Brown weeds grew profusely on either side of the narrow blacktop. She had a sense of travelling toward the core of darkness itself. A second sign loomed up and she had to flick on her low beams to read it. Property of the United States. No Unauthorized Personnel Beyond This Point. She kept going. There were no fences so far. No barriers. Only the signs. In the back, the dog was slumbering, wheezing in the throes of a canine dream, body quivering. What did dogs dream of? she wondered. What images came to trespass on their sleep? Cats, maybe. Fire hydrants. Or did they resurrect deeply buried ancestral dreams – hunting in packs, killing, bringing down prey in a flurry of ripped fur and blood?
She came to a third sign. Property of the United States. Absolutely No Trespassing Beyond This Point. Danger. Danger, she thought. She was used to that. Danger wasn’t a word to deter her. In her world, the dictionary definitions of certain words were reversed. Danger wasn’t a cautionary word. Danger attracted her. She stopped the car, got out, took her canvas bag from the back seat. She made a noose of twine and slipped it round the dog’s neck, and then she began to walk.
She heard the jeep before she saw it, a groaning sound in the landscape. It came toward her, full beams blazing, and she blinked and stepped into the weeds at the side of the road, where she set the canvas bag down. The jeep stopped a few feet from her. The dog barked as two men climbed down from the vehicle. They were both squat men, matched like a pair of book-ends.
‘You’re on private property, lady,’ one of them said. ‘Didn’t you see the signs?’
‘Private property? I didn’t know,’ she said, and looked as if this information appalled her. ‘I’m trespassing, then. I’m sorry. I was out walking my dog.’
‘In the middle of nowhere?’
‘I like quiet places,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know I was breaking any laws.’
‘Yeah, well, you are. Don’t tell me you didn’t see the signs.’
‘I must have missed them, I guess.’
The two squat men gazed at her in the flare of the jeep’s lamps. She wondered if there was some slight recognition dawning on them. A flicker. A face remembered from a newspaper photograph.
The second man, who so far hadn’t spoken, asked, ‘What’s in that bag?’
She glanced down at the canvas bag in the weeds at her feet. ‘Oh, just some stuff.’
‘Stuff? What stuff?’
She held the leash with one hand and, bending, reached inside the canvas bag with the other. ‘I’ll show you,’ she said.
‘Wait,’ the second man said. ‘I’d prefer to do that myself, if you don’t mind. Just take your hand away from the bag, lady.’
She said, ‘Feel free.’
And she stood upright, turning with the gun in her hand. She didn’t waste any time. Both men were perfectly outlined against the lamps of the jeep. Both were easy targets. She fired the gun twice before either of them could move. They fell together, matched in death as they had been in life. She reached inside the jeep and switched off the lights.
Then she continued to walk. She came to a wire fence which was about twelve feet high. Barbed wire had been strung around the top. A hundred yards away on the other side of the fence, six big satellite dishes were motionless and still, raised on stalks. They received signals from the sky, and these signals were fed into computers, then transformed and enlarged into images the human eye could understand. They monitored the world – troop movements, wars, storm systems, volcanic eruptions. At the press of a button they could produce close-ups, people walking on city streets, faces in the windows of houses, soldiers in tanks, lovers kissing in a park. She imagined she heard the darkening air rustle with the endless static of all this information. The sky was buzzing.
The dog had caught the scent of something, a passing rabbit, a skunk drifting nearby, a racoon; he was deeply agitated by sensed presences. She stroked the dog, made soothing sounds. The animal panted, leaped up against her in an unfettered display of affection.
‘Good, Roy, good,’ she said, and she made him sit still. She opened her canvas bag and removed the towel Chico had given her, rolled it open, and picked out one of the two plastic cylinders. In the palm of her hand it suggested a small plastic dildo. The other cylinder she returned to the bag. She took out the heavy-duty wire-cutters she’d bought in the hardware shop. She went down on her knees. This was the tricky moment because she didn’t know if the fence was connected to a warning system. She cut the wire. Nothing happened. No bells, no alarms. Not yet. She twisted the cut strands back with some effort. A small opening. She was motionless a moment because she heard a sound – something she didn’t immediately identify. A whirring. She saw one of the big dishes move. Then it was still again.
She took the plastic cylinder, twisted the cap on it, and looped it through the twine round the dog’s neck and made certain it was secure. She found a stick, held it under the dog’s snout, let the creature sniff it, become familiar with it – and then she raised her arm and tossed the stick as high and as far as she could over the fence. She released the dog and it bounded cheerfully through the opening in the wire. She immediately jammed the wire back into something akin to its original position, then she turned and ran back down the blacktop in the direction of her car. She didn’t have much time. She was working on a very narrow margin.
When she was a few yards from the car she heard the sound of an alarm and she glanced back, seeing floodlights come on inside the compound. They illuminated the dishes with a stunning silvery-white light. As she opened her car door she was sure she heard a dog bark. She reversed quickly, a series of tight little manoeuvres, and then she drove at a reckless speed back down the road.
The station officer was a man called Lovett. When the electronic sensors detected an intruder inside the compound they immediately activated the floodlights and the alarm system. Lovett had complained a couple of times that the system was too sensitive, because it was sometimes triggered by nocturnal creatures that had burrowed under the fence – gophers, rabbits, a skunk one time. He’d asked for adjustments to be made, but so far nothing had been done. Budgetary reasons were usually given. Lovett accepted that his request to correct this nuisance was of low priority, but it needled him just the same.
He stepped out of the concrete building where the satellite controls and consoles were located. He stared across the compound. He carried a gun. Once, eight or nine years ago, some demented wannabee terrorist had avoided the guard patrol and actually climbed the wire, and although the intruder was basically a harmless nut mouthing anti-Government slogans, Lovett felt better knowing he had a gun in his possession.
He moved toward the dishes. He didn’t see anything at once. The floodlights were blinding.
‘What the hell is going on?’
Lovett turned. The man who emerged from what was jokingly referred to as the guest wing – actually a small prefabricated hut containing two single beds – was Kevin Grimes. Grimes, Mr Satellite himself, came here once or twice a month on a tour of inspection. An old Company man, Grimes was known in certain circles as The Grime Reaper – a weak play on the man’s name, admittedly – but somehow appropriate, because he was a gloomy figure given to long monologues on the resurgence of communism, which he saw everywhere.
‘Something set off the alarm, Kevin,’ Lovett said.
‘Obviously something set off the alarm,’ said Grimes.
‘I reported this to you once or twice before—’
‘Yes yes,’ Grimes said impatiently.
‘But nothing was ever done about it,’ said Lovett, politely turning a screw. ‘The system needs some fine tuning. Badly.’
‘Find out what happened,’ Grimes said. ‘Have a look round.’
The dog came rushing out of the darkness, skidding to a halt at Lovett’s ankles.
‘A god-damn dog,’ said Grimes.
‘There there,’ Lovett said to the dog.
‘How did a dog get inside?’
‘Under the fence?’ Lovett s
uggested.
Lovett examined the panting dog. It had a peculiar attachment to the string round its neck. Lovett reached out to touch it. It was a small cylindrical object and it had been knotted firmly in place.
‘What have you brought for us, huh?’ he asked the dog. ‘What has this nice doggie brought for us?’
‘What’s going on, Lovett?’ Grimes asked.
Lovett undid the knot, removed the cylinder. It was a moment before he understood what it was that he held in his hand, and when the pulse of recognition caused blood to rush to his head, it was a little too late.
39
WASHINGTON
Pagan had checked into a motel about a mile from the White House because The Madison was no longer a secure place for him. He wanted the safety of anonymity, and even if it meant denying himself access to his belongings – which he’d left at The Madison – then that was the way it would have to be. His clothes, toiletries, the little diary Zuboric had given him, none of these were important. As for the rented car, he could always get another one. The motel room was basic but clean, and the walls were covered with coloured photographs of the democratic shrines of the city.
He telephoned The Madison to check on his messages. There were three. Foxworth had called. And Artie Zuboric, who’d left a number for him to telephone. And a woman who said she’d call back. A woman, he thought. But nothing from Bob Naderson.
He sat on the edge of the bed for a few minutes, his hands on his knees, and he wondered about Ralph Donovan. Had Donovan’s ID been genuine? If he was connected to the Agency, then why had he been sent out on a killing mission? Had Naderson despatched him to do the job? What did Naderson stand to gain from Pagan’s demise? Silence? The betrayal of Pasco consigned finally to oblivion?
It was a possibility, but Pagan was disinclined to give it any weight. Naderson wasn’t stupid enough to believe that by killing Pagan he’d bury the contorted history of Richard Pasco entirely. No, Naderson would think that this information would be known to other members of Special Branch – so what was the point in murdering one man, if others shared the knowledge? Such a murder would achieve absolutely nothing save the one thing Naderson presumably didn’t want, which was to stir further curiosity inside Special Branch. Awkward questions would arise, and before long the matter would certainly rise to higher levels; it would reach Nimmo, and from there pass, like a hot charcoal, to the Home Secretary, and extend finally to the British Ambassador in Washington – and Naderson would surely have foreseen all these widening circles that would threaten to expose an old secret he didn’t want revealed. So Pagan ruled him out.
Which left him with what? The idea that Donovan was acting alone? He closed his eyes and focused on the question, but it had a tendency to slip away from him the more he examined it. He thought about other puzzles – the possibility that names had been given to Pasco from a source inside the Agency, the fact that somebody was out there committing Carlotta-like atrocities. Fragments and shards, and they floated around inside his head like tiny reckless planets and he couldn’t get them to orbit one another in a logical way. He had a feeling they were related in some essentially simple fashion – but he was missing a factor, and he wasn’t sure what.
He picked up the phone and called Golden Square and was put through to Foxie.
‘Where the devil have you been, Frank? I’ve been calling for hours.’
‘Out and about,’ said Pagan.
‘The newspapers are filled with Carlotta’s antics over there. What’s she doing? Working overtime?’
‘Don’t believe everything you read in the papers, Foxie.’
‘Nimmo’s relieved, of course, that she’s decided to transfer her activities elsewhere. He believes that the sheer weight of uniforms drove her out of the country. So he’s feeling good about his policy of flooding the streets of our formerly green and pleasant land with policemen.’
‘Let him believe what he likes. Has he been looking for me?’
‘He’s been making noises, yes.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘I feigned ignorance. I’m good at blank looks. He thinks you’re pursuing a lead somewhere. Anyway, here’s the thing. I’ve been doing a little background, and this might interest you, Frank. I started with Pasco’s bank-book.’
‘Very resourceful, Foxie,’ Pagan said, thinking how he’d overlooked that, and wondering what else he might have failed to explore in his abrupt flight to America. Mea culpa.
‘It gets interesting, Frank. The money, all five hundred thousand dollars of it, came from a company called Mongoose Enterprises. Mongoose, Frank? Ring any bells for you?’
‘It was the name the CIA gave to its abortive project to assassinate Fidel Castro, if my memory serves.’
‘Spot on. They were going to poison his cigars or some such thing. Mongoose is one of those ludicrous schemes the Agency was always dreaming up in the Fifties and Sixties. But the name set me thinking,’ Foxie said. ‘I did a little digging, Frank. Mongoose has an office in Richmond, Virginia, so I ran a check on the company through the Virginia Corporations Commission.’
‘And what did you find?’ Pagan asked.
‘I’m coming to that. I learned from the bank in London that the man who opened the account gave the name of Jason Mannering, allegedly a director of Mongoose Enterprises. Surprise surprise, he isn’t listed with the Corporations Commission as an officer in the company. And the company address in Richmond is nothing more than one of those places people use as a mail-drop.’
‘And?’
‘The articles of incorporation of Mongoose Enterprises list only two directors. One is a man called James Mallory. And the other – listen to this – is listed as Richard Pasco. Since the corporation was only formed in May of this year, when Pasco was in the gulag, do you suppose they sent him papers to sign when he was a prisoner?’
‘Hardly,’ Pagan said.
‘So what they did was use his name to set up a funny company,’ Foxie said.
‘He’d find that droll, I’m sure,’ Pagan said.
‘Droll indeed. So Mongoose, of which Pasco is an unwitting director, opens a bank account for him in London, courtesy of a man called Jason Mannering, who isn’t a director, although he tells the bank manager he is. Which leaves us with Mallory.’
‘Don’t tell me. Mallory’s a dead-end.’
‘No, no, that’s the sheer joy of it, Frank. Mallory isn’t a dead-end at all. Mallory is apparently a living breathing actual human being, and I have an address for him, courtesy of the Corporations Commission, where I had the good fortune to speak to a very helpful have-a-nice-day young lady named Barbara who liked my accent and said if I was ever in the neighbourhood she’d like to meet me.’
‘You get a gold star, Foxie,’ Pagan said. ‘Give me the address.’
‘Number 4 Roundtower Apartments, Glastonbury Street, Washington. My own feeling is that James Mallory is probably also Jason Mannering.’
‘He might have had the foresight to change his initials,’ Pagan said and wrote down the address.
‘And the name Mongoose – good lord, that’s like hanging out a flag.’
‘The Agency was never over-endowed in the imagination department,’ Pagan said. ‘I’ve changed hotels, by the way. If you need to get in touch with me, I’m at two oh two, eight six three, nine nine seven seven, extension three nine.’
‘What happened to The Madison?’
‘Too expensive,’ Pagan said. He heard an unexpected little sound, a tap on his window, and he turned his face quickly. A few soft drops of rain slid down the glass.
‘You still there, Frank?’ Foxie asked.
‘I’m still here.’
‘You’ll check on this Mallory, I take it.’
‘I’ll check … And Foxie, listen. I appreciate.’
‘Promote me when you come back, Frank. Look after yourself.’
Pagan hung up, wandered to the window, stared out at the soft rain falling in the night, the
way it drizzled down through street lamps. Mongoose, he thought. An old absurdity. It had to be some kind of in-joke to name a company Mongoose. But who was the joker? Who was the one with the sense of humour? He watched the rain a moment and then reluctantly called the number for Artie Zuboric, whose mood was vile.
‘Where the fuck are you, Pagan? I been phoning you for hours.’
‘I’ve been sightseeing,’ Pagan said. ‘Interesting town.’
‘Yeah, yeah, monuments I don’t want to hear about. I’m a weary man, Pagan. I’m beat. My bones are aching. Last thing I need is to be hound-dogging you. Where are you anyway?’
‘At a pay phone,’ Pagan said.
‘Where?’
‘I don’t know this city well enough to be sure, Artie.’
‘Bullshit, Pagan. You’re dodging me, that’s what you’re doing. And I don’t like that. If you’re working on something, and you’re not telling me what it is, I’ll come down on your head like a ton of reinforced concrete.’
‘I’m being good, Artie. I’ve been keeping my little logbook up-to-date for you.’
‘Fuck the logbook, Pagan.’
‘You mean I don’t need to keep it? After all the time I spent recording my movements, you tell me you’re not interested?’
‘I hate sarcasm, Pagan. I hate that patronizing tone in your voice. Listen, I got enough on my plate right now without having to deal with you.’
Pagan listened to the lovely liquid sound of rain upon glass and said, ‘No impending arrests, Artie? No signs? No clues?’
‘You think I’d tell you?’
‘In other words, nothing.’
Zuboric was quiet a moment. ‘We got thousands of guys out there beating the bushes, Pagan. Plus, the phones don’t quit ringing. The public’s squealing like a pig with a spear up its kazoo.’
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