'Were there many Columbians in there at the time?'
The cop shook his head and sighed. 'And just how the fuck am I supposed to know? You do the jigsaw puzzles, then you tell me.'
Wills looked at the pile of rubble where the block had been. Flames licked out from between the lumps of shattered masonry.
'How could someone do this?' he asked, but was hardly surprised when he got no answer.
CHAPTER 6
Langley, Virginia
Leith bent down to pour himself a coffee and gasped. Far down in his lower back a complex series of muscles had begun to party.
'What's the matter? Having a stroke?' DeMarco had come up behind him. He grabbed the coffee pot that Leith had been reaching for and filled his own mug.
Leith slowly began to straighten his back, his teeth clenched. DeMarco tossed his head back and roared with laughter. His single carefully greased kiss-curl flipped over then whipped back with millimetric precision to its position above DeMarco's right eye.
Morgan and Slattery left their desks and came to the coffee table.
Slattery put a gentle hand on his shoulder. 'Are you in any pain, honey?'
Leith didn't answer.
'Err... I'm not sure I should tell you this,' Morgan glanced around conspiratorially, 'but old Bobby-boy had a heavy date last night.'
'Post Coital Shock Syndrome,' she said, 'I should have guessed.'
She looked across at Morgan. 'Who was he shafting, anyway? King Kong?'
'Nah. Lola's small but very strong.'
'Lola!' DeMarco rolled the word lasciviously. 'She sounds really French and sexy.'
Leith turned carefully and without a word walked back to his workstation.
His back had felt only slightly painful when he had gotten up. He had used a vanity mirror to check his reflection in the full-length mirror in Lola's plant-festooned bathroom. There were two livid bruises on either side of his spine just above the hip. They reminded him of the way she’d dug her heels in during moments of particular urgency. It had felt incredibly sexy at the time, but the gallons of adrenaline sloshing through his veins must have been masking the pain.
Checking for other injuries he had found a series of red welts going down his back and he was thankful that Lola's sport precluded long sharp fingernails. He was a little disturbed to find two coin-sized black bruises on his chest, just below his collarbone, where she had pressed her thumbs as though hanging on for dear life. It was with some trepidation that he had looked and found the eight impressions of her fingers across the back of his shoulders.
He had looked into the wall mirror, at the drawn face and bloodshot eyes.
'Was it worth it?' he had asked.
His reflection had nodded back vigorously.
Endorsement or not he had been very careful not to wake her while he dressed. Making love to Lola was like the mountains she climbed: not to be attempted by the weak or fainthearted.
He'd taken one more look at her sweet little face as it peeked over the sheets, then left, leaving a note saying he would phone.
The evening with Lola had taken his mind off his strange and growing obsession about Middleton's death, but now he was back at Langley it returned with even greater urgency. Intuition played a role in all science; real progress was rarely made by the dull methodical approach. Over the years he had come to appreciate the capability in himself. At college it had manifested itself in learning; either he would understand some aspect of theory instantly, or he would need to spend hours poring over his books, slowly building up the sequence of ideas that underpinned it. In his work for the company, where potential lines of investigation could multiply by the minute, hunches were often the only means of discriminating between the fruitful and the useless. And his hunches, once they came, were usually too strong to resist.
But his intuition about Middleton, that there was more to his death than some simplistic tabloid version of a gay killing, was coupled with a new feeling: it was something that hinted at darker possibilities, something that made him uneasy.
Taking a deep breath, he logged onto the system and called up the man's dump file.
The file was a cumulation of all references to Middleton's entries that he had hacked out of the standard systems during his first search. According to these sources, Middleton was Mr. Blameless. He paid his taxes, had no police records and had never left the shores of the US to be corrupted by evil foreigners.
That Middleton had stayed at a YMCA on the same night as the shadowy Dr. Cole warranted no more than the cursory search Leith had already done; Middleton had been tagged and would never have bothered Leith again until he died or was arrested or turned up, however peripherally, in another investigation.
Things were very different now. Leith's search on Guin had only been a taster of the kind of scrutiny he was about to start on the three terrorists. He had started on Middleton because he was the courier: there was a possibility he could lead them to other cells.
He started right at the beginning. The IRS records had given Middleton's time and place of birth. He hacked into Ohio's Central Registry of Births— held in a mainframe in Columbus— and hooked his birth certificate out of the database.
He smiled with pleasure. Too easy! He’d budgeted maybe a day to figure out Middleton's connections with the Middle East, and here it was already. The birth certificate gave the full names of both parents and the maiden name of his mother. Annette al Jowf Crosby had married Peter Courtland Middleton in Dayton on November 3 1969. Paul had been born two years later in the same town.
Still in the Registry, he pulled the mother's birth certificate in the hope of getting a handle on granddad, then logged onto Immigration's mainframe in Washington.
Muhammir Al Jowf had emigrated to the US in 1948 from Haifa in what had been, until May that year, Palestine. He had been only twelve years old and had been brought by his father, a doctor, to escape the widely anticipated problems of the founding of Israel.
Middleton's later actions suggested that grandpa Al Jowf had managed to keep the grudge running through successive generations. Leith tagged the whole family then switched back to Paul himself, but resolved to return for a closer look at all of them.
Municipal records quickly revealed the schools Middleton had attended. Most of his schooling had been in the days before extensive computerisation. Only the last three years of report cards were available from the server at Parkes High.
Leith jerked as a hand was clapped on his shoulder. Nevis looked concerned when he grimaced with pain.
'Oops, sorry! Didn't mean to startle you. How's the back?'
'Better,' Leith tried to tamp down his sudden burst of anger.
'Er…good,' Nevis hurried on, 'and what about the search?'
'I've just started on Middleton. As the courier, he's the most likely to lead us to other cells.'
Nevis nodded but looked unconvinced and Leith knew why. It was unlikely that Middleton was the courier for any other cells. Probably even Cole, the international liaison, wouldn't have been told the details of any others.
Nevis placed his hand lightly on Leith's arm. Leith noticed the thick black hairs on the backs of Nevis' fingers and the big gold wedding band flattening some of them. 'Let me know if you need any help. DeMarco, perhaps. He hasn't got much on at the moment.'
It was tempting but Leith shook his head. 'No, I want to see this case all the way through. Thanks for the offer though, Stan.'
He returned to Middleton's school files as Nevis headed for his office. A couple of sentences into the first report and he was already shaking his head. 'Disruptive’, 'antagonistic’, 'devious’, 'a liar' — these were heavy words for a report card, especially as Middleton had been a competent student. 'Paul could go very far, and in normal circumstances this school would be privileged to help him scale the academic heights. However, his malicious nature and the negative effects he has on the other students cannot continue. Paul must learn to behave properly or he will be exp
elled. Please consider this the final warning.'
Middleton had managed to toe the line, just, and had made it to college, winning a not inconsiderable scholarship in the process.
Leith spent a few hours paddling around in the college records. Almost everywhere he looked he found evidence of Middleton's political activity. He had joined various Muslim and Arab societies, and had even organised student demonstrations against US involvement in the Middle East and its support of Israel. It was amazing the guy hadn’t been tagged years ago. Every campus had at least one company man: mostly they spotted talent, but they were also charged with picking up the rogue players early on in the game.
He made a note to report this to the co-ordinating committee on college surveillance. Someone had not been doing their job. Already Leith had tagged nearly thirty individuals from just one superficial sweep, enough to keep him going for a month.
The Health Centre's main server was a sturdy and ancient old Vax that should have been carbonising in some pre-Unix fossil layer. The Centre treated students both on and off campus and he could imagine the medics getting a high-tech thrill out of using their portable terminals and modems to access the central computer. Trouble was, nearly one thousand kids at the college took some form of computer course every year. The system was shot through with more overrides than a Chinese reactor.
He set up a worm to intercept the next authorised call to the system but in the meantime he tried out a few override passwords, based on his knowledge of the limitations of undergraduate humour. 'Death' was his third and most prosaic attempt but it got him into the system: he wondered how many enterprising students had set up their own databases of medical records, for that rainy day when fellow alumni were rich and respectable.
Middleton had kept good health throughout his college career except for one visit in March of '92. In his introductory medical questionnaire he had claimed to be totally abstemious of drink and drugs, but his injuries on that day suggested a less healthy lifestyle. Someone had carved the five letters A, B, A, B, and Y a quarter inch deep across his back.
Medical confidentiality was always a tricky business. Gunshot wounds and certain other injuries were automatically notifiable in most States. Middleton hadn't been able to convince the staff that it had been a 'joke that got out of hand', but left them in no doubt that his family would sue if word got out. The medic, writing that he thought the student had been the victim of a revenge attack by an irate father or brother, had given him some leaflets on contraception and had left it at that.
The depth of the wounds seemed to have been finely judged. Not quite deep enough to warrant stitching, even if Middleton had sought attention immediately, but they'd started to go septic. One of the nurses had dosed him with antibiotics, strapped him up and sent him back out into the wild world. It had been his last visit to the Health Centre. His notes ended with the doctor's prediction that the scars would be gone within a year or two.
He felt his stomach tense with excitement. Later events showed that Middleton was a master at bearing grudges.
He accessed the police computer again. Middleton had not shown up the first time, but that did not preclude his involvement in anything criminal.
The college town of Thurson had a population of less than a quarter of a million and was rural enough to avoid spillover from any of the major conurbations: nevertheless, there had been thirty murders during the time of Middleton's stay. Twenty-five of these had been solved to the satisfaction of the police. Of the remaining seven, two had clearly been drug related, one had happened during a mugging, one during a burglary. One bore the hallmarks of an as-yet uncaught serial killer.
The sixth victim of an unsolved murder had been a young woman whose mysterious and brutal death had clearly made a very great impression on the local police, judging by the wealth of files generated. He checked through them avidly but there was nothing to connect her with Middleton.
The seventh victim, however, was just what Leith was looking for.
Kevin Whitehouse had had it coming. A redneck among rednecks, he appeared to have spent his short life stirring up as much trouble and hatred as he could. He had been arrested several times for disturbances in shops and restaurants owned by blacks and Asians. He and his friends were suspected of numerous off-campus beatings of foreign students. Nothing had ever been proved, but the local police seemed convinced.
Whitehouse had been murdered seven months after Middleton's visit to the Health Centre. Too long to suggest hot-blooded vengeance, but just about soon enough for medical memories to grow dim about the bloody message on Middleton's back.
Particularly, Leith guessed, when Middleton had got one of his own friends to add the 'Y' and change the original 'R' into the first 'B'.
Unlike the murder of the young woman, the police clearly hadn't given a shit about who killed Whitehouse. Under the data field for suspects one detective had typed 'blacks, Asians, democrats, women.'
A feeling of light-headedness crept over Leith. He knew exactly what he was going to find next, even though it made no sense. He felt as though he had spent the last few days slowly approaching the lip of a chasm and now he was about to step over the edge.
With mounting trepidation he accessed Whitehouse's autopsy report. Bruising round the limbs and neck had suggested the boy had been very firmly held. He had died from a single knife wound between the third and fourth ribs, which had penetrated his myocardium. The wound itself had been perpendicular to the body's long axis, suggesting that Whitehouse had been held down flat while the knife was pushed down vertically. Below a depth of an inch the entry wound was discrete and unambiguous: above this, the wound was ragged. The pathologist had speculated that the knife had been pushed in very slowly, perhaps over the space of minutes. Whitehouse's struggles had dislodged the knife several times until the blade had gone deep enough to get a proper 'bite.'
Leith took his hands of the keyboard and put them onto the edge of his desk. He closed his eyes and began to think hard. He was not aware that he had started to drum furiously against the desk until the others yelled for him to stop.
Nevis didn't look happy.
He took off his glasses and laid them on the desk, then pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and middle finger.
'Let me get this straight,' he put the glasses back on and seemed to regain some of his composure. 'You're telling me that some kind of maverick offshoot of the intelligence community is going round murdering terrorists.'
'More or less.'
Nevis pursed his lips. 'A little far-fetched, you must admit.'
'Not necessarily. The CIA's done plenty of wet jobs over the years. Even a few in the States.'
Nevis lifted a quizzical eyebrow. 'You'd have a hell of a job putting flesh on that last statement. But even if it were true why would they do that in this case? There was no shortage of hard evidence. In fact, whoever caught them would look good.' He began to tap the edge of his desk with his pen.
Leith sighed. 'Why would these people commit suicide? It's not because they feared imminent capture. And this crap about a 'Gay Love Triangle'...there was no evidence that they were gay or even bisexual, none at all. That was just cover. As for Middleton's death, that wasn't part of any suicide pact.' Leith had contacted Wills, who confirmed the similarities between the deaths of Middleton and Whitehouse. Wills had sounded strangely subdued, but Leith had been too busy to ask why.
Nevis nodded. 'Yeah. I agree Middleton was murdered. Maybe the shock of what they did drove the others to suicide.'
Leith snorted. 'The bastards had happily wiped out six hundred innocent people. Why should they give a shit about a rat like Middleton? Another thing...why kill him in exactly the same way he killed Whitehouse? How did they know?'
'Maybe they helped him do it.'
'They were both high school kids and a couple of states away when it happened.'
'Middleton had probably boasted about it to them.' Nevis' glasses were off again. He wiped
a palm across his forehead.
'OK, maybe. But how could they actually do it? Sticking a knife in that way takes time. You've got to find the space between the ribs. Then you've got to push down hard on the knife, maybe even lean all your weight on it so it can go in cleanly. And what's Middleton doing while all this is happening? Having a quick snooze, taking one last draw on a cigarette? Of course not! He's kicking and jerking around like hell. Remember; there were no traces of alcohol or narcotics in his bloodstream, no signs of blows to the head that could have knocked him out. Do you really think just two men would have been strong enough to hold him immobile enough?'
'Yes.'
Leith shook his head impatiently. 'You're reaching.'
'I don't think so. And even if I was, would you blame me?' Nevis was beginning to look angry rather than just irritated. It was an unfamiliar sight and Leith felt the first flickers of self-doubt, but he decided to press on while Nevis was still on the defensive.
'Don't you think there's some heavy coincidences in the way these guys died? Garner made the bombs and Guin planted them. They both die like they've been dropped from a height, just like their victims. But Middleton was a courier, not directly involved at all. Instead he winds up dead in the same way as the guy he almost certainly killed years before.'
Nevis was gripping the desk now with both hands. 'I don't believe I'm hearing this! For a start there's no evidence that Middleton killed Whitehouse. All you've got is that they died in the same way. If you'd studied the murders in any town over three years you'd have found lots of people knifed like that.'
Leith shook his head vigorously. 'Absolutely no way. Wills, the guy who did the autopsies, checked the records in New York. Stabbings like that are almost unheard of even there, never mind in Pissantville, Ohio.'
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