Maps of Hell mw-3

by Paul Johnston

  “I know that,” Simmons said. “But it was in self-defense. Just because he’s capable-”

  “He’s certainly that,” Maltravers put in. “A black belt in karate and judo, training in armed and unarmed combat from a former special forces sold-”

  “So what?” Pinker demanded. “His girlfriend is a senior English police officer, for Christ’s sake. She was over here to meet with your bosses.”

  “Among other people,” Dana Maltravers mumbled, before straightening up.

  “What about the Bureau’s experts?” Simmons asked. “They come up with anything on the drawings?”

  The agent’s shoulders slackened. “Not yet.”

  Pinker moved closer again. “All right, Princess, let’s hear your theory. What exactly is going on here?”

  Dana Maltravers held his gaze. “It’s…it’s not my theory,” she stammered.

  “Oh, it’s Dick the Dickhead’s, is it?” Pinker said with a wide grin. “Never mind, lay it on us.”

  She took a deep breath. “Well, the idea is that Matt Wells’s woman got picked up by the people she had in her sights-she was in charge of corporate crime and there are several companies that would love to see her dead.”

  “The Bureau been investigating them?” Simmons asked.

  “It’s not my department. But, yes-the financial-crime people are on the case. It’s sensitive, though. These are household names.”

  “Who no doubt have a lot of pull on the Hill,” Pinker said. “But what’s that got to do with her man Matt Wells? Why would he suddenly hit on these particular victims? A metal singer with far-right connections, a voodoo huckster and a Jewish professor. They have anything in common that we’re missing?”

  Maltravers was chewing the inside of her cheek. “Not much,” she said, in a low voice. “The drawings are the key, I think.”

  Pinker gave a bitter smile. “The very-hard-to-understand key.”

  Clem Simmons caught his eye. “Come on, Vers, we’ve got work to do.”

  “What about my update?” Maltravers asked.

  “You’ll get it when we do,” Gerard Pinker said. “Hot off the press.”

  “I take it that means you haven’t come up with anything new?”

  “Correct,” Simmons said. “You’ve got our cell-phone numbers.”

  Dana Maltravers did not look impressed.

  Richard Bonhoff had gone back to the building the twins had come out of. Although the stone facade was crumbling, the door was secured with a heavy padlock and the windows barred. He hammered and yelled to no avail. After waiting for over three hours, he went back to the hotel to catch up on his sleep.

  The next morning, after doing some writing, he went over his options. He wasn’t sure how long his credit cards would remain unblocked, but he didn’t care. He’d scavenge for food in garbage bins if he had to, but he wasn’t leaving Washington till he found the twins. The obvious plan was to watch the building and approach them again. But he was outnumbered there and even his marine training would be little use against a gang of armed inner-city kids with their brains fried on whatever shit was popular these days. Better to concentrate on Gordy Lister. He was on his own most of the time, and when he had goons, Richard could handle them. Not that he expected Lister to repeat the mistake of underestimating him.

  So what was he to do? There was only one option-tail Gordy Lister and squeeze him again. Now that the initial shock of seeing Randy and Gwen had faded, Richard had more questions for the newspaperman-such as, how had he known where to find them? And why did he have musclemen he could whistle up? Lister didn’t seem to be a reporter. Richard reckoned he was more of a fixer.

  He went out of the hotel to the store on the corner. He bought some bread and cheese. The usual tabloids were displayed in a rack. He picked up the Star Reporter. Today’s edition led with a story about another murder-D.C. Prof Killed in Ritual Blinding? The article inside tried to link the murder in Georgetown to earlier ones with occult connections. Richard shook his head. At least they didn’t have lunatic killers like that in Iowa.

  On his way back to the hotel, he came up with a plan of action. He would head into the city center by bus and buy some different clothes, if his card allowed him. After that, he would follow Gordy Lister till he found out what he needed to know.

  The blood was flowing fast in Richard’s veins as he set out. He was doing something positive and he didn’t plan on letting anything knock him off course.

  A visitor to Joe Greenbaum’s study would not have registered his presence behind the piles of books, folders and box files on his desk-until he lit one of the Cuban cigars, obtained from contacts in the intelligence world, and the smoke billowed up like a Native American signal.

  Joseph Martin Greenbaum, doctorate from Harvard Business School, had grown up in Brooklyn. As the class genius, he’d been bullied at school until he’d put on enough weight to fight. Since then, he’d always had an interest in the underdog, which led him to investigate companies that mistreated their customers and workers. He had started writing the coruscating freelance reports that made his name during the Reagan presidency. His victims included a cigarette company that had paid for a whistle-blower to be run over, a bank that had used depositors’ funds to finance cocaine smuggling, and a blue-chip accountancy firm that had signed off on an oil company’s false tax returns. The magazines and newspapers who bought his articles knew they were always reliable. That was why Joe’s apartment was in a secure block in Adams Morgan, his doors reinforced by steel and his triple-glazed windows impenetrable by all but the heaviest caliber weapons.

  Joe loved his work, but he was the first to admit it had disadvantages. He could never make a relationship with a woman last more than a month, though wearing spectacles with bottle-lenses probably didn’t help, either. He ended up staying in his apartment far too much. It wasn’t that he was afraid of the scumbags who were out to get him, it was rather that he enjoyed digging in companies’ entrails so much. And then there was his weight-250 pounds on a good day, more when he’d hit the Ben and Jerry’s big-time.

  Right now none of that mattered to Joe. First, he had seen the news of Abraham Singer’s murder on the TV. He had only met the professor occasionally, but he’d liked his dispassionate take on Jewish culture and history. Joe himself had been brought up in the old ways, but he’d broken free of them at college. That didn’t mean he’d lost all respect for the faith. Singer hadn’t, either-he just put it under a more critical gaze than most believers. Joe’s immediate feeling was that the horrible way the professor was killed had nothing to do with rituals, as some of the reporters were saying. Joe was as socially progressive as it got, but he remained old-school in one way: whenever a Jew was killed, he put it down to anti-Semitism-until there was evidence to the contrary.

  That wasn’t the only thing that was bothering Joe Greenbaum as he finished his morning delivery of doughnuts. Ever since his friend Matt Wells had disappeared-in fact, ever since Matt’s partner, the high-flying policewoman, had gone missing in the Shenandoah Valley-Joe had been picking the brains of his FBI insiders. They had been unable to help in any conclusive way until earlier that week when, to Joe’s amazement, he learned that Matt was a suspect in the murder of a black man who owned an occult supplies store. Apparently his fingerprints had been found in the victim’s apartment; as far as Joe was concerned, that had to be bullshit of the finest quality. He’d known Matt Wells for years. They had first met at a crime-writing conference in D.C., had instantly bonded and had kept the bar open all night. Since then, they had e-mailed back and forth on a variety of subjects. Joe had also seen Matt several times since the policewoman disappeared. The Brit had been angry, overemotional and suspicious, but no way had he turned homicidal. Joe was 100 percent positive that both Matt and his lover had been kidnapped. He’d pulled every chain he had, but no one had a clue. And now Matt was a murder suspect? Screw that.

  Joe Greenbaum shook his head. He had been looking into the D.C. mu
rders and he had some ideas he wanted to bounce off Matt. Where the hell was his erstwhile drinking companion? If he didn’t show up soon, Joe was going to have to make a move on the people the Englishman had been looking at. And that could have very serious consequences for all concerned.

  Twenty-Five

  I sat motionless in the pickup as Mary Upson slowed before the bulky Maine state trooper. The early-morning light wasn’t strong enough to raise more than a faint glow on the waters of the lake, the dark green of the pine-covered mountains stepping back into the gloom.

  “What next?” I asked.

  “Cool it,” Mary replied, keeping her eyes on the man ahead. “He’s looking out for my car, remember, not my mother’s pickup.”

  That was true, but I presumed our descriptions had also been circulated. I was holding the pistol out of sight, not that I wanted to use it. Something my friend Dave had said during some kind of small-arms training session in some desolate hills came back to me. “Bear this in mind,” the ex-SAS man had said with a thin smile. “If you aim your weapon at someone, you’ve got to be 100 percent sure that you’ll pull the trigger. There’s no room for doubt.”

  And that was the problem. I had plenty of doubts about pointing my gun at an innocent law enforcement officer. For a start, what happened if he tried to pull his own weapon? Would I shoot him? The answer had to be no. I wasn’t interested in injuring or killing people unless they harbored similar intentions toward me. Besides, firing a shot would get us noticed, even in the back of beyond.

  Then I realized that my thoughts had run away with me-the impact of the wheel on my forehead was obviously still having an effect. Mary was already talking to the trooper.

  “…my great-aunt Lucy Heaton. She’s taken a turn for the worse and we’re going to help her out.”

  The man was in his late forties, his cheeks and belly bloated. If it came to a foot race, I had the edge.

  “Ah, right,” he said, smiling back at Mary. “Got elderly folks in my family, too. You go ahead. Say, you haven’t seen a green ’98 Toyota Tercel, have you?”

  Mary shrugged.

  I leaned across. “As a matter of fact,” I said, putting on what I hoped was a convincing American accent, “I did notice one of those. A man and woman inside?”

  He nodded, his eyes wide. “That’s right, sir.”

  “Now, where was it?” I said, prompting Mary. I didn’t have a clue about the local place names.

  “Oh, I remember,” she said. “We passed them the other side of Rumford. Didn’t look like they knew where they were going. They finally took the 108 toward Canton.”

  “Is that right?” The trooper stepped back. “Thanking you, ma’am,” he said, turning toward the patrol car.

  I watched as he got on the radio. “Nicely done,” I said. “But I suppose there’s a risk.”

  Mary glanced at me. “Why?”

  “If our friend’s bosses ask him for a description of us as witnesses, we may be shafted. Not all state troopers will be concentrating only on what people are driving.” I thought about that. “On the other hand, we’ve both got injuries on our foreheads. He’d be justified in assuming they would have been mentioned.” I looked over at the trooper. He was talking animatedly into the handset. “Get moving. He hasn’t got our names and, if we’re lucky, he won’t take note of the plates.”

  Mary took us slowly through the small town. There were only a few people around so early in the morning.

  “Lucy Heaton?” I said, smiling.

  She laughed. “Came up with it on the spur of the moment.”

  “What if he was the kind of cop who knows everyone?”

  “Oh, I guess I’d have said she was staying with friends. If he’d asked me their names, I’d have lied again.” She turned toward me. “And if that hadn’t satisfied him, I suppose I’d have hit the gas.”

  There was a look in her eyes that was alarming. I remembered what her mother had said. It wouldn’t do to get too close to Mary Upson. On the other hand, the more I knew about her, the better prepared I’d be.

  “I wish I knew why you’re helping me,” I said, realizing I was still gripping the pistol. I put it on the floor beside my seat. “I mean, you’re putting yourself at risk.”

  “Am I? You’ve been holding a gun on me since we left Sparta.”

  “Good story. It’ll probably stick if you hold your nerve.” I looked at the line of her face. She was determined enough, I could see that. “This is some kind of thrill for you, isn’t it? Pretending we’re Bonnie and Clyde, lying to cops-a lot more exciting than being a small-town schoolteacher.”

  Her cheeks reddened. “Screw you, Matt,” she said angrily. “You just don’t get it, do you?”

  “Men are dumb,” I said, holding my gaze on her as she swerved past a truck and accelerated hard.

  “Yeah, you got that right.”

  I sensed that she needed to unburden herself. That could be tricky, especially if it created an intimacy between us, but I needed to find out more. I still had a suspicion that her presence was too good to be true. On the other hand, she’d already showed with the cop that she was a good liar. Would I be able to tell if she spouted a stream of bullshit?

  I decided I’d give it a try. “Let me put it another way. Most men are dumb, but I’m not most men.”

  “You sure aren’t, Matt Wells.” She smiled sadly and drew her sleeve across her eyes.

  “What is it, Mary?” I asked, resisting the temptation to touch her. She suddenly looked inconsolable.

  Shaking her head, she didn’t speak for some time. Her damp eyes were fixed on the road ahead.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, after she seemed to have calmed down. “This is getting to you, Mary. Stop the car, go back to your mother.”

  “No!” Her voice was shrill. “I’m not a child. I don’t need my mother. I don’t want my mother…” She hit the brake and turned without warning into a turnoff.

  An eighteen-wheeler loaded with logs roared past from behind, the same logo with the open newspaper on the cab door as the one from yesterday. I started gathering up my gear. At least there was traffic on the road and hitching would be feasible.

  “No!” she screamed again. “No, Matt. I don’t want you to go. I want…I want to help you.” She slumped forward, sobbing.

  This time I did touch her, my arm going round her shoulders. “Listen, Mary, whatever’s troubling you, I’m just making it worse.”

  “No…no, you’re not.” She tried to get her breathing under control. “You’re…you’re the best thing that’s happened to me for a long time.”

  That was exactly what I didn’t want to hear. Now it seemed that Mary wasn’t helping me out of a sense of injustice. I’d engaged her emotions, which was flattering but dangerous. The blonde woman whose name still escaped memory rose up before me. I loved her and she loved me-of that much, I was certain. Which meant that by leading Mary on in any way, I was exploiting her. That made me feel slimier than a worm.

  She sat up and turned her red eyes and damp face to me, but she was smiling. “It’s all right, Matt,” she said, looking in the mirror and putting the car back in gear. “I’m going to tell you something, but you have to promise never to tell anyone else, okay?”

  I looked at her as we moved back onto the road and picked up speed. “Okay,” I said, wondering what I was getting myself into.

  “I mean it, Matt,” she said, her voice even. “The last person who talked had his tongue cut out.”

  My stomach did a somersault. Then I was taken on a walk through hell.

  The Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant was established in the town of Jasper, Maine, in 1846 by a logger named Jeremiah Dodds. Jasper was in the far north of the state, deep in the forest. Back then, there was no shortage of extreme religious sects, but the overwhelming majority were Christian. Jeremiah Dodds had no truck with Christianity, having been abused by a minister when he was a boy and savagely beaten by his father when he spoke about it. As a y
oung man, he had consoled himself with the strong drink and the slack-jawed women ever present in logging camps. But, as he got older, those pleasures failed to divert him. One of the advantages of his enforced attendance at the church school was that he had learned to read and write. The only book that was readily available in the wilderness was the Bible and Jeremiah Dodds started to study it again in his thirties, but with a zeal possessed only by the true contrarian. The result was the antiGospel of Lucifer, a savage perversion of its New Testament prototype that set out a new faith based on violence and devotion to Satan. While Christians worshipped the blood of the Lamb that had been spilled for humanity, Luciferians saw holiness in terms of spilling human blood.

  The Antichurch flourished in the great wilderness of the Maine forests, where the daily struggle to stay alive drained what little good there was in the loggers-they viewed themselves as nothing more than the timber barons’ slaves. That mentality made them easy converts to Jeremiah Dodds’s preaching. Anyone who objected was whipped from the settlements where he prevailed and hunted through the woods, ending up as a source of blood for the congregation’s monthly rites. Soon there was no opposition and Dodds reigned supreme in Jasper and its neighboring towns.

  So supreme was the Antichurch that it ran out of victims. That was the beginning of what was called the Great Trouble. For Jeremiah Dodds wasn’t satisfied with the substitute blood of moose and bear. That, he proclaimed, would please Lucifer only for a short time. The congregations had to look for human victims in towns and camps where traditional Christian beliefs still held sway. So blinded were the faithful by the seductive power of the antiGospel and the subtle guile of Dodds that they covered huge distances, even in winter, to bring back living sacrifices. They preferred women and children because they were easier to carry-and because they provided the men with what were known as “virtues of the flesh” in the hours before they met the knife. The “virtues” were enjoyed in public and the lash was not spared, the only stipulation laid down by the antigospel being that the offerings to Lucifer were to remain conscious throughout. For it was said that the road to Hell was too splendid for even a second of the journey to be missed. However, their eyes were put out as soon as they were dead; to see the glories of the underworld was a privilege reserved for Luciferians.