by Maynard Sims
“Get me everything you can find on John Holly. Family details, businesses he’s involved in, people he socializes with. The lot. As soon as you can.”
That was hours ago, and Martin got straight to it. The two girls on his team, Maggie and Christine—his right and left hands—trawled the internet, while he scorched the phone lines, calling his contacts in Fleet Street, the Stock Exchange, MI5 and 6, Interpol, and other agencies across the globe.
Cold, hard, and brittle; those were the words often used to describe the chrome-and-white decor and the antiseptic, almost futuristic look of the desk, the chairs and other office furniture. It was also the epithet sometimes used to describe Crozier. Guests to the office sat on a white leather and chrome chair, designed for elegance rather than comfort, facing Crozier across the glass-topped desk. The desk was another design conceit—smoked glass supported by a chrome-plated tubular steel frame, and Crozier kept the desk clutter to a minimum. There were two white telephones, a small laptop computer and a black leather file, positioned at right angles to the edge of the desk, and nothing more. The glass was polished to within an inch of its life and nothing, not even a thumb print or a flake of dandruff, marred its pristine surface.
As head of research for Department 18, Martin Impey’s contacts fed him information based on little more than the strength of his personality. Everyone knew he was about the best in the field at what he did. But more than this was his willingness to reciprocate, using the massive Department 18 database.
“Okay,” Crozier said, glancing up. “Don’t get comfortable. I’ve got another job for you.”
Martin raised his eyebrows.
“I want you to look into something that happened a while ago. A girl called Alice Spur was involved in an apparent auto accident in Cambridge. Miss Spur was in intensive care, but one night she just upped and vanished. Hasn’t been heard from since. Go through the police records, local papers, that sort of thing and see what you can find. And while you’re at it, she had a boyfriend, Daniel Milton. Dig up anything you can find out about him.”
“And do you want this yesterday as well?” Martin said, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
“No, I’ll have it the day before.”
Martin smiled tightly. Crozier didn’t smile at all.
Crozier waited until Martin had left the office, then picked up the phone. He punched in a number and waited. After three rings, the phone at the other end was picked up.
“Yes?”
“Dylan, its Simon.”
Silence.
“Dylan? Are you there?”
“I’m here. I’m just surprised to hear you on the other end of my phone.” Michael Dylan spoke with a softly lilting Irish brogue. It was a voice impossible to read. “I’m still on leave. What do you want?” Dylan was one of the department’s senior operatives. A psychic with phenomenal powers who didn’t take himself too seriously, unlike some of the others on the roster. Crozier immediately thought of Carter.
“How’s Ireland? I must admit, I’ve always had a soft spot for Dublin. One of my favorite cities…”
“Simon, now, you didn’t ring me to discuss geography. What do you want?”
“I have a job for you,” Crozier said without further preamble. His fingers pulled a paperclip from the pages of a file on his desk. Cradling the phone against his shoulder, he started to straighten it out.
“As I said, I’m still on leave.”
“I know you better than that, Dylan. The job’s in your blood. You live and breathe it. Once you hear what I have to tell you, you won’t be able to resist. Leave or no leave.” Crozier used the straightened out paperclip to dislodge a small piece of salmon that had wedged itself between his teeth at lunchtime. He patted his lips with a handkerchief and dropped the paperclip into the bin. “Something’s fallen into my lap, Dylan, and I need my best people to investigate it. Unfortunately I’m running short of bodies here. Jane Talbot’s on semipermanent gardening leave and Carter’s hospitalized, though it’s nothing too serious, unfortunately. That Kulsay business screwed up both of them.”
“And McKinley’s told you to stuff it.”
Crozier winced, remembering the heated conversation he’d had with McKinley early this morning. “More or less. At least let me run it by you. Once you hear what I have to say, I think you might reconsider.”
“Okay, talk. It’s your phone bill.”
“No, not on the phone. I’d like to meet in person.”
“I’m in Ireland on vacation, and I’m not coming back unless there’s a bloody good reason.”
“I can come to you,” Crozier said, flipping open his desk diary and scanning the pages.
“When?”
“I can fly out this evening. We could meet tomorrow morning.”
“It’s that vital?”
“I think so, yes, otherwise I wouldn’t have called you.”
There was a pause, and then Dylan said, “Okay. How well do you know this part of the world?”
“A passing knowledge of Dublin, but I wouldn’t say I know it intimately.”
“I’m not in the city. There’s a village about ten miles to the north. Dunkerry. In the center of the village, there’s a pub, The Republican Arms. I’ll be there at ten.”
Despite the indignity of being in a pub that early in the morning, Crozier smiled. “Splendid. I’ll see you there.” He hung up the phone, then flicked a button on his intercom. “Trudy, book me the first available return flight to Shannon, and order me a hire car.”
“Anything else, sir?”
“Not at the moment.”
He flicked off the intercom and picked up the phone again.
“Harry, it’s Simon. I’m coming to Dublin this evening and I was wondering if I could prevail upon your hospitality and beg a bed for the night.”
The voice on the other end of the line was gruff and thick with whiskey. “You old sod,” Harry Bailey said. “Don’t phone me for years, then, out of the blue, call me up and invite yourself to stay. Typical.”
“You know how it is, Harry, scarcely a moment to catch my breath. Besides, isn’t that the mark of true friendship that you can lose touch for ages, then make contact and pick up from where you left off?”
There was a fit of coughing. Then Harry Bailey said, “I suppose.”
“You sound well,” Crozier said. “Still smoking forty a day of those filthy things?”
“More like sixty.”
Crozier chuckled. “You never learn, do you?”
“Not only invites himself to stay, but then has the gall to start lecturing me. I should tell you to fuck off.”
Crozier smiled at the memories of their constant sparring matches. Unlike the antipathy between himself and Robert Carter, Bailey’s replacement, there had never been any animosity between them. He was looking forward to seeing him again. “But you won’t, will you?”
There was a long pause followed by more coughing. Finally Harry said, “No…not this time.”
“Good. I’ll see you later. I’ll call from the airport.”
“I suppose you want me to pick you up.”
“No. I think a hire car’s a safer bet. I can smell the whiskey fumes from here.” When he was promoted to director deneral of the department, one of the first and most difficult decisions he had to make was to retire Harry Bailey, even though the man had not long entered his forties. Thankfully there was no bitterness. Crozier’s decision was based more on friendship and his liking of the man than for any other reason, and Harry Bailey himself was relieved to get out of the game. He needed to escape while he still had his sanity, and Simon Crozier recognized the signs and facilitated the retirement on full pension.
“Bastard!”
“I’ll bring you a bottle of Jameson’s.” Crozier smiled and hung up the phone. It would be good to see his old friend again. Harry Bailey had been a fixture in Department 18 when Simon Crozier joined and was one of their biggest assets. A sensitive of extraordinary capabilities an
d the head of many top-level investigations. But over the years his effectiveness had been slowly diminished by his marriage to the bottle, his way of fighting the demons that raged inside his mind.
The intercom buzzed. “Yes.”
“Your flight’s at six. Heathrow,” Trudy said. “I’ve been in touch with the rental company. There’ll be a car waiting for you at the other end.”
“Good girl,” Crozier said and glanced at his watch. He needed to step up a gear if he was to catch his flight. He closed down his computer, got his coat from the stand, and walked out of the office. At Trudy’s desk he paused. “Martin Impey will have some information for me. Get him to send it through to my PDA.”
“It’s urgent then?” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “Very.”
Chapter Twelve
King’s College Hospital, London, England
McKinley was a tall black American whose large frame seemed uncomfortable being forced onto the tiny plastic chair the hospital provided to ensure visitors didn’t overstay their welcome. His deep voice resonated like the bass lines in a complex jazz composition. His demeanor was often mistaken for a morose character, until his sardonic wit came into play and his face lit up in smiles or innocent grins.
He wasn’t smiling now. It was obvious Carter was in great pain. He was propped up against the pillow as the nurses checked his drips and administered an injection into his upper arm. They had taken away his neck brace but ordered him to lie still, “Until you’ve been checked over thoroughly.”
Jane was at the head of the bed, standing over Carter, holding his hand and talking quietly to him. They may have been alone in the room, such was their intense attention on each other.
McKinley had witnessed the time they got together. It hadn’t been easy for them, especially Jane. Married with two young children, she had gone through agonies of guilt about what she was doing. Over the past couple of days, when he had been in her company, McKinley would have said she was still going through a torment.
If he were a betting man, he would not have laid money on Carter being pleased with what Jane might tell him. Love was a long and winding road.
A doctor came into the room; dressed in a Savile Row suit with an expensive shirt and tie, he was clearly a senior man, a consultant called away from whatever surgery he had planned in order to check on this extreme patient. The three junior doctors in white housecoats who seemed to hang on his every word was the other clue that this was an important man in the hospital.
“Well, Mr. Carter,” he said, and if he could have placed more emphasis on the mister it would have bordered on sarcasm. “My name is Dr. Bernard. What seems to have occurred here today in my hospital?”
Carter still had his eyes closed when he replied. “Your hospital? I thought it was the King’s.”
McKinley guessed Carter was struggling to keep his voice even. The nurses were satisfied with the tubes feeding into Carter’s arms and after looking around the room as if expecting to see…whatever it was they had seen earlier…they left.
Dr. Bernard, conscious of the three young doctors’ attention, nevertheless seemed amused. “There hasn’t been a king since he died in 1952, Mr. Carter, the year I was born and before Queen Elizabeth ascended to the throne. I often wonder which event was the most significant. Around here, in as much as a hierarchy exists, I am king.”
Carter opened his eyes, slowly and painfully. Bernard was smiling down at him. “Never been much of a monarchist,” Carter said.
“Pity, as I am about to administer some medicinal care and attention to you. I’d hate to think you were a nonbeliever.”
Jane moved away from the bed to allow the quartet of doctors to do their work. Each time they moved one of Carter’s arms, his face screwed up in pain; each time they moved his head, he let out a low grunt that was a silent scream inside.
“So,” Bernard said as he shone a light into Carter’s eyes. “What exactly were those things?”
“Something that would make our kings and queens, even our hospital consultants, look like newborn kittens.”
Bernard may have murmured a response, but his heart wasn’t in it. He had never experienced anything like what had happened in this room, and he needed the reassurance of medical science to give him back a modicum of normality.
“He is going to be all right, isn’t he?” Jane asked.
Bernard looked at her as if realizing for the first time she was in the room. “Ah, Mrs. Carter?”
“She’s not got that misfortune,” Carter said.
“How providential for you,” Bernard said to Jane.
Jane tutted. “I’m a friend.” She indicated McKinley. “We both are.”
Bernard looked at the most nervous of the three doctors in white coats. “Is Mr. Carter ‘going to be all right,’ Dr. Patel?”
The young doctor looked at Carter as if the answer was written on his forehead. He was smart, though, had read the charts and had a strength of character that would one day make him a successful cardiac surgeon. “The original prognosis on initial admission was suspected concussion, but I think we can dismiss that, although there is bruising and some trauma to the neck area. Broken ribs, a dislocation to the knee, a few superficial scratches and bruises to the face and upper torso.”
“That seems to cover the injuries that first caused Mr. Carter to join our happy band here. What about the recent events? Have they caused anything we should become concerned about?”
Patel looked around at the others. “I would have to do a thorough…”
“No matter, Dr. Patel, unfair question. Like you, I haven’t the faintest idea what just happened so cannot expound a theory about how it may affect the patient physically. Vital signs are strong, heart rate, blood levels, temperature, all normal. There are no scars that we can see, no entry wounds, even though it appeared as if…well, at any rate, no damage done.”
“So he is going to be all right?” Jane persisted.
“Routine X-ray, MRI scan, check all is normal on the inside. I suspect it is.”
“I’m still here you know,” Carter said.
“But not for much longer I would hazard a guess,” Bernard said.
“So when can I go home?”
“All being well with the tests, tomorrow or the day after.”
A few moments later the doctors left, and McKinley was in the tiny plastic chair. “So how do you feel, man?”
“Like shit strained through a sock.”
“Charming!” Jane said, but she was smiling.
McKinley looked serious. “That was a hell of a thing you know. Any idea what those things were?”
Carter had an idea, but he wasn’t ready to share it yet. He started to shake his head but stopped when it felt as if his brain was break dancing against his skull.
Jane put her hands on his shoulders. “Don’t move your head. Not until they’ve X-rayed it.”
“I’ve read the report on the apartment building. Sounds like a similar phenomenon.”
Carter asked Jane for some water. There was none in the room, so she said she’d get some from the machine along the corridor. As soon as she was gone, Carter said, “Listen, I’m not being rude, but I need some time with Jane. I’ve hardly seen her recently and…well you know how it is.”
“Sure thing. If I sit in this chair much longer I’ll get molded to it.”
Jane had three bottles of water.
“Heh, I’m going to take mine and drink it on the way out.”
“Are you sure?” Jane said. “You can stay as long as you want you know, visiting times are pretty flexible.”
McKinley was already out of the chair. “No, you’re okay. I’ve seen enough of this guy to know he’s going to keep on being a nuisance for a while longer yet.” He squeezed Carter’s shoulder. “Take it easy. Crozier will get you back on the job to suit him so you make sure it suits you too. Hear me?”
“I hear you. Thanks for coming.”
As the door shut
behind him, a silence descended on the room. The monitor ticked away quietly, and Jane scraped the chair across the floor to get nearer to the bed.
Carter waited for her to speak. When she didn’t, he said, “It’s good to see you, Jane. I’ve missed you.”
Jane closed her eyes and sighed.
Carter took her hand and held it lightly. “Tell me.”
“David has asked me to go back to him.”
Chapter Thirteen
If you woke up breathing, congratulations!
You have another chance.
—Andrea Boydston
30 St. Mary Axe, London, England
Holly waited until the elevator doors closed and then went back down the corridor to Room 319. Once outside he stopped, put his ear to the door, and listened. Then he took a step back and rested his palms against the smooth wood, closing his eyes and concentrating fiercely.
In his office Saul Goldberg was explaining to the two security men that he’d hit the emergency button by mistake. They listened patiently and were about to leave when Goldberg clutched his head and screamed. Sinking to his knees, he ripped his glasses from his face, fell forward and lay there twitching.
The security guards exchanged looks and moved as one to assist him. As they took a pace forward, invisible hands grabbed them, and they were thrown backward against the filing cabinets. Winded and bruised, they picked themselves off the floor and tried again, with the same result. Only this time they were thrown back more violently.
Eddie Hampshire, the older and more experienced of the two, cried out as his shoulder dislocated; Steve Fisher, who had only been on this job for three weeks, was knocked out cold as his head collided with the reinforced steel wall of the safe. A two-inch gash opened at his temple, and blood gushed onto the tiles where he fell.
Goldberg had stopped twitching and was hauling himself to his feet, using the edge of the desk for support. His mind was clouded, his thoughts muddled. He found himself looking into the eyes of his wife, captured in the framed photograph that sat on the desk. He gripped the edge of the silver frame with an arthritic hand and smashed it down on the desk, shattering the glass and twisting the metal. His fingers were cut and embedded with splinters of glass, but finally they closed over a shard three inches long and curved into a wicked point. He edged around the desk and collapsed into his chair.
