It was getting harder and harder to keep up the facade. Marlon Hyde knew that time was running out. Soon the ultimate victims would have to be taken out.
Clem Simmons came into the diner with a scowl on his face. Given that it was four-thirty in the morning, I forgave him. He looked around before spotting me in the booth at the rear.
“This had better be good,” he said as he sat down opposite me. “Just coffee,” he told the dull-eyed waitress.
“Oh, it’s good,” I said, rebooting my laptop. I had downloaded the contents of Joe’s memory stick.
I spent the next ten minutes taking the detective through the findings. He scribbled notes, his brow furrowed. Finally, he raised a hand.
“Hold up, Matt. Where exactly is this going?”
“I haven’t reached the best bit yet,” I said, gulping coffee. “Look at this. Nikolaus Rothmann was an Obersturmführer in the SS.”
“What the hell’s that?”
“Obersturmführer or SS?”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “I know what the SS was, you fool—the Nazis’ private army of madmen.”
“Right. Obersturmführer is the equivalent of captain.”
“Shit, is that all? I thought you were going to say the guy was a general at least.”
“It doesn’t matter because the rank was largely honorary in this case. You see, Rothmann was a doctor. A specialist in neurosurgery.” I gave him a meaningful stare. “As in brain surgery.”
“Yeah, yeah, I watch ER like everybody else. Keep going before I keel over.”
“The point is, Rothmann spent two years at Auschwitz—working under none other than Josef Mengele.”
The detective scratched his head. “Mengele? Didn’t he escape after the war?”
“He eventually drowned in Brazil in the late seventies. In Auschwitz, they called him the Angel of Death. He carried out horrific experiments on people—on kids, as well, in particular twins. And our friend Rothmann helped him.”
Clem Simmons put down his pen. “What is it you’re saying here, Matt? That this Rothmann is in the States?”
“He might be, but he would be nearly a hundred. He had kids, though. It looks like the three of them were brought over here secretly after the war. There’s no mention of his wife.”
“All this because the old guy’s initials happen to be the same as a minor organization that might have Nazi connections? It’s a bit thin, man.”
“Is it, Clem? The man who runs that organization also seems to be involved with Woodbridge Holdings—”
“Who you think set up the camp in Maine where you were imprisoned.” The detective shook his head. “Like I say, it’s pretty fucking thin.”
“I told you, Clem, they messed with my head. My memory was screwed for days. It still isn’t functioning normally. And get this—Woodbridge is into pharmaceuticals and chemical research. I reckon they’re carrying on Rothmann’s work.”
“All right, Matt, all right. It’s not like you need pharmaceuticals to mess with people’s heads. But even if you’re right about all that, what has Woodbridge Holdings got to do with the killings in D.C.? Some of which you’re in the frame for, don’t forget.”
I’d seen a news flash saying that my prints had been at the scene of the Crystal Vileda murder.
“Only two of them,” I said, realizing how dumb that sounded. “You can’t seriously suspect me of the latest murder. You saw me outside Joe Greenbaum’s not long after it.”
He shrugged. “It’s not me you have to worry about, Matt. The Feds have taken that case, too.”
I caught his eye. “Who do you think is the killer?”
Clem frowned. “That’s what we’d all like to know.”
“No, I mean, what kind of person would commit the occult murders?”
The detective gave a hollow laugh. “A crazy person?”
“Really?” I countered. “A pretty organized crazy person. One capable of planning and executing four murders without leaving any traces—except mine, which are obviously a diversion. One who’s got a carefully planned agenda, as the diagrams show.”
“And one who’s violent as hell.”
“True. But has it crossed your mind that this could be the behavior of someone whose mind has been tampered with, like mine?”
The detective held my gaze. “Still doesn’t explain why he’s choosing occult targets.”
I slumped in my seat. “You’ve got me there. The only thing I can think of is that Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the SS, was fascinated by the occult.”
Clem grunted. “You will definitely have to do better than that, Matt.”
“I’m working on it. By the way, what about the body in the river? The FBI is treating it as one of the series.”
“Yeah, they are, even though there were no drawings found on the vic. The guy was a farmer from Iowa whose twins went missing here last winter.”
“Twins?” I repeated.
“Yeah… So?”
“Jesus,” I said, hairs rising on my neck. “Twins could be the key.”
“You mean, the twin weapons?”
“Maybe, but not only that. Nikolaus Rothmann didn’t just experiment on twins with Mengele. He had twin children of his own.”
That made the detective’s jaw plummet.
Thirty-Seven
Peter Sebastian got to the office not much after six in the morning. He’d had a call from his boss late the previous night that had disturbed him. He wasn’t used to being pressured from above, and he didn’t like it, especially since he’d been told that there were to be no more occult killings if he wanted to keep his job. He had spent hours with the case files before sleep finally overtook him, and he’d woken long before it had any beneficial effect. His wife just shook her head and turned in the opposite direction when he was getting dressed. He knew this had to be the best day’s work he had ever put in and he’d asked all the members of his team to come in early.
Dana Maltravers appeared at the open door, carrying two mugs.
“Come in,” Sebastian said, with a wave. “I need you.”
“Hot and fresh,” his subordinate said, handing him a mug. Not for the first time he wondered if she had designs on him, but dismissed the thought.
“Anything on the tarot murder?” he asked.
“The medical team did the postmortem overnight. The report’s on its way, but I’m told there are no surprises.”
“So the chopsticks were the murder weapons?”
Maltravers nodded. “They did some major damage to the brain.”
“What did the crime-scene technicians come up with?”
“You mean, apart from the Matt Wells prints? Nothing conclusive. Some fibers and some soil traces, but they’re unlikely to give us a big break—standard clothing and local dirt.”
“Canvassing?”
“The team’s on it as we speak. So far, nothing, apart from the not-very-brave citizen who lived below the vic.”
Sebastian ran a hand across his limp hair. “What about document analysis?”
“Similar ink and paper. They reckon the drawings were done by the same hand. They still haven’t any idea about the meaning or meanings.”
“Jesus, Dana, who is this guy? The Invisible Man? Somebody has to have seen him.”
“Sir?” Maltravers said, her eyes on the wall above him.
“What is it?” Sebastian said, recognizing the tone. She thought he had screwed up.
“Do you think we should have taken the D.C. detectives off the cases?”
He frowned. “Given that the order was mine, yes, I do. Obviously.”
“Yes, but…they have local knowledge.”
“So do our people, Dana.” He looked at her and realized she hadn’t finished. “Go on then, spit it out.”
“Well, I spoke to a contact in MPDC last night. He reckons that Simmons and Pinker are still working the cases in their own.”
Peter Sebastian’s face flushed. “Are you sure about that? Chi
ef Owen assured me they weren’t.”
Maltravers raised her shoulders. “I can’t be a hundred percent certain, sir. Anyway, they might find something we could use.”
“They’d better not. We’d look like major losers then. Now sit down. I want to run through all the murders and update my orders.”
He did so, Dana Maltravers writing copious notes and giving her thoughts. The problem was, neither of them thought that the new orders would result in anything earth-shattering.
“What about Matt Wells, sir?”
“Keep the full alert in operation.”
She nodded. “I agree.”
Sebastian eyed her dubiously. “At the very least, we have to rule him out.”
“Right, sir. About Richard Bonhoff—how much do you want to release to the press?”
“Everything.”
“Including the fact that he was looking for his missing children here?”
“What?” Sebastian peered at the relevant file. “I didn’t see anything about that.”
Maltravers gave a thin smile. “Oh, sorry, sir, that report mustn’t have got through yet. The wife confirmed it yesterday evening. Gwen and Randy are their names. Apparently they’re twins.”
“Do the D.C. detectives know about that?”
“I don’t know.” The young woman looked surprised at the question.
“Find out.” Sebastian stared at her. He could see she wanted to know why he was so interested, but she didn’t have the nerve to ask why. He watched her leave, then closed the door behind her.
Peter Sebastian needed to make some rather delicate calls. Roasting the Hate Crimes department for their slow response to his inquiry about the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant’s threatening of Professor Singer was one thing. Trying to discover why the CIA was putting the squeeze on his FBI boss was another. And finding out just what Clem Simmons and his partner were doing was the last. Then he could get back to catching the killer.
I was in the back of Clem’s car, keeping my head down.
“We should be working on the explosion,” Pinker said, glancing over his shoulder at me blankly. He had made it clear that he didn’t approve of me being involved.
“We know who’s responsible for that,” I said, even though I knew I wasn’t expected to speak.
“So where are their names, addresses and contact numbers?” Pinker demanded. He shook his head when I didn’t answer. “Asshole.”
“What Matt means is that the same people who don’t want him to get any closer killed Joe Greenbaum, Vers,” Clem said, keeping his eyes to the front. We were parked on a roadside in northwest Washington.
“Oh, excuse me,” his partner said sardonically. “I forgot that the Secretary of State had ordered diplomatic immunity for limey number one here.” He turned to Simmons. “Jesus, Clem, have you lost it completely? This guy’s a suspect in at least two murders.”
“Back off,” the big man said. “We’re not investigating those cases now, not officially. I’m only interested in making sure there are no more murders in this city.”
“And exactly how is cozying up to this shithead going to achieve that?”
I leaned forward. “We’re going to ask your friend Gordy Lister some awkward questions, Versace.” Clem had told me about the newspaperman. I reckoned he must know plenty about Larry Thomson’s and about Woodbridge Holdings’s activities.
The detective turned his head toward me. “You don’t get to call me that, jailbird. You gotta earn the right.”
I smiled. He reminded me of my friend Dave, small of frame but large of spirit. That could only be to my advantage—if he didn’t cut my balls off first.
“There he is,” Clem said.
I watched as a skinny man in a brown leather jacket and cowboy boots came down the steps of a town house. Apparently Lister rarely used the place, but he’d been keeping clear of his usual haunts.
“Oh, shit,” Pinker said, reaching for his weapon.
Three men built like top-weight wrestlers came out after Gordy Lister and formed a defensive wall around him.
“We still going for it?” Pinker asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Clem said, a smile on his lips.
They both got out. I stayed where I was—as they told me—but I had a feeling I wouldn’t be there for long.
Clem walked behind the group as they headed for a large black SUV. When he called out Lister’s name, the group stopped and Lister’s face appeared between the solid sides of two of his bodyguards. I couldn’t hear the discussion, but it was pretty obvious Lister wasn’t interested in cooperating. The big men closed around him again.
That was when Pinker made his move. Holding his pistol in a two-handed grip, he ordered them all to stay where they were. They did so, for about ten seconds. Then one of the gorillas lunged at Pinker with unexpected speed, knocking his gun away. Another of the men bore down on Clem. I got out of the car, my heart racing.
By the time I was across the road, Lister was climbing into the SUV.
“Hey, assholes!” I yelled.
That got their attention. Two of the men stayed on the detectives. The third moved toward me. I glanced past him at Lister. The newspaperman had screwed up. Instead of driving away, he’d stayed to watch the fun. I was about to make him regret that.
My man had a crew cut and a face disfigured by steroidinduced acne. There was also a bulge in his jacket under his left armpit. I made a move for that. As the gorilla tried to grab my arm, I stepped inside and landed the toe of my boot in his unprotected groin. “The vomit shot” my friend Dave had called that, and he’d been sent off more than once for using it on the rugby pitch. As the gorilla went down, I slipped my hand inside his jacket and grabbed a large semiautomatic. I thumbed the safety off and turned the weapon on Gordy Lister.
“He’ll be dead before you can aim at me,” I said over my shoulder to the others.
Lister looked like he’d been caught in the lights of an eighteen-wheeler. My eyes told him I didn’t have any qualms about shooting him and he wasn’t prepared to take a chance on my shooting skills. Good move.
“Let them go,” he said to his men. “Let my friends the detectives go.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Clem and Pinker clap handcuffs on the gorillas. Then Pinker went to check on the guy I’d kicked.
“Clear,” he called, after pocketing a set of knuckle-dusters.
Clem went over to Lister and grabbed him.
“Let’s go.”
Pinker got in the back with Lister and I took the front passenger seat.
I turned to the rear. “So, can I call you Vers now?”
Gerard Pinker stared back at me and then grinned. “Guess you can at that. Long as I can call you Field Goal.”
I shrugged. I’d been called worse.
Gordy Lister followed our exchange with the expression of a small boy who had inadvertently walked into a lions’ den.
The woman was sitting in the back of a Jeep Cherokee, holding on tight. The driver had been told she was pregnant and he was driving carefully, but the track between the tall pine trees was deeply rutted. Still, she wasn’t worried about the child. The doctors had assured her the journey wouldn’t affect her son’s well-being.
Before she left the camp, she had dressed in a black trouser suit that fitted her very well, the elastic in the waist expanding to accommodate her swollen belly. Apparently the clothes had belonged to her before she had been introduced to the teachings of the party. They had been ripped and made dirty. Her story was that she had been kidnapped by rough men who had kept her locked up in a dark room, giving her enough to eat but never talking to her.
Her face and hands had also been smeared with dirt, and it had been rubbed into her hair. She didn’t mind. She wanted nothing but to hear the praise of her superiors after she returned from the city. They had promised that she would have every comfort for the birth, and that a top-level obstetrician and midwife would be in attendance. The child was precious to
them—her son was the future and he would grow up surrounded by love and respect. And they had finally told her who the father was. She was looking forward to meeting him. She had to speak to him, but there would be little time. Maybe it would be best that way. Men didn’t respond well to rejection.
Her equipment had been easy to hide about her person. No one would find it suspicious in the least, so she would be allowed to keep it.
The pine trees gradually became smaller and the track softer. They passed through clearings, leaving small huts behind. It struck the woman that this wilderness would be a wonderful place to bring up her son. The rest of the world was full of degenerates and the weak, people who had been brainwashed by television, fashion and pop music. They needed to be woken up.
We left the gorillas to play with their handcuffs and took Gordy Lister to a remote parking place in Rock Creek Park. Gerard Pinker jumped out and blocked the access road with a couple of police cones to make sure we wouldn’t be disturbed.
“What’s this all about, guys?” the newspaperman said, blinking in extreme nervousness. “I mean, you took us by surprise back there….”
“Yeah, it looked that way,” Pinker said. “You didn’t think we knew about that extra place of yours, did you?”
Gordy was looking at me. “Who’s he?”
“Oh, you know me,” I said, with a pleasant smile. “At least, you should do. I’ve been all over the Star Reporter recently.”
Lister squinted. “What?” Then he must have remembered the photo of me that they’d been running. “Matt Wells,” he said, turning to Simmons. “Why isn’t he under arrest?”
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