by Zoe Sharp
‘Open doesn’t mean active,’ Sagar muttered, not entirely cowed. He risked another glance. ‘What about the land in the desert Bane’s so desperate to keep people out of, huh? He could have a whole camp of al-Qaeda out there for all you know—’
‘Well, you see, that’s just the problem we have here, Mr Sagar – we don’t know,’ Epps cut in, snap to his voice for the first time. ‘I’ve already bent the rules as far as I’m going to on this one and we’re no farther forward than we were at the start. Except that I’m down by two good men, as Mr Meyer so eloquently pointed out.’ The sarcasm twisted from his lips. ‘In fact, we’ve taken a backward step, because Bane is now fully cognisant of our interest.’
He stopped, let his eyes track round the rest of us. ‘We cannot afford another Waco,’ he said flatly. ‘Our only course is to pull back, keep a watching brief, and hope he does something stupid.’ He paused. ‘I have already devoted too much time and effort to Bane, and this is not our only concern at the moment.’
Sagar shook his head, more helplessly this time. I still had hold of him, felt him wilt under my hands.
‘What about me – the work I’ve put in?’ he asked, plaintive. ‘Was that all for nothing?’
‘Your cooperation with the federal government is duly noted,’ Epps said. He reached into his inside pocket, brought out a thin envelope and slapped it down onto the corner of the credenza next to the coffee machine. I was close enough to recognise the Greyhound bus company logo. ‘And you get a free ride home. I’d strongly advise you to take it.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
For maybe twenty seconds after the front doors closed behind Epps and his men, we stood in silence. Then Chris Sagar lurched out of my grasp and groped his way to the nearest chair like a man feeling his way in the dark. He sat hunched forwards, staring down into the terrazzo tile in front of his scuffed basketball boots.
In the periphery, I was aware of Parker ordering McGregor to pack his gear, telling Bill Rendelson to book us tickets home, first available. I caught Sean’s eye.
So, it’s over.
Not yet, it isn’t.
He came past me with a single, unfathomable glance, halted in front of Sagar. The proximity forced Sagar to tilt his head back to meet his gaze.
‘Talk,’ Sean said.
‘W-what?’ The fear jumped behind Sagar’s glasses before his gaze darted towards me, as if hoping I’d safeguard him against this new threat and realising I’d be part of it. ‘What about?’
‘About Fourth Day,’ Sean said. ‘About exactly what Bane’s up to, that he’s prepared to have three men killed to protect it.’
‘Sean,’ Parker said quietly. ‘The job’s done. Let it go.’
‘It’s never as easy as that, is it?’ Sean said without inflection, not taking his eyes away from Sagar’s. ‘Witney’s dead. Don’t you want at least to know why?’
‘I suppose, officially, we are still on Epps’s dollar,’ Parker said, considering. He moved alongside, stared down at Sagar. ‘OK…talk.’
Sagar swallowed convulsively. ‘Where do I start?’ he asked with a tired smile. His thin shoulders flexed with the effort of putting out a long breath. ‘Look, after Bane took over Fourth Day, he used to hand-select certain people from among his followers, sent them off into this area of wilderness for some kind of “special training”, and before you ask – no, I was never among his chosen ones. I never knew for sure what went on out there, but they all came back different – the ones who came back at all.’
‘But you must have had a pretty good idea,’ Parker said. ‘How did Bane explain the disappearances?’
Sagar shrugged. ‘All he’d ever say was that their time with Fourth Day was at an end and they’d decided to go back out into the world.’
‘And that never struck you as…a bit fishy?’ Sean demanded.
Sagar flushed at the note of disdain in his voice. ‘Look, you have to understand what it’s like being inside of a cult. Bane demanded total obedience, that you place yourself totally into his hands, or you don’t get into the place to begin with.’
Agitated, he got to his feet, brushed between Parker and Sean and began to pace, hands nervously atwitch, speaking fast and low as if in shame. ‘He chooses people who need him more than he needs them. He singles out the vulnerable ones, the ones at the end of the line.’ He halted, suddenly defiant. ‘The ones who believe he can help them because they’ve no place else to turn and are going to welcome whatever he suggests with open goddamn arms, all right?’
‘Is that how it was for you?’ I asked quietly.
He nodded. ‘Yes, if you must know. I was one of the lucky ones. I had friends who eventually got me out, got me help, but I was so under the spell of that place it was like being ripped out of the womb.’ His eyes flickered around us, muttered, ‘The outside world was the last place I wanted to be.’
Silence followed this plaintive outburst. He found he could no longer meet our steady stares, mine included. Muttering about getting his stuff together, he let his gaze drop and hurried away, clenched in on himself.
As he bolted up the stairs, his footsteps died away faster than his words. The echo of them lingered inside my head. I could absolutely understand the seductive lure of someone who might be able to fix what lay broken inside me.
And I thought of Witney – his reactions, his speed and his technique. Whatever Bane had taught him, out there in the wilderness Sagar spoke of, did Thomas Witney rank as one of the successes, or his failures? And what had been preying on his mind, that day we’d watched him teach his little class under the juniper tree?
Parker watched Sagar’s retreat with narrowed eyes.
‘So,’ I said, ‘what happens now?’
‘We pack,’ Parker said, succinct, turning so the rest came back over his shoulder as he strode away. ‘The sooner we clear this place, the sooner we stop paying rent on it.’
I shrugged, would have headed for the stairs myself had Sean not touched my shoulder.
‘Charlie,’ he said. ‘Got a minute?’
He jerked his head towards the French windows leading out onto the terrace at the back of the house. I followed him out of the air-conditioned chill and into the hazy warmth of early afternoon. In the greenery surrounding the lap pool I could hear insects buzzing, the distant noise of traffic from the nearby freeway, carried in on a faint ripple of breeze that stirred the air just enough to be pleasant.
Sean walked almost to the edge of the terrace and stared out at the far side of the canyon, where a row of similar palatial homes clung precariously to the steeply sloping ground.
‘What’s going on, Charlie?’ he asked then, his voice hushed against the quiet and almost pained. ‘Why all the secrets?’
His back was towards me, which was a small mercy. I ambled over to the fancy outdoor dining table, sat under the open canopy of the sunshade and waited until I knew I could keep my own tone even before I spoke. ‘Secrets?’
‘Witney,’ Sean said. He turned away from the view to pass me an old-fashioned look. ‘I know how to spot the marks left by a chokehold. I was the one who taught it to you.’
He came back towards me with that long, fluid stride, belying the amount of muscle he carried by the lightness of his step, the predatory grace. The sun was bright and I almost reached for my dark glasses, but knew they would provide little defence.
‘He put up a decent struggle against Epps’s people,’ I pointed out, but the excuse lacked conviction.
‘Not that kind of struggle.’
‘Well, I—’
‘Don’t,’ he said softly. ‘Don’t lie to me, Charlie. Parker told me what happened.’
Just for a moment, I thought Parker had overridden me and told him the whole story. It took a second of sheer fright before I realised Sean was talking about Witney’s abortive grab for me.
‘He had no right,’ I said, feeling my face begin to heat.
‘Parker had every right,’ Sean countered. Until then, hi
s voice had been calm and reasonable but now it began to crackle. Abruptly, he swung one of the chairs away from the table and placed it opposite mine, sat astride it with his arms folded on the back. He rested his chin, watching me with eyes soft as velvet, hard as quartz. ‘You know what pissed me off the most? That you didn’t feel it was something you should have told me yourself.’
‘That’s just it, Sean,’ I threw back, wearing thin. ‘What I was feeling was foolishness, if you must know – that Witney nearly got the drop on me. But he didn’t. I dealt with it and I didn’t think it was enough of a big deal that I had to come running to you with the story.’ I shrugged, discomfited. ‘Maybe, if I’d stopped to give it that thought, well, I would have handled things differently.’ Maybe.
There was a long pause, then something flickered at the corner of Sean’s mouth, just a glimmer of a smile. ‘With Witney, or with me?’ he asked.
I allowed my own face to relax. ‘Both, probably.’
‘What’s happening to us, Charlie?’ he demanded, and I sensed he didn’t expect an answer – not from me, anyway. After a moment, he sighed, shook his head and let his eyes drift back across the canyon.
I shrugged again, wrapped my arms around my body as if I were cold, and said, evasive, ‘Maybe I just don’t like losing – anything or anyone.’
‘We’re in the life-and-death business,’ he said, serious. ‘It’s unrealistic to think we’re always going to come out on top. There will always be very bad days.’ He eyed me flatly. ‘Another time, we could have been the ones in the van.’
I looked away sharply, swallowed.
‘You can’t survive constantly looking back at what might have been, Charlie,’ he said then, and his voice was gentle, almost coaxing. I kept my face averted and wondered if he’d ever know how achingly close to the truth of it he’d come. ‘You just have to concentrate on what goes right, learn from the mistakes, and let the rest of it go, hmm?’
‘I know,’ I muttered, wondering if there’d ever be a time when the words what if would go through my head without making me want to weep. ‘I’m sorry. All this…,’ I waved vaguely to indicate the whole place, the whole situation. ‘It’s got to me this time.’
‘I don’t know what the problem is between us,’ he said, hesitant enough to have me looking up. ‘All I know is, it began before we ever left New York.’
I opened my mouth, but he cut me off, reaching out to take my hands in his.
‘We’ve travelled a hell of a long way together.’ He gave my fingers a final squeeze then reached up, almost hesitant when he was always so sure of himself, and ran two gentle fingers down the side of my face. Eyes too dark to have a colour were locked onto mine, as if pouring his will into me. ‘And there’s nowhere I can’t go with you, Charlie. Nowhere I’d want to go.’
Tell him! screamed a voice in my head. There will never be a better time than now.
‘Sean, I—’
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ Parker’s voice came from the doorway, giving no indication of exactly how long he’d been standing there, eavesdropping. ‘I’ve just had a call from Detective Gardner. They’re bringing Randall Bane in for questioning and Gardner’s offered to let us observe. Bill’s gotten me onto an afternoon flight out of LAX and I’m cutting it fine as it is, but d’you want to go?’
There was the faintest pause. ‘Of course,’ Sean said then, rising. ‘When?’
Parker checked his watch. ‘Bane’s on his way in right now, apparently,’ he said. ‘Gardner has promised to keep him on ice ’til you get there.’
Sean glanced in my direction.
‘Sure,’ I agreed, swallowing the bitterness of disappointment and relief. ‘Why not?’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
From everything I’d heard of Randall Bane, and what I’d seen first hand of the man during our recon of Fourth Day, I fully expected to find him relaxing in Detective Gardner’s interview room with a phalanx of clever lawyers ready to tie the police up in knots, but that was not the case.
Instead, Bane sat centred and alone in the single upright plastic chair. He neither slouched nor sat rigidly. He didn’t seem overconfident, not at all nervous. He didn’t fidget, didn’t look bored.
He simply sat.
Gardner had deliberately chosen this room, I knew, hoping to unsettle him. It was designed solely for interrogation, with the bolted-down table, bare walls, harsh lighting, and the mirror that obviously wasn’t.
‘You wouldn’t believe the kinda scum I’ve faced across that table,’ Gardner said, not taking her eyes off the obscured glass that separated us from the spartan place where Bane sat. ‘Gang-bangers, rapists, murderers. There was this one kid, hacked two of his classmates to death with a machete just ’cause they dissed his sneakers. But this guy? He’s something else.’ She shook her head. ‘Kinda gives me the heebie-jeebies, y’know?’
‘Oh yes, I know.’ Chris Sagar pushed his glasses up his nose with a nervous forefinger. Even in the low light I saw the sheen of sweat on his upper lip. ‘Why do I need to be here?’ he muttered. ‘You don’t need me for this.’
As he started to turn away, Sean put a hand on his shoulder.
‘Stay,’ he said. He, too, had not taken his eyes off Bane. ‘You know him well enough to spot the lies.’
Sagar thought about protesting further, slid one look at Sean’s face and subsided again, glowering. It was interesting to note how badly Bane unnerved his former acolyte, even a room away in a building full of cops.
When the door opened suddenly behind us, Sagar jumped. Another detective, a thickset guy with Mexican features, appeared in the gap with a bulky file in his hands. He jerked his head to Gardner, who excused herself and went over. The two of them bent over it, talking fast-and-low Spanish.
‘If Gardner is hoping to shake him by making him wait, I don’t think it’s going to work,’ Sean said, still watching Bane. ‘He has the look of a man who’d outwait an alligator.’
‘Did you have to mention the alligators?’
We’d once had the misfortune to be in the water at dusk with a lot of blood and a bunch of alligators. Dusk is when they come out to feed. I’d never forgotten their prehistoric grace, nor the dreadful certainty that every moment was our last. I was still uneasy in the water, even in swimming pools with crystal visibility, when I was as sure as I could be that nothing lurked beneath the surface.
I had that same feeling of unreasonable apprehension now.
Gardner finished her conversation and looked over. ‘I’m gonna get this show on the road,’ she said. She nodded to Sagar without expression. ‘You stay put ’til we’re done and he’ll never know you were here, OK?’
Sagar nodded back, too grateful to react to the slightly mocking note in the detective’s voice.
Gardner went out, closing the door behind her. A few moments later, the door to the interview room opened and she stepped through.
‘Mr Bane,’ she said, offering a brief smile as she came forwards, leaving the door not quite latched behind her. ‘I appreciate you coming in. Thanks for waiting.’
Somewhere between Observation and Interview, she had lost the jacket and was down to rolled-back shirtsleeves, businesslike. She carried a Glock 9 mm high on her left hip. Bane’s eyes dropped to the gun just once, as though marking its position, then he ignored it. If Gardner was disturbed by the man, up close, she hid it well.
‘Just a few things I’d like to clarify from your statement, if that’s OK?’ she said, brisk but casual. Bane inclined his head slightly. We watched him closely for any more telling reactions to all this, but there was very little to see.
Bane was dressed well without any flash. He wore a collarless shirt in what could have been silk, fastened by a single pearl button at the neck, and a suit that was discreetly made to measure without being an obvious designer label.
He was still shaven-headed but, unlike Thomas Witney, would have had a generous head of hair. So, a conscious choice rather than a sop to vanity or p
ride. He had strange eyes, I noticed, golden like a cat’s, and he suppressed his blink rate, either naturally or by design, enough for them to be hypnotically compelling.
‘She hasn’t read him his rights,’ Sagar whispered, suddenly fretful. ‘Why not? Anything she gets from him will be inadmissible. You see how Bane manipulates people, even in here. He—’
‘She hasn’t closed the door,’ I said, cutting him off. ‘Gardner can argue in court that it wasn’t necessary because he wasn’t in custody, and it stops him clamming up. Relax, Chris. She knows what she’s doing.’
Over the top of Sagar’s head, Sean passed me a cynical glance. You think Bane doesn’t know what she’s up to?
Of course. I was just hoping natural arrogance would get the better of him.
Gardner sat down opposite, her back to the mirror, and took a sheaf of photographs from the file, fanning them out on the scarred tabletop. I couldn’t see what was in the pictures, but I could make an educated guess.
‘Do you recognise this man?’ Gardner asked. Her voice was softer, I noticed, as if hoping to lull Bane into underestimation.
Bane took a long look at the pictures without expression, studying each in turn. As he put the last one down, something close to pity flickered in his face.
‘If I did not,’ Bane said then, ‘this would be a pointless exercise, would it not, Detective?’ His tone suggested it was pointless anyway, but it was hard to pin down. I struggled to place the origins of that deep voice, compressed with power like a tightly muscled frame. Something about it zipped straight to the roots of my hair. Alongside me, I heard Sagar’s unsteady hiss of breath.
In the interview room, Gardner shifted a little in her chair. I sensed her discomfort, knew Bane was getting to her just by being, and that fact annoyed her. She tilted her head, cop style, although her voice remained light. ‘Humour me, Mr Bane.’
‘His name is Thomas Witney,’ Bane said. ‘Or, it was. But, of course, you already knew that.’
‘And when did you last see Mr Witney…alive?’
