The Archangel Project

by C. S. Graham

  Tobie ran the cabin cruiser parallel to the shore. She wanted to put as much distance as she could between herself and the men she’d left swimming in the lake behind her. But she was shaking so badly she finally had to throttle back and simply let the boat idle in the water.

  Unwanted memories crowded in on her, of a desert night filled with tracers and bomb blasts; the ugly thump of bullets striking flesh; the sobbing screams of a frightened, hurting child. Letting go of the helm, Tobie slid to the floor, her arms hugging her bent knees tight against her chest.

  Eyes wide and vacant, Dr. Elizabeth Vu stared at her.

  Tobie tightened her jaw. She was not crazy and she wasn’t going to start acting like it. If she wanted to stay alive, she needed to think.

  She sucked in a deep, steadying breath, then another. She was on a boat in the middle of Lake Pontchartrain with two dead bodies. She couldn’t simply pull back into the marina and tie up at the dock. Even if Lance Palmer or his men weren’t there, waiting, she couldn’t risk being seen leaving the scene of another crime.

  A fly buzzed her face. She brushed it away, but it was back again in an instant. The smell of blood hung thick in the air, mingling with the briny fresh breeze coming off the lake. Beneath her, the cruiser rocked gently with the waves. Pushing to her feet, she stared off across the sun-sparkled water, her gaze scanning the shoreline.

  A stepped concrete seawall formed the edge of the lake here, with the grassy slope of the levee and a cluster of tall buildings marking the University of New Orleans rising up beyond that. In the distance she could see the sprawl of the Industrial Canal. There’d be a dock there, she thought, then realized she couldn’t risk heading into it. Even in this post-Katrina world, there would be too many people around. She needed to find someplace else, someplace like…

  Pontchartrain Beach.

  Her gaze focused on the small cove below the university. She’d heard that at one time the people of the city used to come here to swim and picnic. There’d been a pier and a restaurant, even an amusement park with a Ferris wheel, before the beach had to be abandoned with the rise of the pollution levels in the lake. Now there was only a deserted strip of weed-grown sand and the remnant of a storm-shattered pier that stretched out to nowhere.

  Squinting against the late afternoon sun, Tobie scanned the levee and the copse of oaks that grew on the small point just beyond the beach. No one was in sight. But she still didn’t like the idea of pulling into the cove with two bloody bodies sprawled across the deck in plain view. She went looking for a tarp.

  The only one she could find wasn’t big, which meant she had to drag Dr. Vu’s body closer to her killer in order to get the tarp to cover them both. She threw a quick glance at the dead man’s face and felt her stomach tighten. The bullet that killed him had taken out one of his eyes. She’d seen worse—much worse—in Iraq, but she’d never gotten used to it.

  That done, she rummaged around until she found an old T-shirt that she used to wipe down every surface on the boat she could possibly have touched, including the bow. Then she took the helm again and eased the throttle forward. Turning the bow toward shore, she ran the cruiser straight into the beach.

  The cruiser’s hull screeched along the bottom, then caught fast to lurch sideways at a drunken angle, the engines racing. She quickly killed the engine. In the sudden silence, she became aware of the sounds of the lake, the lapping of the waves against the cruiser’s hull, the cries of the gulls. She started to take off her sandals, then reconsidered. Surely footprints were as dangerous as fingerprints?

  She wiped off the helm again and slung her messenger bag over her shoulder. She had one leg over the side, ready to jump, when her gaze fell on the redhead’s Glock—the one that hadn’t been fired. Scooping it up, she shoved the gun into her bag.

  It was uncomfortably heavy, whacking against her hip as she eased herself over the cruiser’s side into the shallow water. But she was glad to have it as she splashed ashore, the sand sticking to her wet feet and legs as she crossed the narrow beach to climb the levee beyond.

  39

  Barid Hafezi was in his office at the University of New Orleans, checking the footnotes to a paper on the effects of corporate ownership of the news media that he was preparing for an upcoming journalism conference, when the phone on his desk rang. He stared at the phone for a moment. These days, every time the phone rang, he felt a twist of fear bloom in his gut. But he knew better than to ignore it.

  “Hello?”

  The voice on the other end was smooth, faintly mocking. “You know who this is?”

  Barid squeezed his eyes shut. “Yes.”

  “Good,” said the Scorpion. “I want you to do something for me tonight.”

  “I have other commitments.”

  “Cancel them. There’s a bar at the corner of St. Charles and Lee Circle. The Circle Bar. You know it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want you to go there. Have a few drinks.”

  “I am a Muslim. I don’t drink.”

  “You’re going to drink tonight. You have a credit card, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Pay for the drinks with a credit card. Leave the receipt on the table.”

  Barid felt a rush of helpless rage. “What is this about?”

  “That’s one of those questions you’re not supposed to ask, remember? You still have the package I sent you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I want you to take it with you to the Circle Bar. Leave it there, on the table with your credit card receipt.”

  “That makes no sense. No one takes a Koran to a bar.”

  The voice at the other end of the phone laughed. “Mohammed Atta did.”

  “And then he died. Along with nearly three thousand other people. Did you set him up, too?”

  The man on the other end of the phone was no longer laughing. “The Circle Bar, tonight. Or do I need to remind you what I’ll do to your children? Your little girl is very pretty, you know. While your son—”

  Barid bolted up from his chair. “You bastard. You stay away from my—”

  But the line was dead in his hand.

  Lance Palmer took the steps to Colonel F. Scott McClintock’s porch two at a time.

  Their background check on the Colonel had turned up some nasty surprises. Yes, the man was October Guinness’s VA shrink. But Lance didn’t like the fact that the psychologist’s time in the Army had been spent in intelligence. There were even hints that he’d been involved with the Army’s old remote viewing projects back in the seventies and eighties. Lance supposed it was possible McClintock was the original link between the Guinness woman and Youngblood’s program. But the fact that she’d called the Colonel this morning worried him. It worried him a lot.

  “Colonel McClintock?” said Lance when the old man answered the door. “Lance Palmer, FBI.”

  Colonel McClintock was a good six feet four inches tall, and still upright and solidly built despite his silver hair and lined face. He subjected Lance’s FBI credentials to a slow scrutiny before nodding pleasantly. “Gentlemen. How may I help you?”

  “We have some questions we need to ask you. May we come in?”

  The Colonel’s expression was professionally blank. “Actually, I was just on my way out.”

  Lance gave the man a tight smile. “I’m afraid it’s important. We won’t take long.”

  McClintock hesitated, then opened the door wide. “Glad to help in any way I can. What’s up?”

  They followed him into a book-lined study with a worn, tapestry covered sofa and a wide antique partner’s desk. “We’re investigating the murder of Dr. Henry Youngblood and the disappearance of October Guinness. We understand you’ve been treating her through the VA.”

  McClintock settled himself in a leather armchair and motioned for them to sit. “What do you mean, Tobie’s ‘disappearance’? Has something happened to her?”

  “We don’t know. She’s mentally unstable, is
n’t she?”

  “No.”

  Lance leaned forward, his forearms resting on his knees. “Really? It was our understanding she’s suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome.”

  “That doesn’t mean she’s unstable.”

  “She thinks she has ‘visions,’ doesn’t she?”

  McClintock reached out to fiddle with the heavy bronze statue of a man on a horse that stood on the round oak table beside his chair. It was a moment before he spoke. “Are you familiar with remote viewing?”

  Lance had a flicker of surprise. It was the last thing he’d expected the Colonel to bring up. Lance settled back in his seat. “That’s the project Youngblood was working on, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did Miss Guinness ever talk to you about the various sessions she did with Youngblood?”

  “No. She never talked to anyone about them. I think the entire program made her uncomfortable.”

  Lance nodded. It was good news. He didn’t want to have to kill Colonel F. Scott McClintock. There were already too many bodies piling up down here as it was.

  “Then why did she participate in it?” asked Hadley.

  The Colonel shrugged. “She needed the money, among other things.”

  “Has she by any chance contacted you since last night?”

  “No. But I wish she had. With all that’s been going on, I’ve been worried about her.”

  Lance and Hadley exchanged a quick glance. Lance cleared his throat. “According to our records, Colonel, Miss Guinness called you this morning.”

  McClintock’s poker face never faltered. “Tobie is my patient. I’m afraid that means her call to me this morning is protected by doctor/patient privilege.”

  “Did she tell you where she is?”

  “No.”

  It was a lie, of course, and they all knew it. The silence in the room stretched out, tense and brittle. Then the phone on the desk began to ring.

  Thrusting up from his chair, McClintock had taken two steps toward the desk before Hadley moved to block his path. “Leave it,” said Palmer.

  The phone rang one last time, then an answering machine somewhere at the back of the house kicked in. McClintock glanced from one man to the other. “I think you’d better leave now.”

  Hadley took another step forward, getting right in the Colonel’s face. “You’re lying, old man, and we know it. Where is she?”

  Reaching out, Hadley thumped the old man’s shoulder, shoving him back toward his chair. Only, rather than staggering backward, the Colonel pivoted with Hadley’s push and reached up to grasp Hadley’s arm and pull him forward.

  Caught off balance, Hadley stumbled into the chair, knocking it over and going down with it in an awkward tumble.

  Lance started to reach for his gun, but had to duck when the Colonel grabbed the bronze statuette from the side table and hurled it right at his head. “Stop him!” Lance shouted as McClintock bolted for the door.

  Still only half to his feet, Hadley managed to grab one of the man’s legs. Yanking out his Glock, Lance brought the heavy butt down on the back of the old man’s head.

  The blow dropped McClintock to his knees. Lance hit him again, the dull thwunk of the impact echoing through the silent old house.

  “The son of a bitch,” said Hadley, and kicked the man in the face.

  The sound of a woman’s voice from the sidewalk outside brought Lance’s head around. “Let’s get out of here.”

  40

  Back at the Hilton, Jax took a long shower and changed into a dry pair of khakis and a polo shirt. He tried one last time to call Sibel Montana, but when she didn’t pick up, he figured he was about to cross the line from sincere to a nuisance and gave it up. He hesitated, then punched in the number for Clare’s Florist on King Street.

  “What do you want on the card?” asked the girl who took his order for a dozen white roses.

  “Just…just, ‘Thanks for the good times, Jax.’”

  He went to stand beside the window overlooking the crippled city. Here and there tattered blue FEMA tarps still showed amid the scattering of new roofs and gaping demolition sites. New Orleans had turned into a strange hybrid, half bustling port and tourist city, half Apocalyptic ghost town. He couldn’t figure out if the place was depressing or inspiring. Maybe it was both.

  It occurred to him that in the past twenty-four hours, two of the people in his life had questioned his career choice. He wondered if maybe he was just being obstinate, staying with the Agency. He’d always had a habit of going against what people told him to do. At times that could be noble, something to be proud of. But sometimes it was just plain hardheadedness. Maybe this was one of those times. Except…

  Except that whenever he thought about quitting, he felt diminished. He felt as if he would be giving up or selling out. So much of the time, he knew, he was just beating his head against a wall of bureaucracy and corruption and stupidity. But every once in a while he really did achieve something—something he could walk away from knowing he’d made a difference. He couldn’t imagine anything else he could be doing that would make him feel so alive. He supposed it was the same instinct that drove other men to become priests or teachers. Perhaps at its heart that instinct wasn’t even altruistic. Maybe it was just another form of arrogance and pride. But he didn’t like to think so.

  He pushed away from the window and put in a call to Matt.

  “The girl’s still alive,” he told Matt, giving him a quick rundown of the afternoon’s events—although he left out the bit about the swim in the lake. “She’s badly spooked. She’s not going to be easy to bring in.”

  “Any idea yet who we’re dealing with here?”

  “I recognized the cowboy I shot. His name is Stuart Ross. Last I saw him, he was with Special Forces down in Colombia. If you can find out what he’s been doing for the last few months, it might tell us who we’re dealing with here.”

  “You think these guys are Special Forces?” Matt asked.

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Special Forces can’t keep their people any better than the CIA can. Everyone makes more money working for the big mercenary companies.”

  “Did you get the feeling the girl was the target, or was she just unlucky enough to stumble on a hit on Vu?”

  “I don’t know.” Jax hesitated, then added casually, “By the way, I’m going to need to rent another car.”

  Matt groaned. “What’d you do to the G6?”

  “Relax. It’s fine. It’s still at the marina. But I’m going to need to let it cool off for a while. Some of Ross’s friends might be on it.”

  “What are you leaving out, Jax?”

  “Leaving out?”

  “Yeah. After you shot Ross and Guinness kicked the other guy into the lake, what happened?”

  Jax stared out the window at a heavy belt of clouds building on the horizon. “She got the drop on me and made me jump overboard.”

  “She what?”

  “You heard me.” Jax held the phone away from his ear until Matt had finished laughing his ass off.

  “The lady sounds like maybe she’s smarter than anyone’s giving her credit for,” said Matt, when he caught his breath.

  “Smart? She’s crazy.”

  Tobie tried calling Colonel McClintock from a pay phone on the UNO campus, but hung up when his answering machine kicked in. She glanced at her watch.

  She felt a rising spiral of fear, as if her options were narrowing down. She thought about catching a taxi back to where she’d left her car by the marina, then decided to go see the Colonel instead. It was after five. If he’d gone for a walk with Mary and LaToya, he should be home soon. Maybe he’d learned something from his friends in Washington, something she could use to make sense of this mess. She clung to that hope as she waited for the taxi outside the Union building.

  But when her taxi finally drew close to the Colonel’s house, she could see the flashing red and blue lights of emergency vehicles from more than a block away. />
  “Pull up here,” she told the taxi driver.

  “But Soniat’s not for another—”

  “That’s okay. Just pull over.” She thrust a twenty at him and tumbled out of the taxi.

  A police car and an ambulance filled the street in front of the Colonel’s house. Tobie could see the broad back and close-cropped head of Mary McClintock’s nurse, LaToya. The Colonel was nowhere in sight.

  Clutching her bag to her side, Tobie ventured across the street and up about half a block, to where a knot of three women and two men huddled together at the end of a driveway. Neighbors, drawn out of their homes and into the street by the sound of sirens.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “It sounds like it must have been one of those home invasions or whatever they’re calling them these days,” said a plump, middle-aged woman with carefully coiffed platinum hair and a red boat-neck T-shirt decorated with an American flag appliqué. “LaToya came back from taking Mary for her walk and found Dr. McClintock unconscious in his library.”

  “He’s still alive?”

  “Yes. Although Laura heard someone say he’s been badly hurt. There’s just not enough police in this town, ever since Katrina. That’s the problem, you know. Not enough police and too many punks coming in from all over the country. New Orleans was bad enough before, but ever since the storm…”

  Tobie wasn’t paying attention anymore. She was watching the policeman who had just walked out of the Colonel’s house. He glanced up the street, and Tobie swung her head away, her heart thumping wildly.

  It had been a mistake to venture this close, she realized. Keeping her head down, she turned and forced herself to walk slowly back down the street. She kept her face averted until she rounded the corner. Then she broke into a run.

  She’d covered about two blocks, heading toward St. Charles, before the pain shooting up from her bad knee became so unbearable she had to drop down to a trot. But she kept moving.