There are probably more bad things. But that's enough. It's bad all around. Except…
Ward had not been there. He had not been in the hotel room with her, and so presumably was okay. That was good.
Unless…
Nina felt a sudden, sick swirling in her stomach. If Ward's meeting had been fake, to separate them, then the pile of bad could swell to fill the sky. If this was not Thornton's killer, as she had been assuming, then it might be the Straw Men.
In which case Ward could be…
Dead in a room, sprawled wetly across a bed. Dead in a backstreet, partly hidden with trash. Lolling dead in a car, brains blown mottled over the side window, his face waxy and pale.
No.
No. She suddenly tensed every muscle in her body, made an all-directions spasm of movement with every ounce of strength. Her bonds didn't even stretch, but she triggered enough jags of pain around her body to haul her mind out of the mine shaft it had threatened to plummet down.
She resolved to lie quietly for now, to empty her head. Bad never gets better through thinking about it. Bad never gets better through trying not to think about it either.
You just have to think about something else.
She spaces out as best she can, but soon realizes something. There is a presence in her head. Some thing has come to make a home in her, an emotion she has vigorously defended herself from for most of her life. As yet it is a sly newcomer, and it knows it has work to do, deeper inroads to forge. But it's there.
She tries to breathe deeply and evenly. It helps, but not much. She has to accept this thing as a fact.
She is scared.
She is very badly scared.
Chapter 22
I sat in the car in the Mayflower's parking lot smoking cigarette after cigarette. I'd driven past the Holiday Inn on my way back into town and it was already heaving with busy-looking men and women in windcheaters with FBI printed on the back. There were cop cars in strength too, and there would soon be enough media people to cover the Olympics. The situation had been handed up to a world I didn't understand or trust. I couldn't have got close to Monroe even if I wanted to. Need arose, I had his phone number. For the time being it was just me, hunched in a car in the lot of a stupid bar.
I'd tried to snatch some sleep in the car in the small hours. It felt like betrayal but I had no useful way to deploy awareness and my mind was beginning to judder like a plane running out of gas. It didn't feel better for the forty minutes or so I'd managed. It ran the same old tracks, as if there was comfort to be had from repetition. There wasn't, not when the questions were 'Had I helped by getting Unger to meet me somewhere other than Thornton, where I could have been closer to Nina?' and 'What kind of guy did you send to do what had happened in that hotel room, and what manner of thing might he do next?' Worse was the knowledge that I should have gone back to Nina: that after our heated words outside the police station I should have walked back and kissed her, said goodbye properly. It would have been a ten-yard walk then. Now it was not.
And yes of course I'd tried calling Unger's phone. Soon as I got a chance I would email the fucker too. Apart from the small thrill of threatening him from a distance, I might as well bark at the sky.
'Jesus—are you okay?'
I nearly wrenched my neck, turning to see where the voice had come from. Someone was standing by the car. The window was clouded up and I didn't see who it was until I opened the door.
Hazel was standing there. She eyed me warily.
'Not really,' I said.
'Is it something to do with what happened at the Inn?'
I didn't have to answer. She could see it was from my face. 'I got the keys this morning,' she said. 'Come inside.'
I pulled myself out of the car and followed her.
As I entered I caught sight of myself in the mirror along the wall. I saw Hazel's point. I did not look good. I went straight into the restroom and washed my face and hands, keeping the water cold to stoke my head. There wasn't anything I could do about the residual blood on my clothes. I kept my eyes away from the mirror for fear I might not recognize the creature reflected there.
When I got back out a coffee was waiting for me.
'I put a heap a sugar in it,' she said. 'I advise you drink it whether you like it that way or not.'
I did. Taste and warmth seemed to flood from my mouth down as far as my chest. For a moment I felt better.
'Was she your girlfriend?'
'Is,' I said. 'She still is.'
She looked dubious. 'They got any idea where she's at?'
'No.'
'This the guy who killed the two guys here?'
'I don't think so.'
She appraised me for a moment. 'You're not a cop, are you. Nor with the FBI neither.'
'No.'
She nodded, then frowned, seeming to look at something over my shoulder. 'Lloyd's not due till lunch,' she said. 'Plus, that's not his truck.'
I turned. A black car had turned into the lot. It pulled slowly around in an arc and drew to a halt on the opposite side, close to my own vehicle.
I got my gun out. Checked it.
'Stay here,' I said. 'And keep away from the windows.'
I walked out into the lot with my right hand held down by my side and somewhat towards the back. I made a slight curve as I went, moving towards the rear of the vehicle. If someone inside had in mind to shoot me, I hoped this would make their angle a little more difficult.
I stopped about five yards away from the car.
The engine died. The driver's side door opened and a man got out. He walked around the front. His hair was short and his face was lean and his eyes were sharp.
He was John Zandt.
'Hello, Ward,' he said. 'You look like shit.'
'I feel it.' I took a couple of steps closer, held out my hand. He'd take it, or he wouldn't. 'Good to see you, John.'
He nodded slowly, and shook.
'Never thought I'd say it, but it's good to see you too.'
•••
We took a booth near the back of the bar. Hazel fixed more coffee and offered to make food, or find us some, but we both said no. I found it hard to imagine eating ever again.
'Tell me,' he said.
I told him everything I could think of, from Monroe coming to fetch Nina from Sheffer to what I'd observed and heard her tell of the investigation since. I told him of Unger's apparent attempts to contact Bobby and myself, and of what we'd spoken of in the bar in Owensville. I told him of the look I'd caught on Julia Gulicks' face through the cell window in the small hours, I told him about the condition Reidel's body had been left in, I told him about the two bodies found in the woods around Thornton.
He listened, eyes down, hands clasped on the table. When I finished he said nothing for a moment, then looked up at me. 'Have you considered the idea that Unger might not be a part of what's happened?'
'Not yet. But I will if you make me.'
'I'm just not sure why he'd have this conversation with you if he was a point guy for the Straw Men.'
'To sound convincing.'
'Why give you information you don't already have? The spam technique sounds feasible. I suspect also it's used as a fishing net, on the theory if someone is stupid enough to respond then there's a chance—on the promise of some great deal or other—they'll be stupid enough to come meet a guy down a dark alley someplace and not tell anyone where they've gone. Either way it sounds more like Unger was feeding you stuff to open you up. If he wanted to take you out he would have done it right there in the bar and hang the consequences. And you got no bad feeling off him, right?'
'He seemed like a regular guy. Convincingly gung-ho for the Company, too, though that could just have been him running interference. Judging character is an inexact science.'
'When was the last time you got it wrong?'
I thought about it. 'I can't remember.'
'Right. From what I've seen, you tend to make decent guesses.'
'The only thing implicating Unger is that Nina got taken. But that's not proof: could be the abductor was watching the pair of you closely and picked his moment when you were out of the way. Could even just be a coincidence. Judging by how he conducted himself when the time came, it could be he wouldn't have cared much if you were there. This is someone competent and insane. He might have enjoyed fucking you up too.'
'Which brings me to the thing I haven't yet mentioned,' I said. 'Paul's escaped.'
I don't know what I expected from this revelation. Fury, incomprehension, John storming straight back out into the lot. In fact he just nodded.
'I expected that to make you as unhappy as it did me,' I said. 'But I guess you figure this gives you another chance of killing him, correct?'
'Underneath it all, you're really quite smart.'
'Doesn't it worry you they can break someone like Paul out and leave the Feds just scratching their heads?'
'Doesn't surprise me in the least. I've spent the last year researching these people. I know things about them you wouldn't believe.'
'John, spare me the weird shit, okay? I'm not in the fucking mood. If you now think the Straw Men are space aliens from beyond Orion's Belt, keep it to yourself. These people scare me enough without giving them tentacles.'
'They're human, Ward. That's the worst thing. Have you tried calling Unger since last night?'
'Yes of course I have.'
'Dead?'
'Voicemail redirect.'
'You emailed him?'
I shook my head.
'I think it would be a good idea.'
'Why?'
'Nothing to lose if he's one of them. Plenty to gain if he isn't.'
'He didn't seem to know a great deal, John.'
'He knows their name. Right now that puts him about fourth most knowledgeable in our circle and maybe the whole US. That makes him useful—especially if Monroe isn't prepared to go to bat against them. Unger's already on the case, and probably knows more than he let on. He has government backup. And if he is a bad guy then our going to him for help makes us look more stupid than we are.'
'Okay. We'll go to a Starbucks and wi-fi from there.'
'There's a Starbucks in this place?'
'There's one everyplace, John. Where the hell have you been? They're building new towns just so they can put coffee houses in them. Come on, I want to get moving.'
I went out back quickly and thanked Hazel. I tried to pay her, too, but she wouldn't have it. She wished me luck and said she'd pray for my friend to be okay, and I thought that if her boss Lloyd had any brains at all, it would be Hazel he was chasing.
•••
We took Zandt's car, after I'd called Monroe from the lot and established that absolutely no progress had been made in any direction. The agent sounded harried and angry and exhausted and it wasn't hard to tell he was doing the best he could.
I directed John to the historical district and we parked directly outside the coffee house. It was full of people who looked like they were from the media. A big old guy with grey hair was sitting in the window staring out with tired eyes. Luckily the signal was strong enough that we could piggyback internet access from the car. I sent an email to Unger, telling him what had happened and asking him to get the hell in touch. I still hadn't dropped him as a factor in Nina's abduction, but as John said—there was nothing to lose. When I was done I looked up to see Zandt was frowning at his own screen.
'You got a problem?'
'I don't know,' he said. 'Can you check something for me?'
He read me out a web address and I typed it in. The browser went to a badly-laid-out page with type in a numbing variety of sizes and colours. It was supposed to have a lot of pictures on it too, but each space came up blank. 'Doesn't look good,' I said. 'What is this anyway? Who's Oz Turner?'
'The lack of pictures—that because the signal's weak out here?'
I tried a few things and shook my head. 'No. There's placeholders for them in the page's HTML, but the pictures look like they're missing from the server.'
John closed his machine and took out his phone. He got hold of someone and asked to talk to Oz Turner. Evidently got the response that the guy hadn't got in to work yet. Left a 'deliver this or else' message, telling Turner to call him immediately he showed up. Closed his phone looking sombre.
'What's that all about?' I asked.
'Hopefully nothing,' he said. 'We should get moving.'
'Moving where? I've looked. Believe me, this guy's not just sitting on a street corner having brunch.'
'I know that,' he said. 'We can't go looking for her. We don't know where he's got her, assuming it is just a "he" and not a team. We don't even know where to start. I want to go look at something else.'
I waited for him to tell me where, but he said nothing more. I turned to see he was looking through the windshield. Fifty yards up the street, kids from Thornton's high school were milling around the spacious grassy area inside the gates, filling time between classes, making hours fly as the young do.
'John?'
He didn't seem to hear, and I realized he was looking for Karen, the daughter abducted by the Upright Man on 15th May 2000 and never seen again in one piece. She would have been about nineteen by now, had she not been murdered. The oldest kids we could see were maybe sixteen, seventeen, and so Karen would have been too old to be emerging with them this morning: unless perhaps she had simply been held up inside for a long, long time, getting some piece of classwork just right, talking to a teacher about costumes for the school play, taking a couple of years out to help a fellow pupil who wasn't quite as smart as she was. Being in all things and all ways the perfect person she was free to be, since she was not alive any more.
'You okay?'
'Fine,' he said, and looked away as he drove past the school.
•••
John told me where he wanted to go and I directed us as far as I could remember. Then Zandt got on the phone, called the Thornton sheriff's office and impersonated an FBI agent. He had been in law enforcement before, a homicide detective in Los Angeles, and he knew the language and protocols far better than I did: but I was still intrigued by the ease with which he assumed the role.
'Been doing that kind of thing often, have you?'
He didn't answer. He kept driving north-west. Eventually we hit the long straight road out into the wet woods, and I started recognizing things.
'What are we doing here?'
'Something you said when you told me about the second victim,' he said. 'What were the forensics on the body?'
'I don't know any more than what I saw on the night,' I said. 'I was only there on sufferance. Nina didn't have a chance to update me the next day because the Gulicks thing went wide. Forensics may not even be back yet. They probably switched to examining what was left of Reidel.'
I saw a stretch of gravel by the side of the road that looked sort of familiar, and I told Zandt we were getting close. A hundred yards later I told him to stop.
I got out the car and looked out into the damp forest. 'This is it,' I said. 'It's in there.'
He got out and went around the back of the car. He opened the trunk and reached for something inside.
I looked back along the way we'd come. 'Anything strike you about the drive we just made?'
'Not really,' he said. 'Other than I felt no real pang in leaving that town behind.'
'We didn't get stopped.'
I called Monroe again. He had neither the time nor the inclination to talk but I wouldn't go away until he'd got the message. If the town was supposed to have been secured, it wasn't working. He put the phone down in the end.
Zandt shut the trunk. A long canvas bag was slung over his shoulder.
'What's in there?'
'Tools,' he said. 'Which way now?'
I set off into the woods. The going got boggy real soon, the previous night's
rain having turned the ground even more mushy. I wasn't too sure of where I was going but just when I was beginning to doubt myself I caught sight of incident tape in the distance. I walked us to the point where the boards had been laid to create a bridge onto the little island. One of them was now broken. We got ourselves across without incident.
John stood a moment, looking around.
'Shirt was over there,' I said, pointing. I led him to where it had been, and turned him round to see what I'd shown the others the night before last. 'It's hard to get the picture now, but it seemed pretty clear at the time.'
'I believe you,' he said. 'It was hung out over these branches?'
'Yeah. Facing back that way.'
John looked out over the rear end of the semi-island. All you could see was more trees marching up a hill, though in the distance they seemed to thin.
'What's that way?'
'Some small town, I think someone said.'
'The cops went through all possible exits from this position?'
'I assume. But as I said—I heard nothing on this yesterday. And if they didn't get it done then or that first night, it's not going to happen. All available manpower is otherwise engaged. Seriously, why are we here, John? I don't care how the dead guy got on this island. I care about where Nina is and I feel like I have spiders under my skin.'
'I know you do. But you were right. Putting that shirt there was not an accident. The killer was making a point about something. Why here?'
He walked back to where the defleshed body had been found. The area had been largely cleared of undergrowth, and the ground was uneven where shallow soil samples had been taken in a vain attempt to establish where the body had been kept previously.
Blood of Angels Page 22