Tom Clancy's Power Plays 5 - 8

by Tom Clancy

  She wished she knew where he was, how he was.

  The beatings.

  Her thoughts insisted on doubling back to the beatings.

  Like those that came afterward, the first assault had been sudden and brutal. The men who’d burst into the cage wore hard-shell helmets with lamp assemblies, and she’d flinched from their piercing bright beams, blinded for several horrible seconds. But when her eyes recovered from their shock, the part of her that was trained at observation had amazingly kicked in. She’d noticed their coveralls, and their safety vests with luminous yellow stripes, and the card-shaped dosimeter badges on their chests, a type worn in laboratories where ionizing radiation hazards were present. Laboratories in which she herself had worked. She’d noticed that the lights rapidly intensified without manual adjustment, and that each was composed of multiple lenses, like the compound eyes of an insect . . . state-of-the-art, probably white LEDs controlled by a microcomputer. All six or seven of them were carrying firearms. Submachine guns, she believed, although such weapons were beyond her realm of experience. Or had been. Her training and background were in science, but recent events had dealt her a harshly different kind of education.

  It had felt planned out to her, almost staged. The men went silently about their appalling work, a couple of them grabbing her arms, pushing her back against the wall, restraining her. Two others pointed their weapons at him, gestured him toward the middle of the cage. When he refused, scuffled with them, the rest of them closed in around him. They pounded him mercilessly. They used their fists, kicked him with steel-reinforced boots. They made no attempt at interrogation. They did not respond when she begged to know what they wanted. They just kept hitting him, the beams of their helmet lights jostling from the furious motion, leaping about the walls of the cage.

  She screamed for them to stop, pleaded with them to stop, but they continued to ignore her. And during it all the man with the strange birthmark on his left cheek—it was melanocytic, a perfect crescent, like the shadow of a sliver moon—had watched from off to the side, looking frequently in her direction. If the whole torturous episode was indeed choreographed, she had no doubt in her head that he’d been the one to arrange its lockstep savagery.

  The beating had seemed to go on endlessly before they were finished. And then he was writhing on the floor in agony, gasping for breath, his lips cut and swollen, his nose bleeding, his face a mass of bruises. The man who had been watching from the side turned toward her, strode to where the others held her pinned to the wall, and stood there regarding her with eyes that showed neither hostility nor conscience. They were like camera lenses in their level objectivity. In a way that was his most frightening aspect. He was as lacking in malice as pity. A man doing his job. His quiet dispassion had unbraced her.

  She’d shuddered through her entire body as the others held her immobile against the wall.

  He waited a moment, leaned close.

  “Later,” he had said softly.

  Nothing else.

  And then he’d turned, and his men had released their grip on her, and followed him out the solid metal door of the cage, passing into the black.

  That was the first visit.

  They had come back often since. Sometimes it was to measure out more violence against him. Sometimes they left trays of bland, greasy stew and water. When they brought the food, it was always without the man she’d assumed to be their leader. He would just arrive for the beatings. None of them ever asked any questions. None of them spoke. It was always the same.

  They ate their tasteless food in the blackness, ate to stay alive for however much longer they could. Two prisoners holed away without explanation, without knowing when their sentence would reach its end, or what would happen to them afterward. It was difficult for him to chew or swallow. She’d had to help him take down the unsavory mush, slip little clots of it past his swollen lips with her fingers. After the third round of severe punishment he’d vomited, been unable to hold the food in his stomach for quite a while. Talk of escape arose between them, but neither had any idea how it might be accomplished. They had wondered aloud why they were being held, could only guess that sooner or later their captors meant to question them about the base. There was no way to be sure what they expected to learn, what motives they might have, it was all so baffling. But he told her he’d promised himself not to give anything up to them. Not unless they began to direct their violence at her would he give anything up.

  She wasn’t surprised. He was a brave man. She wished she felt that kind of courage on her own.

  The beatings continued to alternate with the crude, bare-sustenance meals.

  Time after time it was the same.

  Until the last time.

  That last time they returned, it was to take him away. By then he’d been in desperate shape and could barely stay up on his legs. She remembered panicking as they dragged him off the floor, into the blackness beyond the cage. She had verged on crying out that she’d tell them whatever they needed to know, anything, if they only let him be. But then she’d thought of his vow to defy interrogation, his resolute, unsubmitting heart, and checked herself. She hadn’t wanted to fail him, to fall short, and had bitten down on the words, watching them take him away, watching the door of the cage slam shut behind him—

  Another scream suddenly bayoneted her thoughts now, and she jerked bolt upright as if slapped, the chain of her handcuffs clinking coldly between her trapped, chafed wrists.

  The screaming continued to slash the blackness; shrill, tormented. There was no wishing it away anymore. No telling herself it wasn’t real. That wouldn’t work, wouldn’t help, not now. . . .

  She heard footsteps outside the cage, several sets of them, approaching with that familiar martial cadence. Then the cage door opened, lights glaring inside, dazzling her. She cowered back, squinting, shielding her eyes with both hands as they adjusted to the brightness.

  The marked man entered, the rest of her jailers hanging behind him, positioned to either side of the entrance with their weapons at their hips. He crossed the floor of the cage, stood very still before her, framed in that terrible blaze of light.

  Shevaun Bradley waited.

  Trembling, cringing against the cage’s metal wall, she waited.

  At last the marked man bent low over her.

  “Now,” he said, “we talk.”

  And outside in the black, Scarborough’s screams strung on and on above the heavy clashing roar of great machines.

  ELEVEN

  PARIS, FRANCE

  MARCH 12, 2002

  HAVING WORKED OUT THE SOLUTION TO A SEEMINGLY insoluble problem, the mind longs for verification. It is not simply enough to know intuitively that something is correct; humans desire external confirmation. A math student wants the proof to be convincing and communicable. A police officer making an arrest wants the satisfaction of a conviction in a court of law.

  Nessa wanted the Picasso, or more likely, the series of Picassos. She had consulted experts on her theory of a painting from the time of Guernica; there had been no firm consensus, but to her mind that made it even more convincing. Even more convincing was the buzz from certain quarters that she was not the first to make such inquiries. A Japanese collector had approached a professor in Barcelona, a curator in Los Angeles had been queried by a Belgian entrepreneur—there were questions in the air.

  If she could find Elata, Nessa figured she would know within a half hour if she was right or not. She would charge him with theft and threaten him with a jail term of several years for stealing the letter from the museum. She would find out about the Picassos—as well as many other paintings. For he was a nervous man, haughty but on the edge and easily broken; she’d seen it in his eyes on the platform.

  She could have grabbed him then. But at that moment there had been nothing to charge him with.

  Nessa stared at a list of the men and two women who were suspected of having employed Elata over the last decade; it was not a long
list, but every name was a prominent member of the art community and the world at large. Two had net worths that topped that of several countries. To say that their wealth and power protected them was an understatement—though with the right evidence, such as a sworn confession from the master forger himself, even the difficult might be attempted.

  Others had tried to take Elata down. To fantasize like this was dangerous.

  Her boss wanted him. More—he wanted the Picassos. He salivated over them—phony or real made little difference. Find them, and his career would be made; the French government would undoubtedly issue a medal.

  Her boss wasn’t kidding. He’d authorized her to go “anywhere in pursuit of tangible leads.” Whatever resource she wanted, she could have.

  As long as she succeeded.

  Nessa pushed the thick pile of papers into the case folder. It was late, far past quitting time; the other offices were dark. She shoved the printouts and her notes into the top drawer of her desk, locked it, and went to leave.

  The phone rang. She nearly blew it off, but then decided to pick it up—sometimes her ma called her here when she couldn’t reach her at the apartment.

  Then again, her mother was sure to ask her whether she had a boyfriend for the umpteenth time. Perhaps she should just let it ring.

  Nessa grabbed it a half second before the voice-mail system would have taken over.

  “Nessa Lear,” she said.

  “Put more snap into it, lass. You want ’em tremblin’ before they start talking to you.”

  “Gorrie!”

  “I won’t argue with you,” said her old partner. “It’s too good to hear your voice.”

  “How are you?”

  “Up to the kilt in muck n’ mire.”

  “You’re drivin’ roun’ Inverness in a kilt these days? Do you carry your bagpipes with you?”

  “ ’Neath the kilt.” His voice suddenly downshifted. “Ness, dearie, I need a favor.”

  “Favor?”

  “I have a string of accidents that add into something more than accidents, if you know what I mean. Murder, I think.”

  “In Inverness?”

  “It’s been known to happen.”

  “How can I help?”

  Gorrie told her about the records involving the nuclear plant’s waste. Interpol had a database of international terrorists, and he wondered if he might have her check the names against them. He also had the name of the transport company that moved the waste.

  “This isn’t an Interpol matter,” she told him.

  “I know,” said her old partner. “But I’m beginning to think the woman at UKAE is involved. Constance Burns. Ever hear of her?”

  “Not at all. You want me to run her name too?”

  “Couldn’t hurt. She’s in Switzerland on vacation, or at least supposed to be. Hasn’t returned my calls yet, an’ I was just settin’ here wonderin’ why.”

  “Technically, you’re supposed to be dealing through MI5,” she said. “Or at least—”

  “I called to London and there’s no one can help me till the morning,” he said. “You would have liked this case, Nessa. Deputy Chief Constable is in a twit over his detection rate.”

  She typed in her password and entered the data bank. She hadn’t been here long enough to know what the bosses might think of helping out a fellow police officer; she imagined the reaction could run from awarding her a commendation to kicking her back to Scotland.

  “Nothing on any of your hits. Transport company again?”

  “Highland Specialty Transport. I have done some checkin’ on my own. Seems to be a subsidiary of a Yank concern: Aesthetic Transfers.”

  “Aesthetic Transfers?”

  “Aesthetic Transfers Inc. I have the address here.”

  “Hold on, Gorrie.” Nessa pulled open the drawer. Her fingers trembled as she clawed at the file.

  Aesthetic Transfers—an international transportation firm specializing in international art and antique shipments and used by several museums. Sole stockholders—Morgan Family Trust (II).

  Part of the Morgan empire controlled by Gabriel Morgan—a suspected dealer of fraudulent and black-market artworks and current tax scofflaw wanted by the U.S. Treasury Department. A suspected associate and possible employer of Marc Elata. Holed up in Zurich, Switzerland, where he had successfully fought off extradition by U.S. authorities.

  “Frank,” she said, picking up the phone again. “Tell me everything again, very slowly. No, wait—give me your number. I’ll call you back on my mobile phone.”

  “Department will pay for the call.”

  “That’s not it—I want to get going. I’ll talk to you on the way.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Switzerland. Give me your number.”

  Inverness, Scotland

  When he hung up with Nessa, Gorrie glanced at the clock. Though he had told his wife he’d be home by eight, he realized there was little sense making it there on the dot; she’d be talking schoolteacher talk with the visitor for hours and he’d only end up brooding in the corner. Better to take the time to work on this tangled knot.

  Talking to Nessa made things no clearer, though it was good to hear her voice again. She seemed to be making a splash.

  Gorrie’s thoughts returned to Cardha Duff. If the murder had anything to do with the power plant and its waste, the lass didn’t fit—unless Mackay had told her about the goings-on there.

  Possible.

  He drew out the file on the murder, looking over the report on her belongings. Nothing unusual, but then they hadn’t bothered with an extensive inventory, given the circumstances of death. The apartment hadn’t appeared ransacked. He could go back there and hunt around, but wouldn’t a murderer have done the same?

  If it was murder. The lab report leaned heavily toward accident.

  If someone intended on killing her—if someone really wanted to do her in—why wait for several days after the others?

  Maybe they didn’t know about her until then.

  Gorrie went back through his notes to make sure that Christine Gibbon hadn’t given the name during their initial interview. It didn’t appear there—but DC Andrews had conducted the actual interview, and he had not as yet typed his notes for the file.

  A week late at least. Nessa would not have been so tardy, even as one of the unwashed.

  Gorrie picked up the phone and called the young detective constable at home. Andrews’s wife answered, giving a timid hello.

  “Hello, Marge,” Gorrie told her. “I just need a word with your husband. I won’t keep him, I promise.”

  “Inspector Gorrie, how are you,” she said loudly, undoubtedly intending her husband nearby to hear and decide whether he wanted to be bothered or not. Their two-year-old cried in the background.

  “A quick question’s all,” promised Gorrie again.

  “Here, Inspector,” she said as the babe’s cry crescendoed.

  Andrews came on the phone with his husky voice. “Inspector?”

  “When you spoke to Christine Gibbon, did she mention any of Mackay’s alleged girlfriends?”

  “You mean the Duff tart?”

  Gorrie didn’t answer.

  “She may have,” said Andrews. “Timing blurs a bit.”

  “Can you check your notes?”

  “Haven’t got ’em, sir,” said Andrews, turning from the phone a moment as the baby continued to cry. “Can you shush ’em?” he asked his wife.

  “Never mind, Andrews.”

  “That’s it, sir?”

  “Good night.”

  Gorrie dialed Gibbon’s number, but got only her answering machine; he left a message asking her to call back. Finally he opened another of the files on his desk and fished out the news items on the case. Christine Gibbon had given more interviews after the murder than a movie star promoting a new film. He glanced through the stories, but none included Ms. Duff’s name, only hints that there was “another woman.”

  One
story declared that the interview had taken place in the “historic taproom of Brown Glen Hall, where the interviewee is a well-regarded raconteur.”

  The phone on his desk rang. He picked it up, thinking it was Gibbon returning his call.

  Instead, it was a man who identified himself as Phil Hernandez, an executive with UpLink International.

  “What precisely is that?” Gorrie asked the man, who had an American accent.

  “We’re an international communications concern,” said the man, adding that he was in the security division, filling in for another person Gorrie had never heard of. “One of our people at Glasgow intercepted a hacker trying to break into our e-mail system.”

  “Computer crimes are a bit out of my expertise,” Gorrie told him. “And Glasgow—”

  “It’s rather complicated.” Hernandez explained that in investigating the attempted hack, they had uncovered possible evidence of another crime. They were alerting Scotland Yard’s computer branch, but some of the e-mail they encountered seemed to pertain to Inverness and they had been referred to the local CID.

  It appeared from the e-mail that the owner of an estate there named Cameron had been targeted for murder.

  Until Ewie Cameron’s name was mentioned, Gorrie paid scant attention. Now he pulled over a pad and began taking careful notes. The man read four e-mails; only one was directly incriminating—it mentioned Cameron by name and gave a price for his death. But there was another one referring to a “trashman,” and still another advising that the job would not be considered complete until all complications were eliminated.

  That one was dated two days ago. All were signed “CB,” and all had come from the UKAE computer system.

  “I don’t know that these are authentic,” said Hernandez, “but we can help you find out. Scotland Yard will undoubtedly be in touch.”

  “I’ll arrange for a detective to go to your Glasgow office,” said Gorrie. He wrote down the contact information, unsure who he could send who might actually understand how they had managed to come up with the information.