by Tim Stevens
Corcoran said, ‘I have a deal to put to you.’
Chapter 3
Venn didn’t feel like sitting down again. Didn’t feel like doing anything except walking straight through this creep and busting out. But Corcoran lowered himself once more into his chair, and sat waiting, and Venn understood the guy wasn’t going to say anything till he sat down too.
Once Venn was seated, Corcoran began without preamble.
‘If this goes to trial, you will be convicted and you will go to jail. No question about it. It’s an open-and-shut case. And the judge isn’t exactly going to be lenient, given your past history of violence. You’re looking at years behind bars. If not decades.’
Venn waited. The man had said if.
‘On the other hand,’ went on Corcoran, ‘if you’re prepared to cooperate, and to carry out a little job for me, I can make these charges go away. Permanently. I have considerable influence, Joe. The department I work for has a lot of clout. And what I’m going to ask you to do has significant implications for national security. If you succeed in pulling it off, you’ll be forgiven everything. You might even be offered your old job with the Chicago PD back.’
‘Hell will freeze over before I work for them again,’ said Venn, very quietly.
Corcoran smiled, revealing small, rodent-like teeth. ‘Be that as it may. I’m just trying to make a point, Joe.’ He held up a bony finger. ‘Plus, I can set you up for life, financially. No more scraping to make ends meet. No more having to rely on growing your client base in order to eat from day to day.’
Corcoran studied Venn’s face for a reaction. When none came, he steepled his long fingers, the tips beneath his chin.
‘The job I want you to do is to find somebody. Someone who’s gone missing. Find them, and bring them back.’
Venn kept his face neutral. Inwardly, though, he was surprised. He’d assumed he was going to be asked to carry out an assassination of some kind. That was how these deals usually worked, wasn’t it?
‘Who?’ he asked.
Corcoran reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and took out a cell phone, different than the one he’d used to make the call a few minutes earlier. He touched a button and laid the phone on the table and turned it so Venn could see the screen.
The picture there was a head-and-shoulders shot of a man in his fifties, the kind of photo that went on a staff ID badge. The man wore thick glasses and had thinning gray hair combed over his scalp. He looked ill at ease in his own skin.
‘Leonard Lomax,’ said Corcoran. ‘Professor of neurochemistry at Yale. He didn’t turn up to deliver his lectures three days ago, and hasn’t been seen or heard from since. He lives alone, but his work colleagues have been to his house and there’s no sign of him there.’
‘What about hospital emergency rooms? Morgues?’
‘Those have been checked,’ said Corcoran. ‘Nothing. We assume he’s still in the United States, because there’s no record of his passport having been used at any of the ports or airports.’
‘You think he may have been kidnapped?’ Venn was interested despite himself, his natural cop’s instincts coming through.
Corcoran raised his eyebrows. ‘It’s a strong possibility, yes. There’s been no ransom demand so far, but that doesn’t mean one won’t come in time. Or, whoever’s taken him doesn’t intend to ransom him at all, but rather plans to use him for their own purposes.’
‘What do you mean?’
Corcoran paused, chewing the inside of his cheek, as if deciding how much to tell Venn. ‘Professor Lomax is an expert – some say the world expert – in neurotransmitters. Do you know what they are?’
‘Sure,’ said Venn. ‘The things that convey information from one brain cell to another. They regulate things like mood and behavior.’
‘Something along those lines, yes,’ said Corcoran. ‘Professor Lomax has been instrumental in the development of several breakthrough drugs used to treat depression, schizophrenia and anxiety. There’s any number of hostile countries, and even friendly ones, that would like nothing more than to have Lomax working for them. And if they can’t lure him away with the promise of money, then they might resort to more drastic measures.’
‘Hold on,’ said Venn. ‘Isn’t that a possibility? That Lomax has decided to go work somewhere else, for another government, and has simply skipped out?’
‘It’s possible,’ Corcoran admitted. ‘Possible, but highly unlikely. Lomax is a patriot. An all-American hero who has turned down a number of extremely lucrative offers from private companies here in the US in order to continue to work as a research scientist for the public good.’
Venn was silent, thinking. Then he said, ‘Three days, he’s been gone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then he’s lost.’
‘What?’
‘The first twenty-four hours are crucial, in a missing-person case. After that, the odds of success diminish rapidly.’
‘You’d better hurry up, then, hadn’t you, Joe?’ said Corcoran quietly.
Venn looked at Corcoran. He looked at the table, the walls, the window over to his right. He considered his alternatives.
There were none.
‘Why me?’ he asked.
‘Because,’ replied Corcoran, ‘I’ve had my eye on you for a long time now. The agency I work for is constantly on the lookout for new talent. For men and women with high levels of intelligence, physical prowess, and commitment. For exceptional people. You came onto our radar when you were still a Marine. We watched your police career with great interest, your rise and then your fall. Whatever your shortcomings, Joe, you remain an extraordinarily useful resource.’
‘When you put it in human terms like that, how can I fail to be flattered?’ said Venn sourly. ‘But why bring in an outsider like me at all? Why not just send in the Feds?’
‘Ah.’ Again Corcoran gave his ratty smile. ‘It’s a little awkward, this. You see, we don’t trust the FBI. Or the police. We – my agency – believe they may be involved in Professor Lomax’s disappearance.’
‘The... FBI have kidnapped him?’ Venn couldn’t keep the disbelief out of his voice.
‘Not officially. But there may be rogue elements within law enforcement which are involved. It’s too much of a risk to take. We need someone fresh. An outsider, as you say, like yourself.’
‘Tell me one thing, Corcoran,’ said Venn.
‘What’s that?’
‘Why did you have to set me up like this? Use the threat of a murder charge to get me to go along? Why didn’t you just, you know, ask me?’
‘Because this way, we can be far more sure of your ongoing commitment to the operation,’ said Corcoran smoothly. ‘There’s going to be no backing out, no last-minute cold feet.’
‘So you murdered a man.’
‘No!’ For the first time, Corcoran’s voice rose. Leaning in close, he said, more quietly, ‘No. We didn’t kill him, Joe. You did. And that’s the way it’ll stay, until you do what I want.’
Chapter 4
The first thing Aaron noticed about the guy was his shoes.
Two-tone brown and cream spats of beautifully stitched leather, and buffed to a dazzling spit-shine, they were in total contrast to the rest of the guy’s outfit. The olive-colored chinos with faded coffee stains on them, the rumpled white shirt, unbuttoned at the collar, the frayed tweed coat with leather elbow patches, all gave the impression of a bumbling academic, too absorbed in his work to bother much about external appearances.
But the shoes didn’t fit that image.
The guy was around forty, or maybe fifty. Like many people his own age – twenty-eight – Aaron found it difficult to tell the ages of those over thirty-five. They all fell into that vague category best described as old.
The guy had a full head of light-brown hair, threaded with gray, a little long and swept back in a way Aaron guessed would be described as raffish. His face was mild, bookish, and his eyes were an unremarkable gray behin
d round wire-rimmed glasses.
Aaron was proud of the way he noted and catalogued these little details. He had a talent for observation, he knew, and it was developing all the time. The perfect skill for a novelist. Which Aaron was. Or at least was going to be.
‘Help you, sir?’ Aaron asked. He’d stood up behind the desk as the guy approached. Small acts of politeness would build into a reputation which would in turn serve Aaron well. Maybe even get him promoted to senior librarian before the year was out.
‘Thank you,’ said the man. His accent was British, and his voice was mild, courteous, with a hint of strength behind it. Like the guy was a lecturer. He probably took classes right here at Columbia, Aaron guessed. English Lit? Maybe, though Aaron knew a lot of the people in the department and he’d never seen this man before.
The guy went on: ‘I’m looking for this book.’ He held out a scrap of paper torn from a notebook. Aaron took it.
In a spidery script was written: The Epistemology of Conflict, by Marcus Royle.
So the guy was a philosopher, or a sociologist. Maybe a criminologist. Maybe all three.
Aaron said, ‘One moment, please, sir,’ and tapped at his computer keyboard. He was alone behind the desk. It was eight-twenty in the evening, forty minutes before Butler Library closed, and the staff levels were down to a minimum, in keeping with the relatively smaller numbers of customers.
He found the book. It had been published in 2001, was already out of print, and the library had just one copy. Reference only.
‘You’re in luck, sir,’ he smiled. ‘If you’d care to take a seat, I’ll go get it.’
The Brit stroked his chin, furrowed his brow. Very professorial. ‘If you don’t mind, young man, I’d like to come with you. There’s only one small detail I’d like to check in the index of the book, so I don’t need to peruse the entire volume. I can do it then and there, at the shelves.’
Secretly amused at the guy’s stilted language – peruse the entire volume? – Aaron said, ‘Sure, no problem.’
Nodding at the guy to follow him, Aaron made his way toward the stacks.
The scattering of students at the tables were a mixture of bored clock-watchers waiting till closing time so they could kid themselves they’d put in extra hours studying, and frantic, caffeine-fueled crammers desperate to complete term papers after beginning them way too late. Aaron had been both types of student, at different times, when he’d been an undergraduate here.
Now he was postgrad, doing a little tutoring here and there, mostly working as a librarian to make ends meet, writing his opus, his Great American Novel, in the evenings and at weekends in the cramped room he rented off campus. He told himself his day job in the library was purely to make ends meet, but that wasn’t entirely true. He’d fallen in love with the Nicholas Murray Butler Library from the moment he’d laid eyes on its neo-Classical front. At times he’d walk through the echoing halls and imagine himself working here into his old age, becoming a part of the history of the place.
But that wasn’t going to happen, of course. Because Aaron was going to become the next Saul Bellow. The next Philip Roth.
He just needed to get that damned novel finished, first.
The book the guy wanted was located among a bunch of other equally obscure tomes on a distant shelf. Aaron negotiated the rows of aisles expertly, found the one he wanted and took the guy down it. Climbing on a small stepladder, Aaron found the book, lifted it down carefully as if its pages would crumble to dust, even though it was little more than a decade old, and stepped down off the ladder.
‘Here you go, sir,’ he said.
Things happened so fast after that, Aaron didn’t have time to register the guy moving behind him and sliding his forearm across Aaron’s throat.
Or the palm the guy placed against the side of Aaron’s head.
Or the sharp twist the guy gave to Aaron’s neck, breaking it, severing the spinal cord expertly.
Aaron was dead before the man had lowered him to the floor, so he didn’t see the man pick up the book he’d taken down.
And gaze at the cover, running his fingers across it with a small smile.
And climb up on the ladder, replacing the book neatly in the gap it had left on the shelf.
And walk away, in his elegant shoes.
Chapter 5
Marcus Royle wasn’t born a killer. Nor had circumstances turned him into one. He had no time for the idea that people became murderers because their parents had been mean to them. Or because they’d had no friends at school. Or because their pet dog had died when they were ten. That was so much whiny, self-pitying garbage as far as Royle was concerned.
No. Royle had chosen to be an assassin.
It was a good life. A lucrative one, that bought Royle the time and the freedom to do what he enjoyed most, and that was study and write about philosophy. Not for him the miserable existence of tenure at an academic institution, where the pay was mediocre at best and pleasure in one’s vocation was ground under by the daily need to attract research grants and churn out paper after paper.
Royle was good at killing. He’d been doing it for thirteen years, and now, at the age of forty-two, he’d accumulated a considerable amount of expertise. Along the way, he’d taken a scholar’s delight in learning the minutiae of his trade. The different poisons and how they worked. The mechanisms of assorted firearms. The points at which the human anatomy is most vulnerable.
To be sure, there were challenges to be overcome in the mastery of the assassin’s craft. Royle had found his conscience a bothersome problem in the beginning. With each killing, he’d had to take a metaphorical blowtorch and cauterize the tender nerve endings of his moral squeamishness, until he could kill without feeling anything for his targets.
Despatching the boy, Aaron Rosenberg, had been just about the most straightforward job Royle had ever carried out. He knew the kid worked at Butler Library, and so rather than bother with the mildly laborious task of waiting for him at home or following him to a secluded spot outdoors somewhere, Royle decided to do it in the library itself. Not least because Royle’s own book, The Epistemology of Conflict, was there, and Royle knew exactly which shelf it was kept on, and just how secluded an aisle that was.
Would the police buy the idea that the Rosenberg boy had fallen off the library stepladder and broken his neck? Perhaps. Probably not. It didn’t matter. There was no way his death could be linked to Royle in any way. Or to his employer.
After he’d put some distance between himself and Morningside Heights, the site of the Columbia University campus, Royle slowed his stride, enjoying the warmth of the balmy May twilight. He took out his cell phone and dialed a number from memory.
‘Yeah.’ Rosetti’s voice was curt, roughened by decades of nicotine abuse. Royle pictured her, fumbling for her smokes as she always did the moment she started talking on the phone. Come to think of it, he couldn’t remember ever seeing her without a lit cigarette clamped in her mouth or smoldering between her orange fingers. She was sixty, squat, and hairy as a yak.
Royle didn’t bother to identify himself. It was an encrypted line, to which he had exclusive access. ‘Terminated,’ he said.
‘Good,’ rasped Rosetti.
‘The last payment was six hours late,’ said Royle. ‘Please do try to cough up on time in future.’
As if the word cough was a trigger, Rosetti erupted into a fit of hacking that exploded from the phone. Royle held it away from his ear, grimacing.
‘You’ll get the god damn money when you get it, Royle,’ she snarled, when she’d regained her breath. ‘You Limeys. Always complaining.’
‘On the contrary,’ Royle pointed out. ‘It’s you Americans who are famous for demanding good customer service.’
‘Whatever.’ She wheezed, and Royle thought he heard the puff of an inhaler. ‘Listen. I’ve got another job for you, if you’re interested.’
Like most assassins, Royle was freelance. His reputation was spread str
ictly through word-of-mouth. DeeDee Rosetti had approached him via a cut-out, a week earlier. Royle had been in Bangkok at the time, finishing off a job on a heroin dealer and his extended family, but had insisted on flying to New York and meeting Rosetti in person before he agreed to take on the work. He always wanted to be sure he wasn’t being lured into a sting operation by some law enforcement agency, and he could always tell by looking into a prospective employer’s eyes if he was being set up.
Rosetti’s eyes were like undercooked poached eggs swimming in a seamed, haggard face. They were the eyes of a jaded, shifty character, a profoundly untrustworthy soul.
But they weren’t the eyes of a cop.
Royle had met her in an abandoned warehouse on the west side, in the Meatpacking District. Rosetti’s gross body was crammed into an electric wheelchair that looked too small for her. Flanking her were a quartet of goons straight out of Central Casting, wearing shiny suits, mirror shades and immobile faces. They probably had twelve guns between them, and the same number of brain cells.
They’d negotiated terms, swiftly and efficiently, and then Rosetti had given him two names. The first target was a thirty-five-year old insurance salesman from Queens. Royle despatched him the next day, under the wheels of a subway train at Metropolitan Avenue.
The second target was Aaron Rosenberg. The kid in the library.
Royle didn’t ask who these individuals were, or why they needed to be killed. It was none of his business. It would be like working at the till in a sex shop and asking a customer why exactly he was buying a gimp outfit. You supplied the product, and took the money. No questions asked.
Now, standing in the last of the evening light on the Upper West Side, Royle said in reply to Rosetti’s query: ‘Yes. I’m interested.’
Rosetti listed the target’s details, then said, ‘Sending you a photo.’ A few seconds later a text message arrived on Royle’s phone, with a picture attached. He looked at it.