Carrion Comfort

by Dan Simmons

  “Main door,” said the guard, still flapping his hands. The other guard stood by an enclosed area. His right hand was on his revolver and he watched Saul and Harrington very carefully. “No visitors after five though. Now get the hell out of here or get arrested. Move.”

  “Sure,” said Harrington amiably and drew an automatic pistol from his coat. He shot the heavy guard through the right eye. The other guard stood transfixed. Saul had flinched away at the first shot and now he noticed that the guard’s immobility was not a natural reaction of fear. The man was straining with all of his might to move his right arm, but his hand merely vibrated as if palsied. Sweat broke out on the guard’s forehead and upper lip and his eyes protruded.

  “Too late,” said Harrington and shot the man four times in the chest and neck.

  Saul heard the pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft and realized that part of the long barrel was a silencer. He started to move and then froze as Harrington swung the weapon in his direction. “Drag them inside.” Saul did so, his breath fogging in the cold air as he dragged the heavy man across the exit ramp and into the booth.

  Harrington ejected a clip and slid another one home with a slap of his palm. He crouched to pick up five shell casings. “Let us go upstairs,” he said.

  “They have video cameras,” gasped Saul. “Yes, in the building itself,” said Harrington, speaking in German once more. “Only a telephone to the basement.”

  “They will miss the guards,” said Saul in a firmer voice. “Undoubtedly,” said Harrington. “I suggest you go up these stairs more quickly.”

  They emerged on the first floor and walked down a hall. A security man reading a newspaper looked up in surprise. “I’m sorry, sir, but this wing is closed after . . .” Harrington shot him twice in the chest and dragged his body to the stairwell. Saul sagged against a wooden doorway. His legs felt like liquid and he wondered if he was going to be ill. He considered running, considered screaming, and did nothing but clutch at the oak doorway for support.

  “The elevator,” said Harrington.

  The third floor hall was empty, although Saul heard conversation and laughter from around a corner. Harrington opened the fourth door on the right.

  A young woman was in the act of putting a dust cover on an IBM typewriter. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but it’s past . . .”

  Harrington swung the pistol in an arc that caught her solidly on the left temple. She crumpled to the floor with almost no noise. Harrington lifted the plastic dust cover from where she had dropped it and slid it over the typewriter. Then he caught Saul’s coat and pulled him through an empty anteroom and a large, darkened office. Saul caught a glimpse of the lighted Capitol dome between dark drapes.

  Harrington opened another door and stepped through. “Hello, Trask,” he said in English.

  The thin man behind the desk looked up in mild surprise and in the same instant a stocky man in a brown suit exploded off a leather couch at them. Harrington shot the bodyguard twice, went over to look at the small automatic the man had dropped, and then shot him a third time behind the left ear. The thick body spasmed, kicked once on the thick carpet, and was still.

  Nieman Trask had not moved. He still held a three-ring notebook in his left hand and a gold Cross pen in his right.

  “Sit down,” said Harrington and gestured Saul to the leather couch. “Who are you?” Trask asked Harrington. His tone held what sounded like mild curiosity.

  “Questions and answers later,” said Harrington. “First, please understand that my friend here”— he gestured at Saul—“is to be left alone. If he stirs from that couch, I will open my left hand.”

  “Open your hand?” said Trask.

  Harrington’s left hand had been empty when he had entered the room; now it held a palm-size plastic ring with a small bulb in the center. An insulated wire ran up the sleeve of his raincoat. His thumb depressed the center of the bulb.

  “Oh, I see,” Trask said tiredly and set down the three-ring binder. He held the gold pen in both hands. “Explosives?”

  “C-4,” said Harrington and used the hand holding the pistol to unbutton his raincoat. He was wearing a baggy fishing vest underneath and every pocket bulged to capacity. Saul could see small loops of wire. “Twelve pounds of plastic explosive,” added Harrington.

  Trask nodded. He looked composed, but the tips of his fingers were white on the pen. “More than enough,” he said. “What would you like?”

  “I would like to talk,” said Harrington, taking a seat in the chair three feet in front of Trask’s desk.

  “By all means,” said Trask and leaned back in his chair. His gaze flicked to Saul and back. “Please start.”

  “Get Mr. Colben and Mr. Barent on the conference line,” said Harrington.

  “I’m sorry,” said Trask and set down his pen. He spread his fingers. “Colben’s on his way to Chevy Chase by now and I believe Mr. Barent is out of the country.”

  Harrington nodded. “I will count to six,” he said. “If you’ve not made the call, I will release my thumb. One . . . two . . .”

  Trask had picked up the phone by the count of four, but it was another several minutes before all of the connections were made. He caught Colben in his limousine on the Rock Creek Expressway and Barent somewhere over Maine.

  “Put it on the speaker,” said Harrington. “What is it, Nieman?” came a smooth voice with a trace of Cambridge accent. “Richard, are you there also?”

  “Yeah,” came Colben’s rumble. “I don’t know what the fuck this is about. What’s going on, Trask? You’ve had me on hold for two fucking minutes.”

  “I have a slight problem here,” said Trask. “Nieman, this is not a secure line,” came the soft voice Saul guessed to be Barent’s. “Are you alone?”

  Trask hesitated and looked at Harrington. When Francis did nothing but smile, Trask said, “Ah, no, sir. There are two gentlemen here in Senator Kellog’s office with me.”

  Colben’s voice crackled on the speaker phone. “What the fuck’s going on there, Trask? What’s this all about?”

  “Calmly, Richard,” came Barent’s voice. “Go ahead, Nieman.”

  Trask raised his hand, palm up, toward Harrington in an “after you” gesture.

  “Mr. Barent, we would like to apply for membership in one of your clubs,” said Harrington.

  “I’m sorry, you have the advantage of me, sir,” Barent said. “My name is Francis Harrington,” said Harrington. “My employer here is Dr. Saul Laski of Columbia University.”

  “Trask!” came Colben’s voice. “What’s happening?”

  “Hush,” said Barent. “Mr. Harrington, Dr. Laski, pleased to make your acquaintance. How can I be of help?”

  On the couch, Saul Laski let out a tired sigh. Until the Oberst had given his name, he had held out some hope of emerging alive from this nightmare. Now, although he had no idea what game the Oberst was playing or who these people were in relation to the trio of Willi, Nina, and the Fuller woman, he doubted if the Oberst would name him if he were not willing to sacrifice him.

  “You mentioned a club,” prompted Barent’s voice. “Can you be more specific?”

  Harrington grinned horribly. His left arm remained raised, his thumb on the detonator trigger. “I would like to join your club,” he said.

  Barent’s voice sounded amused. “I belong to many clubs, Mr. Harrington. Can you be even more specific?”

  “I am only interested in the most select club possible,” said Harrington. “And I have always had a weakness for islands.”

  The speaker phone chuckled. “As have I, Mr. Harrington, but although Mr. Trask is an excellent sponsor, I am afraid that most of the clubs to which I belong require additional references. You mention that your employer Dr. Laski is there. Do you also wish an application, Doctor?”

  Saul could think of nothing that would improve his situation. He remained silent.

  “Perhaps you . . . ah . . . represent someone else as well,” said Barent. Harrington o
nly chuckled. “He has twelve pounds of plastic explosive hooked to a dead man’s switch,” Trask said without emotion. “I find that an impressive reference. Why don’t we all agree to meet somewhere else and talk about this?”

  “I have men on the way,” came Colben’s clipped voice. “Hang tight, Trask.”

  Nieman Trask sighed, rubbed his brow, and leaned closer to the speaker phone. “Colben, you miserable fuck, if you put anyone within ten blocks of this building, I’ll personally rip your goddamn heart out. Now stay the fuck out of this. Barent, are you there?”

  C. Arnold Barent spoke as if he had heard none of the preceding dialogue. “I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Harrington, but I make it a personal policy never to be on the selection committees of any of the clubs I happen to frequent. I do enjoy sponsoring the occasional new member, however. Perhaps you would be so kind as to see if you could give me the forwarding address of some prospective members I had hoped to contact.”

  “Shoot,” said Harrington.

  It was at that moment that Saul Laski felt Trask slip into his mind. It was exquisitely painful— as if someone had slid a long, sharp wire into his left ear. He shuddered once but was not allowed to cry out. His eyes moved to the automatic still on the carpet a foot beyond the dead body-guard’s outstretched hand. He sensed Trask’s cold calculations of timing and effort: two seconds to spring, a second to rise and fire into Harrington’s brain while simultaneously grabbing his fist, holding the trigger down like the spoon of a grenade. Saul felt his hands clench and unclench as if of their own volition, watched his legs stir slightly, stretching like a runner before a race. Pushed farther and farther into the helpless attic of his own mind, Saul wanted to scream but had no voice. Is this what Francis had been experiencing for weeks?

  “William Borden,” said Barent.

  Saul had all but forgotten what the discussion was about. Trask moved Saul’s right leg a bit, changed his center of gravity, tensed his right arm.

  “Don’t know the gentleman,” Harrington said lightly. “Next?”

  Saul felt every muscle in his body tense as Trask prepared him. He sensed the slight change of plan. Trask would have him hit Harrington on the run, push him backward, hold the left hand clenched until he had shoved Francis into the senator’s main office, then block the forward force of the explosion with his body while Trask dropped under the massive oak desk. Saul wanted to scream a warning at the Oberst.

  “Miss Melanie Fuller,” said Barent. “Oh yes,” said Harrington. “I believe she can be reached in Germantown.”

  “Which Germantown is that?” asked Trask even as he readied Saul for the attack. Ignore the gun. Grab the hand. Force him back, away. Keep your body between Harrington and Trask’s desk.

  “The suburb of Philadelphia,” Harrington said amiably. “I can’t recall the precise address, but if you check the listings along Queen Lane you should be able to contact the lady.”

  “Very good,” said Barent. “One more thing. If you could . . .”

  “Excuse me a second,” said Harrington. He laughed an old man’s laugh again. “Good God, Trask,” he said. “Do you think I can’t feel that? You could not commandeer this shell in a month . . . Mein Gott, man, you sneak and grope around like a teenager trying to cop a feel . . . is that the expression? . . . in the balcony of a movie house. And release my poor Jewish friend while you are at it. The instant he moves, I trigger this. That desk will become a thousand flying splinters. Ah, that is better . . .”

  Saul collapsed onto the couch. His muscles spasmed in sudden release from the tight vise of control.

  “Now, where were we, Mr. Barent?” said Harrington.

  There was static for several seconds before Barent’s calm voice came back on the speakerphone. “I’m sorry, Mr. Harrington, I’m talking to you from my private aircraft and I am afraid I have to go now. I appreciate your call and look forward to speaking to you again soon.”

  “Barent!” yelled Trask. “Goddamn you, stay on the . . .”

  “Good-bye,” said Barent. There was a click. The open line spat static. “Colben!” screamed Trask. “Say something.”

  The heavy voice came on the line. “Sure. Get fucked, Nieman old pal.” Another click and a hum.

  Trask looked up with the expression of a cornered animal. “It’s all right,” soothed Harrington. “I can leave my message with you. We can still do business, Mr. Trask. But I’d prefer that it be private. Dr. Laski, do you mind?”

  Saul adjusted his glasses and blinked. He stood up. Trask glared at him. Harrington smiled. Saul turned, walked quickly through the senator’s office, and was running by the time he got to the first waiting room. He was out of the office and running down the hall before he remembered the secretary. He hesitated, then began running again.

  Ahead of him, four men came around the corner. Saul turned, saw five men in dark suits run from the other direction, two veering toward Trask’s office.

  He looked around in time to see three of the men at the end of the hall raise their revolvers in almost a single motion, hands together, arms extended, black circles of muzzles seeming very large even from a distance. Suddenly Saul was elsewhere.

  Francis Harrington screamed in the silence of his own mind. Dimly he sensed Saul’s sudden presence there in the darkness with him. Together they watched through Harrington’s eyes as Nieman Trask shouted something, half rose from his chair, raised both hands in supplication.

  “Auf Wiedersehen,” the Oberst said with Francis Harrington’s voice and released the trigger.

  The south doors and wall to the corridor exploded outward in a ball of orange flame. Saul was suddenly flying through the air toward the three men in dark suits. Their raised arms flew back, one of the guns discharged— silently in the overwhelming rage of noise filling the corridor— and then they were also flying, tumbling backward, and striking the wall at the end of the corridor a scant second before Saul did.

  After the impact, even as the crest of darkness broke over him, Saul heard the echo— not of the explosion, but of the old man’s voice saying Auf Wiedersehen.

  TWENTY

  New York

  Friday, Dec. 26, 1980

  Sheriff Gentry enjoyed air travel but cared very little for his destination. He liked to fly because he found the phenomenon of being wedged into a coach seat of a pressurized tube suspended thousands of feet above the clouds a definite incentive to meditation. His destination, New York City, always struck him as a temptation toward other types of mindlessness: hive-think, street violence, paranoia, information overload, or gibbering insanity. Gentry had decided long ago that he was not a big-city person.

  Gentry knew his way around Manhattan. When he had been in college a dozen years earlier, during the height of the Vietnam era, he and friends had spent more than a few weekends in the city— once renting a car in Chicago where his girlfriend worked at a Hertz outlet near the university, postdating the mileage 2,000 miles and driving straight through. After four days without sleep, six of them had ended up driving around the Chicago suburbs for two hours in the wee hours of the morning to bring the actual mileage up to and beyond what had been recorded as the starting mileage on the form.

  Gentry took a shuttle bus into the Port Authority. There he hailed a cab to the Adison Hotel just off Times Square. The place was old and sliding into disrepute, its patrons mostly hookers and tourists from the sticks, but it retained a somewhat matronly air of pride about it. The Puerto Rican cook in the coffee shop was loud, profane, and skilled at his craft, and the room cost a third of what most Manhattan hotels charged. The last time he had been to New York, to transport an extradited eighteen-year-old who had murdered four convenience store clerks in Charleston, the county had been picking up Gentry’s tab and had booked his room.

  Gentry showered some of the travel fatigue away and changed into comfortable blue corduroy slacks, an old turtleneck, his tan corduroy sports coat, a soft cap, and a topcoat that worked fine in Charleston but barely
served to take the edge off New York’s winter wind. He hesitated and then removed the .357 Ruger from the suitcase and slipped it into the pocket of his overcoat. No, too bulky and obvious. He slid it into the waistband of his slacks. Definitely not. He had no clip-on holster for the Ruger; he always wore the belt and holster with his uniform and carried the department’s .38 Police Special when he was off duty. Why the hell had he brought the Ruger instead of the smaller gun? He finally ended up slipping the revolver into his sports coat pocket. He would have to leave his topcoat unbuttoned to the weather outside and leave it on inside to conceal the lump of the weapon. What the hell, thought Gentry. We can’t all be Steve McQueen.

  Before leaving the hotel he called his home in Charleston and triggered his answering machine. He did not expect a message from Natalie, but he had been thinking about her through the entire flight and looked forward to the chance of hearing her voice. Hers was the first message. “Rob, this is Natalie. It’s about two P.M. St. Louis time. I just got into St. Louis, but I’m leaving on the next flight to Philadelphia. I think I’ve got a lead on where we can find Melanie Fuller. Check page three of today’s Charleston paper . . . or one of the New York papers will probably have it. Gang murders in Germantown. Yeah, I don’t know why the old woman would be involved with a street gang, but it’s in Germantown. Saul said that our best bet in finding these people was to follow a trail of senseless violence like this. I promise I’ll keep a low profile . . . I’ll just look around and see if there’s anything promising for us to follow up on later. I’ll leave a message to night when I know where I’ll be staying. Gotta run. Be careful, Rob.”

  “Shit,” Gentry said softly when he hung up the phone. He dialed his number again, let out a breath as his own voice told him to leave a message, and said after the beep, “Natalie, goddammit, do not stay in Philadelphia or Germantown or wherever you are. Someone saw you on Christmas Eve. Goddammit, if you’re not going to stay in St. Louis, join me here in New York. It’s stupid for us to be running around separately playing Joe Hardy and Nancy Drew. Call me here as soon as you get this message.” He gave his hotel phone and room numbers, paused, and hung up. “Damn,” he said. He brought his fist down hard enough to make the cheap desk wobble.