Joker rubbed his chin with both hands. He could feel the stubble from several days’ growth scratch the skin of his palms. “And then? You still haven’t told me exactly how you want me to take them out.”
The Colonel smiled thinly. “That’s up to you,” he said, his voice almost a whisper.
Joker nodded. He understood why it was a solo mission and why there would be no contact with the Americans. “Colonel, it’ll be a pleasure,” he said. Joker wished that he felt as confident as he sounded. His last encounter with Mary Hennessy had left him shattered — physically and emotionally — and his enthusiasm for the Colonel’s mission was tinged with an emotion he hadn’t felt for some time. Fear.
Cole Howard drove back to his office after dropping Andy Kim off at the airport. The mathematician had spent the previous day in the desert with several men from the Sheriffs Department and a laser measuring device which Howard had managed to borrow from the County Highways Department. Kim had been keen to get back to Washington and begin running his numbers through the university’s mainframe computer. He’d been like an excited child during the ride to the airport, bobbing his head backwards and forwards as he talked. Howard wished he could have got the same enthusiasm from the young FBI agent who’d been assigned to help track down the vehicles used in the desert rehearsal. She was a twenty-five-year-old college graduate straight out of the Academy, a pushy woman with too much hair who’d seen Silence of the Lambs fifteen times and clearly decided to model herself on Hannibal Lecter rather than on Jodie Foster’s character. She was tall, had backswept blonde hair and a sharp profile, with pale green eyes that always seemed to regard Howard with contempt. It was a look he was used to seeing in his father-in-law’s eyes. Her name was Kelly Armstrong and she seemed to blame Howard for giving her the mundane job to do, even though the assignment had come direct from Jake Sheldon. Howard had wanted someone more experienced but Sheldon had insisted that he use the new girl, because tracking down rental cars didn’t require anything more than a room temperature IQ. She hadn’t smiled at him once, and her icy politeness annoyed the hell out of him.
She was waiting for him in his office. She looked pointedly at her wristwatch, an expensive gold Cartier, and pursed her glossy pink lips. Howard wanted to tell her that he was late because of Andy Kim, but he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of having to explain himself.
“Good morning, Kelly,” he said, coldly.
“Cole,” she acknowledged. “I’ve found twelve rental companies within fifty miles of Phoenix who rent or lease vehicles of the make and colour in the Mitchell video. In all there were eighty-three out on the day of the shooting.” She looked at her notebook and flipped over a page with the sound of tearing cloth. “Seventy-nine have been returned, four are still out. All four are still within their rental agreements.”
Howard nodded and sat behind his desk. He waved Kelly to sit down but she ignored him. “All eighty-three were paid for by credit card, and all went through without incident. No fake cards, no stolen cards. I’ve run checks on all the driving licences and other than a few dozen unpaid tickets and a guy who owes several thousand dollars in child support, there’s nothing untoward.” Howard opened his mouth to speak but Kelly continued. “I asked all the rental companies if they had rented out a blue and a white car at the same time, and none had. A total of eight had been involved in an accident of some form, but all were collision damage and all had the names and insurance details of the other drivers involved.”
“Good work, Kelly,” he said. “You’ve done a good job.” She nodded and turned to go. “But. .” he began and she tensed. When she turned back she was looking down her sharp nose at him like an angry bird preparing to peck out his eyes. She raised her left eyebrow archly.
“Those cars must have come from somewhere,” he continued.
“Without licence plates it’s going to be difficult to track them down,” she said slowly.
“Difficult, but not impossible,” said Howard.
“We’re not even sure they’re rental cars,” she said.
“True, but it’s unlikely they’d risk using their own vehicles.”
“They could be stolen.”
“That’s also true. In fact, that’s a good line of inquiry. You should check if any stolen cars match the description. But first you should start checking all the licences which were used to obtain the rentals we know about.”
Her smile tightened. “I already told you that I’d done that.”
Howard shook his head. “No, you said the licences were in order. Which they would be if they’d been stolen and not reported. Or if the licences were genuine but based on fake IDs. All you need for a licence is to pass the test and show a birth certificate. And birth certificates are easy to forge or you can get one for a dead child. What we’ve got to do is to contact the owner of each licence and check that they did rent the car. And ask them where they went.”
“Cole, that could take weeks.”
“If that’s what it takes, that’s what it takes,” said Howard. “And if that draws a blank you’ll have to widen the area of investigation. Go to a one-hundred-mile radius from Phoenix. And keep extending it, to Tucson and beyond if it’s necessary. This is important, Kelly.” The girl glared at him as if she was going to say something, but instead she just nodded and turned on her heels. Her expensive wool skirt swung from side to side like a filly’s tail as she stormed out of Howard’s office.
Mary Hennessy stood in front of the bathroom mirror and studied her reflection. She’d always wanted to be a blonde when she was a little girl. She’d driven her mother to distraction: each time a birthday came round she’d always ask for the same thing — blonde curls — and she’d sent innumerable letters up the chimney to Santa Claus until she’d reached the age where she realised that hair colour was genetic and not something that a parent could change. By the time she discovered that chemicals could alter her natural brown colour she no longer wanted to be blonde. Now here she was, just about to turn fifty, with hair the colour of a mid-summer wheatfield. She turned her head from side to side, then bent forward to check the roots. The dye job was good for another week or so, she decided. She raised her head and smoothed the skin around her neck with her fingertips. It was, she acknowledged with a twinge of regret, beginning to lose some of its elasticity. She shuddered, remembering the turkey necks of old aunts who’d visited her house when she was a child and given her minty-tasting kisses and pressed sixpences into her palm. Soon it would be her turn to face the ravages of time, and she wasn’t looking forward to it. Perversely, her hair looked better than ever: the blonde locks suited her and the light perm made it much fuller. It also completely altered her appearance, though it matched the photograph in the American passport on her dressing table.
She adjusted the neck of her polo-neck pullover and then took a houndstooth jacket out of the closet and slipped it on. With the black jeans the outfit was casual but businesslike, she decided. Just right. She collected her car from the hotel car park and drove to the airport.
Matthew Bailey was waiting for her in the cafeteria with a half-eaten croissant and a cup of cold coffee in front of him. He stood up too quickly when he saw her and spilled his coffee over the table top. Mary smiled. Bailey was almost half her age, easily young enough to be her son, but he’d made it clear on several occasions that he’d dearly love to get inside her pants. That was one of the reasons she’d dressed so severely, so that there was no question of leading him on.
“The plane was early,” he said, mopping up his coffee with paper serviettes.
“I’m sorry, I should’ve checked,” said Mary.
“Oh no, that’s okay,” he said. “I didn’t m-m-mind.”
Mary had noticed that Bailey developed a slight stammer when they were alone together. It was hard to believe that the slightly-built young man was responsible for the deaths of four RUC officers in Northern Ireland. He was a full two inches shorter than Mary, with unkempt red hair and a sprin
kling of freckles across his snub nose. He had the sort of hair which was difficult to dye — he’d tried it once with black colouring and it had turned out dark green — so he’d changed his appearance by cutting his hair short, growing a thin moustache and wearing John Lennon-type spectacles. It made him look about nineteen years old, and he dressed like an all-American student in sweatshirts, baggy jeans, and baseball boots. She slid onto the seat opposite him. “How did it go?” she asked.
“No problems,” he said. He looked around for somewhere to put the wet serviettes. “Do you want anything? Coffee?” Mary shook her head. Bailey put the serviettes in an ashtray. “I bought a ticket to LA on the Amex card and used it to rent a car at the airport and to pay for a m-m-motel there. I returned the car on the second day and put the cards in a wallet with a few dollars and dropped it in Central LA. I hung around to make sure it was picked up — a couple of black guys got it and I could tell they weren’t going to hand it in.” He grinned. “One of them started dancing up and down. You should have seen it, it was so funny. I paid cash for the ticket back here, and I’ve destroyed the licence.”
“Good. That should do the trick.”
“Do you really think anyone will be after us?” he said.
“I don’t know, but it’s better to be on the safe side. After we brought that plane down in the desert the place must have been swarming with cops. There’s always a chance they’ll find out about the cars from the tyre tracks, or they might manage to find someone who saw us at a filling station. If they find where we rented the car from they’ll have a record of the two credit cards and licences we used.”
“But they were in phony names anyway.”
“I know, but by laying a false trail in LA we’ll have them thinking we’re on the other side of the country.”
Bailey nodded and toyed with his cup. He obviously had something on his mind and Mary waited for him to speak. Bailey kept his eyes lowered. “We’re still going ahead, then?”
“What do you mean?” she asked. She kept her voice low and even, though her heart had begun to race. The last thing she needed was for Bailey to get cold feet at this stage.
“I just thought, what with what happened in the desert and all, that you’d think about calling it off.”
“Oh no, Matthew. Oh no. There’s no question of us backing out now. Except for the plane, everything went according to plan. The rifles are all calibrated and we practised the shoot itself. We’re ready to go.”
“Okay,” he said quietly.
Mary reached over and touched the back of his hand lightly. He flinched as if he’d received an electric shock and then smiled at her. “We’re only going to get one chance at this,” she said. “We’ve invested a great deal of time and money to get this far, surely you don’t want that to be wasted?”
“But what about that Sass-man? Manyon?”
Mary snorted. “He didn’t know what we were planning. You heard what he said, it was you he was following, that’s all. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Like the plane,” said Bailey.
“Like the plane,” she repeated. She ran her index finger along the back of Bailey’s hand. “The SAS had heard that you were in the States, and they sent him over to investigate. He knew nothing.”
“If he can find me, there’ll be others.”
Mary withdrew her hand. “Which is why you’re going to Florida until we’re ready for the final phase. Go to Disneyworld, hang around in the sun, enjoy yourself. This time of year Florida is full of Brits, no-one will find you there. We’ll meet in Baltimore in four weeks.” She slipped him a piece of paper on which she’d written a telephone number. “Call me at this hotel on April twelfth. I’ll tell you where we’re staying then.”
Bailey didn’t look convinced. Mary leaned forward over the table. “Matthew, I need you for this. I really do.” She smiled as warmly as she could. “Matthew, you’re with me on this, aren’t you?” He nodded and she rewarded him with another smile. “It’ll be fine, really. Now you disappear for a few weeks and contact me on the twelfth. Before midday.” She stood up, bent down to kiss him lightly on the cheek, and walked away. She knew he was watching her go and she swung her hips just a little more than usual, hating herself but knowing it was necessary.
Joker flew into New York on the afternoon of March 17, stiff and cramped after eight hours at the back of a British Airways 747. World Traveller the airline called it, but to Joker it would always be Cattle Class: tiny seats, no legroom and food as plastic as the smile of the stewardesses. He didn’t realise the significance of the date until his Yellow Cab ground to a halt somewhere around 72nd Street. The cab driver twisted round and grinned. “Fucking Irish,” he said in a thick accent which Joker guessed was Slavic.
“Huh?” said Joker, who’d been half asleep. Even the back of a New York cab was more comfortable than his British Airways seat and the driver had the heater full on.
“Fucking Irish,” the driver repeated. “Today’s the St Patrick’s Day Parade and the traffic’s not moving. It’s going to be like this all fucking day. Today it’s the fucking Irish, next week it’s the fucking Greeks and next month, wouldya believe it, it’s the fucking Puerto Ricans.”
“No problem,” said Joker. “I’m in no hurry.”
“Whatever you say,” said the driver. He began pumping his fist on the horn. “You English?”
“Scottish,” replied Joker.
“Yeah? I’m from Turkey. Great fucking country, America. Fucking great.” He continued to pound on the horn and swear at the traffic ahead. It seemed to Joker that the man’s swearing vocabulary was limited to the one expletive and that he couldn’t go for more than a minute without using it at least twice.
Joker looked across at the crowds walking by the shops. It was a cold spring day and most people were wearing long coats and scarves. The gutters were full of rubbish: old newspapers, squashed soft drink cans and empty cigarette packs. No-one seemed to care. A thick-set man in an expensive cashmere overcoat dropped a half-finished cigar onto the ground and it glowed redly until it was crushed by a white high-heeled shoe. Joker’s gaze travelled up from the shoe to a shapely leg that disappeared into a fawn raincoat. The woman was a brunette, her hair glossy and shoulder length. She brushed past a large black man who thrust a styrofoam cup at her and asked for change. The beggar shouted something after her but she showed no sign of hearing him and he waved the cup at a businessman who pretended not to see him. Eye contact seemed to be kept to a minimum as if acknowledging another’s existence would only lead to confrontation. The beggar saw that Joker was looking at him and he grinned. He ambled over to the cab, put a hand on the roof and bent down.
“Got any change?” he mouthed through the closed window.
Joker shook his head. All he had were the bills the Colonel had given him.
“Fuck off, why don’t you?” the cab driver shouted. “Leave my fare alone.”
“It’s okay,” said Joker. “No problem.”
“And get your filthy fucking hand off my fucking cab!” the driver screamed.
The beggar walked to the front of the vehicle. He was wearing a shabby grey wool coat, with the buttons missing, over brown trousers that were wearing thin at the knees and a stained green pullover. He was still smiling but there was a cold, almost psychotic, stare in his eyes. His neck muscles tensed and he reared his head back and then he spat a stream of greenish phlegm across the windscreen.
“You fucking animal!” the driver screamed. He switched his wipers on and they streaked the saliva across the glass. The beggar began to cackle, nodding his head backwards and forwards as he laughed. The driver pressed his windscreen wash button and thin jets of water crawled up the glass. “What the fuck is this city coming to?” the driver yelled rhetorically. The traffic began to move and the cab pulled away. Joker turned to watch the beggar and for a couple of seconds they had eye contact and he had a cold feeling somewhere deep inside as he realised tha
t he didn’t have too far to fall before he’d have to live on the streets himself and he wondered how he’d make out in a city like New York without a home, without money. After he’d quit his job as a nightwatchman on the Isle of Dogs, he was out of work for almost six weeks and he’d come close to being destitute. If his landlord hadn’t agreed to wait for his rent, Joker knew he’d have ended up sleeping in shop doorways. He had no close family and no savings and he was all too well aware that there was no Government safety-net waiting to catch him if he fell. “Fucking animals,” repeated the driver.
“Yeah,” said Joker, not wanting to argue. “Can you drop me here?”
“I thought you said Thirty-seventh Street?”
“Yeah, I did, but I’m feeling ill. I’d rather walk.”
“Okay, okay. Whatever you want. Just don’t throw up in the fucking cab, that’s all.” The cab slammed to a halt and Joker thrust the fare through a small hole in a Perspex barrier that kept the driver insulated from his passengers. He opened the door and pulled his cheap suitcase after him. The outside air felt cold after the overheated cab interior so he walked briskly to keep warm. In the distance he could hear the wail of bagpipes and he headed towards them.
He found the parade heading down Fifth Avenue and stood among the watching crowds, the suitcase at his feet and his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his pea jacket. A group of kilted pipers were playing Mull of Kintyre. The pipers moved on, followed by a huge float in the shape of the Loch Ness Monster on either side of which had been stencilled the name of a Japanese computer company. Across the thoroughfare was an imposing white marble and stone Gothic cathedral and as the float moved by Joker saw it was called St Patrick’s.
Joker wondered how many of the spectators who were cheering and waving flags realised that the pipers and the monster were Scottish and not Irish. It didn’t seem to make any difference, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. A gleaming fire engine rolled by, decorated with huge cardboard shamrocks and with the firemen all dressed in green. It was followed by a large float decorated like an Irish hill with large inflatable cows surrounding a huge yellow block with the word BUTTER etched into it.
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