Freefall

by Adam Hamdy

  They’d rounded the first floor, when Wallace saw Pendulum limping down the flight above them, his right arm clasped to his side. The man reacted frighteningly quickly and drew a pistol. He managed to get off two shots before Vosuruk’s AK-47 spat fire and a hail of bullets hit him in the face and chest. Pendulum tumbled down the stairs and fell prone on the landing, midway between the first and second floors. Wallace was about to run to the man when he noticed Vosuruk leaning against the wall, unable to continue. Vosuruk collapsed to his knees and Wallace saw dark red blood running between his fingers, which were pressed against his belly.

  Wallace caught Vosuruk and gently lowered the man’s head to the cold marble floor. His heart pounding, his throat thick with bile, Wallace tried not to think about Connie, but it was impossible. He looked at Vosuruk and recognized the signs; the dismay, the disbelief, the hungry desire that would give anything for a few more moments of life.

  “English,” Vosuruk said, his eyes staring through Wallace, his voice uneven and thick. “You know what mean Tr’ok Si’ol?”

  Wallace shook his head, struggling to maintain his composure.

  “Sad wolf,” the veteran told him. “You are too sad. Be happy.”

  Wallace held the man’s hand as he suddenly spasmed, his body shuddering violently as he gasped for breath. And then he was gone, his eyes blank, his body still.

  The weight of grief pressed down on Wallace, preventing him from moving. It wasn’t just the death of his warm-hearted host; Wallace was haunted by the memory of all the people who had died because of him.

  Lost in mourning, he longed for the relief a bullet would bring. But none came, and the sound of pandemonium outside barged its way into his private grief, echoing from the street and bouncing around the stairwell, gradually increasing in volume until Wallace’s senses returned. He heard metal scraping across something hard and turned to see Pendulum trying to point the pistol in his direction.

  Fueled by anger, Wallace got to his feet, raced up the stairs, and kicked the gun away from the prone man. He stamped on the man’s ribs and felt a satisfying crack beneath the Kevlar body armor. Then he knelt beside him and pounded on the black combat mask that covered the man’s face. He didn’t stop until his knuckles hurt, and when he did, it was with the sudden realization that Pendulum was completely still.

  Wallace hesitated for a moment, before reaching for the clasps that held the mask in place. He unclipped and loosened them and removed the fearsome veil. Lying there, taking his final breaths, was the man who’d impersonated Pendulum in the Cromwell Center: Mike Rosen.

  20

  A jumble of questions filled Wallace’s mind. Why had Rosen tried to kill him? Was he trying to avenge Pendulum? Or was he finishing his work? Had they been working together from the outset?

  “Why?” Wallace asked, but he never received a reply. Rosen stared up at him blankly until his gaze shifted beyond this world.

  Wallace heard voices above him and looked up to see puzzled, fearful men peering down from the second-floor landing. One of the men yelled something in Pashtun, his voice raw with hostility, and Wallace started moving. He bounded down the steps, spurred by the pounding of shoes on the hard stairs above, then retraced his route through the back entrance, into the alleyway where the panicked crowd had started to thin. He sprinted past the injured and dead and reached the café, where he hurried in through the shattered window and rooted around Bodur’s tunic until he found the keys to the pick-up.

  Ignoring the cries of a group of men who’d emerged from the building at the end of the alleyway, he leaped through the broken window and sprinted toward Maiwand Road. Wallace couldn’t decipher the exact meaning of the clamor that followed him, but understood enough to know that some of the pursuing crowd believed he’d been one of the shooters. With so many dead, passions would be high, and he knew that if the police didn’t arrive soon, the mob would seek to exact instant vengeance. His only advantage was the general disorder and panicked state of the crowd.

  “Hasilawal!” a voice yelled, and Wallace saw the fear in the surrounding faces turn to bewilderment as he raced past them, pursued by a growing mob.

  By the time he reached the corner of Maiwand Road, there must have been twenty angry men after him, and Wallace started to feel the first attempts to grab him. He ran faster, resisting the fingers of passers-by who reacted to the cries of the pursuing mob and tried to hold him. He raced into the road, which was choked with vehicles belonging to people who had stopped to help the victims of the attack, and he could hear the sound of sirens approaching. Seeing the Toyota parked where they’d left it, he leaped over the bonnet of an old Fiat and sprinted to the pick-up. As he fumbled with the keys, someone grabbed him and Wallace reacted instinctively, throwing an angry punch square into the man’s face. He felt the crunch of bone as the man’s nose shattered, and saw him stumble away in agony. The mob was halfway across the road when Wallace got the key to work. He pulled the door open, jumped inside and gunned the engine. With the street blocked in both directions, Wallace put the truck in gear, stepped on the accelerator and forced the Toyota on to the sidewalk, as the first members of the mob pounded on the chassis. The Toyota roared as it tore along the crowded pavement, leaving the frustrated mob behind. Wallace hit the horn and tried to control the powerful truck as people leaped from its path. He looked to his right and saw that he’d passed the blockage of traffic. There was a gap in the line of parked vehicles and he swung the Toyota through it. The flatbed collided with the rearmost car, and the fishtailing truck threatened to spin wildly, but Wallace rode the skid, regained control, and turned left, speeding along Maiwand Road.

  As the truck roared west and the scene of carnage rapidly shrank in the rearview mirror, Wallace tried to calm his trembling nerves. He took his foot off the accelerator, allowing the Toyota to slow, aware that he could not afford to crash or be caught. Right now, he was the only person in the world who could prove Ash right. Pendulum had not been working alone.

  21

  A rapid pulse hammered Bailey’s ears, and he opened his heavy eyes, which were immediately blinded by bright sunlight. He raised an aching arm to his forehead and shielded his face until his pupils contracted and he could face the world. The pulse was coming from his phone, which was vibrating against his coffee table. He reached out, answered the call, and switched off his TV.

  “Bailey,” he croaked.

  “It’s Murrall,” the East End detective said, his tone abrupt. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”

  “Sorry, I got tied up with a couple of things,” Bailey responded. He sat up and tried to ignore the burning indigestion that seared his chest.

  “I went down to the Record yesterday afternoon,” Murrall continued with undisguised hostility. “They said you’d already spoken to them.”

  “Yeah, I—” Bailey began.

  “I don’t know what you think is going on here, but I’m leading this investigation,” Murrall interrupted. “I didn’t even want you on the case. The husband insisted I brought you in. You were invited to consult as a professional courtesy, but so far I haven’t seen anything professional about you.”

  “I—” Bailey tried.

  “Your boss said I should make allowances for you, but you disappear, leave me searching for a brief who doesn’t exist, you harass the victim’s kids—yeah, I know about that—you don’t return my calls, and then you interrogate the victim’s colleagues without notifying me,” Murrall rattled off the charge list, his voice rich with ire.

  Bailey’s hungover mind searched for a response, but wasn’t quick enough.

  “You’re drowning,” Murrall cut him off again. “Why do you think Cross can spare you? What have you been doing since Pendulum? You think people can’t see what’s happened? You’ve lost your bottle. Cross told me to go easy, but I’m not having some big-name, past-his-prime hotshot fucking up my case. Either do your job, or fuck off.”

  Murrall hung up, and, as the line went de
ad, the hollowness of despair grabbed Bailey and yanked him down. As he tumbled, his mind spinning, his body burning with raw shame, he tried to hold on to a single thought, but there were too many, all of them too consequential for him to face. Cross knew. Superintendent Cross had been babying him. Murrall, that fat, greasy, boorish cop had only met him once and had already seen through the facade. Bailey spun on, questioning everything that had happened over the previous few months, trying to recall his sessions with the shrink, reconsidering every raised eyebrow, every skeptical look. Had she known he was lying, concealing his true state of mind?

  “Shit!” he exclaimed, forcing himself to his feet.

  He looked down at the detritus on his coffee table and swept it all on to the floor. The bottle bounced, colliding with the glass, which smashed.

  Bailey slumped on to the sofa and put his head in his hands. A stranger had given him confirmation that his problems were beyond him, but he had no idea what to do next. He’d isolated himself from his friends and family, and . . . a hazy memory flickered to life, a phone call, a conversation about work. He carefully brushed away the shards of glass, picked his phone off the floor, and checked the call log to find a listing for Christine Ash. The sight of her name triggered flashbacks, snatches of conversation, a request, something to do with the Greene case. He checked his email sent folder and found one addressed to Christine Ash.

  Hey Chris

  You sound goooood! Let me no if yr man findz anything.

  Haybale

  Bailey flushed with humiliation. The terrible spelling and inappropriate informality were hallmarks of someone who was more than half-cut. He scrolled down to the attachments to see a couple of photographs of the numeric code, and was relieved to discover that even in his inebriated haze, he’d only sent partials. Then he saw a third image, one that he’d almost forgotten he’d taken: three balls laid in a row, with the pointed ends of metal stakes almost touching them, their thick ends fanning out to form the edges and center of a trapezoid. It was what the kid, the older one, Hector or Joseph, said he’d found on his mum’s desk. The photograph was the final sign that something had to change. Prior to his shooting, there was no way that Bailey would have forgotten about a piece of evidence.

  Whiners aren’t winners.

  Bailey recalled his grandmother’s mantra as he heaved himself to his feet and headed for the shower, knowing that it would take more than water to wash away the filth of failure and the pungent aroma of self-pity.

  22

  Ash had spent the night checking her files, looking for a link between Max Byrne and Mountainhome, the town where the diner was located, but found nothing. Finally, frustrated and exhausted, she had taken a couple of Ambien and collapsed on her bed fully clothed.

  Waking to the sound of Kisnou’s “Falling Deeper,” her preferred alarm tone, Ash rolled on to her back, her dazed eyes coming to life. She lay for a moment, listening to the sentimental music, trying to ignore the painful throbbing that encircled her neck. The pain intensified when she pushed herself upright, and she moved gingerly as she slipped off the T-shirt and jeans Reeves had given her. She swallowed a couple of extra-strength Advil and showered, taking care to follow the doctor’s instruction to not let her bandage get wet. The warm water and soft soap soothed and she stepped out of the shower free of pain and aglow with a sheen of positivity, which wavered when she caught sight of herself in the bathroom mirror. The wide bandage that encircled her neck was starting to look gray and dirty, but it was another two days before she had to return to Brookdale to have it changed. Her sandy brown hair banded together in lank tresses and drooped over her face, which was paler than usual. She made a mental note to find time to visit the salon, where Aubrey would be able to wash her hair properly without getting her neck wet. Now she picked up her wire brush and ran it over her head. Neat, but greasy, Ash thought, and she grabbed a band and tied her hair in a tight ponytail.

  The prospect of a meeting with Harrell on her mind, Ash opted for a plain white blouse, a dark blue pantsuit, and a pair of wheat-colored Matt Bernson Camden heels. She hurriedly ran through her minimalist make-up routine: eyeliner, mascara, and lipstick, first applying a rare preparatory layer of liquid foundation to conceal her pallor. Satisfied that she exceeded the Bureau’s professional dress code, Ash was about to leave when her gaze lingered on the dirty bandage. Struck by inspiration, she opened her dresser drawer and grabbed a cherry blossom printed silk scarf that she’d bought from the indoor market in the Village. She folded it neatly and tied it round her neck, creating a fetching choker. You can’t change the past, she remembered her mother once saying, you can only make the best of it. Content with how she looked, Ash grabbed her purse and left the apartment.

  Ash drove her Ford Taurus up the ramp of her building’s underground parking garage at 7:23 a.m. and turned right on to Washington Square North, before looping round the park and crossing on to Fourth Street. The traffic kept a slow and steady pace, the warm, idling vehicles leaching misty fumes into the spring air. Ash switched on the radio and caught a couple of light tunes before the news. The familiar, gravelly voice of WCBD News, Perry Castle, told tales of trouble in the Middle East, before turning to domestic turbulence that was building over the Blake-Castillo Bill, as campaigners fought to resist regulation of the internet. When Ash reached the intersection of Broadway and Canal Street, Perry moved on to the sensational capture of the serial killer known as Babylon, and she could not help but turn up the volume.

  “. . . with the FBI refusing to give further details and Bureau sources remaining tight-lipped, the media can only speculate on how Charles Haig was identified as a suspect and how his arrest went so very, very wrong. And now for sports news . . .”

  Ash switched off the radio, annoyed at the tone of the reporting. The media had savaged the Bureau after Pendulum and had kept a keen eye out for any other perceived failings. She knew that Harrell would be under pressure to release details to celebrate the identification, if not the death, of Charles Haig as a Bureau success. The gruesome method adopted by Babylon had made the murders a media sensation, and Ash loathed the prospect that she might achieve any notoriety as the FBI agent who almost had her head sliced off by a serial killer.

  She nodded to the gate guards who matched her license plate to their onscreen photo ID database. Satisfied she wasn’t a threat, one of the guards lowered the wedge barrier and allowed her to drive into the parking garage. She slid the Taurus into her parking spot beneath Federal Plaza and five minutes later was at her desk, in her office on the twenty-eighth floor. Small as it was, Ash had a private place to work and a view of Broadway and the majestic city beyond. A framed photograph of a California beach sunset took up most of one wall, and the other was covered with notes, paperwork, photographs, and documents pinned to cork tiles that ran the length of the room. Ash liked to see her work laid out the old-fashioned way, and her eyes would often dance around the board looking for connections. As she sat at her desk, she realized she’d be due a clear-out—everything on the wall related to Babylon would need to be filed with the official report. While she waited for her computer to start, she looked at the framed photograph of her with her mother, both smiling in the sunshine, hugging each other high in the Santa Monica Mountains, Los Angeles sprawled below them beneath a smoky haze. Ash picked up the picture and touched her mother’s face, recalling the dream she’d had about Nicholas, and wondering how such a beautiful, kind woman could have fallen for such an evil man.

  When she checked her Bureau emails, she saw something from Patrick Bailey and remembered their conversation of the previous evening. He’d sounded smashed, and the email only reinforced that assessment. Ash took a quick look at the three photo attachments but codes and symbols were not her thing, so she forwarded the email to Pavel at Kosinsky Data Services, taking care to delete Bailey’s drunken words and asking Pavel to drop her a line if he came up with anything.

  Favor done, Ash checked her watch: 7:57 a.m., wh
ich meant it would be 12:57 in London, a civilized time to call anyone, even a hungover cop. She was reaching for the phone when it rang, and she saw Cyndy Pearl’s name flash on the display—Harrell’s assistant.

  Ash lifted the receiver. “Morning, Cyndy,” she said.

  “Good morning, Chris. How are you?” Cyndy asked, her voice heavy with concern.

  “OK,” Ash replied. “Could have been worse.”

  “Well, thank God it wasn’t,” Cyndy said. “He’d like to see you if you’ve got a moment.”

  Ash thought about clarifying whether it was God or Harrell who wanted to see her, but decided against making an irreverent remark to the devoutly Christian Cyndy. And besides, as far as the New York Field Office was concerned, Harrell was God.

  “I’ll be right up,” she said.

  Cyndy’s dimpled cheeks crinkled as her mouth curled into a sympathetic smile. Her wavy brown hair was immaculately set and, as she stood, Ash saw that Cyndy was wearing a floral A-line dress beneath a pastel blue bolero, looking every inch the fifties throwback.

  “He said to go right in,” Cyndy advised as she stepped out from behind her desk and opened the door to Harrell’s office. “Is that . . .” She placed a hand on Ash’s arm and pointed at the cherry blossom choker.

  Ash nodded.

  “I’m so sorry, honey,” Cyndy said, and she pulled Ash into a surprising hug. “I hope you feel better,” she added, before stepping away.