“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 you’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.
“He’ll come,” Clem said, stifling a yawn. “He’s told us too much. The shitheads at Woodbridge Holdings will crucify him if he goes back.”
“That’s if he told us the truth,” his partner said.
“It squares with what we already knew,” I said, leaning forward. “The camp, Woodbridge’s activities, the twins.”
Pinker shook his head. “It’s all just hearsay, man. Gordy hasn’t been to the camp. He doesn’t know anything about Larry Thomson’s past. All he’s admitted to is talking the dead Iowa farmer’s kids into coming back to D.C.”
“Let’s see what they say,” Clem said, eyeing him dubiously. “You ever have an optimistic thought, Vers?”
“Me? No way. Your problem is you’re far too charitable, big guy.” He raised the binoculars again. “Movement. Well, I’ll be damned. Gordy’s bringing out two kids, one male and the other not.”
We watched as the trio approached. The twins looked tired, their clothing dirty and crumpled. I wondered if Lister had told them about their father. For all we knew, the newspaperman was
involved in Richard Bonhoff’s murder, though he had denied that strenuously. The same applied to Joe. I wasn’t happy about making deals with the guy who might have been behind my friend’s death.
Versace got out and opened the back door for the twins. I could now see that they looked very alike, apart from the boy’s longer hair. They were also attractive, despite their sunken cheeks and the heavy rings round their eyes. They were obviously junkies, their skin sallow and their fingers moving incessantly.
“There you go,” Lister said triumphantly. “So I can split now, yeah?”
“You keep your cell on at all times,” Pinker said, his tone harsh. “If we call, you do exactly what we say, got it?”
“Sure. I’ll be keeping my head down, anyway.”
“Gordy?” I said, leaning across. “I haven’t forgotten Joe Greenbaum. If anything ties you to that bomb, I will seek you out.”
He looked nervous for a moment, then bounced back. “I told you, Mr. Wells, I don’t do that kind of thing.”
“Yeah, I believe you,” Versace said, closing the door after the twins had got in beside me.
I watched as Lister walked swiftly into the darkness.
“Gordy’s okay,” the young man next to me said. “He looks after us.”
“Randy,” I said, extending a hand. “Gwen. I’m Matt Wells.”
“Oh, we know who you are,” the girl said, squeezing my hand gently. Her palm was damp, her smile slack. “Gordy said you’re a writer. You going to write about us?”
“Maybe. But we need to talk to you first.”
“You guys cops?” Randy said to the men in the front seats.
“Yup,” Clem replied.
“Thought as much,” the young man said. “We learned how to spot you the first week we were here.”
“Is that right?” Clem said, accelerating on to the freeway. “You want to tell us what you’ve been doing since you got here?”
I’d thought they might be reluctant to talk, but that wasn’t the case. Gordy had told them to answer all our questions, and they did. Before we reached the house over the Maryland state line that Versace had borrowed from his absent sister, they’d given us a full rundown.
Gwen and Randy had spent the first week in D.C. seeing the sights and being wined and dined. Then came the modeling work that Lister had arranged for them. There was nothing tasteless, just fashion shoots and the like. Then Gordy had told them about a residential course Woodbridge ran that would be useful in their future careers. The twins hadn’t given it a second thought, though they knew enough not to tell their parents. It struck me that they were as naive as five-year-olds and their permanent smiles began to grate. I wondered if they’d always been like that.
They didn’t know where they’d been driven as the van had darkened windows. Randy thought it was up north because of the cold. From the descriptions they gave of the barbed wire and low buildings, as well as the pine forests and snow-clad mountain ridges, I reckoned that it was the camp where I’d been held. The alternative, that there were several such installations, was too depressing to consider. You’d have thought the twins might have objected to being put into uniform—gray, with badges bearing the letters NANR—and taught how to handle rifles and pistols, but apparently not. I asked if they’d been given any drugs or if their memories had been affected, but they claimed not. They were vague about the timeline of all this, though, which made me suspicious. They claimed they’d been back in Washington for a couple of months, having escaped from the camp during a power failure.
Then I hit pay dirt. I had asked if they knew Larry Thomson. They said no, so I showed them the photo on my phone.
“That’s the Führer,” they said in unison, their eyes wide.
I struggled to conceal my shock. “What?”
“The Führer,” they repeated.
“He visited us at the camp,” Randy went on. “We were greatly honored. He’s a very busy man.”
The combination of servility and corrupted innocence turned my stomach. What had been done to these kids?
“He talked to me for nearly a minute,” Gwen said eagerly. “He asked me about Nazi ideology. Of course, I knew everything by heart.”
“Nazi ideology?” Versace said, in disbelief.
I raised a hand. “Just what are the aims of the NANR?”
“The North American Nazi Revival is dedicated to the eradication of Jews and all other under-races from the U.S.A., whatever the cost,” they recited. “We obey the Führer and his officers without question. We fight for the Greater Germany, of which the U.S.A. will become part after the global conflict is won. We are dedicated to the extermination of all existing religions, under the instruction of the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant.”
The twins sat back and beamed at us. It was as if a death sentence had been read out by preschoolers.
“I guess under-races includes blacks,” Clem said slowly.
“Oh, yes,” Gwen replied, with a smile.
“Well, pardon me, darling,” said Versace, “but shouldn’t you be trying to eradicate and exterminate my partner here right now?”
Randy and Gwen exchanged anxious glances.
“We…we aren’t…aren’t authorized to act without orders from our superiors,” the young man said, lowering his eyes.
“Well, that is a relief,” Clem said, with a hollow laugh. “Tell me, if you liked these people so much, why did you escape from the camp?”
Again they looked at each other, but it was impossible to tell what passed between their dead eyes.
“Well…” Randy began.
“It’s all right,” his sister interrupted. “I’m…I’m almost over it.” She licked her lips repeatedly. “They…some of the comrades…they took advantage—”
“They raped her,” Randy said, his cheeks red. “Men and women. With gun barrels. They made her—”
Gwen touched his arm. “It’s over. We’re free of them.”
I wasn’t sure if that was really the case, given that Gordy Lister had known exactly where to find them. They’d been taken advantage of and terribly abused, but they still seemed to admire the man they called the Führer. What did that say about the power he exerted?
The atmosphere gradually lightened, but I still felt like I was sitting next to a pair of highly sensitive explosive devices. Then I thought about the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant. The twins may have seen human sacrifices at the camp but, given their condition, I could hardly just ask them that straight out.
“How about the Antichurch?” I said. “Did you go to services?”
“Rituals,” Gwen corrected. “Of course we did. We all did.” Then her expression went blank, as if a shutter had suddenly been closed.
Randy’s gaze stayed down. Versace swore under his breath.
“The Führer,” I said, involuntarily lowering my voice. “Did he have anyone with him when he visited the camp?”
“Of course,” Randy said. “The professor was always with him.”
“This prof got a name?” Versace growled.
The twins shook their heads.
“What did he look like?” Clem asked.
They both smiled.
“No,” Gwen said, “the professor is a woman. She’s tall, like the Führer, and very distinguished. In her sixties, I’d say. Like him.” She gave a sudden laugh. “Of course she is like him. After all, they’re twins. They were plenty of our kind at the camp.”
Now we were getting somewhere. Thomson—the leader of the NANR and éminence grise behind Woodbridge—had a twin sister. Nikolaus A. N. Rothmann, Mengele’s helper, had twin children, a boy and a girl, who would be in their sixties now. But did that mean they were responsible for the murders? I thought about the diagrams, the squares and rectangles that had been left on the victims. Something was stirring in my memory, something I’d seen in the camp.
Then I thought of someone else. Gavin Burdett. Not only was he in Washington, but I’d tailed him to the occult supplies sho
p in East London. He was a dishonest investment banker with an interest in underage girls. Could he also be responsible for the murders in Washington? If so, how much were the Rothmann twins involved?
Pinker showed the twins into their rooms at his sister’s house—we had decided to use it in case anyone tried to find the detectives at home. Clem told Gwen and Randy that they would be put in a drug rehabilitation program as soon as possible. They seemed happy enough and showed no sign of wanting to be anywhere else, though that probably meant they didn’t need a fix yet. The house had high-security windows and doors, so they’d find it hard to break out when they did, and Versace would be playing nursemaid. Then again, they had been trained how to use weapons at the camp. I didn’t feel good about leaving the detective there on his own, but Clem and I had work to do.
“Hey, Field Goal,” Versace said, as we headed for the door.
I looked round.
“You look after my partner, yeah?”
I nodded. “And you watch yourself with the twins, Vers.”
“Don’t panic. I’ve seen The Boys from Brazil.”
That didn’t reassure me much. I couldn’t remember if the movie had a happy ending or not. As we left, it struck me that the twins maybe didn’t know about their father’s death yet. We would have to tell them later. Considering how dedicated they still seemed to be to their Führer, I wasn’t sure they’d even remember who Richard Bonhoff was.
New York State Trooper Reggie Swan yawned and took a slug of cold coffee. He was on his own in the station in the small town of Grantsville thirty miles from Buffalo, and he was bored rigid. He had always hated the night shift. It was all right in a city, with the hookers and pimps, the drunks and brawlers to keep you busy. In the boonies, it was about as much fun as a teetotaler’s wake.
Then the door opened and Reggie Swan became an overnight celebrity.
“Help you, ma’am?” he said, as the statuesque woman turned to face him.
Her face and clothes were dirty and torn, and her breathing was heavy. “Ma’am?”
The trooper caught her as she fell. He pulled her as gently as he could to a chair and got her some water. After she’d taken a few sips, she was suddenly much more in control of herself.
Maps of Hell Page 28
