Covenant

by Jeff Gulvin

  ‘Would you recognise him again?’

  ‘Oh sure.’ He sat forward then. ‘There’s one other thing I wanna say.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I got halfway back to the office and thought about trying again. When I turned round, I saw him getting into a black independent cab.’

  Logan looked at him now. ‘A passenger?’

  ‘No. He was the driver.’

  Kovalski came back at two and Logan filled him in on what Riddington had said. ‘Is he a reliable witness?’ Kovalski asked her.

  ‘I’d say so, Tom, yeah. The guy sure talks a helluva lot, but it made sense and his timings were spot on.’

  Kovalski chewed his lip. ‘Well, it’s a lead. An independent cab. Have we put the word out?’

  Logan nodded and Kovalski looked at Swann. ‘I put forward the idea of some kinda deal for Shikomoto, but as yet they don’t wanna go for it.’ He scratched his head. ‘They might, if we don’t catch Harada real quick. But the best it’ll be, will be some kinda privilege situation. There’s no way that guy’s gonna walk.’

  Logan furrowed her brow. ‘Harada must know that. Surely.’

  ‘He might,’ Swann said. ‘But you could argue that Carlos must’ve known the French wouldn’t release Magdalena Kopp. He still bombed them senseless.’

  Harada watched the six o’clock news in the comfort of his air-conditioned living room. The Venetian blinds were lowered, and he sat with a glass of mint tea by his side and listened to what the newscaster was saying. The FBI had a new witness, somebody who had seen the suspect making a telephone call from a booth on 4th Street, at 12 p.m. on the day of the last attack. The suspect had climbed into an independent cab and driven away. They were now appealing for anyone else who had seen the cab, or had been driving in the vicinity at that time, to come forward. Harada sipped tea and digested this new information. They had stepped closer to him, not enough to make a difference, but a pace closer. He could feel it as something physical and it unnerved him just a fraction. He sat a moment longer, then went up to his bedroom and slid the trunk he had bought from under the bed. Carefully, he lifted out the ceremonial costume that had been in his family for almost a century. He took out the natural face paints and the parchment chart his grandmother had given him, which traced his heritage back through the ages. He held that closely for a moment, again considering the nature of his failure—the misguided footsteps of youth, the vain attempts at remedy through sokaiya and fool’s gold. Perhaps he would do better in the next life. Lastly, he lifted the ceremonial wooden case and took out the half-length sword.

  Standing, he made one or two kendo moves, and then he was in full swing, mind clear, stepping on the balls of each foot, whirling the sword above his shoulder, under his arm, across his neck, before him and behind. He paused, sweating lightly, and felt the surge of adrenaline in his veins. He would not be human if he was not touched by etchings of fear. But fear was a thing that the warrior banished. If a samurai was to fight bravely, he must not consider such inconsequential concerns as his own survival. Time moved on and there were things he had to do today. Throughout his stay here, he had been careful to carry or store only the minutest amount of bomb-making paraphernalia. He could get away with tilt switches, infrared sensors, etc. in his truck because of the nature of the security business, but not much more than that.

  Still sweating, he replaced the sword in the casket and stowed the casket under the bed. As he got up, he caught sight of himself in the mirror. Perhaps it was the cab discovery that unnerved him, but he thought then how much his face did resemble the photograph the FBI had put out. He could not continue to rely on his nerve alone. He moved to the mirror and stood there for a moment, turning his face this way and that, raising his fingers to the height of his cheekbones. His face was sharp and angular, and his lips were full and very red in colour. All at once he smiled. Ancient warriors used to rouge their cheeks and lips with paint. It showed their disregard for danger and allowed the mind serenity and concentration in battle. One old master, renowned for his valour and prowess with the sword, was so beautiful with his face paint on that his adversaries, before they died, swore a woman had killed them on the battlefield.

  He drove into West Virginia, heading for the second dead drop. He was careful, even though the wig fitted well and fell in a fringe across his eyes, in the style of so many Asian women. But he felt vaguely self-conscious. This was the first time a woman had left his house and got into the car. He had been shopping for clothes as soon as the idea struck him, gauging his size as he went. He was slightly built, so a little padding created curves in the right places, and because he had painted and sculpted many things in his life, the make-up was all but perfect. He looked like a demure Japanese lady in her late thirties, dressed sensibly and driving a sensible grey sedan. When he rode the metro now, it would be so much easier.

  He left the city, making sure he did not break the speed limit. Throughout the six months he had been here, he had ensured the police had no reason to stop him. His brake lights worked, he never drank alcohol and never broke the speed limit. He checked the mirrors now as he left the freeway and headed into the mountains, aware of the time ticking away on the clock set in the dashboard.

  He had made the call the day before yesterday, outlining his exact requirements, and the voice on the end of the phone intrigued him. He had no idea who it was that left the materials for him, but so far the system had worked well. It had not been his place to ask who or why: the materials were there and they served his purpose. He was especially cautious when he visited the dead drops, however. These trips were one of the two points of maximum danger. In making the collections, as with laying the improvised devices, he exposed himself to the possibility of being stopped, the car being searched and him being caught. The cab was obsolete now and he would have to think that one out carefully. An error of judgement, a single mistake on his part—it was a good thing. It would ensure he was even more vigilant in future. He was not even half done and to lose now would be the biggest loss of honour he could begin to contemplate. It was a long drive to the dead drop, which further increased the risk on the way back, but the goods were well packaged, having been transferred from the military cases into bottomless hot-dog tins. He would stow them on the back seat, with the top of the box left open, so that if he did get stopped, any cop could lift the lid and see that he had stocked up for a barbecue.

  Vernon Jewel, leader of the Mountaineer Militia, woke up in his pick-up truck. His Thermos of coffee had gone cold on him and he wished he had brought some more. Fifteen hours now and still no sign. Again, he considered firing up the rig and heading back into the hills. He was at the rest area and had already stowed the box of hot-dog tins under the drainage cover. The contact could not leave it more than twenty-four hours, and if it was him, he’d be there a whole lot sooner than that. Who knew when a county works vehicle would pull in to do an inspection.

  He was parked in the trees, off the main rest area, which was on a wide lay-by with the mountain climbing behind it. Jewel did not usually make the deliveries himself. Some of the young bucks took care of that, those with a taste for adrenaline and a hair stuck firmly up their ass. But he always insisted they took the dirt road, which climbed into the hills from the highway ten miles up the road. It wound back on itself and forked in various directions, one of which came out at the back of the rest area. The only potential hazard was a ranger’s truck: no cops ever rode that trail. Out of season, a ranger might pull you over if he suspected you’d been poaching, but even in these days of paying lip service to the Constitution, he still had to have probable cause.

  Jewel had come himself this time because of the story the FBI were putting out about this guy Fachida Harada, the so-called member of the Japanese Red Army. After those gooks showed up in Cassity and kidnapped Vera-Mae Brown and Angela Appleyard, Jewel had to see this for himself. Cassity was all but barricaded and the potential for a stand-off grew with every passing
hour. His outfit had been servicing this dead drop for a while now, the word coming in from BobCat Reece in Montana about six months previously. He had met Reece at the gun show in Iowa and Reece had told him his theory. Reece reckoned the munitions were being paid for by a German outfit who wanted to assist the US cause. Where they were going after they were dropped off, he had not said, and Jewel had not been sure that even Reece knew. But when the bombs started going off in D.C., Jewel had begun to wonder, and now this claptrap handed out by the FBI made him wonder even more.

  He had contacted Reece, who seemed as baffled as he was and it was Reece’s idea that he stake out the place to see for himself. Old BobCat had become something of a big man these days, and his membership in Montana was the biggest in the country. Jewel used to joke with him about it, how easy it was to run a militia, given how many miles they were from D.C. Reece seemed to be co-ordinating a lot of things lately, though, and with his military background, he was the man to do it. He was the most suspicious, anti-federal man Jewel had ever met. But even he was surprised when the government sent those gooks to Oregon.

  Tactics had altered from that moment on and every member in the country was now at a one-minute call to arms. It was for just these circumstances that the Founding Fathers ratified the Second Amendment back in 1791. So many of the liberals called them outdated, but Jewel figured those men had been blessed with the gift of foresight. He sat up straighter all at once, as a car drove by the rest area. He squinted into the gathering darkness and could not make it out. Some kind of sedan, he figured. It went on up the highway, though, and he settled back again, yawned and bemoaned the lack of coffee. Then he heard the same engine rolling back down the hill and he stiffened. Sure enough, the headlights swung into the rest area and the car stopped by the toilet building. Silence and gathering darkness. Jewel fumbled on the seat next to him and took out the pair of night-vision glasses he sometimes used when poaching deer. He strapped them over his head and slipped out of the truck, making sure the interior light was switched off, so it would not come on when he opened the door. He stood in the shadow of the trees, the toilet block between him and the sedan now, and he moved quickly, silently, across the grass to the wooden sign that designated the foot trails leading into the hills.

  He heard a car door open, then close, and he crouched behind the sign and waited. The footsteps on the path were light and quick and a figure drifted into his line of vision, before disappearing inside the toilet block. Less than a minute later, it came out again and Jewel twisted the focus wheel on the glasses. His jaw dropped open. It was a woman bending over that drainage cover. She had black hair and slanted eyes. He watched her lift out the C-4 and carry it back to the sedan. He heard the engine fire up and then she pulled out on to the highway.

  For a long time he sat in that truck and felt the shadows growing around him. The FBI had claimed that Harada was working alone, no group structure to back him. Yet here was a woman picking up the C-4. Now it fell into place. The gooks in Oregon and Nevada, and right here in West Virginia. A gook woman here at the dead drop. The government was using its own munitions to bomb the people and was blaming some fictional Japanese man. All these months his group had been depositing weapons here and it was the US government that picked them up. That implicated the militia. The whole thing was a massive infiltration exercise. He stared into the shadows and saw movement that wasn’t there. He thought he heard the whump whump of a chopper in the distance, or was his imagination playing tricks on him? The breath tightened in his throat and he knew he had to get home and get hold of Reece in Montana. This thing was way deeper and way dirtier than any of them could have expected.

  Swann read the newspaper, an interview with Robert BobCat Reece of the West Montana Minutemen, given to Carl Smylie. According to Reece, the militia had proof that the Washington bomber was indeed a US government agent. Reece said that the people of America were no longer fooled. The government had shot itself in the foot when it sent the Hong Kong troops after Lafitte and Tommy Anderson. They had underestimated the level of outrage that followed, not from militia members, but the ordinary US citizen. That had been bad enough, but then the abductions of the two women in West Virginia, one of them being pregnant: a sure sign by federal officials that the seed of revolution must be snuffed out. Reece commented on the fact that no sooner had there been an outcry about this tactic of using the much-threatened Asian army, than the Feds had used an Asian as the scapegoat for the Washington bombs. They had badly miscalculated: the Bilderbergers and the leaders of the Federal Reserve and the United Nations. Never before in the history of America had anyone phoned in warnings before a bomb went off. So why now? Because the government wanted to minimise collateral damage. Initially, the belief had been that this so-called scapegoat ‘Harada’ had been an agent gone AWOL, but now the militia had obtained indisputable proof that there was no such person as Fachida Harada. The whole sham was a deliberate attempt by federal agents to subvert the will of the people, abrogate the Second Amendment and infiltrate constitutionally viable groups, starting with the Mountaineer Militia in West Virginia.

  ‘How the hell does he come to that conclusion?’ Swann asked Logan, who was reading the same piece.

  ‘I haven’t got a clue. It’s just BobCat shooting off at the lip, trying to generate some more publicity for himself.’

  Swann glanced at her. ‘Are you sure? What does he mean by an attack on the Mountaineer Militia?’

  ‘The town of Cassity,’ she said. ‘Where the two women were kidnapped. That’s Mountaineer territory.’

  Swann went through to the corridor and got himself some coffee. He wondered what had happened in West Virginia to make Reece come up with something like this. Was he merely talking about the abduction of the women or was there something else, and how did any of it tie in with Harada?

  Harrison left Jean for the third time and hitched a ride back to Coleman. He walked then, pack on his back, gun in his boot, hauling a bottle of water and his banjo, out beyond the freight yards, where the plains rolled in scrub, sagebrush and clumps of dry cactus. He was heavier-hearted than he had been for a while, Jean in his mind, like a candle that would not blow itself out. It felt like his steps were dragging. He had no desire to jump another freight train and even less inclination to go north and meet up with the Southern Blacks. What he wanted to do was stay with Jean, get in his truck and drive off somewhere with her, the sunset maybe or some other such dumb idea. He had never been married and none of his girlfriends had stuck by him for very long, or indeed him by them. He often wondered if the possibility of some kind of love might have passed him by.

  He watched the drivers changing on the grainer, which was heading north, and waited while the diesel cranked up. Then the train rolled away from the swap point and he was trotting alongside an open-doored boxcar. He jumped up and rolled across the dirt floor to the back of the car. Sitting up quickly, he saw that the boxcar was empty and he was glad, because right now the last thing he wanted was company. He sat with his knees drawn up and rolled a cigarette, fingers working automatically, his mind transported by the rhythm of the wheels that beat time in his ear. He thought about the two rooms he rented on Burgundy and Toulouse in the quarter, and he thought about New Orleans and the field office, and Gerry Mackon dropping him from the SWAT team. Then he wondered if going UC again, like this, was not also a way of reminding himself, reminding them, that he could still cut it when it really counted. He thought about D.C. and the Vietnam memorial and that woman thirty years ago with her brood of seven crying children. He thought of the marine laying the flag down for his long dead father. ‘God, JB,’ he said, aloud. ‘You’re a maudlin sonofabitch. If this is what hanging out with a woman does for you, don’t do it.’ But his mind was off by itself and he thought about childhood and Marquette, and lake fishing in winter with his grandfather. He thought about the sister to whom he had not spoken in ten years and decided that when this was over and Jean was gone, that was something
he would rectify. Jean gone: that’s what this mood was all about; he figured that as soon as this deal was over she would be heading back to the UK.

  ‘Goddammit. Cowboy up,’ he said to himself and got to his feet. He moved to the door and leaned there, the wind in his face whipping the cigarette smoke away from him as soon as he exhaled. He ought to quit smoking, but he’d smoked and chewed for so long now, he didn’t think his body would recover anyway.

  He left the train at Abilene and headed for the tracks, which ran east towards Fort Worth and Dallas. He had to walk for three miles before he was able to jump another train. Three Southern Blacks occupied the car and Harrison did not recognise any of them. He was already in a bad mood, and their sullen expression, copious earrings and black bandanas got under his skin even more.

  He had to keep forcibly cool, the animosity building, as the train lurched over the bridge, with the three men staring at him. Harrison put them all in their thirties, older than some he had seen and younger than others. He sat with his back to the wall on the left of the open door. Two of the Blacks were against the longest wall, the third directly opposite him. Nobody spoke.

  The one facing him continued to stare and Harrison held his gaze. In the end, the man leaned and spat. ‘Quit staring, asshole.’

  Harrison continued to look him in the eye. ‘You’re the only view I got, unless I wanna crick in my neck.’

  The man squinted at him, looked at his friends, then stood up. ‘You disrespecting me, man?’ he said.

  Harrison tensed fractionally. The bottom of his jeans’ leg was half hooked over his boot top and he had a huge desire to draw the snub-nosed gun and put a bullet right between the Southern Black’s eyes.

  ‘Get off this fucking train,’ the man said.

  Harrison stood up, glanced at his two companions and wondered what his chances were in a gunfight in such a confined space: not good. He looked at his tormentor.