by Paul Johnson
‘Can’t you leave my mother alone?’
‘Just answer the question, Mary.’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact she was. On Friday. She has a friend in Indianapolis. She goes about this time every year.’
‘Did you see any tickets?’
‘What? No…’
‘Has she seemed different to you lately?’
Mary frowned. ‘If you must know, yes, she has. Ever since we were dragged over the coals by the FBI, she’s kept herself even more to herself. She was never very open, but she’s gotten more secretive. I think she’s going senile. That’s why I gave up my job and moved back down here with her.’
‘And you?’ Matt asked, his tone more tender.
She ran her tongue over her lips. ‘Oh, I’m all right. Out of work, bored, unhappy in love…’
He reached across and took her hand. ‘You’ll be okay.’
‘Will I? Will you, Matt? I’m so sorry about your…your…child. It must be awful.’ She paused. ‘I could help.’
He tugged his hand away. ‘No, you couldn’t,’ he said, in little more than a whisper. ‘Nobody can.’
Mary Upson watched as he left the room. She had never seen anyone bearing such a weight. His shoulders were sloped and it seemed to take a great effort for him just to move his body. They could have been so good together, but fate had driven them apart. She would happily have given him a child, she still could-if only he would look at her like a woman rather than a pawn in the mad game he was playing.
‘All right,’ Peter Sebastian said, running a hand over his unwashed hair, ‘let’s go through this again.’
I was at the table with him, Arthur Bimsdale and Quincy Jerome.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Mary Upson has confirmed that there’s some kind of Antichurch gathering at this time of year.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Bimsdale said, peering at his notes. ‘That’s not how you reported it. She said that her mother visited a friend in Indianapolis every December.’
‘Use your imagination, Arthur,’ I said. ‘That’s what she told Mary. I’m willing to bet your salary several times over that the old woman hasn’t got any friends except Antichurch members.’
‘Leave that point for now,’ Sebastian ordered. ‘According to Major Hexton, the CSIs have found traces of human blood and tissue on one of the inverted crosses and on the floor in the barn house, though the knife Nora Jacobson pulled was clean. The jawbone we turned up has small cuts all over it, suggesting the flesh and other matter was scraped off. Identifying the person the bone came from will not be easy.’
I closed my eyes and tried to black out an unwanted vision of the mutilation being carried out. Could one elderly woman have killed and dismembered the victim on her own? Could Mary have been dissembling? If so, she was very good.
‘As regards the fugitive mother,’ the senior FBI man continued, ‘witnesses have placed her in Portland around the times of all four Hitler’s Hitman murders. Apparently she’s a fixture in the markets and shops, telling people what she thinks of the way they live.’
‘So what are we saying?’ Quincy asked. ‘She’s involved in this Antichurch, but she’s not our killer?’
Arthur Bimsdale laughed. ‘That’s quite a deduction, Sergeant.’
The big man looked on the verge of introducing Bimsdale’s laptop to his head.
‘Indeed,’ Sebastian said, nodding at Quincy. ‘If she’s a follower of Rothmann, she probably is a Nazi. Judging by what we’ve seen here, she may well also be a murderess. But it seems she’s not up for these four killings.’
‘Far as I’m concerned, she’s going down, whoever she killed,’ Quincy said, his face set hard.
I studied him, then turned to Sebastian. ‘Mary Upson. I suggest you let her go.’
He gave me a black look. ‘You had the handcuffs removed from her mother, Matt. That wasn’t such a good idea.’
‘Keep her under surveillance. Maybe her mother will contact her, or vice versa.’
He thought about that, and then nodded. ‘What did our friends in Houston tell you, Arthur?’
Bimsdale hit keys on his laptop. ‘They sent a profile of the area. As the sergeant said, it’s heavily wooded and treacherous ground, largely unpopulated. There are no ongoing Bureau investigations in Tyler County, and no recent buildings on the 1943 road other than private homes.’
‘So if Rothmann’s down there,’ I said, ‘he’s using an existing structure.’
‘Correct.’ Sebastian looked at me. ‘Are you sure you want to go?’
‘Oh, yes.’ I turned to Quincy. ‘You still in?’
He grinned. ‘Sure.’
‘How do you want to do it?’ Sebastian asked.
‘No FBI planes. We’ll go to Houston by commercial flight-Quincy at least five rows behind me. I’ll hire a car at the airport. I want to be obvious to Rothmann’s people. When I locate him, you can send your people in.’
Sebastian frowned. ‘You’ll be taking a big risk.’
‘You put a bug in my arm, didn’t you? Just make sure you’ve got people close by-but not too close. Quincy can take point on watching my back.’
‘Not many black folks in those parts,’ the sergeant observed.
‘You’re good at camouflage, aren’t you?’
He laughed. ‘Yes, sir, that I am.’
‘We’ll give you a locator so you can track Matt,’ Sebastian said.
‘What about weapons?’ Quincy asked.
‘I’ll arrange for some to be waiting for both of you in the airport luggage lockers. You can pick the keys up from airport information.’
That seemed to cover most of the bases. I had turned myself into bait, but I didn’t care. Getting to the piece of shit who killed my family was all that mattered.
Sara Robbins, currently Colette Olds, got out of the Lexus and went to the diner opposite the police headquarters building. She was wearing a black wig and pulled a Boston Red Sox cap low over her eyes-even though she knew Matt was still in the cop shop, she wasn’t taking any chances.
She bought a decaf and sat near the window. The place was full of uniformed police, but that didn’t bother her. She was used to being in the belly of the beast-there was no better place for a professional killer to merge into the background.
‘This seat taken?’ The cop was young and fresh-faced. He was on his own, the gear on his belt shaking and jangling.
‘Go ahead,’ she said, giving him a restrained smile. ‘Busy day?’
‘Busy night, more like.’ He took a slug of black coffee.
She decided to probe. ‘You at that fire in Springfield Road?’
‘That’s right.’ He looked at her quizzically.
‘I saw the flames. Got to admit I did a bit of rubber-necking. What happened?’
‘You didn’t hear the explosion?’ He was keen to impress now. ‘Seems one of the residents took it into her head to blow the place up.’
She winced. ‘Was anybody hurt?’
‘No one, by some miracle.’ The cop took a bite from his doughnut. ‘We’re still looking for the woman.’
‘That would be Ms. Jacobsen.’ The Soul Collector had done her research.
He nodded. ‘You know her?’
‘Not personally.’
He laughed. ‘But she has a reputation.’
She went along with that. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a black Grand Cherokee move forward slowly on the other side of the diner.
The driver was a well-built white woman wearing a woolen hat. It wasn’t the first time she had seen the vehicle-it had been in her mirror, three cars behind, when she had driven out here earlier in the morning. Maybe it was a coincidence, but there was no point in taking a chance. Since the pain had started, she had become more prone to acting on impulse.
‘Oh, no,’ she groaned.
‘What is it?’ The young cop was the picture of concern.
‘It’s just…oh, never mind.’
‘No, really, I’m here to
help.’
Sara sighed. ‘I don’t know…it’s embarrassing, really.’
‘Whatever it takes,’ said her admirer, following the direction of her gaze.
‘All right, thanks, Officer. You see the Cherokee? It’s been following me all week.’
The young man craned forward. ‘You know the driver?’
‘Well, like I say, it’s embarrassing…I met her in a club last Saturday night. Em, not the kind of club you go to.’
He got her meaning, attempting to conceal his disappointment.
‘We…we went back to her place, but I got frightened. You see…she wanted to do something…extreme. When I refused, she turned nasty. She found out where I live and she’s been on my tail ever since. I’m…I’m frightened.’
The combination of sexual deviance and the old-fashioned damsel in distress scenario hooked the officer.
‘Come with me,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘We’ll get this fixed.’
The Soul Collector followed him, but not too closely.
‘Get out of the vehicle!’ the cop ordered, when he was ten yards from the Cherokee. ‘Now!’
The woman at the wheel looked at him in a way that looked lethargic to the layman, but Sara could read it was full of menace. She slowed her pace and stepped behind a pickup.
‘Out of the vehicle!’ her savior yelled again.
This time he provoked a reaction. The woman floored the gas pedal and the SUV roared forward. As it did so, an elderly man in a Lincoln Continental crunched into the side of the Cherokee, pushing it toward the police officer. Before the young cop could take evasive action, he was knocked into the air, landing with a crash on the hood of a pickup. His head made solid contact and he stopped moving. Cops immediately filed out the door of the diner and went to their comrade.
The Soul Collector watched as the SUV sped off, swerving out of the parking lot and accelerating up the road. She walked back to her car at normal pace and started the engine, and that’s when it happened.
A line of cars came out of the underground lot beneath the police building. In the back of a Crown Victoria sat her lover, Matt Wells. This was as close as she’d been to him in a long time, and it made something in her mind click with a strange mixture of hatred and desire.
Nineteen
We took a flight to Newark and caught a connection to Houston. Neither plane was full. Quincy kept his distance. I looked around from time to time, but I didn’t see anyone else I recognized. Fortunately, I managed the same anonymity. My picture had been all over TV screens and front pages after the attack on the President, and the last thing I needed was for some dutiful citizen to clamp a hand on my shoulder. I wore a Maine Forever cap low over my forehead. Sebastian was ahead of the game: he gave me a British passport with the appropriate entry visa, which listed my name as William Andrew Ronson. I memorized that. There was a credit card to go with it. Remembering the PIN code was a lot harder-I’d never been good with numbers.
On the plane to Houston, I thought about what had happened in Portland. Nora Jacobsen had got the jump on us. Sebastian was pissed off with me for getting her cuffs removed, but I had reckoned that was essential to weaken her guard-she might have let a vital piece of information slip. As it was, she and Mary had given us a lead that had at least put us on Rothmann’s trail-or so I hoped.
I thought about Mary Upson. She had seemed genuinely upset about Karen and the baby. Was that why she told me what her mother had been saying? Was it possible she had lived in the same house as the older woman without realizing she was still active in the Antichurch? Could she really be so innocent? There was a maelstrom of emotion under those soft features.
Still, Mary wasn’t the most pressing problem to come out of Maine. While we were at the airport, Major Hexton heard about an incident in a parking lot near police headquarters in which one of his officers had been injured. No one was very clear about the details, but a woman with long dark hair and a baseball cap had been seen talking to the policeman just before a black Grand Cherokee hit him and another vehicle before tearing off. The interesting thing was that the dark-haired woman had left the scene before any of the other cops could talk to her. None of them got a good view of her face, nor had they gotten her plates, so concerned were they about their colleague. He had come round in hospital, but had a bad concussion and didn’t remember what had happened. So what had happened? Who was in the Grand Cherokee that had left at high speed? One report said the driver had been another woman. Why had the dark-haired woman also made tracks so quickly? One rapid departure was conceivable, but two? I had noticed the parking lot as we left. It had a good view of the State Police headquarters building. Were the drivers there for a particular reason-were they waiting for me? An icy finger twisted in my gut. Could one of them have been Sara?
I took another look around the passengers. No dark-haired woman in a cap. If Sara was after us, I should tell Quincy and the others. Sebastian had provided us with cell phones, so I could call or text him when there was a signal. Then again, what good would that do? He was a professional and he knew we were heading into the lion’s den. What more could he do? Besides, I thought as I emptied my bottle of water, knowing Sara was on your tail didn’t reduce the chances of her nailing you. She’d have changed her identity and her appearance-like a vengeful ghost, you would never hear her coming.
Lack of sleep finally caught up with me, but I got no real rest. They were there again, the shadowy figures. The woman had one arm extended, the other holding the infant. Her mouth opened wide as she called to me, her face soaked with tears. But I could hear nothing and I struggled even to remember her name, while the baby’s was long gone.
Even though it was cold in the crypt, Gordy Lister was sweating. He was exhausted after the long drive back from Tallahassee, but the Master, as he’d taken to calling himself, didn’t care about that. He’d shown no interest when Gordy told him about Mikey’s death, saying only that he should get back as quickly as he could, but refusing to allow him to take any of the cars. Gordy could see the point, though he’d had the hassle of wasting a fake ID to rent the Taurus and leaving it back at the depot in Houston, meaning that one of the dead-eyed bodyguards had to go and pick him up. At least he had something to tell the split-cheeked one now.
‘Look at this.’ The man who had been Heinz Rothmann pointed to the computer screen.
Gordy watched as flames played at the windows of a wooden house and smoke billowed into the night. ‘What is it, boss?’
‘It belongs to one of the Antichurch faithful in Portland, Maine. She detonated the safety charges.’
Gordy Lister thought the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant was for the seriously deranged, but he had kept that from the Master. ‘Why do that?’
‘Because she had been taken by the police. The FBI was also involved. It would only have been a matter of time until they found sacred documents and other material.’
Gordy felt a stab of concern. ‘Documents that would have led to this place?’
The Master nodded.
Gordy relaxed. ‘So she did good.’ He tried to keep his eyes off the fresh wounds on the other man’s cheeks. What was he now? Some kind of Zorro freak?
‘Indeed. Of course, they are coming, all the same.’
‘What?’
‘Look at this.’ The Master’s fingers played on the keyboard.
Gordy watched as he zoomed in. ‘What the fuck? That’s the Englishman, Matt Wells.’
‘And his FBI puppet-master Peter Sebastian.’
‘What are they doing there?’
‘A good question, and one which I hope our sister-in-evil will be able to answer when she gets here. She is taking a rather roundabout route. Wells may be more direct.’
‘I don’t get it, boss.’
‘I don’t imagine you do. You see, I want Matt Wells here. He belongs to me. He will do great things for us.’
‘Right,’ Gordy said doubtfully. ‘And if the FBI comes with him in force
? We’re in the right state for another Waco.’
‘There are other places we can go. Besides, the midwinter rite is tomorrow. The faithful are coming from far and wide.’ The Master’s eyes narrowed. ‘Faithful who are armed and capable of using their weapons. If the FBI wants another showdown, we can oblige.’
‘Is that a good idea, boss?’ Lister asked. He’d seen what happened during Antichurch rites. It was a toss-up whether there would be more blood spilt in the midwinter blowout or in a full-on battle.
‘Matt Wells is an essential part of my strategy. The fact that he is being used by the FBI shows he is important to them, but that is nothing compared with his importance to us. He is the only subject who was not fully coffined. That means that I can complete him in my own image.’
Gordy let that mumbo jumbo go. When he’d run the operation in Washington, he’d been spared the boss’s more lunatic schemes-special camps, the Nazi militia, the Antichurch, the plot against the President. His main role had been to provide young people for the conditioning process. He was beginning to wonder what part he had in his boss’s plans, now that he seemed to have flipped his lid in a big way.
The Master drank from a tall glass containing what Lister hoped was red wine. ‘You notice there have been no more of the so-called Hitler’s Hitman murders since you were in Philadelphia?’
‘Yeah, well, I might know something about that.’
The other man put his glass down heavily. ‘Tell me.’
‘My brother Mikey, I think he was murdered. He was run down by a pickup driven by a blonde woman.’ Gordy had a flash of the bronze-skinned Latina bent over his groin. ‘That’s not all. He was under surveillance before the hit. Probably Feds, as the local cops are much less subtle.’
‘Have a drink, Gordy,’ the Master said, filling another glass from an ornate carafe. ‘There are several interesting points to your story. One, the killer was a blonde woman.’
Lister sipped suspiciously. ‘Yeah, she had short blond hair.’
‘Begging the questions, who is she and who hired her? Two, if I understand you correctly, there was no surveillance at the time of your brother’s death. My condolences, by the way.’
