by Matt Hilton
Dantalion wondered where things had gone wrong for the dead man. Perhaps he’d been injured, or had become sick, or merely grown jaded with the day-to-day, but he seemed to have taken early retirement from his career. He guessed that the man must have left on good terms, otherwise he might have destroyed his uniform in protest.
The uniform was complete. Even down to belts and equipment.
The only things missing were the tools of his office, but Dantalion believed a more thorough search would turn them up.
The trousers might present a problem, the man being shorter in the leg than Dantalion, but he saw a way round that. The shirts might be a little large, but he only had to fool Jorgenson long enough to take him out and then he wouldn’t be concerned by how many people saw through the disguise.
First, though, he had to get out of his wet clothes. Take a shower. He had no hydrocortisone cream with him to salve his itching skin, but he hoped the dead man would have moisturising lotions of some kind in his bathroom. And he didn’t know of a farm that didn’t possess a rudimentary first-aid kit. Or weapons, he reminded himself. There were always guns on a farm.
He had a tepid shower. Not hot, his skin was too raw. Then he dried off with the softest towel he could find. He dabbed body lotion over the exposed areas of skin on his face and hands, but decided that the rest of his body would be fine as long as he kept covered up and away from direct sunlight. He found antiseptic cream in the same bathroom cupboard and cleaned his bullet wounds. The wounds on his arm and cheek were inconsequential. However, the one on his leg was particularly angry-looking, the flesh at the edges red and swollen like collagen-plump lips. He wondered briefly about the effects the infection could be having on his system. But he discarded the notion. Mind over matter.
Then he set to his hair with a pair of scissors, trimming the long strands into a crew cut. His hair was sparse and tufted in places, and he’d never survive a thorough inspection, but with the hat in place the haircut would suffice.
With the same scissors, he unpicked the hems on the trouser legs, letting them down a full inch. Not too bad, he thought, but tucked them into the tops of his boots all the same. With the shirt on, he folded the back over twice and tucked it into the waistband of his trousers, cinched it in place with a thin leather belt. On went a clip-on tie. The collar sagged a little, and he looked like someone who’d been on a drastic diet and hadn’t gotten round to replacing his wardrobe yet, but over all he didn’t look too bad. He pulled on the jacket and adjusted the wide-brimmed hat to a jaunty angle, admiring himself in a mirror on the bathroom wall. The mark on his jaw was only a graze, not that noticeable if he kept his chin tucked down.
He found a utility closet. Cleaning fluids and brushes and rags were stacked in boxes. On a shelf at head height he found a strong box. Next to it a key. When he popped the lock he found what he’d been looking for.
The gun was a Taurus 85, a five-shot revolver. One of the .38 calibre specials worn by some law enforcement officers as a back-up weapon. There were two rapid loaders filled with standard .38 bullets. This time he wouldn’t be conducting a full-on assault on the Jorgenson estate, so ten rounds would be sufficient.
He couldn’t find a holster, so assumed the dead man had kept this gun purely for home defence. Not that it had proved much use, locked in a metal container two rooms away from where he’d died. Dantalion loaded the revolver, then slipped it into his jacket pocket alongside the spare rapid loader.
Then he saw to the most pressing task of all.
His book.
When he opened it, he found that the sea water miraculously hadn’t invaded the interior beyond a broad margin. Most of his lists of numbers were still legible. The ink had spread a little, causing an auric light effect around the figures, but that made the numbers seem ethereal and magical and somewhat to his liking. Only the final numbers troubled him. They told a lie. The three he’d written down pertaining to Bradley, Marianne, and Hunter held no power. He could offset that by entering the numbers of those he’d killed since: Petre Jorgenson, Gabe Wellborn and upward of half-a-dozen bodyguards, but that could throw off the value of the figures. The numerology system he used demanded that he be exact at all times. The three he’d already written down must die before he could tally the others’ numbers.
In the pantheon of the Fallen, Dantalion is the seventy-first spirit. He is a great and mighty duke, who governs thirty-six legions of spirits. A legion is a subjective figure, whichever way you look at it. In ancient Rome, a legion was a division of soldiers numbering between three and six thousand. That would give Dantalion dominion over the spirits of between 108,000 and 216,000 people. However you approached those figures, it was an unattainable sum for any single killer without the power of an army behind him, or his finger on the button of a nuclear arsenal.
But numerology is flexible. Dantalion had found that by adding up each victim’s personally calculated three-digit number, he was quickly approaching those kinds of figures. Once his targets were dead, and he added those from earlier, he’d only need another few victims to be truly treading in the original Dantalion’s shoes.
He used a hairdryer from the bathroom to dry the book off. Inevitably the paper had warped along the edges, but again it added to the esoteric look of the book. He swathed it in cling film – just in case. The silver chain was tarnished, but that was OK. The antique look was all the rage. He clipped the free end of the chain to a belt loop and fed the book into his opposite jacket pocket.
Then he lay down on the bed next to the dead man and fell asleep. When he awoke, he ate food from the refrigerator. Not that he was hungry, but he had to keep up his strength. He chose some fast and some slow release carbohydrates and munched them without tasting them. Afterwards he couldn’t recall what he’d eaten, but he had a full stomach and was ready to go.
He checked himself out in the mirror again. His clothes were rumpled from the nap, but that made them look like authentic work clothes, and not some he’d taken fully pressed from a storage chest.
He left the lug wrench and screwdriver, but the knife could still prove handy, so he wrapped it in a cloth and took it with him when he left the house. He went out the same way he entered, and was surprised to find that it was dawn, and mist was rising from the surrounding fields and swamps as the early-morning sunshine set to burning off the dew.
He crossed the yard past the outbuildings and approached the truck where he’d abandoned it in the lane. Checking inside, he found that some of his supplies were still there – not everything had been dumped during his assault on Neptune Island – and saw that his plan for taking Bradley Jorgenson was even more viable than before.
The truck started first try. Rather than trying to reverse it the length of the rutted trail, he drove into the rear courtyard of the farm, turned round, then headed out the way he’d come, making his way back through Aurora Village and seeking the highway.
As far as Bradley Jorgenson knew, yesterday’s attacker was now sleeping with the fishes and no further threat. Under those circumstances, the man would want to return home to survey the damage caused and to murmur condolences to the families and friends of those killed. He’d also have to face the questions of the police investigators on the scene. Dantalion would be waiting for him.
He picked up the Dixie Highway, then the coast road and approached the island from the north. The roadblocks he anticipated weren’t there. In all likelihood, they were busy looking for him at the crash scene. Cautious though, he watched for anyone following behind, anyone in front of him. He also looked for a silver sedan, skimming his eyes over vehicles parked on layovers along the way, watching for unmarked police cars. He didn’t see anything. A black Audi A8 parked on a wide layover caught his eye, but it looked too immaculate to be a government-financed vehicle. Probably belonged to a businessman on the commute to Miami who’d stopped to enjoy a few minutes of peace and quiet before joining the Babel of the big city.
He continued south, dri
ving adjacent to the wall that enclosed the estate. Parked opposite the main entrance was a group of assorted vehicles. They reminded him of newsreel footage he’d seen of hippy caravans that traversed the country in the late 1960s. Vans back then were decorated with flowers and ‘peace’ symbols and antiwar slogans. These vehicles were equally emblazoned, but the signs on these vans and cars declared affiliation to a greater movement than flower power. These were agents of the new media-hungry age, and the writing showed the names of their respective TV or radio stations.
Turning off the road, he wound his way through the assembled vehicles, parking up furthest away from the highway. Stepping out of the truck he settled his hat on his head, shadowing his face with a tilt of the brim. No one took much notice of him, and no one questioned why he hadn’t arrived in an official vehicle.
A TV crew were passing the time of day in sarcastic banter while awaiting entry to the estate and he touched the brim of his hat in greeting. Eyes skimmed over him, but no one approached him for a comment. Leaving the throng behind, he approached the highway and started directing other arriving vehicles on to the layover, looking fully part of the scene in his Florida National Parks Warden’s uniform. The cops guarding entry to the Jorgenson estate didn’t give him as much as a sour look.
Within fifteen minutes he was just background, and went unnoticed as he walked away along the road, seeking a way into the grounds. When he’d checked out the area yesterday morning, he’d been concerned about CCTV cameras and motion detectors and pressure pads, but with the exception of the cameras all would now have been isolated. There were too many interlopers present for the security devices to be viable. Also, no one would be expecting him to wander inside among dozens of police officers, so the cameras wouldn’t be scrutinised as thoroughly as before. In fact, anyone watching the cameras would be concentrating on recordings from the previous evening.
A five-minute stroll found him a good distance along the wall. He found an empty oil drum partly concealed in the long grass on the untended no man’s land between the wall and the highway. He dragged it upright, then rolled it end over end so that the accumulated sand and vegetation spilled out. Then he set the drum upright against the wall. Just a warden looking after the countryside. He waited for a break in the traffic. When it came, he hopped up on to the drum, then reached upwards and got a grip on the top of the wall. He was over it in seconds.
Striking out across the grounds, he headed for Bradley Jorgenson’s house. He strolled like he was at home there and he went unchallenged.
He touched the book in his pocket.
Keen to rebalance the total.
34
Pushing on down the coast road, I quickly discovered that the next layover was full to capacity with TV and radio crews. Space was at such a premium that a State Park warden had been drafted in to keep the traffic in order. Any vehicles that did not belong to the media were waved on by the curt man in the stupid hat.
Driving south, I looked for somewhere to park in solitude.
There were plenty of wide, sandy parking bays along the way, but each one had an abundance of tourists’ vehicles already encamped on the parking lots, their occupants disgorged across the saw-grass above the beach, or walking on the sands themselves. A regatta of boats made its way through the Inter-Coastal Waterway and I understood why there was so much activity. The crowds had turned out to watch some sort of big boat race.
I finally found a spot to myself. I drove off the road and on to the grass itself. The Audi was equipped with a four-wheel-drive function, so I wasn’t concerned about bogging down in the soft ground.
I tried Bradley’s office number again but the phone was answered by the same brisk-voiced woman.
‘Who is this?’ she demanded when I kept my silence.
I hung up. It was time to call in a few favours.
Dialling a number that was committed to my memory, I waited while the call was shunted through various relays. It was some time before the call was picked up and I was asked to punch in a numeric sequence on my phone. I was asked to confirm the number, which I did, then was transferred to another telephone at the CIA headquarters, up the coast in Virginia.
Already a member of the British Special Forces, I had been drafted into a specialist counterterrorism team that pulled on the finest soldiers from across all the member countries of the United Nations. Rink belonged to the same unit. We were ultimately governed by our commanders at a base codenamed ‘Arrowsake’ after one of the locations where William Melville, head of the original British Secret Service Bureau, allegedly trained his new recruits in the fight against Nazi spies. However, because we were formed from the consolidation of a number of allies, we had facilitators in each country. My handler in the US was Walter Hayes Conrad IV, a Sub-Division Controller of the CIA.
When the face of modern terrorism changed post 9/11, so did the methods of fighting the war. Public relations campaigns and scrutinising bank accounts became more important than assaults on terrorist enclaves. In some eyes my unit were dinosaurs and belonged buried in history. Our fate was sealed, as the original dinosaurs’ had been. I retired shortly before my unit was disbanded. Our handlers were absorbed back into their own security communities. Most of them still held great influence; as did Walter.
‘I need a favour, Walter.’
‘Why do you only ever call when you want something, Hunter?’
‘Because I know you’ll always come through.’
‘Flattery, as you should know, will get you nowhere.’
‘Better flattery than blackmail, huh?’
Walter owed me big time. For one, I had been instrumental in stopping the rogue Secret Service agent, Martin Maxwell, who had managed to stay one step ahead of those hunting him. More than that though, I’d kept the name of Tubal Cain – the Harvestman – secret, avoiding a massive embarrassment to both Walter and the US Government. Tubal Cain had gone to his grave as Robert Swan, and I’d made no one any the wiser.
‘So what is it you want?’
‘Cooperation from the local feds,’ I told him.
My location must have been thrown up on some sort of Global Positioning Satellite screen on his computer monitor.
‘Martin County, Florida,’ he confirmed to himself. ‘What are you doing there?’
‘Up until now? Not a whole lot of good,’ I said.
‘Tell me.’
I gave him the brief version.
‘I heard about the explosion on Baker Island. Homeland Security flagged it up. Thought at first that it was some kind of terrorist attack on the rich and deserving. When it came to light it was a good ol’ gas explosion it was thrown back to Miami PD. Then bodies started turning up and the FBI jumped on board.’ Walter ruminated a moment. ‘Now you’re saying that a contract killer’s involved and it’s all to do with the Jorgenson pharmaceutical contracts with our military?’
‘That’s as much as we’ve gathered,’ I agreed.
‘And you’re up to your neck in it as usual.’
‘You know me, Walt. Never can keep my nose out of other people’s business.’
‘Not when there’s a damsel in distress, eh?’
‘Doesn’t matter who is in distress,’ I corrected.
‘You want me to put men on it?’ Walter asked. ‘Catch this killer before he gets at your mark again?’
‘Suit yourself; I’m not interested in the killer. It isn’t personal this time. All I want is a green light to speak with Bradley Jorgenson. The family estate is shut down as tight as a duck’s ass. Can’t think of a way to get in there without having to put some good people to sleep. I don’t want to do that.’
‘No, not a good idea, Hunter.’ Walter tapped his fingers. Thinking deeply. ‘Can I ask you why you need to speak to the Jorgenson kid?’
‘I want to get him out of there.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I promised his girlfriend that I would. He’s not safe.’
‘And you think you can
protect him better than the police and FBI can?’
‘Walt?’
‘Yeah, I know. It was a stupid question.’ He was tapping again, this time on a keyboard, and I guessed he was already on to someone in law enforcement. While he did that I told him what we’d patched together concerning Gabriel Wellborn and his network of contract killers named after the mythological fallen angels. I told him about Dantalion. Walter asked, ‘But you don’t know his true identity yet?’
‘No. Only that he’s decent at his job. I don’t think he’s military or police. He’s, I don’t know … different.’
‘Self-taught?’
‘Or privately taught. This guy looks weird. Very pale-skinned, white-haired, has some sort of condition with his skin?’
‘Albino?’
‘Perhaps, but I don’t think so. Something else. But you might want to check historical medical records; it might throw up his identity.’ I thought about the first time I’d seen Dantalion on Baker Island. ‘He’s also very good with disguises, Walter. Maybe he has a background in theatre or the movie industry.’
‘I’ll pass all that on to the FBI,’ Walter said. ‘OK, all done. Go to the front gate; ask to speak with SAC Kaufman. He’ll give you what you need.’
‘Thanks, Walter.’
‘Say nothing of it,’ he said. To some that would be a throwaway remark. But I knew exactly what he meant. It was a reminder, and literal in its meaning. Say nothing of it. The Harvestman.
Pressing the end button, I pushed the phone in my jacket pocket. No sooner than I had done that than it vibrated and I pulled it out again. A text message from Harvey.
home and dry
Good, they’d made it back to the safe house. Time for me to get on with delivering Bradley there.
35
There were obvious disadvantages to the disguise Dantalion had assumed on this occasion. For example, what was a State Park Warden’s interest in the case? If anyone had thought to ask, or to scrutinise his uniform a little further, they’d have easily seen through the charade. He had no jurisdiction on the private estate, and would not be required to attend on official business or otherwise. On the other hand, his uniform was official, and therefore he was able to move among all the other officials without attracting undue questions. In fact, there were other advantages to his disguise. If, say, he had been wearing the uniform of a cop or medic, then maybe he would not have remained invisible for long. There were too many senior officers milling around throwing orders back and forth, demanding tasks from their people. But there were no other wardens in attendance. No one to question just who the hell he was, or what he was doing or to send him off on some errand that would divert him from his task.