The Karma Booth

by Jeff Pearce

  “Viktor Limonov,” he said aloud, staring at his computer screen.

  Ana Tvardovsky had left the Russia mafia to go work for Viktor Limonov, one of the most notorious arms merchants to come out of the broken rubble of the Soviet Union. She had served as first contact for his new clients, had set up his meetings and made sure his money got into offshore accounts. But when Limonov was finally captured in Thailand so that he could be dragged before an international court, she had quietly slipped away and boarded an overnight flight for Phnom Penh. And then her blinking light on the detection screens of law enforcement faded out. Gone. Inactive. Out of sight.

  None of what she’d done for Limonov would have made her any more special, except for Tim’s inside knowledge that Viktor Limonov was supposed to be executed by the Karma Booth later in the month. Just like the snow leopards, this couldn’t be coincidence either.

  He sent Crystal the links and files and got a smiley face back in response. Huh. He had expected a THX or a one-line text, not such an upbeat playful reply. Maybe he was acting a little too stuffy around her. You don’t have to be the serious prof all the time, he chided himself.

  Even their third wheel, Miller, was better at breaking the tension. The neurologist could go from revelling in the wonders of the Karma Booth to a throaty, less-than-worshipful remark about Crystal being a “goddess.” Tim and Crystal had both watched in fascination as Miller giggled with delight over a familiar Big Bang Theory episode playing on a bar’s TV set.

  “This one’s a classic!” he told them, and then recited the dialogue of the Sheldon character in English over the French dubbing.

  Crystal had the information now on Ana Tvardovsky so if there were any leads to Lantern Jaw, she could find them. He re-read his notes from his talks with Mary Ash and Geoff Shackleton, and then he found himself wandering back to the small art gallery to study the paintings of Emily Derosier.

  He was willing to bet her murderer had never known of the existence of these pictures. The killer had slashed and vandalized others. Why?

  He stepped up to the canvases, close enough to inspect the texture of the thick strokes of paint. What had Emily Derosier been trying to say?

  The paintings: a woman in a diaphanous robe moved through a window, which was actually the mouth of an impossible creature of light. A view offered through a tempest of water of a hauntingly beautiful dissected nude. And now you’ve come back. You checked up on my background, thought Tim, but you ran when I found you.

  Perhaps because you knew I wasn’t able to protect you in that moment. And yet you seemed to protect yourself well enough, he thought.

  Was it possible…? That she had run because she had wanted to protect Crystal and him? There was no way to know until he could ask her in person.

  He stood staring at the pictures for a long time, as if he could divine answers from them with just this mental guard duty, and then he felt he wasn’t alone anymore. He turned, expecting the manageress, but instead saw Crystal at his shoulder, smiling at his faint surprise.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you,” she told him. “But you were concentrating so hard.”

  “Nothing to show for it, though.”

  “If it makes you feel better, we have no more hits off the CCTV footage. Wherever she disappeared to, she’s lying low.”

  Tim nodded. “Dinner?”

  “Somewhere cheap and cheerful this time,” suggested Crystal. “All those wine sauces and rich desserts are too tempting. And when I go back to my real job, I better fit through the doors if I have to go out on a raid.”

  She and Tim walked to the door of the gallery. “Somehow I doubt you’ll ever have that problem,” he answered.

  “I hope you have better lines than that, Mr. Cale.”

  “It’s not a line at all, I’m serious. The way you took after those creeps! I was breathing your dust. By the way, I called Matilda and had her FedEx me your two books. I like how you’ve extended Cheikh Anta Diop’s ideas on African civilization in your first one. I also like the way you think. It’s… three- dimensional. You’d make a great sub-contractor for my business if you ever get tired of police raids.”

  “Is this what passes for flirting in the consultancy world?” she asked him. “Casual job offers?”

  “It’s a serious job offer,” he replied. “And certainly not a casual come-on.”

  “Glad to hear it. I’d expect only a serious come-on from a man of your stature, Mr. Cale.”

  As they hit the street, she took a couple of quick steps ahead to hail them a taxi. As it pulled to a stop in front of them, she had a glint of mocking in her eyes. “As for the job offer, it’s appreciated. But we should wait until this is over to decide how well we work together.”

  “Understood,” he said. “Then dinner’s on you tonight!”

  She stayed on the curb, blinking at him in surprise.

  He opened the door for her. “Coming? Cheap and cheerful, you said. I’m sure a detective inspector can afford cheap and cheerful.”

  She swatted him with a hand as she got in.

  When Tim and Crystal came out of the Metro on their way back to the hotel, there were ten urgent text messages from Benson, all of them insisting that Tim call right away. He and Crystal sat down in the lobby café and ordered coffee, and Crystal booted up her laptop.

  A minute later, Benson’s voice over Beltway traffic was urging Tim, “Drop whatever you’re doing and get back here.”

  “What now?” asked Tim. He hit the speakerphone function on his cell so Crystal could listen in. They heard Benson honking at an intersection five thousand miles away.

  “A Christian radical group has kidnapped this high, muckety-muck doctor in Montreal. You ever hear of Dieter Wildman? He’s a German immigrant and Holocaust survivor who opened several abortion clinics. Very big in the pro-choice movement. They even awarded him the Order of Canada, which didn’t go down well with the far right fringe.”

  “Well, Canada’s right wing is usually still left of anything south of the border,” Tim put in.

  “Doesn’t matter anyway, I guess—this group isn’t Canadian. It’s an international coalition of whack jobs. They took Wildman because he’s one of the few pro-choice advocates who won’t go into hiding. You remember how some doctors were assassinated? I suppose the lax security helped when they grabbed the guy.”

  “On your side of the border,” Crystal pointed out. She swiveled the computer screen around so that Tim could see. Her London superiors had already sent her a briefing note on the Wildman kidnapping.

  “The word is the Canadian border guards did put them through their paces as they drove into New York State—something off about the vehicle. The Americans didn’t even stop them, just waved them on through. They smuggled Wildman onto a Cessna owned—get this—by one of the big televangelists. Phony flight plan and manifest, of course.”

  “Excuse me, Detective, but where the hell are you getting your information?” demanded Benson. “How did you get these facts?”

  “It’s Detective Inspector,” she corrected him. “And you might want to remember the kidnapping occurred in Canada. Sovereign nation? Still part of the British Commonwealth, remember? Ottawa was good enough to send us a briefing memo—they don’t mind cooperating in matters of international law enforcement. Just because you asked for me doesn’t mean I work for you. Mate!”

  Tim picked up his spoon and banged it against his coffee cup. Benson barked a curse and said, “I can hear that, you know!”

  “Good. Can you forget the territorial pissing match? We’ve got bigger issues here. They flew Wildman out. Can we all agree Wildman is no longer anywhere near the United States or Canada?”

  “Makes sense,” said Crystal. “They must have thought it was easier to bring Wildman to the Booth than bring their stolen Booth to America.”

  Tim nodded. “Right. They could move it, but to bring it to the States would mean dismantling it to avoid suspicion. No one fully understands
how the Booth works, so they have no idea if they could put it back together again and make it function.” He groaned in disgust. “Benson, you there?”

  “I’m here, Cale.”

  “You know he’s dead, don’t you?”

  “That’s not Ottawa’s official position,” replied Benson. “And it’s not ours either.”

  “But it’s probably the reality,” said Crystal softly, more for Tim’s benefit than for the official on the speakerphone. “They’re going to keep on using this thing like a weapon. It has to be taken back. We’d be better off staying here in Europe.”

  “Well, the President wants you to get your ass back here for a briefing,” said Benson. “Meaning you, Tim. The Detective Inspector—as she just reminded me—doesn’t work for us so her invitation is optional. I should add our Commander-in-Chief did ask. You know the President is very big on manners—and on international cooperation.”

  They would both be going to Washington.

  They made good time on the jet. Their two-hour reprieve to freshen up was less a granted mercy from Benson than a sudden scheduling delay from Pennsylvania Avenue. Crystal confided to Tim that she had never seen Washington before, and as much as she tried to hide it, there was still a bit of the wide-eyed tourist in her as the limo whisked them around Dupont Circle.

  He was amused to see her lose interest as they were ushered through the security checks. As a British citizen, she had no idea that she was getting special treatment. They were definitely off the standard tour. Tim had come here as a visitor himself several times, but that was years ago when he was still with the State Department.

  Then they were led into the Oval Office, and Tim noticed the President working at the famous Resolute Desk. You usually saw a President posed in front of it, speaking behind it, consulting with a staff member near it, or leaning over it in near-silhouette the way Kennedy had done in the iconic photo. But the current holder of the office now sat at the desk, and maybe “working” wasn’t the right word. The President tapped keys to make farm animal noises on the latest model of iPad, while her “assistant”—five years old with golden curls and wearing pink overalls—shrieked happily, perched on the edge of the green blotter. Miranda Grant was many things besides the highest elected official in the land, including, at fifty-three, a grandmother. She glanced up at Tim, Crystal and Benson and waved them on in.

  Tim knew her from years ago, a time when he could still call her “Miranda.” She was once one of the high flyers on Wall Street, working in risk analysis for a major insurance company. Her career in the US Senate was launched when she correctly diagnosed what it would take to lift Detroit out of its horrible economic depression. She was sharp, kept a steely focus on her election agenda of banking reform and infrastructure renewal, and she didn’t think twice about firing cabinet secretaries if they stepped out of line or became a liability on the six o’clock news. And she always encouraged insiders to speak their minds—up to a point.

  All these qualities brought the inevitable snide whispers from the opposition about her being “hard” or “pushy”—or worse labels. She could suffer them all, except being compared to Margaret Thatcher. She hated that. Damn stupid cliché, she complained, every female leader being compared to Thatcher. So even though she genuinely loved her grandchildren, she wasn’t above using them as props for photo shoots at the White House to soften her image—it was one of the reasons why she made a point of having the kids visit her in the Oval Office. Now she looked up from the tablet and the toddler on the desk, handing the little girl off to an aide.

  “Timothy Cale! Haven’t seen you since the Foreign Affairs Committee days.” As they shook hands, she stood on her toes to give him a polite kiss, barely brushing his cheek.

  “Well, it was a struggle uphill I’ve tried to forget, Mrs. Grant,” chuckled Tim.

  The President made small talk with Crystal, who made a point of complimenting a hand-carved wooden sculpture from Nigeria on display—a gift from the new ambassador. Then she and Tim were waved to the cream couch near the presidential seal, and it was time to get down to business. The Health and Justice secretaries briskly walked in to join the meeting.

  “I would be grateful, gentlemen—and lady,” started the President, the flint in her voice clear and sharp, “if anyone here could offer a solution for how to shut this fiasco down. Are we talking another huge manhunt around the globe for nutcases? Dr. Weintraub and his team still don’t have a clue what the actual power source is for these Booths, so we can’t come at the problem that way. The Egyptians are hanging their heads in embarrassment and covering this up from their own people…Tim, I thought you were brought in to deliver some answers when the first signs of trouble happened. Do you have any answers at all?”

  Tim did his best to hide his surprise. He hadn’t anticipated he might end up the fall guy for this cock-up. What the hell was going on? Was it Benson who set him up? But he realized in that split second, it hardly mattered. The President was waiting to be enlightened, and Tim could appreciate how she deserved a response.

  “Answers, no, Ma’am,” Tim replied calmly. “Inspector Anyanike and I have turned up a few leads. We were running them down when we were called back here.”

  “You’re saying I interrupted you doing your job?” asked the President, a faint smile of challenge on her lips.

  “I’m saying the job isn’t done, Ma’am, and we’re eager to get on with it.”

  He’d be damned if he’d back-pedal here. Even if he was called in to answer to the President of the United States, the woman was still his client, not his boss. If they thought he wasn’t doing a good enough job, they could always find someone else.

  Oh, Christ, he told himself. Who are you kidding? You want the answers, too.

  “Tim, just tell me if you’re getting anywhere,” said the President, who seemed to pick up his meaning. “Tell me you need more resources, I’ll get them for you. You need an army, fine—we got an army. What I can’t give you is much time. This is going to leak out. You might say it’s unfair that you have to figure this out. Too damn bad, I’ve seen your fees.”

  That prompted a mild ripple of laughter around the room.

  “I’m asking you, please,” said the President, the slight chill in her tone now returned, “if you have anything so far to make sense of this disaster. This could start a panic.”

  “I do,” said Tim, and he looked briefly to Crystal, whose face for an instant betrayed just as much anticipation as the others.

  Perhaps because she mistook his expression for an appeal, Crystal leaned forward and perfectly matched his bluff.

  “We’ve found a possible ally,” she started gently, “of sorts. A returning victim. She’s the one who stepped out of the Booth in Paris without an execution, and she’s shown an interest in Ti—Mr. Cale. That suggests—at least to me—that there is sentient knowledge on the other side, wherever that is, whatever it is, that must know what is going on here. On our plane of existence.”

  The President looked to her cabinet secretaries. “What are you saying, Miss Anyanike? That you two have made contact with this person?”

  “No,” Tim offered quickly, and Crystal gave an emphatic echo: “No, no.” They briefed everyone quickly on what had transpired in Paris, and Tim threw in the details about the two survivors in India hunted by the snow leopards. As the others in the room demanded impatiently to know the connection, the President, to her credit, held up a hand for calm and quiet.

  “That disappearing village in India is why we knocked on Tim’s door in the first place. Because he’s the only who’s ever had confirmed dealings with this kind of phenomena. And you’re right—I don’t buy that it’s a coincidence they get viciously attacked while all the rest of this is happening. Not at all. There’s a connection. Maybe you’re right, Miss Anyanike, maybe we… Well, humanity has an ally. So now I understand your testiness with your Commander-in-Chief, Tim.”

  Tim nodded, understanding the code: You ge
t one break, old friend—you won’t get another one like it again.

  The Health Secretary, perhaps feeling too much like a spectator and needing to make a show of contributing, piped up for all to hear. “We’ve got to get a moratorium on this thing. Something like a non-proliferation treaty with other countries for safety and prevention purposes—”

  “That’s fine for the long term,” said the President a little impatiently. “We’re still left with the urgent problem of these fanatics in possession of a Booth. Tim, Miss Anyanike, what do you think? We need you both available for when these jokers turn up. And they’re bound to turn up with threats and demands.”

  “No doubt,” said Crystal. “But we’ll be of the best use to you in Europe.”

  “I agree,” said Tim. “Once we’re back there, hopefully Emily Derosier will find a safe window of opportunity to contact me. I can’t see why else she would dig into my background. Plus I suspect the terrorists who captured Wildman are nowhere near North American soil anymore. You offered an army, Ma’am—I think we need one. For the obvious: a strike force to take the Booth back. I assume the guys in Langley are using satellite surveillance to look for them.”

  The Director of the CIA offered a curt nod.

  “Has anyone got a lead on Orlando Braithewaite?” asked Tim. “He’s the one who’s been handing out all these Pandora’s Boxes.”

  “In the wind,” said the CIA Director. “We still think he’s somewhere in East Africa. No confirmation yet.”

  Tim sighed. “I have a few volumes of questions I’d like to ask our friendly billionaire.”

  “We pin him down, you’ll get your chance,” said the Director. He shook with a rumbling wet cough, making a little hammer gesture with his fist against his sternum. He was the kind of dedicated, old-school spy who drowned all his moral questions in double-Scotches and plenty of steaks cooked medium rare. “We can have a crack team ready for rendition as soon as the boys give us a bead on Braithewaite.”