The Nameless Dead (5 page)

‘Maybe.’

Peter Sebastian sighed. ‘Look, the M.O.s are not so different. True, Laurie Simpson’s head was removed, but that’s a form of throat cutting, isn’t it? And that poor woman in Boston had a rope put round her neck—again, the throat.’

‘What about the postmortem mutilation of the first two victims?’ Bimsdale demanded, holding up his yellow pencil like a teacher questioning a pupil.

‘The records suggest that the Antichurch faithful tore apart the victims of human sacrifices.’

Bimsdale nodded. ‘But there’s nothing about organs being placed in or near the vicinity of toilets.’

Sebastian groaned. ‘Like all those indoor toilets in nineteenth-century Maine? Come on, Arthur, you’ve heard of metaphors, haven’t you?’

‘The victims’ head and tongue put where fecal matter goes? I see the rationale, sir, but it’s hardly an established methodology, even amongst fascists and Satanists.’

Sebastian was tempted to pull rank on his assistant, but he restrained himself. If his case struck a lowly agent as being flawed, what would the notoriously acerbic Director think of it? Then again, the Director had shown a personal interest in the murders from the start, and he’d been keen on a meeting even before his head of violent crime had been obliged to go to Boston.

The thing was, whatever the Bureau’s manuals said, investigating murder wasn’t only about collecting and collating evidence. You had to go by your gut as well, and Peter Sebastian’s had been telling him from the moment he saw the swastika above the heaped innards in Greenwich Village that Rothmann was pulling the strings, even though he’d still hedged that conclusion until the house on Lake Huron.

The question was, what to do? Given the distance between the various scenes and the skills demonstrated by the killer, it would be impossible to predict who and where the next victim would be—and he was sure there
would be more. They could either sit back and let the bastard run with it until they nailed him, or launch a preemptive strike. Convincing the Director to go with the latter would be a hell of a job, he knew. But at least he had a card up his sleeve: the former Rothmann subject Matt Wells.

B
ack in our apartment, Karen was sitting at the table. She looked up at me and laughed. ‘Oh, dear. Was the nasty man a handful?’

I managed to bite my tongue. ‘What have you got there?’

‘A very nice laptop,’ she replied. ‘With full internet access. Julie Simms brought it round. There’s a note from Peter Sebastian, saying it’s time we rejoined the real world.’

I looked at the screen. Karen was on the Metropolitan Police website, reading emails. ‘Should you be doing that?’

‘Officially, as I’ve just discovered, I’m on maternity leave. They haven’t blocked access to my in-box, so I’m contacting my team.’

I stepped out of range. ‘Will they remember who you are?’

‘Ha, ha, Matt.’

I’d almost forgotten how attached she was to her job. They’d have to fire her to get rid of her, and they’d be reluctant to do that, both on legal grounds and because she
was a highly effective detective. They probably hadn’t bothered to block her correspondence because Sebastian had told them she didn’t have internet access. Which raised an interesting question. Why had he suddenly authorized that, on the same day I’d been given unarmed combat training? Something was changing in the way the U.S. authorities regarded us.

I had a long shower, which helped the aches and pains a bit. What state would I be in after a week of this? Not that I was going to give Quincy Jerome the satisfaction of scaring me off. I needed to be in the best possible shape in case we were let out. It wouldn’t take Sara long to catch up with us. She had ears and eyes all over the place.

When I emerged, I found Karen in the kitchen. She was grilling pork chops, though her own regular evening meal consisted of peanut butter on brown bread.

‘You don’t have to do that,’ I said, encircling her girth with my arms. ‘You need all your strength to make those horrible sandwiches.’

That got me two elbows in the midriff, and they hurt a lot more than before Quincy had put me through the grinder.

‘Aren’t peanuts supposed to be dangerous for small children?’

‘After they’re born, idiot. I don’t know, I act like the good housewife cooking your dinner and all I get is mockery.’

I didn’t want to tire her out with a bout of verbal sparring that would end in inevitable victory for me, so I let that go. We ate and retired to the sofa. She fell asleep not long afterward, so I went over to the computer, flexing my fingers. It was weeks since I’d typed. There was
another problem. Would I be able to remember all the passwords for the firewalls I’d set up to keep Sara out of my life? As it turned out, my memory worked fine, suggesting that Dr. Rivers was right about the conditioning wearing off.

I managed to dredge up the email addresses of my family and friends from my memory as well and sent them all messages, hoping that Sebastian’s team wouldn’t censor them. My family had been advised by the Foreign Office that Karen and I were well but out of contact until further notice—the press hadn’t been given the details of our involvement in the cathedral action.

My in-box was full of unread messages. Over a year before, I’d instituted a daily reporting regime to ensure Sara didn’t pick us off one by one. My mother and thirteen-year-old daughter Lucy were frantic in their earliest messages. Even my ex-wife Caroline, Lucy’s mother, was fairly concerned. My closest friends had also been climbing the walls, convinced that the Soul Collector had made a move when they didn’t hear from me for so long. It was good to reassure them personally that we were well, not that I could tell them anything specific. I didn’t think we’d be allowed visitors anyway.

I thought about Sara. In the past she’d managed to access all my various communication systems, though more recently I’d had a high-level security system applied to my computers and phones. Even if she used other methods to find me, she’d struggle to get into the camp. On walks around the place, I’d noticed a very large amount of razor wire, as well as sophisticated monitoring gear of all kinds; and large numbers
of personnel, both in FBI jackets and army camouflage gear, all toting firearms. Which reminded me, if we were heading toward release, I’d need some time on a firing range. Even back in the U.K., with its zero tolerance policy toward handguns, I’d managed to equip myself with pistols. We’d have no chance against Sara without them.

I leaned back in the uncomfortable chair. Maybe Peter Sebastian wasn’t really planning on cutting us loose. He only knew about the Soul Collector by reputation, but he’d had experience of what Heinz Rothmann and his brainwashed mob could do with guns. With Rothmann still out there, Karen and I were targets if we were going to be staying in the U.S. until we were sent for trial—if that ever happened. Could it be that the Americans and the Brits had done a deal and we were going to be allowed home? Given what Karen and I had tried to do to the President, I didn’t think that was very likely.

When I looked up again from the computer, I noticed it was after midnight. I woke Karen up and walked her to bed. She was only semiconscious, but she managed to press my hand against her abdomen and kiss me before sleep swallowed her up again. I stood watching her, a stupid smile on my face. Then I remembered how it had been when Lucy was newly born—never more than an hour of sleep at a time, deafening wails, the endless changing of diapers. Soon I’d be going through that again. I had never thought I would, but the prospect didn’t induce panic. To my amazement, I was actually looking forward to it. How old would Magnus have to be before I could get him his first rugby ball?

I went out and made a jug of coffee, then spent the
next three hours getting in touch with people and surfing the web. Nothing earth-shattering seemed to have happened in the weeks since we’d been out of circulation—the usual earthquakes, changes of government, wars. There had been a string of grisly murders across the U.S.—Peter Sebastian, who was in charge of the FBI investigation, was quoted as saying that the fact the victims were involved in human rights activities and Democratic politics was not necessarily significant. Go, Peter, go. Asshole.

I diverted myself by checking the rugby league scores. My old club, the South London Bison, had lost their last four games. That put everything into perspective. I needed to get back there and do some coaching.

Eventually my eyes started to close of their own accord. I found myself checking my email in-box before logging off, as I always used to do—it seemed plenty of old habits had survived the brainwashing process. The second I took in the new message in bold, I sat up like an electric eel had brushed me.

The Soul Collector. Sara. I sat back, my heart thundering and my palms damp. The bitch. If I hadn’t been sure before, now I knew—nobody was safe, not Karen, not our son, nobody. The only way for us to survive was for me to kill my ex-lover. And the only way to do that was to offer myself as bait. But to do so, I needed to get out of the camp.

I was going to have to do whatever it took and, as my crazed ex-lover said, I would have to be ruthless—a rock; tougher and sharper than steel.

I needed more time with Quincy Jerome.

The woman was of average height and build, only the lightness of her movements suggesting that she maintained a high level of physical fitness. She wore a pale
blue tracksuit and a green baseball cap with the single word
Irish
on the peak. Any passersby on the street in Astoria who tried to make out her features had little luck. She used no makeup and her features apart from the high cheekbones were unremarkable. A ponytail of auburn hair sprouted from the back of her cap and the unusually bright winter sun brought the color out.

‘Hey, doll, you want to feel my olives?’

The woman stopped and looked back at the stallholder. He was short and swarthy, a slack smile on his lips. Olives in various shades of green and black were arrayed in large plastic trays.

The man tried again. ‘Just for you, from Kalamata with love.’

A plane taking off from nearby La Guardia roared above them.

‘What’s that?’ the stallholder said, leaning forward.

‘I said, your olives look beautiful, but I hate the taste.’ The woman’s voice was even and only marginally accented.

‘Hey, where you from?’ the man said, still eager despite the fading prospect of a sale.

‘Oh, here and there,’ replied the woman, her eyes invisible beneath the peak of her cap. ‘How about you?’

‘Astoria born and bred,’ he replied proudly. ‘My family’s from Greece.’

The woman smiled. ‘Land of brave heroes and tragic wives,’ she said, her voice hardening. ‘If memory serves, Queen Clytemnestra killed Agamemnon in the bath.’ She stepped forward, raising her hands as if she was brandishing a weapon. ‘With an ax.’

The stallholder took an involuntary step backward.
‘Crazy
poutana!
’ he yelled, as she disappeared into the crowd on the sidewalk.

The woman didn’t know Greek, but she could guess what the word meant. In a way, the fool was right. She was a whore, selling her services to whichever client paid most. But she didn’t open her legs for them. She…how did Havi, the guy who brokered her jobs, put it? She put people’s problems to sleep. That was quite poetic, even though Havi, a preening Puerto Rican who doubled as a Wall Street economist, wouldn’t know a poem from a postmodernist.

She was here in Queens to put a certain problem to sleep. It was a low-profile job, but she liked to kick back occasionally with something simple. There wasn’t much money in it, but that didn’t matter—she was making enough on the big contracts to retire in a few years. Not that she had any longing to duck out of the world she had slipped into so easily. The work was an addiction, but one with no side effects—as long as you weren’t in possession of a conscience.

The street she was looking for was off Ditmars Boulevard. The building was in reasonable condition and the vehicles parked by the curb were recent models, a mixture of family cars and SUVs. The red BMW Roadster stuck out like a thumb that had been caught in its door. She knew who its owner was. Besides, Havi had told her that the target always slept late and the presence of the car suggested his information was, as usual, correct. Glancing down the street in both directions and confirming there was no one nearby, the woman worked the lock. She was inside in under thirty seconds.

The lobby smelled of lemon cleaning fluid and dope.
She subdued a sneeze and headed upstairs, her sneakers making no sound on the carpeted steps. Jimmy Vlastos’s apartment was on the third floor. He had made a lot of money from a coke deal and had bought the whole building without a mortgage—officially with money given by his father, a ship owner. When she got to his door, the woman slid her right hand under her belt and took out the custom-made switchblade. The blade glinted in the light from the cupola.

It took slightly longer to open these locks. The question was, had the target applied the chain? Negative. Either he wasn’t in after all or he’d forgotten after a long night in his cousin’s club. She slipped inside and closed the door quietly behind her.

The apartment was a blaze of glass and stainless steel, the drapes open to admit the sun. There were magazines all over the place, women in minimal clothing displaying their charms in positions that must have been agony for more than a few seconds. The musty smell from an ashtray full of roaches was cut by something sweet and mildly rotten. A bottle of Southern Comfort had spilled its contents onto an ugly purple rug.

The woman headed for the bedroom, extending the hand that held the well-honed plastic blade. She knew which door it was from the plan Havi had sent. Although it was closed, the sound of snoring announced that the resident was, indeed, present. She gripped the handle and turned it, her shoulder against the paneling. Then she was betrayed.

As the door opened, the hinges let out a loud screech. The woman moved forward quickly, but the man in the bed was instantly alert. He leveled a snub-nosed
revolver at her before she was halfway across the varnished wood floor.

‘Who the hell are you?’ Vlastos demanded, his gun hand steady.

The woman slowly lowered the knife to her hip. ‘I’m dropping this, okay?’

‘You do that, bitch,’ Vlastos said, his eyes boring into hers. ‘That’s better. Now answer the fucking question. Who are you?’ Keeping the gun aimed at her chest, he pulled aside the quilt and stood up. He was naked.

‘Nice weapon,’ the woman said, flicking her eyes toward his groin.

‘Quit playing around. Take off that cap. Slowly.’

She complied, letting it fall to the floor beside the switchblade.

‘Now take your top off.’

So much for not getting distracted, the woman thought. She raised her hands to her neck and pulled the zipper down. Then she shucked the tracksuit jacket off.

Jimmy Vlastos eyed her breasts, which were accentuated by a tight white T-shirt. ‘Who are you working for?’

The woman smiled. ‘You don’t want to know.’