Hardas nodded.
Fordham guided him to a rectangular door at the corridor’s end. He opened it to reveal a wide, brightly lit avenue that vanished into the distance.
“Below decks, we have rechristened this pathway Wilhelmstrasse.” Fordham continued. “We like to think of it as the Kaiser’s variation on a theme.”
The Wilhelmstrasse cut through the heart of Berlin. Hardas had seen it back in 2002, whilst on furlough. Every year, on the anniversary of Armistice, the German army paraded down its length as part of the victory commemoration.
Hardas stood watching doorways open and shut. He caught brief glimpses of the contents of the vast chambers that lay to either side of the passageway. He felt the blood draining from his face.
“When is it going to happen?” he asked.
“Maybe tonight, maybe never,” Fordham said, his palms in the air. “It all depends on what the Japanese do next.”
“It’s going to happen,” Hardas said. “This cost you too much for it all to be thrown away.”
“It was far less expensive than waiting for Camelot to produce any results.”
“We just needed more time,” Hardas murmured. With Saffel’s report confirmed, there was just one more detail he required. “Does Captain Lightholler know anything about this?” he asked.
“Why should he?” Fordham gave him a meaningful look. “The Kaiser did not want any interference with the peace process.”
Hardas could think of a few choice replies but chose to remain silent.
Back in the gymnasium, Fordham led him to an antique exercise device. “Recognise this, Commander?”
“I’ve seen the original.”
The machine had been hazy in the diluted beams of the submarine’s floodlights, lying on its side and adorned with the rust of eighty years’ exposure to the Atlantic’s icy grasp. His memory of the drowned ship merged with his presence in the reconstructed room. Briefly, Hardas felt the unsettling experience of standing upon the wreck itself.
“Of course you have, and what a sight she must have been.”
“She was,” Hardas replied.
“Astounding, isn’t it?” Fordham continued. “I come here and look at it often. A riding machine made up to look like a camel. So exotic, so unnecessary. What were they thinking?”
“Who?” Hardas was still caught in his reverie.
“The British. What dreams were they dreaming when they conceived of this monstrosity?”
Hardas placed a hand on the warm leather of the machine’s saddle. “Dreaming of an empire. One on which the sun was never supposed to set. It was a different time, I guess.”
“Yes, it was. 1912. A twilight dream to enjoy, with a terrible war on the horizon. Look around you, Commander. Look and think of it as it must have been. An unsinkable ship for an unconquerable nation.” Fordham raised an eyebrow, awaiting a response that wasn’t forthcoming. After a moment, he sighed. “And now a century has passed and all that was Britain’s belongs to us. All that was Alexander’s, Caesar’s, and Bonaparte’s. Sometimes I wonder if we shall fare any better. The fall of Troy only foreshadowed the rise of Rome, and she too fell. That brings me little comfort. Tell the major what you have seen; that his work and career have enjoyed my sympathies.” Fordham was looking again at the map he’d been examining when Hardas arrived. “If you or your companions should encounter any of my men, name the crowning achievement of dear Wagner’s work, Twilight of the Gods, for it is surely what you will witness.”
Hardas took a deck of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and lit up. His hands, almost dry now, cupped the glowing tip. Twilight of the Gods, alright. A lightning strike from Germany into the heart of the Japanese Occupation. It was bold and it was insane, but it was possible.
He finished his cigarette and tossed it into the swirling brown waters. He made his way to the gangway and stomped down the irregular wooden planks to the pontoon. As he looked up at the immense ship from the gently swaying platform, it seemed like the only solid object in the world. He turned away without another glance and strode the long expanse of the pier to the shore.
He walked along 23rd Street till it intersected Broadway, then turned downtown, contemplating the journey to come. He recalled the many hours he’d spent with Kennedy and the others, the seeds of their wild speculations evolving into a complex plan. A plan that relied more on hope than strategy, more on mania than method.
He walked the streets with his face set in a hard grimace that parted the scanty crowds before him.
X
Shine reassessed his orders. Kennedy had said, Keep a sharp eye out. Nothing more.
The two agents had burst through the door to find Shine standing in the hallway, an empty suitcase in his hands. They’d gone through the motions, searching the rooms of the brownstone and finding it otherwise empty. One of them caught a glimpse of the pre-Secession flag furled in the corner of the room. He snorted and said, “Where’s your boss, nigger?”, lowering his gun.
The other was reaching for his two-way radio. “Where’s Kennedy?”
“Can’t say where he is, sir,” Shine said, adopting a slight curve to his back and staring at the floor. “He just told me to pack his bags, like he always does. I don’t ask questions—none of my business.”
Shine approached the gunman deferentially, as custom required. Letting the suitcase drop to his side, he reached for the sheath by his bootstrap. They ignored him as expected. He slipped the blade between the agent’s ribs, slicing upwards, then back out. Nothing fancy. A quick pirouette and he triggered the knife’s grip. The blade shot across the room, embedded itself in the other agent’s throat.
Clawing at his lapels, the second man collapsed back. Shine crossed the room, knelt beside him and withdrew the splattered blade. The agent tried to say something. Shine replaced the blade in its grip and severed the arteries that coursed along his torn throat. He leaned over the body as the spray of blood slowly diminished. He turned of the two-way, rifled through the agent’s wallet, and produced a handful of false IDs, a CBI badge and a much-folded photograph of Lightholler. Shine pocketed them all, as well as the small Colt automatic tucked beneath the dead man’s armpit.
He looked up to find Kennedy and Hardas standing in the doorway.
“Just two of them?” Kennedy asked, surveying the carnage.
“Looks like two is all they sent, Major,” Shine replied. He realised his breath was coming in ragged gasps and stilled himself.
Kennedy inspected the bodies. “Reilly,” he said, looking at the dead gunman. “And that one’s Birmingham. What happened?”
Shine told him.
“Webster’s concerns must have gotten the better of him,” Kennedy said, finally. “They’re Wetworks.”
“They weren’t very good.”
“You surprised them.” Kennedy’s look was indecipherable. “I shouldn’t have called in.”
“They had to have tracked Commander Hardas here from the Waldorf, sir. It wouldn’t have made a difference.”
Hardas scowled.
Shine shrugged.
“Maybe,” Kennedy said. “Let’s clean up. If Morgan sees this, he’ll have a seizure.”
They dragged the bodies into one of the bedrooms and stowed them in an empty wardrobe. They worked on the carpet, scrubbing away at the stains. They ended up throwing a rug over the mess.
“What happens now, Major?”
“Tell him, David.”
“I’ve been down to the ship. Saffel’s story checks out. We’re screwed.”
“So Captain Lightholler’s part of it,” Shine mused.
“Guy doesn’t have a clue. But I figure even if he is clean, he ain’t going to be much use to us if he doesn’t know the layout of his own ship.”
“Lightholler has more to offer than just giving us directions,” Kennedy said, firmly. “If push comes to shove he can command the ship, and it may come down to that.”
Coming down to that implied a slip-up on Shine’s
part. It was his turn to scowl.
“We have to move out,” Kennedy continued. “Webster’s shutting Camelot down. And if today’s disturbance is anything to go by, he’ll have the Bureau swarming all over our camps before the day is out.”
“All of them?” Shine asked.
“The ones he knows about,” Kennedy replied. “But that still puts him too close to where we need to be.”
“What’s our move then?”
“I put a call through to Nevada and ordered a fade-out. The only thing he’s going to find at Alpha and Bravo are empty shacks and tumbleweeds.”
“The director will think you’ve turned.”
Kennedy was staring at a streak of black blood that braided the carpet. “It’s too late to worry about that. Besides, judging from what David tells me, the director’s going to have bigger fish to fry. We move out tonight.”
Shine felt something shift within him. He interpreted it as anticipation. With or without Lightholler, they were going to make a run for Nevada. They were going straight to Red Rock.
XI
April 22, 2012
New York City, Eastern Shogunate
Lightholler stirred to the sound of birdsong. He yawned and blinked at his surroundings. A field of green stretched out before him towards the low stone fence that separated Battery Park from the lapping waters of New York Harbor. Morning light dappled the waves. The Statue of Liberty stood ironically in her tarnished mantle, a jade glint in the distance.
More than a week had passed since he’d sailed into New York but the park still bore the signs of the thousands who had stood there in anticipation. Lightholler turned away, his recollection of the previous day returning with unpleasant clarity.
He’d gone from St Marks Place to wandering downtown Manhattan in a daze. His journey took him past the Lone Star Cafe, where he was to meet with Kennedy in two days’ time. He walked aimlessly, circumnavigating the narrow streets that bound Osakatown and the Chinese Ghetto till he found himself outside Astor Place in the early evening. St Marks was a street away and he had come almost full circle.
A cinema nearby had been playing a double feature: Touch of Evil and Citizen Kurtz. The first film was almost over. Lightholler, having no desire to return to his hotel, accepted the ticket stub from a surly woman and shuffled into the theatrette. Four or five other people were already seated in the dusty room. The proprietor was taking a small risk in showing the feature. Orson Welles’ portrayal of the Vietnam War hardly cast the Japanese in a favourable light, nor did it make any attempt to smooth over the difficulties that the Germans and Japanese had endured during the conflict. Welles had taken Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and reset it in the jungles of Indochina. Kurtz had become a German military adviser gone rogue; Marlowe was now a Union officer, dispatched by his Japanese masters to subdue him. All the characters were daubed in shades of grey. Flawed men reduced by circumstance to blind savagery.
By the time Lightholler had left the cinema the street had gone dark. Lamps flickered along the avenues to either side, but the street itself was a shadow bridging glittering shores. He’d made his way back to the Waldorf slowly, watching his own shadow lengthen and diminish in the pools of light of solitary streetlamps. He’d clambered into bed, hoping that his wanderings would confer the reward of a dreamless night. Instead, he’d tossed and turned, until finally throwing off his sheets.
Before he was even aware of it, he was dressed and walking back down the corridor of the hotel, past the Astoria Lounge where a century earlier his great-grandfather had stood proclaiming the incompetence of the Titanic’s owners. Out on the street, a thin mist was dissipating, the eastern sky hinting at dawn. A Japanese soldier approached him, pointed to his watch and back to the hotel, mouthing one word: curfew.
Lightholler, thankful that he had remembered to bring his wallet, produced the necessary papers. The soldier gave a small bow and Lightholler set out again. Apart from the odd sentry post, where soldiers lolled and spat on the cool pavement, he saw no one. Once on Broadway he followed its long course down to Battery Park, and by the time he arrived so had the morning light. He had sat on the splintered park bench, looking out to sea, till sleep had finally taken him.
Standing and stretching, he pulled at the cuffs of his shirt and straightened the hem of his jacket as he turned to face the gate that opened out of the park and back onto Broadway.
XII
Shine, in his guise as hotel staff, returned to the Waldorf. Hardas was watching the pier; Shaw and Collins were trawling the downtown bars. It looked like Lightholler was long gone.
Kennedy, informed by Saffel’s missive, had thought that Lightholler wouldn’t run. Now he knew the truth of it: Lightholler was merely a pawn in the Germans’ game. Alarmed by Kennedy’s visit and discarded by his superiors, he could be anywhere.
Abandoning the brownstone, Kennedy had spent the night on the streets, Morgan contritely by his side as he issued orders from his two-way. By the time Shaw called in, announcing that their quarry had been sighted on Fourth Avenue, Kennedy knew exactly what to do. With a man like Lightholler, honesty would yield the best results.
Kennedy recalled Shine. Two kills and no sleep made him a liability.
He spoke to Shaw and arranged for Lightholler to be brought over to Kobe’s joint on 12th Street. As neither Shaw nor Collins could be privy to the recruitment, Hardas would have to escort Lightholler on to the Lone Star. Shine would be held on tap.
There was no way of knowing how Lightholler would handle the revelation at hand.
XIII
It was Lightholler’s third shower in less than twenty-four hours. It restored much of his vigour, but a seedy aftertaste of the night lingered.
He’d entered the suite’s lounge, still feeling somewhat at a loss, when he heard a knock at the door. He started at the sound. Kennedy had said that they’d meet up again on Tuesday, and he wasn’t expecting any visitors today. Reluctantly he opened the door. Two strangers framed the entrance.
“Captain Lightholler,” one of them said. “Major Kennedy sent us. I’m Collins. This is Shaw.” They flashed their badges. “Would you please accompany us?”
They wore the drab grey suits that seemed to be de rigueur for Confederate operatives. Both men were heavy-set, their square heads squatting on thick necks that threatened to burst through their shirt collars.
“What happened to Tuesday?” Lightholler asked warily.
“The major needs to see you now, Captain,” Collins said. “I’m afraid we don’t have any time to waste.”
“Could you give me a moment?”
Motioning the men to step into the inner hallway, Lightholler walked back into his bedroom, surprised to find that he was experiencing some sense of relief, some purpose to this strange day. He grabbed a jacket and smoothed out the lapels, slipping it on as he emerged from the room. The two men were still standing in the hallway. They stepped to either side as he passed through the doorway.
They rode the lift in silence and led him out of the lobby. A white Hotspur was idling in the valet parking area. The agents directed him into the back seat and positioned themselves to either side. A third man drove. A light drizzle of rain sprinkled against the windshield.
“Isn’t the Lone Star downtown?” Lightholler asked.
Shaw laughed.
The driver picked up his radio and said, “Tell Mr Cooper to send his team to cover the Lone Star.”
The reply was too garbled for Lightholler to understand.
The driver glanced up at the rear-view, appraising him, and added, “No. We’re fine. We’ll see you at Kobe’s after we make the pickup in Queens. Hardas will wait. He wants this package.”
Collins turned to stare at Lightholler, giving him a long, hard look. Lightholler returned the gaze. Slate-grey eyes blinked back at him slowly. The agent appeared to come to some conclusion. His face relaxed into a confident smile as he turned away.
These agents were a different cut from Kenned
y’s men. They seemed as resolute as the others had seemed desperate. They were certainly more consistent with Lightholler’s expectation of intelligence men. Yet there was something wrong here.
The Hotspur made a right-hand turn onto 42nd Street. Rain slashed the asphalt. Up ahead, the entrance to the Queens Midtown Tunnel appeared.
Lightholler considered his options.
XIV
Kobe’s sushi bar sat on the corner of Third Avenue and 12th Street. Wide awned windows received a spatter of rain while permitting a clear view of the narrow street. From where he sat, Hardas could observe anyone who approached.
Through the bar’s open door wafted the sounds of distant traffic. Car horns, the occasional whinny of a carriage horse, fragments of conversation from passers-by, all borne on the swell of auto fumes. He glanced at his watch, not even bothering to check the time but going through the same motions he’d repeated since his arrival. He glared at the phone booth, three feet away on the pavement’s edge, willing it to ring.
He’d spoken with Shaw almost an hour ago. They should have been here by now.
He lit up a Texas Tea and thought about it.
Kennedy was convinced the Bureau was shutting them down. It all fell in to place. Webster, as director of the CBI, was aware that Kennedy had recruited Morgan, an expert on the Titanic. He’d also discovered that Kennedy was trying to recruit Lightholler, the man who’d brought the new Titanic to New York. And, somehow, he must have gotten wind of what she carried in her hold. That, along with Hardas’s own involvement with the wreck of the original ship, presented a compelling body of evidence. Webster had added one plus one and got three. Odds were that he thought Kennedy and his crew had thrown in with the Kaiser.
The Company of the Dead Page 11