by Jeff Gulvin
‘Who’s this asshole?’
Sidetrack sipped mescal. ‘Just some dude we picked up along the way. Reckons he’s outta Angola.’
The man squinted at Harrison. ‘The farm, huh? You know Curly Brown?’
Harrison felt his hair prickle with sweat. ‘Nope.’
‘What block you in?’
‘A.’
‘How long?’
‘Too long.’
The man stared at him. ‘What you do?’
‘That’s my business.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘That’s my business, too.’ Harrison had his palm resting lightly on the top of his boot.
The young Black glanced at Sidetrack. ‘This mother know who he’s fucking with?’ He stood up then.
He was not very tall, maybe an inch or so shorter than Harrison, but a lot wider and younger. He started round the fire, fists balled. ‘Motherfucker, I asked you a question. You know who you’re fucking with?’
Harrison stared at him and still said nothing.
‘You don’t fuck with the man.’
‘You a cop, bubba?’
The others laughed then, a great guffaw between them. The hoods in New Orleans, the hoods everywhere, referred to cops as ‘the man’.
The young guy hesitated, looking Harrison up and down.
Harrison stared, unblinking, right back in his eye. His fingertips were half an inch from the butt of the concealed .38. ‘You’re in my space, man. Back off,’ he said quietly.
The man narrowed his eyes, then looked to the others for support. Nobody said anything. Harrison could tell by the way he had his right hand cupped that there was some kind of knife up his sleeve—maybe a switchblade, maybe a short stiletto. He decided that if the knife appeared, he’d draw the .38. The man stared at him.
‘Which bit of back off don’t you understand, bubba?’ Harrison’s fingers caressed the butt of the gun.
‘Hey, Jackson,’ Limpet spoke softly and the young Black looked at him. ‘Man’s got a rat tattoo on his arm just like Whiskey Six.’
The young man’s eyes balled then and he stared through the darkness at Harrison.
‘You know Whiskey Six?’
Harrison continued to stare at him, but said nothing. The man stood a moment longer, then shrugged and sat down. He looked at Sidetrack. ‘If this guy’s with you, then I guess I don’t got nothing to say about it.’
‘You’re right, man. You don’t.’ Sidetrack had all but finished the first bottle of mescal and he picked a steak from the fire. He ate it, pulling it to pieces with his fingers, then wiped the grease on his jeans. He came round the fire and sat down next to Harrison.
‘I’ll say it again, bro,’ he said. ‘Either you’re just plain crazy or you got balls of steel.’
Harrison blew cigarette smoke at the fire. ‘Who’s Whiskey Six?’ he said.
17
THE LIST OF US Embassy personnel came through to Webb within a day of the ambassador’s negative response directive. A pretty girl from the support staff brought it to him, a great pile of A4 paper with the names and details of every person employed at the embassy, both US and UK nationals, from the ambassador to the cleaners. All the US marines were listed, together with those working at the naval building across the square. The girl laid it on Webb’s desk with a smile.
‘Did you know her?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘No, sir. I don’t have a whole lot to do with the marines. My job’s in the post room.’
Webb nodded. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Amanda.’
‘Amanda what?’
‘Robertson.’
‘Thanks, Amanda Robertson.’
She smiled. ‘Will you need to see me?’
‘Probably not.’ Webb smiled again. She left and he watched her cross the corridor. ‘But then again,’ he muttered.
James Carragher, the FBI liaison agent, was from Washington D.C., in his late twenties with a grunt haircut and a taste for Italian suits. There had been two of them initially, but his colleague had returned to the States. He was late in this morning and Webb was on his own. Weir was busy checking the tube station videos with the rest of the team. Carragher came in a little after nine and Webb had already sifted most of the responses into Yes and No piles.
‘Morning,’ Carragher said. ‘Sorry I’m a little late, I’ve been on the phone to my boss.’
Webb glanced at his watch. ‘It’s four in the morning over there.’
‘Yeah, but the shit’s hitting the fan.’ Carragher sat in the chair on the other side of the desk. ‘We’ve got a member of the Japanese Red Army bombing D.C. Five devices, just yesterday.’
Webb scratched his head. ‘A friend of mine is over there.’
‘Jack Swann. I know. He told me to look out for you.’
‘How is he?’
‘Up to his neck. Kovalski, that’s my boss, has got him on secondment. He was supposed to be lecturing in Louisiana, but I figure Kovalski wanted his experience,’ He paused for a moment. ‘Are he and Cheyenne Logan an item?’
‘You mean you haven’t noticed? I always found it difficult to part them at the tonsils.’
‘There you go.’ Carragher sat forward. ‘We got all kindsa shit going down with the militia as well.’
‘Tell me about it.’ Webb stared at him then. ‘What’s the story with these Asians killing the leaders?’
‘Beats me.’
‘The CIA playing silly-buggers?’
Carragher shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Rogue FBI agents. ATF, maybe?’
‘I don’t think it’s that either.’ Carragher shrugged. ‘We had a state cop killed in Oregon and a bomb in Michigan. Another state cop was killed just the other day.’
‘Paranoia.’
Carragher nodded. ‘That’s what these guys thrive on. The stuff they believe is incredible.’
Webb smiled. ‘I know. I used to trawl some of their websites when I was at S013.’
Carragher looked puzzled.
‘Antiterrorist Branch. We’ve had our fair share of right-wing extremists over here, too.’
Carragher nodded. ‘The thing is, we’ve never had a groundswell of public support for the militia, even though most people agreed with the defence attorneys after Ruby Ridge.’
‘And now it’s different?’
‘It could be. More regular people than we figured gave tacit support to some of these anti-federal groups and they’ve had their share of political support from some of the more radical congressmen. But now, they’re not the only ones who think there might be a government conspiracy.’ He sighed. ‘On top of that, we’ve got this Jap bombing the shit out of us.’
Webb looked back at the pile of papers in front of him. ‘Not to mention people killing your marines over here.’
Between them, they worked through all the responses and separated them properly. Then Webb began setting up the interviews, bringing in the people who did claim to know Kibibi Simpson in alphabetical order, starting with her fellow marines. It was going to be a long-winded and laborious task. The levels of relationship would no doubt vary enormously and he had to speak to every single person. When that was done, he had to look at those who said ‘no’ and cross-refer the information. At ten-thirty, he was interrupted by Frank Weir, who told him they had located footage of Simpson leaving Camden Town tube station at 8.45 p.m. the Saturday she was murdered. Webb left the pile of paperwork and, together with Carragher, he met Weir at Camden.
They had a whole team of officers trawling the nightspots with photographs of Kibibi. Officers were also interviewing shop staff and checking for street-facing CCTV. Webb and Carragher joined them, and at Eagles nightclub just off the high road, an Irish barman recognised her picture. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen her.’
‘In here?’
‘Aye.’
‘That Saturday night?’
The barman blew out his cheeks. ‘I don’t rightl
y know for sure, but it’s possible. She came here on a few occasions.’
‘On her own?’
He made a face. ‘Not always, but sometimes, aye.’
‘The last time you saw her, was she alone?’
‘I think so. Aye, right enough, she was. She was sitting here at the bar. Late on it was, about two, just before we closed.’
Webb looked up at the security cameras on the walls. ‘Are those taped?’
‘I don’t know. You’d have to ask the boss.’
They did ask the boss, another Irishman, in his forties, with thinning black hair which he combed forward. The security cameras were taped and he thought he would still have the video from the day of the murder. Webb at last began to feel as though they were getting somewhere. He phoned Weir who was asking similar questions at Camden Palace.
‘Get the tape, George, and I’ll meet you back at Paddington.’
They sat in the incident room and watched the video: four different cameras, which alternated automatically. Webb concentrated on the one at the bar. ‘Wind it on, Frank,’ he suggested. ‘The barman reckoned she was talking to him late on.’ They wound the tape forward and then Webb paused it. ‘There she is,’ he said. ‘Good as gold.’
Carragher and Weir looked at the pictures closely now, as Webb flicked the film on frame by frame. Kibibi Simpson was sipping a cocktail at the bar. On one side of her was a man clearly trying to talk. They watched him slip his hand down towards her leg and then jerk back suddenly.
‘I want to talk to that man, right there,’ Weir said. ‘Get his picture on the news, George.’
Swann listened to the briefing Kovalski was giving on the squad-room floor. He used the lectern with the microphone and the ‘Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity’ symbol on the drape that hung from it.
‘We know Harada used the phone booth right outside the field office here,’ Kovalski was saying, ‘and we’ve got pictures of him from three years back, which should have been distributed to you all by now. That picture’s gonna hit the lunchtime news specials, by way of Fugitive Publicity, and, as you know, we’ve already gone public with his ID.’ He glanced at Swann then. ‘I didn’t want to do that right off, because we all know that ninety per cent of the calls we get are gonna be man-hour intensive, with nothing at the end of them. But we also know that given the reports coming out on the TV and this sudden upsurge in militia activity, we have no real choice. The joint task force is going to be augmented from the Washington PD as well as the domestic terrorism ops unit. We’ve got county police coming in from Arlington and Alexandria, and secondments in from Fairfax as well as the Virginia state police. All activity will be co-ordinated from the SIOC, with this field office as the command post. Cheyenne Logan will be deputising when I’m placating politicians. We’ve got Jack Swann here from the UK as a consultant on urban terrorism and he also has specialist knowledge of the suspect.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, we’re dealing with a man who believes he’s a samurai warrior. He’s declared war on us and his intention is to get Tetsuya Shikomoto released from the federal pen, which, surprise surprise, ain’t gonna happen. We have to find this guy and do it quickly. Already we’ve got the district breathing down our necks and you all know what that means. I’ve had the Capitol Hill police on the wire and the secret service demanding to know whether they need to ship the President out to Camp David.’ He rubbed tired eyes with his palm. ‘Let’s go to work. You know the angles. Who is this guy? Where does he live? Where does he go to work?’
Back in the office, he summoned Logan and Swann. ‘Chey,’ he said. ‘Given we’ve now gone public, I want you to fly down to Georgia and pay Shikomoto a visit. Maybe there’s something he can tell us, something that might be useful.’
‘But no deals, Tom.’
‘Right now? No, no deals.’
Swann looked at Kovalski. ‘You wanna go with her, Jack?’
‘Unless there’s anything I can help with here.’
Kovalski shook his head. ‘Agents are hitting the bricks, buddy. There’s not a whole lot you can do.’
They flew to Atlanta and were picked up by a thickset field agent from the Georgia office, who would drive them to Eastpoint and the federal penitentiary, thirty miles out of the city. ‘Bill Pryce,’ he said, shaking hands. ‘Two pipe bombs exploded this morning outside the federal building in Macon.’
Cheyenne had her laptop computer open already. ‘Militia?’
‘They even claimed it.’ He looked at Swann. ‘That’s unusual.’
Swann nodded. ‘In retaliation for the abductions and murders.’
‘Yes.’
They got in the car. ‘Have you been able to gauge public reaction down here, Bill?’ Logan asked him.
‘We’ve done some stuff with the state police. Public reaction to law enforcement is more suspicious than it’s ever been. The newspapers are full of conspiracy theories and interviews with militia leaders, and people purporting to be militia leaders.’
‘What about regular people?’
Pryce gunned the engine and headed on to the freeway. ‘The regular people are pretty confused, Logan. The militia rhetoric has lost its venom. You know, the racist bullshit. It’s anti-government, but in a victimised, plaintive kinda way.’
‘Looking for the sympathy vote, you mean.’
‘Yeah. The Constitution is being quoted left, right and centre, the fourth of July, etc. They’re comparing this to the days of enslavement by the English.’ He glanced at Swann then. ‘No offence, buddy.’
Nobody spoke after that and then Swann said: ‘It’s important they don’t get the public support they’ve been missing. That’s what gives movements credibility. It’s what forces governments to give away what they shouldn’t.’
‘What’s the word at the puzzle palace, Logan?’ Pryce asked her. ‘Who d’you figure is doing this shit?’
‘We haven’t got a clue. The sightings of the Asians have been verified by a number of different people, that and the black helicopters.’
‘Weird that, isn’t it? Like playing into the militia’s hands. You know we had one group here claiming they ran into the Crips and the Bloods at a diner on Interstate 85.’ He glanced at Swann, then back at Logan once more. ‘This isn’t my opinion, but rumours have gotten around—does anybody figure it is some federal agents gone off at the deep end?’
Logan looked sideways at him. ‘Nobody’s saying anything officially, Bill. But who the hell knows?’
Tetsuya Shikomoto had a young face and a neatly cut moustache. He was brought into the police interview room wearing a one-piece orange suit, with chains round his wrists and ankles. It looked to Swann as if somebody had given him a black eye recently.
Logan picked up on it immediately. ‘Did you get yourself in a fight, Tetsuya?’
He looked at her, but did not reply.
‘Don’t tell me. You walked into a door.’ She took out her FBI shield and slid it across the table. ‘My name’s Logan,’ she said. ‘I’m with the FBI. This is Jack Swann, from London.’
Shikomoto looked squarely at Swann, but still said nothing.
‘Tell us about Fachida Harada,’ Logan said. ‘He’s planting bombs in Washington D.C. right now.’
Shikomoto looked beyond her.
‘You do speak English, don’t you?’ Logan glanced at Pryce. ‘We don’t need an interpreter or anything?’
‘Not as far as I know.’
‘I speak perfect English.’ Shikomoto’s tones were clipped. ‘When I choose to.’
‘Will you speak it to me? Will you tell me why Harada is doing this?’
‘Harada is a warrior.’
‘We figured that bit out. Samurai, right?’
Swann sat forward then. ‘Right now, he’s ninja, isn’t he, Tetsuya.’
‘It would appear so, yes.’ Logan sat back. ‘You’re an educated man, Tetsuya. You gained a master’s degree in psychology from Meiji University. Is that where the two of you met?’
&nbs
p; ‘Why is this relevant?’
She smiled then. ‘Come on. You’re not gonna sit there and tell me you wouldn’t prefer a philosophical discussion with me, than the plebeian chatter back there.’ She pointed to the door.
‘Philosophical?’ He looked at her with his brow slightly furrowed.
‘Yes, the whys and wherefores of the samurai. The role of the warrior in ancient and modern Japan.’
‘There is no role for them in modern Japan.’
‘That’s not what Yukio Mishima thought,’ Swann put in. ‘He committed sepukko with the Tatenokai around him.’
‘Has Harada got links to the militia over here, Tetsuya?’ Logan interjected. ‘Or does he really just want to get you out of jail?’
Shikomoto looked down the length of his nose at her. ‘Discussion has its own unique virtues, Agent Logan. But to me, in here, they are insignificant. Debate, the formulation of agreements are of far more interest.’
‘I’m not looking to make any deals with you.’
He laughed all at once. ‘Then I shall return to my cell, because though I might value some intellectual stimulation, I doubt I’ll get it from you.’
‘He was your lover, wasn’t he?’ Logan leaned across the table and looked him right in the eye. ‘Homosexuality,’ she added. ‘It’s probably useful in here.’
Shikomoto had the hint of scarlet smouldering in his cheeks. ‘It’s more useful than being black,’ he said.
‘Touché, Tetsuya. See, you’ve lost none of that sparkling wit we’ve read so much about.’ Logan sat back again. ‘Harada was your lover, wasn’t he? Yet you’re both married. I can’t get my head round that one.’
