by Gulvin, Jeff
Swann was still watching her, pacing back and forth like a restless black leopard.
‘What d’you want from your life?’
‘A satisfying career.’
‘There you go, then.’
‘Not just that. There’s things I don’t have. I want to be with someone, Jack. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life on my own.’ She sighed again and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘You know what, it’s only through meeting you, doing this, being lovers like this, that you realize what you’ve missed. You shut off the intimate side of your life, the tenderness goes. All you do is look for one bad guy after the next, and, unless there’s someone special in your life, you get too tough.’ She looked him in the eyes then, and set her whisky glass down on the nightstand. ‘I guess what I’m saying is, I’m scared what’s gonna happen after you go back to England.’
Swann sat up, took her in his arms again and buried his lips into hers. ‘Cheyenne,’ he said when they broke, ‘like I said, I think I love you. Let’s just get Boese and see.’
Harrison was alone at the bar, smoking cigarettes and thinking. He watched the couples round the room, saw the little touches of intimacy, and missed Guffy. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror and thought how old he was getting. He looked like some hippy bum from the west coast, who could never quite get over his surfing days. Ragtail hair, tanned and lined face, denim clothes. His Chippewa boots were busted at the heel and the handstitching was coming apart at the seam. He took another cigarette from his shirt pocket and wondered how long it would be before they killed him. His cough was a hack and he chewed too much tobacco. He had never cared before, but suddenly he did and he didn’t know why. For thirty years he had struggled with a bit of himself that was missing; his courage, whatever, left underground in the tunnels of Cu-Chi. That bit he’d finally gotten back last year, after Salvesen tried to take him out. Since then, two things had struck him: one was the need to find out who had compromised his cover; the other his own mortality. He bought another bottle of Miller and thought about Swann and Logan upstairs. She was one tough lady; holding her own, openly having a relationship with a member of her ground team without so much as a who gives a damn? Swann had stood up well under the pressure that he himself had exerted. Weird that too, when finally confronted with him, what the hell could he do—punch the limey’s lights out? He sipped beer and considered his future, he considered all that he and Swann had said, and he thought again about the handwriting on the slip of paper. There was not much of it, just scraps of words, but a handwriting expert, and there were one or two at Quantico, could give you a definite opinion if they had something to match it with. He thought about Boese too, going to all this trouble. He could’ve done it quietly, but he chose not to. The stuff he was doing with Byrne’s wife, and his cohort in London, sending in vehicle rental records. Why do that—unless he figured that the cops in London, or the FBI over here, could somehow help him find his prey? Swann was right, he was tracing his line of recruitment. His pager suddenly vibrated and he looked at it, squinting, and thinking on how he should finally succumb to the optician’s chair. He went to the payphone and called the SIOC, nodding to a black man, who sat on a stool at the far end of the bar.
Boese nodded back to him, black hands clasped on the counter, an orange juice before him. He could have left this morning, last night even, but things had changed and he wanted to stick around and watch. He had enjoyed his evening, being this close to Jack Swann again and without Swann even knowing it. He looked over his shoulder to where Harrison had hunched himself into the phone booth and was fishing in his jeans pocket for quarters. Harrison’s room was only three doors down the corridor from his own. Swann and Logan were in rooms above him, though he knew they were only using one of them. That thought reminded him of Catherine Morgan and her red pubic hair. Tal-Salem had spoken with him earlier in the day. She was free on bail, no doubt having done some deal or other with the police. It was what he had expected, what he wanted; that was why she still lived. Tal-Salem had told him something else that was very interesting. Both Louis Byrne and Dr Benjamin Dubin had attended the Shrivenham conference in 1997. There had been one free afternoon, the Thursday. Boese had always wondered how the pirillium derivative had found its way to the farm in Northumberland.
Harrison spoke to the people in the SIOC and they gave him a payphone number to call. He fumbled for more quarters and dialled. The Cub’s voice answered.
‘Hey, partner. What’s up?’ Harrison said.
‘You had another killing.’
‘Arlington, yeah.’
‘Too bad.’
‘He’s playing the tune, man. We’re just dancing to it.’
‘So I see.’
‘You got information for me?’
‘I do.’
Harrison nestled closer to the phone, looking back across the bar. The black man had gone and he was the only one left, save the bartender himself.
‘Shoot,’ he said.
‘OK, listen up. Hicks is not in the game. A definite no-no. Logan the same, non-player. Thomas, the guy from Weapons of Mass Destruction, gets about, but his first time abroad operationally, was the UK deal with Byrne. Ketner’s a footpad, a regular Company guy and I can’t find anything about him that worries me. But then, that’s what they thought about Aldrich Ames.’
‘Which leaves Byrne,’ Harrison said softly.
‘Right. Lucky Louis Byrne. That mother is one golden boy, Johnny Buck. The whisper is, he could even be the first FBI Director appointed internally since J. Edgar Hoover.’
‘That’ll be the day.’
‘Maybe. But he is very good. Ex-US Marine Corps. He got blown up in Beirut in 1983, up with the roof and down again, with nothing but a few cuts and bruises. Luck of the devil, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Go on.’
‘He was supposed to be shipped home in 1984, but stayed on for a while. I don’t know why yet, but it didn’t last more than a year. When he got home he joined the Feds and you know the rest, the guy blue-flamed a trail to the top. One interesting thing though, Johnny, he was in Beirut the same time as somebody else you might be interested in, one of the best agents we had at that time. This guy was ISA, that’s intelligence support activity, part of the CIA, set up when Operation Eagleclaw fucked up in Iran. Ground intel’, special forces mostly, but some support people too. This guy was fluent in Arabic and Hebrew and could’ve passed for either to look at. He was based in Lebanon for a few years. He’s moved on now, but he’s still an asset. He spent a little while in Israel after Reagan bombed Tripoli, and we worried about him for a bit. You know what Mossad are like. He’s had more aliases than you could shake your stick at, but you’ll know him as Benjamin Dubin.’
Harrison stared across the empty bar room, thinking hard, and seeing nothing.
‘Listen,’ The Cub went on. ‘He’s still highly thought of, so keep this to yourself. I might need a job again some day. If I hear any more, I’ll get in touch with you.’
‘Where you gonna be?’
‘I told you already, duck hunting with my buddy.’
‘What kind of ducks, Cub?’
‘My kind, Johnny. The sitting kind.’
In the morning, Swann phoned Louis Byrne from the hotel and asked him if he knew where Ben Dubin was lecturing.
‘He’s through, Jack. Last one was yesterday. I think he’s flying out today.’
‘You don’t know where he’s staying?’
‘No, but he’s gonna call me before he goes. You want me to have him call you?’
‘I’m on my way in now with Harrison and Logan. Maybe you could let me know when he phones.’
They walked the short distance from the hotel down Pennsylvania Avenue, with the wind blowing hard in their faces. Two or three black homeless guys were ambling along the sidewalk, sharing jokes and a bottle wrapped in brown paper. Something was going on at the White House and black-windowed secret service cars were shuffling between there and Capitol Hill. Ha
rrison was thoughtful, walking with his thumbs hooked in his belt. The sky was a dull iron colour and rolls of smoky cloud inched their way across the rooftops. They entered the Hoover building by the side door and took the elevator to the eleventh floor. Kovalski was deep in conversation with Randy Shaeffer. The conference room table had a fresh pile of computer print-out hard copy stacked on top of it. Logan stripped off her coat and flicked the topmost page.
‘I guess this is the rest of the information from the Federal Bureau of Prisons,’ she said. She looked at Harrison and Swann, both of whom were looking in dismay at the mountain of paper.
‘Don’t we have support staff for this kinda shit?’ Harrison muttered.
Logan clicked her tongue. ‘We do. They’re looking at the rest of it.’
The phone rang on the desk beside her and she picked it up, spoke for a few moments, then passed it to Swann. ‘Louis Byrne,’ she said.
‘Hello?’
‘Jack, I got Dubin on the line. You still wanna talk to him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hold on.’ Swann heard a series of clicks and then Dubin’s New York accent was thick in his ear.
‘Dr Dubin, this is Jack Swann.’
Harrison cast a glance in his direction.
‘Hi, Jack. I heard you were over here. What’s going on?’
‘Oh, the usual. Listen, I need to ask you a question. Something they wanted to know at the Yard. They tried to get hold of you, but you’d already left the country.’
‘Whatever I can help with.’
‘August 1997,’ Swann said. ‘Did you attend the international terrorism conference at Shrivenham?’
Dubin was quiet for a few seconds, then he said: ‘I’ve been to so many, Jack. I can’t remember.’ He paused again, thinking. ‘Yes, I think I did, but only for a couple of days. That’s right. I flew out here on the Friday, missed the last few sessions.’
‘Thank you.’
‘That it?’
‘That’s it for now. Thanks for your time.’
Harrison looked across the table as he hung up. ‘That Ben Dubin?’ he asked.
‘Yes. You know him?’
‘Never had the pleasure.’
George Webb was considering the latest ‘correspondence’ from Tal-Salem. Ever since the information that he had been in Oxfordshire had hit the fifteenth floor, every police officer in the country had been looking for him. But they did not know what he currently looked like. He had learnt the art of disguise from Boese and could be masquerading as any number of dark-skinned nationalities. Webb sat with Harris and McCulloch in the Special Branch cell and considered what they’d been sent. ‘Detective Sergeant George Webb of Scotland Yard’ had been asking questions again, this time in Northumberland. Rental car transactions, particularly one-way drop-offs. Avis had contacted him by telephone five minutes earlier, and told him that there had been no one-way drop-offs in August of 1997 for that area of the country. Webb picked up the phone to Special Branch at the Northumbria Police headquarters in Ponteland. He spoke briefly to DC Newham, whom they had met at the back end of 1997, after the chemical incident at Healey Hall Farm. He told him that Tal-Salem had been in the area and fresh pictures would be scanned to them via computers. He put the phone down again and sniffed. He had developed a cold over the past few days and his head had pounded all afternoon.
‘What’s he telling us?’
‘And why is he telling us?’ Harris echoed.
McCulloch said nothing. He pushed back his long, red-blond hair, then he rubbed his jaw. ‘He’s suggesting that somebody drove a hire car from Shrivenham to Northumberland,’ he said quietly.
The phone rang again and Harris answered. Swann. ‘Hello, Jack, how are you?’
‘Fine. Is Webby with you?’
‘Yeah, I’ll pass you over.’ She handed the phone to Webb, who listened while Swann told him what he had got from Dubin. Webb put the phone down and looked at the others. ‘Thursday afternoon was free,’ he said, ‘so Dubin would’ve left the conference centre at lunchtime.’ He scratched his head. ‘I think it’s time we had another chat with him.’
He and McCulloch walked back to the squad room, where they found Tania Briggs, from the exhibits office, talking with Colson. Colson beckoned them over.
‘What’ve we got?’ Webb said.
‘DNA match.’ Briggs’s eyes were shining. ‘The hair in the helmet they dumped belongs to the biker they call Gib.’
They were all gathered in the conference room and a buzz of excitement charged the atmosphere. This was the first major breakthrough they had had.
Gib was ex-Parachute Regiment, and he lived in Northampton, which suited their purposes perfectly. His real name was Anthony Gibson and his acquaintance with David Collier went back some ten years. They had been in the same regiment together, before Collier joined the SAS.
‘We’ve matched DNA from Gibson’s semen with the hairs found in one of the crash helmets dumped in the canal,’ Colson told the gathering. He paused and looked at Harris. ‘Chrissie?’
She cleared her throat and said: ‘We believe that The Regiment were subcontracted, for want of a better expression, to take out the SEG. Originally, I think Jorge Vaczka was employed to do it, but that was before we were tipped off about his activities. We know what Swann has come up with in the States, and the general belief now is we never did have Storm Crow in custody. His identity remains unknown. Our prime objective, however, is to get those responsible for the deaths of our colleagues. So far, we’re scratching the surface of The Regiment’s financial activities, and this new development represents the best opportunity we have.’ She paused again and Colson nodded for her to go on. ‘We’re going to release a photograph of Gib to the press, put it on the Six O’Clock News, etc. The stills from the video, blown up to show his face as clearly as we can get it. The gang are bound to recognize it, and with the sound we’ve got in the clubhouse, we might get some form of result.’ She broke off again and turned to Colson. ‘What about the weapons hides?’
Colson looked at the rest of the officers gathered. ‘Opinions?’
‘Go for broke,’ Webb said. ‘Put out a statement, saying we believe that the gang responsible have connections in America and have Polish-supplied weapons cached over here. Somebody’s nerve will go.’
Colson turned to Harris once more. ‘What about surveillance?’
‘We’ll need Box.’
‘Why don’t we just raid the clubhouse?’ McCulloch suggested. ‘We’ve got the DNA.’
Webb shook his head at him. ‘Covertly. You know it’s not enough, Macca.’
‘But there’s bound to be weapons there.’
‘We never found any before. Even if there are some, I doubt they’ll be the ones they used on the SEG. Collier’s a smart boy, he won’t have them stashed anywhere that could implicate him.’
Colson shook his head. ‘Webb’s right. Go for broke with publicity and put them in a spin.’
‘We could do something else,’ Harris suggested. ‘Put out more than just Gibson’s picture. Why not do Gringo and Fagin as well?’
Colson looked back at her out of thin and thoughtful eyes. ‘Why not indeed?’ he said.
Webb went back to the squad room with McCulloch and found an envelope on his desk, marked United Airlines. Inside was the passenger manifest for flight UA323, dated 21 August 1997, from Washington D.C. to Detroit. Forty-seven people had been on it. Pia Grava had been called from this aircraft and given a number, which she called back again. He ran his finger over the list of names, none of which he recognized.
Smith M.
Latimer K.D.
Richardson M.
Levenson P.D.
Callis J.M.
Brown P.
Redgard L.
Mason T.H.
Kebir J.L.
Williams F.G.
Collins E.
He checked the rest, then passed the sheet of paper to McCulloch. ‘Anything familiar?’
&nb
sp; McCulloch looked through the list and shook his head.
‘I’ll fax it over to the FBI,’ Webb said, ‘see what they can come up with.’
The phone rang in The Regiment’s clubhouse and Fagin picked it up.
‘Where’s Dog Soldier?’ Gib’s voice.
‘Hey, man, what’s up?’
‘Haven’t you seen the news?’
‘No.’ Fagin’s voice dropped an octave. ‘Why?’
‘Because your face has just been plastered all over it. So has Gringo’s and so has mine.’
‘You’re fucking kidding me.’
‘Do I sound like I’m kidding, you jerk? Where the fuck is Collier?’
‘Wait. I’ll get him.’
Gib waited for a few minutes, then Collier’s chill tones came over the line. ‘What the hell is going on?’ he demanded. Gib told him and Collier was quiet for a few moments. ‘Get in here now,’ he said. ‘We need to talk about this.’
Webb and Harris sat outside Gib’s mother’s house and listened to every word. The front door opened and Gib appeared, fighting with the arms of his leather jacket. He got it zipped up and pulled his crash helmet over his ears. He straddled his bike and kicked it into action. As he roared past them, Webb pretended to snog with Christine Harris.
He pressed his radio transmitter. ‘Webb to Control. Mummy’s boy is on the move. Repeat. Mummy’s boy is on the move.’
They followed, keeping well back, other vehicles tracking the Harley Davidson into London, without Gib ever knowing they were there. If he had been trained in antisurveillance, it did not show now. He concentrated on getting from Northampton to Hounslow as quickly as he could, without getting stopped for speeding.
Webb parked four streets from the clubhouse, in a suburban, terraced road, with only dull streetlamps lighting it. The sound from the clubhouse was relayed to them in the car and he and Harris settled down to listen. ‘Have we got spotters on Janice Martin’s flat?’ he asked.
Harris nodded. ‘Two bodies, one in a fixed OP and one car. SO11. They’re both shots and they’re armed just in case. We’ve also got two ARVs on standby.’
They heard Gib’s voice in the clubhouse. The doorbell had sounded and Fagin answered it. Webb listened intently, recognizing both Collier and Gringo. Two others were also there, Marco and Fatboy, both spoken to by name. Collier had just watched the television news, with the newscaster referring to the pictures of Gib, Fagin and Gringo that the police had released. He had switched the set off after that and the room had been silent. Now Collier was speaking. Harris pressed her earpiece in tighter and listened.
