Absolute Zero

by James Patterson

  ‘More,’ says Thurston. ‘There’s more.’

  ‘The compound?’ says the guy. ‘The compound is called White Nation.’

  ‘“White Nation”? You have got to be kidding me. Miller’s a Nazi?’

  The guy on the floor doesn’t say anything but Thurston suddenly clicks on a few images: the skinhead Russian at the V, Miller’s eagle wrist tattoo, the cold stare at Lenin.

  ‘That makes things easier,’ says Thurston. He looks at the guy on the floor. He represents a problem.

  As if reading Thurston’s mind, the guy starts speaking. ‘I say nothing!’

  Thurston grimaces. He can’t afford for Miller to be aware of him this time. The problem is Thurston has standards – standards that separate him from the Millers of this world.

  And then the guy on the floor makes the decision for him. Reaching down, he pulls out a pistol stowed in an ankle holster. He probably thinks he’s being slick but Thurston blows the guy’s head off before he’s released the safety.

  CHAPTER 27

  TO SAY NICK Terraverdi looks pleased to see Cody Thurston would not be accurate. As Thurston slides into the corner booth Terraverdi looks like someone who’s bitten into an eclair filled with dogshit.

  ‘Jesus, you look like crap, Thurston.’

  ‘Gee, thanks, Nicky,’ says Thurston. ‘Always a pleasure.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  They’re at a joint called Connolly’s on South 4th Street over by the Williamsburg Bridge. It’s afternoon in New York and gloomy outside with the dull promise of snow in the air.

  Terraverdi is a trim, nervy-looking man in his mid-forties wearing a tailored business suit and glasses. He’s one of those guys who seldom looks at the person he’s talking to. His eyes endlessly flick round the diner as his left leg pumps up and down, his restless fingers constantly picking at labels on the ketchup bottles, or flicking microscopic traces of lint off his sleeve. What he does not look like is a seasoned FBI field agent, something he has been for the past ten years.

  A waitress comes over and both men order coffee. ‘Be right back,’ she says. The two men watch her go and wait until she’s back at the counter before starting to talk.

  ‘How’s the meditation going?’ says Thurston. ‘You’re looking mellow as ever.’

  ‘Very fucking funny.’ Terraverdi leans forward. ‘I’ll give you fucking mellow. You know I can get in big trouble talking to you? My bureau chief gets wind I’m meeting a wanted felon it won’t matter shit how things have been before. I’ll be out on my ear, Cody. Or is there another name? I assume you’re not in the country on your regular passport?’

  ‘No,’ says Thurston. ‘It got burnt along with everything else.’

  ‘In the fire.’

  ‘Yeah, what else?’

  ‘The fire you didn’t set.’

  There’s a pause while the coffees arrive. As soon as the waitress is out of earshot Thurston leans forward, frowning.

  ‘What the fuck do you think, Nicky? You think I’d be here talking to you if I did this? What did you hear? I went nuts? Suddenly flipped into a killer rapist with a taste for arson?’

  ‘Pretty much,’ says Terraverdi. He takes a sip of coffee and grimaces. ‘If it’s any help, I don’t swallow any of that bullshit.’

  ‘I assumed as much, Nicky.’

  ‘And your beef is not on US soil, so maybe I was kind of overstating how bad it would be for my boss to find out. We haven’t had any notification about you. When you contacted me I did some background reading. It’s been a while.’

  ‘True,’ says Thurston. ‘Ten years.’

  Both men fall silent and regard each other thoughtfully. Terraverdi taps a finger absent-mindedly against the table. After a few seconds he leans back and opens the palms of his hands in a tell-me-more gesture.

  ‘So …’

  ‘So I need to tell my high-ranking FBI buddy maybe he’s going to be hearing some things about me. Probably some bad things. Like about me killing a bunch of people up in Vermont.’

  ‘And they’re all going to be lies.’

  ‘No,’ says Thurston. ‘They’re all going to be true.’

  That makes Terraverdi sit up straight.

  ‘Jesus, Cody. What the fuck are—’

  ‘Listen, Nicky, I’m not here looking for your approval. I just want someone official to take a look at things if … if everything doesn’t turn out the way I’m hoping. I don’t want this to all be for nothing if I get a stray bullet. The guys I’m dealing with are flat-out bad motherfuckers, Nicky. Killers, rapists. Christ, given the age of some of the girls I saw in Iceland, they’re practically child molesters. No one’s going to spend a split second mourning. And you get to shut down a sizeable North American pseudoephedrine supplier.’

  ‘Why don’t you give me the details and leave it up to us?’

  ‘Because you’d find nothing, Nicky. From what I hear this operation is running pretty tight. Besides, there’s some Waco-type vibes about the set-up and I’m guessing you don’t want to be the Fed at the tail end of that kind of fuck-up? No, thought not. Listen, this is personal, I admit it. But it’s also the kind of thing that’s best dealt with off the books, you get me? In, out, nice and—’

  ‘I can’t hear this, Cody,’ says Terraverdi.

  ‘Hear me out. You owe me.’

  There’s a moment’s silence while both men flash back to that night. The night of the firefight in Fallujah. The night Cody Thurston went right back into the bleeding eye of the storm for Nick Terraverdi, a man he’d never met before, and got both of them out alive.

  ‘Yeah,’ says Terraverdi, ‘yeah, I guess I do.’

  ‘You gonna let me take care of it?’

  Terraverdi nods. ‘Now tell me what the fuck it is you got yourself into.’

  Thurston lays it out and, as snow begins to settle on the darkening streets of New York, Nick Terraverdi listens.

  CHAPTER 28

  NATE MILLER HASN’T given the Australian much thought since he went into Gullfoss but he’s thinking plenty about him now. Maybe it’s the sound of running water, or maybe it’s the dope. Or both. Whatever it is, Thurston’s face keeps stubbornly swimming back into Miller’s view and Miller’s not sure he likes it.

  He picks up his roach and takes a long drag.

  He’s lying back in a cedar tub set up on a deck overlooking the lake with Mercy, the hot little Hispanic bitch Donno brought over from Montpelier yesterday. Donno’d bought her off a guy running girls out of some juvie halfway house for wards of the state too old for the kids’ home. Real nice piece. Young too. Not that Miller’s asking.

  Mercy’s about on the edge of unconsciousness. She’s got her eyes half closed and a sappy smile on her face. Cute, though. Miller thinks he might keep this one around a while longer than his usual. Train her up in his ways.

  ‘What you thinking of, daddy?’ Mercy drawls in a baby-doll voice. ‘Anything nice?’

  ‘Shut the fuck up, perra,’ says Miller. ‘I hate that “daddy” shit.’

  ‘Jeez. Touch-ee.’

  Miller looks her way and it’s enough to straighten her right out. The girl drops her eyes and shuts her mouth.

  ‘That’s right,’ he growls.

  He takes another toke and turns back to the lake and his thoughts on Thurston.

  He did some asking around about the Australian after that dickwad Brit cop Hall fucked things up. Heard Thurston had decked two cops and waltzed out of jail smooth as you like. Disappeared into nothing faster than kiss-my-ass and then shows up in fucking Iceland looking like a completely different guy.

  That took training. Skills.

  Of course, Miller saw it for himself back at the bar in London.

  A guy who can put down the Axe is someone worth taking seriously. Which is one reason Miller had the place torched. Sofi was thrown in as a bonus. No sense in having one of his cast-offs wandering around London shooting off her dumb Icelandic mouth. It all went just fine, but this guy
didn’t accept his fate like he should have.

  And showing up at the farm right before they made the big shipment? Was that a coincidence?

  A thought occurs to him, a thought that, despite the temperature of the tub, sends chills down his spine. Maybe the Australian is some kind of cop. Miller turns that one over. He was ‘working’ in the same joint where Sofi Girsdóttir was working. Could Thurston have been tracking the Iceland connection? Jesus Christ.

  Miller rubs his mouth. That is a fucking idea he really hopes is just dope paranoia. If Viktor thought the same …

  Miller shakes his head. It’s bullshit. It all worked out. The Russians never knew Thurston set foot in Iceland and Miller saw the fucking guy take a dive into the falls. No one could survive that shit. He relaxes. He’s got this thing all boxed off neat and tidy.

  He smiles as he remembers again the guy’s face as he dropped into the river and flicks the roach through the clouds of steam rising from the tub.

  ‘Come here, baby,’ he says to Mercy. ‘Let’s kiss and make up.’

  CHAPTER 29

  AT FIRST GLANCE, East Talbot doesn’t look like much of a place.

  A second doesn’t improve things.

  It’s a small ex-lumber town lying in a fold of white hills consisting of a small grid of cross streets that straggle up and out into the woods on either side. The main highway leads to I-89 fifteen miles west. Heading east, the road crawls over a ridge of densely forested hills before hitting the New Hampshire border another fifteen miles away. East Talbot’s got a bar, a diner, a farm supply store with a sideline in maple syrup products and a gallery some hopeful hipster opened five years ago selling tourist shit for tourists who never buy enough. The gas station does a sideline in canoe trips on Lake Carlson, which sits under East Talbot like an oversized teardrop. There’s a motel bigger than you might expect in a town this size that dates back to more optimistic times when Lake Carlson brought in large numbers of summer vacationers from New York and Boston.

  Thurston’s selected East Talbot because it’s the last town before Miller’s place at Isle de Rousse, although, now he’s here, he’s wondering if he’ll stick out so much he might as well paint a target on his back. But Thurston guesses he’s got to start somewhere. Besides, from the look of things, East Talbot has been hit by a neutron bomb that’s left the buildings but removed all trace of humanity. Since he reached the edge of town he hasn’t seen a single sign of life on the slush-lined streets. A thick blanket of grey cloud sits across the town like a pan lid.

  At the Top o’ the Lake Motel, Thurston’s rented Jeep carves black tracks across the entirely empty snow-covered lot. He pulls up next to the lobby and steps out of the car as a few flakes of snow begin to drift down out of the flat sky.

  Inside two women are talking animatedly behind the counter. At Thurston’s entrance, both look up, startled, as if a bear has walked in. Thurston guesses they aren’t exactly overwhelmed by customers.

  After a moment’s pause, the older of the two women smiles. ‘How you going today?’ she says. Of middle age, she’s wearing so much polyester Thurston’s certain she’d spark a fire if she crossed her legs too quickly. ‘The storm’s about due so you timed this right, hey.’

  The other woman is around thirty, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt with the motel logo printed above her left breast. She’s got her blonde hair pulled up under a striped bandanna and is carrying a clipboard. She looks coolly at Thurston but doesn’t speak.

  ‘Well, it’s snowing,’ says Thurston.

  He knocks his Australian accent back and tries to give the words a New York twist. It won’t pass as American but he’s hoping up here in Vermont they might not listen too closely. From what he’s heard so far, rural Vermonters don’t sound much like Americans anyway.

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Lou,’ says the younger woman. ‘Don’t forget to add detergent to Pablo’s list, OK? We’re all out.’ She slides the clipboard behind the counter and shrugs into a thick down jacket that was hanging on the back of the office door. She acknowledges Thurston with a brief flick of her eyes and leaves.

  ‘Bye,’ says Thurston to the closing lobby door.

  ‘Don’t mind Terri. She’s kind of, uh … well, she’s Terri. Now, where was we?’

  ‘Storm?’ says Thurston, handing over a credit card.

  ‘That’s right! Big one comin’, they say.’ The woman swipes Thurston’s card and slides it back across the counter. ‘Could be a doozy! But you’ll be cosy with us, Mr Flanagan. I put you in 205, second floor along to the right, Mr Flanagan. Kind of an upgrade.’

  ‘Kind of?’ says Thurston.

  The woman shrugs. ‘Between you and me, all the rooms are pretty much the same but 205 is on a corner. So it’s a little bit bigger. And with us bein’ so quiet you haven’t got no neighbours. Y’can make as much noise as you like.’

  ‘Oh, OK. Thanks.’

  ‘You want me to pick out the sights, hon?’ says the woman as she hands Thurston the keys to his room. ‘Or you here on business?’

  ‘Real estate.’

  Lou’s eyes light up. ‘Buyin’ or sellin’? Because this place is on the market, y’know. Get the right owner it could be a gold mine.’

  ‘More of a farming type thing,’ says Thurston. He shoulders his backpack and turns for the door, keen to end any enquiry into his non-existent real estate story. ‘But thanks anyway.’

  ‘OK, enjoy your stay. Oh, and we don’t have a restaurant on the premises but there’s a discount on meals over at the diner, and on drinks at Frenchie’s.’

  ‘Frenchie’s?’

  ‘The bar on Main? Stay there long enough and you’ll meet most folks in East Talbot. I’ll be there myself after eight.’

  Thurston nods and pushes through the door before she goes any further.

  He feels Lou’s eyes on his back all the way to his room.

  CHAPTER 30

  LOU WAS RIGHT about the storm.

  Less than an hour after Thurston checks in he watches from his corner window as the edges of the town blur. After a while all he can see through the thickening blizzard is the neon glow from Frenchie’s down the street. Thurston puts on his boots, grabs his down jacket and a beanie and steps out into the motel corridor. Before he leaves he wedges a sliver of matchstick under one of the door hinges – an old trick, almost a reflex.

  Outside, the temperature has dropped ten degrees. Thurston trudges across the parking lot and gets a burger at the otherwise deserted diner. When he leaves, the owner – a deadpan old boy with a lined face that puts Thurston in mind of a bulldog sucking a lemon – begins switching off the lights before the door closes.

  Thurston takes a right. As he turns the corner into Main Street he cops a faceful of snow and flashes back to that night three weeks ago on his way to the V down the Hackney Road. Heading towards Frenchie’s, the memory is a reminder to him to watch his step and to remember why he’s here.

  He opens the door to a warm blast of air and the sound of country music and conversation. A long bar is lined with customers, many of them watching the bank of six TVs, all showing sports.

  ‘Close the goddamn door, man,’ someone yells.

  Lou wasn’t kidding about everyone in East Talbot turning up at Frenchie’s.

  From what Thurston can see there are more people inside the bar than he’d have believed live in the town.

  Thurston’s arrival doesn’t cause so much as a ripple. He was worried the place might stop dead at the sight of a stranger, and feels a little foolish when absolutely nothing happens.

  There’s no space at the packed bar but Thurston finds a spot at a single table in a corner. He orders a beer from the waitress and sits back, glad to be in the warmth of a bar in full flow without any of the responsibilities of working. He takes a pull on his drink and thinks again about Sofi and Barb. It occurs to him that Janie and Lenin and some of the regulars might have heard he was responsible for the fire and the deaths, and hot anger at Miller fl
ares up once more. He hopes Janie and Lenin won’t believe what they hear but he’s not certain. They—

  ‘You mind?’

  Thurston looks up to see a good-looking blonde woman standing in front of him. She’s indicating the empty chair across from him. It takes a few seconds for him to place her before realising she’s the woman he saw talking to Lou at the motel. With her hair down and a touch of lipstick she looks different. What was her name? Jerry? Toni?

  ‘This ain’t a come-on or nothing,’ she says, ‘but I’m not about to spend the night standing up. I been doing that all day. No offence.’

  ‘Sure. Be my guest,’ says Thurston. ‘I was, uh, miles away.’

  He waves a hand at the chair. The woman takes off her outdoor coat and sinks back.

  He calls over the waitress.

  ‘Can I get you something to drink?’ he says. ‘This ain’t a come-on or nothing.’

  The woman smiles. ‘I’ll have what he’s drinking, Darla,’ she says to the waitress. Thurston sees a brief flash of something – approval? – pass between the two.

  ‘Same again for me,’ he says.

  ‘Terri,’ says the woman as Darla weaves back towards the bar. She holds out a hand and, when they shake, her grip is firm, her touch still cold from outside.

  ‘Mike,’ says Thurston. ‘We met, kind of, at the motel earlier?’

  ‘Are you asking me? Or is that the way you speak? What is your accent?’

  ‘It’s a long story,’ says Thurston as Darla arrives back at the table with the beers.

  When she’s gone, Terri leans forwards and props her hand on her chin. ‘I like long stories,’ she says.

  CHAPTER 31

  A GOOD NIGHT. Thurston has forgotten how they feel.

  He and Terri talk and drink some beer and then talk and drink some more. He almost asks her to dance at one point before remembering in the nick of time he is Australian.

  A cop comes in and Thurston sees him exchange a look with Terri. He taps a finger to his snow-dusted hat and walks towards the bar.