Joe Kurtz Omnibus

by Dan Simmons

  “While you were in Canada?”

  “Yes. I have been in Toronto for more than two months, waiting until Yasein could bring me into the United States of America.”

  “What did he tell you about working for the CIA?”

  The girl sipped her tea. She seemed very calm, her large, brown eyes dry, her voice steady. “What do you want to know, Mr. Kurtz?”

  “Did he give you any names? Tell you who approached him about working for the CIA?”

  “Yes. His controller was code-named Jericho.”

  “Did he give Jericho’s real name?”

  “No. I am sure that Yasein did not know it. He wrote me that everyone in the CIA used code names only. Yasein’s code name was ‘Sparrow.’”

  Kurtz looked at Arlene, who was on her third Marlboro. “How did Jericho first contact Yasein?”

  “He came into an…how do you say the word? Room in police headquarters where people are questioned?”

  “Interrogation room?”

  “Yes,” said Aysha in her pleasant accent. “Interrogation room. Mr. Jericho came to see Yasein in the interrogation room when Yasein was arrested as an illegal immigrant and possible terrorist.” She sipped her tea and looked at Arlene. “My Yasein was not a terrorist, Mrs. DeMarco.”

  “I know,” said Arlene and patted the girl’s arm.

  Kurtz rubbed his aching head and raised his coffee cup, letting the steam from the coffee touch his face. He’d wakened at five with the mother of all headaches and gotten out of the Harbor Inn before the cops showed up. An anonymous call to Erie Medical Center hadn’t even told him if Rigby was alive—they’d asked him repeatedly if he was family and tried to keep him on the line; Kurtz had left the pay phone quickly.

  “So Yasein was taken into the Buffalo police headquarters?” asked Kurtz. “Or the federal building?”

  “It was, as you say, federal,” Aysha said carefully. “He wrote that it was Homeland Security people who detained him.”

  “FBI?”

  The pretty young woman frowned. “I think not. But my Yasein was not proud of being detained, and he did not share all details.”

  “But this Jericho CIA guy first talked to him while he was in detention either at the Justice Center or FBI headquarters here in Buffalo?”

  “I believe, yes. Yasein did write to say that he had been terrified—they arrested him on his way home from work, four men, put a black bag over his head, and drove him to the center where he was interrogated. He wrote that it had smelled like a large building—parking garage in the basement, a…what do you call a very quick and direct lift?”

  “Express elevator?” said Arlene.

  “Yes, thank you. They took an express elevator from basement. My Yasein’s hands were handcuffed behind him and he had black bag over his head, but he could hear. And smell. It was a tall building, at least twenty stories tall, with many offices and computers. Several men from Homeland Security questioned him for two days and two nights.”

  “Was Yasein kept in a holding cell?” asked Kurtz. “With other detainees or prisoners?”

  “No. He wrote me that they kept him in a small room with a cot. It had a sink but no toilet He was very embarrassed that he had to…how do you say it? Urinate?”

  “Yes,” said Arlene.

  “That he had to urinate in a sink when they came for him late on the third morning. That is when he met the CIA man. Mr. Jericho.”

  “But no description of this Jericho?” said Kurtz.

  “No.” The girl ventured a small smile. “Are CIA spies allowed then to send descriptions of their fellow agents in letters?”

  Kurtz had to smile back. “I don’t think CIA agents are allowed to write letters to their fiancées about any of this stuff. But who knows?”

  “Indeed,” said Aysha. “If your CIA is like our State Security Service in Yemen. Who does know?”

  Kurtz rubbed his head again. “But it was this Mr. Jericho and the CIA who provided Yasein with the money to bring you in?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you had to wait almost ten weeks in Canada after they flew you from Yemen to Toronto.”

  “Yes. I wait while Yasein earn the rest of the money to pay men to bring me across the border.”

  “If it was the CIA, why didn’t they just bring you straight into the States?”

  “That would be illegal, Yasein tell me in letter.”

  Kurtz looked at Arlene and resisted the urge to sigh. “But they were training Yasein to kill a parole officer,” he said.

  “So you tell me. Yasein never wrote about the name or nature of the…is ‘operation’ the right word, Mrs. DeMarco? For secret CIA plan to assassinate someone?”

  “Yes,” said Arlene.

  “My Yasein was no killer, Mr. Kurtz. He was trained as a mechanic. Does that wound hurt you?”

  “What?” said Kurtz. He’d been thinking.

  “The head wound. It was not stitched correctly and has not healed properly and the bandage is all bad. May I look at it?”

  “Aysha was trained as a nurse,” said Arlene, rising to get more coffee and tea for them all.

  Kurtz shook his head. “No, thanks. It’s fine. Did Yasein say anything else about the CIA or about Jericho?”

  “Just that two weeks after he agreed to work for them, they brought him to CIA headquarters, where they trained him.”

  “In Langley, Virginia?” said Kurtz, surprised.

  “I do not know. My Yasein said it was on a…what do you call a farm for horses? Expensive horses, such as the kind they race in Derby of Kentucky?”

  “Thoroughbreds? A sort of ranch?”

  “Not ranch,” said Aysha, frowning as she hunted for the right word. “Where they do the breeding of expensive horses?”

  Kurtz had no idea what she was talking about. He drank more coffee and closed his eyes against the headache.

  “Stud farm,” said Arlene.

  “Yes. They trained my Yasein how to fire guns and do other CIA things at stud farm in the country. Several men, all with code names, taught him over three-day Labor Day weekend. He had to pass test before being allowed to return to Buffalo and go back to work.”

  “How’d he get to this stud farm?” asked Kurtz. “Did he tell you in his letters?”

  “Oh, yes. He said that they flew in a private CIA jet. Yasein was very impressed.”

  “So am I,” said Kurtz.

  Aysha had gone to her room while Kurtz and Arlene spoke in the small, neat living room.

  “I want you to take the girl and go to Gail’s place this afternoon when I leave,” Kurtz said.

  “Is someone after us, Joe?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Is it the Burned Man?”

  “Probably,” said Kurtz. “But I have a hunch he won’t show up today. But stay at Gail’s tomorrow until I call or show up.”

  Arlene nodded. “What do you think of Aysha’s whole CIA story?”

  “Well, it’s absurd,” said Kurtz. “But it fits, in a weird sort of way.”

  “How so?”

  He shook his head. He didn’t want to tell Arlene about last night. Not yet. With luck, never. He’d read her copy of the Buffalo News, even turned on the local TV news when he’d arrived, but there was no mention of the bloodletting, fire, and mayhem in Neola the night before.

  Incredible, he’d thought if they can keep that covered up. It must be the CIA or Homeland Security or some serious federal agency involved. Either that or the local authorities kept it all hushed up.

  But why train an illegal Yemeni immigrant trained as a mechanic, to kill a parole officer? If the feds were covering up for the Major’s drug-and-spy operation down there, why draw attention by shooting Peg O’Toole? None of it made any sense.

  “None of this makes any sense,” said Arlene. She batted ashes into an old beanbag ashtray.

  Kurtz just sighed. He expected the front door to be kicked in with a hydraulic ram any moment and for Paul Kemper to lead a SWAT team
in.

  As if reading his mind again, Arlene said, “Gail will call from the hospital as soon as she hears about Detective King.”

  Kurtz had told her about Rigby. Arlene’s sister-in-law was a pediatric nurse at Erie County, and it was the only way he was going to find out whether Rigby King was dead or alive.

  “Were you going to call the ex-director today?” asked Arlene.

  “Who?” Kurtz had no idea what she was talking about. His head seemed to be full of bees. I don’t know why. I got a full two hours sleep.

  “The ex-director of the Rochester Psychiatric Hospital,” Arlene said patiently. “You asked me to get his home phone, remember? He’s living in Ontario on the Lake.” She handed him a slip of paper with the number on it.

  “All right,” said Kurtz. “Can I use your kitchen phone?”

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-EIGHT

  It was cold and windy again when Kurtz headed south out of Buffalo just after dark. Driving through residential neighborhoods near the park from Gail’s home, he saw kids in costumes carrying plastic pumpkins going from door to door.

  It’s Halloween. As if he had to be reminded. It was raining off and on and the air smelled like the rain wanted to turn to snow. It was almost cold enough.

  Kurtz was wearing another dark outfit, black jeans, the Mephistos, and dark sweater, all under his peacoat He’d tugged a navy watch cap down gingerly over his aching scalp. He’d borrowed Arlene’s Buick, leaving her and Aysha the Pinto. But they wouldn’t be using it tonight. Gail DeMarco’s second-floor apartment on Colvin north of the park was small—one small bedroom for Gail and a tinier one for Rachel, but they didn’t seem to mind sharing tonight. Arlene said that she was going to bunk with Gail, Aysha was going to get the fold-out couch, and they were all going to make some popcorn tonight and watch videos of “The Thing from Another World” and “The Day the Earth Stood Still” in honor of Halloween. Rachel would love the company, Gail had said.

  Kurtz’s mind wanted to linger on Rachel, but he skittered away from that topic, recalling his conversation with Dr. Charles from the psychiatric hospital instead.

  “Yes, of course I remember the fire,” the old gentleman had said. “A terrible thing. We never did find out how it started. Several people died.”

  “Including Sean Michael O’Toole?” said Kurtz.

  “Yes.” A pause. “Did you say you worked for the Buffalo Evening News, Mr. Kurtz?”

  “No, I’m a freelancer. Doing a magazine article. School shootings are hot these days and Sean Michael O’Toole was an early school-shooter.”

  “Yes,” Dr. Charles said sadly. “Columbine still seems fresh, even after all these years.”

  “Did you ever hear your patient—Sean—referred to as the Dodger?” asked Kurtz. “Or the Artful Dodger?”

  “The Artful Dodger?” said the old man with a chuckle. “As in Dickens? No. I’m sure I would have remembered that.”

  “You say he had visitors the day of the fire,” prompted Kurtz. “In fact, the fire broke out in the visitor’s wing while they were there.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember who the visitors were?”

  “Well, one I certainly remember,” said Dr. Charles. “It was Sean Michael’s younger brother.”

  “His younger brother,” repeated Kurtz, pausing as if he was writing this down. Arlene’s kitchen looked out onto a tiny backyard. Sean Michael O’Toole had no siblings. “A year or two younger than Sean?” said Kurtz. “Redheaded?”

  “Oh, no,” said Dr. Charles. “I met him and his friend when they signed in to see Sean. Michael Junior was much younger than our patient—he was only about twenty. Sean had just turned thirty that week. And Sean’s younger brother didn’t look at all like Sean—much darker, much more handsome.”

  “I see,” said Kurtz, although he didn’t see at all. “And who was the other man visiting?”

  “I don’t remember. He didn’t speak at all during the time I was chatting with Sean’s younger brother. He seemed—distracted. Almost drugged.”

  “Was he, by any chance, about Sean’s height and age and weight?” said Kurtz.

  The doctor was silent for a moment while he tried to recall. “Yes, I believe he was. It’s been fifteen years, you know, and—as I said—the other visitor didn’t speak when I was talking to Sean’s brother.”

  “But both the brother and other man got out of the burning building all right?”

  “Oh, yes.” Dr. Charles sounded distressed by memories of the fire even after all these years. “There was much confusion, of course—fire engines arriving, patients and attendants screaming and running to and fro, but we made sure that all our visitors were safe.”

  “Did you see Sean’s brother—Michael Junior—and this other man after the fire?”

  “Very briefly. Sean’s brother was fine and the other man was receiving oxygen.”

  “Did he go to the hospital?” asked Kurtz.

  “I don’t believe so, no. What are you driving at, Mr. Kurtz?”

  “Absolutely nothing, Dr. Charles. Just curious about the details. You say that no visitors were seriously hurt in the fire. Nor attendants. Just the three inmates?”

  “We preferred to call them patients,” Dr. Charles had said coolly.

  “Of course. Just the three patients died. Including Sean Michael O’Toole.”

  “That is correct.”

  “And did you carry out the identification, Dr. Charles?”

  “Of two of them I did, Mr. Kurtz. With Sean Michael, we had to resort to remnants of clothing, a class ring he was wearing, and dental records.”

  “Provided by his father?” said Kurtz. “By Major O’Toole of Neola?”

  “I believe so, yes.” The ex-director’s friendly voice was no longer friendly. “What are you getting at, Mr. Kurtz? This is no idle curiosity.”

  “One never knows what one’s readers will find interesting, Dr. Charles,” Kurtz had said in his most pedantic voice. “Thank you for your help, sir.” And he had hung up.

  Kurtz drove the Buick east and then south on the four-lane 400, following it into the dark hills when it became Highway 16. The little towns passed one after the other. There was almost no traffic. In the tiny town of Chaffee, Kurtz could see late-night trick-or-treaters going from one large, white house to the other down a tree-lined street. Dead leaves skittered across the highway. Clouds ran ahead of the wind across a cold, quarter moon. It looked, felt, and smelled like Halloween.

  Kurtz had watched the evening and late-night local news at Gail’s place—he sensed that Gail didn’t like him and was nervous when he was around, but he didn’t know why—and there had been no mention of the Neola massacre. There had been a fifteen-second piece about a Buffalo police detective being shot—the officer had been in surgery that day and there were no details or leads at this time. She was expected to recover.

  Gail had kept Arlene posted during the day on Rigby’s condition—which had been upgraded from critical to serious by the end of the day. The ICU nurses had told Gail only that Detective King had a twenty-four-hour police guard outside the unit and that a black police detective had been there much of the day waiting for the patient to regain consciousness.

  Kurtz listened to his favorite Buffalo jazz station until the signal faded as he got into the deeper valleys near Neola. He realized that he was half-dozing at the wheel when he passed under the Interstate and found himself on the four-lane road for the last seven miles into Neola.

  The city was asleep, the over-wide Main Street empty and mostly dark. It had rained hard here from the looks of it and the orange-and-black crepe paper decorations on some of the shop fronts were wilted and wind-torn.

  Kurtz drove through town slowly, confident that the Neola Sheriff’s Department wouldn’t be on the lookout for a late-model blue Buick. Although one person here has seen this car—up at the Rainbow Centre Mall.

  He crossed the bridge over the Allegheny, turned left on the coun
ty road, and killed the headlights as soon as he turned off the paved road. Kurtz tugged down the military-spec night vision goggles and powered them up, easily following the gravel road and then dirt ruts up the hill the way he had come before.

  Parking at the barricade, he got the gear he needed out of the backseat, tugging some on, then pulling on the peacoat again and filling the pockets with extra clips for the Browning and two flash-bangs, then tossing the empty ditty bag onto the backseat.

  He went up the hill, crawled through the same cut in the fence he’d made the day before, but then made a wide loop around the forested hill, planning to come over the top and then down into Cloud Nine. The night vision goggles made the weak moonlight and occasional starlight as bright as daylight.

  He was following the rails of the kiddie railroad near the top of the hill, Browning still in its holster, when he heard the noises and saw the moving lights.

  Music. Organ-grinder, calliope-type music. Coming from where the midway had once been. And lights moving there. A partially illuminated Ferris wheel turning.

  But another light and a louder noise loomed closer, higher up the hill, here where Kurtz lay waiting.

  The train was coming.

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-NINE

  The train’s single headlight blinded him from fifty yards away as it turned around the curve of the hill and chugged toward him down the gleaming green-white tracks.

  Kurtz tugged off his night-vision goggles and let them dangle around his neck as he climbed fifteen yards up the hill and hid in some thick shrubs. He racked a slug into the Browning’s chamber and propped his elbow on his knee, holding his aim steady as the train racketed closer. Avoiding looking into the single, bobbing headlight, Kurtz pulled the goggles up and into place.

  Then the amusement-park mini-train was chugging past him, filling the air with its two-stroke lawnmower engine chug and exhaust stink. And then it was past, rattling and rocking around the curve of the hill and into the woods to the south.

  “Jesus,” whispered Kurtz.

  There had been no driver, the engine car was empty. But the following three cars, each styled like a passenger or freight car in miniature, but each also open to the air and just big enough for two children to sit in comfort or a single adult in discomfort, butt on a low cushion and knees high, had been carrying passengers. Kurtz had counted eight corpses propped up in the passenger cars—four dead men, two dead women, and two dead children.