The trouble was, the book was back home with everything else.
She returned to the hotel, and in her room she investigated the computer connection Nick Surtees had told her about. In fact it was simple and logical: her mains adaptor went straight in, and the battery-recharge light came on.
She worked for a while, concentrating on the newspaper material she had downloaded that afternoon, transferring it to her hard disk before loading it into her word processor so she could edit it and sort it out.
What she was trying to do was build up a detailed picture of the day of Grove’s outburst: not only what he had done, but also where his victims had been, where the witnesses had seen him. From there she intended to use Bureau methodology, analysing backwards from the known facts into Grove’s mental and emotional framework, to draw up a profile of his personality, psychology, motives, and so on. The newspaper reports were the bare bones of this. Next would come what police and video material was available, then the more interesting but infinitely more difficult work of interviewing witnesses.
She felt she hadn’t done too well with Steve Ripon’s mother. She opened a file for her, but it was as short and uninformative as the interview itself had been. She merely noted down the two main facts she had elicited: first, that Steve Ripon would probably not want to speak to her, and, second, that he was receiving money from the benefit office. Teresa was aware of how little she knew about the British welfare system, and therefore had no idea what this would mean, or how she could investigate it.
She had to decide what to do next. Probably the most urgent and important matter was to start her researches with the police. This was not a step to be lightly taken, because even with her FBI accreditation there would probably be limits on what she would be allowed access to, and she was too unfamiliar with the system to be able to bend the rules. Her network of insider contacts did not exist here, of course. And there were other difficulties. She knew for instance that there was no equivalent to the Freedom of Information legislation in Britain, which meant progress would probably be slow.
The remaining witnesses presented a different kind of obstacle, because after her unsuccessful interview with Mrs Ripon, Teresa was not eager to rush into another encounter for which she was unprepared.
She was tired; the jetlag was still affecting her. As she stared at the LCD screen of her laptop, she allowed her eyes to drift out of focus, and two images of the screen floated away from each other. She snapped her attention back, and the two images resolved into one, but the focus was gone. She felt that sense of being dazed by something, in such a way that you cannot tear your gaze away, even though you know it is simply a matter of deciding to do so. She stared at the screen, trying to will it back into focus; even moving her head to one side neither released her transfixed gaze nor brought back sharpness to what she was looking at.
Finally, she blinked and the spell was broken.
She glanced around the room. It was already looking familiar and homey, reminding her in its neat efficiency of a hundred hotel rooms she had used in the past. She only wished it could have been in a Holiday Inn or a Sheraton, something that was faceless outside as well as in. Everyone in town knew the White Dragon, and it wouldn’t be long before everyone she met knew she was staying there.
Looking at the window, Teresa felt her gaze starting to lock again. This time she was too tired to resist it. The square of fading daylight, the four panes of glass, dominated her view. Nothing of interest could be seen beyond it: part of a wall, a grey sky. She knew if she walked across to the window she could look down to see on one side part of the hotel car park and on the other a glimpse of the main road, but she was in a state of mental passivity and she simply stayed where she was and stared at the window. She felt as if her mind had stopped, and her energy had leached away.
Gradually, the window began to look as if it was breaking up: crystals of bright light, primary colours and white, coruscating together so vividly that it was impossible to look at them, crept in across her view of the sky. The wall containing the window darkened in her vision, becoming merely an undefined frame for the square of light that was all she could see. But the unsteady, crystalline brilliance was eating up the image of the window, blinding her to it.
Nausea began to grow in her, and once again Teresa snapped out of the reverie. She realized at last what was happening, and in a state approaching panic she groped around to find her bag, and fumbled for her Migraleve tablets. They were in a foil shield, and she snapped two of them out and threw them straight into her mouth without pausing to wash them down with water. They stuck briefly in her throat, but she forced them down.
Leaving her computer, leaving the chair and table, turning away from the deadly window, she crawled across the floor, searching ahead of her for the bed. She crept up on top of it and fell across the covers, not caring how she was lying or where her head was. She lay still, waiting for the attack to pass. Hours went by, then at last she fell asleep.
CHAPTER 9
It was many years before.
Her name was Sammie Jessup. Sammie and her husband Rick were eating at a family restaurant called Al’s Happy Burgabar, in a small town called Oak Springs along Highway 64 between Richmond and Charlottesville. It was 1958. Sammie and Rick had their three children with them.
The table was in a window booth, semicircular, with a central pedestal. The kids had piled in, noisily sliding into the centre of the padded couch seat, but Sammie knew from long experience that if Doug and Cameron sat next to each other they would end up fighting, and if Kelly sat between them she wouldn’t eat anything, so she piled them all out again. She sat in the centre herself, wedged between Cameron and Kelly, with Doug next to Kelly on one end and Rick next to Cameron on the other.
They had eaten their burgers and fried chicken and salad and fries, and were waiting for the ice creams they had ordered, when a man carrying a semi-automatic rifle walked in quietly through the door.
He entered so quietly they hardly noticed him at first. Sammie realized something was wrong when she saw one of the waitresses running across the floor, tripping heavily as she collided with a table. The intruder, who was standing beside the cash register, stepped back nervously, jerking his weapon at anyone he saw. All the other people in the restaurant had noticed at the same time, but before anyone could move another man, dressed in the bright orange shirt worn by all Al’s employees, appeared from behind the salad bar and fired a shot at the intruder. It missed.
People began screaming, trying to get up from their seats or duck down under the tables. Most of them were trapped by the narrow gap between the tables and the couches that ran round the booths. Sammie reached instinctively across to Kelly and Cameron, attempting to pull them down towards her lap. Cameron, twelve years old and big for his age, resisted. He wanted to see what was going on. Sammie saw Rick rising in his seat, lifting a protective arm towards Doug.
The intruder’s reaction to being shot at was instant and deadly. He fired a burst of shots in return, then moved across the floor of the restaurant, firing in all directions.
A bullet slammed into Doug’s head, hurling the boy backwards and spraying the tabletop with blood. As Sammie sucked in her breath in horror and twisted frantically in her seat, another bullet tore through her neck and throat. She died not long afterwards.
‘I hate this training,’ Teresa said quietly to her friend Harriet Lupi, who was taking the same course. ‘I was up sick all night.’
‘You going to quit?’ said Harriet.
‘No.’
‘Neither am I. But I sure thought about it yesterday.’
They were in the corridor with seventeen other trainees, waiting for Dan Kazinsky to arrive.
‘Do you think it’s a real incident?’ Teresa said.
‘Yeah. I looked it up.’
‘Oh shit. They’re the worst.’
‘Yeah.’
It was many years before.
Her name was Sammie Jessu
p. Sammie and her husband Rick were eating at a family restaurant called Al’s Happy Burgabar, in a small town called Oak Springs along Highway 64 between Richmond and Charlottesville. It was 1958. Sammie and Rick had their three children with them.
Teresa had time to look around, think back, think forward. Time to get frightened. She looked over her shoulder, out of the window, and saw a man with a rifle walking steadily across the parking lot.
They were in a semicircular window booth. The kids had piled in, noisily sliding into the centre of the padded couch seat, but she and Rick had piled them all out again. Now she was in the centre, wedged between Cameron and Kelly, with Doug next to Kelly on one end and Rick next to Cameron on the other.
They were waiting for the ice creams they had ordered when the man with the rifle walked in quietly through the door.
Teresa saw one of the waitresses running across the floor, tripping heavily as she collided with a table. The intruder, beside the cash register, stepped back nervously, jerking his weapon at anyone he saw. Everyone in the restaurant had noticed at the same time, but before anyone could move a staff member in bright orange shirt appeared from behind the salad bar and fired a shot at the intruder. It missed.
People began screaming, trying to get up from their seats or duck down under the tables. Most of them were trapped by the narrow gap between the tables and the couches that ran round the booths. Teresa reached across to Kelly and Cameron, attempting to pull them down towards her lap. Cameron, twelve years old and big for his age, resisted. He wanted to see what was going on. Teresa saw Rick rising in his seat, lifting a protective arm towards Doug.
The intruder fired several shots at the man by the salad bar, then moved across the floor of the restaurant, firing in all directions.
Teresa sucked in her breath in horror and twisted frantically in her seat, snatching at Doug’s jerkin to pull him down. The window shattered behind them. Teresa grabbed frenziedly at her children, sliding them under the hard, unyielding surface of the table. A bullet went past her neck and buried itself in the thick cushion behind her. Rick was thrown backwards by another bullet, and as Teresa turned towards him she too was struck in the back of the head.
Teresa sucked in her breath in horror and twisted frantically in her seat, snatching at Doug’s jerkin to pull him down. The window shattered behind them. Rick was rising in his seat. Teresa leaped across at him, crushing Cameron down into the seat. The bullet went through the side of her head.
Teresa sucked in her breath in horror, and rose desperately from her seat, pressing down her children’s heads with both hands. Rick was starting to get up too. A bullet went past her and the window shattered behind them. Doug spun round as another bullet went through him, spraying the tabletop with blood. She hurled herself across Cameron, crushing the boy down into the seat, and shoving Rick to the side. The bullet went past them both, and embedded itself in the brightly coloured painting of the clown on the wall behind them. She could hear Kelly screaming, and the man’s gun fired again and again, a curious clicking, horribly rhythmic, surprisingly quiet.
Teresa and Rick were sprawling on the floor, and she rolled to one side, clawing her way upright by gripping the hard edge of the table. Her fingers slipped in the blood that now poured across it. As she forced herself up a bullet went through her chest, and she died not long afterwards.
Teresa sucked in her breath in horror, yelled at her kids to throw themselves flat. She stood up. A bullet went singing past Doug’s head and smashed into the window behind them. Teresa forced herself up on to the hard surface of the table, then leapt across to the aisle. The man turned his rifle towards her, but she ducked down and ran crouching along the aisle. People were screaming, and the place was full of smoke. She briefly lost sight of the man, but when she came to a cross-aisle she realized he had moved swiftly to the side and was ready for her. Three bullets went straight into her.
Teresa sucked in her breath in horror, yelled at her kids to throw themselves flat. She stood up. A bullet went singing past Doug’s head and smashed into the window behind them. Teresa forced herself up on to the hard surface of the table, then leapt across to the aisle. The man turned his rifle towards her, but she ducked down and crawled as fast as she could towards the salad bar.
The man who had fired at the intruder was lying there, face-down in a chaos of spilled ice and fruit.
Teresa snatched his gun, checked quickly that it was still loaded, then rolled into the shelter of a huge Coca-Cola vending machine.
People were screaming, and the place was full of smoke. When she looked she could no longer see the intruder. She changed position, presenting the weapon before her at every move. Her heart was pounding with fear.
When she saw the man again he had walked calmly to the table where she had been sitting with her family, and aimed his rifle at her cowering children. He began firing.
Teresa shot him, but not in time to save her family.
Teresa never did get the Oak Springs ExEx right.
On her last entry to the scenario she assumed the rôle of the gunman: he was a man with the name Sam McLeod, who had earlier in the day carried out an armed robbery on a gas station, shooting the clerk as he snatched the money. A month earlier he had crossed into West Virginia from the neighbouring state of Kentucky, where he was wanted for several other violent robberies. He had moved on into Virginia over the previous weekend. As a federal Most Wanted he had nothing to lose, and earlier in the day, before going to Al’s Happy Burgabar, he had stolen several weapons from a gun dealer’s store in Palmyra. These were in his pick-up truck parked outside the restaurant.
In McLeod’s guise, Teresa entered the ExEx at the point when he was parking the pick-up truck. She loaded the semi-automatic with a fresh magazine, then climbed down from the pick-up, slammed the door, and walked round the back to gain a clear view of anything that might be moving in the parking lot. Traffic went by on the highway beyond the lot, but the restaurant was in a cleared patch of forest and thick trees rose in every direction.
Satisfied that there was no one observing her from outside, McLeod shouldered her way through the door of the restaurant. Full of ease, with her rifle resting casually on her shoulder, she surveyed the customers and staff. A waitress was by the door, writing something on a pad of paper next to the cash register.
‘Open it up, and let me have it,’ she said, bringing the rifle to bear.
The waitress glanced up, and immediately ran away from her, yelling incoherently. After a few steps she collided with one of tables, which were heavy and made of metal and connected by a stout pillar to the floor. She sprawled across the floor. McLeod could have killed her then, but she had nothing against her.
She heard a shot, and turned in amazement towards the sound. Someone shooting at her? She strolled across the restaurant to see who it was, stepping over the waitress who had fallen. A man by the salad bar, in a stupid shirt, with a glove-compartment handgun. Salad Bar Man lost his chance to fire again, after McLeod started striding towards him.
In one of the semicircular booths by the window, a young family was crowded in together, empty plates and glasses and screwed-up paper napkins scattered on the table in front of them. The young woman, the mother, was getting to her feet, trying to press down the heads of her children as she did so, getting them below the surface of the table. McLeod paused in her progress across the room, to stare her down. She seemed unafraid of her, concerned only with her children.
Teresa loosed a casual burst in her direction, then continued across to the salad bar, where the man with the toy pistol was still standing, apparently paralysed by fear.
Teresa decided to spare them all any more concern on her account. She reached over, removed the handgun from Salad Bar Man, checked to see that it was still loaded, then shoved the muzzle in her own mouth and pulled the trigger. She died within seconds.
Later, Teresa was taken through video recordings of the ExEx scenarios about the Oak Springs shooti
ngs, shown where she had gone wrong in her decisions, how she could have acted, what further options were open to her.
[In July 1958, Sam Wilkins McLeod, a former inmate of Kentucky State Penitentiary, who had recently become a fugitive from the same institution, went berserk with a semi-automatic rifle in a hamburger bar on Route 64, killing seven people, including one child. A young woman on the scene called Samantha Karen Jessup tried to tackle him, but she was killed by one of McLeod’s bullets. She was not related to the child who died.]
CHAPTER 10
When she had finished clearing up the restaurant and kitchen after breakfast, and Mrs Simons had gone upstairs to her room, Amy went through to the hotel office and discovered that a fax message had arrived overnight. She tore it off and read it.
Her first reaction was to run upstairs and show Nick, but he was still in bed asleep, and she knew he didn’t like being woken early.
Instead, she decided to deal with it herself and let him see it later. Within half an hour she had drafted her reply. She faxed it to the number in Taiwan, confirming that the White Dragon Hotel in Bulverton had reserved four bedrooms with double beds for single occupancy half-board, from the Monday evening of the following week, for a minimum period of two weeks with an option to extend indefinitely. She quoted the prices. At the bottom of the letter she enquired as politely as she could as to their proposed manner of payment.
Thirty minutes later she was making a photocopy of the original fax for her files, and running the bookings software that Nick had installed—seriously under-used in recent months—when a faxed response came through.
It told her, in formal but roundabout English, that an account had been opened at the branch of Midland Bank in Bulverton, where she could make arrangements for weekly direct transfer in sterling to the White Dragon’s account. Receipted invoices were to be sent direct to the company’s head office in Taipei. After a flurry of what read to her like exotic and oriental greetings, the fax message was signed by Mr A. Li, of Project Development Division, GunHo Corporation of Taipei.
The Extremes Page 9