Freefall

by Adam Hamdy

  One of the blows must have knocked the officer’s gag loose, and Wallace heard him cry, “Help me, English!”

  Wallace turned to see him lost in a maelstrom of violence.

  “Help me, and I will say who sent us to kill you,” the man screamed.

  The revelation confirmed Wallace’s fears. Sickened, he moved toward the violent swarm and tried to pull the enraged men away.

  “Help me, English, I will tell you!” The officer’s feeble cries suggested he would not last much longer.

  Wallace rushed to his horse, took Kurik’s Kalashnikov from the saddle and fired a volley of shots into the air.

  Vosuruk, Guktec, and the rest of the men froze and turned to see Wallace holding the gun. Vosuruk’s eyes flashed with murderous intent and Wallace knew he only had moments, so he threw down the gun and ran over to the grieving father.

  “Vosuruk, listen to what he’s saying,” he pleaded. “Someone sent him here to kill me.” He looked down at the Afghan officer, whose face was a bloody mess.

  “He’s lying!” Vosuruk kicked the officer in the gut, and looked set to deliver further violence before Wallace pulled him back. Vosuruk looked down at Wallace’s restraining hand with raw fury.

  “No,” Wallace implored his host. “You said you couldn’t understand why Kabul would trouble your people after so long. And the soldiers you killed in Kamdesh, they called me the foreigner. I didn’t want to believe it, but I think they were looking for me.”

  “Why you?” Vosuruk asked, wavering. “You take pictures,” he added indignantly. “Why someone send army for you?”

  “I don’t know,” Wallace lied. There was one man with the means and motivation to have him killed in this way. “But that’s why we need him alive. If he’s telling the truth, the person responsible for Kurik’s death is the one who sent him.”

  Vosuruk looked down at the groaning officer, his eyes flashing hatred.

  “Please, we need to know why,” Wallace pressed.

  Vosuruk turned away from the man. “N’acoa!” he told his men, who hesitated for a moment, before withdrawing. Vosuruk produced a hunting knife from beneath his cloak. “If he lies, I will slit his throat,” he said emphatically.

  Wallace dragged the Afghan officer to a nearby rock and pulled him upright, resting his back against the rough stone. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  The officer coughed up a gob of blood, his breathing shallow and uneven. “Colonel Ghulan Ahmadi,” he replied weakly.

  “Who sent you?” Wallace asked.

  “An American,” Ghulan answered. “I don’t know his name. I never saw him. We deal through a broker, a middleman. He offered me two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to find you. Half before, half after I bring back your body.”

  “To where?”

  “Kabul,” Ghulan croaked, as blood rattled around his throat.

  “You raided an entire town for one man?” Wallace’s voice betrayed his disbelief.

  “This is Afghanistan. Life is cheap,” Ghulan responded darkly. “The man who paid me wanted a big noise. And this way, we also remove some local troublemakers.”

  Propelled by anger, Vosuruk surged forward, but Wallace held him back. When he saw that the Kom tribal leader had calmed, he returned to the officer.

  “Can you take us to this man? The broker?” he asked.

  Ghulan watched Vosuruk fearfully as he nodded.

  Vosuruk grabbed Wallace and led him away from the injured colonel. When he was certain Ghulan could no longer hear them, he pulled Wallace close. “This man must die,” he whispered. “And I must kill him,” he added emphatically.

  “I need to find out who sent him,” Wallace countered. “We both do.”

  Vosuruk turned toward the prone man, conflicting emotions clouding his face. “We take him to Kabul,” he conceded eventually. “But when he show us man, I kill them both.”

  Wallace paused to consider the dark bargain he was being offered. He looked from Ghulan’s fearful face to Kurik’s lifeless body and finally nodded.

  Vosuruk offered his hand and Wallace shook it, before pulling his host into an embrace. “I’m sorry about Kurik,” he said. “I truly am.”

  Vosuruk’s body shook, and when he withdrew, there were fresh tears in his eyes. He retreated toward his men, who rallied around him with warm embraces and sympathetic words.

  Tradition dictated burial within twenty-four hours but the rocky landscape made interment impossible, so they trekked through the night, Wallace on his horse and Vosuruk on Kurik’s, his son’s body laid in front of him. As they rode side by side, Wallace told the grieving father how his son had died, fighting bravely, honoring the spirits of his ancestors, standing against an invading enemy. Wallace was moved by Vosuruk’s quiet grief. This man, who had seen so many die, who had lost so many friends, sobbed without shame for his fallen son. A veteran of decades of war, he was still only human, and despite a life of violence, death had not lost its bitter edge. All around them, Guktec and the men marched in solemn silence, while Ghulan was bound to Vosuruk’s saddle and forced to trudge behind his captor.

  The moon had set by the time they reached the ravine and the small cave where Wallace, Vosuruk, and Kurik had taken shelter the night of the assault on Kamdesh. Torches were lit, and with their shadows dancing in time to the flickering lights, Guktec led the small group of men that dug his brother’s grave in the cave’s moist earth.

  An outsider, Wallace stayed back, while Vosuruk, Guktec, and the men who were a mix of friends, comrades, and family lamented the passing of one so young and so very dear. As they lowered Kurik’s body into the shallow grave, he saw that Ghulan, who was bound to a rock near the cave mouth, had turned away. Wallace knew the pain of living with guilt and was content to see the assassin who had brought so much misery into so many people’s lives struggling with the consequences of what he had done.

  He noticed Vosuruk staring at him, and replied with a respectful nod. The tribal chief’s mournful gaze shifted past him, toward the cave mouth, and, as Vosuruk looked upon the Afghan officer, grief was replaced by fierce hatred. Wallace knew it was only a matter of time before Vosuruk exacted revenge. He only hoped he could keep the ill-fated colonel alive long enough to learn the truth.

  16

  Bailey woke to the sound of gunfire. He felt tremendous pressure deep in his chest, and panic surged inside him. Convinced that he was having a heart attack, he started to reach for the phone, but the pressure passed and he flushed with embarrassment when he realized that it was probably trapped wind. Overcome by rum, he’d fallen asleep on the sofa after a large pepperoni pizza. The television had been keeping him company as he obsessed over Sylvia Greene’s code, and Bruce Willis was currently shooting some Eurotrash robbers in the Nakatomi building.

  A car raced along Old Ford Road, the roar of its modified engine shaking the windows. Bailey heaved himself to his feet and staggered across the room. His curtains weren’t drawn, but he wasn’t worried about privacy. His neighbors were all London paranoid and kept their drapes and blinds firmly closed. Only the pigeons and squirrels could see into his flat and they wouldn’t care about the self-pitying drunkard who lived within. Bailey told himself to get a grip. He was slipping along the road toward dependence, but part of him didn’t care and welcomed the comforting haze of alcohol. He looked down the street and saw the receding tail lights of a souped-up car, its driver ensuring that everyone in the neighborhood felt the throb of his engine. Bailey staggered to the sofa and checked the time on his phone: 11:23 p.m. The previous incarnation of Bailey, untroubled by a near-fatal wounding, would have logged the license and called it in, but the battered man sitting on the sofa simply reached for the three-quarter empty bottle of Sailor Jerry and poured himself another drink.

  He touched his laptop and the machine lit up. After fleeing Francis Albright’s office, he’d driven across London and made his way to his desk on the fourth floor of the Paddington Green tower, where he’d dug in
to both Albright and Melissa Rathlin. There wasn’t a huge amount on Albright, who hadn’t written for the paper since his promotion to deputy editor six years ago. A search of Melissa’s name returned page after Google page of London Record articles, each one alive with a passionate point of view. Melissa didn’t go as far as an activist blogger with a political agenda, but it was clear to Bailey that she was someone with strong feelings about certain subjects and she had clearly made it her mission to expose social inequality. Her latest articles were on the proposed International Online Security Act, which was big news the world over. The Americans were pressing ahead with controls on the internet, including an end to anonymity and a centralized financial transaction system. Melissa viewed it as an attempt by the Americans to bend the internet to their will and restore their global supremacy. According to her most recent article, she was going to Geneva to cover the upcoming UN Digital Security summit, where the US was expected to push for the IOSA to be adopted as a global standard.

  Murrall had tried phoning a couple of times, but when he saw the detective’s number flash up Bailey had ignored it. He had promised to keep Sylvia’s note secret and since he and Murrall had nothing else to talk about, he wanted to avoid the guy and minimize any potential for breaking Connor’s confidence. His plan had hit a bump: Superintendent Cross had found him after lunch and asked whether there was a problem. He’d had Murrall on the phone to him complaining. Bailey had assured his stern superior there was nothing wrong, but he hadn’t returned Murrall’s call until five-thirty, when he’d suspected the rotund detective would be on his way home. Bailey’s instincts had paid off; he’d gone straight to voicemail and had left a friendly message apologizing for the delayed response and inviting Murrall to call him any time.

  Bailey had left the office shortly afterward, and ignored three calls from Murrall as he joined the long line of traffic snaking east along the Marylebone Road. He ignored a fourth when he pulled up a hundred yards east of his four-story Victorian conversion, and he found himself wondering whether he was really trying to keep Sylvia Greene’s secret or whether this was further evidence of his desire to isolate himself.

  Inside his top-floor flat, Bailey had tossed his keys on the table in the hallway, which was piled high with unopened post. He’d ignored it for yet another day, and instead settled in the living room with his laptop, where he continued to obsess over the code. He’d had his first drink ten minutes after getting home and had phoned for a pizza soon afterward. Food would make each splash of rum seem civilized, but Bailey hadn’t been able to wait, and the delivery guy had finally arrived when he was five drinks in and beyond caring about the pretense of a meal. He had picked at the pizza as he knocked back more of the richly flavored rum and couldn’t recall having fallen asleep. Passing out, his treacherous mind suggested, but he corrected himself: he’d fallen asleep after a long day at work.

  Now, two hours later, he inhabited the uncomfortable netherworld between intoxication and sobriety and sought to remedy this by downing his glass. His bright computer taunted him with a photograph of the code, and Bailey was suddenly struck by heady inspiration. He’d read Ash’s report into the Pendulum investigation and remembered her referring to the assistance of an FBI contractor who’d helped her and Wallace while they were on the run. Some kind of computer whizz, but Bailey couldn’t remember the guy’s name. He poured himself another drink, which he necked quickly before delving into his iPhone contacts and dialing a number.

  The trees in Washington Square Park were heavy with blossom, but Ash wasn’t interested in their pastel beauty. She stood by her window trying to catch the bright sunlight that shone over the buildings on the other side of the park. She was looking at an enlarged print of the photo she’d found in Charles Haig’s warehouse, and Max Byrne’s ghostly face stared back at her from the window of the diner. Ash had been studying the image for a couple of hours, trying to figure out what had made it so important to Haig, but there were no identifying markers in the picture. The diner’s name was missing, there were no posters in the window, and the business cards pinned to a cork board on the inside wall were illegible. There were no vehicles in shot, so Ash couldn’t even run license plates, and the family that was the subject of the photo looked disconcertingly average, their broad, homely smiles taunting her. How had Haig got the picture? When had it been taken?

  The sound of ringing intruded on Ash’s frustration and she moved away from the window and grabbed her phone from the table near the hallway. Bailey’s name flashed above a FaceTime Audio notification, and Ash dropped the photograph on to the table and answered.

  “Patrick Bailey,” she said, trying to make her hoarse voice sound as normal as possible.

  “You OK?” Bailey asked. “You sound like you’ve got the flu.”

  His words flowed into each other with an ease that was on its way to incoherence. He was drunk.

  “Rough couple of days,” she replied, unwilling to revisit her ordeal. Maybe she’d tell Bailey about it one day. “How are you? You sound tired.”

  “I’m OK,” Bailey responded in a wavering voice that broadcast the lie. “You know, I’ve been better, but so what? That’s life.”

  “They still got you seeing that therapist?” Ash asked hopefully.

  “Nah,” Bailey said proudly. “Can’t keep a good man down.”

  “Listen, Pat,” Ash began, “I’m kinda in the middle of something, so maybe we could speak tomorr—”

  “Too big for your old friends?” Bailey interrupted. “I’m just kidding. I know you and me are tight. That’s why I’m calling. I’m working a case. Top secret stuff. I need a favor. That guy you know. The computer nerd. Helped you and Wallace . . .”

  “Pavel? Pavel Kosinsky?” Ash guessed.

  “Pavel Kosinsky!” Bailey yelled, his drunken enthusiasm all too clear. “I’m gonna send you something to run by him. It’s a code. A message from a dead woman,” he slurred. “Can you help me out, Chris?”

  “I can ask.”

  “That’s my girl!”

  “Listen, Pat,” Ash hesitated.

  “I’m all ears,” his uneven voice boomed down the line.

  “I know a lot of cops who’ve had PTSD . . .”

  “PTSD?” Bailey snorted derisively. “Who’s got PTSD?”

  “This isn’t like you,” Ash said quietly, but she wasn’t sure how to continue and all she could hear was Bailey’s breathing and the sound of a movie playing in the background.

  “I know,” Bailey admitted sadly, his words initiating a long, awkward silence. “I appreciate your concern. I’ll email you the code. Let me know if your man finds anything.”

  Bailey hung up before Ash could say anything more. She thought about calling him back, but the conversation they needed to have was one for when he was sober. Ash sympathized with her old friend. She was all too familiar with the aftermath of a shooting, but she’d thrown herself into her work, rather than succumb to the enchanting lure of drugs or alcohol. Her only vice was a nightly Ambien, which she took in an effort to deaden her past.

  She glanced down again at the photograph, which had landed on her iPad. The illuminated tablet shone through the image, changing it, revealing new details, and Ash saw something that made her heart jump. She picked up the photo and went into her home office, which was uncomfortably similar to Charles Haig’s warehouse. The pictures and articles pinned to the walls evidenced a shared obsession: the Pendulum killings. She crossed the room to a large desk and placed the photograph on a light box positioned beneath an arm-mounted magnifying glass. She switched on the lamp and waited for it to warm to full brightness before examining the photo. In the top right corner of the image, above the smiling family, was the faint and partial reflection of a word: “immy’s.” Ash realized that the text was part of a larger sign in the shape of a cloud—no—an ice cream. She used her phone to Google Timmy’s Ice Cream, which drew a blank. She tried Jimmy’s Ice Cream, which gave her four hits, all within three h
ours’ drive of New York City. She checked each one on Google Street View and felt a stab of excitement when she saw the third: a single-story, stone-clad building with a red tile roof. The Mountainhome Diner was less than two hours from the city. She looked at the photo on her light box and double-checked that she’d found the right place. The proximity to Jimmy’s Ice Cream Parlor, the diner’s cream walls, the stone inlays, the brown window frames and the Stars and Stripes hanging by the entrance left no doubt that it was the same place. She looked at Byrne’s wraith-like face, almost lost behind the window, and finally felt she was getting close to him. She had no idea how Charles Haig had found the image—whether it was chance, hard hours, or a computer program—but she was convinced that it had been instrumental in helping him locate Pendulum’s base.

  17

  Vosuruk did not linger at his son’s grave. He issued Guktec with a series of firm commands and then told Wallace to get ready to leave. Malik and one of the other men led Ghulan into the ravine and forced him into the saddle of Wallace’s horse, binding the Afghan colonel’s hands to the horn. Shoulders slumped, head lolling, Ghulan cut a sorry silhouette in the mouth of the cave.

  “You ride with him,” Vosuruk said.

  Wallace looked around the cave at the shadowed faces of the somber men, and slowly nodded a farewell, before awkwardly clambering into the saddle behind Ghulan. Vosuruk mounted Kurik’s tan mare.

  “Su’e je!” Vosuruk called to his men, before spurring his horse along the ravine.

  Wallace kicked his heels and the white gelding followed him, cantering between the rocks.

  Vosuruk’s eagerness for vengeance was ill-disguised and he set a brutal pace that Wallace struggled to match. His progress was hindered by Ghulan, who soon lost consciousness and went limp, so Wallace not only had to try to match Vosuruk’s pace, but also had to keep the lolling Afghan colonel in the saddle.