Not only that: Wells had been involved with the blonde bitch who had killed Mikey. And now the fucker was going to be paraded in front of the cameras, modestly accepting the praises of the FBI Director? No way.
He ordered a shot of Wild Turkey and thought about the dead Nazi. Sure, the Kraut was as cracked as a mirror in an earthquake zone, but he’d been good to him—cool apartment, luxury cars, plenty of tight young snatch. The limey bastard Wells would tell the Feds all about Rothmann’s sidekick. Every law enforcement professional in the country would be looking out for Gordy Lister, no matter how many changes he made to the way he looked. Unless…
In the back pocket of his pants, he kept a small, leather-covered notebook.
He’d never been good at remembering numbers, but when he saw them written down he always knew what they were, meaning he didn’t have to add names or other identifying symbols. On page thirty-seven was a number that Rothmann had given him a couple of months back. His boss had given him to understand that the white-haired former admiral had been an early conditioning subject—apparently it hadn’t taken fully, though Rothmann still thought a certain trigger could provoke an ‘interesting’ response. All right—it was time to see what form that response might take.
Gordy went out into the parking lot and made the call. He recognized the respondent’s tones immediately and spoke the trigger, ‘Erfurt’—he’d never had any trouble remembering words. There was silence, and then the person said, ‘I am at your command.’
Gordy swallowed a laugh. This was a gas. ‘The United Nations Climate Change Conference,’ he said, impersonating his former boss as best he could. ‘Dispose of people antagonistic to our ideology.’ That was the kind of tortuous language Rothmann favored. ‘And dispose of Matt Wells after use.’ Then he passed on the necessary word and he cut the connection.
Now he felt even better. Killing the Master had left him with a small piece of guilt that might have grown in the future. Not anymore. Vengeance for the both of them was his! He got into the rental car and headed north. He could get a flight in St. Louis that would connect with others for destinations much farther to the west. Winter in the South Seas would be balmy, sexually stimulating and light on Feds. From there, the world was his oyster, clam and abalone.
‘Hello, Arthur. What are you doing here?’
Bimsdale gave me a searching look. ‘I could ask you the same question.’
‘Ask your boss,’ I replied, turning away. Maybe Sebastian’s former assistant had heard about the press conference and wanted to be part of it. Then I thought of his ex-boss. I was still unsure about what had really happened to him. And why would Bimsdale have broken off the investigation in Texas to come to New York?
The question slipped away as the Director led me toward the Russians, a couple of whom I recognized: a shifty specimen who had gone from the KGB to become energy minister and a tall guy with overgrown eyebrows who was reputed to be the richest oilman in the world. The FBI chief was being effusive in Russian. He then raised his hands, apparently asking them to stay where they were, and moved to the Chinese delegation. He didn’t know their language, but his arm and head movements were easy enough to interpret—he was herding them toward the Russians. Another man whose face I knew from the TV arrived: the President of the European Union. In the distance, I recognized Rudi Crane. He was surrounded by men in sharp suits, while he himself—ever the preacher, apparently—was wearing a simple black combo. It struck me that he would be ideally placed to cause trouble; according to the Hercules Solutions website, he had hundreds of ex-special forces operatives working for him. All the same, he looked pretty harmless, a soft smile on his lips.
And then things started to get strange. I experienced a couple of lightning flashes in my brain and heard a babble of voices, which was rapidly reduced to one, that of a ranting, high-pitched speaker in a language I couldn’t understand, but whose meaning was somehow apparent. We are surrounded by enemies…neighboring states that have been historically hostile toward us… Slavic subhumans who wish to trample us underfoot…yellow-skinned barbarians interested only in rape and plunder…we will crush them all…
I came back to myself, my fists clenched hard. What was that? Some remnant of Rothmann’s conditioning that had been prompted by the sight of the various ethnic groups? I stepped closer and watched the delegates as they shook hands, reluctantly at first and then with increasing enthusiasm. The Director looked gratified, not least when the secretary of state appeared, wearing the expression of someone whose thunder has been well and truly stolen. And then the former admiral turned to me, beckoning me closer. He bent forward till his lips were only a few inches from my ear.
‘Keep them together and don’t allow anyone to interfere, Mr. Wells,’ he said, his voice steady but euphoric. ‘Chanak, I say. Chanak.’
The sentient part of me was immediately separated from my body, aware of the subtlety of the trigger but unable to resist it.
Chanak, a Turkish town that had played a strategically significant role during the Gallipoli campaign of the First World War, a campaign orchestrated by German commanders, resulting in the defeat of British Empire and French forces by the Ottoman Turks.
I watched as my body pushed the Russians and Chinese closer. Arthur Bimsdale remonstrated and I threw him several yards through the air. He came back at me, throwing me over his shoulder with a skillful judo move. I got to my feet, planted my elbow in another FBI man’s gut, and lowered my shoulder. I rammed Bimsdale into the group of shocked statesmen. Security personnel approached and I rendered them harmless with karate strikes, head butts and punches.
Then I saw Arthur Bimsdale shoving through the crowd, trying to get to the Director, whose hands were moving inside his jacket. Instantly I understood what he was doing. He must have brought the undetectable chemical components of a bomb through the security checks and was now mixing them. At the same time, he was shouting to the politicians in Russian and in English to stay close, and that he was in control of the situation. Some on the outside of the circle had broken away, but there were still over a dozen in close range.
I had been trying to get my conscious self into the protective headspace that Doctor Rivers and I had worked on, but without success. This trigger must have been buried deep, giving it greater power over my actions. I tried again and again to break free. I roamed around the statesmen, keeping them in a ring around the Director and fighting off anyone who tried to intervene.
And then Karen came to me. She rose up like a goddess, dressed in a long white robe. She was cradling our son in her arms and there was a tender smile on her lips. She looked at me, looked into my eyes, and I heard her voice. She spoke words of love that brooked no argument and I heard myself respond to them. Love beyond death…
In a blur of movement, I found myself back in my body and back in control. Now I was pulling the Russians and Chinese away, shouting at them to run. Ahead, I saw the Director look up, his eyes wide. Arthur Bimsdale was behind him, still struggling to get past the confused statesmen. I pushed myself between the Russian energy minister and the European President. The Director was right in front of me, his hands holding two white plastic bottles. One of them was almost empty. A beatific expression came over the old man’s face as he held it toward me.
What was he saying? Too late, I saw a wisp of smoke or fumes escape the container as I threw myself over him in the best smothering tackle I had ever made.
There was a flash and a bang, and I went speedily to another place.
‘You lose,’ he had been saying. ‘They’ll miss you.’
Thirty-Seven
Rudi Crane was across the conference hall. He had been watching the FBI Director’s diplomatic activities and wondering what the former admiral was doing. He knew him, of course—had known him when he was still in the Navy and Hercules Solutions was nothing more than a small operator trying to muscle into the private security business. There had been rumors that the admiral was a CIA man, but that see
med unlikely, given his present position. When the group of statesman became a herd of confused sheep, with the Englishman Matt Wells running around like a sheepdog, Crane had got even more curious. Then fighting broke out and he decided to keep his distance, signaling the retreat to his executives. He didn’t want the company to be part of any unpleasantness, an approach subsequently justified by the muffled explosion which brought chaos to the entire area.
Retiring to the entrance hall, where no one was being allowed in or out, Rudi Crane thought about what he had witnessed. Had someone made an attempt on the FBI Director’s life? Certainly, Wells had been behaving strangely. Could one of the foreigners have brought explosives into the UN’s neutral domain?
The only thing to be said for the episode was that it could be spun for the good of security companies like his. If Hercules Solutions had been handling matters, no one would have been allowed to smuggle explosives in. It struck him that the whole thing might be a welcome distraction from what had gone on in Texas. Although there was nothing to tie H.S. with the camp down there, he didn’t like loose ends. The FBI would be working on the bodies of the assassins he had hired and, no doubt, their identities would eventually be uncovered. There was no link to him, but he would have preferred a tidier ending to his strategy of disrupting Jack Thomson’s activities and gaining possession of the conditioning program. Who knew what had happened to that? He suspected his former collaborator would have made sure law enforcement wouldn’t find it. There would be other government agencies after it, as well.
He took a seat in the entrance hall and watched as media people ran past, cameras and hairstyles wobbling. On reflection, he didn’t regret the so-called Hitler’s Hitman killings—the name had been suggested off the record to a journalist by one of his PR people. The assassin had followed their instructions and Thomson had been duly pressured. The unknown quantity had been Matt Wells. He had never expected the FBI to use a murder suspect in an investigation, especially not one with a grudge. Had the Director known about that? The fact that the lead investigator, Peter Sebastian, had been found dead was, at the very least, convenient for some people.
No, he would go back to the apartment and pray for a better day tomorrow. He should have known that cuddling up to politicians would be a waste of time. Hard-hearted businessmen were much easier to deal with.
Which reminded him: he needed to sign off on that stewardess’s promotion—what was her name again? She had the soul of a sinner, but her mouth was a miracle.
To my surprise, I came round quickly. I was still lying on top of the Director and the same besuited legs, both vertical and horizontal, were in my close vicinity. There was a foul smell in the air and Arthur Bimsdale’s hair had been scorched. Otherwise, he seemed okay. He sat up as I studied him, my eyes stinging, and looked toward me.
‘Are you all right?’ His voice sounded tinny.
‘Yeah.’ My own voice was weird. I was probably lucky I could hear anything.
‘What about the Director?’
I put my hands on either side of the old man’s head and levered myself off him. His face and hair had turned black in the blast, most of which had been directed back at him when I crashed into him.
‘Chemical bomb,’ Bimsdale said redundantly. ‘The proportions must have been slightly off. We were lucky.’
‘He wasn’t.’
The Director’s blue eyes were wide open, the whites crisscrossed by broken blood vessels. A piece of sharp plastic from one of the containers had penetrated his throat. Now I was standing, I realized that the clothing on the upper part of my body was drenched in arterial blood. People all around were gasping and raising their hands to their mouths.
I took off my jacket and accepted a blanket from a paramedic.
‘What happened to you?’ Bimsdale asked.
‘Trigger,’ I said, in a low voice. ‘I fought it off.’
‘Good for you. And the Director?’
I stepped aside to allow the paramedics to attend to the dead man. ‘Something similar, I’d guess. He spoke the word that nailed me.’ I thought back to what the Director had come out with as I overpowered him. ‘They’ll miss you.’ What had he meant? The people of the world? My friends?
The next three hours were a tedious succession of statements to various law enforcement agencies—UN, NYPD and others—and a trip to hospital for a check-up. I was given the all clear, though I was to see a doctor if my hearing didn’t improve within a week. I had numerous aches and pain across my body, the result of my fights with Bimsdale and others before the explosion, but none of them were important. When I was escorted out of the hospital by Special Agent Simonsen and his sidekicks, a battery of camera lights flashed on and the vultures let loose their questions—‘How does it feel to be a hero?’, ‘Was the FBI Director a North Korean agent?’ and ‘Are you going to write a book about this?’ were three of them. A headache had settled over my ravaged brain, so I kept quiet. That only made them more interested.
‘Do you want to freshen up?’ Simonsen asked.
I nodded.
‘Back to the hotel then.’ He led me to a waiting car.
‘Jesus,’ he said, as we were driven away. ‘Imagine if the Director had managed to take out the cream of the Russian and Chinese governments.’
‘Don’t forget the President of Europe.’
‘Oh, yeah, he was there, too. Good moves, my friend. You ever played gridiron?’
‘Rugby league.’
‘What’s that?’
I waved a hand feebly and sat back. The buildings of New York moved by, the rain still teeming down. Was that really it, the end of the affair? I felt a wave of exhaustion crash over me, which was hardly surprising, considering my physical and mental exertions and the lack of sleep recently. But that wasn’t the whole story. While I’d been on Rothmann’s tail and fighting through the Hades complex, even when I’d been with the Director, I’d been able to keep the ones I’d lost at the back of my mind. I couldn’t do so anymore. I could see them again, clearer than ever, Karen holding our son and smiling sadly as they hovered forever out of reach. Was this what the rest of my life was going to be? The prospect nearly made me jump out of the car.
‘Are you okay?’ Simonsen asked.
I raised a hand again, unable to speak. My eyes filled with tears. At first I thought I could pass that off as a result of the explosion, but then I gave up. I wasn’t going to be able to hide what had happened to Karen and the baby anymore. Well, maybe a bit longer—Simonsen was a nice enough guy, but I didn’t feel like opening up to him, especially with another agent in the front seat.
‘Home away from home,’ Simonsen said, as we approached the hotel reception. I had only just realized that the Chrysler Building was down the street and was trying to get a look at it. The rain and mist cut off the upper part of glass and steel tower.
Simonsen came with me to the thirty-second floor. ‘I’ll be outside,’ he said, with a tentative smile.
‘You don’t have to do that.’
‘Acting Director’s orders. You’re a celebrity now.’
I tried to raise an eyebrow, but that hurt. ‘I presume the press conference isn’t going ahead tonight.’
‘Not the one the admiral set up. But stand by for one about today’s fun and games.’
‘Have I got a choice?’
He laughed. ‘Sure. You’re not one of us.’
‘You got that right.’ I opened the door and went inside, pulling the blanket from around my shoulders and dropping it on the floor. Then I looked up and saw them.
Karen and our son were framed by the window and behind it was the top half of the Chrysler Building, pointing to the sky like a rocket on the launch pad.
I fainted.
I came round for the second time that day. This time I was lying on a carpeted floor rather than a dead body. Two women were on their knees beside me. One of them was Special Agent Julie Simms, Peter Sebastian’s sidekick from the Illinois camp, and she lo
oked guilty as sin. The other was Karen.
‘Have I died?’
‘And gone to heaven,’ Karen said.
‘The other place, more like. I’ve already been there.’ I got myself into a sitting position, aided by the FBI agent. Karen was holding the baby on her lap.
‘Magnus,’ I said, his name finally coming back to me.
‘Magnus Oliver Wells,’ she confirmed.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and opened them again. They were still there.
‘How did…’ My voice broke and my eyes filled with tears. This was getting to be a habit.
‘Shh,’ Karen said, kissing me on the forehead. ‘Would you like to hold him?’
Suddenly that was the thing I most wanted to do in the world. I let her place him in my hands and then lifted him up. He was awake, green eyes wide and fixed on mine. He had a lot of brown hair.
‘Magnus,’ I said softly, kissing his forehead in turn. ‘I’m…I’m your daddy.’
I heard Karen sob and I don’t think Julie Simms was far off joining her. I held my son close and breathed in his priceless scent. He made a noise and I moved him outward again. He blinked and then smiled broadly. He was the only one whose eyes stayed dry.
After Karen had put her arms around me and we had communed silently as a family for the first time, I kissed her on the lips and pushed her back gently.
‘You look fantastic,’ I said, and she did.
‘We’ve been well looked after.’ She glanced at Special Agent Simms, who was now standing against the wall.
‘I’ll leave you,’ Simms said, picking up her jacket.
‘Oh, no you don’t,’ I ordered, provoking a squeal from Magnus. ‘Shit, sorry.’ I handed him to Karen, who laughed lightly.
‘Don’t blame Julie. She was only following orders.’
‘I’ve heard that somewhere before.’
‘Let her go,’ Karen said, opening her blouse and putting the baby to her breast. ‘I’ll tell you what happened.’
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