Department 18 [04] A Plague of Echoes

by Maynard Sims

  “Because when David comes back I’m going to tell him it’s over. I don’t want to do that while I can still smell you on me.”

  “You could shower.”

  “I’d still smell you…up here.” She tapped the side of her head. “Besides, I need time alone to work out how I’m going to tell him.”

  “Will it be such a great surprise?”

  “I don’t know. It might.”

  Carter lit a cigarette and rolled down the window to flick the ash onto the tarmac.

  “Can you spare one of those?” she said.

  “You don’t smoke.”

  “I don’t do a lot of the things I once enjoyed. I haven’t done since I met David.”

  He passed his cigarette across to her and lit another one for himself. “Small rebellions,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Smoking, chopping off your hair, wearing makeup in the office…”

  “Leaving David.”

  “Okay, that’s a big one, but you know what I mean. Are you still serious about quitting the Department?”

  “Once Simon’s back on his feet, yes. I need to get out, Rob, not just for the girls, but for me…and you.”

  “I want you to stay.”

  “Yes, I know you do, but I think you know equally well that if I stay working with you, as well as living with you, our relationship isn’t going to last five minutes. And I really do want it to last longer than that.”

  He was silent for a moment as he digested what she had just said. “You want to live with me?”

  “I don’t play games, Rob. If I didn’t want to be with you I wouldn’t be sitting here now. Just give me time, okay?”

  He leaned over and brushed her lips lightly with his own. “Okay,” he said.

  “Deayton’s dead,” Sultan said.

  Schroeder sat at his desk, scrolling through pages on the Internet. He glanced across at Sultan. “And did you talk to him before you killed him? Did he tell you what he knew?”

  “We had a chat. He was reluctant to open up at first, but I persuaded him.”

  “And?”

  “He knew far more than was good for him.”

  “About the cartel?”

  “Yes,” Sultan said. And about you, he thought.

  “So he’s no longer a threat?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  “We should have taken him out a long time ago,” Sultan said.

  Schroeder shook his head. “While he was playing the senile old fool I didn’t really have to worry about him. Bailey changed that when he went to see him this afternoon. He brought the old man back into the game. Bailey, are we still tracking him?”

  Sultan nodded. “He’s at home. We can take him whenever we want.”

  “I don’t like it, Leon. We’re starting to draw attention to ourselves. First Crozier, now Deayton… We’ve given Department 18 every reason crawl all over us. I didn’t want them digging too deeply.”

  “Perhaps you should have thought of that before you sanctioned the attack on Crozier. I did say it would be like sticking your hand into a wasp’s nest.”

  “Yes, and you were right, but Simon Crozier was getting too close. It was only a matter of time before he made the connection between Liscombe and me. Action had to be taken.”

  “Then you should have let me deal with it instead of entrusting it to that maniac O’Brien.”

  “Again I agree with you, but I thought O’Brien would handle it better than he did. I trusted him.”

  Sultan opened his mouth to speak but shut it again with a snap, without saying anything. He’d pushed the old man as far as he dare on this occasion. “What do you want me to do about Bailey?” he said after a long pause.

  “A watching brief, I think. I want to know where he goes, what he does and who he sees.”

  “I’ll increase the surveillance,” Sultan said.

  Further conversation was halted by a tap on the library door.

  “Come in,” Schroeder called.

  The door opened and Gabrielle entered, smiling widely. “Hello, Papa,” she said, sailing past Sultan without acknowledging him.

  “Poppy!” Schroeder said, flinging his frail arms wide to embrace her. “I thought you were staying at the Dorchester tonight.”

  “I changed my mind and checked out,” she said, the smile growing wider as she saw the look of delight in her grandfather’s eyes.

  “This is a wonderful surprise, isn’t it, Leon?”

  “Wonderful,” Sultan said, successfully hiding the irony in his voice.

  “Well, you’re in luck,” Schroeder said. “I had the staff prepare your rooms today. I must be psychic,” he said.

  “You must be,” Poppy said, and held her grandfather tightly as he stroked her hair.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “You’re in early,” Martin Impey said as McKinley walked into his office and sat down, facing him across the desk.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” McKinley said and sipped at the coffee he’d brought with him. “How are you getting on with the mainframe?”

  “Not a trace of Alvar Liscombe anywhere. No echoes on the hard drive, nothing. It’s as if someone’s been in there with a vacuum cleaner and sucked up every file, every kilobyte of information. Quite remarkable really.” Impey couldn’t keep the admiration out of his voice.

  “I have another job for you.”

  “Not more IT stuff hopefully,” Impey said. “I can do it but I prefer straight research.”

  “Straight research it is. I want you to pull out everything you can find about Tevin Madaki,” McKinley said.

  Impey frowned. Since he was attacked and left for dead in the British Library last year he was a changed man. Before the attack he was always quick to smile, his ebullient personality very much to the fore. These days he seemed to take the world, and his role in it, much more seriously. “Does Crozier know you’re digging into Madaki?” he said.

  “I haven’t told him.”

  “Then I’d run it by him first. Madaki has been involved in several Department operations but he reports exclusively to Crozier. They seem to have a special working relationship.”

  “Not anymore,” McKinley said. “He’s coming in today to meet the team.”

  Impey raised his eyebrows. “That should be interesting.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Madaki’s relationship with Crozier is conducted on a clandestine basis. Obscure meeting places, dead drops, that kind of thing. If he feels secure enough to come out into the open I figure what he’s working on is pretty serious.”

  “He’s investigating Pieter Schroeder and he needs our help. He thinks Schroeder’s linked to the destruction of the Liscombe files and the attack on Simon. I said we’d help him.”

  “Schroeder…Schroeder… I know that name.”

  “He’s a reclusive industrialist.”

  “South African,” Impey said. “His name’s come up before. Should I compile a file on him as well?”

  “I don’t think it would be time wasted.”

  “Then I’ll see what I can find on both of them.” Martin leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “I still suggest you tell Crozier first, before Madaki gets here.”

  “I will. How long before you have the information I need?”

  “What time’s he due.”

  “Eleven.”

  “I’ll get it to by ten at the latest,” Martin said.

  “I appreciate it,” McKinley said and returned to his own office. He found Bailey and Carter there waiting.

  “No Jane this morning?” he said.

  “She’s taking a personal day,” Carter said. “She’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “Are you okay, Harry?” McKinley said, taking in Ba
iley’s unshaved face and bloodshot eyes. “You look like shit.”

  “Thanks,” Bailey said. “I didn’t sleep too well. Everett Deayton was killed yesterday.”

  “Sorry,” McKinley said. “I didn’t know.”

  “And it’s connected to this investigation?” Carter asked.

  “Oh, I think so,” Bailey said. “At least I’m pretty sure it’s connected to Alvar Liscombe. Everett worked with him. He was his deputy.”

  “How did you get on with Madaki?” Carter asked.

  McKinley told them how the meeting had gone down. “He’s not sure how to move his investigation forward, so he needs our help. He’s coming in at eleven.”

  “It should be an interesting meeting,” Carter said.

  “That’s everything I have on Madaki,” Impey said, dropping a slim file onto McKinley’s desk.

  “And that?” McKinley said, pointing to a much thicker file clutched under Martin’s arm.

  “The ongoing work that is Pieter Schroeder,” he said, laying the thicker file down on the desk and flicking it open. “I’ve had the girls working on this since they got in this morning.” The girls were Impey’s two assistants, Maggie and Christine, who had worked with him for several years and had proved to be invaluable. “And they’re still going.”

  “There’s a lot of material then,” McKinley said.

  “Reams,” Impey said and sat down at the desk. “But don’t get too excited. Ninety percent of it relates to his business dealings. Another nine percent refers to his charity work. What’s left covers his personal life, and I’d describe that section as sketchy at best. There’s nothing there, John. The man lives under the radar. The girls are still working on it but I’m not optimistic they’ll turn up anything relevant to the investigation.”

  McKinley sighed. “I hoped there’d be more.”

  “That’s the way it goes sometimes,” Impey said. “Go over it yourself. You might stumble upon something I’ve missed.”

  “Thanks. I’ll do that,” McKinley said, eyeing the bulging file with trepidation.

  “I’ll let you have anything else as and when it turns up.”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  Impey left the office and McKinley checked his watch. He had fifty-five minutes before Madaki arrived. He stretched his long frame and settled back in his chair to read the files.

  Tevin Madaki was sure he was being followed. He hadn’t seen anyone obvious loitering in the street outside his hotel, but that didn’t mean there was no one there. He took a taxi to Leicester Square underground station and lost himself in the tunnels. When he was convinced he had shaken any tail he had picked up he hopped aboard a train to Waterloo and then, at Waterloo, took another taxi to Whitehall. He could have been criticized for being overcautious, but years of experience told him that circumspection paid dividends.

  “Tevin Madaki,” he said to Tom McLeod who was feeling the effects of pulling a double shift on the reception desk. “I have an appointment with John McKinley.”

  “You do indeed, sir,” McLeod said, stifling a yawn. “Go straight up. Mr. McKinley’s expecting you. Third floor. Room six.” He pointed to the elevator.

  Madaki waited until the doors were closing before he allowed himself a sigh of relief, but as the doors came together a hand grabbed one of them, holding it back, and an elderly man in a baggy suit slipped into the elevator car.

  “Nearly missed it,” he panted, clearly out of breath. He looked disheveled—hair awry, two days stubble on his chin.

  Madaki smiled at him indulgently. “Which floor?” he said, his finger poised above the button for the third.

  “I’ll take whatever you’re offering,” the man said amiably.

  Madaki looked at him curiously. “I’m for the third,” he said.

  “That’ll do me too.”

  Madaki pressed the button and the elderly man leaned back against the metal wall of the car.

  As they ascended Madaki stole a glance at his traveling companion. The man was staring up at the black Plexiglas panel showing the progress of the elevator in red LCD numbers. As the number 2 blinked out the man reached across Madaki and pressed the Emergency Stop button.

  The car juddered to a halt, suspended between floors.

  “Sorry about that,” the elderly man said. “But I thought we’d better have a chat before you go in for your meeting.”

  “Who are you?” Madaki said, feeling adrenaline start to flow through his veins. “And what do you want?”

  “Who I am is neither here nor there,” the man said. “But you are Tevin Madaki, and I think we have a mutual problem.” He spoke in a conversational style with no menace in his voice.

  “And what would that be?” Madaki said, his eyes never leaving the other man’s face and, at the same time, trying to remember where the Alarm button was situated on the panel.

  “Not what, but who. Pieter Schroeder.”

  “What do you know about Schroeder?” Madaki said.

  “I know he has to be stopped,” the man said.

  “Stopped from doing what?”

  The man smiled. “You disappoint me, Mr. Madaki. You’ve been on his trail all this time and you still don’t know what he’s planning.”

  “Who are you?” Madaki said again.

  “And, anyway, that’s irrelevant. Let’s just say I’m an ally.”

  Madaki reached behind him, feeling for the buttons on the elevator’s control pad.

  “I really wouldn’t do that, Mr. Madaki,” the man said. “If I wanted to harm you, I would have done so by now, but I could do without any interruptions while we discuss this.”

  Madaki considered this for a moment. “Okay,” he said, bringing his hand out from behind his back and showing it to the man. “No interruptions. Now, perhaps, you’ll tell me what you know about Pieter Schroeder.”

  “Gladly,” the man said with a smile. “Although I should tell you that Pieter Schroeder is only the outward manifestation of a creature much older. Schroeder is just a shell inhabited by a dybbuk centuries old. Before Schroeder it inhabited a shell right here in this building, a man called Alvar Liscombe. There were a few short-term lets before Liscombe, but the significant shell before him was a man called Rudolph Steiner who had an elevated position in Hitler’s Third Reich. Ironic really for such a Jewish demon, but then this dybbuk has little regard for religion. Its only real agenda is one of self-preservation and self-elevation. It craves power like a starving man craves food.”

  “You’re telling me little I haven’t discovered for myself,” Madaki said. “I know Schroeder is playing host to a dybbuk.”

  “Yes, you do, and I’ve been very impressed by the way you’ve doggedly pursued your investigation. I’ve followed it every step of the way. But I sense now you’ve reached an impasse, a dead end. You have seen what Schroeder is doing—the gathering together of a group of wealthy, extremely powerful men and women—but you don’t know to what end.”

  “And you do?”

  The man nodded. “Oh, yes. I know what his grand plan is,” he said.

  “Then perhaps you’d like to accompany me to this meeting. I’m sure the Department would like to hear what you have to say.”

  The man laughed. “Yes, I’m sure they would…but no, Mr. Madaki. What I have to tell you is for your ears only. What you do with the information after that, and how you intend to stop Schroeder I’ll leave to your discretion, but you will be the only person I tell, and then my work here is done.”

  “After that the man spent twenty minutes or more revealing Schroeder’s plans. Then he hit the button for the second floor, and when the doors opened he got out and that was the last I saw of him,” Madaki said. He was half an hour late for his meeting with McKinley, Bailey and Carter.

  They sat in the conference room, equally spaced around the broad oak tabl
e. “And you’ve no idea who he was.”

  Madaki shook his head. “He gave no clue. The last thing he said to me before he stepped out of the elevator was, ‘You’ll need a rabbi,’ and then gave me the name of Abraham Stern who works out of the synagogue in Stoke Newington.”

  “I know Stern,” Bailey said. “He’s a hardliner.”

  “Hassidic?” Carter asked.

  “Oh yes,” Bailey said. “Orthodox to the point of fanaticism. Bringing him on board isn’t going to be easy.”

  “And just when I thought things were going our way,” Carter said.

  “No,” Bailey said. “Bringing in a rabbi makes sense if we’re dealing with a dybbuk. I said it wasn’t going to be easy. I didn’t say it was impossible. I’ll go and speak with him, tell him about Schroeder’s plan; persuade him to join the fight.”

  “Fine sentiments, but we don’t know what Schroeder’s planning.”

  “But Mr. Madaki does, and he’s going to tell us,” Bailey said and turned his gaze to Madaki. “Isn’t that right?”

  “I’ll tell you everything the man in the elevator told me,” Madaki said.

  “Don’t leave a word out,” Bailey said.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “I think the big mistake is thinking of this dybbuk as a single entity,” Madaki said. “One spirit that enters one person, taking over that person’s body and soul.”

  “Isn’t that the case with Schroeder?” Bailey said.

  “With Schroeder and the others before him. But that was then,” Madaki said. “Over the years dissatisfaction has set in. Remember I said the dybbuk craves power. It’s like a drug. Ultimately one shell, one host is not enough. The dybbuk needs more—more hosts, more power.”

  “So that’s his plan?” Carter said. “To take another host?”

  “Not just one,” Madaki said. “But many.”

  “The cartel?” Bailey said.

  “The cartel,” Madaki said, nodding. “Some of the richest, most powerful and influential people in the world, all deluded and egotistical enough to buy into Schroeder’s promise of eternal life, all soon to be victims of their own hubris.”

  “You mean the dybbuk intends to possess them all?” Bailey said. “How is that possible?”