by Andrew Grant
“Did anyone help him? Someone waiting outside?”
“I didn’t see anyone. But I can’t rule it out.”
“So he could be on his own again. Or being sheltered by others?”
“Right.”
“We don’t know which?”
“No.”
“Then we need to find out. That has to be our first priority.”
“Agreed.”
“What about the two you took care off Did you hear them say anything?”
“No.”
“What accents did they have?”
“Neither of them spoke at all.”
“We don’t even know what language?”
“No.”
“So we don’t know where they’re from? What country, even?”
“No.”
“Could you tell anything from their clothes?”
“Not without some work. Everything looked new. Jeans, trainers, hoodies. Innocuous stuff. Standard chain-store issue, probably bought specially. What you’d expect from people who know how to look anonymous.”
“That kind of thing is safe to ask the police to follow up. But it does make sense. Shows a level of professionalism. And it ties in with the arms-dealing angle. Just like the weapons. MP5s are expensive pieces of kit.”
“They are. But you can never be sure. I saw one on a council estate in Leeds, once.”
“You’re not being a lot of help here, David.”
“Then maybe the autopsies will reveal something.”
“How? You shot both guys. Multiple times. Pretty straightforward, no?”
“Forget cause of death. Think stomach contents. That might tell us where they’re from, if they followed McIntyre to the States in the last couple of days.”
“Oh. Good thinking. I’ll talk to the PD about that, too. Try to get the medical examiner to put a rush on it.”
“And what about their identities? If they entered the country legally, there should be a record somewhere.”
A muffled soprano started singing an aria from The Magic Flute somewhere inside Fothergill’s jacket. It was his phone. He pulled it out and placed it on the desk between us. Then he must have caught the look on my face.
“I love Mozart,” he said. “Don’t you?”
“Are you going to answer that?” I said.
“No. Whoever it is, they can wait. We need to get some kind of plan worked out, first. We should draw up a list of actions. Then we can decide what’s reasonable to pass on to the police, in terms of security and logistics. And whatever’s left, we’ll deal with ourselves.”
I heard a sharp knock behind me, the door swung open, and Fothergill’s assistant appeared. Sadly he wasn’t bringing refreshments.
“Did your mobile not ring?” he said, glancing down at the cell phone on the desk.
“It did, actually,” Fothergill said. “Didn’t quite manage to answer it in time, though. Anything important?”
“It was London,” he said. “Word has spread. They gave me two minutes to find you. Sounds like it’s time to break out the asbestos underwear.”
“Damn,” Fothergill said. “One minute they refuse the resources I need. The next, they’re moaning when the job goes pear-shaped. I can’t win.”
I began to think there was a little more field agent left in him than I’d given credit for. His assistant just shrugged.
“David, I’m sorry,” Fothergill said. “I’m going to have to make this call. How about you head back to your hotel? Catch your breath a little? And as soon as I can get anything concrete pulled together I’ll have it biked straight over to you. Then you can review it in peace.”
I figured that between fending off his bosses in London and calling in favors in the States, Fothergill was going to have his hands full for quite a while. My hotel was only twenty minutes from the consulate. There was no chance he’d have anything for me to see in that length of time. Which meant I could turn my attention to more important matters. Such as food. I hadn’t eaten a thing since breakfast. That was the best part of nine hours ago, and I was starving.
On the plane yesterday I heard a couple arguing about which was their favorite restaurant in Chicago. The debate was intense. It lasted nearly an hour. At first I thought a Spanish place was certain to come out on top. Then a Mexican, with a choice of bars. But ultimately, the winner was French. I remembered the name. And the location. It was convenient—on Hubbard, not much farther away than the clinic. The menu sounded good. The prices, reasonable. The service, not too intrusive. The decor, not too fussy. Which left me with only one problem. The restaurant where I was supposed to meet Tanya for our final, ill-fated dinner had been French. Part of me never wanted to go into one again. I was on the verge of heading for the Mexican instead, but I realized that was ridiculous. I couldn’t let my life be ruled by ghosts. So I decided to give it a try. The only thing I hadn’t considered was their hours of business. I arrived at the door on the stroke of four thirty. But they didn’t open till five. And that left me with a dilemma.
I decided to wait. Not on the doorstep, obviously. But in the general vicinity. In the nearby maze of backstreets and alleyways. Where you can get right under the skin of the city. Or lose yourself in the genuine, unadorned areas that the guidebooks don’t tell you about. Away from the shop windows and neon signs and office facades, and into the parts where real people get their hands dirty making deliveries and emptying Dumpsters and busying themselves with their ordinary, everyday lives.
Places that people like Fothergill might have gone to, once. But I couldn’t picture him there now.
Most of the buildings on that street seemed to be offices, but the place on the left of the restaurant looked like some sort of shop. I couldn’t tell what kind. It was closed. There were no signs, and the door and windows were obscured by heavy, gray blinds. A passageway led down the side, separating the two businesses. It was paved with cracked, square slabs. They were shiny and well worn. Obviously in frequent use. Almost calling for me to follow them. It seemed like an interesting enough place to start.
The passage led straight to the back of the buildings. There were no lights. No doors or windows opened onto it, and it was too narrow for anything to be stored there. I made my way to the far end, then paused to check the lie of the land. I could see I’d reached a kind of grubby, cobbled courtyard. It was about twenty feet square. To my left was the back of the shop. It had a single window—lined with cardboard and heavily barred—and one exit. The outside of a fire door. Neither showed any name or number. The buildings on the far side were much deeper, reaching almost to the ones from the next street, leaving just enough room for another narrow passageway. That was handy. It would be a second way out of the place, if needed. And a third possible route stretched away to my right, beyond the back of the restaurant, where the space remained wide enough for a medium-sized vehicle to pass through.
It was the restaurant side of the courtyard that caught my attention. Orange plastic packing crates had been arranged in a horseshoe shape outside the double kitchen door, like seats. There were six. Cigarette butts lay scattered all around them. Maybe two hundred altogether. Around a quarter had lipstick marks on them, and I could see at least four different brands. The doors themselves were standing open a couple of inches, and I could hear the murmur of voices and the clash of metallic items banging together from inside. But it wasn’t the sights or the sounds that grabbed me. It was the smell. Frying meat. Onions. Garlic. Carried straight at me by the clouds of steam that were pouring relentlessly from four stainless-steel vents, lined up in the back wall at head height. It made me think that the couple on the plane had been right. Which again reminded me of Tanya. And made me fear that the next few minutes were going to pass very slowly.
There was nothing else of interest in the courtyard so I crossed behind the restaurant and started down the broader alley on the far side. I was planning to outwalk my memories and kill the rest of my waiting time by making a broad loop back arou
nd to the main entrance on the street. But I’d only gone about nine feet when I heard a noise behind me. A loud crash. Something heavy had connected with the brickwork. I stopped in the shadows and turned to look. It was the fire door at the back of the shop. Someone had thrown it open, all the way, so that it banged into the wall. A woman staggered through the opening. Her arms were flailing and she was teetering wildly on transparent plastic stilettos. They were at least four inches high. She finally caught her balance after another half-dozen steps, ending up with her knees pointing inward as the heels slid awkwardly into the cracks between the cobbles. She wobbled again, then quickly ran her hands over her lace-up leather bodice, around her tiny velvet miniskirt, and even down the seams at the back of her sheer black stockings.
A man followed her out. I’d put him in his midforties. His clothes—gray stonewashed jeans and a plain white sleeveless T-shirt—were an extremely tight fit. I guessed he wore them that way to emphasize his pumped-up thighs, torso, and arms. He was only about six feet tall, but that still gave him a good eight inches over the woman, even allowing for her ridiculous shoes. He stepped toward her. She held her ground, glaring up into his face. Then three more guys emerged from the store, moving forward and half surrounding her. The original one gestured for her to go back inside. She shook her head. He raised his hand, palm open. She flinched, as if anticipating the blow. But she didn’t back down.
The left-hand restaurant kitchen door swung open and a man stepped halfway out, then froze. He was dressed in chef’s whites, maybe in his late teens, scruffy and unshaven. The guys from the store turned as one and stared at him. He held their gaze, hypnotized, for twenty seconds. Then he hunched over, reversed his direction, and withdrew from sight. I was relieved. It seemed like the ideal solution. I’d seen a pair of chefs going after each other in the kitchen of an Italian restaurant in London, once. One had a cleaver. The other, a carving knife. The fight didn’t last long. But it did have a decisive ending. Something like that would be welcome right now. I didn’t know what the woman had done, but I couldn’t help feeling like the four men could use a more challenging opponent. I figured the young guy would be fetching some of his colleagues. That they’d come charging out, any second, brandishing all kinds of cooking implements. Sharp ones. Hopefully, lethal ones.
Nothing happened. Thirty seconds crawled past. Then a minute. The store guys relaxed. They returned their attention to the woman. She took a step back. All four followed, pressing in close. The first man raised his arm again. He leveled it with her face and pulled it back farther, twitching, like a snake all set to strike.
“Jaime?” I said, stepping out of the shadows.
The four guys snapped around simultaneously to face me, but none of them spoke.
“It is you, right?” I said, cutting into the distance between us. “Where have you been, all these years? We missed you.”
The main guy lowered his arm.
“Who the hell’s Jaime?” he said.
“She is,” I said. “Jaime Sommers. The Bionic Woman.”
“The hell are you talking about?”
“I mean, she must be bionic, right? Otherwise, why would it take all four of you to chase her around this yard?”
I was close enough by now to see a vein throbbing above his left temple. He glared at me, his mouth dropped open, but he didn’t manage any words.
“Seriously, I’m interested,” I said. “How many of you does it take to persuade one girl to walk through a doorway?”
The guy nearest me slipped his right hand into the back pocket of his jeans.
“But don’t let me interrupt,” I said. “Go ahead. Do what you need to do.”
He pulled something out, concealing it behind his leg and shifting his weight onto his front foot.
“Looked like you were going to hit her just now, when I arrived,” I said to the main guy. “So go on. Take your shot.”
He didn’t move.
“What are you waiting for?” I said. “Twenty dollars says you can’t take her down with one slap.”
The next guy in line broke ranks and moved to block my path.
“No?” I said. “OK. So here’s another idea. Why not try it with me?”
All four were facing me now, their backs to the woman. She started moving smoothly away, reversing, never taking her eyes off them for a second.
“What’s the problem?” I said. “There are four of you. And only one of—”
Without breaking stride I drove the heel of my right hand into the jaw of the guy who’d ended up in front of me. The impact knocked him off his feet, leaving him sprawling on the exact spot where the woman had been standing a moment earlier. His limbs followed a second behind his body, slapping limply onto the ground as I drew my forearm back and smashed my elbow into the side of the next guy’s head. He went down too, pivoting sharply around so that his face was the first part of him to crack against the cobblestones. A wooden-handled switchblade slipped from his fingers. I kicked it away and brought my fist across the opposite way, my first two knuckles connecting with either side of the third guy’s nose. I felt his bone and cartilage crack, and saw that blood was already spurting from his face as his legs buckled under him and he flopped down onto his back.
I checked the kitchen door. There was no activity. I looked for the woman. She was safe, ten feet away, backing up against the wall. I watched as she disappeared from sight. Then I scanned the surrounding buildings. Confirmed there were no other windows overlooking us. No security cameras. In fact, no one watching us at all. It was just like Fothergill had said. As far as anyone could tell, I didn’t exist.
“Did I say, four of you against me?” I said to the remaining guy. “Sorry about that. I should have said, one. For another few seconds, anyway.”
The lesson I’d learned from that football ground exercise was still valid. I hadn’t forgotten about it. And I still didn’t choose to get involved with civilians.
But sometimes, it seemed, they chose to get involved with me.
SIX
Theoretically, the classroom elements of our training should have been the most popular. There was no danger of freezing to death. No maladjusted members of the Parachute Regiment lying in wait, itching to kick great big chunks out of us. No heavy equipment to carry. It didn’t rain, indoors. You always had food to eat and a bed to sleep in. But even so, given a choice, we’d always have voted for the practical courses. We loved to be out of barracks, even if it was just for an afternoon. For a change of scene. A breath of fresh air. A new challenge.
Even if the task we ended up with was rarely what we’d been told to expect.
whatever kind of exercise we were sent on, though, the routine was always the same. We were briefed. Given our stores. Deployed. Retrieved. And debriefed. At the beginning, we were always given everything we were likely to need. The process seemed like the model of effciency. But as we continued, I noticed that the odd essential item was missing from our kit. The first time, it was an ax. The next, a paper clip. Then a length of chain. And because the activities were new to us, we didn’t know what we’d need until we actually got started. There was no way to anticipate or take relevant spares, just in case. The shortages started to occur more and more frequently. Some people started to complain. Eventually, we were being sent out with little more than the clothes we were wearing. Only by then, those of us who were left had woken up to the underlying point.
Success doesn’t depend on what you’re given by others.
It’s about what you can find for yourself.
At the restaurant, I started with the mussels. Then I had steak, cooked extra rare, with mustard butter. Both were sublime. Simple. Elegant. And perfectly executed. The only slight off-note came when I was waiting for my espresso. Two police officers arrived. They appeared from the kitchen and started wandering around between the tables, asking questions about an alleged disturbance in the vicinity, earlier in the evening.
They came to me first.
The streets were still swarming with people when I left the restaurant, just before six thirty. There were office workers, leaving the city. Drinkers and theatergoers, pushing their way back in. Shoppers, rushing for their final few purchases. A repair crew, trying to pump the water out of a leak in some foundations they were digging next to the river. But none of that caused me a problem. I had no need to hurry anywhere. There was no sign of the guys from the courtyard. Or the woman. And still no word from Fothergill.
A courier arrived at the hotel twenty-five minutes after I got to my room. She brought two packages for me, secured with official consulate seals. I asked her to wait while I opened them. And the first one, I gave straight back. It contained photographs, courtesy of the INS. Portraits of travelers. Everyone who’d arrived in Illinois from overseas in the last week. Followed by the records from all the surrounding states. The stack was five inches thick. And even without the note confirming that there were no matches for the dead men’s fingerprints, I knew it wouldn’t tell me anything. It was pointless having sent it. A typical example of a desk guy trying to give the impression of productivity. One of the skills you had to master, to be a success on Fothergill’s adopted side of the fence?
The second envelope wasn’t much more useful. It was from the police lab. There was an initial analysis of the men’s clothes. A breakdown of their last meals. Details of their physical condition, before they were shot. And a sketchy inventory of McIntyre’s apartment, where they’d died. Every aspect came up blank. There was nothing to tell me where the dead guys had come from. What they’d been doing. Or where McIntyre was likely to be, now. None of which was a surprise. It was par for the course at this stage of a job. There was little to do besides settling down and waiting for more information. I was used to it. And at least I was in a hotel. I had a bed. A bathroom. A TV. And room service.