The Nameless Dead

by Paul Johnston

  Now, at last, the time had come. True, Abaddon had to do things the way her employer wanted, but that wasn’t a problem. She would do anything to get a shot at the heretic, kill anyone and never count the cost. It was what she lived for, what she wanted more than anything in the world. And she knew that the great god beneath the earth was on her side. There was nothing worse than a traitor. Now the enemy would pay for his sins against the Antigospel of Lucifer.

  Abaddon opened her laptop and checked her employer’s secure site. Apparently Matt Wells had been released by the Feds. He could lead them to the enemy, but first she was to deal with someone else. The woman who stared out at her from the blurred photograph had short blond hair and prominent cheekbones, and she looked to be in good physical condition. As she read through the file, she felt the tingle throughout her body that always came when she was put up against a worthy opponent. This target was nothing less than a demon. She had killed at least fifty-six people, and those were only the confirmed victims—it was estimated that she was responsible for dozens of other deaths, in the U.S. and abroad. Her original name had been Sara Robbins, but later she was known as the Soul Collector. Her brother had been a vicious serial killer. Even more interesting, she had been Matt Wells’s lover. Nobody seemed to know her current name. Finding her was the first part of the job. The second was to take her out.

  She looked toward the Gateway Arch, glinting red in the late afternoon sun, and smiled. This was going to be some contest. Abaddon versus the Soul Collector. The angel of the pit versus the killer who culled spirits. Assassin versus assassin. Pro versus pro. There could be only one winner. The heretic might even get caught in the cross fire.

  We were in an office borrowed from the Maine state cops on the outskirts of Portland. Peter Sebastian had just finished with the major in charge, making it clear that the FBI was boss now. While he was doing that, I caught the news on a TV high up in the corner. There was more about climate change than I remembered before we’d been cut off from all news media in the camp. There was a high-profile gathering of international leaders at the UN in ten days and special correspondents were stressing how important it was that progress be made on the issue.

  Quincy Jerome sat at the conference table, looking like a fish who wished he was back in the water. In the past I’d have kept him company, but I didn’t have the urge anymore. There was a job to be done and being friendly was irrelevant. Besides, he’d been taken aback by what I told him about Sara. Soldiers didn’t expect to be attacked by attractive women. I made sure he had no illusions—she would pick up my trail, it was only a question of time. But I found that I didn’t care anymore. Nailing Rothmann was all that mattered.

  Sebastian came over. ‘I’ve got surveillance on the Jacobsen house. Both she and Mary Upson are there.’

  I stood up. ‘Let’s go then.’

  ‘Not yet. I’m waiting for some essential material from D.C. We’ll interview them tomorrow morning. They aren’t going anywhere.’

  I looked at him doubtfully. ‘You’d better hope they aren’t. They’re our only leads.’

  ‘Apart from Gordy Lister. Look at this.’ He handed me a printout.

  ‘Jesus, this came in hours ago. How come you only got it now?’

  Sebastian pursed his mouth. ‘I didn’t. I was informed this morning. I thought you had enough going on.’

  I glared at him. ‘Don’t do that again. I’m the tethered goat here. I need to know what’s happening.’ Sebastian nodded, so I went back to the paper. ‘This Mikey Lister was what? Gordy’s brother?’

  ‘Yes. I’m embarrassed to say that our Jacksonville field office had him under surveillance, near Tallahassee. I thought Gordy might show up there after we spotted him in Philadelphia. The hit-and-run driver was gone before our people could react. There will be disciplinary proceedings.’

  ‘“No witnesses,”’ I read. ‘In broad daylight?’

  ‘Apparently.’

  Quincy Jerome stirred. ‘Are you sure it was an accident?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Who would have wanted him dead?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Maybe someone else trying to find Rothmann thought Gordy’s brother might be able to help,’ I suggested.

  ‘So why kill him?’ Quincy asked.

  Sebastian and I exchanged glances.

  ‘You’ll learn a lot if you pay attention, Sergeant,’ the FBI man said, shaking his head.

  ‘I thought we were done with ranks,’ Quincy countered.

  That almost made me smile. Then the door opened and Special Agent Bimsdale appeared, carrying a couple of heavy bags.

  ‘There you are,’ Sebastian said. ‘Have you got the insertion tools?’

  The little man nodded and started unpacking his bags on the table. He handed a couple of long, thin boxes to his boss.

  ‘Right, gentlemen,’ Sebastian said, with a tight smile. ‘Arm or leg?’

  ‘I’m a leg man myself,’ Quincy said, grinning. Then his eyes opened wide. ‘Just what the hell is that?’

  Sebastian had stripped the wrapping from an evil-looking, stainless steel probe. ‘Surely you didn’t think we were going to abandon you? There’s a GPS implant and signaling system in each of these.’ He stepped toward Quincy. ‘Come on, pull up your pant leg.’

  I watched as the big man obliged. Bimsdale swabbed a patch of his calf, then Sebastian pressed the button on the insertion tool. Quincy blinked once.

  ‘Didn’t hurt then?’ I said, rolling up my shirt-sleeve.

  ‘You kidding? Hurt like hell.’ Quincy Jerome smiled. ‘But I got no problem with pain.’

  I didn’t enjoy the next five seconds.

  Sixteen

  Sara Robbins was in her apartment in Brooklyn, looking at the screen of her laptop. She spent a lot of time doing that on the days when work didn’t call her away. The flight from Miami had arrived at 6:00 p.m. Since getting home, she’d been after him. Sometimes she felt like she was looking for a needle in a very large haystack, but she had made herself keep the faith. The systems she used were state-of-the-art and Matt Wells wouldn’t stay out of sight forever.

  As the computer ran the complex algorithms, she found herself thinking about the hit in Florida. She hadn’t been told the target’s name, only his address and a description. The fact that he was in a wheelchair made him hard to miss, but she’d covered herself all the same. Killing people without identities wasn’t something the Soul Collector did. Havi was unaware of that—there was no reason he should know she was so fastidious. It hadn’t taken her long to find out the target’s name. It was on the rental agreement for the condo. Then she had run into problems—no one of that name and description had been treated for serious spinal or leg injuries anywhere in the U.S. in the last five years. She sent the photo to a seriously expensive identity recognition site that had been set up by a geek who had hacked into every archive bank he could and bingo, there he was—Michael Anderson Lister, born Oklahoma City, 3/12/1978, electrician, with an address outside his birthplace. According to his health insurer, he had shattered both legs in a car accident nearly thirteen months ago and had undergone extensive surgery and rehabilitation, the latter being withdrawn after it became clear that prosthetic limbs were not an option. There was no record of criminal activity and no connection to ongoing investigations. That had been enough to satisfy her and she had left to carry out the hit.

  And now everything had changed. The word among the informants she paid was that Matt Wells had been released from FBI custody. Now she had to find him. The formulas continued to check local law enforcement sites around the country, as monitored by her network of hackers. Some of them could get into the FBI’s system, too, but she had found that wasn’t worth it, as the encryption codes took too long to decipher and illicit access was spotted quickly. State police sites were much less secure, and they also provided up-to-the-minute information. If the FBI took Matt out of lockdown, the likelihood was they would
be using him to find Heinz Rothmann, given the murders going down. If they took him to any of the scenes, local law enforcement would be involved and, if she was lucky, some eagle scout would note his presence, not least because anything the FBI did in other people’s jurisdictions tended to be logged in detail.

  She sat back and watched the streams of data tumble down the screen. If there was a match within the parameters she’d entered, the flow would stop and the machine would ping like a microwave that had incinerated dinner. So far, it had been as silent as her conscience. That set her back to thinking about the man she’d killed in Florida. Lister. There was something familiar about the surname. She booted up her older laptop and inserted a memory stick—it held everything she had found about Matt Wells’s involvement in the Washington Occult Killings and the subsequent massacre in the National Cathedral. Within five seconds, she had a match.

  According to Washington D.C. Metro Police records, Gordon David Lister had held a senior post at the Star Reporter, a supermarket tabloid, and had disappeared after Jack Thomson, owner of the paper and son of Nazi doctor Nikolaus Rothmann, had vanished from his cabin cruiser on the Anacostia River.

  The Soul Collector ran another check and confirmed that Gordon Lister was the brother of the man she’d killed in Florida. What she wanted to know now was, who had ordered the hit? Predictably, Havi wouldn’t tell her, saying only that her next job was on the secure site they used. But she could see no reason for Rothmann to have done away with his accomplice’s sibling. It was much more likely that someone was putting the squeeze on Rothmann himself. But who?

  A loud ping came from her laptop. She turned back to it and looked at a small section of print ringed in red. It was part of an internal memorandum written by a Major Hexton of the Maine State Police in Portland. In a group led by FBI violent crime Director Peter Sebastian was one Matthew John Wells, holder of British passport number…

  Sara turned off the computers and put the laptop in the carry-on bag that she had permanently packed. The plastic switchblade was in her underwear. She was out of the door in less than three minutes. For once, she welcomed the pain that pulsed and clenched across her upper back. It would keep her mind on the job.

  We had dinner on the outskirts of Portland. The diner was obviously a law enforcement haunt as nobody was perturbed when a uniformed cop came in and started whispering in Peter Sebastian’s ear. There was insignia on his shoulders and a badge identifying him as Major Jake Hexton. I nudged Quincy Jerome. Major Hexton looked decidedly warm under the collar.

  The FBI man turned to us. ‘We’re leaving.’

  ‘Haven’t had dessert yet,’ Quincy muttered.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

  ‘Nora Jacobsen’s on the move,’ Sebastian said. He got into the major’s car. Quincy and I piled into the back, which meant that Arthur Bimsdale was crushed against the door. He bore the position without complaint.

  We drove for about ten minutes, through the lights of the city at first and then down narrow roads with only occasional houses on either side. Major Hexton drove skillfully, talking frequently on the radio. He killed his lights before coming to a halt about fifty yards from a low building with a single light outside.

  ‘Whose place is this?’ Sebastian asked.

  ‘Isaac Morton is the registered owner,’ the major replied, ‘but he’s been in an old folks’ home for a year now.’

  I recognized the green pickup parked outside. Nora Jacobsen had lent it to her daughter and me after my escape from the camp.

  ‘Did Nora know this Morton?’ I asked.

  The policeman looked round at me and nodded. ‘They used to keep company.’

  Sebastian and I had the same thought.

  ‘Special Agent Bimsdale?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, sir, I’m calling it up.’ The young man next to me tapped the keys of a small computer. ‘No, sir, there’s no record of Isaac Morton being a member of the Antichurch.’

  Hexton stared at Sebastian.

  ‘Don’t ask,’ said the Fed.

  I didn’t have to. I knew that Nora Jacobsen had links with the Antichurch, though under interrogation she had claimed that she had joined when it was little more than a Maine folk memory and had left it years earlier. According to her, it had been a social club for misfits, rather than the full-blown cult Rothmann used to add force to his indoctrination plan.

  ‘Look,’ Quincy said.

  Nora Jacobsen had come out of the building, which looked more like a barn than a house, and was carrying a large bag to the pickup.

  The radio clicked. ‘Shall we intercept?’ came a trooper’s voice.

  ‘Negative,’ the major replied. ‘Stay on her tail.’

  ‘You might want to tell them she can handle a shotgun,’ I said, recalling my first encounter with the woman.

  ‘My men are experienced.’

  ‘Let’s take a look inside,’ Sebastian said, after Nora Jacobsen had driven off.

  ‘We don’t have a warrant.’

  Sebastian looked round, his eyes glinting in the light from the dashboard. ‘Major, this is a high-priority investigation. I will take responsibility.’

  Hexton decided against arguing. We got out and headed for the door. Sebastian pointed Bimsdale to the door. To my surprise, the baby-faced agent jimmied the door in a few seconds.

  ‘Was that legal?’ Quincy said, under his breath.

  I shrugged. ‘Define your terms.’ I watched as he drew his pistol and let him go ahead of me.

  The interior lights came on. I was right about it being a barn—although there was an iron bed frame in one corner, the rest of the place was divided into stalls, the timber bent and cracked. There was straw on the floor and the chill air smelled of long-dead animals and their dung. It wasn’t till my eyes had got used to the surprisingly bright light that I understood.

  ‘Shit,’ I said, pointing with my right arm.

  What I had thought were broken posts and stanchions was actually a line of four inverted crosses, each with a rope wound around the horizontal bar and a hook at the top of the vertical.

  ‘What the—’ Major Hexton broke off as Sebastian looked up at the roof.

  We all followed his gaze. They were hard to make out at first, but soon I saw the words that had been written on the uncovered boards. Each was about a foot in height, the paint faded but still red enough. I hoped it was just paint.

  ‘“To Make Their Heaven Our Hell,”’ Arthur Bimsdale read.

  Silence fell in the musty old room.

  ‘What does that mean?’ the major asked, his voice wavering slightly.

  ‘It means we urgently need to see what’s in the bag Ms. Jacobsen carried out of here,’ I said.

  ‘You got that right,’ Quincy said, dropping to his knees.

  Lying on the floor, partially covered by straw and dust, was a curved bone. It looked like a human jaw, the lower one. Most of the teeth, though broken and discolored, were still in place. I couldn’t tell how old it was but its presence, and that of the inverted crosses and the motto, suggested that the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant was very much alive and well.

  Abaddon arrived at Logan International Airport too late for the last flight to Portland, so she rented a Grand Cherokee and headed north on Interstate 95. It was cold in Massachusetts, but at least it wasn’t snowing. Although Abaddon had killed in winter conditions often enough, she didn’t like them. She was a hot-blooded creature of the South, she’d told herself often enough. The North was for people without feelings.

  She wasn’t feeling exactly happy about this latest assignment, which took precedence over other jobs. It wasn’t the first time she’d agreed to carry out surveillance, and she was good at it; but she preferred to kill. She viewed it as career progression—when she was not long out of the military and still wet behind the ears, she’d worked though all the specializations: close combat, communications, observation and surveillance, agent recruitment and handling, codes and ciphers, sub
version—she was a Grade A student at them all.

  Then she came to weapons training. She hadn’t just been a Grade A student, she was among the best they’d ever had at the company. So going back to watching people was a demotion, even though she’d been promised that several kills, including the Soul Collector and the enemy, would follow. They’d better.

  Abaddon sometimes wondered if she was wasting herself. There wasn’t much of a future in her line of work. As she got older, her skills would become compromised. If she didn’t screw up, she’d be able go on for a few more years. Then she would have to find something else to do. The idea of sitting at a desk horrified her. At least there were more and more opportunities in other countries these days—and employers in other areas were said to be less demanding.

  Driving into New Hampshire on the near-deserted road, Abaddon went over her instructions. Undertake surveillance of house at 15 Springfield Road, Portland; identify local law enforcement and FBI operatives; identify Matthew John Wells when he arrives at house and subsequently keep him under observation for as long as possible; identify FBI violent crime Director Peter Sebastian and log his activities; ascertain if others are involved in surveillance and identify them.

  It sounded as dull as a winter’s day in New York: too many people, too cold and too many guns. Abaddon would do her best to keep the peace, but if anyone made a move on her, she’d do what she always did—execute with extreme prejudice.

  On Major Hexton’s order, police surrounded Nora Jacobsen as soon as she pulled up outside the house in Springfield Road. By the time we got there, she had calmed down, but her face was still red. State troopers had cuffed her hands behind her back and sat her in an unmarked car. Detectives had gained access to the building and were standing guard over Mary Upson. I saw her face at the window. She looked less shocked than I’d expected. Maybe she knew more about her mother’s activities than she’d admitted.