Heat

by Campbell Armstrong

  ‘It’s bedlam,’ Pagan said. ‘I sympathize. I’ve been there.’

  ‘Bedlam. Worse than bedlam. What I feel like is some god-damn rat forced through one of them lab mazes, only the corridors don’t go anywhere except into walls, and so you need to go back the way you came, which doesn’t do a bit of fucking good because you only come to another wall. So what makes her all this difficult to find, Pagan? Huh? You’re the expert. You tell me. She got some deal with the devil, something like that? Or has she discovered the secret of invisibility, huh?’

  ‘You’re stressed, Artie.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m stressed. I’m beyond stressed. See, I can’t figure out her trick, Pagan. I can’t get inside her head.’

  ‘Even if you could, you wouldn’t be able to read what’s written there. It’s not in any language known to man.’

  Zuboric sighed. ‘She’s everywhere, Pagan. If I’m to believe these reported sightings, she’s like something straight outta quantum physics, because she’s been seen simultaneously in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Baltimore, Maryland. Oh, and Alaska too.’

  Pagan said, ‘It’s the effect she has on the public. They want to see her, so they see her.’

  ‘Listen, I’m hanging up, I got people climbing all over me, this place is a god-damn zoo,’ Zuboric said. ‘I suggest you go back to your hotel and do nothing, and if the urge to go sightseeing comes over you again, resist it. I don’t want some crazy Englishman running loose. Follow me?’

  ‘I follow, Artie.’ Pagan put the phone down.

  The rain was slow and easy outside, coming down through lamps like the silvery strands of an intricate, shifting web. He watched it gather in shallow pools on the roofs of cars parked in the lot. He picked up the telephone and dialled Naderson’s number from memory, and the old man answered on the third or fourth ring.

  ‘Ah, Frank Pagan, you were on my mind,’ he said.

  ‘Did you speak to Poole?’

  ‘Yes. We talked.’

  ‘Did you tell him I think he’s in danger?’

  ‘Of course I did,’ Naderson said.

  ‘Have you both taken precautions?’

  ‘We have, Frank. You may be assured on that score.’

  Precautions, Pagan thought. He hoped they were stout ones. He hoped they were bomb-proof. Fat chance. ‘What about the names?’ Pagan asked. ‘Have you made any progress?’

  Naderson was quiet for a short time. Pagan imagined him sitting inside his atrium, surrounded by floating greenery, the photographs aligned on the wicker table. ‘I think we have that one under control, Frank.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Really, Frank, I’m not at liberty to discuss Agency business with you.’

  ‘I understand that. I thought that in the circumstances you might be a little more co-operative, Bob. After all, I was the one who came to you, I was the one who warned you. I didn’t have to do that, I could have turned my back. I could have ignored you completely.’

  ‘Yes, you could have done,’ said Naderson.

  ‘I think a little tit for tat might be in order, Bob.’

  Naderson issued a long sigh. ‘You’re pressuring me, Frank.’

  ‘Yes. I know I am.’

  ‘I’m a little too old for pressure.’

  ‘Look, Bob. Whatever you say, it’s between you and me. It’s off the record. I can promise you that.’

  ‘Your word?’

  ‘Completely.’

  ‘Is an Englishman’s word as sound as it used to be?’ Naderson asked. ‘Or is that an outmoded concept in this day and age?’

  ‘I can’t talk for my fellow countrymen, Bob. I can only speak for myself. You have my word.’

  Naderson was quiet for a time before he said, ‘Certain individuals are being questioned, Frank. These are people with access to the Executive Director’s files.’

  ‘Can you name them for me?’

  ‘Two secretaries. Both have been on the Executive Director’s staff for the past four years. One has been with the Agency for fourteen years, the other six. I don’t see what function it would serve to give you their names, though.’

  ‘A favour, Bob. Please.’

  ‘You’ve almost come to the end of your favours,’ Naderson said. ‘They’re both women. One is called Wanda Loeb, the other Gilda McNamara. Those names mean anything to you, Frank?’

  ‘No,’ Pagan said. ‘Are they the only candidates?’

  ‘As far as the Executive Director is concerned, they are.’

  ‘What about you, Bob? Does either of these women strike you as likely to plunder Poole’s private files for gain?’

  Naderson was silent a moment. Then he said, ‘No, not really.’

  ‘You’re holding something back, Bob. What is it?’

  ‘I think I’ve said as much as I’m going to say,’ Naderson remarked. ‘Anything else would be subjective and indiscreet.’

  ‘You believe there might be a better candidate than either of these women.’

  ‘I have nothing more to add, Frank. Let’s leave it that way.’

  There was a note of finality in the way Naderson said this. Pagan caught a reflection of himself in the dark rainy window. ‘One last thing, Bob. Does the name Ralph Donovan mean anything to you?’

  ‘Should it?’

  ‘You didn’t send him to my hotel?’

  ‘I haven’t sent anyone to your hotel, Frank. Why?’

  ‘Then somebody misrepresented you,’ Pagan said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’d love to find out why,’ Pagan said. ‘He had Agency ID.’

  ‘Which might have been fake.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Even if it was genuine, it doesn’t follow that I’d know this Donovan personally. There are thousands of people in the Agency, Frank. I can’t keep track any more. Sometimes I think I’m getting a little too old for this murky business. Once upon a time life used to be different. Things were clearer in the old days. You knew the enemy. You knew where you stood. You knew the risks and you ran them and be damned. Now, everything’s muddy. Everything’s cloudy. The view from the promontory isn’t what it used to be.’

  The view from the promontory, Pagan thought. He assumed this was Naderson’s way of referring to the moral high ground, when the angels congregated over Langley, and God was one hundred per cent on your team, and ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ had the status of a psalm, and all the dark brooding enemy forces were gathered on other continents.

  ‘This Carlotta,’ the old man said. ‘If she were simply a mercenary, perhaps she’d be easier to understand.’

  ‘But she’s not.’

  ‘I just learned that somebody blew up a satellite station tonight, one of our places in Delaware. Does that sound like her handiwork?’

  ‘Yes, it sounds like her,’ Pagan said.

  ‘Totally destroyed the place, I understand.’

  A satellite station in Delaware, an Agency installation. It fitted what Pagan believed was her agenda. He looked into the darkness and imagined her out there somewhere in the rain. He had the unsettling feeling that she was nearby, radiating a kind of energy he could sense.

  Naderson said, ‘I’m leaving here tonight and going away for a few days, Frank, to a very safe place. I doubt if we’ll need to talk again. I wish you well.’

  ‘I wish you the same,’ Pagan said.

  Naderson hung up. Pagan held the receiver a moment before he set it down. Then he descended into the lobby, where he asked the desk clerk about car rentals.

  40

  WASHINGTON

  There were about seventy of them in total and they fanned separately across the city and the suburbs. They checked hotels and motels. They reported to Max Skidelsky every hour because that was the way Max wanted it. They asked the same questions whereever they went. Has a man called Frank Pagan checked in here? If this question was answered in the negative, they’d been instructed to pose the more general question: Has a man with an English accent checked in during the day
? And then, if they had to, they described Pagan according to the details they’d been given by Skidelsky. It was legwork and it was tedious, and more than a few of them reflected on the fact that while they were out driving in the rainy night, Max was sitting in his dry apartment by the telephone.

  It was a thought that certainly occurred to Mallory as he went from motel to motel. It wasn’t one he entertained for long, because the routine task was somehow comforting, and it negated the need to think about Ralph Donovan, or Pasco, or the girl murdered at Lannigan’s. He just had to plod through the night. He just had to ask his questions, and leave, and then drive to the next motel in the sector of the city he’d been assigned.

  Max had been military in his planning – dividing a map of Washington into sectors, telephoning Artichoke personnel wherever they could be located, bringing them into play. You had to admire Max and the way he’d arranged the sweep through the city, the big map spread out on the kitchen table, the red felt-tipped pen in his hand inscribing segments even as he issued commands over the phone. What impressed Mallory most was the amount of manpower available to Max and how widespread Artichoke had to be, certainly larger and better organized than Mallory had ever truly imagined. It was as if some deep tap root, carefully cultivated by Skidelsky, generously tended, ran unseen under the soil of the Agency – a plant that had not yet quite flowered, but one vibrant with energy.

  Mallory watched his windshield wipers go back and forth. His brief was simple. Locate Pagan, call Skidelsky. He was to take no action himself. Max had been emphatic about that. Just a phone call. Leave the real fieldwork to somebody else. Gladly, Mallory thought.

  He was driving on Pennsylvania Avenue now. Until recently, motorists had been able to drive past the front of the White House, but because of the number of assaults made on the Presidential mansion in the past year, a pedestrian precinct had been constructed as a security measure. Consequently, Mallory was obliged to take a detour to his next stop – a place called The Capitol City Motor Lodge, which turned out to be your basic motel charging foreign tourists inflated prices.

  He turned into the driveway, parked, went inside the lobby. He noticed that signs were written in English, Japanese, German and Arabic. He approached the desk where the clerk, a lean man with a lazy eye that drifted in an unco-ordinated manner in its socket, surveyed him with nonchalance.

  Mallory produced his ID card and the clerk’s manner instantly changed to one of attentiveness. ‘I’m looking for a man called Frank Pagan,’ Mallory said.

  ‘English guy?’

  Mallory, who had so far been to fifteen motels without success, was surprised. ‘He’s here?’

  ‘He was. You just missed him,’ said the clerk.

  ‘By how much?’

  ‘Twenty minutes. He asked me about car rentals. So I arranged an Avis for him.’

  ‘Twenty minutes,’ Mallory said.

  ‘Yeah. You want the auto details?’ The clerk looked around for the paperwork and placed it in front of Mallory. ‘Compact Buick. The licence plate number’s on the rental agreement. What’s he done, this Pagan? I know, I know, you can’t tell me, right? It’s some kind of national security thing, right?’

  ‘You might say,’ Mallory remarked. He copied the car details from the rental form.

  ‘He didn’t have any luggage, you know,’ the clerk said. ‘Which I thought pretty odd. And he didn’t pay with a credit card either, which is odder still.’

  ‘Right,’ Mallory said. He was in no mood to be engaged in conversation with this desk clerk or anyone else for that matter. He just wanted to go home. ‘I need to use your phone.’

  ‘Go in my office. It’s more private back there,’ said the clerk.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Mallory closed the door of the clerk’s office and dialled Skidelsky’s number. Busy. He sat back in the chair and felt weary. The day had been long and dreadful and kept coming back at him, like a pocket of malodorous gas. You’re doing all this for your country. Believe. Keep the faith. He looked at his hands and thought how unfamiliar they seemed all at once, like appendages sliced from a stranger and tacked onto his arms. Fatigue bred illusions.

  He tried Max again, and this time the phone was picked up.

  Mallory said, ‘I have some news. He rented a car, Max.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘A place called The Capitol City Motor Lodge. He left here about twenty minutes ago.’

  ‘Give me details,’ Max said.

  Mallory read out what Max needed to know. Year and make of the car, registration number.

  ‘You’ve done good, Jimmy.’

  ‘I got lucky.’

  ‘Sometimes we make our own luck,’ Skidelsky said. ‘Here’s what I want you to do now. Go home. Run a nice long bath. Get some sleep.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘That’s it. I promised you no more fieldwork. I like to think I keep my promises, Jimmy. You’ve done enough. I’ll call you tomorrow.’

  Mallory put the telephone down. Nice long bath. Sleep. He could go for that. He left the office, thanked the clerk, stepped out into the rainy night which was steamy and tropical, the sky oppressive as a leaden weight, and he walked to his car. He could smell thunder in the air, a storm rolling in from the Atlantic, and he wondered if it might cleanse his memory and emotions as surely as it would cleanse the dry streets and the rock-hard landscape of the country.

  He drove north through the city until he came to the suburb where he lived. His apartment was small, but since Rosemary and the kids had gone, what did he need with space? Too many rooms just meant more square feet to patrol during his insomniac nights.

  He slipped his key in the lock, turned on the light, stepped inside the living-room, shut the door and sighed as if he were expelling everything toxic from his system. He moved toward the liquor cabinet, thinking a screwdriver might go down quite nicely—

  ‘James Mallory? Or is it Jason Mannering?’

  Mallory stopped halfway across the floor. He felt rigid, muscles locked, his heartbeat rushed. The man was sitting in an armchair beside the fireplace. His hair, dark streaked with threads of grey, was short and unruly. There was no expression on his face.

  ‘Which name do you prefer?’ the man asked.

  The accent was English, Mallory guessed London.

  ‘You’re Pagan,’ he said.

  ‘I’m Pagan.’

  41

  WASHINGTON

  She reached the outskirts of the city and immediately encountered a traffic jam caused by an accident in the rain. There were the usual grim attendants on such scenes, ambulances and fire-trucks and cop-cars, paramedics and firemen. Ahead, she could see two trucks turned on their sides and the road littered with cigarettes, cartons of them, some that had broken open in the collision, thousands of paper cylinders soaking up the rain.

  She tapped her hand on the steering-wheel. She was impatient and uneasy. There were too many cops gathered in one place for her liking. She considered the notion of somehow trying to weave her way through the jam, but the lanes ahead were blocked. Stuck, no option but to wait.

  She switched on the radio, scanned the channels, turned it off again. The world was full of noise, too many call-in shows, rednecks babbling in the ether, every half-drunk moron sitting in a broken-down trailer park had a half-assed opinion on drugs, sex, abortion, immigration control, racism.

  She stared through the windshield. A crane had lumbered onto the scene and was being deployed to shift the trucks. She saw a long chain descend from the sky, metal links made red and blue by the lights of cop-cars. She rolled down her window; the interior was steamy.

  A cop was standing a few yards from her car. She hadn’t noticed him. He was a young man and his uniform was wet. ‘Bad,’ he said.

  ‘Looks that way,’ she said.

  The cop’s gun hung lopsided against his thigh. ‘The rain,’ he said. ‘They travel too fast in the rain. Slick surfaces. Next thing …’ He turned his fac
e and looked at her but his expression revealed no little flash of recognition. ‘They’ll get this mess cleaned up in a few minutes,’ he added. ‘You in a hurry?’

  ‘Not particularly,’ she said.

  He stepped a little nearer to the car. She thought about the canvas bag on the floor behind her seat. She had the strangely compelling urge to introduce herself, to say I’m the one you’re all looking for, as if she wanted to test fate and win. She imagined how the young cop might react – reaching for his gun, crouching at the knees as he went for his holster. But it wasn’t going to happen that way. She was just a woman locked in a traffic jam, somebody he’d engaged in a few moments of idle conversation. Maybe one day he’d see a photograph of her and he’d remember this short encounter, and he’d feel a little rush of a half-forgotten familiarity, and he’d wonder. But he’d never know for sure.

  The crane cranked, the chain creaked.

  ‘You’ll be moving soon enough,’ the cop said.

  ‘My husband’s probably worrying about me,’ she said. She found herself thinking about Pagan, wondering if his ultimate destination was the same as her own, whether their futures would collide in the rain. She wondered if he had what it took to keep up with her, if she might have left him a more direct trail to follow – but no, if he needed too much assistance, then he wasn’t worthy of her, and she’d misjudged him.

  She didn’t think she had. She’d know soon enough.

  But first there was the man called James Mallory.

  42

  WASHINGTON

  Pagan said, ‘I have a gun, but I prefer not to use it. Is that clear?’

  Mallory struggled to gather the unravelling strands of himself. He reached the liquor cabinet. He was trembling. Pagan produced the weapon from somewhere. One second it wasn’t to be seen, the next it was in the palm of his hand, a conjuring trick. Mallory laid his fingertips on the metal frame of the cabinet and received an unexpected electric shock. Stung, he gasped and pulled his hand back.

  ‘It’s the static in your carpet,’ Pagan said in a matter-of-fact way – like a guest, somebody Mallory had invited into his home. ‘It builds up. You touch metal – and whack, the electricity goes straight through you.’