The Lovecraft Squad: Dreaming

by Stephen Jones

  The old man sighed. He suddenly seemed very tired. “I don’t know what the hell I have. Only this. One of my best men left this at a drop-point.”

  He produced a crude piece of jewelry from his pocket—a carved circular pendant dangling from a leather cord. He passed it to Brady, who began to examine it carefully.

  The director took a handkerchief from his pocket and began to wipe at his hands, as though the feel of the pendant had been distasteful against his skin. “The next morning he was found dead in his bed. Drowned, his lungs filled with saltwater. The coroner said the body looked as if it had been submerged for a month.”

  Brady handed the pendant over to me. It was blackish-green and felt oily to the touch, apparently cut from soapstone or a similar substance. At the center of the disc the outline of a watching eye had been carved; around it a writhing bed of snakes, or tentacles, or something. I held it in my palm for a moment, and I could have sworn the damn thing squirmed.

  Hoover saw me flinch, and smiled. “You can hold onto that, Special Agent Rooks.” He took another sip of his drink. “When we retrieved it from the drop-point, it was wrapped in a piece of notepaper. The agent had scrawled Water Gate upon it.”

  I spoke up. “You don’t think it referred to the complex?”

  “We checked it out. My man hadn’t been anywhere near the place. No, it means . . . something else. Something connected with the Human Protection League’s . . . particular area of expertise, I believe.”

  Brady glanced over at me and spoke. “Sir, can you tell us what duties the agent was carrying out at the time of his death?”

  Hoover picked up his tumbler again and drained it. “He was working on gathering material for my Nixon file. Deep cover. He was supposed to be meeting with a secret informant.”

  Shit. I’d heard rumors about Hoover keeping dirt on the presidents he’d worked under. Word was that both Truman and Kennedy had wanted to fire him, but were too afraid of what he had on them. No wonder Brady wanted a Nixon-hater for this.

  “The contents of the file are classified, of course. Any pertinent information I have will be passed on to you on a need-to-know basis. However, I can tell you the details of the agent’s assignment when he died.

  “Apparently, President Nixon has installed a surveillance system in the White House. All calls and conversations taking place within the building are secretly monitored and recorded. Only the president and his closest aides are aware of the existence of this system. And now you two.”

  It went without saying that the old man knew about it. Hell, he probably knew it was up and running before Nixon did.

  “My agent was working on turning the technician who installed the system. I want to know what’s on those tapes. That oily sonofabitch is putting the squeeze on me to retire, and I want to know what he’s up to. I want to know what those tapes have to do with a good man’s murder, and that goddamn necklace, and whatever other unholy godforsaken crap you people deal with that is threatening the democratic institutions of the country I love!”

  He sank back into his chair, his face flushed. He tugged at his shirt collar, sweat beginning to dampen the fabric.

  “Pour me another drink, would you, Rooks? And take one for yourself this time. I know full well you’re a goddamn lush. But Brady here vouched for you, and that’s good enough for now.”

  I didn’t argue. I crossed to the drinks cabinet and poured us both a generous measure. I handed the director his drink and took a belt of my own. The liquid burned at my throat. It felt good. It helped me to forget—if only for the moment—about what I was stepping back into.

  The old man watched me carefully. I swallowed, then spoke. “Do we have the name of the technician?”

  “Apparently he’s the secretive type. I don’t know what he looks like, his address, or his full name. But the agent’s notebook states his surname is Call.”

  I coughed. “A bugger named Call? Sounds a little too good to be true, sir.”

  Hoover looked at me sourly. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the truth is rarely good. Find him, Special Agent Rooks. Find Call. Find the Water Gate. And find out what in hell’s name is going on up there in the White House.”

  When we made our way back through the house, we found Hoover’s deputy, Clyde Tolson, showing a man in overalls to the door. “Tell Mr. Hoover I need to pick up a part before I can fix it. I can come back tomorrow.”

  Tolson nodded and opened the door. The man glanced back at us, then made his way out toward the parked plumber’s van, whistling a jaunty tune as he went.

  The associate director turned back to us and offered his hand. “I hope that you’ll be able to help Mr. Hoover with his problem.”

  I accepted the handshake, my grip steadier with a drink inside me. “I hope so too, sir.”

  Once outside, I headed back toward Brady’s car, only for him to stop me. He motioned toward a nearby convertible and spoke. “I’ve got someone I want you to meet. Your partner on this job.”

  A partner? I worked better alone, he knew that. Never mind the fact that most people find me generally disagreeable. By that, I mean that after five minutes in my company, they either want to shoot me or have me arrested. I started to speak, and then my protest curled up and died in my throat.

  Climbing out of the car was five-foot-ten of California purebred, all legs, white toothy smile, and shining blonde hair. A woman. No, not merely a woman—she looked like a goddamn walking shampoo commercial.

  I looked at Brady in disbelief. “Sir . . . she’s a woman.”

  “Very good, Special Agent Rooks. I see that twenty-five years in the field haven’t dulled your powers of observation.”

  “But you know Mr. Hoover’s feelings about female agents. Women haven’t served in his bureau since he took over.”

  Brady frowned slightly. “The director’s beliefs are not my own. Out of respect for Mr. Hoover, I did not invite Agent Springer to the meeting, but we do things differently in the Lovecraft Squad. You know that, Rooks. And rest assured that Agent Springer has some very . . . individual talents that may prove useful to your investigation.”

  I tried not to snarl. “Like what, getting out of the shower in under twenty minutes?”

  He ignored me, and stepped forward to greet her. “Special Agent Harry Rooks, please meet the newest recruit to the Human Protection League, Agent Ellie Springer.”

  I begrudgingly offered a handshake. She moved to take my right hand in her own, then visibly paused and extended her left arm instead. Correcting myself, I gave her hand a half-hearted squeeze. “Hey.”

  She smiled, her face lighting up like an acting headshot. “Pleased to meet you, Agent Rooks. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  I grimaced. “Don’t believe any of the good stuff, assuming there was any. The bad parts are probably true, however.”

  Brady interrupted before I could wow her with my charm any further. “I’ll leave you two to get acquainted. Rooks, I’m sure you can bring Agent Springer up to speed?”

  I climbed into the passenger seat, and watched as she opened the driver’s door. This time she went ahead and used her right hand, an odd detail I filed away for future reference. She eased herself into the car, then looked over at me expectantly.

  In reply, I took out a silver hip-flask from my inside pocket and took a long swallow of the contents. Then, minding what was left of my manners, I offered it to her.

  Her gaze was steady. “I don’t drink.”

  “Shame. We’d probably get on much better if you did.” I took another swallow.

  She let out a small sigh. “Maybe I should just drive you home and we can pick this up tomorrow.”

  The phone shrieked, snatching me from a booze-fogged limbo between wakefulness and sleep. Glancing at the alarm clock, I cursed silently, saving my spleen for the unfortunate caller.

  I picked up. “What?”

  “The director died last night. Heart attack.”

  Brady. I dou
bt he was shedding too many tears for the old man, but he sounded like he’d had the wind knocked out of him regardless. I guess the prospect of selling a bunch of Yog-Sothothery to whoever the new bureau brass turned out to be didn’t exactly fill him with enthusiasm.

  “You and Agent Springer need to get over there. Try to get your hands on that Nixon file. We need to know what Hoover knew. She’ll be outside your building in five minutes.”

  And so she was. We arrived back at Thirtieth Place in time to watch them loading the old man’s body into an ambulance. I admit it, I gave a little salute as they pushed the gurney past. Springer didn’t seem too impressed. I guess she was sore about being shut out of the meeting. You know, people say he was a monster, but there aren’t many men that put their stamp on a country the way he did. Plus, if you’ve ever seen a shoggoth, the likes of J. Edgar Hoover are fairly small potatoes in comparison.

  Inside, we made our way to Hoover’s home office, passing Clyde Tolson on the way. He sat slumped in an armchair, staring emptily into space. Pretty sure he must’ve thought Hoover was immortal, just like the rest of the country. But when we arrived at the office, whatever was left of the old man’s legacy was already being wiped away. An office shredder was running overtime, and the contents of Hoover’s filing cabinets were quickly becoming so much paper wadding. Maybe they’d shove it into the old man’s coffin to make sure he didn’t get damaged in transit.

  I recognized the two men stripping the office. Mark Felt, deputy associate director of the bureau, and a bigwig from the Justice Department whose name I couldn’t remember. Nixon’s boys. They glared at us.

  “What do you people want?”

  Before I could say anything, Springer spoke up. “We’re on special assignment to the director, sir.”

  Felt stepped forward. “How does a woman come to be on special assignment to Mr. Hoover . . . ?”

  This wasn’t going to get us anywhere. I butted in. “Sir, he promised us some files. Deep background.”

  The Department of Justice apparatchik smiled. “These files? Forget it. Orders of the president.” His hand squeezed the rolled-up file he was carrying like he wished it were my neck. With relish, he turned and carefully fed the papers into the shredder. “An acting bureau director will be announced in due course, and he will review all of Mr. Hoover’s ongoing cases. Now, why don’t you take your pretty little secretary and go and harass some hippie students somewhere?”

  Springer stormed across the lawn toward the government limo waiting at the curb. I did my best to catch up, arriving at her side just in time to watch her unleash a whiplash kick at the side of the vehicle. Her foot connected with a loud metallic bang and left a crumpled dent in the bodywork, as if it were constructed from kids’ modeling clay rather than solid aluminum.

  I whistled, impressed and a little unnerved. “Helluva kick you got there. You learn that in cheerleading class?”

  The driver emerged from the limo, his face incredulous. “What the hell, lady?”

  I took my new partner by the arm. “Time to leave, perhaps.”

  We hightailed it over to her convertible and jumped in. She hit the gas and pulled away without a word, her cheeks burning, her hands tight against the wheel. I could hear the plastic squeaking in protest underneath her grip.

  After a moment, she glanced over at me. “What now?”

  “Damned if I know.”

  She thought for a moment. “Then may I make a suggestion, Special Agent Rooks? We find a bar, and I sit and watch while you have a drink. Then, when you’re a little less sober and thinking a little more clearly, we try and figure this mess out.”

  I leaned back in my seat. “Agent Springer, we may yet be a partnership to be reckoned with.”

  II

  He’d had the look. I was used to it—long before I started getting it myself, I saw it turned on my mother regularly. The look that said, you’re too pretty to be smart and tough enough too. The look that said, joke’s over, where’s the real agent? The look that said you might be exactly what they want for screwing, or having their children, but that you were the exact opposite of what they wanted in a partner or a contact or a fellow operative. Phrases like “women’s lib” hadn’t been invented yet when both my parents started teaching me things like, you can do anything a man can do, even when it was the last thing I wanted to hear because, if there was one thing I knew for sure, it was that I didn’t want to be like them, or have the life they had. And I especially didn’t want the death they’d had.

  And yet there I was, outside the Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge on Virginia Avenue in the middle of the night, just across the street from the Watergate complex, with an armless corpse sprawled in front of us and blood on my hands; this time getting the other look—the second look, the one that comes later that says, what the hell are you?

  What the hell am I indeed.

  But that was really the least of our problems.

  The bigger problem was that this guy had just tried to kill us, and that means another one wouldn’t be far behind. They never send just one, the Olde Fellowes, or whoever they are, and they don’t give up either. And they couldn’t afford to, because they’d just screwed up badly. As far as Rooks and I knew, we’d just chased a dead end, but apparently whatever we didn’t find was important enough that we needed to die over it.

  In fact, it had been a month of nothing but dead ends. An article in The Washington Post had tipped me off that we might find something going down at Democratic headquarters. GOP SECURITY AIDE AMONG 5 ARRESTED IN BUGGING AFFAIR was the headline to an article bylined by a couple of fellows named Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Sure, the FBI was looking into it, but not the Human Protection League; and when I pressed for more information, I was told it didn’t have anything to do with our division. I phoned Woodward myself, and had to do a little song and dance that got me nowhere—I know I could’ve gotten more out of him if we’d met in person, but there was no time. So here we were, empty-handed after searching the Democrats’ offices and looking at a dead assassin. Well, I was. Like I said, Rooks was looking at me.

  “I can imagine how this looks,” I began, but Rooks interrupted me.

  “No, you really can’t.” He was a man who’d seen a lot—more than me. His shock wasn’t the newly minted kind, but the weary type. I held up both hands—I don’t know why. It’s not as though the lack of visible weapons in either of them was going to reassure him, given what I’d just done with one of those very hands to the dead guy lying between us. I knew I had to talk fast, and not just because we might have only minutes to spare before this guy’s counterpart would come bearing down on us.

  I kept it the exact opposite of me—short and sweet. “I was in an accident,” I said. “My parents were government agents. I don’t know if they worked for the Lovecraft Squad—I never found out what they did. But thanks to their connections, I was lucky enough to be turned into Exhibit A in the government’s research into human-machine hybrids. My legs, my right arm, and my hearing are the main enhancements.”

  Rooks said, “My new partner’s part robot.”

  “Close enough,” I said, “although we prefer the term ‘cyborg’ these days. NASA has been developing the technology since the early 1960s, initially using chimpanzees. And the legs? That means I can run a lot faster than you when the next one of these turns up. So I suggest we get the body out of here and get lost, and you can worry about being partnered with a robot lady later on.”

  That seemed to shake him out of it. I was just grateful he hadn’t asked me any questions about the “accident” or what had, eventually, become of those parents. Or about how it all works; or what I could do; or how badly and how often and for how long I’d wished the bomb that had been intended for my parents—the “accident”—had finished the job on me as well.

  Rooks got the car while I waited with the body, since it seemed like walking past the Watergate complex carrying two arms and the corpse they’d come from might be indis
creet. We peeled out of there while I rummaged through the guy’s pockets in the back seat. Looks-wise, aside from being dead and armless, he was as forgettable as they come—medium height, nondescript hair color, no particularly memorable features. The perfect look for an assassin.

  “You’re not gonna like this,” I said. “We gotta go back. He was staying at that HoJo’s. Looks like he was keeping an eye on the Democratic headquarters too.”

  Rooks didn’t say anything, just turned the car around. We hadn’t been partners long, but I knew what he was thinking—how bad he needed a drink. He got it too, once we’d used the key to let ourselves into the dead guy’s room, taking out that damn flask he carried with him everywhere while I rummaged through drawers and flipped the mattress.

  “Here.” That was where I found them, under the mattress, three or four file folders stuffed with papers.

  “We need to go,” Rooks said. “Director Brady will want to see those.”

  “I know,” I said. I couldn’t resist a quick scan of them though. “Relax, I’ll be able to hear them coming.”

  Rooks relaxed in the only way he knew how—hitting the flask again, and about the time he did, I heard footfalls. They might have been anybody, but I wasn’t taking any chances. “On second thought, let’s split,” I said, so we did. Not a moment too soon either. As we dove into the car, I saw a shadowy figure slithering across the parking lot, toward the room we’d just vacated.

  I can’t say for sure, but that figure didn’t look entirely human. For a second I was twenty years old again—something flashed in my peripheral vision in my parent’s front yard, something wrong; something I couldn’t quite assimilate into the world as I understood it, before that world turned into light and searing pain and deafening noise followed by an even more terrifying silence, a profound silence—and then I was just glad it was Rooks and not me behind the wheel of the car. I tried to focus on the leather seat under me, and the stench of blood and death from the seat behind me. I was shaking. I hadn’t had a turn like that for a long time. This was no time to start losing it, and Rooks was not somebody I wanted to lose it in front of.