Heat

by Campbell Armstrong

  She lingered motionless until she felt sure that the house wasn’t going to spring suddenly to life, and then she broke cover and ran to the side of The Lodge where plants grew in plastic containers. She went down on her knees, took the cylinder from her pocket, gave the cap a half-twist, then placed the device in one of the containers.

  Goodbye, rhododendron.

  Goodbye, Lodge.

  Goodbye.

  She figured she had five minutes to get clear, but she wasn’t sure, because sometimes the timing-mechanism on these Czech devices was erratic. Given time and equipment, she would have constructed one of her own.

  She stared a second at the cylinder in the soil and then she turned and ran back toward the shooting-range. From there it was her intention to go back up the ridge to the safety of the trees. She moved quickly in the direction of the shrubbery.

  Pagan became aware of two things simultaneously. Behind him, he heard the movements of people stepping slowly through the trees, the occasional whisper; and he saw Carlotta, in black leather jacket and jeans, hurry away from The Lodge and run in the direction of the upward slope. His attention was divided between what lay at his back and the sight of Carlotta about four hundred yards to his left.

  He glanced round, disconcerted.

  Although they wore camouflage jackets and caps, the people fanning out between the trees were noticeable from where he stood, a distance of some two hundred yards. In the grey light they were spectral.

  They carried rifles.

  It was, he realized, a trap. It was, as Mallory had said, easy to get in; but there was no way of getting out.

  If she reached the slope and tried to make it to the tree line, she would be gunned down. Pagan had the urge to break free from the stand of pines that concealed him and sprint across the open spaces toward Carlotta – to achieve what? To warn her? To save her for himself? But he’d be shot down too. He had no doubt about that. He didn’t know how many armed people were making their way through the trees. He’d counted more than a dozen in the last thirty seconds, but in places where he couldn’t see there were probably more. It was obvious that their goal was to string themselves out across the ridge, and when Carlotta came in plain view—

  Open season, he thought.

  The end. The end of all his searching, his running. The end of his quest. Why didn’t he feel what he should have felt? Why was there no elation? Why this throbbing dull sensation in his head? Because she’d been taken away from him. Because he couldn’t take her back to London. Because she would never stand trial. Instead, she’d be gunned down in the soft mud of this place.

  He watched her move. She ran with an easy lovely grace. Once, she turned her head and looked back at The Lodge, and Pagan remembered the reason she’d come here, and he swung his face toward the large gloomy wooden edifice, which reminded him of something that belonged in the Black Forest. And he knew – it was only going to be a matter of seconds.

  He imagined he heard a clock tick. He saw Carlotta begin toward the slope. He heard the footsteps of the others in the trees, the assassination squad. He stared at The Lodge. He felt it even before it happened.

  The explosion was brutal and fiery. Flames rapidly rose up the side of the wooden structure. Windows shattered, slates flew violently from the roof, the chimneys were blasted. The smoke, hideous and dense, blew out into the rain, at first with enormous speed and then slowing and rolling across the lawn like a thick and misleadingly gentle fog. Flames spread through the house with the obscene haste of a prairie fire. There was a secondary explosion almost immediately – perhaps a fuel tank, a gas line. This one rocked the house on its foundation and even greater fumes spewed up into the grey dawn and suddenly all geography was obscured, all spatial relationships demolished, and the landscape was reduced to flame and smoke, and the house became a concatenation of lesser explosions as glass blew out of frames and doors were forced from walls and timbers groaned in the roof and the porch collapsed.

  Pagan ran then, rushing from the concealment of the trees and going toward the smoke-clogged lawn with his jacket drawn across his mouth for protection from the fumes; he ran into the blind drifting mess of toxic smoke because the assassination squad couldn’t see him, and he stumbled in the direction of the slope. The smoke was everywhere, a large dun-coloured cover penetrated but not dispersed by rain. He could barely see the incline. Shrubs and bushes were ghostly shapes. He saw Carlotta moving away from him in the course of her ascent, shrouded in the same fog that enveloped him. Half-seen, she was more of a phantom than she’d ever been. She seemed to belong to the smoke, as if she were a creation of it.

  He called her name.

  She turned once, smiled, kept going away from him. The smoke was drifting up the ridge, thinning as it reached the tree line. If she went any further, she’d be seen by the gunmen in the trees.

  He gasped for air, waved a hand uselessly in front of his face as if to create a pocket of oxygen for himself, he coughed, his lungs hurt, there was pressure in his head. But he kept running despite all this. He kept running because he had to get to her. She turned and lazily fired her gun at him – an act she performed so casually he knew she had no intention of striking him. There was barely any sound from the weapon. It was silenced.

  Suddenly, as if she sensed the danger that lay up there in the trees, she changed direction. She knows, Pagan thought. She knows what waits for her up there, and he marvelled at her instincts, that finely-tuned instrument of her intuition. She was running back toward the burning house, away from those who carried guns along the ridge. Pagan turned too, and went after her, pursuing her past the house where the heat blasted him and he felt as if the skin were peeling from his face, past tennis courts, a swimming-pool, a softball field, and then into muddy meadows. He had his gun in his hand but he knew he wouldn’t use it. Not yet. She kept going, Pagan kept running. He was gaining on her, but the effort was costing him. Drained, muscles aching, he chased her into a place where the meadows yielded to deciduous trees, oaks, birches, elms, a whole pastoral corner the smoke didn’t reach. The rain fell cleanly here. Nearby, a stream ran through a gulley in the land. He called her name a couple of times, but she didn’t stop. She didn’t acknowledge him. He ploughed mud underfoot as he chased. He didn’t know how long he could keep this up. He wasn’t sure he could win this race. And she knew it, she knew his uncertainty; this was part of the same teasing game she’d always played.

  Then she stopped dead. Just like that.

  For a second Pagan thought she was either going to change direction on him again, or else turn with her gun, and it would all come down to some absurd duel in the rain, and he didn’t want that.

  But then he realized why she’d stopped.

  A young man in steel-framed glasses appeared suddenly from between the trees. He held a shotgun under his arm. His thick fair hair was matted, flattened against his skull. His raincoat glistened. Pagan, some yards behind Carlotta, came to a halt and stared at the young man, who moved a few paces forward.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Two for the price of one.’

  Pagan wiped rain from his face with his hand.

  The young man looked first at Carlotta and then at Pagan and said, ‘This is tidy. This I like. We haven’t met. But I know you. I know both of you.’ He smiled. The smile was dangerous, Pagan thought. It was as if the young man were lit from within by a light source from a cold corner of his heart.

  ‘Max Skidelsky,’ the young man said.

  Pagan lowered his head, looked down at the mud, the way puddles squelched under his shoes. Skidelsky, visionary, saviour. ‘Mallory’s friend,’ Pagan said.

  ‘Ah. You met Mallory. So you know.’

  ‘I know what Mallory told me,’ Pagan said.

  Skidelsky said, ‘Economical little plan. This lovely woman gets rid of a whole bunch of our deadheads in one shot. And we get the woman.’

  ‘It’s murder, no matter how you dress it up,’ Pagan said.

  ‘M
urder? Call it mercy killing, Pagan. The Agency was turning into an old folks’ home, for Christ’s sake. Too many dodderers. Too many Neanderthals. If they won’t go out to pasture when they should, then I say let’s give them a helping hand. Let’s get the show back on the god-damn road.’

  Pagan had the feeling there was an imbalance in Skidelsky. Not exactly madness, not that, but an intelligence impaled upon a spike of brutality and wild ambition. Something had gone wrong inside Max Skidelsky’s gyroscope and it was spinning in a contrary way. The plan Mallory had explained – what was that but the product of a mind in disarray? Demoralize the FBI. Strengthen the Agency. Root out the old plants and discard them. Make it a force again. Give it a purpose. And woven into this general tapestry of things was Carlotta, who stood with her face turned toward Pagan. It was an odd moment, Pagan thought; he and Carlotta faced by a common enemy. A curious twist of events, another kind of intimacy he didn’t want.

  Skidelsky looked at Carlotta. ‘Thank you, kind lady. Thank you for all your help. You didn’t know you were being so constructive with your services, did you?’

  She said nothing. Pagan had the feeling she considered Skidelsky no more than a temporary intruder in the situation that existed between her and himself. She stood with her hands at her sides, her gun dangling from her fingers.

  Skidelsky said, ‘Both of you. Put your weapons down. On the ground.’

  ‘And then what?’ Pagan asked.

  ‘Then it’s night-time,’ said Skidelsky.

  Carlotta said, ‘You expect us to toss our guns down?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter one way or another in the end,’ Skidelsky said.

  ‘OK,’ and she threw the gun to the ground. Her voice was jaunty and bright. ‘Nice set-up you arranged. I have to admire you for that.’

  Skidelsky glanced at the weapon, as if it were familiar to him.

  Carlotta said, ‘Belonged to a certain Lawrence Quinn. An Agency guy. You know him?’

  ‘That’s Larry’s gun?’

  ‘Lawrence. Larry. Whoever.’

  ‘I don’t have to ask what happened to Larry, I guess.’ Skidelsky looked at Pagan, and Pagan went through the odd etiquette of dropping his pistol. He was conscious of Carlotta from the corner of his eye, her casual stance, her hands at her sides, the way her long fingers were loose and relaxed.

  She smiled at Pagan. ‘Funny kind of ending, babe.’

  Babe, he thought. She kills, and she calls me babe.

  And we die together, babe.

  Skidelsky held the shotgun forward. Raindrops accumulated on his lenses. Carlotta put her hands on her hips, a gesture of defiance, of boldness, as if she meant to provoke Skidelsky at the very end.

  ‘Stand side by side,’ Skidelsky said.

  ‘Makes your job easier,’ Carlotta said.

  ‘You’ve made my job easier all along, lady. Why change it now?’

  She moved toward Pagan. Her arm brushed his. He felt something against his hip, the motion of her hand, and then he realized she was working the hidden hand furtively toward her pocket, that she wasn’t quite ready to give up her life here and now.

  He stared at the shotgun, at Skidelsky’s spectacles, the smudges of rain on glass, pondering ways to stall the man, to give Carlotta time to do whatever it was she had in mind – but he didn’t need to; her movement was secretive and swift and faster than Skidelsky, who carelessly hadn’t considered the possibility that she carried a second weapon, could have followed. She whipped the gun out of her pocket and in a continuation of the same motion fired a single shot.

  It struck Max Skidelsky in the glasses, and his shotgun went off and he dropped as if he’d been sandbagged – and Pagan, fast to respond, quick to realize he’d been given an unexpected new lease of life, grabbed the woman’s hand, and twisted it back hard, and crushed her fingers so that she had to release the gun, and then shoved her away.

  The gun fell from her hand.

  He bent to pick up the weapon without taking his eyes from her. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  She smiled. She simply smiled.

  ‘Now what?’ she asked.

  47

  CAMP LADYFAIR, VIRGINIA

  ‘You’re coming back with me to London.’ He heard in his voice a lack of conviction. The gun he pointed at her felt insubstantial, a weightless object.

  ‘Just like that. After I saved your life.’

  ‘Just like that,’ he said.

  ‘No gratitude, Frank.’ She shrugged. ‘If I don’t agree, what will you do? Shoot me in cold blood?’ Her tone was flippant. She stood with her legs slightly apart. Dull light reflected from the folds of her open leather jacket like small pools. Her wet T-shirt stuck to her skin.

  ‘Well?’ she asked. ‘The great Frank Pagan – what will he do? Will he shoot down the reluctant Carlotta? Does he have what it takes?’

  He understood he was being provoked. He wondered if he could be callous enough to kill the woman where she stood. She took a step toward him. He looked slightly away from her, conscious of Skidelsky lying some yards off in the grass.

  ‘Back to London,’ she said. ‘Generally, the amenities in gaols leave much to be desired. I’m fussy who I shower with. Plus I might find myself rooming with some fat butch sweaty bitch. I don’t see my future behind bars.’

  ‘You have no future,’ he said.

  She came closer. He was aware of a number of perceptions – rain on his face, pallid light, the woman’s proximity to him; especially that, her nearness, the quietness of her breath.

  She stood about two feet away from him. He was tense. The dawn was filled with the relics of violence. Pagan wondered if the woman sensed his tension, if she saw his nervousness.

  ‘It’s a long way to London, Frank,’ she said.

  ‘We’ll get there.’

  ‘I love that determination in your voice. We’ll get there. You don’t exactly sound confident. OK. Fine. Take me. I’m not armed. It’s a piece of cake, Frank. London here we come. Pagan returns with notorious terrorist. Headlines and glory.’

  Pagan gazed at her. What he couldn’t understand was this ready acquiescence; nothing was ever simple when it came to her. He half-expected her to reach out and try to disarm him, but she didn’t. She tucked her thumbs in the belt of her jeans and smiled at him, and her expression made him wary.

  ‘Got cuffs?’ she asked.

  He shook his head. ‘Walk in front of me. Slowly.’

  ‘No cuffs? Pity. I like the idea of being shackled to you. The intimacy of bondage.’

  ‘Just walk, Carlotta. We’ll walk to where I left my car, and we’ll take our time, and if the posse’s gone we’ll drive away.’

  They walked through the trees. After a few minutes, she turned and looked at him. She tossed her head back a little and smiled at him in a secretive way and he was plummeted back into the hotel room in Washington, into that crucible of memory, remembering how she’d aroused him. Other women had excited him, inflamed him – but not like this one, not like Carlotta. Not even, God help him, Roxanne. She’d divined the secret heart of how to pleasure him. There was a core to him, and she knew where to find it, how to massage it. But he couldn’t dwell on this baffling chemistry, he had to ignore it and get on with his life, the return of the woman to London and to justice, three thousand miles from here. Justice, and perhaps peace in himself, an end to turmoil, a return to what might pass as sound mental health.

  ‘Walk,’ he said.

  ‘Carry me,’ she said.

  ‘Carry you?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You’re out of your mind.’ He forced a laugh.

  ‘Funny, I seem to have developed a cramp in my leg,’ she said.

  ‘Bullshit. Walk. Just walk.’

  ‘You’re scared, Pagan. You can’t bring yourself to touch me. You can’t predict how you’re going to react. But I can. Because I know what you are.’

  What you are, he thought. What exactly was that? He saw her fingertip run lazily up a
nd down the zip of her leather jacket. He remembered how she’d undone her jeans, the way her hand had vanished down inside white lace. He despised the direction of his thoughts, the way these images assaulted him. Be careful, he thought. Be careful and keep moving, you can’t afford to be still.

  ‘So. Are you going to carry me or not?’ she asked. The smile was knowing, intimate as a caress.

  ‘Just walk,’ he said. She was right: he couldn’t touch her. He couldn’t run the risk of contact.

  ‘Such cruelty,’ she said.

  He made a motion with the gun and she began to walk a few paces ahead of him. But she stopped again. ‘What makes you think you can get me out of the States? Some people here want me as badly as you, Pagan. In a different kind of way, if you understand my meaning.’

  Matters of jurisdiction didn’t concern him right then, and he chose to ignore the way she played on the word want. ‘Just keep moving,’ he said.

  ‘You’re thinking about the hotel room, Pagan. You’re thinking of what might have been. You’re wondering what you might have missed. You’re wondering what it would really be like to fuck me. That’s what you’re thinking.’

  He didn’t speak. He concentrated on the quiet sounds of water sliding from leaves.

  ‘You’re watching me, Pagan. You can’t take your eyes off me. I can feel you. I can feel all this pent-up shit inside you. I don’t even have to look at you to feel it. You’re ready to explode.’

  ‘Wrong,’ he said.

  ‘Sure I’m wrong.’ She balanced herself on one leg and bent the other, reaching down to scratch the back of her leg. ‘Don’t worry. I don’t have a gun stashed inside my boot.’

  Her balance was a delicate thing. He wondered what she’d be like if the sickness could be drained out of her, if her love of destruction could somehow be leeched from her system. A pointless consideration. She was beyond redemption. She didn’t want absolution or understanding. These were concepts she mocked. Human life was derisory, and frail, ultimately worthless. He wondered, as he’d done before, at the contrariness of nature, at how someone so murderous as Carlotta could be so beautiful. Why wasn’t she disfigured in some way? Why wasn’t she ugly? When would he ever see that her loveliness was a travesty?