The Death Trust

by David Rollins

  The messages kept coming and didn’t allow me time to stop and think, or get any more maudlin than I already was. Next I heard Bishop’s BBC voice, as formal as ever: “Special Agent Cooper, I believe Special Agent Masters has informed you of the movements of General Scott in the period after the death of his son, Peyton. We have the forensics report back on the bullet fragments recovered from the water barrels in Baghdad, and the helmet. We can confirm that the blood on the helmet and the hair and blood on the bullet fragments are from the same person. The blood type matches Peyton’s, but his was O positive, the most common blood type.

  “From this evidence, sir, we can say with authority that the bullet went through the helmet and that the person wearing it received, in all likelihood, a fatal head shot. We just can’t be a hundred percent sure that the person in question was, in fact, Peyton, because we have nothing to compare the DNA sample with.”

  “Hmm,” I said to Bishop’s voice. “Fair enough.” Given Dante Ambrose’s assertion that the helmet was Peyton’s, and that he’d seen the event in question, I was satisfied on that score—that Peyton had been shot in the head by the bullet whose fragments we had in our possession. Before DNA, this would have been enough to convince even the most cynical board. Bishop was just being careful and thorough, looking for loopholes, looking at the way an inquiry would consider the evidence.

  “And something else has just now turned up, sir. We have a lead on one of General Scott’s downloads—those figures he’d been examining. We took a section of the numbers and got a few hours on a Cray computer to run a search on them. It seems they relate to the U.S. balance of trade with the Russian Federation over the last few years. Special Agent Masters believes he might have been looking for similarities with your—I mean, the U.S.’s—trading relationship with Japan in the thirties. As for the Dungeon, still no luck there, I’m afraid. The programmer concerned has not yet been located. That’s it for now, sir.”

  Bishop must have called before Anna was—The computer voice informed me that I had one last message in the bank. “Cooper, I don’t know where you are or what you think you’re doing, but this is important. No doubt you’ve heard about General von Koeppen and Special Agent Masters. Things are happening that I can help you with. But only if you come in. Call now.”

  Gruyere again, but, instead of ranting at me, she’d chosen a tone I’d never heard before in her voice. For starters, it contained not one swear word. Also, if I was not mistaken, Gruyere sounded scared. But was she scared for me, or of me? Interesting.

  The voice informed me that there were no more messages and asked whether I wanted to hear them again, delete them, or save them. I deleted the messages from Arlen and Brenda, but saved the ones from Anna and Bishop, and that last troubled message from General Gruyere. Then I stared at the cell, and tried to get my hungover brain to think straight. After Peyton Scott was killed in Iraq, General Scott flew there to investigate his son’s death. He then went to Washington—obviously to see someone. The question now was, who? Then he went to Riga and made a deal with Radakov, the payment for which was the release of Varvara Kadyrov into his care. The blanks were filling in and I was starting to harden up a few theories of my own. The news about those figures representing recent U.S.-Russian trade was interesting, and scary. Was Anna’s hypothesis about them right? Were we setting up the Russians for something, manipulating them just like we did Japan nearly seventy years ago?

  I replayed the messages in case there was anything I missed, or in case hearing them again might spark fresh thoughts, but I was incapable of either. All I got was the lump back in my throat when I heard Anna’s voice.

  And then suddenly the cell jumped in my hand, vibrating and ringing and scaring the shit out of me. A phone number I wasn’t familiar with appeared on the screen. I considered not answering the call and screening instead through voice mail. For an instant, I even believed that it might be Anna. Maybe that’s why I thumbed the green button. “Hello?”

  “Vince, is that you?” said a familiar voice.

  My heart nearly blew a gasket. For an instant, I believed it really was Anna.

  “Brenda,” I said, with far more enthusiasm than I intended—but I was still getting over the notion that the voice had been Anna’s. “What’s up?”

  “Are you all right, Vince? I’ve had OSI all over me these last couple of days. All I could get from anyone was that you’d vanished.”

  “Vanished? Nope, still here. Just out of curiosity, who gave you this number?”

  “Arlen,” she said.

  Arlen Wayne. I told myself to give him a big thank-you when I got home. If I got home.

  “Where are you exactly?” Brenda persisted.

  “Bren, you know better than that. Where are you calling from?”

  “From home,” she said.

  That would mean a landline. There was no doubt in my mind that it would be tapped by some particularly unpleasant people who were going to get a huge dose of bad karma coming back at them if there was any justice in the universe—shit, a couple of moments talking to the ex and I was thinking like a Deepak Chopra self-help tape again.

  And then it occurred to me. They—whoever they were—wouldn’t need to tap the call; they could simply trace the cell on the network by triangulating the signal it emitted. In the U.S. that process took anywhere between eight and twenty minutes, depending on the size and strength of the network. What was the deal in Europe? How much time did I have? Did they also reach into the phone companies here? I’d been hit several times out of the blue while conducting this investigation. How had I been found, unless, of course, the mysterious they knew where to look? During those incidents, the cell I’d been given by Anna had been turned on only for brief periods—not long enough for the networks to get a fix. Had a GPS marker been placed in the cell to give an instantaneous fix when the unit was powered up? That could explain the rapid ability the bad guys had for picking up my scent. Or should I seriously think about changing my brand of deodorant? Anna had given me the charger along with the cell. The question I was now asking myself was whether that had been an innocent decision on her part. Or had she wanted me to keep the cell charged up so that it and the person holding it—me—could be located immediately?

  And while I was thinking around in paranoid circles, I thought about Anna. She’d been killed in an accident with von Koeppen. I knew they’d been lovers. Had it really been over between them? Jesus, too many questions, not enough answers.

  “Vince! Did you hear me?”

  “I’m sorry, Brenda. What did you say? It’s a bad connection.” I had to end this call and get as far away from the cell as possible. And fast.

  “No, Vincent. There’s nothing wrong with the connection, not the phone line’s connection, at least. You’ve always had a problem being in the here and now—with me.”

  Here we go, I thought. “Brenda, you’ve caught me at a bad time. I have to go. What’s your news?”

  “I just told you. You are unbelievable! You weren’t even listening!” A big all-suffering sigh followed. “I said, Lucas and I are getting married.”

  Silence.

  “So?” she said.

  “So what? What do you want me to say?”

  “So what do you think?”

  “What do you think I’d think?” Both of us could see where this was leading. And now I could sense Brenda wanted out of the phone call as much as I did. Like I said, what did she think I’d think? She was marrying Colonel Lucas Blow Job, relationship counselor—the amoral fuck who was telling me I was a bad husband while he was boning her. The memory of that moment, walking in on them, brought back the anger.

  “Vince, be happy for us. Be happy for me.”

  “I’m ecstatic for you.”

  She didn’t miss the sarcasm. “Vincent, you and I—we were over long before Lucas came on the scene. You know that. I just want to be happy. I loved you, Vince, when we met. Remember? And it’s because I remember how I felt about yo
u that I want you to be happy, too.”

  I closed my eyes. Yeah, I could remember those days, and she was right: We had been happy. But somewhere along the road the understanding between us had just…dissolved. And that was no one’s fault, was it? It just happened. The silence and the tension between us now had a life of their own, self-perpetuating. I realized that I was angry at her simply because I was angry at her and for no other reason that I could think of. Everyone had a right to happiness. Even Brenda.

  “I love Lucas. He loves me. And we’re getting married. I just wanted to be the one to tell you rather than one of your jerk-off air force buddies.”

  I didn’t know what to say to fill the silence that followed, so I didn’t say anything.

  “You’ll meet someone, Vince. One day, you’ll meet that special someone and know we did the right thing.”

  The right thing. The right thing? Once, not too long ago, a comment like that would have lit my short fuse. But now, all I was thinking about was Anna, because I’d met someone special, too, and now she was gone and I might never clear up the questions in my head. “Brenda, I have to go.”

  “Okay, but can you do one thing for me?”

  “What?”

  “Wish me happiness.”

  It was a good wish. As far as wishes went, happiness was the star at the top of the tree. Brenda had managed to catch me in a moment of susceptibility. So she wanted me to wish her happiness. It was a small thing, but I could also see that it was everything. Personally, I didn’t think she had—what was that unlucky guy’s name? Buckley? Yeah, I didn’t think she had Buckley’s chance of finding happiness with the colonel, but to each their own. And, all of a sudden, my anger was gone. “Yeah, I wish you happiness, Bren.”

  “You mean that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Thanks. Bye, Vin. And Vin?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Be safe.”

  “Thanks.”

  Be safe—what the troops in Iraq said to each other before going out on a mission to get themselves ripped apart by IEDs. Kind of appropriate given what I had ahead of me. “You, too.” I hit the red button first, killing the call, then turned the cell off. I walked unsteadily to the toilet, vomited into the bowl, and then dropped the cell in after it. I didn’t know how much time I had, but valuable seconds were slipping away.

  Civvies, or battle dress uniform? I threw on the ACU, the one Anna had found for me, before we went into Iraq. Minutes later I walked out of the hotel with my overnight bag, taking the emergency exit out the back. I walked around the block, across the street, and staked out the front of the hotel.

  I didn’t have long to wait. An NCMP van wove through the traffic with its siren off but its blue light flashing and screeched to a dramatic stop opposite, outside the hotel. The doors flew open and four men jumped out. They sprinted into the hotel with their hands on the butts of the pistols on their hips.

  I gave myself a small pat on the back for trusting my own instincts and walked down the street and around the block until I found what I was looking for—a bank of pay phones. I checked the number in my notebook, fed some loose change into the slot until the light went green, and dialed the number.

  It picked up after a few rings and a familiar voice said, “Flight Lieutenant Bishop.”

  “Peter. Vin Cooper,” I replied.

  “Jesus, sir!” The Brit instantly switched to a whisper. “Everyone’s been worried. You’ve heard about…about—”

  I cut him off. “Give me your cell number.”

  “Sir?”

  I repeated the request and got what I asked for. I wrote it down. “Can you get to a pay phone?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How long will it take you?”

  “Five minutes, max,” he said.

  “Go there now. Take your cell. I’ll call you again in six.” I ended the connection and glanced at my watch.

  While I waited, I bought a pastry from a street vendor to feed the animal gnawing at my stomach wall and watched the mothers with strollers as they wheeled their newborns and toddlers about in the bright midday sunshine. These people breathed the same air, occupied the same sidewalks, but our worlds were a universe apart. Summer had arrived early, banishing the indecision of spring. Even the smog from the passing traffic had a fresh tang to it. It was a beautiful day, but there were black clouds boiling up on the horizon—at least, there were in my world.

  The alcohol fog had lifted and Bishop’s earlier recorded message invaded my thoughts. Those figures, column after column of them, page after page. I still had a copy of them in my bag. So, they represented our balance of trade with Russia? What the hell was going on there? Was Scott really expecting to find a parallel between our relationship with Moscow in this new century and our behavior toward Imperial Japan in the last? From his notes, I gathered that Scott believed the U.S. deliberately got Japan hooked on oil and steel, the raw materials of war, allowing it to pursue its aims on the Chinese mainland. And then pulling the trade rug out from under the Rising Sun, forcing it to head down through Southeast Asia and seek raw materials there.

  And why would we do that when it would cost so many American lives to put the genie back in its bottle? To raise the standard of living back home a couple of points?

  Hmm…

  Six minutes were up. I went back to the pay phone and dialed Bishop’s cell.

  “Sir,” said Bishop. “I’m here.”

  I was taking a risk with the Brit. Could I trust him? Could I trust anyone? What choice did I have? And, if Bishop was what he appeared to be, was I risking his life by contacting him? Again, I had no choice. He was probably a marked man, anyway. The only chance we both had lay in my ability to break open this case, and as fast as damn well possible, before anyone else got themselves murdered.

  “Call back on this number,” I said, reading out the digits on the pay phone. I ended the call. A handful of seconds later, the phone under my hand bleated.

  “What can you tell me about the crash? About Anna?” Somehow I succeeded in keeping my voice even.

  “Special Agent, what’s going on? The word is you’ve deserted.”

  In my best command tone, I said, “I have not deserted. As for what’s going on, I don’t exactly know.” Here, I faltered. I needed Bishop’s cooperation and I’d get more of it, and with more conviction and urgency, if he knew what I knew. So I told him. Not all of it. I withheld any mention of The Establishment—what did I really know about the organization, or even if there was an organization of this name? I still had no concrete evidence of its existence. I also avoided giving him the name of Radakov’s contact at Ramstein. But I gave him enough. When I’d finished, the line was silent. “You still with me?” I said.

  “Sir, that’s…”

  “Flight Lieutenant, I’ll say it again. You still with me?” My meaning was different the second time around, but Bishop got it.

  “Yes, a hundred percent.”

  “Okay. What can you tell me about Anna?”

  “All I know is that she was killed in a car crash with General von Koeppen. The local civilian police force here in K-town is handling the investigation—it happened on their turf. I haven’t seen the report. It has been classified.”

  Why was I not surprised? “Do you know why Anna was with von Koeppen at the time?” I asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “Can you give me a name of someone in the police I can talk to, and an address?”

  He gave me the details and I scribbled them in my notebook.

  “What about Scott’s hard drive? Any developments there?”

  “No. The programmer of the final level’s proving difficult to track down. But I’m working on it.”

  “Have you talked to Captain Aleveldt?”

  “Yes. It’s as you suspected. He said von Koeppen asked him, as General Scott’s friend, to keep an eye on him after his son died, and to let him know how he was getting on. I believe Aleveldt. I don’t think there was
any sinister intent there. Also, we tracked down the aircrews on those Riga flights, sir.”

  “And?”

  “Over the six-month period before Peyton’s death, there were sixty-three flights to Riga. All crews have been accounted for except for three who flew those six suspect flights. I don’t know how they did it, but the crews identified as having flown those flights never existed, sir.”

  I wasn’t surprised—I’d expected as much. “Good work, Peter. So has a replacement stepped into von Koeppen’s shoes yet?” Small though they are, I neglected to add.

  “We’ve got an RAF air vice marshal in temporary command of the base.”

  “What about at OSI?”

  “Oh, right. You wouldn’t have heard.”

  “Heard what?”

  “Your boss is here. I’ve heard you refer to her as ‘the big cheese’—”

  “Gruyere?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s she doing?”

  “I’m not sure, but I think she’s preparing the handover.”

  “The handover? To whom?”

  “To another group of investigators.”

  “From?”

  “Rumor has it your DoD.”

  Shit. Those fuckers. So much for the myth. I had seriously run out of time.

  FORTY

  The local police station was reasonably big. I don’t know what I expected, but I think it had something to do with gingerbread and lederhosen. But, like any town with a sizeable chunk of population, Kaiserslautern had all the human sludge police have to deal with—perpetrators of rape, robbery, fraud, and, of course, murder.

  The building reminded me of a giant greenhouse, complete with stained, streaked panels etched by acid rain. I stopped at the front desk. They directed me to a security desk where I was put through the ubiquitous metal scanner. After I put my shoes back on, I rode the elevator to the third floor. At the front desk I badged a fat, bald uniform with busted facial veins who reminded me of half a dozen guys I’d met doing the same job back home and who were also fat, bald uniforms with busted veins. Maybe they pop them out of molds at birth for this job, one of those molds that don’t get broken.