by Gulvin, Jeff
Outside, a figure stood in the shadows, saw the lights go off, then caught the flicker of blue reflected off the windows. He moved down the street towards the Potomac River.
Angie flicked through the channels and found nothing she wanted to watch. She untied her hair, shook it over her shoulders and slipped the bathrobe off her shoulders. Standing before the full-length mirror, she inspected her breasts, tweaking a nipple in each hand, straightening her back, then patting the flat of her stomach. ‘No kids, girlfriend,’ she said. ‘It shows.’
An hour later, the windows were in darkness. The figure stood in the silence and watched. Nothing, nobody on the street; late February and cold. His breath came in clouds, his eyes were narrowed. He wore black gloves and a black sweater. He climbed the steps, and watched again from the top. Then he slipped the ski mask over his head and ran his fingers round the rim of the door.
Silence inside. The kitchen, metalled and spotless in the half-light from the street. Across the wide hall, the staircase rose in a sweep of white pine. The lounge door was closed. In his soft-soled shoes, his steps made no sound as he climbed the stairs, with his head held high like a wolf; watching, listening. No sound, no movement, no sudden light. He moved to the master bedroom door, where he paused for a moment on the balls of his feet, eyes darting this way and that. He could hear the steady rise and fall of her breathing. Sleep: deep and peaceful sleep. What was she dreaming tonight?
He moved a step closer, watching the floor, polished wooden boards and a rug. The bed before him, raised on a platform, was an iron four-poster with muslin drapes pulled back and tied. A chink of light broke the weight of the shutters. He moved closer and closer. Then, reaching the bed, he slid back the drawer in the nightstand. A loaded .38 special lay in its box, the lid open. He lifted it out, effortlessly, soundlessly. Then he took a small black feather from his other pocket. He smiled under the mask, bent over the flawless white face, and drew the fanned end of the feather over her nose. She wrinkled her nostrils, sudden lines in her forehead. And then she was awake, eyes wide and staring, a scream rising in her throat. He flattened red lips with gloved fingers, and pressed the gun against her temple.
He could feel her trembling under his hand, the rise and fall of her chest—swift now, erratic, as if the breath was stuck in her throat.
‘Hush,’ he whispered. No accent, voice cracked and gravelly, way back in his throat. Slowly, he lifted his hand from her mouth, but still rested the barrel of the gun against her flesh.
‘My attorney,’ he said. ‘Pretty as well as tough. You’re much better looking close up.’
‘What d’you want?’
‘Ah, conversation,’ he said. ‘The subtle art of conversation. That’s our trouble, Angela. We don’t talk. You don’t listen to what I say. You don’t seem to understand.’ He said the words very slowly, very carefully, his voice back in his throat, ugly. ‘You must know that where the crow flies, only bad tidings follow.’ He looked at her through the slits in the mask and he could feel her fear as something tangible. He could smell it. It excited him. His eyes widened. ‘But the crow can bend the laws of the physical universe, Angela,’ he whispered. ‘You didn’t know that, did you? He’s a shape-shifter, becoming something else at will. Long, long ago, the Indians knew that the crow had perfected this art of doubling. He can be in two places at once. He is that fly on the wall. He can observe what’s happening far away.’
‘What’re you saying? I don’t …’
‘Hush.’ He let the word slip in a tight hiss to linger between them, his face close to hers now. She could feel something hard and sharp pressing into her shoulder. She thought it must be the gun barrel, but he still held it against her head. Then he drew the bedclothes back with it, and traced the skin between her breasts, pausing to look at the nipples.
‘You’re excited, Angela,’ he whispered. He moved the gun lower and she gasped and felt sure she was going to urinate. She lay there, rigid, naked, staring at him as he lifted the pistol back to her face. ‘Shape-shifter,’ he said, and walked out of the room.
She could not move. She wanted to scream, but when she opened her mouth no sound would come out. She didn’t hear him leave the house, didn’t know if he was still there or not. She lay rigid, not even lifting the bedclothes. Her mind was racing. Shock. She could feel it numbing her senses. Her body would not move, nothing seemed to work. How long she lay like that she did not know, but then something snapped in her head and she reached for the gun in the nightstand. It wasn’t there. She spasmed, controlled herself and picked up the phone. She dialled her husband’s cellphone. No answer. Switched off. She looked at the clock. One a.m. She rang his office and a voice she didn’t recognize answered.
‘This is Angela Byrne. Is my husband there?’
‘No, mam. I haven’t seen him for a while. I don’t know if he took off already, we been working pretty solidly here.’
‘Who is this?’
‘Agent Randy Shaeffer, mam.’
‘Storm Crow has just been here.’
‘What?’
‘Boese. In my bedroom. Just now. Get my husband. Get somebody over here now. Now, dammit. Now.’
She put the phone down and forced away tears. She would not cry, would not succumb to the terror, the humiliation that built inside her. The phone rang by the bedside.
‘Hello?’
‘Angie. What’s going on?’
‘Louis, where are you?’
‘On my way home. They just paged me. What’s up?’
‘Boese’s been here.’
For a moment, Byrne was stunned into silence. ‘What?’
‘Here. In our house. In our bedroom. Just now. He’s only just gone. I don’t even know if he has gone. I never heard him leave.’
‘I’ll be right there. Just stay calm. Lock the bedroom door.’
He hung up and she stared at the black hole where the door stood open. She looked for a long time, trying to penetrate the darkness. Then she leapt up and slammed it shut. Twisting the key, she leaned against it, sobbing.
Byrne raced the length of King Street, with his blue light on and siren wailing. He took the corner of Lee with wheels screeching and pulled on to the cobbles outside his house. He was out of the car in a flash, jacket flapping behind him as he wrenched his gun from the shoulder holster. He raced up the steps, fumbling for the key, and burst through the front door. Training. Clear each room. No matter that it was his wife up those stairs. The hall was clear. He checked the kitchen, the lounge. Then he took the stairs, inching his way up, gun in both hands, back against the wall.
‘Louis, is that you?’ He could hear her call him, hear her fumble with the lock.
‘Don’t open the door. Stay in the bedroom.’ He moved on, eyes everywhere, hair lifting on the back of his neck. At the landing, he stopped, again in the crouched position. He eased himself up the wall and switched on the landing light. Nothing. No movement. He checked the dining room, the other bedrooms and bathrooms, before finally knocking on their bedroom door and telling her to open it.
She fell into his arms and he hugged her. She squeezed him, blinked back tears and then pushed herself away from him. ‘Where were you? Your phone was switched off.’
‘It’s OK. I’m here now. The phone was off while I was in the office. I forgot to switch it back on. Randy Shaeffer paged me.’ He held her at arm’s length and stared. ‘How did he get in here?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t hear anything. I just woke up with something tickling my nose and then his hand was over my mouth. And his voice. Jesus, his fucking voice, like broken glass in his throat.’ She sat down on the bed, hugging herself like a child.
Byrne picked up the phone and called headquarters. ‘Randy, this is Byrne. I want an ERT down here right away. Get hold of Kovalski and tell him what’s happened. I want an APB put out on Boese. Every cop in the city, not just Washington—the parks, the counties, the Metro police, everyone. I want someone in Fugitive Publicity on this
now. I want his name, his goddamn face, splattered over every TV screen, every fucking newspaper in the country. Get Kovalski to call me here.’ He put the phone down and turned back to his wife. ‘You OK, honey?’ He sat on the edge of the bed, arm about her shoulders, and pulled her gently towards him.
‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Really. I’m over it now. It’s just the shock.’ She looked at the bedside table, drawer open, gun missing from the box. ‘He took my gun, Louis. He walked in here and took my gun. How did he know it was there?’
Byrne stared at the empty drawer, then at his own gun, still lying where he had dropped it on the bed. He could hear the howling of sirens in the distance. The phone rang and he answered it: Tom Kovalski. Byrne told him what had happened. ‘We need to go public on this now, Tom. We’ve got him right here in Virginia.’
‘OK. But there’s not much we can do till the morning. You got an ERT on its way over there?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Let them do their thing. Then I suggest you dose Angie up with sleeping tablets. In the meantime, I’ll make sure his picture’s sent down the line to every station house in the city.’
Byrne put the phone down and saw Angie getting dressed. ‘What you doing, hon?’
‘What does it look like? I’m not gonna stand here in my dressing gown while your agents dust my bedroom for fingerprints.’
Byrne smiled at her. ‘OK. I’m sorry, baby. You know it’s gotta be done. Sooner the better, eh.’
‘I know it.’ Angie pulled on a pair of jeans and pressed her T-shirt into the top of them. She stopped and looked at him. ‘I’ve had a shock, Louis. Somehow that bastard got in here. But I tell you now, I do not want this house turned into a fortress, you hear me?’
‘He took your gun, darling.’
‘I’ll buy another. I’ll keep it under the pillow. If he ever comes back, I’ll blow his fucking head off.’
Kovalski called Logan’s room in Reno. Swann was sleeping next to her, and when the phone rang, he picked it up by mistake.
‘Logan?’
‘Hang on.’ Swann passed the phone to Logan who was yawning and rubbing her eyes.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Shouldn’t have picked it up.’
‘Whatever.’ She took the phone. ‘Logan.’
‘What’s going on, Chey?’
‘None of your business.’
Kovalski laughed. ‘Right.’
‘Why’re you calling me at midnight, Tom?’
‘I want the three of you on a plane first thing in the morning. If you can’t get a civilian one, then get on to the DOD and organize something else. I want you in Washington tomorrow.’
‘What’s happening?’
‘Boese just showed up.’
The snow was falling hard now, fluttering against the fifteenth-floor window of the squad room at Scotland Yard. Webb sat at a desk on the telephone to National Car Rental, writing notes as he spoke. Colson and McCulloch stood next to him. ‘Right. OK,’ Webb said. ‘Thank you very much.’ He put the phone down, frowned at the sheet of paper he’d scribbled on and shook his head. ‘What the hell is going on?’ he said.
‘What?’ Colson sat down opposite him.
‘That’s National, Avis and Hertz,’ Webb told him. ‘They’ve all called me back about my enquiries regarding cars hired in August of 1997.’
‘From Shrivenham?’
‘And the surrounding area.’ Webb blew the air from his cheeks. ‘D’you know what,’ he said. ‘I never knew I could be in two places at once.’ He took a picture of Tal-Salem from the blue file on his desk. ‘And I never knew I looked like him.’
For a few moments, nobody spoke, then McCulloch scratched the skin under his jaw.
‘Tal-Salem, back in the UK.’
‘Maybe he never left.’
Colson picked up the file. ‘What happened in Shrivenham in August ’97?’ he asked.
Webb looked in his eyes. ‘The international conference on terrorism.’
Harrison phoned his contact again, while they waited for their flight at Reno Airport. He leaned in the booth and watched Swann and Logan steal a kiss across their coffee table.
‘Hey, Bill,’ he said, when the colonel answered. ‘You manage to locate him for me?’
‘I did.’
‘Good man. Where’s he at?’
‘Paris.’
‘What happened to Idaho?’
‘It’s not elk season till the fall.’
Harrison laughed. ‘How can I get hold of him?’
‘You can’t. He’ll contact you.’
‘Same old Cub. Listen, I’m going to D.C. this morning, Bill. Tell him to page me with a number I can call.’
On the flight to Dulles, while Logan was in the toilet, Swann asked Harrison about The Cub. Harrison told him he was a wetboy, a killer for the CIA; to all intents and purposes, a special operations mercenary. ‘He’s about the best they ever had,’ he said. ‘Half Indian, half Chinese-American. He’s made it his business to know everybody there is to know on the inside. They’ve used him all over the world. Nearly lost him once or twice, but it’s hard to lose The Cub. He is very careful, trusts nobody, especially his masters. It’s done on his terms or it’s not done at all.
‘I don’t know what his real name is, but he was born on the Nez Perce Reservation in Idaho. His momma died when he was six months old, and his old man took him to live with the Hudderites in Montana for a while. They moved back to Idaho, when, I guess, The Cub was about seven. Back to the reservation up near Kamiah. They say he slept in animal skins for the first twelve years of his life, and he had a habit of getting into things he shouldn’t. One day he brought home a baby mountain lion from the woods. You can imagine, all hell broke loose when momma lion came a-looking. Anyways, that’s how he got his name.’
‘How do you know him?’ Swann asked.
Harrison licked his lips. ‘You know what—sometimes I wish I didn’t. You probably figured there ain’t a whole lot in the world that bothers me. But that guy.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘Just glad he’s on our side.’ He blew out his cheeks. ‘Anyways, there was a Nez Perce Indian in our unit in Vietnam. That was before I went underground. We were patrolling one night and he took two in the chest. Deep jungle, Jack, the dust-off was two miles back.’ He glanced sideways at Swann. ‘I carried him out of there, kept him alive. Never thought no more about it. But it turned out he was The Cub’s uncle. One day I get a call from my old colonel. This Indian was an important hombre back on the reservation, some kinda medicine man. I guess The Cub reckoned he owed me. Lifetime thing, I figure. Whenever I’ve needed him, he’s been there.’
‘Why d’you need him now?’
‘Because there isn’t anything about anybody he can’t find out. If we’re lucky, you’ll get to meet him.’
They all gathered on the eleventh-floor conference room used by the Domestic Terrorism Operations Section. Kovalski, Byrne, Harrison, Logan and Swann, together with back-up agents and the support staff from Fugitive Publicity. Byrne was absolutely bristling, his face red and eyes edgy. Swann had never seen him so agitated.
‘She won’t have any damn protection,’ he was saying. ‘At her fucking desk by seven this morning. She says she’s safer there than anywhere else.’
‘She probably is, Lou,’ Logan said. ‘She’s a tough lady, your wife.’
Byrne relaxed a fraction and unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt. ‘It’s time to go public,’ he said.
Kovalski nodded. ‘How much do we want to release?’
‘Just his name and his picture,’ Logan said. ‘We can name him as the suspect in the Mississippi tanker hijacking, but we keep the feathers and the fact that he’s been calling Mrs Byrne out of it.’
‘And calling on her.’ Byrne spat the words from between his teeth. ‘He took the fucking gun from our bedside drawer. How did he know it was there, for Christ’s sake?’
Harrison was watching him from across the table. ‘Where else you gonna keep your pi
ece, Louis?’
‘I guess.’ Byrne looked at Kovalski then. ‘I agree with Cheyenne. Release the minimum to the press. What about America’s Most Wanted?’
‘I think we should do that. Maybe we could get the network to shuffle their schedule around. Get a programme put together just on Boese. Do the stuff in London, Rome, the full history. Put some pressure on him.’
Ed Leary, the representative from Fugitive Publicity, said he would begin working on it right away. He already had a copy of the file on Boese and he left the meeting to contact the television networks. Byrne said he would try again with Angela’s law firm about a wire tap on her office phone. After last night, they might just agree. Swann was thoughtful, saying little during their deliberations. Webb had left three messages for him in Washington and he had phoned him as soon as he got there.
‘Tal-Salem is in England telegraphing messages to SO13,’ he said quietly. Everybody stared at him. ‘He’s visiting the major car hire companies in a place called Shrivenham, in Oxfordshire. He’s got some false ID and is asking for the records to be sent to Detective Sergeant Webb of Scotland Yard. George Webb is my partner.’
‘You know it’s Tal-Salem?’ Logan asked him.
Swann nodded. ‘Undisguised, the description fits every time. There’s no question.’
‘This is the guy that killed Mary Poynton?’ Harrison put in.
‘Yes.’ Swann was looking at Byrne. ‘We’ve got two terrorists on both sides of the Atlantic trying to tell us something, Louis. Shape-shifting—Boese’s never mentioned that before. Why now?’ He thought for a moment. ‘The crow being able to double, to be the fly on the wall, the unseen observer. I’ve looked that up,’ he said. ‘It’s Indian animal totem mythology. Many tribes believed that the crow was the archetypal shape-shifter. He could become something else, and be in two places at once. Boese reads books on Geronimo, but why should he mention this now, and what does it mean?’ No one interrupted him. Byrne was watching his face. ‘The jackal and the crow,’ Swann went on. ‘Boese was with the Jackal, we know that. Dubin believes that Boese became Storm Crow. But the Jackal and the Crow never ate together. That’s what he’s telling us.’