Lovelace and Button (International Investigators) Inc.

by James Hawkins

  “Right, John.”

  “And keep Allan out of sight.”

  “Okay.”

  “Steve,” says Dawson, calling him back with a warning look. “Make nice — okay? You don’t need a murder rap on top of everything else.”

  The two men outside the gate are unfamiliar to Dawson, though Bliss would recognize them instantly. It’s Brush-head and his muscular mate — the heavyweights who’d first warned him off after his abortive attempt to storm the monastery on Wednesday evening.

  Martin Montague, alias Brush-head, is the CIA’s station chief in Seoul — even though his security pass at the embassy in the Korean capital says that he is a press secretary — and he is not only way off his patch, but he’s also way out of line in demanding entry to Dawson’s fiefdom.

  “What do you want?” asks Dawson, once he has run his eye over their identification documents.

  “Answers, Mr. Dawson,” says Montague, starting forward, but Dawson stands his ground and shakes his head, demanding, “Who authorized you to come here?”

  “I don’t need authority…” begins Montague, and his partner steps powerfully forward in support. But Dawson has a uniformed gorilla with a machine gun on his own team and he refuses to budge.

  “This place is off-limits to everyone apart from specifically authorized agents,” Dawson carries on firmly, but Montague refuses to be cowed.

  “Listen, shithead,” he spits, “I’m not interested in you and your childish games, but when you step on my toes you’re asking for trouble.”

  “You’d better check with your director,” suggests Dawson with a degree of finality.

  “I don’t check with anyone,” answers Montague, getting physical and pushing Dawson aside.

  But a second guard has come to Dawson’s aid, and Montague finds himself facing the spiteful end of a machine gun.

  “Go ahead, punk,” scowls Montague as he keeps walking. “We’ll use your office, Mr. Dawson,” he continues, now in the driver’s seat, and Dawson signals the guard to lower his weapon.

  “And have someone send in coffee and donuts; this may take a while.”

  Bliss and Phillips have been flying since the white van slipped out from under them at the harbourfront, and according to Phillips’s contact in the customs service they’ve beaten their quarry to the border crossing south of Vancouver.

  “He must have stopped somewhere else,” suggests Officer Cranley as he looks back up the highway towards Vancouver. “He definitely hasn’t crossed back into the States.”

  “Thanks, Roger,” says Phillips, adding confidently, “Hang around. I think we’re going to have some customers for you.”

  “What’s with the dick from Scotland Yard?” asks CIA Chief Montague once he and Dawson are in the surveillance room. “Who stoked his boiler?”

  “God knows,” says Dawson, keeping a wary eye on Montague’s gorilla, who has yet to grunt. His overtaxed mind spins even harder as he tries to work out what motives and connections the men might have.

  “So — what’s the score with these women that he’s looking for? He seems to think they’re here.”

  “We ain’t seen no women,” answers Dawson, deciding that his best option is to keep his cards off the table as much as possible.

  “Oh come on, Dawson. That cop puts his ass on the line to get in here, and then he goes public. He must know something.”

  Dawson sits back and looks at his hand before tossing out a couple of low cards. “I reckon he’s a bit of a loony. Just likes to shoot his mouth off.”

  Twenty years’ experience dealing with crooks, double-dealers and political gerrymanderers warns Montague that Dawson is lying, but he lets it go and picks up another theme.

  “So, what do you do here?”

  “It’s off the record.”

  “Don’t start that crap again. We’re supposed to be on the same side — remember? We’re in the same Boy Scout troop.”

  “Research,” is all Dawson will admit, sensing that he can’t afford to play a loose game, asking, “Anyway, what’s your interest?”

  “I don’t want to have to pull rank,” Montague starts, sounding sympathetic to Dawson’s predicament while making it perfectly clear that he’s not. “But I get to ask the questions. Okay?”

  Dawson rolls his eyes and inadvertently draws Montague’s attention to the bank of surveillance screens. Realizing his mistake, he hits a switch. “That’s classified,” he says as the monitors go blank.

  Montague eyes him fiercely. “Turn those screens back on, Mr. Dawson, or I’ll nail your ass for insubordination.”

  Dawson hesitates a fraction of a second, trying to get a read on Montague’s hand, but the senior man knows where he stands and shouts, “Turn them on!”

  Dawson jumps as the words pound through his aching skull. He knows Montague holds a strong hand, so he bluffs. “Sorry — no can do. They’re on a time delay — security.”

  “Turn them on now!!” screeches Montague, and his gorilla starts to loosen his shoulders. “Turn them on or I’ll relieve you of duty.”

  Dawson stalls. “I told you. You need special clearance.”

  But Montague holds at least one ace. “Okay, give me the phone. Who’s your director?”

  “I don’t think —” starts Dawson, so Montague gives him an option.

  “Give me some paper then.”

  It only takes Montague a few seconds to scribble a few words, then he hands the paper back, saying, “There you are. One authorization duly signed by a station chief. Now turn on those screens or start packing.”

  Dawson folds, and images of the various buildings, hospital rooms and corridors slowly reappear.

  Montague waves for his sidekick to back down and then drops his tone in conciliation. “See, that wasn’t so difficult,” he says as he scans the screens and flicks from camera to camera until he’s apparently satisfied, then he focuses on a number of Asian men playing mah-jongg in a sitting room. “Now what’s the story here, John?” he wants to know.

  “I told you — it’s a research centre.”

  “Well, let me tell you what bothers me, John,” continues Montague, making it clear that he’s done some homework. “I’ve been in the Boy Scouts since Jimmy Carter cleaned house in ‘77 — you remember, after the Firm went rogue and lurched from catastrophe to disaster and back again. Hah! ‘CIA — Clowns In America,’ they used to call us. Let’s face it, we were a joke, John. I mean, there was the Bay of Pigs, Watergate, Chile, Colombia, Iran — liquidating the wrong people, supporting the wrong side. You name it, we screwed it up. So when I hear rumours from my friends in China and Korea that we’re playing dirty again, I wann’a know what’s going on.”

  Dawson’s listening, but he’s not talking. “I just look after security here,” he claims, but Montague isn’t paying attention and stops him with a hand before pointing to the mah-jongg players.

  “Maybe I should ask them what they’re doing here.”

  “You can’t…” starts Dawson, but Montague’s expression says he can — and will.

  A procession of a thousand white vans has filed slowly past Bliss and Phillips at the Pacific Highway border crossing since lunchtime, or so it appears to Bliss. “It’s so bloody frustrating,” he says, sensing that he’s close to the women, yet seemingly can do nothing to find them. “It’s the utter helplessness, Mike,” he carries on with growing anger. “It must be like having cancer — knowing damn well that it’s in there somewhere, growing, getting bigger and bigger, eating you alive — and all you really want to do is grab a knife and just rip it out. But you can’t. All you can do is put on a smile and pretend you’re not scared.”

  “I know what you mean,” admits Phillips.

  “I just hope I’m not too late…” starts Bliss, and he is reminded that he hasn’t called his son-in-law for news on the suicide cases. “Damn! I forgot to phone Peter,” he muses, but it’s nearing midnight in England, so he lets it go. “I’ll call him in the morning.�
��

  “I still don’t know what you’re plotting,” says Phillips, growing increasingly uneasy about Bliss’s determination to return and infiltrate the monastery.

  But Bliss has no intention of compromising his counterpart’s position in the RCMP by involving him in his scheme. “Don’t worry, Mike. I’ll be all right,” he ventures, in a tone he hopes is reassuring.

  “I just don’t see how you’re gonna get back in without a visa.”

  Bliss has a plan for that as well, although he’s relying on Daisy to provide the means, and he would be relieved to know that the bouncy Frenchwoman has rented a Toyota and is driving south on the Pacific Highway to rendezvous with him.

  Just ahead of Daisy, though lost in the miasma of fog and road spray, is a white van with a dubious licence plate. Buzzer and his sidekick are nearing the U.S., and home, and have their minds set on a relaxing weekend in the bar — though since Bliss rammed through the gates ahead of them on Wednesday evening, the establishment has been tense with rumours.

  “I still reckon you know what’s going down,” Reggie says, pressing Buzzer for information as they approach the border, but it’s a song he’s been singing all day and the driver sighs with boredom.

  “Give it a rest, Reg. I told you: I dunno what’s happenin’. And that’s real fine with me. They only pay for my hands, not my head.”

  “Well, something’s happenin’, that’s for sure.”

  “How long have you been in the service, Reggie?”

  “Two years an’ a bit.”

  “God knows why they call it a ‘secret service’ with people like you,” snorts Buzzer as they slow to exit Canada. “You can’t even fart without blabbin’ about it.”

  The border is only a hundred metres ahead of them, and Buzzer has his foot ready on the accelerator, knowing that he’ll sail through the checkpoint with a friendly wave.

  “What the hell —” he says when a uniformed Canadian customs officer steps out in front of him. “We’re leaving your freakin’ country, jerk,” he mutters under his breath as he is forced to slow, then he turns to Reggie. “Leave the talking to me, aw’right?”

  “Your passports, please, gentlemen,” requests Roger Cranley, as Bliss and Phillips slip out of their parked car and start to move in.

  “CIA,” says Buzzer, quietly sliding an identity card under the customs officer’s nose without taking the vehicle out of gear.

  “Just turn off the vehicle, would you, sir,” orders Cranley.

  “What do you want?” asks Buzzer, dropping into neutral and irritably pumping the throttle.

  “I want to talk to you —” starts Cranley, but Buzzer drops back into gear and is inching forward.

  “Sorry,” he says, shaking his head. “No can do. I’m on official business.”

  “I said stop!” yells Cranley, and Mike Phillips begins to loosen the pistol from his shoulder holster and edge forward in support of the unarmed officer as the vehicle continues creeping.

  “Look,” says Buzzer, making no attempt to stop, and giving no hint of his intention to do so, “you have no right to interfere with this vehicle. It’s the property of the United States Government.”

  “I’m not interfering. You’re still in Canada, and I’m telling you to stop.”

  Buzzer starts raising the window and is considering slamming his foot to the floor when Phillips leaps forward and thrusts his gun into the American’s face. “Police! Stop or I’ll shoot.”

  Buzzer stops, but he grabs his cell phone and starts to make a call. Bliss rushes in, yanks open the passenger door, reaches past a stunned Reggie and snatches the phone out of Buzzer’s hand.

  “Get out,” orders Phillips, with his gun still stuck in Buzzer’s face. Although the driver starts to climb down, he’s still relying on his badge for protection.

  “Mister, you’re making one hell of a big mistake,” he says. “Interfering with a CIA operation is a felony.”

  “Not in Canada, it isn’t,” says Phillips. “Now open the back doors for this officer, please.”

  “You’ve no right to do this,” protests Buzzer. “This is government property. I demand you call the American consul. I know my rights.”

  “You’re kidding,” says Phillips. “Open the doors or we’ll jimmy them open.”

  “You’re way out’a line, mister. I’m not entering the country — I’m leaving,” Buzzer is still ranting as Bliss steps forward and rips the vehicle’s keys from his hand.

  “Methinks he doth protest too much,” mutters the British officer as he leads Cranley to the rear and begins to unlock the door.

  “You’ve no right to search my vehicle,” shouts Buzzer.

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” says Phillips, still holding the men at gunpoint. “This vehicle isn’t legally registered. So we assume it’s stolen — unless you can prove otherwise.”

  “I told you. It’s a government vehicle.”

  “Not our government,” says Phillips, “and that’s the only government I answer to, whether you like it or not.”

  “Salmon,” muses Cranley, as the open doors expose a deep steel container filled with dead fish.

  “Just salmon,” echoes Bliss disappointedly.

  “Where did you get these from?” asks Cranley, calling to the driver and his mate, but neither man answers.

  “They must have picked them up from another trawler in Vancouver,” suggests Bliss.

  “No,” says Cranley. “You’re missing the point. These are Atlantic salmon.”

  “So?”

  “Well, this is the Pacific coast. The only Atlantic salmon here are from the fish farms, not from a trawler. Anyway, they’ve been frozen. Look at their eyes.”

  Bliss peers into the dull sunken eyes of the salmon and finds no memory of life. “Come on, give me a hand,” he says as he starts to scoop the slimy fish aside. “There should be two men in here somewhere.”

  chapter fifteen

  “So, Mister,” says Station Chief Montague, as if offering the junior man a choice, “are you ready to show me around this joint or what?”

  “I’d better just check…” starts Dawson, reaching for the phone to contact Bumface.

  Three days of disasters instigated by his subordinate have left Dawson wary of the man’s competence in dealing with Spotty Dick, Trina and Daphne, and he desperately wants some reassurance before venturing forth. But Montague is in a hurry and is quick to his feet. “Okay, then. I’ll find my own way around.”

  Dawson drops the phone and is at the door in a flash, demanding a guarantee. “This is an order — right?”

  “Yes, Mr. Dawson, this is an order. Now get out of the way.”

  Allan Wallace is someone else on the move, but unlike Montague he has no option.

  “You’ll be safe enough here if you keep your mouth shut,” Bumface warns his erstwhile partner as he leads him into a dilapidated outhouse on the building’s grounds and brings out a pair of handcuffs.

  “Watch the wrist!” howls the injured man at the sight of the manacles. “What are you going to do with the women?” he demands as Bumface shackles him to a steel water pipe.

  “You’re too f’kin soft — that’s your problem, you dick. You didn’t really think you’d get ‘em out of here, did you?”

  “If you touch —” starts Wallace, but Bumface stops him. “Don’t worry, Allan,” he sneers. “John and me will take good care of them.”

  “You still haven’t told me what this place is all about,” Montague prods as Dawson tours him, together with his muscular mate, past operating and recovery rooms that wouldn’t be out of place in a ritzy New York clinic.

  “Like I said — I just handle security,” claims Dawson, steering well clear of areas occupied by patients. “All I know is that it’s kind’a sensitive.”

  “C’mon, Dawson. Have you got a nasty cold or something? I could smell this place all the way over in Seoul. My information is that people are lining up to get in here. What are you offer
ing — immortality or something?”

  “They don’t tell me.”

  “They?” questions Montague. “Maybe I’m talking to the wrong person. Maybe I should be talking to them— whoever they are.”

  Dawson pulls up sharp and plays his trump. “Look, sir, I’ve already put my career on the line by letting you in. I’m doing my best here — I’m showing you around. I want you to see for yourself that this isn’t Roswell. You won’t find any little green men or flying saucers. But if any of the staff knew I’d broken protocol…” he pauses to let his words settle, adding. “Well, I’m sure you understand.”

  Montague’s raised eyebrows suggest otherwise, but he doesn’t push the point. “Okay. But you’d better be levelling with me, Mister, ‘cos this place still stinks at the moment. And it sure as hell stinks to that cop who reckons you’ve got his women here.”

  “I dunno what his problem is,” sneers Dawson as he continues the tour past laboratories and X-ray rooms. “What the hell would we do with them?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” complains Montague. “Exactly what would you do with women here?”

  Bumface knows what he would do with Trina and Daphne, given a free hand, but he has been forced to put them back in the same room and promise them some undoped food. The reunification wasn’t his idea. Trina yelling, “I’m gonna scream and keep screaming and screaming…” had left him little choice.

  “And one more peep out of either of you…” he warns with a twitchy trigger finger as the two women joyfully embrace, but Daphne refuses to be browbeaten.

  “And you’ll do what?” she says, breaking away from Trina and using the strength of her voice to back him towards the door.

  “Look, lady,” he tries with a forced smile, “we’re doing our best to sort things out. Just behave, and who knows — another day or so and we should have you out of here. Aw’right?”

  “Oh, listen to Pinocchio,” she laughs into his face, sensing that she has him on the run. “I seem to remember you saying that before.”