“Soldiers in battle are technicians,” said Sharett, coughing in a wet rasp. “Bishop, he liked watching amateurs. It reaffirmed his idea of what bastards human beings are. Lifted all the fucking responsibility off his shoulders…”
“And you went into business with him,” said Simon, not hiding his disgust.
The old mercenary was unrepentant, tendrils of blue cigarette smoke hovering around that dried, decaying skull. “In business, Harry Bishop is very responsible. I detest him for his greed—not his manners in war.”
Manners. Sharett didn’t like that Bishop was vulgar. He didn’t like Bishop’s enjoying his diversion of the massacre. He hadn’t cared about saving Anyanike’s life or the lives of the other Igbo. Sharett had simply felt inconvenienced.
How terrible it must have been to stand there on that lonely stretch of deserted outskirts, feeling your life soon to be forfeited because of a whim of sadism—rescue contemplated only because another man didn’t think you merited a bullet. The hate, the hate of an anonymous mob, building the many-limbed, many-headed butcher—we could wrap our heads around that, Simon and me. Those who watched and let it happen, despicable.
But Bishop. Bishop and this man. To collect more victims, to spitefully herd them toward their broken appointments with slaughter…
“Someone else wanted to know all this months ago,” said Sharett, yanking me hard out of my seething contempt. “A Yoruba who thought he was a big private detective.”
“And who was his client?” I asked, my voice hard.
Sharett laughed and spat. “He didn’t know himself. I upped my bribe, and he only knew she looked Arab or Indian. Spoke like an American.”
Danielle of the sarcophacan princes? Isaac’s duchess? Had to be. With her long black hair and exotic beauty she might have passed for a light-skinned Indian girl to strangers. She was, in fact, Iranian.
“I thought I knew what she was doing,” Sharett went on, “but when you showed up, you gave me different ideas.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “What did you think she was?”
“Competition!” he said impatiently, as if I were being deliberately stupid.
“Drugs, Teresa,” Simon whispered gently.
“She and her Yoruba fixer were asking questions all over town about business,” complained Sharett. “I assumed she was scouting for how to move in on our markets.”
Drugs.
Okay, made sense, yeah. Nigerians aren’t typically drug users, and they don’t produce any drugs of their own, but Nigeria is a major hub for heroin trafficked from Asia into the United States. And smuggling dope into Lagos Airport was supposed to be so easy that it had become a notorious joke.
Simon had pointed out how much trouble and effort someone must have gone to to find out how Oliver’s father was killed.
But maybe it had been an incidental chore, one accomplished while Danielle was conducting other business. This whole sex-cult business might be about drugs.
And it gave a possible explanation for why they’d sent Anna’s brother the lurid photos. If Anna had stumbled onto their operation, they might have thought she was some kind of spy for Jeff’s drug empire. Ah Jo Lee, the rich dodgy Thai (actually Chinese) guy in Bangkok with his fingers into all sorts of pies. Surely he was into drugs too?
So the photos might not have been meant as a taunt at all—they could have been a warning. Don’t fuck with us. Look what we can do to you and yours.
But that didn’t explain the Vietnam references.
I had Oliver’s jigsaw filled in, the mystery of his father solved. But Anna…I had gone to the States to solve Anna’s murder, and this side trip had dug up new questions that had to be answered back in New York.
Like why someone—presumably Danielle, by the sounds of it—had taken an interest in, of all people, Bishop’s past when she checked the Lagos drug pipeline.
None of these questions, of course, was Simon’s problem.
He stood over Sharett with his knuckles on his hips and demanded, “Where’s Bishop now?”
Sharett dug into his cigarette pack. Empty. He looked up at us, his face resigned to whatever punishment we had waiting for him.
“He comes out only once a year now. He’s living off the fumes of his myth.”
“Where?”
“Portugal. That’s all I know. He stopped trusting me with his specific address ten years ago.”
“We’ll find him,” said Simon.
We. I didn’t contradict him.
Back at the hotel. I should have walked down to the front desk and put a deposit on my own room. I didn’t.
I had finished one of those oh-so-refreshing bucket showers and had a towel around my waist when my cell phone warbled in my handbag. I glanced at the name lit up on Caller ID. Oh, shit. This was going to be awkward.
Ah Jo Lee calling. Your client. Remember him?
“Teresa!”
“Hey, Jeff.”
“Listen, I’ve got a contact for you that might be useful. It’s all set up if you want to pop over to Chinatown at two. Corner of Mott and—”
“I won’t be able to make it, actually.”
“Oh. Right. Tomorrow, then. I’ll—”
“I won’t be able to make that either, Jeff.”
“Why not?”
Very quiet, very polite—but with just enough stiletto edge in it to remind you why you don’t like to work for other people.
“I’m, uh, not in New York at the moment, Jeff. I’m in Lagos.”
“What are you in bloody Lagos for? These creeps are in New York, for crying out—”
“Jeff. This trip isn’t on your card. Okay? No charge to you. I’m pursuing a lead, and as a matter of fact, I just made a bit of major progress today. I’m flying back to New York in a day or two, so please just trust me, will you?”
From the Pacific Rim all the way to Lagos, there was this pause of simmering discontent, the silence that shouted: I am your client, therefore your boss, and I like to know what’s going on because I always know what’s going on in my business, and right now I am not a happy bunny.
But Jeff Lee and I go way back, so naturally he was polite.
“I fail to see,” he said, keeping his voice well modulated and calm, “how it’s such an essential lead, yet you don’t consider it worth deducting from your expenses.”
“It’s complicated,” I answered weakly.
Shoot me now.
“Teresa…”
“Jeff, you are going to have to trust me. I warned you this couldn’t be done in a few days. It might even take a couple of months.”
“Months in New York, right? Not in Africa.”
“Yes, darling. In New York.”
More silence from Bangkok.
“I have names now, Jeff,” I offered, knowing I’d better deliver a scrap of hope. “I’m getting close.”
“Poor choice of words, Teresa,” he snapped. “I’ll buy that you’re close when you’re in the same zip code.”
Ugh. Just take it for now. It’s not like he could know what you’re doing and why. Look at it from his perspective.
Big sigh. “You really have names, Teresa?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
“Okay. Carry on, then.”
Click.
I had changed by the time Simon got back from an errand (a need to check in, he grumbled, with “certain suits” despite his freelance status) and knocked on the door of his own room. When I opened it, he stood in the doorway with a bottle of white rum and a plastic jug of cola.
I folded my arms. “Been a long time without shore leave, eh, sailor?”
“Am I that obvious?” he asked.
“Well, I can use a drink after this afternoon. What do you have planned for Sharett?”
“It’s taken care of,” he said, and when I looked at him in surprise, he added, “Nothing like that. But he is in a cell.”
“That was fast.”
He poured us a couple of drinks.
“All things considered, yeah, maybe. It just took a bigger bribe to the police than Sharett could ever match. Plus one of their stations has a nice shiny satellite dish on its roof now. They can watch FIFA in style. They’ll mark it in their expenses under communications equipment.”
“What is it you said earlier?” I asked. “‘Expediency devolves into farce’? It fits.”
I clinked our plastic cups together in a toast.
“You’re still sore at me for last time.”
“No, not at all,” I replied. “This case…It’s been dark since the beginning. My friend’s death. This Bishop creep—even if someone’s only borrowing his MO.”
“Maybe it’s just as well I showed up to lighten the mood,” he replied. “You know me. I take the work seriously, but I never take myself seriously. Neither do you—most of the time. I’ve missed you, Teresa. My last visit to London was way too brief.”
“You and me, Simon. It’s the work that gets in our way.”
“So maybe this whole thing is a cosmic hint,” he argued, pouring us both another shot of rum. “You know you have all the qualifications to be doing what I’m doing. I could put in a word, and you could get a contract just like mine. Freedom to turn down jobs you don’t like but enough pay to keep you from being broke like you are every three months. You could even stay based in London. Hell, you’re in Earl’s Court. It’s not like you have to jump on another Tube line to get to Heathrow.”
“What do I put down for the Inland Revenue?” I laughed. “Paid Assassin?”
“Bet you write down interesting explanations already. Besides, that’s not the job—or the whole job. There’s more to it than that. Mostly it’s what you’re doing now.”
“So this isn’t a seduction?” I teased. “It’s recruitment?”
He got out of his chair, knelt down, and kissed me on my lips. It was soft and tender to the point of reverential, and I had the electric thrill of new arousal mixed with familiarity. It hadn’t been that long since I last saw him but long enough. His tongue pushed gently into my mouth, coiled with mine, and I felt his hands around my waist. They slid up to my breasts as we both stood up. We petted and fondled each other, making the slow-motion pilgrimage to the bed, and then the strangest thing happened. I grew impatient. No, it was worse than impatience. Nails on blackboard, white noise blaring, skin on fire. I said: “No.”
“What?” he protested. In a whisper. Quietly.
Something flicked a switch in me. Programming, call it what you will.
This was Simon. I knew him. I might feel danger with a new guy but not him. Yes, he was an assassin for hire, intelligence op—but he was a guy like most guys, and some won’t take no and are thugs, and then there are those who Mum raised well and who respect you. Simon had a pedestrian decency streak in him.
“Look, I’m sorry, I guess too much history—”
“Shut up,” I said hoarsely. And I pushed him. I actually pushed him.
“What? What did I do?”
Frustrated beyond belief now, I kissed him with savage forwardness, took his right hand and put it on my breast, and he fell back a couple of steps, overwhelmed. Still too soft, too accommodating. I shoved him hard again. He looked at me, bewildered, and I slapped him.
“Hey!” His eyes went wide with horror, and he went for the door. “Good-bye, Teresa—”
“No, wait!” I yelled, and I hurried around to get in his way.
“What’s your game?” he demanded, finally getting angry.
And my eyes pleaded with him: Take me. I took both his hands in mine, brought them to the top of my blouse, and used them like props, ripping open my blouse. At last he clued in. His fingers dug into the cups of my bra to lift my tits out.
We kissed all the while, one of my hands yanking his hair. We staggered back onto the bed, and I play-wrestled with him, the wrestling getting more violent, less an act. I felt his hand under my skirt trying to reach between my thighs, and I closed my legs. He sank his teeth into my breast, a sudden sharp nip that distracted me, and then he got one of his knees in as a block, his hand triumphant.
I twisted, panting, rolled onto my stomach. I pretended to hang on for dear life to the headboard as he stripped the rest of my clothes away.
“I want to see you,” he said.
“No.”
He laughed and tried to roll me over, couldn’t. I pushed my ass into the air, making an offering, and his finger expertly found my clit and touched my wetness. I heard him call my name once, a question, as I folded my left arm behind my back, trying to convey in pantomime what I wanted. He caught my wrist and held me fast, and I said, “Harder.” He gripped me harder, trying to mount me. “Harder.”
And a dull ache started. The head of his penis entered me, and I moaned, but it wasn’t enough, not enough. “Come on,” I growled, a note of angry frustration in my voice, and his hand pushed my wrist a little until a jolt of electric pain shot up through my arm as his cock filled me up. He started a tentative rhythm, and I pumped my hips to urge him faster.
I had felt his dick harder than this, and I knew I was creeping him out but I couldn’t help myself. I moved a little to pop him loose, then fell on my back. His palms rested a brief moment on my knees as I tucked up my legs. As I saw his thick white cock begin to disappear into my pussy again, I made an inarticulate wild sound of protest and slapped his chest.
“Teresa!”
Moving my hips, keeping him hard, and the crossed signals were driving him crazy, my hands batting his chest and then a blow aimed at his temple. He caught it in time, both hands gripping my wrists and forcing me down. But even as his eyes reflected his horrified disbelief, I felt his cock tense into a steel bar, and I keened in gratitude. He had me good and pinned, even as I tried to bite him. He increased his rhythm, and I heard the wet slaps of our flesh, my heels close to touching on the small of his back.
Then he let himself go and lifted my left leg onto his shoulder, plunging deep into me, only to come out and thrust again like a battering ram. Wanting to hurt me at last…? The notion pushed me over the edge. My orgasm rippled over me. Skin still feeling like it was on fire. Had to come again—
As he slid off me, I turned on my side in a fetal ball and played with my clit, my mind stoking a furnace of memory. Arm pinned behind my back. Spanking. Bound. A fantasy of being tied up and Simon fucking me. Uhhh. Yes. Yes—
I came in violent shudders. When my muscles finally relaxed and I lay panting, poor Simon was leaned over me in the semidarkness, completely confused and feeling rejected.
“You’ve got to tell me what’s going on.”
And I burst into a genuine sob, wrenched from my core. “Oh, God…I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
“That didn’t feel like a game,” he said, his voice feathery, climbing with apprehension. “We’ve never done it like that, and I don’t think I like it. I could have hurt you, and I bloody don’t like myself doing that! What is wrong with you? You—you wanted me to pretend I was raping you?”
“No! No, I—”
“You want to play, you let me in on the rules, right? But I’m not going to break a limb or—”
“No, look, Simon, please—”
Oliver’s training. Fucking me up even though I had tried to brush it off. A big lie I had sold myself on how it couldn’t affect my own sexual desires and tastes, even though I had always pushed the boundaries. I did like getting tied up now and then. I didn’t mind the odd slap, giddyap. But, sweet Jesus, what was happening? Couldn’t I get off anymore without kink? Without it getting rough?
And the man in my bed at the moment had every right to be upset. No prebriefing, no talk about games—my unconscious wanted thrills, so that meant realism, and you can’t get complete realism with rehearsal. But I hadn’t told him that.
This wasn’t fair to him. Whatever else we were. Acquaintances? Casual lays? I don’t know if I could ever call Simon a friend after Sudan, and we had never approached a level of intimacy where I
had wanted to confide in him. Until now. Because, Jesus, I needed to talk to someone about this.
If it were details of an art theft or some corporate murderer we were both hunting down, competing against each other, then I knew he could be utterly ruthless. He’d slash my tires to get a head start. But this was me getting smaller, my identity shrinking. He put his arm around me and listened.
“You can’t do it,” he said at last.
“I’ve done undercover before.”
“Not like what you’re suggesting. Look what it’s doing to you! You are one step away from those nuts who put plastic bags over their heads to get high when they come.”
“Thanks a lot!”
But Anna had been a gasper. The ligature marks on her neck.
“No joke. Look, suppose they do that shit? Suppose they do things that leave marks or brand you—”
“They don’t,” I cut in. “I’ve got my source—”
“This is the same source who hogties you and canes your ass, Teresa?”
I didn’t answer that. Instead, I kissed him tenderly and said, “You just go find Bishop. Leave the New York end to me.”
6
On the long flight back to America, I scribbled on a page of notepaper what I knew. It helped me to think, and I had little categories marked Anna Lee, then Craig Padmore, then Kelly Rawlins. Oliver’s father didn’t enter into the mix. That was a murder during war that happened forty years ago. The facts, intuition, common sense—everything told me Bishop’s “signature” was being used today by a copycat.
Okay. Anna didn’t have the bishop drawing. Our murderers had used a gang tattoo instead to throw the cops off.
The bishop was used on Craig Padmore’s body, but as my old friend Carl had admitted, the symbol meant nothing to the fine detectives at the Met.
So it was intended to send a message to someone else. Who? I scribbled down under Craig’s heading.
And the bishop was used on Kelly Rawlins’s body as an intended message for Oliver. But the message for Oliver was that this was a villain out of his past, the guy who had killed his father.
I thought I was starting to get the idea.
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