I looked around and saw a fire extinguisher on the landing. Checking my watch, I waited for the guard to appear again. Then I gave him another minute to make sure he wasn’t close. The door gave way with the first blow of the extinguisher. Unfortunately, the noise was enough to wake the dead. I sprinted down the corridor and took refuge behind a desk that was set in an alcove, not bothering to conceal myself. The gorilla was on the other side soon afterward. He saw me immediately.
“Get up,” he said gruffly.
I did what I was told, putting the bag on the desk between us.
“What’s in there?” he demanded, his eyes locked on mine.
I smiled. “A bomb.”
His eyes immediately dropped, as I knew they would. I punched him hard on the side of his jaw. I was in luck. The other side of his face smashed against the wall and he dropped to the floor. I dragged him behind the desk and secured his hands and legs with the plastic restraint cuffs Clem had given me. I was home free-as long as there weren’t any more goons on the loose.
I took the bag and walked to the end of the corridor. There was a set of double doors there, the only entrance I’d seen since I broke in. I hoped the birds hadn’t flown after the noise I’d made.
Just as I was about to slide the screwdriver into the lock, there was a loud click and the doors opened inward. I stood there like a schoolboy outside the local brothel, unsure whether to stay or go. Then a female voice put me out of my misery.
I went in to meet the woman who called me by name.
Peter Sebastian was still at his desk, having told his wife that he wouldn’t be home till further notice. He was sinking in quicksand, and everything he did seemed to make things worse. He’d even bawled out Dana Maltravers for the first time ever, and sent her home. He wasn’t sure if she’d be speaking to him in the morning and he couldn’t blame her. He’d been treating her as if she was his slave, rather than a special agent on the fast track to the very top.
He drank from a bottle of water. Soon he would have to draft a report for his boss, and the FBI director himself wanted to be copied on it. That didn’t make him feel good at all. The simple truth was that he didn’t have anything significant to report about the occult killings. The only progress his team had made regarded the dead man in the river. Richard Bonhoff’s wife, Melissa, had been interviewed. She had come to Washington and Sebastian had met her, though it was Maltravers who took her statement. He’d been surprised by the woman’s coldness-she hardly seemed to care that her husband had been murdered. At least she’d supplied a lot of information about her twin children, Randy and Gwen, who didn’t come home three months ago, having been on a trip to D.C. last winter. She had demanded that the Bureau find her children, something that Sebastian could hardly prioritize. It didn’t help that the newspaperman Gordon Lister, who had looked after the twins when they won a competition in the Star Reporter, was nowhere to be found. The people at the paper seemed to be as much in the dark as anyone as to his whereabouts.
At last the people in Hate Crimes had woken up, but they hadn’t been any use. As far as they knew, the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant had been defunct for decades. They were of the opinion that some far-right lunatic or lunatics had dug the name up as cover. As for the investigations on the ground, all witnesses had been questioned again, all medical and CSI reports had been collated and double-checked, and all leads had been followed-without a hint of the murderer’s identity. Sebastian simply had nowhere else to look.
He got up and went over to the conference table. Maltravers had taken out books from the Bureau library on satanic thrash metal, voodoo, the kabbalah and tarot, as well as ordering up reports on previous occult investigations. They had been through them all, examining illustrations, comparing themes and motifs, trying to make connections. They could have spent years doing that and been none the wiser about who the killer was. He wondered if they were being too subtle. Maybe their man just hated the paranormal; maybe he was just a sad fuck obsessed with the number two-though even that wouldn’t explain the drawings attached to the bodies.
The only thing that Sebastian knew for sure was that the twin weapons used in all the murders were significant in some way. If he’d been able to talk to Richard and Melissa Bonhoff’s kids, maybe he’d have gotten some insights. As it was, the Bureau psychologists had given him a standard briefing about the complexities of didymous children, as they called them. What was he meant to do now? Go out and arrest every set of twins he could lay his hands on?
After a few minutes of such thought, the phone rang. Wearily Sebastian picked it up. It was the supervisor of the Document Analysis Unit. She’d had an idea about the diagrams.
At last.
The woman was young-around thirty. She had short brown hair and a face that I would have found alluring if she hadn’t been pointing a matte black pistol at my chest. She was wearing a black trouser suit and a white blouse.
“Matt Wells,” she repeated. “Welcome. We’ve been expecting you.” She waved me inside with the gun. “Please don’t do anything stupid. I’m one of the best shots in the country.”
The air of certainty with which she made that statement struck me. Did she shoot professionally?
The small hallway opened into a huge room that must have taken up half of the penthouse. The lights of Washington spread across an enormous picture window. Pieces of antique furniture were dotted about the carpeted floor like elephants on the savannah. The works of art on the walls were large and looked both genuine and somewhat familiar.
“Over there,” the woman said, pointing to a pair of sofas arrayed in an L-shape by the window. As I approached, another woman got up and turned to face me. She was tall and gray haired, with a striking aquiline nose. I caught the resemblance to Larry Thomson immediately.
“Mr. Wells, what a pleasure,” she said, with old-fashioned politeness.
“I wish I could say the same, Ms. Thomson.” I sat down without being invited.
The woman smiled humorlessly. “I don’t use the surname my brother decided on.” She offered me a cigarette from a silver case.
I raised my hand to decline and saw the younger woman’s pistol follow the movement. “Don’t worry, I won’t bite,” I said, reaching for the open bottle of red wine on the table and pouring myself a glass. The last thing I was going to do was show these Nazis any respect.
“That is debatable,” the Fuhrer’s sister said, sitting down opposite me. She was wearing a gray trouser suit that was considerably better cut than the uniforms at the camp. “We have read your books and done additional research. We know exactly what you’re capable of. You have escaped from us once already.” She raised her glass. “Bravo.”
The young woman smiled. “I can assure you that you won’t escape again.” She moved behind the older woman and I saw that the line of her jaw was almost identical, but she had escaped the beak of a nose.
“Mother and daughter,” I said. “Where’s Larry, to complete the happy family?”
“Otherwise engaged,” the seated woman said. “You can call me Irma if you like.”
“I don’t,” I said, swallowing what was a very good Merlot. “You were born Fraulein Rothmann and that’ll do for me. Or did you take your husband’s name?”
They both laughed.
“I do not have a husband anymore, Mr. Wells,” said the concentration-camp doctor’s daughter. “A necessary phase so that I didn’t remain childless, but he is long gone. He had the right breeding, but he was weak. Of course, I never took his name.”
I hoped the poor guy had survived the encounter. “What about you?” I said to the younger woman. “I’m guessing you have an anglicized name.”
“Correct.”
I waited, and then laughed. “But you don’t care to share it with me. All right, let’s try a different tack. You’re comfortable with that pistol and by your own admission you’re a champion shot. The Glock semiautomatic is standard law-enforcement issue. So what are you? A local cop
or a Fed?”
“Everybody hates a smart-ass,” the woman said, aiming the pistol at my groin.
“It’s all right, Dana,” the older woman said. “There’s no reason to be coy.” She turned to me. “Mr. Wells, this is Special Agent Dana Maltravers of the FBI violent-crime team. She’s been working very hard to find you.”
I remembered Clem having mentioned that name. “You work with Peter Sebastian?”
The young woman looked surprised, which was what I wanted.
“Could it be that you’re the one who made sure my prints were at two of the occult-murder scenes?”
I seemed to have scored another hit, though the FBI agent was still as cold as a glacier. I needed to antagonize her more, make her drop her guard. “Interesting name,” I said. I had always been fascinated by what people were called and used to spend hours with encyclopedias on the subject. Fortunately, that part of my memory seemed to be accessible. “Dana is the feminine form of Daniel, isn’t it? Rather a Jewish name for your sort, don’t you think?”
“It was chosen deliberately,” she said, glancing at Fraulein Rothmann. “To divert suspicion.”
“It certainly worked for me,” I said, with an ironic smile. “As for Maltravers, well, mal is evil, so that seems appropriate.” Their faces were stony. “And travers means a crossing, doesn’t it? Particularly an oblique one.”
“You’ll soon be wishing you never crossed me, Wells,” the young woman said, raising the Glock to my face.
I tried to ignore that. “Oblique as in underhand or askew,” I continued. “Like your sense of ethics?”
“That will do!” Fraulein Rothmann had finally showed some emotion. “What we need from you is a list of all the people with whom you have shared information about Woodbridge Holdings, my brother, the camp or anything pertaining to it.” She laughed sharply. “And if you’re waiting for your Negro detective friend to rescue you, don’t bother. He has been restrained and will shortly be on his way to the river.”
My stomach pole-vaulted.
Jesus, Clem. What had I got him into?
Forty
Karen Oaten sat back in her seat in the FBI helicopter, swallowing hard as the machine took off. She had her hands over the bulge in her midriff, worried that the safety belt and the movement of the helicopter would disturb her child. Then she relaxed as the lights of the small town below faded into the night. All would be well. Her leaders had given their personal assurances.
“Everything okay?” The voice in the headphones was tinny.
“Yes, Levon.” She smiled at the occupant of the seat next to her.
“So, do you want to give me a rundown of what happened?”
Karen paused. Levon Creamer was the FBI man who had looked after her when she had arrived in Washington. He was chief of the financial-crime department, a thin, balding man in his mid-forties, whose manner was more that of an accountant than a law-enforcement agent. She was confident enough about the story that she had learned in detail, but she wasn’t sure recounting it in the helicopter would do it justice.
“I don’t really know, Levon. I came round on a roadside and started walking. I suppose I was lucky there was a policeman in that place.”
“Your captors may have put you in the neighborhood deliberately. Hey, Karen, are you sure you’re feeling all right?”
His concern touched her, though she knew he really only wanted to know the details of her kidnapping. A doctor had checked her before the helicopter arrived, so Creamer knew her medical status. Maybe he was worried about the baby.
“I’m fine,” she said. “And so’s the little one.”
“Good. You’ve had a hell of an ordeal. Tell me about it.”
“To be honest with you, I don’t remember very much. I was lying down in the Shenandoah Valley and suddenly everything went dark. Some kind of hood was over my head. I was carried to a vehicle and driven for a long time-I’d say at least four hours. I tried to talk, but a male voice told me to shut up if I wanted…if I wanted to keep my baby.” She paused for effect.
Levon Creamer waited silently for a respectable time. “Was the guy American?”
“Yes, but I couldn’t tell you what accent he had.”
“Then what?”
“Well…I’m sorry to say, I got very frightened. Eventually I…I couldn’t control my bladder any longer…they laughed when they saw what I’d done. There were two…two men.”
“The bastards.”
“Yes. Finally the vehicle stopped and I was hauled out. The hood stayed on my head until I was inside. After a time, I realized I was on my own and I took it off.” She paused again. “I actually laughed when I saw where I was. It was like a bedroom out of a Doris Day film, all frilly bedcovers and pastel wallpaper. I went to the door. Of course, it was locked and very solid. At least there was an en suite bathroom, but the door had been taken off. It didn’t take me long to spot the cameras in every corner of the bedroom and bathroom.”
“Jesus.”
“It wasn’t so bad. I held a towel in front of me when I used the toilet. If they wanted to watch me in the shower, too bad.”
The FBI man looked up from the notes he was writing on a clipboard. “Brave lady. And that was where you were all this time?”
“Yes. The windows had been boarded up, so I had to rely on my watch to tell the time of day. The date function meant I knew how many days I’d been in captivity, though, to tell you the truth, it still went into a kind of blur. There was no TV or radio, so very soon I felt totally cut off from the outside world.”
“They feed you all right?”
“I got three meals a day. It wasn’t great food, but adequate. I was even given fresh milk twice a day. They would tell me to go into the bathroom and then open the door to leave a tray. The same in reverse when I’d finished. The cutlery and dishes were always plastic and they checked that everything was returned. I know that because I kept a knife once and they realized immediately.”
“Did they ever talk to you or come inside your quarters?”
“Apart from the instructions at mealtimes, which came through a small speaker on the ceiling, no. I didn’t see anyone all the time I was there. At least there were some books to read. I’ve become a great fan of Ayn Rand, not least because she wrote very long novels.”
“You didn’t have any blackouts or times when you woke up feeling woozy?”
“You mean, did they drug me to find out what I knew? No, nothing that I’m aware of.”
Creamer smiled encouragingly. “And how’s your memory?”
“Fine.” She smiled back at him and tried to act like a normal human being. “Is Matt okay?”
The FBI man kept his eyes off her. “Um, yes, I think so. The deputy director will bring you up to speed.”
Karen nodded blankly. She’d been told before she was taken from the camp about her former lover’s involvement in the awful murders in Washington. It had been a shock that her baby’s father was a killer, but she would make sure the child never knew. Matt Wells belonged to the past-that had been made very clear to her.
“I presume all my files are secure,” she said.
“Uh, yeah, they are,” Creamer said, reestablishing eye contact. “We picked them up from your hotel the day after you disappeared. It didn’t look like anything was missing.”
“Good,” Karen said enthusiastically. “I need to get back to work first thing tomorrow morning. I presume my meetings with the Bureau and the Department of Justice will be rescheduled?”
Levon Creamer looked surprised. “We assumed you’d need time to recover.”
“Am I giving you that impression now?”
The FBI man shook his head. “No, ma’am.”
“Please make the arrangements, Levon.”
She watched as he changed to another channel and started talking animatedly. Everything was running smoothly. She was sure the meeting she most wanted would also be scheduled soon.
I sat on the sofa and took anothe
r slug of wine, trying to keep my face unreadable as my mind went into over-drive. What were my options? I could give Fraulein Rothmann and her gun-toting daughter a list of invented names, but I had the feeling they were in the loop enough to rumble that plan. Telling them about Pinker would condemn him to death, as may have already happened with Clem. Shit, what was I doing debating the issue? I needed to act right now.
I gagged on the wine, then sprayed it over the table and floor. I coughed hard and started gasping for breath, my hands on my throat. I hoped my face had gone a dark enough shade of red to convince them that I was having some kind of seizure.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” I heard Irma Rothmann say. “See if you can help him, Dana. Give me the gun.”
That was progress-she had to be less proficient with firearms than the FBI agent. I kept up the act, pumping my chest up and down like a man who was at death’s door. Then I felt the daughter’s hands under my arms as she tried to turn me onto my side on the sofa. I had my eyes wide-open, but I didn’t focus on her face as she leaned over me.
“Bring some water, Mutti,” Dana Maltravers said, as she kept trying to get me into the recovery position.
This had worked out better than I’d expected. I waited till the mother’s thin form had moved away, then grabbed the younger woman’s shoulders and flipped her onto the table. By the time I made to jump on top of her, she had already rolled away on to the floor. Maltravers knew how to look after herself in a fight. The angled foot that I took on my chin emphasized that point.
“Fuck you, Wells. You just made a terminal mistake.”
Her right leg shot out and the foot hit me again, this time on my cheek. I reeled backward. As I tried to pull myself up, I caught a glimpse of Irma Rothmann.
She had her arms crossed, the pistol pointing toward the floor. It was obvious who she had her money on.
Dana Maltravers stepped onto the table and launched her foot at me again. This time, my reactions were sharper. I leaned to the side and grabbed her knee, then pulled hard. She managed to flatten her hand and deliver a decent chop to my neck as she flew past. I crumpled onto the sofa and then was just quick enough to take her by the hips and shove her over the back. There was no carpet there and I heard a satisfying thud as her head hit the floor. Her mother suddenly looked alarmed and raised the weapon. I scrambled over the sofa and landed on top of Dana Maltravers. She was still conscious but looked dazed. I twisted one of her arms behind her back and then hauled her to her feet, making sure her body was shielding mine.
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