The men below had stopped too. They must have heard the phone. They weren't in clear enough sight for me to be sure of taking one out with the first shot. Without that…
I heard a faint murmur of voices. The men deciding to go on, perhaps, realizing the distraction of the phone could only have made things worse for the people waiting for them.
They moved again, and finally they were in clear sight. Two men, tall. Both dressed in dark clothes.
Forty yards from me. Not a head shot. Go for body mass. Be sure. I took a shallow breath and held it, sighted along the barrel. Gently applied pressure to the trigger.
I saw a flash of movement, someone walking quickly from the direction of our cabin towards the two men below. The flash was a rich brown, the colour of…
I jerked my head up off the rifle, just in time to hear a woman shouting below. Nina's jacket—so Nina's voice?
I found myself on my feet again, without thinking, heading down the hill carefully but fast, rifle still in position and finger still ready to pull—but no longer understanding what was going on.
I ran down to station myself twenty yards behind the intruders. I hit the path just in time to see Nina a hundred feet ahead, storming around the corner towards the men now caught between us. They had stopped walking. One was still holding a phone. The other turned to look at me, and slowly raised his hands.
'Hey, Ward,' he said. 'Be cool.'
'For God's sake, Charles!' Nina shouted at the man with the phone. 'What the hell do you think you're doing?'
•••
They sat on the porch. We stood a few yards away. Neither Nina nor I trusted ourselves to be nearer them yet, though coffee had been poured, Patrice had been stood down, and the sweat on my scalp was now cold.
'We could have killed you,' Nina said, not for the first time. She was still full-blown furious, hands on hips.
'I still might,' I muttered.
The two men sat in the chairs where we normally ate. The second man, the one who'd greeted me, had said nothing so far except to decline sugar. He was rangy and tall with his hair cut short. His name was Doug Olbrich and he was a lieutenant in Special Section 1, the LAPD Robbery Homicide division dedicated to high-profile murder cases.
The first man, whose limp I had noticed even from a distance, was Charles Monroe. He was a Special Agent in Charge at one of the FBI's field offices in Los Angeles, and he was Nina's boss. I had met him only briefly, immediately prior to his receiving a number of gunshot wounds from an assailant who had attacked us in a diner in Fresno five months before. He was lucky to be alive, though he had probably spent many weeks feeling otherwise. Judging by the care with which he sat down, that time was not over yet. The man who shot him—and me too, in the shoulder—was dead. Nina had killed him in the forest a couple of miles from where we now stood, on the day we met Patrice. Nina had seen her boss only twice since, on our two brief visits to LA, when she had been required for debriefing and evidential hearings towards the trial of the killer we had caught that day.
'Why didn't you call ahead?' she said. 'By which I mean yesterday, not when you're halfway around our lake? Killing you is trouble we really don't need—however unbelievably appealing the idea seems right this second.'
Monroe put his mug on the table. 'Would you have been here when I arrived?'
'Of course we would.'
He didn't believe her. Olbrich meanwhile was gazing out at the trees, happy not to be involved in this part of the conversation. But I could read a good deal of tension in his face.
'And you would have taken the call in the first place?'
'Charles…oh for God's sake.' She rubbed her face with her hands, and picked her own coffee up off the rail.
'Monroe,' I said. 'What do you actually want?'
'From you, nothing. You are not an employee of the FBI, which is the organization I work for. Nina too, as I hope she recalls. You're not a cop either, and never were. I gather you once worked for another agency in what may loosely be termed "intelligence", but from what I hear that was a long time ago and you are not exactly missed. So far as I am concerned you can walk off into the forest and never come back.'
'Ward saved your life,' Nina said.
'Really? The last thing I saw was him pulling you out of the back of a restaurant and leaving me pinned in a booth. The shooter followed you. I survived by default.'
'A selective account,' I said, though privately I agreed with him. I'd been more concerned with prolonging Nina's life, and my own, than I had been with his—especially after he'd taken what I'd assumed were mortal wounds. I had found I could live with this decision.
'People,' Olbrich said, 'this isn't getting us anywhere.'
'Nina and I weren't intending to go anywhere,' I snapped. 'She had an agreement with this asshole which precluded him revealing our location—including to you. He's broken that already and I'm guessing that's just the beginning. You haven't come here to bring Nina's mail, Monroe, so what the hell do you want?'
'Nina,' Monroe said. 'It's time for you to come back.'
Bang. Just like that, I knew Nina's question of the other night had been answered. It was always bound to be this way. I shook my head, and walked a few paces.
'I don't know if I'm coming back,' Nina said. 'I like it here.'
'Is that a resignation? Really? If so, get a pen and paper. I'll need it in writing.'
Nina looked at me. I shrugged, meaning this was her gig, her call and decision and life.
'Come on, Nina,' Monroe said, voice caught between irritation and an attempt to sound reasonable. 'You know the score. I got you leave because the circumstances were exceptional.'
'Plus about two million years' worth of owed time.'
'You ran out weeks ago. As you know.'
'Okay,' she said, dully. 'So maybe I will retire. Maybe I'm done with this stuff. It's not like we're making a discernible difference.'
'That's not true. There are ten years' worth of killers in jail because of you.'
'Putting someone away after they've killed two, four, six people—what kind of win is that? It's wiping up a dropped glass of milk. Fine, the floor's clean for a while. But you still don't have any milk. The victims' families still get up every day feeling like death. It all still happened and we're after the fact.'
'Unless you find some way of going back in time,' Olbrich said. 'That is the nature of law enforcement.'
Nina coloured. She had meant the observation personally, as a reflection of what she felt. By not taking it that way the cop had made her feel dumb.
Monroe evidently realized this too. 'Also,' he added, quickly, 'There's something else. I need you.'
'Nah, you don't,' she said, shaking her head firmly. 'You got plenty of other bitches. Some of them bright sparks even understand causality, I'll bet.'
'Nina, I came a long way to see you and I don't have a lot of hours to spend on this.'
'So fly back to LA. Have a safe trip. Call ahead next time and bring flowers or muffins or something. You were evidently very badly brought up.'
'I'm not going back to California. The FBI have been asked to assist a homicide investigation in Virginia. It's messy and it could be a serial killer, or that's what the local cops think. I want you to come with me.'
Nina shook her head again. 'I'm not…'
'Nina—they think a woman did it.'
•••
Nina was down by the lake shore. She had been there ten minutes. I knew every second that passed meant it was more likely she was going. Her stance said that everything near her, the trees, the lake, the mountains and probably even me, was insubstantial to her now. I stayed up at the cabin with the others. Neither of the men made any attempt to start a conversation with me. Olbrich checked his watch several times.
'So explain this to me,' I said. 'You've got a body out east and maybe it's Fed business, maybe it's not. What I don't understand is why your pal Olbrich is here. I don't care how you define LAPD's jurisdiction,
but Virginia is a long plane ride away.'
The men looked at each other. 'Tell him,' Monroe said. He got up gingerly, stepped down off the porch. 'This is his business, even if nothing else is. And we have now run out of time.'
He walked straight down past me and towards Nina.
'The Henrikson person,' Olbrich said, when the other man was out of earshot. 'He's your brother, right?'
He was referring to the killer we had caught in the forest, a man who would soon go on trial for the murder of a woman called Jessica Jones in Los Angeles, and another from Seattle, Katelyn Wallace, whose body had been found forty miles from where we now sat. The case was ironclad. Following that a further trial would take place concerning the deaths of a number of teenage girls in LA five years previously, a series the LA media had called the Delivery Boy Murders. Matters there were more complicated.
'We're twins,' I said. 'But I never knew him. His real name is Paul. He calls himself the Upright Man—the Delivery Boy crap was Monroe's idea, remember. Paul doesn't work alone, either. You know all this. It's in Nina's report.'
'Actually, it's not,' Olbrich said, looking away. 'It was determined that your more general allegations confused the case.'
'What I said was true,' I said. 'Nina knows it. Paul worked for a conspiracy of killers, procuring victims to order. He did other things too.'
'Monroe's in charge of the investigation, not Nina.'
'Monroe is in charge of his career. Anyway—what about it?'
'After your brother was discharged from hospital he was transferred to Pelican Bay. The supermax near the border with Oregon.'
'I thought that was for gang psychos, the Aryan Brotherhood and Low Riders and Black Guerrillas.'
'Usually it is. But Monroe was convinced your man needed to be in a Secure Housing Unit until trial—24/7 solitary lockdown in a place with no windows and guards who regard fatalities as paperwork. After seeing what he did to those women, it was hard not to agree. So Monroe swung it. The Corcoran and Tehachapi facilities wouldn't take him, so he was sent north to the Bay. In three months he survived three murder attempts, one from a member of staff—who's still in hospital. But then…'
Olbrich breathed out heavily, and that was enough to steal his thunder. Especially when I saw Monroe talking down by the waterline, and Nina suddenly raising her head to look up at me. She started walking back fast.
'Don't tell me this,' I said. I could hear the blood rushing in my ears, feel it hesitate in my veins.
'Two days ago he was released for transport back to Los Angeles. We don't know what happened en route, but a hundred miles south something sure as hell did. We have the armoured truck, most of it, and the bodies of two of the guards were found within a half mile. The other two are missing. The assumption is they're dead too.'
'No,' I said. 'Assume instead they helped Paul escape.'
'Monroe knew you'd say something like that. Said you were a conspiracy kind of guy. A killer under every bed.'
'You know what I'm talking about. You helped John Zandt. You got information for him. He was tracking Paul.'
'I helped John because I knew him when he was in Homicide, and he'd been a stellar cop. He's not any more. There're two outstanding murder warrants against him, for a start.'
'Yeah. He killed a man who organized the transport of young girls to their deaths, and someone who helped abduct them in the first place.'
'Careful, Ward. If Zandt ever reappears you may find yourself having to repeat that in court some day.'
'I don't condone what John has done. But when I have the time and feel safe, I'll go dance on those two guys' graves.'
'Safe from who?'
'Who do you think? The people behind this. This is not a delusion. Why do you think Nina and I have been up here all this time, living under false names? You think we're on some back-to-nature thing? Or that we're just really fucking shy?'
'I thought it was because of your brother. I know you were involved in his capture.'
'No,' I said, coldly. 'It wasn't about him. We assumed the California penal system had that situation under control.'
'Ward,' Nina said. Monroe approached a few paces behind her, his hands clasped behind his back. He had the air of a man whose task was completed, who'd seen it go as planned, and was now ready to get on with his day. 'He told you?'
'Yes. Congratulations, Charles. You just lost one of the most dangerous men on planet Earth.'
'We'll find him,' Monroe said.
'No you won't,' I said. 'Not a chance. Anyone finds anyone, it'll be him finding you. Good luck when that happens.'
'I don't think it will be me he's looking for.'
'Right,' I said. 'So shouldn't you have told us about this a little earlier? Like one and a half days ago? Or have you had agents sitting in Sheffer since then, watching to see if he would head up this way, using us as bait?'
'Of course not,' he said.
I didn't believe him, and that meant Sheffer was no longer safe. I wasn't convinced Paul would necessarily come looking for me. But there were other people who might.
'So Olbrich's here to ask if I know where Paul is?'
'Do you?'
'No,' I said. 'And right now I wouldn't tell you if I did.'
•••
I smoked on the porch while Nina packed. Monroe and the cop stood some distance away, impatiently. I spent a while staring at the back of Monroe's head. A clean shot no longer seemed enough. I wanted to grab him by the neck and drown him in the lake. I wanted to do it and sell tickets. Cheap tickets, with free snacks.
'I'm done,' Nina said.
I looked round to see her standing in the doorway, carrying a bag. She had changed into the kind of clothes she used to wear. A Fed suit. She looked different. She looked businesslike, professional. She looked…actually, she looked kind of cool.
I stood up. 'Agent Baynam, present and correct.'
'I hate this too,' she said, coming closer. 'You believe me, don't you?'
'I do,' I said, keeping my voice low. 'Because I think someone's been ignoring Monroe's calls for a while now. True?'
'Could be.'
'You should have told me he was ringing your bell.'
'You're right,' she said. 'And I'm sorry. My bad. But tell me, who's been ringing yours?'
'What do you mean?'
'The night you made that ridiculous salad. You closed the laptop without quitting out of email. It was sitting there next time I used the computer.'
There wasn't much to say. 'You got me.'
'So who's trying to get in touch with you?'
'It's an old address of mine. It could be anyone.'
'I don't think so. You're a nice man, underneath it all, but you're really not that popular. It's not going to be an invitation to go bowling. There's a world out there that means us harm, Ward. You need to find out who this person is.'
'You're the boss.'
'Correct. Remember that at all costs.' She leaned forward and kissed me. 'Later,' she said.
She walked down to the lake and walked away with the two men. It seemed to me that she was gone, disappeared, long before she passed out of sight.
I spent the afternoon closing down the cabin. I cleaned up, shut down the boiler, put the shutters over the windows. I spent much of this time trying to think of somewhere specific to go, and failing. Pointing the car east and driving was the best I could come up with. I went up into the roof space and retrieved Bobby's computer. I left it charging up while I carried a few things around the lake to Nina's car, parked behind Patrice's cabin. I explained to her that Nina was gone, and that I would be soon. I told her to be careful, to watch out for strangers, and to be in contact with the sheriff if she suspected anything at all. She made me a cup of coffee which just made me feel more alone.
When I got back I checked my email. There was nothing, which kind of screwed things up. It was all very well Nina telling me to find out who'd been trying to be in contact, but the email with the return a
ddress was on her machine. I still wasn't convinced it was an interaction I needed to have. Maybe she thought it was Paul, trying to track me down. If so, she wasn't thinking straight. The email had been sent while he was still in jail.
I was about to shut the machine when I noticed it was downloading something after all. I flicked to a progress window in back and realized email was coming into one of Bobby's accounts. I'd left his addresses active in the software, out of respect or superstition, not wanting to close down this last vestige of his life.
There were three emails in his in-tray. All were titled 'CALL ME', and the most recent had been sent three weeks before. I'd have called them spam without thinking except the Hotmail address they'd come from looked familiar.
I opened the most recent:
Bobby—are you there? There's strange chatter all over and I need your brains. Now.
Like the ones to me, it was not signed. Why? I could only assume the sender thought Bobby and I would recognize the sending address. I thought a moment, and then copied the address into an email from my own account. I typed:
It's Ward Hopkins here. Bobby's dead. Who are you and what do you want?
Then I hit SEND before I could think too much about it.
I knew the best thing was just to leave quickly, but I was finding it hard. I took a last look around, as my father had taught me to do on family vacations, checking rooms one by one and shutting each door behind me. I couldn't find my coat for a while but then realized it must be hanging behind the front door, which was open. Didn't remember putting it there, but hey—it had been a stressful day.
I pulled the door to grab it and realized it wasn't the only coat there. Nina's brown jacket hung next to it.
She'd left it behind.
For a moment I felt like a teenager, then made myself mentally shrug. Too bulky to go in her bag. Not in keeping with the sharp Fed look. You're thirty-nine years old, Ward. Get a grip.
Blood of Angels Page 3