Bannerman's Ghosts

by John R. Maxim

“He’ll lay low until he’s healed and this blows over.”

  He’ll lay low, thought Bourne. He might lay lower than you think. This cannot be traced back to me.

  Before sitting down to peruse the stolen files, Bourne had scanned the news channels for reports of the episode. He had contacts in the capitol whom he could have asked directly, but they’d surely have wondered why he’d care. The news accounts he saw were more or less similar to Chester’s version of the event. One oddity, however. One station reported that the woman with no face had been tentatively identified as “Elizabeth.” It seems that Clew’s driver had been heard to say her name before the police pried them apart.

  Elizabeth? As in Stride? Why would he call her Elizabeth?

  A dying brain. Confused. Disoriented, surely. But something. thought Bourne, must have planted the seed. Stride must have been on his mind. He and Clew must have been talking about her. Perhaps Clew had told him that he’d found her.

  One found, but one lost. Claire will be sorely missed. Capable, reliable, always pleasing to look at. Not a few of his brunch guests were enamored of Claire. Not a few will regret that she’s no longer available as, if they’ve earned it, their dessert. He among them, of course. They’d had many a diversion. She was too acrobatic for his tastes on the whole. Men his age no longer bend as they used to. But she was often considerate. One appreciates that. She’d say, “Lie back. Be still. I’ll do everything myself. I’m going to make you purr like a kitten.”

  Missed, but not irreplaceable, thought Bourne. He’d have Houston look for one even better. His personnel people are aware of his requirements. Like Claire, she must have the sort of looks that turn heads. Like Claire, she must be British with a proper British accent. It makes them seem cultivated, even if they are not. A few months of tutoring smoothes any rough edges. And of course she must be willing to do as she’s told.

  But of course one mustn’t be inflexible, thought Bourne. The right American might also do nicely. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Elizabeth Stride could be enticed by all this money and power. She’d do more than make him purr. She’d be the lioness; he’d be the lion. Well…after they’ve had time to get acquainted.

  “Did you find it yet?” asked Chester. “Anything about Stride?”

  The question interrupted his reverie.

  “Nothing current. Not yet. Not about where she is. I hope she’s not planning to be in Westport next week. That would complicate matters considerably.”

  Chester asked, “Why in Westport? What’s next week?”

  “Clew was planning to be there. Some sort of conference.”

  “How’d you know that? That’s on Clew’s PDA?”

  “No, Quigley told me. He didn’t know the agenda, but I don’t like the timing. Clew might well have intended to enlist their support. I’ve sent two people up there to keep their eyes open and to pre-empt, if need be, any problems from that quarter.”

  “You sent what people? Mine? Without going through me?”

  Bourne said, without looking up from the screen, “They are not your people. They are my people, Chester. Your fiefdom is limited to my African affairs. You’ll recall that I do have interests elsewhere.”

  Now Bourne did raise his eyes. Chester actually looked hurt. This brute’s lower lip was protruding. “You still could have told me,” said Chester.

  “My bad, as they say.”

  “And what’s this pre-empt? That makes it sound like you’ll hit him. Two guys to take out that whole bunch?”

  “They are well equipped, believe me. But there might be no need. One likes to plan ahead. You should try it some time. Now please let me finish my reading.”

  Now he looks like a boy who’s been sent to his room. Very well. We’ll try to brighten his mood.

  “At the moment,” said Bourne, “I’m on an old freighter somewhere off the coast of Sierra Leone. You’ll be pleased to know that those slave girls have been rescued. They’ll be reduced to bloody puddles in a week or ten days, but at least they may have died with their virtue intact. Your Moshood, however, has been fed to the sharks, bleeding, but alive and fully conscious.”

  “Had it coming,” said Chester. “Wish I could’ve watched.”

  “Quigley says that Clew erased these exchanges with Liberia. Once erased, could they be recovered?”

  “Normally, yeah, but not on that system. If Clew wanted to deep-six them, they’re gone.”

  Bourne grunted. This whole business might yet be contained. Some inducement toward this Tubbs might be helpful. “Do you know anything of this General? Abednego Tubbs?”

  “The Liberian? Yeah. He’s a doofus.”

  “How about a Major Scar of the 2nd Commando?”

  “The 2nd Commando is their army’s top unit. I don’t think I ever heard of a Major Scar, but all the soldiers in that unit have scarred faces.”

  “More magic? More juju?”

  “No, they don’t do that shit. It’s an identity thing. It’s so everyone can see they’re in that unit.” Chester dabbed at his wound as he said this.

  “There are no other units like this 2nd Commando?”

  “Hardly any,” Chester answered. “They’re also all Christians. Lots of Christians in Liberia. I think I heard they all wear gold crosses.”

  “Each to his own brand of magic, I suppose.”

  “That doesn’t mean that they’re choirboys, though. I heard they never take any prisoners.”

  Bourne found himself wondering whether they might be for hire. Especially their commander, this major called Scar. He certainly has seemed to keep his head on that freighter. It’s too bad that he isn’t very likely to survive. Bourne might have made him an interesting offer. He might have said, “Major? I’m planning some changes. I think I need an African who knows about Africans to oversee my African holdings. Right now I have Chester, but that’s not going to last. One blunder too many. Downsize him for me, will you? You’re a Christian, so you probably won’t cook him and eat him. Just as well. There’s a saying; ‘You are what you eat,’ and believe me, you don’t want to be Chester.”

  No matter. It won’t happen. But I wish you weren’t dying. I wish you’d found some juju that works against Marburg. I assume you’ve already tried prayer.

  Juju, thought Bourne. Bulletproof troops. There’s no end to the nonsense that some people will believe. It’s no different, he supposed, from being persuaded that seventy-two virgins await martyrs in paradise. Personally, he’d have settled for Claire.

  “Damn,” he exclaimed. The screen had suddenly changed. Clew’s exchanges with Tubbs had shrunk to nothing. “Chester, get over here. What have I done?”

  Chester limped to the console. “I have to get this leg fixed.”

  “My doctor is upstairs attending to Toomey. When it’s your turn, he’ll buzz you. What have I done?”

  Chester reached to take the mouse. “You just reduced it, is all. Let me fool with it for a second.”

  New text sprang up. He saw Stride’s name. He saw Kessler’s. The text looked like excerpts from various reports. At the bottom of the screen there was the edge of a photo. He said, “Bring that up. What’s that photo?”

  Chester spotted a date among numerous codes. “Couple days ago,” he said. “From before this last download.” He moved the cursor to it. The photo arose. A group of people. Middle-eastern. A woman among them. A notation on the photo. “Almost certainly Stride.” There was an arrow pointing to her smiling profile.

  Bourne leaned forward. He asked Chester, “Can this be printed out?”

  “Well, yeah,” Chester told him. “This thing over here is your printer.”

  “Make it print then. At once.” Damn gadgets, thought Bourne. “Print it all. I want all of this out of it.”

  “You mean printed, then erased?”

  “No, just out,” said Bourne eagerly. “I want it where I can touch it.”

  “That’s Stride?” asked Chester.

  “Almost certainly, it says.”<
br />
  “Stride’s no Arab. That’s an Arab.”

  “But Stride must have been able to pass for an Arab. She must have had the coloring for it.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Chester. “What’s this other thing down here? Oh, it’s a window. It says ‘Doodlings.’ Let me look.”

  “Lose Stride’s picture, you lummox, for the sake of some doodles, and I’ll…”

  “I’m a lummox? Look at this. You want Stride? Here’s where she is.”

  He’d done something with the mouse and hit a button on the keyboard. What he clicked on spread out and filled the screen.

  There were only five lines.

  The top line, in bold letters, said “STRIDE IS ALIVE.”

  The second said “BANNERMAN.” Only that.

  The third, “HOW AND WHERE?”

  Next came “HILTON HEAD ISLAND!!!!”

  Then, a few spaces down, “From Chamonix.”

  Bourne stared. “Is that it? She’s on Hilton Head Island?”

  “Apologize first.”

  “I apologize. Abjectly.”

  “Then I’d have to say yes. It looks like Bannerman said so. Except why would Clew write ‘How and where?’ after that. And what does ‘From Chamonix’ mean?”

  “The ‘How,’ perhaps, asks how Bannerman found her. The ‘Where’ is self-evident. South Carolina. All this time she’s been practically a neighbor.”

  “That’s if she’s not in France. Isn’t Chamonix in France?”

  Bourne rubbed his chin. He shook his head slowly. He touched a finger to the spaces separating the two locations. “Chamonix could be on another subject entirely. She came back to this country; she stayed in this country. Let’s not muddy the water with France.”

  Chester was doubtful. “Clew wrote that for a reason.”

  “But he wrote it less boldly. Why lower case? And he wrote it without exclamation marks, Chester. Look at those after Hilton Head. What do they tell you?”

  “He’s surprised?”

  Bourne rose to his feet. “Yes, they do connote surprise. When repeated they are an expression of wonder. When repeated four times, they’re a shout of “Eureka.” She’s on Hilton Head Island. Go find her.”

  “We’ll look.”

  “Look? I said find her. Leave tonight. Take your thugs. First make some more copies of this photograph.”

  “Ah, Mr. Bourne…are you forgetting my leg? Kuntz is in your kitchen with his knuckles packed with ice and Toomey’s upstairs with his hand ripped to shit.”

  “Toomey was a policeman. He’ll know how to look for her. When he finds her, he can point with the hand that’s undamaged. As for you, you need only a few mattress sutures and a handful of antibiotics. Oh, and do change your trousers, of course.”

  Chester started to object. Bourne raised a hand to stop him.

  “Need I say it? You’ve a chance to redeem yourself Chester. Find Stride; bring her to me; all your sins will wash away.”

  Well, not all, thought Bourne. You can purge the rest in hell.

  Chester grumbled, but he said, “You want speed, we’ll need your chopper.”

  “Helicopters aren’t stealthy. It’s those noisy rotor things. They call attention to themselves when you’re dragging women into them. Take a van, drive all night. Make your plans on the way. Report to me no later than mid-morning.”

  “You’re a prick.”

  “That may be,” said Bourne, “but I’m your prick, dear Chester. I know you won’t fail me in this.”

  TWENTY ONE

  Elizabeth Stride had not seen the news broadcasts. She’d gone out to the theater with a man she had met at a fundraiser for the Arts Center. The show was Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes.” The man was a widower. He’d lost his wife to a stroke. He was a building contractor some twenty years older. He was nice; he was comfortable and he was safe. His name was Gary.

  He had taken her home. She had not asked him in. She had offered her cheek at the door. He brushed it lightly. He said, “Soon, I hope.” He turned and slid into his car. Elizabeth waited for his tail lights to vanish before turning off her own outside lights. She went into her kitchen, checked for messages; there were none. She poured herself a glass of white wine and sat down with a book that she’d been reading. Gary, she imagined, would be doing the same. She should really have asked him in for coffee.

  But she’d made it clear to him that she had no intention of entering a serious relationship. His age was one factor, not a huge one, but a factor. The scars on her body were another. He didn’t seem to mind that she kept him at a distance or else he was willing to be patient. He would send her flowers after each evening out with a card that simply said, “Thank you.”

  He was not the type to call and make a pest of himself. Two weeks might go by before she heard from him again. Or she would call him. Not often, but sometimes. Once she needed a partner for a charity golf tournament. At other times, like tonight, there’d be a show she wished to see and she wanted to go with a man for a change instead of always with Aisha or Jasmine or Nadia.

  Jasmine had asked, “Did he get you in the sack yet?”

  “Um…not that’s it’s any of your business…”

  “Well, did he?”

  “He’s not that kind of date. He’s just a gentleman friend.”

  She said, “There aren’t any men who just want to be friends, especially when the friend looks like you.”

  “Well, he is.”

  Jasmine said, “I happen to know something about men.”

  “I…don’t doubt that for a second.”

  “Don’t get smart. The subject at hand is your love life, not mine, and what you know about men adds up to squat.”

  “Oh, you think so.”

  Jasmine asked her, “Okay. How many men have you slept with? Grand total from day one. What’s it come to?”

  “Correction. I am not the subject at hand. We’re not going to have this discussion.”

  “How many?”

  “A lot. I was a slut.”

  “My guess is maybe three all through high school and college. Maybe one more, tops, before Kessler came along. And nothing since Martin. Am I right? Yeah, I thought so. I was going to say you need to get back in the game, but, girl, you‘re not even on the bench.”

  Elizabeth had brought her hands to her temples. “I’m trying to remember. Didn’t you convert to Islam?”

  “I converted to Islam. Not the part that’s all Hislam. A woman’s natural urges don’t get locked away just because she found a new way to live.”

  “Well…you live your way and let me live mine.”

  “What could it hurt to give this Gary a shot? You know who else is hot for you? Your golf pro.”

  “Never mind.”

  “Also that guy who came and re-did your kitchen. And trust me, they’re not going to lose any sleep over how those holes in you got there. They’d lose sleep, all right, but that wouldn’t be the reason. The only holes they’ll care about…”

  “Jasmine!!”

  “Well, it’s true. Besides, you can say they’re something else. What’s that spidery thing that white people get when they spend too much time in the sun?”

  “Melanomas. And guess what. You don’t have to be white.”

  Jasmine shrugged. “Whatever. You could say that’s what they are. You could say you had a few of them cut out.”

  “I’m sure that’s every man’s dream. To bed a woman who has cancer.”

  “Leprosy, maybe. That might slow them down. But even that would depend on what parts are falling off you. It’s like I was telling Aisha…she’s been asking about

  boys…”

  “Say you’re kidding,” said Elizabeth.

  “Hey, she’s sixteen, remember?”

  “Tell me you haven’t had a sex talk with Aisha.”

  Jasmine grinned. “I haven’t. I’m just messing with you now. But the true part is that Aisha has been thinking about boys. She’s not about to ask Nadia. She�
�d get sent to the showers. Guess who she’s picked for a facts of life session.”

  “Me?”

  “It was down to either you or some local tenth grader. It depends on which one of you knows more.”

  Smart-ass, thought Elizabeth.

  Shows how much Jasmine knows.

  As it happens, she’d had several boy friends in school. Well, two, if you only count the ones she’d had sex with. Okay, one. The other one lost it too soon. So make that one and a half.

  Damn, she’s right.

  She did have a fairly good sex life with Martin. But that was after a dry spell of almost three years. And we won’t count what happened in that Saudi prison. We won’t even think about that. There were a couple of Israelis who she might have considered. But they were her trainers. They’d been told she was off-limits.

  Martin said, “You were off-limits to all of them, Elizabeth. Not because you weren’t Jewish. That would not have stopped them. It was because those who knew you were afraid of you, Elizabeth. You were not all peaches and cream.”

  “You weren’t afraid of me, were you?” she’d asked him.

  “Our first time? No, not greatly. I had put your knife away. You were still weak from your wounds. I was sure that I’d be able to outrun you.”

  “I’m serious, Martin.”

  “Then what is it you’re asking?”

  “That first time was…awkward. That was my fault, not yours. I guess I’m asking…when I healed, I mean when I was better…was I better? Was I a good lover?”

  “You were the spectacular Elizabeth Stride. No man could have asked for more than that.”

  “That sounds like a no.”

  “Well, it isn’t. It’s a yes. Most emphatically, a yes. Your performance in bed is the least of your qualities.”

  She’d looked away when he said that. “Never mind.”

  Martin backed away a step. “I must have answered incorrectly.”

  “You said what you meant. You said, ‘the least of my qualities.’”

  “Then my English is deficient. It is not what I meant. Your least is the best that most men ever find. In my life, I myself have never been with a woman who comes close to you in that department.”