Maps of Hell mw-3

by Paul Johnston

  “So the chopsticks were the murder weapons?”

  Maltravers nodded. “They did some major damage to the brain.”

  “What did the crime-scene technicians come up with?”

  “You mean, apart from the Matt Wells prints? Nothing conclusive. Some fibers and some soil traces, but they’re unlikely to give us a big break-standard clothing and local dirt.”

  “Canvassing?”

  “The team’s on it as we speak. So far, nothing, apart from the not-very-brave citizen who lived below the vic.”

  Sebastian ran a hand across his limp hair. “What about document analysis?”

  “Similar ink and paper. They reckon the drawings were done by the same hand. They still haven’t any idea about the meaning or meanings.”

  “Jesus, Dana, who is this guy? The Invisible Man? Somebody has to have seen him.”

  “Sir?” Maltravers said, her eyes on the wall above him.

  “What is it?” Sebastian said, recognizing the tone. She thought he had screwed up.

  “Do you think we should have taken the D.C. detectives off the cases?”

  He frowned. “Given that the order was mine, yes, I do. Obviously.”

  “Yes, but…they have local knowledge.”

  “So do our people, Dana.” He looked at her and realized she hadn’t finished. “Go on then, spit it out.”

  “Well, I spoke to a contact in MPDC last night. He reckons that Simmons and Pinker are still working the cases in their own.”

  Peter Sebastian’s face flushed. “Are you sure about that? Chief Owen assured me they weren’t.”

  Maltravers raised her shoulders. “I can’t be a hundred percent certain, sir. Anyway, they might find something we could use.”

  “They’d better not. We’d look like major losers then. Now sit down. I want to run through all the murders and update my orders.”

  He did so, Dana Maltravers writing copious notes and giving her thoughts. The problem was, neither of them thought that the new orders would result in anything earth-shattering.

  “What about Matt Wells, sir?”

  “Keep the full alert in operation.”

  She nodded. “I agree.”

  Sebastian eyed her dubiously. “At the very least, we have to rule him out.”

  “Right, sir. About Richard Bonhoff-how much do you want to release to the press?”

  “Everything.”

  “Including the fact that he was looking for his missing children here?”

  “What?” Sebastian peered at the relevant file. “I didn’t see anything about that.”

  Maltravers gave a thin smile. “Oh, sorry, sir, that report mustn’t have got through yet. The wife confirmed it yesterday evening. Gwen and Randy are their names. Apparently they’re twins.”

  “Do the D.C. detectives know about that?”

  “I don’t know.” The young woman looked surprised at the question.

  “Find out.” Sebastian stared at her. He could see she wanted to know why he was so interested, but she didn’t have the nerve to ask why. He watched her leave, then closed the door behind her.

  Peter Sebastian needed to make some rather delicate calls. Roasting the Hate Crimes department for their slow response to his inquiry about the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant’s threatening of Professor Singer was one thing. Trying to discover why the CIA was putting the squeeze on his FBI boss was another. And finding out just what Clem Simmons and his partner were doing was the last. Then he could get back to catching the killer.

  I was in the back of Clem’s car, keeping my head down.

  “We should be working on the explosion,” Pinker said, glancing over his shoulder at me blankly. He had made it clear that he didn’t approve of me being involved.

  “We know who’s responsible for that,” I said, even though I knew I wasn’t expected to speak.

  “So where are their names, addresses and contact numbers?” Pinker demanded. He shook his head when I didn’t answer. “Asshole.”

  “What Matt means is that the same people who don’t want him to get any closer killed Joe Greenbaum, Vers,” Clem said, keeping his eyes to the front. We were parked on a roadside in northwest Washington.

  “Oh, excuse me,” his partner said sardonically. “I forgot that the Secretary of State had ordered diplomatic immunity for limey number one here.” He turned to Simmons. “Jesus, Clem, have you lost it completely? This guy’s a suspect in at least two murders.”

  “Back off,” the big man said. “We’re not investigating those cases now, not officially. I’m only interested in making sure there are no more murders in this city.”

  “And exactly how is cozying up to this shithead going to achieve that?”

  I leaned forward. “We’re going to ask your friend Gordy Lister some awkward questions, Versace.” Clem had told me about the newspaperman. I reckoned he must know plenty about Larry Thomson’s and about Woodbridge Holdings’s activities.

  The detective turned his head toward me. “You don’t get to call me that, jailbird. You gotta earn the right.”

  I smiled. He reminded me of my friend Dave, small of frame but large of spirit. That could only be to my advantage-if he didn’t cut my balls off first.

  “There he is,” Clem said.

  I watched as a skinny man in a brown leather jacket and cowboy boots came down the steps of a town house. Apparently Lister rarely used the place, but he’d been keeping clear of his usual haunts.

  “Oh, shit,” Pinker said, reaching for his weapon.

  Three men built like top-weight wrestlers came out after Gordy Lister and formed a defensive wall around him.

  “We still going for it?” Pinker asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” Clem said, a smile on his lips.

  They both got out. I stayed where I was-as they told me-but I had a feeling I wouldn’t be there for long.

  Clem walked behind the group as they headed for a large black SUV. When he called out Lister’s name, the group stopped and Lister’s face appeared between the solid sides of two of his bodyguards. I couldn’t hear the discussion, but it was pretty obvious Lister wasn’t interested in cooperating. The big men closed around him again.

  That was when Pinker made his move. Holding his pistol in a two-handed grip, he ordered them all to stay where they were. They did so, for about ten seconds. Then one of the gorillas lunged at Pinker with unexpected speed, knocking his gun away. Another of the men bore down on Clem. I got out of the car, my heart racing.

  By the time I was across the road, Lister was climbing into the SUV

  .

  “Hey, assholes!” I yelled.

  That got their attention. Two of the men stayed on the detectives. The third moved toward me. I glanced past him at Lister. The newspaperman had screwed up. Instead of driving away, he’d stayed to watch the fun. I was about to make him regret that.

  My man had a crew cut and a face disfigured by steroidinduced acne. There was also a bulge in his jacket under his left armpit. I made a move for that. As the gorilla tried to grab my arm, I stepped inside and landed the toe of my boot in his unprotected groin. “The vomit shot” my friend Dave had called that, and he’d been sent off more than once for using it on the rugby pitch. As the gorilla went down, I slipped my hand inside his jacket and grabbed a large semiautomatic. I thumbed the safety off and turned the weapon on Gordy Lister.

  “He’ll be dead before you can aim at me,” I said over my shoulder to the others.

  Lister looked like he’d been caught in the lights of an eighteen-wheeler. My eyes told him I didn’t have any qualms about shooting him and he wasn’t prepared to take a chance on my shooting skills. Good move.

  “Let them go,” he said to his men. “Let my friends the detectives go.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Clem and Pinker clap handcuffs on the gorillas. Then Pinker went to check on the guy I’d kicked.

  “Clear,” he called, after pocketing a set of knuckle-dusters.

 
Clem went over to Lister and grabbed him.

  “Let’s go.”

  Pinker got in the back with Lister and I took the front passenger seat.

  I turned to the rear. “So, can I call you Vers now?”

  Gerard Pinker stared back at me and then grinned. “Guess you can at that. Long as I can call you Field Goal.”

  I shrugged. I’d been called worse.

  Gordy Lister followed our exchange with the expression of a small boy who had inadvertently walked into a lions’ den.

  The woman was sitting in the back of a Jeep Cherokee, holding on tight. The driver had been told she was pregnant and he was driving carefully, but the track between the tall pine trees was deeply rutted. Still, she wasn’t worried about the child. The doctors had assured her the journey wouldn’t affect her son’s well-being.

  Before she left the camp, she had dressed in a black trouser suit that fitted her very well, the elastic in the waist expanding to accommodate her swollen belly. Apparently the clothes had belonged to her before she had been introduced to the teachings of the party. They had been ripped and made dirty. Her story was that she had been kidnapped by rough men who had kept her locked up in a dark room, giving her enough to eat but never talking to her.

  Her face and hands had also been smeared with dirt, and it had been rubbed into her hair. She didn’t mind. She wanted nothing but to hear the praise of her superiors after she returned from the city. They had promised that she would have every comfort for the birth, and that a top-level obstetrician and midwife would be in attendance. The child was precious to them-her son was the future and he would grow up surrounded by love and respect. And they had finally told her who the father was. She was looking forward to meeting him. She had to speak to him, but there would be little time. Maybe it would be best that way. Men didn’t respond well to rejection.

  Her equipment had been easy to hide about her person. No one would find it suspicious in the least, so she would be allowed to keep it.

  The pine trees gradually became smaller and the track softer. They passed through clearings, leaving small huts behind. It struck the woman that this wilderness would be a wonderful place to bring up her son. The rest of the world was full of degenerates and the weak, people who had been brainwashed by television, fashion and pop music. They needed to be woken up.

  We left the gorillas to play with their handcuffs and took Gordy Lister to a remote parking place in Rock Creek Park. Gerard Pinker jumped out and blocked the access road with a couple of police cones to make sure we wouldn’t be disturbed.

  “What’s this all about, guys?” the newspaperman said, blinking in extreme nervousness. “I mean, you took us by surprise back there…”

  “Yeah, it looked that way,” Pinker said. “You didn’t think we knew about that extra place of yours, did you?”

  Gordy was looking at me. “Who’s he?”

  “Oh, you know me,” I said, with a pleasant smile. “At least, you should do. I’ve been all over the Star Reporter recently.”

  Lister squinted. “What?” Then he must have remembered the photo of me that they’d been running. “Matt Wells,” he said, turning to Simmons. “Why isn’t he under arrest?”

  “A good question,” Clem said, looking over his shoulder. “But a two-timing piece of shit like you doesn’t get to hear the answer.”

  “What do you-”

  Lister broke off as Versace jabbed him in the midriff with his fist. “No more questions from you, Gordy. Only answers. Where shall we start?”

  I had an idea about that. “Larry Thomson,” I said, watching the newspaperman’s reaction. As I’d expected, he looked very apprehensive.

  “I see you know him. So tell us what he does at Woodbridge Holdings.”

  The three of us held our eyes on him. He seemed to shrink, but nothing came from his mouth except a damp tongue that flickered like a snake’s.

  Vers applied his fist to the prisoner’s belly again. This time he let out a yelp.

  “All right, Gordy,” I said, smiling expansively, “let me make it easy for you. I’ll tell you what I know about Woodbridge Holdings.” I gave him an outline of what we knew about the NANR, the camp and their links with Nazism.

  “What’s that got to do with me?” he whined when I’d finished. “I don’t know anything about this Nazi revival.”

  “Is that right? Do you know a reporter called Joe Greenbaum, Gordy?”

  He avoided my eyes and raised his shoulders weakly.

  “Is that a yes?” I demanded.

  “He…he was blown up, wasn’t he?” Lister said in a small voice. “I saw it on the news.”

  “What do you know about that?” I leaned closer. His eyes stayed down, which made me suspicious. “He was my friend, Gordy. And he told me a lot about Woodbridge Holdings.”

  I glanced at Clem Simmons. It was time to put the squeeze on Lister big-time. We’d talked about doing it, but he hadn’t been sure it would work.

  “How do you think Larry Thomson’s going to feel about you when he hears you’ve spilled your guts to us?”

  “What d’you mean?” Lister squealed. “I haven’t said anything!”

  “Yet.” I smiled at him, this time malevolently. “Your people killed my friend. You’re going to tell me everything you know or I’ll stick something a lot sharper than a fist in your gut.” I laughed bitterly. “Don’t forget-according to the Star Reporter, I skewered Monsieur Hexie’s kidneys and shoved chopsticks up Crystal Vileda’s nostrils.” I pulled out a pair of chopsticks that I’d got earlier from a Chinese restaurant.

  Gordy Lister’s eyes bulged, then he collapsed forward. Versace pulled him up and made him face me.

  “All right-all right. Mr. Thomson will never trust me again anyway.”

  And then he told us his tale.

  Thirty-Eight

  Gavin Burdett was sitting in a deep leather armchair facing a large antique desk. A nondescript sedan had set him down on a parallel street after a two-hour drive from Washington. He glanced at the Havana he’d allowed to go out in the ashtray and decided against lighting it again. Larry T. tolerated cigar smoke, but he wasn’t really a fan. Now that the pressure was on, the Englishman didn’t want to make things worse for himself.

  The door opened and the tall man walked in, followed by a thin-faced bodyguard wearing a well-cut suit. Burdett immediately stood up, disguising the pain in his knees. He smiled uncertainly.

  “Larry, I’m very glad to-” He broke off as the bodyguard walked around the room. He moved a thin rod up and down, scanning for surveillance devices. After a nod from him, the tall man pointed to the door and waited till he and Burdett were alone.

  “I’m sorry, Gavin,” he said, in a low, smooth voice. “We can’t be too careful. It appears that one of my confederates has been arrested.”

  The Englishman was immediately apprehensive. “Really? How much does he know?”

  Larry Thomson smiled. “About you? Absolutely nothing at all.”

  “Thank God.” Burdett reached for the crystal glass containing fifteen-year-old malt whiskey.

  “He does, however, know rather a lot about other aspects of our operations,” the tall man said, walking behind the desk and sitting down. He waved to Burdett to sit, too.

  “Will he talk?”

  “Almost undoubtedly.” Thomson took a cigarette from his silver case and lit it. “It’s very difficult to find completely loyal men these days. Particularly as regards what one might call dirty work.”

  Gavin Burdett raised his hands. “I don’t want to know.”

  Larry Thomson gave another tight smile. “I wasn’t going to tell you. What you know about our overseas interests is enough.” He filled a glass from a carafe of water. “Not that I’ve told you about all of those.”

  The Englishman took a large sip of whiskey. “So, what now? Is the woman ready?”

  Thomson looked at his guest with pale blue, unwavering eyes. “Apparently so.”

  “And y
ou’re going to go ahead with the plan?”

  “Have you acquired cold feet?” The tall man’s tone was mocking. “I seem to remember that you were the one who wanted her…how shall I put? Removed from the equation?”

  Burdett nodded. “Of course. She declared a personal crusade against me.”

  Thomson swallowed water, his Adam’s apple becoming even more prominent. “Why so anxious, then?”

  “Because…what if the process isn’t entirely successful? What if she remembers who she is?”

  “That’s very unlikely. Our procedures are highly effective.”

  Gavin Burdett dropped his gaze. “Not in Matt Wells’s case.”

  “As you well know, his treatment was incomplete. Besides, he may still act as planned when the time comes.”

  “And what about the occult killings?”

  “What about them?” The tall man smiled. “If anything, they have added to the general state of panic in Washington. Our forthcoming operations will make the most of that.”

  “What are you going to do about Wells?”

  “He’ll be caught. The FBI is fully committed to that.”

  The Englishman looked across the desk. “You’re sure?”

  “I’ve told you before-we have friends in the Bureau.”

  Gavin Burdett drained his glass. “You’d better be right. A lot of people in the City of London have invested deeply in Woodbridge Holdings.”

  Thomson raised his eyebrows. “Have any of them lost money?” He got up and took the decanter round to his guest. “No, they haven’t. And that’s all they care about, isn’t it?”

  Burdett watched as his glass was filled over half full. “Yes, Larry,” he said, with a widening smile. “Indeed it is.”

  I was in the back of Clem Simmons’s car in southeast Washington, about fifty yards down the road from a large building that had originally been a warehouse. Now it was used by junkies and crackheads.

  “We shouldn’t have let that little rat go in on his own,” Gerard Pinker said, looking through binoculars at the building’s entrance. The streetlamp near it gave off only a dull glow.