R. J. Ellory

by A Quiet Vendetta

  My soul was lost; my destiny was closed and sealed and irreversibly decided; the world and all its madness had challenged me and I had succumbed.

  If ever there was a Devil, I had accepted him as my bedfellow, my compadre, my blood-brother, my friend.

  I had at first followed in my father’s footsteps, and then rescued him from justice for the killing of my mother.

  In my mind was a darkness, and through my eyes I saw that same darkness everywhere I looked.

  What was once within now became all that was without.

  We landed at Cardenas. I brought with me a shadow that I carry to this day.

  TEN

  Of all the things he had learned, Ray Hartmann knew one thing for certain: that it was not possible to apply reason to an unreasonable action.

  Perhaps in some dark and shadowed corner of his mind he could find some measure of understanding for these things that had been done – the killing of Perez’s mother, the burning of the body, the escape to Cardenas in Cuba, even the death of the salesman – but he could not begin to understand the man who had done them. Hartmann did not believe evil was hereditary, but just as he had studied before, just as he had learned in books by Stone and Deluca, the O’Haras and Geberth, he believed there were indeed situational dynamics. This was the territory of criminal profiling, and here he was, lost and without anchor, hurled headlong into something that he could never believe real.

  ‘You are somewhat introspective, Mr Hartmann,’ Perez said quietly, and leaning forward he took a cigarette from the packet on the table and lit it.

  ‘Introspective?’ Hartmann echoed.

  Perez smiled. He drew on his cigarette and then issued two fine streams of smoke from his nostrils.

  Like a dragon, Hartmann thought. A dragon with no soul.

  Perez shook his head. ‘You find such things difficult to comprehend?’

  ‘Yes, perhaps,’ Hartmann replied. ‘I have read thousands of pages, seen hundreds and hundreds of pictures of such things, the things men can do, but I don’t know that I am any the wiser as to motive and rationale.’

  ‘Survival,’ Perez stated matter-of-factly. ‘It always comes down to nothing more fundamental than survival.’

  Hartmann shook his head. ‘That’s something I can’t agree with.’

  ‘I see,’ Perez replied. ‘I see.’

  Hartmann leaned forward. ‘You truly believe that all the things that have been done have been in the name of survival?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘How so? How could survival ever justify murder?’

  ‘That is easy, Mr Hartmann, because more often than not it is simply a matter of yourself or them. Faced with such a situation there are few that would be willing to sacrifice their own lives.’

  Hartmann looked at Perez, looked right at him, and believed that this man was more animal than human being. ‘But what about paid killers . . . what about people who murder complete strangers simply for money?’

  ‘Or for knowledge?’ Perez asked, perhaps making reference to the death of Carryl Chevron.

  ‘Or for knowledge, yes.’

  ‘Knowledge is survival. Money is survival. The truth is that motive can never be truly appreciated by another. Motive is a personal thing, perhaps as personal and individual as the killer himself. He kills for some reason understood only by himself, and that reason can always be explained by the individual’s own perception of what will enable him to survive in the best manner at the time. Later, perhaps, in hindsight, a different viewpoint will lend itself to the situation and the perpetrator may believe that he has done wrong, but in the moment of the killing I can guarantee that it was adjudicated to be the most contributive to his own survival, or the survival of that which owned his loyalty.’

  Hartmann was shaking his head. He could not stretch his mind wide enough to encompass what Perez was saying. Truth be known he was horrified by the man, and there was nothing he wished for more than to leave the room and never return.

  He looked up, half-expecting Perez to continue, but Perez had finished talking. Hartmann was aware of the fact that every word the man had spoken was being recorded behind closed doors. Lester Kubis would be there, headphones clamped to his head, and over his shoulder would be Stanley Schaeffer and Bill Woodroffe, their brows sweating, listening to every word Perez uttered in the vain hope that it would give them some indication of where they might find Catherine Ducane.

  But Perez had given them nothing but himself, and all of himself. Hartmann did not doubt that what Perez was telling him was the truth, and already he believed there was no easy way to understand the man’s motivation for his actions. How this man was connected to Charles Ducane Hartmann could only guess, but the corridors of power were lined with victims of men such as Ernesto Perez. Time would tell, of course it would, but Hartmann was aware that he had little time at all. A week from then, midday of Saturday 6 September, he was supposed to meet his wife and daughter. This event would be swept aside as irrelevant compared to what he was dealing with now. His own personal affairs were of no concern to either Schaeffer or Woodroffe or, least of all, to Attorney General Richard Seidler, FBI Director Bob Dohring and Governor Charles Ducane. Their sole concern, understandably, was the whereabouts and welfare of Catherine Ducane.

  Later, lying on his bed at the Marriott Hotel, Hartmann would close his eyes and recall the man he had faced for the better part of two hours. Ernesto Perez, an old man, a man who had begun his life confronting the destructive nature of his own father and the violence he had wreaked through every aspect of his childhood. Perez was now sequestered on the top floor of the Royal Sonesta Hotel, the remainder of the lower four floors having been cleared of guests by the FBI. The Sonesta now housed in excess of fifty Bureau operatives, security could not have been tighter for the president himself, and in the penthouse suite Perez himself was guarded by twelve armed men. He had asked for a music system, CDs of Schubert, Shostakovich, Ravel, Louis Prima and Frank Sinatra, also for clean shirts and nightwear; and for his supper he’d requested fresh marlin, Viennese potatoes, a green salad and a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. These things had been arranged, because for the brief while that he was the guest of the FBI as opposed to the Federal Penitentiary system, Ernesto Cabrera Perez would be given every accommodation and granted every wish. And then the girl would be found – dead or alive – and the party would be over. Hartmann felt certain Perez was aware of this fact, and thus he was sure he would take every advantage he could. The man, whoever he was, was evidently wise in the ways of the world, and that included the FBI and what they could provide.

  Schaeffer and Woodroffe met with Hartmann after Perez had been escorted away.

  ‘What d’you think?’ Schaeffer asked him.

  ‘About what?’

  Schaeffer rolled his eyes and looked discouragingly at Woodroffe.

  ‘About the New York Knicks’ chances this fucking season, Hartmann . . . what the fuck do you think I’m talking about?’

  ‘Perez or the girl?’

  ‘Okay, Perez,’ he said. ‘First Perez.’

  Hartmann said nothing for a time. ‘I think he knows exactly what he’s doing. I think he’s planned this down to the last detail. I think day by day he will tell us only so much as he wants us to know, that he will give us little bits and pieces of this and make us work very hard to see the whole picture. His motives? I have no idea. Perhaps that won’t come until the very last piece falls into place. Right now he has the upper hand. He has something we very much want, and he knows we will cater to him in every way we can in order to find that out.’

  Woodroffe was nodding in the affirmative. ‘That’s my take on it,’ he said. ‘I’ve got people working on him already. We have his prints. We know what he looks like. They will trawl through every file and document we’ve got. They’ll go through CODIS, to VICAP Criminal Profiling at Quantico. Transcripts of what he tells us will be passed to the best people we have and if there’s anything to discover the
y’ll find it.’

  Hartmann was not so sure there would be anything to find. He believed that Perez knew exactly what he was saying and how he was going to keep them running until the very last moment. For a second he even considered the possibility that the girl was already dead.

  ‘So motivation we don’t know, and are not likely to know until he tells us,’ Schaeffer said. ‘Until we have some kind of a handle on that there is nothing we can do but follow exact protocol. We have sufficient resources to follow any lead we might find, realistic or otherwise. If anything comes up from other areas we’ll go with it, but right now our main task is to keep this man talking, keep him on the subject as best we can—’

  Hartmann smiled drily. ‘I believe he intends to tell us his entire life story. This is his unwritten autobiography, the opportunity of a lifetime to tell us everything that he’s done, everywhere he’s been, and everything he knows about everyone else. It would not surprise me if we didn’t encounter Governor Charles Ducane at some point along the line.’

  There was silence for a moment from both Woodroffe and Schaeffer, and then Woodroffe leaned forward, rested his hands on the table and assumed a very serious expression.

  ‘I do not need to tell you that everything you hear both inside and outside this office is governed by the jurisdiction of the FBI. Not a word, not a single word will go out of here, you understand?’

  Hartmann raised his hand. ‘I’m not in kindergarten, Agent Woodroffe—’

  Woodroffe smiled. ‘I am well aware of that fact, Mr Hartmann, but I am also aware that you have had your own troubles in the past, a small area of difficulty regarding the way you have handled your own personal affairs, and it is not unknown to us that you have been registered with Alcoholics Anonymous, and have run into some significant difficulty with your wife and daughter as a result.’

  Hartmann was incensed. He opened his mouth to speak but Woodroffe raised his hand.

  ‘It is of no matter to us,’ he said. ‘We understand that you have performed in an exemplary fashion for a considerable time in your job, and we also understand that you are here at the specific request of Perez and there is nothing we can do about that. All we are saying is that this is a matter of the highest national priority right now, and we need everyone on the same side and running after the same ball.’

  Hartmann sighed inside. He did not wish to be there. He did not want to be having this conversation with these people. His native human instinct cared about Catherine Ducane as a human being and he did feel a certain sense of responsibility and duty to see this through. He would do what he had been asked to do, he would get it done as quickly as was possible, for every day that elapsed brought him a day closer to the possible resolution of the difficulty with his wife and daughter that Woodroffe had alluded to.

  This was not a game, this was real life – rough edges, sharp corners and all. Hartmann had no mind to run up against these people, or to have them dictate his life and time any more than they absolutely had to.

  ‘You won’t have any difficulty with me,’ Hartmann said, willing himself not to lunge across the table and beat Woodroffe to a bloody pulp. ‘I am here to do this, and when it’s done I will disappear and you will never hear from me again. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m tired and I would like to go back to my hotel, because I imagine that we will all be gathered here once again tomorrow morning for the second chapter in this most fascinating story.’

  ‘Less of the attitude,’ Schaeffer said.

  Hartmann nodded. He did not tell them Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. He refrained from asking them Who the fuck do you people think you are? He bit his tongue, held his temper, and rose slowly from his chair. There was a quiet and unspoken sense of pride in knowing that he would come through this and never have to speak to these people again.

  And so he left – walked from the New Orleans FBI Field Office on Arsenault Street to the Marriott Hotel. Here there were no armed Bureau agents to watch over him. Here there was nothing more than a simple functional hotel room, a comfortable bed, a TV he could watch with the sound turned off as the day closed down around him.

  He thought of Carol and Jess. He thought of Saturday 6 September. He thought of Ernesto Cabrera Perez and how a man like that would see this world. Not through the same eyes, and not with the same emotions. However polite and cultured and erudite the man might have seemed, he was as crazy as the rest of the sick bastards that seemed to have populated Hartmann’s life. Such was the life he had chosen, and such was the life he lived.

  His sleeping hours were crowded with images, angular and disturbed. He imagined that it was Jess who had been kidnapped by this man, that Carol had been the one found in the trunk of the Mercury Turnpike Cruiser on Gravier Street only a week before. He imagined all manner of things, and when he was woken by a call from room service a little after eight he felt as if he had not slept at all.

  He went down for breakfast and found Sheldon Ross waiting for him.

  ‘Take your time Mr Hartmann,’ Ross said. ‘They’ll be bringing Perez over to the office at about ten.’

  ‘Come have a cup of coffee with me,’ Hartmann said, and Ross sat with him, shared some coffee, and said nothing of why they were there.

  ‘You married?’ Hartmann asked.

  Ross shook his head.

  ‘Any particular reason?’

  ‘Never took the time to address that particular area of my life.’

  ‘You should,’ Hartmann said. He reached for a piece of toast and buttered it.

  ‘Special kind of girl who would want to be married to the FBI,’ Ross said.

  Hartmann smiled. ‘Don’t I know it.’

  ‘You’re married, right?’

  Hartmann nodded. ‘Married, and still trying to stay married.’

  ‘Pressures of work?’

  ‘Indirectly, yes,’ Hartmann replied. ‘More the pressure of being a complete asshole fifty percent of the time.’

  Ross laughed. ‘It’s good that you can be honest about it, but as far as I can see it cuts both ways.’

  ‘Sure it does, but like you said it’s a special kind of person who wants to spend their time married to the sort of thing we do.’ Hartmann looked across the table at Ross. ‘You live with someone or you live alone?’

  ‘I live with my mom.’

  ‘And your dad?’

  Ross shook his head. ‘Dead a good few years now.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Ross waved the condolence away.

  ‘So you go home and tell your mom the kind of things you’ve had to look at all day?’

  Ross laughed. ‘She’d have a freakin’ coronary.’

  ‘That’s the point, isn’t it? And with a wife, someone who’s even closer to you in some ways, and then add kids on top of that, and you got a somewhat untenable situation.’

  ‘So there’s no hope for me?’ Ross asked.

  Hartmann smiled. ‘Maybe you should marry an FBI girl.’

  ‘Brutal,’ Ross said. ‘You seen the sort of girls that join the Bureau? They don’t exactly look like Meg Ryan.’

  Hartmann laughed and ate his toast.

  Half an hour later they walked together to Arsenault Street.

  Woodroffe and Schaeffer were waiting. They said their respective Good mornings, and then Hartmann was shown once more into the small rear office where he had sat with Perez the day before.

  A small coffee maker had been installed, as had a wheeled trolley upon which sat cigarettes, ashtrays, clean cups and saucers, a bag of jelly beans and a box of Cuban cigars.

  ‘What the man wants the man gets, right?’ Hartmann had commented to Schaeffer, who nodded and said, ‘Right to the point we nail his ass for the girl, and then he’s gonna get an eight-by-eight in gray steel-reinforced concrete and two hours of daylight a week.’

  Hartmann sat down. He waited patiently. He knew when Perez had arrived in the building because he was accompanied by a good dozen or more FBI operatives, all of
them awkward and nervous.

  Perez appeared in the doorway of the small office and Hartmann instinctively rose from his chair.

  Perez extended his hand. Hartmann took it and they shook.

  ‘You slept well, Mr Perez?’ Hartmann asked, at once feeling a sense of apprehension around the man, but at the same time a considerable degree of disdain.

  ‘Like the proverbial baby,’ Perez replied as he sat down.

  Hartmann sat down also, reached for a packet of cigarettes on the trolley, offered one to Perez, took one himself, and then lit them both. He felt an unusual conflict of emotions – the necessity to be polite, to treat the man with some degree of respect, and at the same time hate him for what he had done, what he represented, and the fact that he had single-handedly jeopardized the only real chance Hartmann had to salvage his marriage. He looked at Perez closely; he believed there was nothing in his eyes, no light of humanity at all.

  ‘I have a question,’ Hartmann asked.

  Perez nodded.

  ‘Why am I here?’

  Perez smiled, and then he started laughing. ‘Because I asked you to be here, Mr Hartmann, and right now I have all the aces and none of the jokers. I am in the driving seat for this short while, and I know that whatever I ask for I will get.’

  ‘But why me? Why me of all people?’

  Perez sighed and leaned back in his chair. ‘Did you ever read Shakespeare, Mr Hartmann?’

  Hartmann shook his head. ‘I can’t say that I did.’

  ‘You should read him, as much as you can. The truth of the matter is that Shakespeare said that there were seven ages of man, and apparently just as there are seven ages of man, there are also only seven real stories.’

  Hartmann frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Seven stories, and everything you read, every movie you might see, everything that happens in life is one of these seven stories. Things like love and revenge, betrayal, such things as this. Only seven of them, and each of those seven stories can be found in every one of William Shakespeare’s plays.’