by Jon Land
“The best minds in the country have already run the circle.”
“Conducting a search based on what they can legitimately accept to be real. My friend can accept anything. Nothing gets ruled out.”
“Call him in. Whatever it takes.”
The sun was down by the time Kimberlain pulled into a parking lot adjacent to Sunnyside Railroad Yard, a resting place for mothballed railroad cars in New Jersey, just outside the tunnel under the Hudson River to Penn Station. He danced across dead tracks as if current might still have been pumping through them.
The gray and brown steel corpses of Amtrak and New Jersey Transit cars were lined up for a good eighth of a mile, rows squeezed so close together that there was barely enough room for Kimberlain to shoulder his way between them. The pair of rusted brown cars he was heading for had carried cargo, not passengers. They were off to one side, apart from the neighboring lines of Amtrak cars, and were in relatively good condition; they seemed to be beggingto be hitched onto engines once more.
“Ferryman here,” he said softly into a small slit, cut at eye level on the side of one of the rusty cars. The car’s rear door opened with a familiar whooosh.
“Welcome aboard,” said Captain Seven.
The captain’s hair had hung past his shoulders, wild and unkempt, for as long as Kimberlain had known him. The only difference lately was the graying edges along his temples. He wore cut-off jean shorts which exposed his thin, knobby legs, and a leather vest over a black Grateful Dead T-shirt. A medallion with a sixties peace sign embossed on it dangled from his neck, even though he’d spent much of that era fighting in Vietnam instead of protesting about it. Kimberlain didn’t know the captain’s real name and never had. He knew him only as a spaced-out tech whiz who’d made his mark in Vietnam as a brilliant flake from the seventh planet in another galaxy. “Captain” wasn’t his real rank, but it sounded nice when you ran the “Seven” after it. He seemed content never to return to his own identity, and Kimberlain never pressed him about it.
“Hope you haven’t come to complain about the video system,” the captain said.
“Not a chance. Works like a charm.”
“Course it does,” Seven said proudly.
Kimberlain followed him through the doorway into his decidedly unhumble abode. The furniture was stunning. Each shiny black leather piece was built precisely to fit in its location. The carefully arranged interior was filled with flashing lights, diodes, CRT screens, monitors, switches, and assorted machines and data banks from floor to ceiling. Kimberlain caught the pungent scent of marijuana and flared his nostrils. “Ventilation system needs to be flushed.” He smiled.
From a nearby table, Captain Seven lifted a plastic contraption bristling with tubes and dominated by water-filled chambers. “This shit’s too good to flush out,” he said, wrapping his mouth around a small hole in the device and sucking air from it deeply.
Kimberlain could hear bubbles churning. Almost immediately smoke poured through the various serpentine chambers, tunneling ultimately into Captain Seven’s lungs. He inhaled until the smoke was gone. The bubbles stopped.
Seven held his breath briefly, then let it out, stray smoke following with it. His eyes fell fondly on the marijuana-filled thing. “Best bong ever,” he reported, voice thinner with each word. “Don’t need to be lit. Breathing in supplies all necessary combustion. Don’t remember how I came up with it. If I’d had it over in Nam, though, I’d be in the millions now.”
“Retire right,” said the Ferryman.
“Yeah. Just imagine. All those boys in their foxholes at night lighting up a joint and sending a signal to the Cong for hundreds of yards. They had these, they could smoke themselves silly and the Cong would never know. We might even have won the war. Who knows?”
“Maybe you should take out a patent.”
“Too fuckin’ late.” Captain Seven sighed. “World’s turned to that powder shit. Freezes their minds. This stuff, well I been smokin’ it for damn near thirty years now, and look at me.”
“Right.”
“Sure you don’t want any?”
“Yup.”
Captain Seven plopped down in a black leather chair under a terminal board with a dozen flashing red lights. He turned to Kimberlain. “So what do you want?”
“Got a challenge for you.”
“Oh?”
“Ultimate locked-room murder. Got the best tech boys in the country baffled.”
“Not the best, old buddy, but please go on.”
Kimberlain told him about Jordan Lime’s murder, told him everything in the clearest, most deliberate terms so that Seven’s brilliant but often frazzled mind could absorb it. When he was finished, the captain just sat there expressionless, not even blinking, the slight motions of his chest in and out the only reminder he was alive.
Without warning or word, his eyes flashed alert again and he drew the bong back to his lips. Once more bubbles churned like water boiling in an open pot on a stove. Smoke filled the chambers, and then it was gone.
“I need to know how it was done,” Kimberlain added after the captain had exhaled.
“You asked all the right questions already.”
“And got all the right answers. What am I left with?”
“The impossible.”
“Your specialty.”
Captain Seven started to lift the bong back to his lips, then thought better of it. “They didn’t like my style in Nam. Know why? ’Cause it was too damn effective. I come up with perimeter mines that really knocked the shit out of the Charlie bastards. Lucky ones died quick. Not so lucky ones had their balls blown off. Thing was, I designed the mines thin and dark so we didn’t have to busy ourselves burying them. Coated them with a special epoxy that made dirt stick to the frames. Ultimate camouflage. In-fucking-credible. Anyway, the brass hears about them and instead of giving me congrats and a medal, they tell me I’m in violation of the Geneva conventions. We’re losing boys who barely got hair on their balls and they tell me I’m in violation. I realized then that they had sent us over there but they never wanted us to win. You read me?”
“It was before my time.”
“Right. You and The Caretakers came later, when they wanted to avoid another Vietnam. Suddenly all the skills that violated Geneva were very much in demand. Nobody gave a shit anymore, and the object was to win, so I figured when they asked me to sign on, sure, what the hell. Only I couldn’t tell the difference. Yanked myself out ’cause the winning and losing all felt the same.”
“This time the winning or losing is up to you.”
“Ain’t that nice.”
“There’s more. Need you to work a little computer magic for me, Captain. Like I said, we know of three murders but there have probably been more. Either way, there’s got to be something the victims have in common besides the obvious.”
“Expecting more impossible murders?”
“I’d bet on it. Be a bonus if you could come up with a few potential next victims for me based on whatever it is you turn up.”
“No sweat. And where will you be while I’m sneaking into data banks and solving impossible crimes?”
“Seeking out an expert on the homicidal personality,” Kimberlain said. He paused. “Winston Peet.”
Kimberlain had been in his hotel room for twenty minutes and was nearly ready for bed. He was thinking how much he missed the quiet of the forest when the phone rang.
“Yes,” he answered, expecting to hear Kamanski’s voice.
“Ferryman, how good to hear your voice again.”
Kimberlain froze. He squeezed the receiver tight. “Hello, Zeus.”
“After so long some measure of enthusiasm might have been exhibited.”
“Excuse my manners.”
“They’re excused. Now switch on your television. Channel three.”
Kimberlain placed the receiver on the bed and moved to the television. A moment later channel three sharpened before him.
“Very
good, Ferryman,” said the voice, now coming through the television speaker as well while a shape gained focus. “I wish I could say it’s good to see you, but of course …”
Zeus sat centered in the screen at the head of a conference table, sunglasses in place over his sightless eyes. His hair was jet black—dyed, probably—his features milky white and unchanged since last they’d met. The camera pulled back just enough to include in the frame the hulking brutes flanking him on either side.
“Neat trick,” Kimberlain said.
“It seemed a practical expedient. I wished to avoid unpleasantries.”
“Then you shouldn’t have called.”
“The knob’s there, Ferryman. Turn it off.” The sightless man’s eyes seemed quite impossibly to regard him from the other side of the screen. “You can’t, can you?”
“What do you want, Zeus?”
The picture blurred a bit, then sharpened to crystal clarity. Kimberlain realized his initial impressions of the former leader of The Caretakers had been mistaken, as if Zeus had fooled him, controlled him, even here. The old man’s cheeks were creased and worn, his chin and jowls tired and drooping. There was an instant of pity for the blind man before the memories came flooding back. The screen filled with Zeus from the shoulders up as Kimberlain felt his heart beat faster.
“I need you,” said Zeus.
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I created you. Gave you your name, your—”
“It stops there, Zeus. You gave me my name; you gave all of us our names. And you were the god in ultimate control. We were part of a game you were playing. Don’t expect me to play again.”
“I was right, though, wasn’t I? I called you ‘Ferryman’ after Charon, who took the dead across the river Styx, because I knew that would be your specialty. You see, I knew you better than you knew yourself.”
“Forgetting that last mission, aren’t you, Zeus? You abandoned me, left me to die. I knew too much about the way The Caretakers really functioned, about the truth behind our operations. My term was almost up. You couldn’t have me coming out alive.”
“And wasn’t I proven right? You talked after you came in, didn’t you? It was the beginning of the end, it lead to our dissolution. We’re talking about my life here, Ferryman.”
“What about my life, Zeus?”
“It’s all behind us. I never meant for you to die. Believe that or not as you wish, but my own heart is secure. I would have helped you if I could have. Don’t you think I knew you would survive anyway and what the consequences would be to me? Think, man!”
“That was never one of my options during the term.”
“Leave the past,” Zeus pleaded, “for both our sakes.”
Kimberlain started to reach for the knob.
“Millions of people may be about to die,” Zeus said before he could turn it.
Kimberlain stopped his hand in midair and held it there.
“You are familiar, of course, with C-12 plastic explosives?”
“Roughly twenty times more potent than C-4. The most deadly incindiary short of an atomic bomb.”
“Five hundred pounds of it is unaccounted for.”
“Stolen?”
“In a very subtle fashion. Inventory sheets were altered, security circumvented at all levels. Very deep. Very professional.”
“If you’ve gotten far enough to realize all that, you don’t need me.”
Zeus’s features became less sure. “At this particular installation, security was my responsibility.”
“Ah,” Kimberlain said. “So you have yet to report your discovery to interested parties within the government and military. Worried about your reputation, Zeus, your career?”
The blind man sneered. “Nonsense! Acting as if the theft has gone undiscovered gives us the best chance of recovering the C-12.”
“ ‘Us’ as in you and whatever army you’re running these days. I’m out.”
“There’s more.” Zeus started to reach into his jacket pocket. “We interrogated a man believed to be one of the perpetrators. Killed himself with a cyanide capsule before we could confirm our suspicions, but something else about him told us plenty.” He pulled a photograph from his pocket and signaled the camera to draw closer. “This tattoo was found on his right shoulder, Ferryman. Might be of interest to you.”
The camera zoomed in. A death’s-head with a spear running through it from temple to temple filled the screen. The death’s-head was smiling.
“The Hashi,” muttered Kimberlain.
“It’s good to see your memory has not deserted you. The Hashi indeed. An international society of assassins for hire dating back a thousand years.”
“You didn’t believe me when I told you they still existed.”
“But if the Hashi are anywhere near as dangerous as you claimed years ago, imagine the potential calamity we’re facing if the C-12 has fallen into their hands. We have a concrete trail to follow this time, Ferryman. Find the explosives and you find the Hashi.”
“And save your ass in the process.”
“A minor subtext. Consider this as my providing sanction for your pursuit a bit after the fact, though not too late, hopefully, to save millions of lives.”
“I don’t need your sanction anymore, Zeus,” Kimberlain said quite calmly. “And I’m done chasing ghosts.”
The blind man yanked off his sunglasses to reveal the crystalline lenses that had never functioned as eyes. “Now you’re chasing other people’s ghosts, hiding behind a veil of morality to justify the kind of actions I used to justify for you. You’re still the Ferryman. Only your passengers are different.”
“Because they’re chosen by me, not by some omnipotent organization that alone knows what’s best for America.”
“This conversation concerns the present.”
“No, it concerns the past, and mine doesn’t exist anymore.”
“Damn it, Jared, I need you!” Zeus screamed like a spoiled child.
“Yes, Zeus, how does it feel?”
The Second Trumpet
Winston Peet
Tuesday, November 17; 8:00 P.M.
Chapter 4
“COME ON! GET A MOVE on, ladies. Off we go!”
The women were herded off the van like so many cattle being led to the slaughterhouse. Of the six, four were reasonably attractive, one pleasantly plain, and the last a blonde of stocky build with a head too small for her body. The streets of Nice, France, were not exactly teeming with prostitutes at this hour of the night. Those available brought with them the risk they might take something from the villa besides compensation for their services.
“Right this way, ladies. Follow me,” continued the huge, bearded guard in poor French. He led them toward the double-door entrance of the old converted hotel. Its isolated location and fortified exterior stone wall suited its present occupants well. Before becoming a hotel it had been the summer residence of a French nobleman. It had been built centuries ago by a famous Frenchman who’d made a successful living as a sea pirate.
The whores’ faces glowed as they passed through the entrance into the surfaced granite foyer. The huge guard poked a finger like iron into the breast of the chunky blonde.
“Look but don’t touch, bitch.”
She swore at him in French and feigned a spitting motion.
The guard laughed heartily. “Upstairs, ladies. Touch any of the paintings and I’ll slice off your fingers.”
He led them to the fourth floor, where a right turn at the head of the staircase brought them to a series of six doors, three on each side spread equally apart.
“One hour with each man,” came the guard’s next instructions. “We’re on a tight schedule here. The next shift will knock on the door when their turn comes.” Then, with a crude wink, “Make sure all the coming is done by that time, eh?”
The whores giggled.
The guard started directing them through the doors, and the blonde drew the second one down on the
left. Once inside with the door closed behind her, her eyes fell on a thin boyish figure lying naked to the waist on the bed.
“Well, hello, there,” he said, licking his lips. “You’re a big one, aren’t you?”
Bravado talking, the blonde figured. The boy couldn’t have been more than sixteen, seventeen maybe.
“Like to find out, wouldn’t you?” she teased, but her eyes wandered to the tattoo on his right shoulder: a smiling death’s-head with a spear running through it from temple to temple.
The boy started fumbling with his zipper, but the blonde was over him quickly, pinning him with her weight as her mouth lowered to his.
The boy moaned and hugged her tight.
The blonde returned his hug briefly, then let her hands glide to his chin, one on each side. The boy didn’t see her eyes. If he had, perhaps he would have moved, or at least tried to.
The blonde jammed both her hands forward under his chin, jolting his head straight back at an impossible angle as she threw her frame forward to provide the final thrust she needed.
The boy’s head snapped back and went slack. The body spasmed and stilled instantly, toes twitching and nothing more.
The whore lunged out of the bed as quick as a cat and yanked her dress off over her head. Under the discarded garment her body was wrapped with packs of explosives expertly positioned so that a body frisk would have revealed nothing but normal contours.
Twenty-two minutes later all the plastic explosives had been divided into individual blocks and the detonators readied. The grenades she pulled from a hidden pouch were the Soviet-made square variety which clung comfortably to the belt. The gas canisters were bulky but necessary. All she lacked was a hand-held weapon, and a search of the boy’s closet yielded her a choice of many. She draped a pair of Ingram machine pistols over her shoulders and wedged an oversized Beretta into her belt. Then she completed her transformation by rolling down the sleeves of a top that was the companion piece of the tights worn beneath her dress.
This done, the woman settled the mounds of C-4 plastique into a pack she’d also found in the closet and lifted the strap over her neck. She wedged the set of detonators into her belt for easy retrieval. Stilling her breath, she pressed her ear against the door. Once confident the corridor was empty, she glided stealthily out. The only sounds came from the Ingram butts clicking against each other.
