He glanced round the corner into the reception area. It was empty, the front doors closed. As he paced back along the corridor towards his room, something began tugging at his brain, insistent and disturbing. Something was odd, out of place. The reception area? The front entrance? The corridor?
The drunk. He’d gone into the room next to Harry’s.
Harry looked up and saw that the overhead corridor light nearest to his door was dead, leaving that part of the corridor in a pool of shadow.
It had been working earlier.
He felt horribly exposed but continued the last few paces until he reached the room next to his. As he drew level with the door, a groan sounded close by. With the Ruger held high in front of him, he reached out with his free hand to touch the door.
Then the door of his own room opened with a crash and a large, bulky figure stumbled out on unsteady legs.
‘What the-!’
Harry tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Then the picture disentangled itself. It was the drunk, head slumped forward over a slash of red on his white shirt front. The man seemed suddenly to have developed two heads. . and two more legs.
Two heads. . two people.
The killer had been in the next room.
‘Stand still.’ Harry centred his gun on the head behind the drunk. But as he did so, the two figures lurched away towards the fire door. Now he could see from the light further along the corridor that the man behind was supporting the drunk with one arm wrapped around his torso, dragging him along as a shield. In his hand he was holding a piece of blue material. His other forearm was curled tight across the drunk’s throat, holding a large hunting knife digging into his chest.
‘I said, stand still!’ he repeated, but the man ignored him, intent only on reaching the outer door.
Then the drunk was standing by himself, half-propped against the wall, and the door had clanked open behind him, letting in a gust of cool night air. In the background the other figure seemed to flit away with barely a sound, and disappeared into the darkness.
TWENTY-FOUR
As the drunk’s body finally lost its grip on the wall and toppled forward, Harry heard a shout of surprise from outside. He caught the falling man and lowered him gently to the floor, then ducked low to the ground and slid out of the door into the night.
Immediately to his right was a flower bed with shrubs at shoulder height cutting off his view of the car park. If the killer was anywhere, he could be in the bushes, waiting for Harry to show himself. But what had the shout been? Perhaps he’d run into Pendry.
He slid sideways into a patch of deep shadow created by the security lights spaced around the hotel, and breathed softly, tuning in to the night sounds. The traffic hum from the expressway intruded, and he knew if the killer was anywhere close and saw Harry first, he would get minimal warning before the man was upon him. Better to be out in the open.
The grass was soft and springy, already cool to the touch. He squatted down and edged out to where he could see a line of parked cars. If the killer was among them, the shadows were too dense to reveal him. He stood up and walked along the line, confident that if the man did show himself, he could react in time.
Two minutes later he found a man in a waiter’s uniform lying by the open door of a Bronco. There were no keys in the ignition.
He left the man where he was and continued to search the area, heart hammering in his chest. Then a whistle drew his attention and he saw Pendry appear from between two panel vans that bore the logo of a catering company. The Ranger was signalling towards the other side of the hotel complex. In his fist was the sheen of a handgun.
‘He came out the door and ran into the guy with the Bronco,’ said Pendry in a whisper, ‘but I guess he couldn’t find the keys. Then he went to the front of the building. He’ll be looking for a free ride out of here.’
‘Not this one,’ said Harry. ‘He’ll have a vehicle. He was trying to distract us by leaving a body lying around. Let’s split up. You go to the back — I’ll take the front.’
Before they could move, however, the roar of an engine sounded from the other side of the hotel, and headlights flared across the bushes near the entrance. The next moment red tail lights disappeared along the approach road with a squeal of tyres. Damn. . the man was seconds from the expressway.
Harry ran back to the Bronco and found the waiter sitting up nursing his head. He looked groggy but unhurt. ‘Lie still,’ Harry told him. ‘An ambulance will be here shortly.’ He ran back inside the hotel corridor to where the drunk was lying motionless against the wall. His breathing was faint and rapid, and he needed urgent medical attention. Pendry appeared and swore softly.
‘I’ll call it in,’ said Harry, and went into his room to use the phone. As he dialled and spoke to the 911 operator, he saw the connecting door to the next room was open. The wood around the lock was splintered and raw where it had been kicked in.
Pendry joined him after making the wounded man as comfortable as possible. ‘Damn,’ the Ranger muttered, eyeing the broken door. ‘He bust through from the next room?’
Harry nodded, remembering the sounds the killer had made pretending to be another guest. He was clever. Very clever. ‘I told you he was good,’ he said, and replaced the phone, paraphrasing an old military saying. ‘Let’s hope he isn’t lucky, too.’
Kassim pounded the wheel in frustration as he joined the expressway, earning an angry bray of air horns from a tanker driver as he came close to clipping one of its giant chrome fenders. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be, he thought savagely. He had the advantage. . he should have been able to finish off the Englishman!
He pressed his foot to the floor, aware that he only had minutes to get clear of the area before the police saturated the roads with men and vehicles. Traffic was lighter now, but if he managed to put a few miles between himself and the hotel, he might just get outside any net thrown up to entrap him.
He felt for the rucksack on the back seat of the car. He had to get cleaned up. He might have traces of blood on him from when he’d stabbed the drunk. Another mistake; he should have left him alone. But he’d reacted without thinking, aiming for the throat but hitting the man’s chest instead, the knife blade glancing off bone.
After two miles, Kassim’s breathing returned to normal and he began to feel calmer. He slowed down. Now would not be a good time to be stopped for speeding. It was time to think. Time to decide on the next move.
Time to do the unexpected.
‘What is it with you?’ Rik murmured thirty minutes later, after knocking on Harry’s door. ‘I go out drinking and you’re the one who has all the fun.’ He had arrived back to find a police cordon around the hotel and the surrounding darkness lit by the lights of emergency vehicles. Harry was being interviewed by a police detective, who seemed satisfied that the attack had been a random room invasion by an opportunist thief. The drunken guest and the waiter had both been taken to the nearest emergency unit for treatment. Pendry had gone to see Gail, who would have heard the news of the fracas and be worried enough to come out. Having her wandering around while the attacker was still out there was not something they wanted to contemplate.
Harry looked at Rik. He had a flush to his face and seemed edgy. Something had happened. ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing, why?’
Harry waited, eyebrows raised, until Rik relented and told him about the four men. ‘It was nothing. Just a bunch of guys trying it on.’
Harry held out his hand. ‘You’d better give me the gun. I’m on a military flight to LA, so I can get them checked through. We’ll meet up there.’
Rik handed over the Ruger and spare magazine. ‘Did you get a look at him?’
Harry shook his head. ‘Not really. Taller than average, slim. . we already know he can move fast. But I didn’t see his face; he’d taken out the light in the corridor. When will you get anything on Bikovsky?’
‘Ripper said a couple of hours.’
&nbs
p; ‘Ripper? What’s his real name — Malcolm?’
‘Very funny. They use tag names to protect themselves. I’m sure he’ll come through.’
‘It would be nice if he did before I set off for LA. I don’t want to trek all the way over there for nothing.’
‘But you’ll go, anyway.’
‘I have to. Bikovsky’s likely to be the next one on the list.’
TWENTY-FIVE
Harry dropped his bag by the reception desk and waited to check out. He was booked on a military flight to the Los Angeles Air Force Base at El Segundo at nine thirty, courtesy of the UN. Deane was pulling strings to move him around with the minimum of fuss and paperwork, and other than having to check in the Rugers to a secure box, he was going to face minimum questioning.
He’d told Rik to make his own arrangements about getting to LA on a commercial flight. The more they were in the same area, the more risk there was of someone making a connection. He didn’t think it likely that the killer had someone watching his back, but he didn’t want to take the chance.
He was surprised to see Carl Pendry stride through the hotel’s main entrance, dwarfing the slim shape of Gail Tranter alongside him. The Ranger was stuffing his military ID into his pocket after being checked through the police cordon outside.
With the coming of daylight, several crime scene investigators and forensics personnel were now quartering the car park for clues, and questioning guests about the previous night, while coloured tape fluttered in the morning breeze, shutting off all non-essential access to the area. So far, though, they had turned up nothing substantial.
Gail was the first to speak, her eyes flashing spiritedly at Harry.
‘He won’t tell me anything,’ she said, nodding at Pendry. ‘I know something bad happened out at the training grounds — and here last night with two men being attacked. The whole town’s talking about it, what with the helicopters coming and going, and the state and city cops on every route through here. They’re saying a trainee got killed. . is that right?’
Harry studied her for a moment. She was evidently smart and the bond between her and Pendry was close. It would be fair to tell her what was happening, but he wondered if she would react well to hearing that her boyfriend was a target for a killer. He glanced at Pendry, who was impassive and brooding, annoyed by the senseless loss of one of his charges and their failure to catch the man responsible.
‘Carl can tell you as much as we know,’ he said. ‘After that, he should find you somewhere on the base to stay for a few days. Somewhere safe.’
Gail shot a keen look between the two men. ‘Why? Is he in danger?’
‘Possibly. But if you take precautions you’ll be fine. And I can do my job a lot easier. Carl?’ He looked meaningfully at the Ranger and stuck out his hand, drawing him to one side. ‘I’m off to see if I can find Bikovsky. Get Gail away from here and keep your head down. He failed this time but he might try again. Don’t give him Gail as leverage.’
The Ranger nodded. ‘Sure thing. But say — any chance I can help? I’d sure like to nail this sonofabitch, and I’m sure I could get a release after what happened to Lloyd.’
‘Sorry. He’ll spot me eventually; with us together he’d do it even quicker.’
Pendry nodded ruefully, desperate to do something to redress the balance. ‘OK. Let me know how it goes, though, huh?’ Then he stopped, looking awkward. ‘I thought about a couple of things last night. Could be important.’
‘Like what?’
‘One was the Marine, Carvalho. You thought he was one of the compound guards who went to Pristina, right?’
‘So?’
‘He wasn’t. I remembered he was sick that night and switched with another guy — a Brit. Carvalho knew he’d be no good in a fight, so the Brit agreed to go instead. I don’t think they told anyone in the rush to get out, so it wouldn’t have been official — at least, not until later when the rosters were checked.’
Harry tried to recall the British soldier, but he’d had his hands full that night and the compound guard had been out on patrol. Then he remembered something from Deane’s briefing: the man had been one of two British soldiers, a member of the Royal Military Police. He had since died of natural causes.
Either way, the fact that Carvalho had switched duties at the last minute had eventually found its way into the roster records, and had been picked up by Demescu.
‘What was the other thing you remembered?’
‘The guy Bikovsky.’ He looked awkward, then ploughed on. ‘I don’t like saying this about another man, but there was some talk around the table the night Kleeman left, before we rotated back to our units.’
‘Talk?’
‘Bikovsky was being derogatory about the locals, saying they’d steal anything that wasn’t nailed down and the women were little more than whores. The guy had a real attitude problem. He was also bragging about not going back to the US at the end of his tour, saying he was going to bug out as soon as he could. I figured it was drunk talk. We’d all had a couple to loosen up, but he’d picked up some extras. Later on he told another guy he’d got into trouble before enlisting and was scared to go back.’
‘What sort of trouble?’
‘He’d been accused of raping a minor in San Diego.’
TWENTY-SIX
Harry said his goodbyes to Pendry and Gail, then walked over to the in-house phone and rang Rik’s room. There had been no news from Ripper.
‘Tell him to look at sex crimes records,’ Harry suggested. ‘I’m heading for the airport.’
On the way, he rang Deane, but the security officer was out, so he left a carefully worded message. The rumours about Bikovsky’s past, if true, wouldn’t brighten his day.
He had just checked in for his flight to LA when Rik called. He sounded puzzled.
‘Ripper hit a wall. Bikovsky has two arrests for DUI — drink driving — and a couple of misdemeanours as a teenager, but after that, not a thing. Nothing in the sex crimes files, either.’
‘So he’s clean.’ Pendry’s man must have got it wrong. Barrack-room chatter building rumours out of speculation.
‘That’s the thing. He said there are files, but they’re marked restricted access. It would take some major work to get inside, and even then there are no guarantees. For some reason Bikovsky’s off-limits.’
Harry felt a stirring of interest. He’d heard of records being locked before, but only for security reasons, usually in connection with a government department or the military.
He thanked Rik and rang off, and his mobile buzzed immediately.
It was Deane. ‘Harry, I’m getting heat from the US Army Criminal Investigations Command, the Department of Defence and Homeland Security. Your name’s bouncing all over the wires.’
‘What are they saying?’
‘They want to know why you’re involved and have asked that you stay put in Columbus until they’re satisfied that what happened down there is not terrorist-related. I’ve hedged as much as I can, but they’re feeling antsy and my influence only goes so far.’
‘How long will it take? I’m at the airport ready to go.’
‘Twenty-four hours, max. I’ve put word upstairs that they’re obstructing our investigations, and I’ll let you know as soon as it’s good to go.’ He paused. ‘This thing with Bikovsky: I’ve been contacting people about this and calling in some favours. Have you spoken to him yet?’
‘No. He’s not answering his phone. I was planning on going there rather than leaving it to a local cop.’
‘Well, when you do, tread carefully. Like your message suggested, Bikovsky’s got history. He ran with a couple of small gangs when he was a kid, and got into street trouble. Nothing really serious, though. But about fifteen years ago he was accused of sexual molestation of a minor.’
‘And they allowed him in the military?’
‘The evidence wasn’t proven. I spoke to a member of the sex crimes unit in San Diego. None of this is repeatable, b
y the way. In ’ninety-eight Bikovsky was charged with the rape of a fifteen-year-old girl. His lawyer got him off on a technicality. . something to do with her testimony being assisted by one of her brothers. Anyway, they couldn’t get at the truth and the girl finally withdrew her statement. So, no complaint, no charge. Six months later another girl came forward and said Bikovsky had got her involved in illegal drugs for sex and she’d developed HIV. She was a wild child who dropped out of high school and ran with some undesirables. Her father was a high-powered studio executive with a top lawyer in his pocket. He got him to file for a court order under California’s health privacy laws protecting minors. It means her name can’t be disclosed. . and nor can her attacker’s. We’re locked out.’
‘For ever?’
‘Probably not, but it’ll take a ton of paperwork to gain access on the grounds of national security — and maybe even not then. I’ve put that in motion with our legal team but it’s gonna take time. The studio exec’s still around and he’s a real hard nose when it comes to privacy. I haven’t made this information available to anyone else yet — it’s too sensitive.’
‘Is there any possibility he’s guilty?’
‘According to my San Diego PD contact, definitely — and for more than one, in his opinion. But proving it is something else. Fact is, with this rape story coming out of Kosovo, if anyone places Bikovsky there at the time, his history gives validity to the idea. Tread easy with him, Harry. We don’t want to spook him and lose him: we want him to answer for his crimes.’
Harry was beginning to have doubts about his involvement in this. ‘Shouldn’t the police or FBI be doing this? They could have people round there checking on him right now.’
There was a short silence, then Deane said neutrally, ‘They will be called at the appropriate time.’
‘When will that be?’
‘As soon as you find him.’ He paused. ‘There’s more. Pictures of the compound have just arrived. They’re hitting the internet as we speak. They were posted by an anonymous contributor on a blog site with anti-American and extremist links. There’s even a photo of the spot outside the wire where the girl’s body was allegedly found.’
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