The Nameless Dead

by Paul Johnston

  Lack of sleep finally caught up with me, but I got no real rest. They were there again, the shadowy figures. The woman had one arm extended, the other holding the infant. Her mouth opened wide as she called to me, her face soaked with tears. But I could hear nothing and I struggled even to remember her name, while the baby’s was long gone.

  Even though it was cold in the crypt, Gordy Lister was sweating. He was exhausted after the long drive back from Tallahassee, but the Master, as he’d taken to calling himself, didn’t care about that. He’d shown no interest when Gordy told him about Mikey’s death, saying only that he should get back as quickly as he could, but refusing to allow him to take any of the cars. Gordy could see the point, though he’d had the hassle of wasting a fake ID to rent the Taurus and leaving it back at the depot in Houston, meaning that one of the dead-eyed bodyguards had to go and pick him up. At least he had something to tell the split-cheeked one now.

  ‘Look at this.’ The man who had been Heinz Rothmann pointed to the computer screen.

  Gordy watched as flames played at the windows of a wooden house and smoke billowed into the night. ‘What is it, boss?’

  ‘It belongs to one of the Antichurch faithful in Portland, Maine. She detonated the safety charges.’

  Gordy Lister thought the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant was for the seriously deranged, but he had kept that from the Master. ‘Why do that?’

  ‘Because she had been taken by the police. The FBI was also involved. It would only have been a matter of time until they found sacred documents and other material.’

  Gordy felt a stab of concern. ‘Documents that would have led to this place?’

  The Master nodded.

  Gordy relaxed. ‘So she did good.’ He tried to keep his eyes off the fresh wounds on the other man’s cheeks. What was he now? Some kind of Zorro freak?

  ‘Indeed. Of course, they are coming, all the same.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look at this.’ The Master’s fingers played on the keyboard.

  Gordy watched as he zoomed in. ‘What the fuck? That’s the Englishman, Matt Wells.’

  ‘And his FBI puppet-master Peter Sebastian.’

  ‘What are they doing there?’

  ‘A good question, and one which I hope our sister-in-evil will be able to answer when she gets here. She is taking a rather roundabout route. Wells may be more direct.’

  ‘I don’t get it, boss.’

  ‘I don’t imagine you do. You see, I want Matt Wells here. He belongs to me. He will do great things for us.’

  ‘Right,’ Gordy said doubtfully. ‘And if the FBI comes with him in force? We’re in the right state for another Waco.’

  ‘There are other places we can go. Besides, the midwinter rite is tomorrow. The faithful are coming from far and wide.’ The Master’s eyes narrowed. ‘Faithful who are armed and capable of using their weapons. If the FBI wants another showdown, we can oblige.’

  ‘Is that a good idea, boss?’ Lister asked. He’d seen what happened during Antichurch rites. It was a toss-up whether there would be more blood spilt in the midwinter blowout or in a full-on battle.

  ‘Matt Wells is an essential part of my strategy. The fact that he is being used by the FBI shows he is important to them, but that is nothing compared with his importance to us. He is the only subject who was not fully coffined. That means that I can complete him in my own image.’

  Gordy let that mumbo jumbo go. When he’d run the operation in Washington, he’d been spared the boss’s more lunatic schemes—special camps, the Nazi militia, the Antichurch, the plot against the President. His main role had been to provide young people for the conditioning process. He was beginning to wonder what part he had in his boss’s plans, now that he seemed to have flipped his lid in a big way.

  The Master drank from a tall glass containing what Lister hoped was red wine. ‘You notice there have been no more of the so-called Hitler’s Hitman murders since you were in Philadelphia?’

  ‘Yeah, well, I might know something about that.’

  The other man put his glass down heavily. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘My brother Mikey, I think he was murdered. He was run down by a pickup driven by a blonde woman.’ Gordy had a flash of the bronze-skinned Latina bent over his groin. ‘That’s not all. He was under surveillance before the hit. Probably Feds, as the local cops are much less subtle.’

  ‘Have a drink, Gordy,’ the Master said, filling another glass from an ornate carafe. ‘There are several interesting points to your story. One, the killer was a blonde woman.’

  Lister sipped suspiciously. ‘Yeah, she had short blond hair.’

  ‘Begging the questions, who is she and who hired her? Two, if I understand you correctly, there was no surveillance at the time of your brother’s death. My condolences, by the way.’

  By the way up your ass, Gordy thought. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So we are left with the interesting possibility that someone in authority pulled the surveillance to facilitate the hit, as you call it.’

  ‘Or the guys went off for a hot dog,’ Gordy said, trying to keep things simple.

  The Master ignored that. ‘And, third, what motivated the hit? Did your brother have any enemies?’

  ‘Only the people whose wiring he screwed up.’ Gordy felt the other man’s eyes bore into him. ‘Shit, no. No one who would have killed him, at least.’

  The Master sat back and dabbed his lips with a napkin. ‘So why was he run down, Gordy?’

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea, boss.’

  ‘Well, I have. Someone wants to get at you.’

  Lister felt his stomach flip. ‘Me? What have I done?’

  The Master raised a hand. ‘Don’t worry, although your sins are many—not least those involving the young and beautiful twins you supplied me with—I don’t think this action was aimed primarily at you.’ He stood up and gathered his black robe around him. ‘It was aimed at me.’

  Gordy watched as the other man walked to the door with his head held high.

  He didn’t know whether to feel relieved or worried. On second thought, remembering what he’d heard about Matt Wells and the FBI’s involvement, he went for worried.

  I picked up my bags and then stood at a pay phone in the arrivals hall. I wasn’t making a call, but looking at the other passengers at the luggage carousel. Now that I was in the real world again, despite the presence of Quincy nearby, I felt the old vulnerability that Sara used to induce. Even if she wasn’t on my tail now, there was no telling when she might acquire me in her sights. I felt hollow, not just in my stomach, but in my arms and legs. She was merciless, unstoppable, an avenging demon.

  I pulled myself together and scanned people as they moved toward the exit. There hadn’t been many women on the flight, and those I could see fell into two groups—business types with smart clothes and leather briefcases, and students going home for Christmas. None of them looked even remotely like Sara, even assuming she had changed her appearance considerably. Then again, she could easily have disguised herself as a male. More of those were traveling business class, though many had a very Texan way of power dressing—cowboy boots under tailored suits and belts with large buckles. There were even a few outsize hats. I had to give up. Nobody looked like my ex-lover. Then again, I had no idea what she would look like when she came for me.

  I went out into the main concourse and located the passenger information desk. A pretty girl with turquoise eyes handed me an envelope for Mr. William A. Ronson. Pretty soon, she’d be giving another to Mr. Jerome Quincy—Sebastian reckoned that the soldier didn’t need a major change of identity. I kept my eyes to the front and headed to the luggage lockers. The key fitted the relevant lock and I took out the small bag inside. It didn’t weigh much and I wondered whether going after Rothmann armed was such a good idea. He was bound to be surrounded by trained and probably conditioned personnel. I told myself to stick with the plan. Then again, turning up empty-handed was an even w
orse option.

  I went over to the Hertz desk and picked up the SUV keys. It was a Mercedes with only a couple of thousand on the clock—nothing but the best for the FBI’s brown-eyed boy. Then I took the bus to the parking lot and found the car. It was big, green and a serious gasguzzler. Welcome to the Lone Star State.

  The hotel was only half a mile away. I was on the twelfth floor, with a view of the airport lights. I showered, ordered a steak from room service and called my partner in crime fighting.

  ‘You in the hotel?’

  ‘That’s a positive.’

  ‘Anyone on your tail?’

  ‘I ain’t that lucky, man.’

  ‘Are you in the bar?’

  ‘Check.’

  ‘Don’t get drunk, Mr. Quincy.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Don’t talk to any strange women. I’m serious.’

  ‘Check.’

  ‘How are you going to pay?’

  ‘Check.’

  I hung up. Quincy was a good man and I was glad to have him watching my back. But even he could only do so much against Heinz Rothmann and his band of brainwashed Nazi devil-worshippers.

  Abaddon had decided that steering clear of Portland was a good idea. She drove north for ten miles, then got off the Maine Turnpike and found a quiet side road to hole up. She drank a bottle of water and ate an eggsalad sandwich that she’d bought earlier. That made her feel slightly better, but she wasn’t looking forward to what she was going to have to do next. She booted up her laptop, checked the wireless connection was functioning, and then accessed the secure site. It was monitored on an ongoing basis.

  666—request subject location update, she typed, hoping for a simple answer. As the seconds turned into minutes, she realized she was going to get more than that.

  Commander—what happened? r u compromised?

  Abaddon groaned. It was the big boss himself and, as usual, he wanted to know everything. She answered as briefly as she could, stressing the role of the woman with long black hair in the parking lot, and waited to be dismissed from the operation since she couldn’t guarantee that she hadn’t been spotted. Long minutes passed. She concentrated on keeping her breathing steady. Failure was not something she had experienced often.

  Commander—proceed—subject en route houston tx—assume id watson georgina—meet aircraft lewiston me 1800—ditch rental, came the reply.

  Abaddon clenched her fists in triumph. She was still on the case. The truth was, she’d have found a way to stay on it even if she’d been fired. She logged off and packed away the laptop. Then she got out of the Grand Cherokee and opened the bag on the backseat. She had worn gloves ever since she had picked up the SUV, so prints were not a problem. She took out the outfit that she would wear as Georgina Watson, an unironed denim shirt and patched Levi’s, and took off the wig. Instead of short brown curls, Georgina, a tree-hugger, favored blond dreadlocks. She undid the buttons of her blouse and reached for its replacement.

  ‘You know, this is private land.’

  Abaddon froze, then moved her eyes up to the mirror. It showed a large man in a checkered shirt and jeans close to the rear of the vehicle. He was carrying what looked like a tire iron. Her own weapons were out of reach.

  ‘I said, this is private land, lady.’

  She left the blouse unbuttoned and turned to face him. There was a sharp intake of breath as his eyes fixed on her red brassiere and its contents.

  ‘You…you see,’ he mumbled, ‘we…we get a lot of people stopping here to do the drugs they got in the city. They make a mess, scare the kids…’

  The woman looked around. She hadn’t noticed any buildings in the immediate vicinity. The sound of traffic on the turnpike was audible in the distance, above the cackle of starlings.

  ‘But I don’t do drugs,’ she said, taking a step toward him.

  The man raised the tire iron to chest height. ‘They…they attacked me more than once.’

  She smiled. ‘Come on now, do I look like I’m going to do much attacking?’ She glanced down at her front.

  He laughed uneasily. ‘No, ma’am, that you don’t.’

  Abaddon took another couple of steps forward. ‘See anything you like?’

  The guy was in his forties and he looked like he hadn’t ever seen a woman in a state of undress before, save maybe in the movies. Lights-off-sex with the wife would be the rule. His eyes widened as she flicked off one of her straps and tugged down the cup.

  Then she crushed his windpipe with the back of her hand. He died with a wet smile on his lips.

  Twenty

  I woke before six the next morning, in a cold sweat despite the warmth of the hotel room. They had come to me again, the ones I had lost, dressed in white like the sheets that had covered them in the morgue. My son’s face wasn’t blue anymore, but corpse-gray like his mother’s. She had her hand stretched out to me again, her face twisted in pain and longing. And then she turned and started to walk down a rough track between trees. I knew immediately that it was the path everyone eventually had to take, the way to the land of the countless, nameless dead.

  I took a shower and pulled open the drapes. It was still dark outside, the static lights of the terminal and the moving ones on aircraft shimmering through the heavy drizzle that pattered against the pane. Our plan had me leaving the hotel at eight, so that I would be in Tyler County before ten. That left plenty of time before dark to find the Antichurch’s facility on the road between Warren and Fred. Quincy would keep a mile or so behind me, using the locating device to track me. He was to use his own discretion about coming to my aid if anything suspicious happened. The Bureau’s Houston field office was involved, but its operatives had been told to keep their distance.

  After I’d dressed, I checked the weapons in the bag I’d picked up. There was a combat knife in its sheath and a Glock 19 semiautomatic with two clips. I ejected a shell and examined it. As far as I could tell, it was the real thing. Although I didn’t fully trust Peter Sebastian, I couldn’t see why he would let me go into Rothmann’s den firing blanks.

  I logged on to the operation’s secure site and read a report that Major Hexton had filed late last night. The body of a thirty-nine-year-old male had been found near the turnpike about ten miles north of Portland. His throat had been crushed. A few yards from the body was a black Jeep Grand Cherokee. The number plate squared with one logged earlier in the day by a witness in the diner across the road from police headquarters, who had come forward last night. The assumption was that the driver, a woman, had made her way to the turnpike and hitched either north or south. A call was out for anyone who had seen or picked her up, but a lot of the traffic was interstate so drivers either might not have heard it or ignored it.

  So what the hell was going on? Could this second woman have been on my tail as well? Why had she killed the man? Had he seen something he shouldn’t have? That didn’t feel right. Who was the woman? The last thing I needed was someone who could kill with a single blow after me. In addition to Sara, that is.

  I checked out and had the Mercedes brought to the front of the hotel. I looked around surreptitiously, but there were no women apart from hotel staff in the vicinity. No sign of Quincy, either. All was as it should be.

  For speed, I took I-10 to Beaumont and then headed north toward the Big Thicket. At first I thought I was back in Cajun country in Louisiana. I’d gone on a wild trip there with some other crime writers after a conference in New Orleans—we ate gumbo, drank beer, sweated buckets and made enough noise to scare off any man-eating creatures.

  The forest grew thicker the farther north I got, and there was no shortage of lumber trucks—in that respect, the area was like Maine, but with more humidity and a lot more insect life. I could believe that runaway slaves and draft dodgers had made use of the Big Thicket in the old days. It struck me that the difficulty of tracking people down in the swampy terrain might have attracted Rothmann, too. Then again, there were signs of the oil industry encroaching
, which would have reduced his privacy.

  I made it to Warren and stopped for a cup of coffee. There was a pamphlet about the area in the diner. Apparently there were eight different vegetation zones in the Big Thicket preserve, ranging from palmetto hardwood flatlands to stream flood plains, whatever those were. They harbored over eighty species of tree and sixty kinds of shrubs. Since I’d lived in cities on the other side of the ocean all my life, a lot of the fauna was unknown to me: loblolly pine, bluejack oak, tupelo and sundew. I breathed in and got a distinct blast of nature in the raw—swelling, burgeoning and slightly rotten. Again, just the place for Rothmann and his Nazi Satanists.

  I sprayed on some insect repellent and buttoned my cuffs. It wasn’t raining anymore, but the humidity was heavy-duty. Fortunately, the Mercedes had a great aircon system. As I drove through the town, I wondered what the locals did when they weren’t working. There was no shortage of churches and I remembered I was in the heartland of the Southern Baptists. Some of them believed in the reality of Satan as much as the Antichurch did, but they expected the faithful to be taken up in the so-called Rapture, while the rest of us stayed on ground level to wait for Armageddon. It struck me that the Antichurch would have found more followers down south than in sparsely populated Maine. Could that be why the annual gathering was happening here?

  Then again, where was ‘here’? I found access road 1943 and set off down it slowly, looking from side to side. None of the buildings looked likely candidates. Soon I came to signs on the right for the Turkey Creek Trail. According to the pamphlet, walkers would traverse a pine-hardwood forest cut with sandy knolls, then forests of loblolly and short-leaf pines, white and red oak, and others. Paradise for a nature lover, but the numerous unnumbered gravel tracks made it hell to check out thoroughly. The calls of strange birds filled the woods and I began to wonder if my boots were thick enough to repel snake bites. I was as lost for clues as Hansel and Gretel. Then it struck me that Antichurch members like Nora Jacobsen would be coming from far away and would need help to identify the hidden premises. I continued on 1943, swiveling my head until my neck began to ache. Unshaven guys with disintegrating baseball caps and dented pickups honked at me and I waved at them like a dumb tourist. Maybe I should just have asked where the devil worshippers hung out.