glaring main beams of some
vehicle. As he glanced back it accelerated with a roar, filling the
alley with its rushing bulk, just as fear filled his mind. The
driver was mad! Cars normally ambled down here, so as to avoid
pedestrians.

Gesturing a warning, Walid flattened himself
up against the nearest wall. Dazzle that pained his eyes was
accompanied by an aghast and paralysing bafflement; the vehicle
didn’t intend to avoid him! Just seconds later, a moment of
crushing agony, almost too brief for any thought.

Beacon Hill,
Boston, Massachusetts: May

Abigail felt trapped. She wanted to be anywhere but
here, in Terry’s car, quite apart from the fact that it always
smelled musty to her.

“Sorry about the meal, babe,” he apologised
for the third time. “They’re a man down, I have to go in
later.”

She’d spent months trying to wean him off
that patronising word, yet he still slipped easily back to it.

“You should get a real job,” she sniped,
instantly wishing she hadn’t.

He parried, deflecting the attack. “You
didn’t like the movie then?”

She bit back the sharp
no
that formed
on her tongue. Why was she being so acid? It was nice of him to
take her out, and he’d done his best. A film about the Crusades she
hadn’t even known was playing. It was to have been followed by fine
home-cooking too, before the current bar he worked at had called
him in.

“Very dramatic,” she conceded. “But the
history was all wrong.”

He slipped a quirky smile her way. “Y’know,
you could suspend your rationality a bit more often.
Have some
fun
. I thought it was real good.”

Their talk was dancing within the strict and
tiring rules of a duel. Yet neither of them wanted to really wound
the other, so silence then reigned inside the car. Abigail was
relieved. But she’d put off broaching the big issues for far too
long. Collectively, those hung above like the sword of
Damocles.

Terry pulled up outside his apartment on
Myrtle Street, and turned to face her. A critical moment made
itself felt, like the sword’s point intruding.

“You could stay over anyhow.” His voice
scraped slightly in its effort to be gentle.

“Spend hours alone with nothing to do, then
have you wake me up at 2.30 am? Thanks but no thanks! I’d prefer to
go out and grab some dinner, then work at home with my papers, on
my own
computer.”

Terry’s brow furrowed. “And not alone? Not
for dinner anyhow?”

All gentleness in his voice had evaporated.
Why was he always so suspicious? Amazingly, she had once thought
his jealousy sweet. Now it infuriated her.

“I do have friends, you know,
if
I
needed to eat in company!”

“Oh yeah, I know,
I know that
.
Friends!”

Abigail realised the spat had left its normal
course behind. His voice was full and dripping with irony, his
mouth bitterly twisted, as though there was deeper meaning behind
his words that she ought to grasp. But she couldn’t. In some
confusion, she backed down. The point of that sword was far too
close; all she could think about was continuing to avoid it.

“Hey look, let’s not get mad,” she soothed.
“I have to come in for my bag. I’ll stay until you need to go. If I
get the subway later, you won’t use up time having to run me home.
There still an hour or more to chill out, and have a glass of that
wine you were going to treat me to.”

She finished with a bright smile. It worked,
but only just. Trouble still stalked behind Terry’s eyes. Something
had taken him to the edge, and, though she frantically searched her
memory, she couldn’t think what she might have done.

The fact that the apartment door was unmistakably
open didn’t compute at first. Terry stopped dead and gaped, the key
already raised in his hand. Abigail bumped into his back. The door
was ajar a couple of inches, and light streaming through the gap
seemed to mesmerise them both. Abigail recovered first.

“Careful!” she hissed. “Don’t go in.
Someone
might still be inside.” Terry charged in regardless.
Abigail followed.

Terry yelled an aggressive challenge as they
burst from the small entrance into the main living area. Yet his
voice died as they both gazed at the transformation of his familiar
and cosy room. It looked as though a pocket tornado had made a very
unsociable visit.

The floor was a sea of paper that sucked in
smashed picture-frames and ornaments, along with most of the
once-orderly miscellany of Terry’s life. Beached hulks of bookcases
reared from half-submersion in the mess, while stuffing from
slashed cushions floated like froth above angry waves. A bottle of
red wine on its side jutted precariously from a shelf; the stopper
Terry had put in only hours before now loose, allowing its contents
to drip into a shocked silence, spattering onto a metal tray
below.

Terry made a croaking sound, but actual words
failed him.

“They might still be here,” whispered Abigail
urgently.

He yelled again, though weakly now, and moved
cautiously off to check the other rooms. Abigail fought her fear
and stepped further inside. At a couple of places, broken glass
crunched under the heels of her leather boots. She attempted to
tiptoe, aware of her own shallow breathing, of tension in her neck
and shoulders, a readiness to flee.

“No one here,” announced Terry as he
reappeared. There was obvious relief in his voice. “But it’s
all
like this!” And dismay too.

Abigail relaxed a little. “Is anything
missing?”

He waved his arms around. “How the fuck would
I know?”

“Oh… yeah.”

He fished a picture of his parents out from
the jumble and tried to rescue the old photo from behind its
cracked glass.

“We should call the police.” She grasped his
shoulder to show support. The muscles were bunched-up. He
grunted.

“I guess, for all the good they’re likely to
be.”

“And we shouldn’t really touch anything. You
know, fingerprints and all that.”

Terry carried on with the mission to save his
smiling parents of thirty years back. He succeeded, but the glass
plate fell apart and cut his finger.

“FUCK!”

Blood dripped down, like the wine, but
darkening a swathe of earth where it touched; this shed from a
plant-pot that must have been flung across the room, ejecting its
cactus.

“Hey, hey. It’s okay,” soothed Abigail,
though it probably wasn’t. She found a clean tissue and stemmed the
flow, but not before a crimson circle had blossomed on the sleeve
of her white blouse.

“Here, hold onto that. Why do you think
someone would do all this? I mean, burglars don’t usually make such
a mess, do they?”

“I dunno. Maybe they were drugged-up, out of
their heads.” Terry was still in shock, staring around in
disbelief.

“You’re not
involved
in anything are
you?”

“ME!” he bellowed, his eyes suddenly blazing.
“
Me
involved in something?”

Terry’s abrupt rage caught Abigail completely
by surprise. She scrabbled about for some defence.

“Well, that loudmouth you banned from the bar
put a brick through your window at Christmas, and what about those
diamonds you hid for that other customer?”

Terry spluttered with fury before finding his
voice. “He just didn’t want his wife to find them! It’s hardly a
nefarious
involvement
. But what are
you
involved in?
Huh? How can you accuse
me
of stuff, with your secrets?” He
flung words like darts, thoughtlessly reaching for the next
ammunition while there was still something left to throw. “
What
about that guy who was following you? What was that all
about?
”

The tap of dripping wine on tin measured a
long and awful silence. Abigail found herself staring at him, while
her brain struggled to catch up. The anger was sucked from his
eyes, along with the blood from his cheeks. His lips quivered, as
though they would tug back what was said. She felt her own anger
and suspicion inexorably rising.

Somewhere a pivotal point was passed, which
somehow they both knew.

“What guy?” Her softly spoken question
nevertheless thrust into Terry like a knife.

“Abigail, Bee, please I…”

“What guy?”

Terry blinked to hold back tears. His slack
face admitted… what? Despair? Loss? She didn’t care.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry… I knew something was
going on. I got jealous…
only because I love you so much
. I…
I followed you. To Café Lorca. You met that dorky guy.”