by Tim Stevens
The two agents positioned themselves on either side of the door, Berg motioning Purkiss and Kendrick to keep back. She called, ‘Mr Crosby, we’re going to come in now. I need to know you’re not waiting for us with the shotgun.’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ The reply was barely audible. An instant later the screen door creaked open. Crosby stood there, holding it. The gun was nowhere to be seen. He jerked his head.
Purkiss and Kendrick followed the agents into the cabin. It was dim and dingy and smelled of cigarette smoke, stale clothes and fried food. The shotgun was on a rack on the wall below a hunting rifle. Propped against the back of a dilapidated sofa was a home oxygen cylinder, its attached tube hissing quietly.
‘Just god damn do it,’ said Crosby, his arms held out in front of him.
‘Do what?’ said Berg.
Purkiss glanced about the room. There was no sign anybody else was there, no tell-tale noises from the other rooms.
‘Take me. At least I’ll get decent hospital care inside. Fuckin’ Medicaid.’
‘Inside?’
Nakamura pointed at the couch. ‘Sit down, man.’
Crosby lowered himself, wheezing, into the sagging seat. He groped for the oxygen tube and fitted the nubs into his nostrils.
Berg said, ‘Why do you think we’ve come to arrest you?’
Crosby shook his head. ‘Don’t play games with me.’
Purkiss said, ‘Holtzmann Solar.’
The agents glared over at him.
Crosby wagged a finger in his direction. ‘See? Told you.’
He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his breast pocket and shook one out, put it between his lips. Nakamura snatched it away.
‘There’s oxygen around.’
Crosby cackled, the sound high and frightening. ‘I’ve got maybe four months left, maybe six. A little Russian roulette livens things up.’
Berg squatted in front of him. ‘Okay. We’re not here to arrest you, necessarily. We’re here to find out what exactly your connection is with Holtzmann Solar, and with two other Company operatives, Gregory Taylor and Sylvia Grosvenor.’
Crosby recoiled as though the names were pellets hurled in his face. ‘You’ve got them?’
‘They’re dead. Murdered.’
‘You’re shitting me.’ He stared over at Purkiss. ‘Ah, Jesus.’ A bout of coughing interrupted him. Towards the end, it sounded as if he was laughing. ‘Funny how people are. Here I am, half a year left at most, and I’m scared of getting whacked.’
Berg said: ‘I think you’d better explain.’
*
‘Jablonsky got me involved. He’d already recruited Taylor and Grosvenor. There might have been others, but I didn’t know about them.’
Crosby was pacing himself, talking in short, fast bursts between periods of wheezing and coughing. Berg and Nakamura were perched on bar stools in front of him. Purkiss leaned against the kitchenette counter off to the side, while Kendrick prowled, gazing out the windows.
‘This was early 1997. No, later. Maybe in the fall of that year. I was a rookie, two years with the Company. Still doing low-level data analysis, based in Washington. Jablonsky’s my superior. He asks me one day, how’d I like to make a little extra? I assume he means freelancing. He says, there’s a pharmaceutical company needs our help. And we need theirs.’
Coughing took over. At the window, Kendrick peered at something. He looked back, caught Purkiss’s gaze, shook his head. Nothing.
Crosby went on. ‘I didn’t get the details at first. Not for several months, in fact. All I knew was that he was suggesting something unsanctioned by the Company, a private project. Once I’d agreed to his proposal, my job was to clean the funds. Take them from Holtzmann Solar as they came in to various accounts around the world, process them till there was no trace of their origins, and funnel them into a final account. Jablonsky and whoever he was working for in the Company would then have access to that.’
‘Whoever he was working for?’ Berg.
‘Oh, yeah. He wasn’t the boss. Might have been small fry, for all I know.’ A brief cough this time. ‘Anyhow. I did that for six months. Laundered money, basically. In return I got perks. Discounted shares in the firm, and insider tip-offs about when to sell. Built up quite a nice little nest egg.
‘Then Jablonsky started letting me in on the work he and his group were doing with Holtzmann Solar. The details, I mean. The operation was named Caliban. It involved drug trials. A new substance. Something that was going to prove invaluable in the field of interrogation, but that couldn’t be subjected to the usual process of authorised clinical trials and FDA approval.
‘It sounded like something the Nazis did. I asked Jablonsky where he was getting the volunteers for this project. He said they weren’t exactly volunteers, that they were the scum of the earth. Prisoners, low-lifes. I got cold feet. It was okay when I was just being creative with electronic money; not so much when I learned what the money was being used for. I said I wanted out.
‘Jablonsky laid it on thick. Was I a patriot, did I truly care about national security, blah, blah, blah. Then he got threatening. I told him I had insurance, documentary evidence of everything I’d done for him hidden away with instructions for it to be revealed in the event of my disappearance. He got shit scared. Agreed to let me get out, no questions asked, in return for my silence.’
‘And you got out,’ said Nakamura.
‘Yeah. But around a year after he’d first approached me – would have been the end of 1998, I guess, before Thanksgiving, I remember that – Jablonsky called me out of the blue. I was working in Syracuse by then. He just said, “If it eases your conscience, Caliban’s been terminated.” He wasn’t being nice; it was just that he probably hoped I’d be less likely to blow the whistle if I knew it was all over.’
Purkiss said: ‘You retired ten years ago. So you stayed with the CIA for, what, five years after all this?’
Crosby blinked across as if he’d forgotten Purkiss was there. ‘That’s right. Like I said, Syracuse and upstate New York generally, then a brief posting in Israel after 9/11. But my heart wasn’t in it. Early 2003, just around the time we hit Iraq, I decided to get out entirely. I was depressed, on meds. Couldn’t function. Tracked Jablonsky down and got him to pull some strings, get me retired on medical grounds. Plus a final tip-off about Holtzmann Solar share prices. I made a killing.’
Nakamura said, ‘No offence, man, but this place is a shithole.’
Crosby nodded. ‘The land cost a bit, but yeah, you’re right. Short answer, I gave the money away. Almost all of it. Had another attack of conscience, and found I couldn’t spend blood money.’ He gave another mewling laugh. ‘If I’d known I’d get emphysema, I might have kept a little back.’
Purkiss listened, thinking hard. It all suggested Pope was on a mission to take out everyone involved in Caliban. A cleaning-up operation. Did that mean he’d been hired by the CIA, or perhaps by whomever it was that had been in charge of Caliban and was now covering his or her tracks? And the men who’d come after Purkiss in Hamburg and later in Manhattan: were they Pope’s backup?
Something didn’t feel right.
Berg said, ‘What about the insurance you spoke about? The evidence you kept hidden, incriminating Jablonsky and the others?’
‘There never was any. Sure, I could keep a record of everything I’d done, laundering the money. But there was no proof of Jablonsky’s involvement, or Holtzmann Solar’s. Jablonsky was scared I had something on him – he’s Company, we’re paranoid by nature – but I didn’t. So it was all bluff.’ He shrugged. ‘I guess somebody’s calling the bluff now.’
‘Mr Crosby, are you willing to testify to all of this?’
Crosby sniggered again. ‘What’ve I got to lose? They’re going to come for me already, whoever they are.’
From the window Kendrick spoke, low and urgent.
‘They’re already here.’
Twenty-One
Between Charlottesvill
e, Virginia and Washington D.C.
Monday 20 May, 11.40 pm
Pope was by inclination a marathon runner, not a sprinter; but while speed was important, he had the advantage of surprise, and he hoped it would carry him through.
The distance from the bottom of the slope to where the three figures were standing was about a hundred yards, possibly slightly less. The woman had stopped and begun sidling sideways, so presumably there was some sort of barrier blocking her path: a fence or a ditch. The men were taking their time reaching her but would be at her in a minute, if everyone continued moving at their current pace.
He had surprise on his side, because the rain, light though it was, was deadening the sound of his approach, and in any case the two men wouldn’t be expecting anyone to come sprinting up to them from behind. Against him was the quality of the ground. Pitted and gnarled, it would be all too easy to sprain an ankle, and then he’d be finished.
He ran in strides longer than usual to afford extra stability, feeling himself settle into a steady rhythm as he gained ground on the small group. Fifty yards covered now. If he could get within ten yards he’d be safe; even if they were armed – and Pope assumed they were – they wouldn’t be able to bring their weapons to bear before his momentum had carried him straight into them.
With thirty yards to go, the girl saw him.
She was superb, a distant part of his mind appreciated: there was no stifled shriek, no reflexive drawing away. She recognised that he was coming to the rescue, and she reacted like a professional; namely, she didn’t react at all.
The men were talking to her, he registered, as he bore down on the final approach and picked up his speed as though aiming to breast a finishing tape. The two men were side by side, the taller one doing the talking. It meant the other one was probably the muscle.
Pope launched the kick in midair, his foot catching the man squarely in the back just below the neck. The man’s torso barrelled forward while inertia kept his head where it was so that his neck snapped back. He was lifted off his feet, and this time the girl did scream as she dived out of the way. Pope disregarded the first man and landed on his feet at a crouch, facing the other man and with his back to the girl.
The taller man was fast, his gun already out. Pope hacked at his wrist with the edge of his hand, caught the gun barrel instead, knocking it aside but not out of the man’s grip. The man kicked at Pope’s kneecap and made contact, sending a sheaf of pain up through Pope’s leg. He stumbled, doubling, but he was bluffing and the other man was a fraction slow in stepping back and raising his gun in a two-handed grip to deliver the execution shot.
Pope lunged, gripping the man’s wrists in his clasped hands and yanking him forward so that he was pulled off his feet. Pope’s knee connected hard with the man’s face and he collapsed, prone.
‘Look out,’ yelled the woman a second before Pope flung himself sideways and the shot whined past his head, trailing a blast that echoed off the walls of the miniature valley. He rolled on to and over the prone man, prising the gun free from his flaccid fingers and coming up to a sitting position as the second shot too went wide, far wider than it should have. Pope saw the first man, the one he’d kicked in the back, stagger slightly, one hand to the side of his head as his gun arm wove to take a bead again. The woman was off to the side, cowering.
Pope shot the man twice, once in the head and once through the chest before the first shot had dropped him. The man dropped to his knees, his torso remaining upright for a second like a hammy actor in a death scene. Pope rose and strode over and put a third shot into what was left of the man’s head.
He went back to the other man and turned him over. The knee to his face had killed him.
*
Neither man had anything useful on him apart from a gun. Their driver’s licences identified them as Francis King and Dwayne Harlan. Pope pocketed the licences and took the guns. A Heckler & Koch USP – the one he’d just fired – and a Glock 22.
The woman, Ramirez, stood clutching her violin case to her, shivering as though in January sleet rather than warm spring evening drizzle. Pope stuck the guns in his belt and held out a hand.
‘My name’s Pope. Don’t be afraid.’
She didn’t move. In the dark her eyes gleamed white, above and below the irises.
‘It’s over. Or it will be, if we get out of here now.’
At first he thought she’d hooted a laugh, but when it came again he caught it: ‘Who.’
‘Who am I? A friend. I’ll explain in a moment. Once we’ve got back on to the road and into my car.’ He stepped forward, hand still extended.
She took it.
*
Pope kept his gaze fixed on the road above them as they crossed the field, but there were no flashing lights up there yet.
The girl stumbled beside him, clutching her violin even though it would have been more practical to strap it across her back. Her head was lowered.
‘You hit him with a rock, didn’t you?’
She stared at him.
‘The man back there. He was aiming at me and you got him. Made him miss.’ He smiled in the darkness. ‘You saved my life. I’m very grateful.’
He wasn’t trying to get her to speak. He just wanted to give her a boost, keep her on her feet and moving forward.
They reached the foot of the slope and he started up, tugging at her hand; but she needed no prompting, and he felt able to let go. A few feet from the top he motioned to her to stop, and crept forward, peering over the top of the rail. There was the Toyota, its headlights still on, and behind it his Mercedes with its hazard lights flicking. No police.
When she’d climbed over the rail he took her elbow lightly and led her to the Toyota. He opened the door and scouted around. The interior smelled of stale cigarette smoke with an overlay of pine air freshener. Nothing in the glove compartment or under any of the seats.
At the Mercedes he opened the passenger door and gently pressed her inside.
‘I can put that in the back,’ he said, indicating the violin. But she strapped herself in and held the case across her chest. Fair enough.
He stowed the Glock in the glove compartment, and the Heckler & Koch under his seat. As he pulled away into the rain and the steady flow of cars, he saw the red, blue and white flashing lights approaching the spot behind him in the distance. No sirens yet. Those would come later.
*
‘Your name’s Nina Ramirez. Mine’s Darius Pope, but people just call me Pope.’
He’d thought about bluffing, pretending he was simply a passerby who’d happened to stop at a parked Toyota saloon by the side of the road and happened to spot two men chasing a young woman across a distant field and decided to intervene. But he knew she wouldn’t buy that.
At first she’d stared straight ahead through the windscreen, but now her gaze was turned on him. He could see it on the corner of his vision even as he drove. Large eyes, cheekbones high and fine, delicate nose and chin. The way she carried herself convinced him that she was one of those rare people who genuinely didn’t realise how attractive they were.
‘You’re heading to Washington. To find someone there, I wonder, or maybe just to get away from those men.’
‘Who –’ The word barely rasped out and she swallowed and tried again. ‘Who were they?’
That was interesting. She was asking who they were, rather than who he was. It suggested she trusted him a little. Perhaps not much, but enough to be starting with.
‘CIA. There’ll be more of them.’ When she drew in a breath, he said, ‘I won’t say “don’t worry”. But I’ll protect you. You can survive this.’
‘They killed my friends.’
‘Back in Charlottesville? What happened there?’
‘They started following me this afternoon. Maybe before, but that’s when I first noticed them. I went to my friends for help. They broke in, shot them dead. I jumped out the window.’
Pope watched the road in silence for a
full ten seconds, then said: ‘You did well. If you’d stayed, they would have killed you.’
‘Why?’
He’d rehearsed several different scenarios, played them out to their possible conclusions, keeping in mind at all times that you could never fully predict how human beings would behave or how conversations would run. He was having to modify his approach now based on the information he was getting from her demeanour, her body language.
‘Nina, I’m going to ask you an odd question. Humour me. I want you to think back to when you were a child. Eleven years old. Tell me what you remember of that time.’
‘Who are you?’
She’d asked it, then, finally. And it had been the strangeness of his own question that had triggered it.
‘Just let’s focus on you at eleven –’
‘Who are you.’
Sharper this time. He’d have to give her something.
‘I have a connection with your father.’
Twenty-Two
Interstate 95, Outside Washington D.C.
Tuesday 21 May, 12.15 am
The adrenaline had begun to drain from her limbs like fuel from an engine, leaving her feeling inert and immobile.
There’d been the terror of the advancing men, the shock of seeing the sprinting figure coming up behind them, then the awful physicality of the violence which had followed. Nina barely remembered picking up the rock and heaving it at the gunman’s head, but she remembered being utterly confused as to why he then dropped to his knees, shaking, until she understood that the newcomer had shot him.
The blasts had set up a high whine in her ears which hadn’t gone yet.
She watched the man beside her. Pope, he called himself. He sounded British, and educated, though she didn’t know much about distinguishing British accents. His profile was impossibly handsome, movie-star quality.
And, unbelievably, there was something familiar about him.