Covenant

by Jeff Gulvin

  The marine was dressed immaculately and, as he stood up, he squared off to the stone and saluted. Harrison went to the first bench across the stretch of grass from the monument, where the statue of the nurses, with the dying GI in their arms, stood in silence. He watched the marine at the wall, then glanced down at his own dishevelled appearance: ponytail hooked over one shoulder, singlet, scuffed jeans, and cowboy boots worn down at the heel. The marine stood very still for what seemed a long time. Then he dropped the salute, swivelled to the right and came up the path. As he passed Harrison, he glanced at him and stopped. His gaze rested on the rat tattooed on his upper arm. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said. ‘Is that tattoo what I think it is?’

  Harrison squinted through the sunlight at him. ‘Well, that depends on what you think it is, son.’

  The young man looked at it again, then into Harrison’s eyes. ‘Were you a Tunnel Rat in Vietnam, sir?’

  Harrison pursed his lips and nodded to the memorial. ‘Your daddy over there?’

  The marine’s eyes glassed. ‘Yes, sir. He was killed in action in the Iron Triangle in 1969. He’d only been in Vietnam for three weeks and I was a month old. Today’s the anniversary of his death.’ He paused then. ‘They told my momma he was shot by a VC who came up out of a hole.’

  ‘So was my best friend from Chicago.’ Harrison gestured to the bench beside him. The marine sat down and Harrison plucked a cigarette from his pocket, snapping a match on his boot heel. ‘Eli Footer. His name’s right there on that stone.’

  ‘Did you go underground?’

  Harrison sucked smoke, thought back to muddy holes under steaming vegetation, and spiders, snakes and punji stake mantraps waiting to impale you. Darkness and fear. That’s what he remembered most. Darkness and fear. He nodded and said quietly: ‘I volunteered after my buddy Eli got killed.’

  ‘Sir.’ The marine was staring earnestly at him now and Harrison met his eyes. ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to shake your hand.’

  ‘You would?’ Harrison looked at his gnarled fingers, cigarette burning between them.

  ‘Some Rats went in after the VC that killed my daddy, sir,’ the marine said. ‘I don’t know if they got him, but I’m proud to have met you.’

  Harrison shook his hand. ‘Thank you, son,’ he said. ‘I’m proud to meet you too.’

  The marine stood up then, nodded to him, set himself square again and saluted. Harrison looked up into the marine’s face and lifted his own hand to his temple. He then watched the marine walk away, smoked his cigarette and went to find a payphone.

  Kovalski answered his direct line. ‘ASAC.’

  ‘Johnny Buck, Tom. How you doing?’

  ‘Hey. Where are you, New Orleans?’

  ‘Constitution Avenue. I’m on vacation.’

  ‘And you’re spending it in D.C.?’

  ‘Kinda.’ Harrison blew smoke into the breeze. ‘It ain’t so hot as New Orleans.’ He paused. ‘You fancy sipping beer with a fellow old soldier this evening?’

  ‘Sure I do. Where?’

  ‘Well, if I remember rightly, there’s a good bar called the Seaport in Alexandria. Can you make it over there?’

  ‘Sure thing. See you about eight o’clock.’

  Harrison walked past the eastern gates of the White House towards Lafayette Park. Above him, unbeknown to him, Cyrus Birch, the CIA’s national intelligence officer for the Near East and Africa, looked out of the corner office in the Old Executive building. Wendell Randall, the Director of Central Intelligence, sat at the Victorian desk and read the presidential finding Birch had drafted. Birch watched the scruffy man in the singlet and jeans, with a long grey ponytail dangling out the back of his hat, stroll past, then he glanced over his shoulder at Randall. Wendy (they called him that at Langley, when he wasn’t listening) had been the President’s campaign manager back at the last election and the DCI’s job was his reward. Secretly, everyone knew that he had been after the State Department, but had had to settle for DCI instead. He had no intelligence experience whatsoever, and no military experience, save three years in the Marine Corps back before swords were invented. Little did he know when he took the job that he would end up as whipping boy for the intelligence oversight committees. And what Birch had just placed before him would put the cat among those pigeons like nothing he had seen before.

  Birch was a veteran CIA case officer, one of the Ivy Leaguers, silver spoon and the best universities behind him. Some people were jealous. Birch dismissed it. He had seen many a prejudiced DCI come and go and he was still there.

  When the President was sworn in, everyone out at Langley was hoping that Charles Wheeler, the deputy director for operations, would make DCI, but of course he didn’t. Invariably, any incoming president owed too many favours to seriously promote from within.

  Birch turned his back on the window and sat down once again in the chair across the desk from Randall. He had prepared his national intelligence estimate, in the wake of the bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, at the butt end of last year. Randall had had plenty of time to consider it before the finding was drafted. Birch was convinced in his own mind, but that meant nothing when a DCI had to persuade a president to make an executive order that had not been given for over twenty years. He would do it, however. Birch was sure of that. The President was a shrewd cookie for all his other weaknesses, and Birch was fairly confident he would be summoned to the situation room in the White House for the obligatory secret meeting. He hoped he would—the case would be better put if he got the chance.

  Randall looked up at him, pressed half-moon glasses to the bridge of his nose and wagged his head from side to side. ‘You know what you’re asking, Cyrus?’

  Birch looked at him. ‘Funnily enough, I do, sir.’

  Randall tutted like an admonitory schoolmaster. ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘I know exactly what you mean.’

  ‘This kind of thing hasn’t been sanctioned since 1976. It’ll never get past the oversight committees.’

  ‘I think it will, if it has to, sir.’

  Randall sat back again. ‘What d’you mean if it has to?’

  ‘Exactly what I say, sir.’

  ‘You mean just steamroller on with it. Cyrus, the House Intelligence Committee has to see any finding that sanctions covert action.’

  ‘Yes. But the worst they can do is draft a letter of protestation.’ Birch paused for a moment. ‘I know most of the members personally, sir. I don’t think, given the past and what we believe about the future, they’ll protest.’ He sat down again. ‘Everyone’s attention has been grabbed by the Balkan situation. But this will not go away.’ He tapped the paper, now laid flat on the desk between them. ‘This man is the biggest single threat to US national security since the Cold War ended. He’s way more dangerous than Milosovic or Saddam Hussein.’ He stood up again. ‘Can I suggest that I’m present when you put the finding to the President. In the meantime, I’ll wine and dine a few congressmen at the Metropolitan. Send a few messages of my own.’ He smiled then, his easy disarming smile. ‘Sir, it’s not as if this is anything like Nicaragua. No Contras, no massive funding, no harbour blockades.’ He leaned one perfectly manicured hand on the desktop. ‘It’s just regular covert action, and not an Oliver North in sight.’ He smiled reassuringly now. ‘We get the OK from the President. The Talent set it up, and we go. I’ve had an operative in situ for almost a year in anticipation.’

  ‘Simple as that, huh?’ Randall looked unimpressed. ‘You’re that sure. Just waiting for the OK from the President.’

  Birch smiled again. ‘He will go with it, sir. Trust me. If you look at how we reacted last year, it’s already been tacitly sanctioned.’

  4

  KIBIBI SIMPSON WANTED TO get laid. She had that urge in her loins, brought on by a cocktail of alcohol, dance music and memories of her teenage years in Mississippi. Fifteen years ago: she had been eighteen, living with her parents and four brothers, close to the National Guard base at Meridian.
She looked twenty-one and never got asked for ID, and she and her brothers used to go to the Howard Johnson disco on Friday nights and upset all the white folks. Her brothers were all big, black and in the Marine Corps, like their father before them. When Kibibi graduated from high school, she joined up too.

  Nobody messed with her when the five of them went out together and her mom and dad could sleep soundly in their bed, knowing that their little Kibibi was just as safe as safe could be. She giggled to herself girlishly about it now as she sat on the lip of the stool, squeezed between two sweating night-clubbers with designs on the inside of her panties. They were white boys. She had a penchant for white flesh these days and they were both civilians. They already knew she was American, because it stuck out a mile every time she opened her mouth, but they did not know she was in the Service, even with the Grace Jones haircut.

  She looked at the clock on the wall above the bar: 2 a.m. already; the lights would be coming on soon and the partygoers would spill like so much rubbish on to the London pavements. Camden Town on a Saturday night. It was either a cab or the night bus back to Paddington. The boy on her right rested his hand against her thigh, stroking lightly with one finger. Kibibi sucked the last of her cocktail through a straw and decided that he was not the one. She leaned towards him and, at the same time, grabbed hold of his fingers and twisted them back. He yelped like a whipped dog.

  Kibibi laughed, a long-nailed hand to her mouth. The nails were false and one of them had already fallen off. The boy looked at her for a moment and a pained expression broke open in his eyes, then he turned and walked away. The other one still looked keen, but Kibibi crushed his hopes with one shake of her head.

  She stood on the pavement on her own, hopping from one foot to the other. It was colder than it ought to be for summer, and she wished she had gone to the toilet when she had the chance. Camden was busier now than on a Saturday afternoon, everyone looking for a cab. She figured her best bet would be to walk down towards Euston and hail one from there. She hugged her coat more tightly about her and lit a cigarette, the breeze whipping the smoke back over her shoulder. She got to Camden Palace, crossed the road and walked alongside the triangular stretch of park, where two lovers were making out on a bench. She felt a pang of jealousy, then remembered her options back at the nightclub, shook her shoulders and walked on. Just north of Euston Station she flagged down a cab. As she climbed in, she got the strangest impression that somebody somewhere was watching her.

  The driver dropped her in Southwick Street where she rented a flat above the wine bar. She had been sleeping with the old regional security officer for a year, before he transferred back to Virginia Avenue. His wife did not know, of course, and he had assisted with the rent as he had a real yen for covert black pussy. Kibibi had taken his money when it was offered, but she did not need it: she had a little extra coming in of her own and could cut off any lover at the kneecaps, whenever she had a mind.

  She fumbled in her bag for the key and, as she did, she heard a boot scrape over stone. She tensed and listened, her training taking over, and then she looked back across the road to the shadows at the end of the street. Nothing moved in the silence. She looked closer and still saw nothing. She had had a lot to drink and figured maybe she was hearing things. Locating her key, she went up the three steps to the main door and let herself in. The wine bar was long since closed and she climbed the stairs to the landing. Two flats occupied the upper floors, hers and that of a nosy old lady who had her eye permanently stuck to the spyhole. Her feet made no sound on the heavy-pile carpet and all at once she felt tired. Still, she could sleep all day tomorrow if she wanted to, she was not on duty again until Monday week. She sought her doorkey, fitted it into the lock and went inside. The flat was in darkness, the curtains pulled on all the windows—she had done that before she went out. Tough-guy soldier or not, there was still something about walking into a house at night, with all the windows uncurtained, that had unnerved her since she was a child. Dropping her bag on the hallstand, she tugged off high-heeled shoes, which just about ruined her feet. They made her feel feminine, though, which after weeks of uniform at a time was no bad thing. She had still not put the lights on, and she wandered through to the lounge and dumped her packet of cigarettes on the coffee table. Something moved in the darkness. Kibibi stood stock-still. A shadow took shape against the paleness of the window. Kibibi stepped backwards. She did not cry out; she had drunk too much for the alarm to register. She could hear the rasping sound of breathing. Then a hand clamped over her mouth and sudden, sharp pain bit between her ribs.

  Jack Swann flew to New Orleans from Heathrow, with a stop in Detroit. He had hoped to spend at least one night with Cheyenne in Washington, but he had been busy right up to the moment he left, which meant he had to be in New Orleans that evening. He was annoyed: no Cheyenne, and not even Harrison to have a beer with. Still, at least his lectures were to be given in the FBI’s briefing room and not upriver in Baton Rouge. That meant this whole week would be in New Orleans, with Thursday and Friday pretty much free. He had planned to fly to Washington for the weekend, but Cheyenne had been on the phone telling him that she might come to New Orleans instead. She had not seen her brother, James, for ages. He worked on the King’s House charity project in the city.

  New Orleans baked in a damp heat that visibly ate at your clothes. Swann could feel the sweat soaking his skin the minute he stepped outside the airport to wait for the FBI agent to come and pick him up. It was the white-haired former sheriff from St Charles Parish, John Earl Cochrane.

  ‘Jack, good to see you.’ Cochrane swept round the front of the car and they shook hands. ‘Where y’all staying?’

  ‘The quarter,’ Swann told him. ‘Provincial on Chartres Street.’

  Cochrane drove him to the hotel and they sat in the bar and had a beer. Cochrane was the FBI co-ordinator for the terrorism joint task force, and he had arranged for the New Orleans lectures. ‘Will you be going to Houston at all?’ he asked.

  Swann shook his head. ‘Only here and possibly the LSU in Baton Rouge.’

  Cochrane finished his beer and took his car back to the field office. They had still not moved, something that had been on the cards since the last time Swann had been in the city. Currently, they occupied three floors of somebody else’s building, which was not a lot of good if the militia decided to lob a few mortars at them.

  Upstairs in his room, Swann phoned his ex-wife in London to talk to his two daughters, then he took a shower. It was seven-thirty now and he was hungry. He did not fancy walking, so he made his way down to Nu Nus Café, which opened on to Decatur Street. A heavyset, blond-haired bartender commented on his accent. ‘Are you Swann?’ he asked.

  Swann nodded.

  ‘Dewey Biggs.’ He offered a meaty palm. ‘Johnny Buck asked me to look after you. Said he didn’t want to read about a limey getting his head blown off in the wrong part of the quarter.’

  Swann laughed and took the beer Dewey offered him. ‘Like I’ve never been here before,’ he said, and drained half the bottle. He set it back on the bar and fished in his pocket for cigarettes. ‘When’s he due back, anyway?’

  Dewey shook his head. ‘I don’t know. That guy comes and goes like a Louisiana rainstorm.’ He scratched his head. ‘Vacation, though, this time. I never knew him to take a vacation before.’

  Swann nodded and yawned. ‘D’you have an English lady staying here? She’s Vietnamese to look at.’

  ‘You mean Jean. Yeah, she’s staying here. She’s a doctor. Real nice lady.’ Dewey wiped the counter with a cloth. ‘She’s out of town right now. St Charles Parish, I think.’

  Swann finished his beer, ordered a sandwich to go and went up to bed.

  The following morning, Cochrane picked him up and they drove up to Poydras Plaza. Swann was lecturing on the antiterrorism assistance programme which had been set up by the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, whose desire it was to promote the bilateral ties between the US and fri
endly foreign countries. This one, however, was sort of inverted, the participants being Louisiana police officers as opposed to visiting foreign security forces. Six months previously, Louisiana had had to deal with a tanker hijack on the Mississippi River, dangerously close to the Waterford 3 nuclear power facility. Swann had been on secondment with the FBI at that time, hunting an escaped fugitive from England, and with his local experience and expertise in terrorism they had asked him to lecture on this course. He was instructing on explosive incident counter-measures, bomb-scene management and counter-terrorist practice processing. Classroom stuff for six weeks. He did not mind: it meant he was closer to Logan.

  He had twelve delegates for the two days’ paper tuition: three of them were Feds; the rest were New Orleans cops, Louisiana state cops and two deputies from the sheriff’s department in St Charles Parish, under whose jurisdiction the location of the nuclear plant fell. He noted the name of one of them, Joe Kinsella, the chief of deputies. Harrison had mentioned him and Swann thought about it as he wrote some additional notes during lunch. Harrison seemed to have something of a bee in his bonnet about this Jean Carey, but there was not much Swann could do except offer a little moral support. He had not met her yet, but could imagine why she had come here; the nothingness that she would be left with—how meaningless her job, her home and her friends would become. The lack of justice which would burn like an insult, an affront to the memory of her only son. Swann had come across the sentiments many times, the subconscious build-up of guilt, which haunted the relatives of murder victims for most of the rest of their lives.

  Downstairs, he sat in the blazing sunshine of the parking lot with David Cimino, a cop from the NOPD, who told him he had been working surveillance with Harrison.

  ‘Long-haired sonofabitch,’ Cimino said, sucking on a Lucky Strike. ‘He’s gotta be the least likely looking Fed I ever come across.’