Nom de Guerre

by Gulvin, Jeff

  He sat a while longer, finished his beer, then slipped off the stool and saw the men’s room sign in the far corner, beyond the pool tables. The door to the street opened suddenly and Valentin came in. Their eyes met and Valentin looked vaguely puzzled. Boese recovered himself and turned for the men’s room. He walked behind the backs of the drinkers, hunched shoulder to shoulder like so many pigs at the trough. He couldn’t tell; straight backs, working clothes, coats, long hair, short hair. But he sensed the presence, like something deep in his veins. He had sensed that presence so many times over so many years; this street, that street; in parks, bars, and particularly in churches, like Westminster Cathedral in London. He went into the men’s room and closed the door. Sitting on the toilet seat, he checked his guns. He heard the door to the bar swing open, two paces on the flagstones and then silence. No unzipping, no sound of anyone pissing. The sweat dribbled from the line of his hair and the gun felt weighty against his palm. In silence, he bent until he could see, at least partially, under the door. A man stood facing the panel of the box he was in, and the saliva dried in his mouth. Boese eased himself up again and gripped the pistol in his right hand, listening intently. Nothing, no more sound, not even the rasp of a breath. And then the door opened a second time. Somebody walked in and coughed, and then he heard the trickling sound of urine hitting the pan.

  He flushed the toilet, opened the door and stepped out, hand in his coat pocket, covering the butt of his gun. An old man stood at the urinal. No sign of anyone else. Boese moved back into the darkness of the bar, walking carefully, watchful. His stool was still unoccupied and he slid back on to it, aware of Valentin seated on his own in the corner. Boese looked the length of the bar once more, searching for those three blue letters on somebody’s hand. But he could not see them anywhere.

  Lopez took the call. They had been cruising the city most of the day and Swann had seen just about everything he could from the side window of a car. Lopez spoke rapidly in Spanish, then hung up and beamed at Harrison.

  ‘Homer,’ he said. ‘Valentin runs a basement shop on Galena. He goes by the name of Rico, and drinks in Garcia’s bar.’ He spun the wheel under his hand and drove north again. Swann looked at his watch, five o’clock now, and the once-pale sky was beginning to darken. It took them over half an hour to negotiate the traffic and Lopez pulled up a block from Valentin’s store. ‘He won’t be working now,’ he said. ‘He’ll be over in the bar.’

  They walked, the three of them, shoulder to shoulder, and Harrison looked at Swann.

  ‘How come he ain’t dead?’ he said.

  The bar was crowded with afternoon drinkers and filled with smoke. Swann manoeuvred his way to the counter while Lopez and Harrison circulated. Harrison spotted Valentin, still on his own, head down, waggling a glass of rum in his hand. Harrison nodded to Lopez, who in turn nodded to Swann. Swann bought the drinks and then all three of them sat down at Valentin’s table.

  ‘Hello, Henrique,’ Harrison said. ‘Why didn’t you answer the call?’

  For a long moment, Valentin just looked at them. Then he tried to get up, but Harrison had a hand on his arm. ‘Hey, bro. Relax,’ he said. ‘You’re not in any trouble. In fact, we’re watching your butt.’ He smiled again. ‘Strange world, ain’t it, the Feds looking out for an FALN bomb-maker.’

  Valentin’s eyes were hot now, a small fire smouldering amid the coals. ‘I’m not in the FALN any more,’ he said. ‘I serve my time. I serve it in four different prisons.’

  ‘Well, we had to move you, bubba. Your buddies were plotting to get you out.’

  Valentin flapped out a hand. ‘I do my time. I work my parole. Now I’m free. I pay my taxes and I pay my rent. I hurt nobody and nobody hurt me.’

  ‘Well, that’s the point, Henrique.’ Harrison leaned much closer to him. ‘Somebody’s looking to hurt you. And he’s about as mean a sonofabitch as it gets.’

  At the US Embassy in London, Christine Harris had occupied a desk in Combes’s office, where they were both digesting the information that was coming through in dribs and drabs from the US Secret Service. It was making interesting reading. The bank accounts held by both The Regiment and Jorge Vaczka’s organization had been investigated, and production orders obtained on every single electronic money transfer since the accounts were opened. Money was being paid from Poland, under the guise of invoices and goods delivered, but Harris checked with NCIS and then with MI5, who confirmed the probable activity of Abu Nidal. The link was much stronger than she had first imagined. Some of the accounts paying money to Vaczka’s banks were not accessible, because they were in Russia and Turkey. But others were, particularly an account in Israel and another one in Japan. Combes sifted electronic transfer requests that had been shipped to him via the diplomatic pouch, and scrutinized them under a magnifying glass. They were all handwritten and he went through them one by one. After an hour he sat back, frowned, then looked at Harris. ‘Funny thing,’ he said.

  ‘What’s that?’

  He handed her two separate slips from two separate banks. ‘Two different companies, one in Japan and one in Israel,’ he said. ‘The banks are in Australia and Jordan respectively. One of the companies lets vacation property on Australia’s Gold Coast, the other offers sailing holidays off Haifa.’ He made a face. ‘The directors are different, names, etc., but—’

  ‘The handwriting on both the slips is the same,’ Harris finished for him.

  Neither of them spoke for a full minute or more, then Harris said: ‘Vaczka’s account in the United States received ten thousand dollars. Five thousand dollars from each of these accounts.’ She cocked her head to one side: ‘Why would someone do that?’

  ‘Why indeed?’ Combes reached for the phone and called his office in Washington.

  Ben Dubin called into Scotland Yard as agreed. At the front desk, he waited by the eternal flame and put in a call both to the fifteenth floor and to the assistant commissioner for specialist operations. They had been friends for a number of years and he wanted to let him know he was there.

  Webb was in conference with Colson and Harris, who had just brought her findings back from the embassy. ‘The US Secret Service has requested the bank details of the two accounts in question,’ she said. ‘We’ll get sight of them, as and when they do.’

  ‘Interesting, though, isn’t it,’ Webb said. ‘Somebody paid Vaczka a total of ten thousand dollars in May of last year. Right around the time we arrested Ismael Boese.’

  The call came through from upstairs, telling them Dubin had arrived.

  ‘I want to be in on this,’ Harris stated.

  ‘No problem,’ Colson told her. ‘But we’re keeping it informal. We’ve got nothing but coincidence so far.’

  ‘Right.’ Webb pursed his lips. ‘That and a terrorist data base going back fifty years. Not to mention the CIA.’

  Colson shook his head at him. ‘That part we don’t tell him. The last thing I want right now is a diplomatic incident.’

  Dubin was shown up to the conference room on the Special Branch floor. Webb, Colson and Harris traipsed up the stairs and found him standing at the window, with his back to the door, looking out at the Palace of Westminster. He turned as they came in—his smile easy, his manner relaxed—and shook hands firmly with all of them. They sat down and Webb arranged for coffee to be brought in.

  Dubin steepled his fingers before him. ‘So,’ he said. ‘Here we are again. How can I help you this time?’

  ‘What do you think Ismael Boese’s doing in America?’ Colson asked him. ‘So far he’s killed three people, if you include what Tal-Salem did in Georgia.’

  ‘Four, if you include the English engineer in New Orleans,’ Dubin corrected him.

  ‘You’re right. Four.’

  Dubin sat back, stretching his legs out under the table. ‘I don’t know. It depends on whether or not you believe he’s the Storm Crow.’

  ‘We don’t any more,’ Webb said quietly.

  ‘Neither do the FB
I.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m a theorist, an academic. I’ve not been privy to the details of the case, as you have.’

  ‘You’re good friends with Louis Byrne,’ Webb said.

  ‘I am, yes. But Byrne’s the consummate professional. He doesn’t tell me much.’

  ‘You still believe that Boese is Storm Crow?’

  Dubin smiled then. ‘You know, it’s hard,’ he said, ‘when you’ve publicly espoused a theory, to see it come under such scrutiny. I always believed that the John Doe with Carlos at the Paris-Toulouse train bombing was whoever became Storm Crow. Byrne identified Boese as that man.’ He paused and licked a drop of saliva that stuck to his lower lip. ‘To me, it proved my theory, especially after I was given the opportunity of interviewing Carlos last year.’ He held up his hands. ‘I don’t know now, is the answer.’

  Webb looked carefully at him. ‘You attended the Shrivenham conference on international terrorism in August 1997,’ he said.

  Dubin nodded. ‘Your Sergeant Swann asked me that in Washington.’

  ‘But you only stayed till Thursday lunchtime.’

  ‘That’s correct. I had to fly to the States. I was due to give a lecture at Langley.’

  ‘Langley, Virginia,’ Colson said. ‘CIA headquarters?’

  Dubin nodded. ‘I’ve lectured to them many times over the years.’ He rested his elbows on the table. ‘What’s the significance of Shrivenham?’

  ‘How long were you in the States that time, doctor?’ Harris asked him suddenly.

  He snapped a short glance at her. ‘Ten days, I think. Or thereabouts.’

  She nodded, exchanged a glance with Webb, and sat back.

  ‘What’s the significance of Shrivenham?’ Dubin asked them again.

  Webb looked briefly at Colson before he answered the question. ‘Doctor, Tal-Salem remained in the UK after Boese was broken out. We didn’t know he was still here—until a man answering his description turned up in Oxfordshire. He claimed to be me, and he was scouring the major car hire companies, asking about rentals around the time of that Shrivenham conference.’

  Dubin screwed up his eyes. ‘Why?’

  ‘We don’t know. We only knew he was doing it when Avis, Hertz and National phoned here to let me know that the information I had requested was ready.’ He paused for a moment, then said: ‘The next thing we know—I’m getting the same calls from those companies’ offices in Newcastle. Apparently, I’d asked about one-way rentals from Oxfordshire.’ He shook his head. ‘We couldn’t work it out. But the man asking the questions answered Tal-Salem’s description. What d’you think he could be trying to tell us?’

  Dubin stared at him. ‘He thinks somebody might have rented a car in Oxfordshire and driven it to Newcastle. I would say that’s obvious, isn’t it.’

  ‘That’s what we thought. What we don’t understand is why?’

  ‘And you think I can help you?’

  Webb cocked his head to one side. ‘Can you?’

  ‘Not that I know of, Sergeant. No.’

  They were silent. The bark and growl of traffic lifted from Victoria Street, but in the room nobody spoke. Colson cleared his throat. ‘We think Tal-Salem believes that someone who attended the Shrivenham conference rented a car and drove it to Northumberland,’ he said. ‘A couple of months after that date we had the death of Bruno Kuhlmann and the discovery of pirillium E7/D10 at Healey Hall Farm.’ He scratched his eyelid with his index finger. ‘We know that Kuhlmann was there and we know that Boese was there. We also know that the pirillium was there in a sealed copper tube.’ He looked from Webb to Harris, then back again at Dubin. ‘What we don’t know for sure is how the derivative got there. The FBI believe it was manufactured by Abel Manley, the Minuteman chemist from the sixties.’

  A shallow smile spread across Dubin’s lips then. ‘You’re suggesting that I rented a car and took the derivative to Northumberland.’ He poked his chest with his thumb. ‘I could’ve done, couldn’t I. Because I left the conference Thursday lunchtime and I didn’t fly to the States till Friday evening. Plenty of time to get to Northumberland and back again to Heathrow.’

  All three of them were looking him in the face.

  He sat back then, hands resting easily in his lap and laughed out loud. ‘Wonderful,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a data base. I worked with RAND. The Israelis. I had access to the CIA, the DIA, Diplomatic Security, the FBI, British Intelligence. You people here.’

  Webb wasn’t laughing. ‘And you’re the only person who spoke to Boese while he was in prison,’ he added.

  ‘I thought you discovered he’d got messages out via codes in the International Herald Tribune.’

  ‘He did,’ Harris said. ‘But something happened to spark that off. It seemed to coincide with your visit last year.’

  Dubin crossed one ankle on his knee and looked at them out of slightly hooded eyes.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘What can I say? Apart from what a coincidence.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Why don’t you just say it, though it’s the most absurd notion I’ve ever come across in my life? You think I’m Storm Crow, don’t you.’

  Swann watched through the two-way mirror while Henrique Valentin was interviewed by Logan and Byrne. He sat across the table from them, with his shoulders hunched to his jowls and his chin down, arms folded tightly across his chest. He had been here over an hour now and had hardly said a word.

  ‘Henrique, believe it or not, we’re trying to help you,’ Logan told him for the umpteenth time. He looked up at her, shrugged his shoulders and looked down again. ‘You were in Ellis Island Correctional Center with Chucho Mannero,’ she went on. ‘Not for very long, but something happened while you were there, something that links you to Ismael Boese.’

  ‘Please,’ Valentin said. ‘You say you are helping me. OK. But you know, I don’t need your help. I did what I did. I was caught. I go to prison and I keep my mouth closed. Even when you move me this way, you move me that way. I say nothing. I do nothing. I make no trouble. Then I am released and I don’t jump my parole. I stay where I am for three years. Then I come home. I work. I pay taxes. I live a quiet life.’

  ‘We know all that, goddammit.’ Byrne thumped the table. ‘Listen, you stubborn sonofa … we’re trying to help you here.’ He jerked a finger at the window. ‘There’s a psychopath out there called Ismael Boese. Storm Crow, Henrique. The fucking Storm Crow. You know what, your name’s on his hospital list. He already killed your buddy, Chucho. He killed a guy called Jefferson and an old woman called Mary Greer. You telling me none of that bothers you?’

  Valentin closed his mouth, lips set in a line, and sat back in the chair. Byrne stood up, ran a weary hand over his scalp and opened the door. ‘Chey,’ he said, gesturing for her to follow him. ‘We’re gonna let you think about it, Henrique. It’s for your own good.’

  ‘You can’t keep me here,’ Valentin said. ‘I do nothing. I would like you call my attorney now, please.’

  ‘Later.’ Byrne shut the door on him and they all went back to the conference room.

  Swann left the anteroom after taking one last look at Valentin’s stiff features, and joined the others. One of the New York-based intelligence analysts brought in a fresh batch of information from the Bureau of Prisons. Rikers Island, where Valentin had been held before they moved him to Virginia. Everyone was weary, nobody seemed interested in any more paperwork.

  ‘Stubborn fuck,’ Byrne muttered.

  ‘Why didn’t Boese kill him?’ Harrison asked. ‘He definitely called you from Spanish Harlem, Louis. So how come he didn’t kill him?’

  Byrne stared at him and shifted his shoulders. ‘I don’t know, Harrison. I wish I did.’

  ‘Why come all the way up here and not do what you came for?’ Harrison upended a pack of cigarettes on the table. ‘Makes no sense at all.’

  Swann was not listening. He had picked up the list of inmates that had been sent from Rikers Island, and was leafing throu
gh them. The information was laid out year by year—transfers, new intakes, releases, parole violations. He didn’t look hard, merely skimming the entries. He set the papers down, as Logan asked if they could keep Valentin overnight.

  Byrne shook his head. ‘You know we can’t, Cheyenne. It’s a violation of his human rights. We can’t put him in protective custody without his permission. If he wants to hit the streets and die, that’s his decision.’

  Swann had picked up the papers again and was scanning more entries.

  ‘We’ll have to let him go then,’ Logan said wearily.

  ‘So put him on the street and get the special ops group to tail him,’ Harrison suggested.

  Swann skimmed a prison record entry, kept reading, then stopped. Adrenalin rushed in his veins. ‘Chey,’ he said, quietly.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘When was Valentin moved out of Rikers?’

  ‘March 1982.’

  Again Swann stared at the page. ‘There’s a new inmate record here,’ he said, ‘January 15th 1982.’

  ‘And?’ Harrison said.

  ‘Jorge Marius Vaczka.’