He wore a new black coat, long like the one he had before and underneath that he wore the camo suit. The C-J was a brick in his kangaroo pocket, bumping against his thigh as he crossed the street and passed through the ruined gate through which the van had made its fateful run.
The inside of the old church was as the police had left it, shattered and black. Forgotten pews lay overturned and splintered, blackened wood-grain plastic strewn everywhere around a massive hole in the center where the van had gone up. Darkness yawned up from the sublevels. The place had been full of parishioners that day, their heads bowed in pious ignorance, praying for the death of a whole civilization on the other side of the world. He wondered what they must have thought when the front of their sanctum against the heathens exploded and a fireball turned them to all to ashes.
He stood there in the breach, staring at the towering brass crucifix that dominated the far wall, when he saw her. She was sitting in a righted pew in the shadow of the great mangled white Jesus, long since melted into a bloated, flesh-colored idol. She wore a dark blue raincoat and her long hair was pulled into a tail. She was reading from a hand computer; the glow of its monitor was what drew his attention, since shaded as she was he hadn't seen her straight away. Walken squared his shoulders, looking between the piles of debris and stacks of ruined pews as he approached, wary of ambush.
"I'm here," he called when he had closed to within ten feet or so, his hands deep in his pockets. His fingers closed around the handle of the C-J, felt the texture of its rubberized grip bite into his palm.
She didn't turn around. "So you are," she said. "You armed?"
"I dunno," he said. "You bring the Bureau with you?"
Hunt grunted. "You really do think the worst of me, don't you?" She turned around in her seat, one arm draped across the back of the pew. Her eyes were hidden behind an enormous pair of sunglasses, but he didn't need to see them to know what burned behind them — she radiated haughty amusement even now, when she very well might be in mortal danger. As distasteful as he found her, Annika Hunt had the biggest set of balls he'd seen in ages. He had to admire that.
"You haven't given me any reason to think otherwise," he said with a simple shrug.
She laughed. "Such honesty." She looked up at the vast melted Jesus then, putting the computer in her lap and shook her head. "And lo, the beast bore many mouths to eat itself, starving for grandeur."
Walken's eyes followed hers upward. "Is that Biblical?"
"No," said Hunt, "Just something I thought up while sitting here." A soft chuckle left her lips and she looked back at him. "I actually do have some talent, you know, if only just a little. Did you know my great-grandmother was a member of this church?"
He blinked. "She wasn't in here when...was she?"
Hunt laughed, shaking her head. She reached up to undo her tail so that her blonde hair fell all around her shoulders, glinting dully in the gloom. "No, no. She was on television at the time, actually, which only helped her career in the aftermath."
"She was a reporter, too?" Walken's fingers flexed on the pistol's grip as he scanned the area behind him. Any moment, he thought, any moment now he'd find the whole place swarming with Special Tactics and God knows what.
"No." Hunt turned to look up at him again. "She was an author and a television personality. A pundit. Member of the political party backing the New Worlders, you know, Republican all the way. You remember the GOP, I'm sure."
Walken nodded. "The old two-party system, yeah. But that died out years ago."
"But of course, that's just history." She rose, tucking the computer into the pocket of her coat. His reflection bent in the glossy lenses of her shades. "We're here to talk about the future, aren't we?"
He nodded; he was put a bit off balance thanks to Hunt's words, unsure as to the reason behind them. His paranoia slipped up another notch. "Yeah," he said, "We are. You said that you knew it was from Wonderland. How?"
"I know people," she said with a shrug. "Does it matter? We're here to discuss what information he sent to me. My copy."
His lips pursed. "Do you have it?"
"I do." She reached into her pocket again and his fingers tightened on the gun. He turned its muzzle toward her in his pocket. When her hand emerged, however, it contained only another foil-banded datacell. "As you can see. But before I do, I want you to tell me the truth. Everything."
His eyes narrowed. "Why?"
She only shrugged. "I'll tell you when this is over. Don't worry, Agent; you have nothing to fear from little ol' me. My bark, in this case, is far worse than my bite."
He stared at her for a moment, unsure and then... that tiny voice spoke in his head, urging him to trust her just this little bit. That illogical, inconvenient voice. "All right," he said after a moment. "Let's sit down."
She was quiet when he finished, though she didn't quite have the same reaction as he had upon connecting the dots. Instead she wore a amused expression, as if she'd expected him to react this way. "All right," she said, "So you've uncovered some terrible new technology coming out of the Wonderland black houses. Doesn't that happen with you people all the time? What has that got to do with your making paste out of that little girl, or Doll, or whatever those two were?"
Walken shrugged. "Well, that's the point," he said, arms folded over his chest. He had joined Hunt in the shadow of the melted Jesus, hands out of his pockets and away from the gun. "I hadn't planned on killing her. Bureau sidearms come with selectable magazines — I had set the gun to fire tranquilizers. There's no way that it could've happened that way unless someone had hacked the electronics."
"And you can do that?" Her brows were arched. "I didn't know you could hack small electronic items beneath a certain level of complexity."
He nodded. "It's entirely possible. They all have transponders like any other federal agency that issues firearms. It isn't impossible if you have the skill or the software."
She gave him a look of faint disbelief but shrugged. "All right," she said, "So let's say you were framed. Who the hell would want to do that?"
It was an excellent question, one he hadn't really given much thought to in the blur of strangeness that had passed him in the last few days — he had wanted so badly to convince Exley and the Bureau that the matter was a mechanical failure that the hadn't even considered why it might have happened in the first place. It seemed strange to him now. "I think it was Stadil," he said.
"Stadil?" Hunt's voice broke in an astonished laugh. "You think Stadil, who brought the girls over in the first place, wanted to arrange for you to kill them? Why the hell would he do that?"
His frown returned in the face of her laughter. "I think that it's just one more piece of the puzzle," he opined, tightening his self embrace. "He has a plan for me, only I don't know exactly what it is. I think that it has to do with all this and I think he's trying to..." He took a deep breath, speaking words that only now broke to the surface. "...I think he's trying to expose this whole thing through me. That's why I think he gave you that data; he knew that I would eventually have to come back to you."
"Seems to think he knew me pretty well," Hunt said with a frown. "He'd been a source of mine concerning smuggling operations for years."
"I'd never even met him," Walken said softly. "Seems an awfully fucked-up way to do this thing, ruining a man's life the way he has."
She snorted at that. "Seems to me he's done you a favor, honey. If you're right, though, this must have as much to do with you as it does this... conspiracy, for lack of a better word." She turned toward him, then, the wreath of gloomy gold about her head shining dimly as it licked her cheeks. "In my experience, if a man wants to just vent something to the press, he usually just... well, he contacts someone like me. The way he's doing this, either he's some kind of psychotic or he's sending you down this road for a reason, fucked up as it might be. And if you're willing to tell me all about it when you reach your destination, then you've got what help I can offer."
&n
bsp; Silence hung for a moment as Walken stared at her. Hunt had managed to surprise him again; he collected himself quickly enough to nod before she changed her mind. "All right," he said, "You've got a deal."
"Good." She held the datacell out to him. "Here you go. I'll try and get the details concerning what they know, eh? You'd be surprised just how many sources I've got in your neck of the woods."
He reached for it; she pulled it back a few inches, though and spoke again. "Just remember," she said warningly, "If you fuck with me..."
"Relax," he said, reaching to tug the thing out of her fingers. "I'm not stupid, after all. Just very unlucky."
"I say it to everybody," Hunt said with a shrug. "And while you're at it, I want you to ask yourself something."
He rose. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," she replied, turning back to the great molten Jesus. "Ask yourself why I'm doing this for you."
"Because she's fucking crazy," Bobbi said as she squinted at him from over a styrofoam tray of spring rolls. "That's why. Bitch is so twisted up on getting her story now that she's willing to do whatever."
Walken sat across from her at the little table in the kitchenette, spooling lo mein around his fork. "Maybe so," he said, "But at least at the moment we have a little more than we did before."
"Uh-huh." Bobbi shook her head, reaching for a wax carton of Sapporo and downing a swallow of the beer. "You make me feel like maybe I'm not cutting it for you. That it, baby? You think Bobbi can't dig up what you need?"
He stared at her from over his noodles, fork paused just at the entrance of his open mouth. "No," he said finally, "Jesus, Bobbi. What's your problem?"
"Nothing." She stabbed a spring roll hard with her chopsticks and bit the end off, chewing silently. Her green eyes were dull as they tracked the tabletop. She had grown very sullen while he was out and he was racking his brains trying to figure out why.
"...now look." Walken took a deep breath, giving her an exasperated look. "I know you don't like her — Hell, I don't like her either — but she's the best and only legitimate source that we have at the moment. We can't hack the Bureau's systems without stirring up a hornet's nest, you said that yourself. She has informants in the Bureau. And maybe she's right, anyway. Maybe Stadil intended for us to —"
"I'm getting really bored of old Anton right now," Bobbi rumbled around her mouthful of spring roll.
"— intended for us to work with her," Walken finished flatly. "Neither of us have to like it, Bobbi, but we both of us have to deal. You know?"
"Yeah." Bobbi shrugged. "Look, I just don't want you forgetting who's really on your side, baby, that's all. And I don't want you thinking that you need extra help on this, because you don't. I can do everything she can and more." She looked up a bit from her food. "Just takes longer, you know."
He had her defeated, he knew, but he was gracious. "I understand," he said and he leaned over the table to kiss her forehead. "Don't worry, girl. It's like I said — she's got nothing on you."
She smiled despite herself. Her pale cheeks burned faintly, a new occurrence — the flush of her sexual fire was all he'd seen before. He smiled as well, wondering at it and then leaned back in his seat. "So are we cool?"
"'Are we cool'." She laughed, tossing her pink crest. "Listen to you — yeah, baby, we're cool. I just worry, you know. Dunno if you noticed, but I'm kinda fond of you." Bobbi lifted the spring roll to her lips. "Even if you're a pain in the ass."
Walken smirked and bobbed his head. "Guilty as charged," he said. "But we're stuck with each other, aren't we?"
She bobbed her head, chewing another mouthful and after washing it down, rolled her shoulders in that down-to-business way she had. "Right," she said, "So. While we wait on this decryption pass, let's talk about your future."
"My future?" Walken popped the spool of noodles into his mouth.
"Yeah," she said. "So what are you planning to do, I mean, ultimately? You can't go back to the Bureau."
He canted his head, his eyes full of question.
"I mean they got you down in the black book," she said. "Or are you planning, you know, to do what she said? To get yourself reinstated?" From the tone in her voice it was like he was planning to go off and fight some distant, useless war.
Walken swallowed his lo mein and reached for his carton of beer. "I haven't given it much thought," he lied. "But would it be so terrible? I'd figured all this would be a good indication as to the importance of the job."
"Well, sure..." She paused, inspecting her plate again. "Just that you'd have to leave all this, you know."
Walken found himself suddenly in the middle of yet another conversation he had no desire to have. He shifted, clearing his throat and took a large swallow of his Sapporo before he spoke again. "Well," he said, picking over his words carefully, "You could come with me. There are rehabilitative programs where criminal operators are—"
He stopped; every word he spoke had made Bobbi's face fall by degrees. "I'm not a criminal," she said, stabbing at her food again. "I wish you'd see that."
"Well, not in spirit," Walken said lamely, cursing himself, "But by the letter of the law you are. I'm just saying that... you know, if I went back and you wanted to..."
"You could come with me," she said quietly. "I mean, I'm not exactly just doing this for the money anymore, am I? Don't expect me to get all gooey and slobber any sweet declarations your way or anything, but I mean - like I said - you need a girl."
"But then I wouldn't be who I am." His brows arched. "Would I?"
"We're all exactly who we want to be," Bobbi shot back. She got to her feet, tossing down the chopsticks and the impaled roll and stalked toward the door. "I've gotta check that decrypt."
Though her face was turned from him as she passed, Walken saw the faintest glimmer of tears on those extraordinary pink lashes and he felt a stab of guilt. There was nothing he could do. Not now.
Three days passed while Bobbi tried to carve the encryption barriers containing Stadil's data. Walken spent most of those passing days sitting on the futon, watching the news, reading, or field-stripping the C-J. He'd fallen back into the old meditation, the dance he'd done with the Nambu, but with the twelve-mil it was something else entirely. The steps were different. Heavier. They lacked the grace of the Nambu's elegant delicacy. Yet the Nambu had been nowhere near as substantial as this gun; he found its weight appealing, its solidity an anchor which he needed in these tense and fluid moments.
There had been no mention of him on the newsfeeds, but Bobbi's occasional scans of the Federal databases, when she bothered to talk to him at all, showed that the Bureau was still searching for him. It appeared that Hunt had not given him up, nor had Bobbi's network, at least for the moment. He was impressed.
On the third day, that afternoon, they got a call from Hunt. Bobbi'd set up a ghost link for Hunt to use on the same Bell Canada satellite she'd hacked the first time and, thought they’d set up the means for her to call them, he was surprised to hear the phone's telltale doubled ring radiating from the handset. He picked it up, saying nothing.
"I'm here," said Hunt. Her voice was different from the last time — crisp again, haughty. All business. "I have information for you."
"All right," said Walken. "Go ahead."
"I know what they're looking to pick you up for," she said; there was the sound of paper flexing on the other side. "I said that the word was that you'd killed those little girls you were supposed to have helped smuggle in, but the truth is that they've got a whole laundry list of charges on you now."
Walken felt ice water slide into his gut. He nodded. "All right," he said grimly, "Let's hear it."
"All right..." She trailed off a moment. "...they've got you on the Class B contraband, as you know and the girls are considered evidence — so they've got you on a destruction of evidence. They're also blaming you now for colluding with Stadil, who they say was your contact and responsible for shipping the girls over in the first place and they seem to think
you were responsible for ratting out some informants over Wonderland way that had shared the information with the Bureau in the first place. Those people are dead."
"That I knew," he said. "But they're blaming me for it? I'd love to see their evidence."
She shrugged. "I don't know that they have any. You very well may just be the most convenient scapegoat. My source in the Bureau likes you, Walken, so you're lucky you were a decent guy while you were in."
He paused. "Who's your source?" he asked.
"Trade secrets, honey," said Hunt, a hint of new superiority entering her tone. "Do you want me to try and get a copy of the evidence file?"
"Please." He wondered who the hell it could have been that Hunt had formed an axis with. Exley? Kelley? Maybe even Hammond now that he thought about it. Who knew? "What about the datafile? Have they cracked the encryption yet?"
She made a soft sound in the negative. "Not even close. My source says your chief's screaming for your blood, though. You should be very, very careful right now. That man has sources he shouldn't."
The ice water in Walken's belly froze solid. "Yeah," he murmured, "I got that impression. Jesus." Suddenly a horrifying thought came to mind. "They don't have a termination order out on me, do they?"
"Termination order?" Hunt laughed coolly. "If that were the case, honey, I'd have gone above your head already. I want this story, almost as badly as they want you in lockup. Don't worry, nobody's gonna be shooting live rounds at you unless you fire first."
Walken let out a soft sigh of relief, though it was short-lived; Bobbi had come in, her expression as grim as it had been since dinner that night and she stood in the makeshift doorway with her arms crossed. "....is there anything you need from me," he asked.
"Nothing." She paused. "Although when I give you the file, it'll have to be hardcopy. I suspect whatever little hack-artist you've got on your payroll that makes all your arrangements will tell you, but trace-progs on outgoing file transmissions are one thing that the Feds do very well."
He nodded at the phone again. "Right. Get in touch with me when you have something, then and I'll let you know when we've cracked the datafile." A moment. "Thank you, Miss Hunt."
Shadow of a Dead Star (The Wonderland Cycle) Page 20