Nom de Guerre

by Gulvin, Jeff

  Gringo hesitated. Then they heard the front door open and the clatter of Fagin’s gun hitting the pavement. ‘Little fucker.’ Collier lifted his head. Outside, the police officers took cover by their vehicles, where Kevlar blankets were thrown over the doors. Fagin was walking out of the gate, past the parked bikes, with his hands clasped together on the back of his head. Collier curled his lip and smashed the window with the butt of the shotgun. He spun the weapon in his hand and aimed at Fagin’s back.

  The sniper’s round hit Collier clean in the forehead. His body went limp, the gun falling away from him, and he crumpled like a rag doll on the floor. Gringo stared at him, the rubber of his mask, bloodied and smoking where the round had smashed into his face. Blood spilled from the back of his head and began to seep into the carpet. Keeping his own head down, Gringo threw the shotguns out of the window, then crawled on his hands and knees all the way to the stairs.

  Angie Byrne lifted the ringing telephone with a sense of trepidation. She could not help it, tough as she thought she was. She stared across her desk, where another of the partners was watching her. ‘Yes?’ she said quietly.

  ‘So they found Chucho Mannero.’

  The voice was strange again. She thought she had got used to the intonations, notwithstanding the variety of accents, but now it seemed different.

  ‘That’s another person you’ve killed. What does it do for you, give you a bigger erection?’

  ‘You know for an attorney, you have a foul mouth.’

  ‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

  ‘Sometimes things are not what they seem, Angela.’

  ‘You don’t think I know that?’

  He laughed then. ‘Are you frightened of me?’

  ‘What do you think, butthead?’

  ‘You should be.’

  ‘That’ll be the day.’

  ‘Shall I put an end to it now, finish it once and for all?’

  ‘Finish what, exactly?’

  ‘What I started. I’m getting close now, close enough to walk away.’

  ‘You’ll never do that. They’ll hunt you to the ends of the earth.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I don’t think so at all. Remember what I told you, the crow is a shape-shifter.’ He hung up.

  Angie replaced the receiver and looked at her colleague. ‘We should let them tap this phone, Bill. He’s calling me here because he knows we won’t allow it.’

  ‘Don’t take the calls, then. Make him call you at home.’ He rested the elbows of his thousand-dollar suit on the table. ‘It’s not up to me. Everyone is agreed, our clients are never going to stand for an FBI wire tap on the phone. They’d leave us for the competition in droves.’

  She sighed and picked up the phone again, already rewinding the tape to play to her husband.

  Boese, now a fat, balding Mexican, glanced at the woman who occupied the seat next to him. Three nights since he killed Chucho Mannero, three nights since whoever it was lay on the roof of the building and could have shot him dead. Benjamin Dubin in Washington. The jackal and the crow. He closed his eyes and thought again about all that Chucho had told him. It made so much sense now, and this flight to New York was not altogether necessary. But he was going anyway, because he needed to know just how far ahead he was, if indeed he was ahead at all. The death of Mary Greer and the mischief on the Mississippi River had telegraphed his intentions. That night in Arlington could have ended it all. Why wait so long? And why, when the opportunity best presented itself, did it not happen?

  He looked out of the window again, suddenly feeling like a rat between the paws of a cat. But the rat is cunning and smart, and his teeth are very sharp. Who was following him? Who whispered to him from the roofs of buildings? Shape-shifter, doubler, the ability to be in two places at once. The cowboy in Nevada, the Irishman in London last year. Dulles Airport drifted below like a strange grey carpet, as the nose of the plane stretched skywards. He would need to take even greater care from now on. The pace of the game had sharpened considerably.

  Benjamin Dubin was back at his desk in St Andrews, watching the lunchtime news on television while he ate his sandwich. He considered all that had gone on in Washington, considered his latest conversation with Swann and the overt suspicion in his voice. He thought about Louis Byrne and he thought about the jackal and the crow. Boese’s dark eyes suddenly filled his mind, not from the television pictures, but from when they had been separated by a table in the prison interview room. He finished his sandwich and folded the waxed paper carefully, before dropping it in the bin.

  The TV newscaster was describing the events of the morning, when scores of detectives from all over the country had raided the homes of members of the biker gang known as The Regiment. Their clubhouse in Hounslow had come under siege when other police officers had been fired on. Later, it was also confirmed that their leader, David ‘Dog Soldier’ Collier, had been shot dead by a police sniper. He was the only casualty, and two other members of the gang had been arrested at the premises. Dubin watched as officers from the Antiterrorist Branch, some of whom he knew, milled about behind their white vans at the clubhouse. Exhibits officers in blue one-piece suits were going in and out of the front door, carrying evidence bags with them. The phone rang at his elbow.

  ‘Dubin.’

  ‘Christine Harris, Dr Dubin. Special Branch.’

  Dubin felt the hairs lift on the backs of his hands. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘We’d like to talk to you again.’

  Dubin stared at the box files on the walls. ‘Are you coming up here?’ he asked. ‘Because I’m due in London the day after tomorrow.’

  For a moment, Harris paused. ‘That’ll be fine,’ she said.

  Fagin was talking. Vaczka had said absolutely nothing to anyone, other than to deny any involvement with Stahl or Blunski or Herbisch or Jeconec. Halfway through his first interview, Lambeth contacted Paddington Green to confirm a ballistics match between the shell casings recovered from Hanwell Green and four Vikhr submachine guns. Webb looked coldly into Vaczka’s arrogant eyes. ‘Weapons found in a van driven by your people,’ he said.

  Vaczka shook his head. ‘Not my people. Acquaintances, yes. But we all have those, Sergeant.’

  Webb smiled at him, then took one of the surveillance photographs taken after his meeting with David Collier, and set it before him. ‘Acquaintances?’ he said, tapping it. ‘I think that looks more like a commander and his lieutenants, don’t you.’

  ‘That, Sergeant, can have no basis in anything other than your own opinion,’ McAlinden, his solicitor, stated.

  ‘Fair enough.’ Webb sat back and folded his arms. ‘Tell us about Amaya Kukiel.’

  ‘Girlfriend,’ Vaczka said. ‘I have a number of them.’

  ‘Tell me about February 5th.’

  ‘I don’t remember February 5th.’

  ‘Yes, you do. You were in a van with Blunski and Stahl. You drove up north and gave away a whole bunch of old clothes on behalf of the Polish mission. Why did you do that?’

  ‘Because I’m charitably minded.’

  Webb burst out laughing.

  Vaczka wagged his head now, a slow smile on his face. ‘Sergeant, you obviously know very little about me. Speak to the Polish community. They’ll tell you about Jorge Vaczka. You’d be surprised just how much I do for charitable causes.’

  ‘I’ll tell you about Jorge Vaczka, shall I.’ Webb sifted papers before him and laid them out sheet by sheet. ‘Jorge Vaczka, Polish activist. Jorge Vaczka, terrorist. Jorge Vaczka, gunrunner, the puppet of Abu Nidal.’ He tapped the photographs of the weapons they had recovered at the lock-up. ‘These guns have been used in a number of terrorist activities over the last five years,’ he said. ‘We have ballistics links in Serbia, France, Germany, here in the UK, and a Loyalist murder in Northern Ireland.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘And here they are in your possession, in a garage rented by one Peter Francis, a.k.a., Pieter Jeconec, who just happens to work for you.’
/>   Again, Vaczka shook his head. ‘Sergeant, you can prove nothing that links me personally with any of these weapons.’

  ‘No?’ Webb stood up. ‘I tell you what, Jorge. You go back to that nice little room we rented you and we’ll talk about it later.’

  Christine Harris was upstairs with Combes from the US Secret Service. She was all smiles, and showed Webb why. ‘Electronic money transfers,’ she said. ‘It was a circuitous route—here, the USA, Jamaica, Poland.’ She shook her head. ‘National pride or whatever, some kind of vanity.’

  Combes explained it to him. ‘We can trace the payment of one million two hundred thousand dollars from companies run and owned by Vaczka, all small amounts, but ultimately ending up in the bank accounts of companies operated by The Regiment. Electronic transfers have to be requested on handwritten forms. We can access those forms with the right search warrants, depending on how cooperative the countries are vis-à-vis international banking regulations.’ He produced a photostat of one of the forms that they had ultimately traced, via a discretionary trust in the Cayman Islands, to Jorge Vaczka.

  ‘That’s Vaczka’s handwriting, George,’ Harris interrupted. ‘We got a sample from his flat that’s been given a “high probability” definition by the Questioned Document Section at Lambeth. They want us to do some more sampling, before they’ll give it a “was written”.’ She sat back and rested her hands in her lap. ‘Fagin is spouting off like a whale coming up for air. He wants immunity and lots of protection, but he’s prepared to identify the rest of the shooters.’

  Combes was looking pleased with himself. ‘Now we’ve been able to identify these bank accounts, we can make the connection with our Mexican friends,’ he said. ‘We’ll check the money trail into Vaczka’s companies back in the States for you.’

  Harris looked at Webb. ‘Fagin has confirmed that The Regiment was approached because Vaczka’s own team was compromised,’ she said.

  Webb drew his brows together and turned to Combes again. ‘If Vaczka was compromised, effectively double-crossed, then Boese himself will have funded the payments to The Regiment.’

  Combes nodded. ‘We’ve got access to all the accounts we can, so far. But we’re looking at applying some State Department pressure on the governments of some of the more dubious countries. Most of them owe us favours. We’ll turn something up.’

  Back at the Yard, Webb had a message to get in touch with Swann in Washington, He phoned him immediately and Swann told him what they had discovered regarding the latest of Boese’s victims, and what they thought he was planning next.

  ‘Henrique Valentin,’ Swann said. ‘Ex-FALN, Puerto Rican independence terrorist. The trouble is, he’s been out of jail since 1990 and nobody knows where he is. He served out his parole time, never got in trouble again, so I suppose he gave up the cause.’ He paused for a moment, then added: ‘Listen, I’m not sure how much you can use this, but I’ve found out something very interesting about Dubin.’

  ‘He’s coming in here tomorrow,’ Webb said. ‘We’re going to talk to him informally about the Shrivenham conference thing.’

  Swann dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘Well, you need to be aware—Dubin’s a CIA agent.’

  Swann hung up and went back to the conference room where the team were gathered.

  ‘Valentin is next on Ismael Boese’s list.’ Logan was standing, one hand fisted against her hip, addressing the rest of those gathered round the table. ‘He has to be. We’re fortunate this time, we’ve figured out who we’re looking for before Boese’s had a chance to deliver his head on a plate.’

  ‘We did that with Chucho Mannero,’ Byrne said. ‘Look what happened to him.’

  Harrison cocked an eyebrow. ‘Chin up, Louis. We might luck out this time.’

  Byrne ignored him and concentrated on Logan. ‘What we have to do is find him before Boese does. It’s possible that Mannero gave him a name, but not a location.’

  Harrison interrupted. ‘Boese knows where he’s at. That’s been the way of it, so far.’

  Byrne squinted at him now. ‘Now who’s being negative?’

  Harrison looked at him for a long stiff moment and the atmosphere, already tense, crackled all but visibly. Kovalski spread his arms in a calming gesture. ‘OK. OK. Let’s all just chill out a little,’ he said. ‘We need to think clearly here.’

  Byrne was still looking at Harrison. ‘We could think more clearly if we all had the same agenda.’

  Harrison stared into Byrne’s eyes. ‘You got something you wanna say, old buddy?’

  ‘John, take a walk, huh. Go give yourself five.’ Kovalski glared at him across the table. Harrison stood up and stalked out of the room, back straight, hair falling over his shoulders. Kovalski turned to Byrne. ‘Louis, play it cool, huh?’

  ‘I tell you what, Tom.’ Byrne was on his feet now. ‘That guy has had one thing on his mind ever since this deal started.’ He stabbed a finger at Swann. ‘First it was him, now it’s somebody else. All he gives a flying fuck about is what happened in Idaho.’

  ‘Understandable, though, isn’t it?’ Swann spoke quietly.

  Byrne flashed a look at him. ‘Hey, Jack,’ he said. ‘Ever hear the word professionalism? My wife is being hounded, goddammit. D’you hear me busting my balls about it?’

  Logan stared at Byrne. ‘The way I heard it, Louis, it was you who put Harrison on to Jack in the first place.’

  Byrne coloured. He looked at Swann. ‘Nothing personal, Jack,’ he said quickly. ‘It made sense at the time. Now, maybe, it doesn’t. I’d’ve discussed it with you if there wasn’t the Atlantic between us. Boese and Salvesen were both in jail, and what we didn’t need over here was someone like Harrison chasing shadows.’

  Swann stood up then. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll get some air,’ he said.

  He walked the length of the corridor, then took the lift to the ground floor and found Harrison sitting on the wooden benches in the quadrangle, gazing absently at the ‘Fidelity Bravery Integrity’ statue and smoking a cigarette. Swann looked over his shoulder.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Harrison asked him.

  ‘Oh, the usual tension.’

  Harrison exhaled again with a sigh. ‘Should learn to keep my fool mouth shut,’ he said. He flipped away the cigarette and stood up. ‘Byrne’s right. It’s the only thing on my mind.’ He looked Swann in the eye. ‘I don’t give a horse’s ass about Ismael Boese, Jack. Alls I want is the sonofabitch who stiffed me.’ He looked across at the FBI statue again, the three figures before the American flag, two crouched, a third standing, arms wide to protect them. ‘Not much integrity in that.’ He looked glassy-eyed for a moment, then led the way to the entrance. ‘Let’s get back up there,’ he said. ‘I might even apologize.’

  Logan had effected her plan by the time they reached the eleventh floor. The meeting had broken up and Byrne and his colleagues from International Terrorism had gone back down to the fifth floor. Kovalski called Harrison over, and they spent half an hour in his office with the door closed. Voices were raised, then lowered, then raised again. Logan squeezed Swann’s hand as she passed him. ‘Just another day at the zoo,’ she said. ‘I think old Tom’s considering how he can send Harrison back to New Orleans.’

  Swann asked her what was happening.

  ‘We’re putting Valentin’s face on the front page of every newspaper in the country. See if anyone calls in with information on his whereabouts.’

  ‘He’s finished parole. Perhaps he’ll call himself.’

  Logan curled her lip. ‘Somehow I doubt that, Jack.’

  The door to Kovalski’s office opened then and Harrison walked out. He winked at Swann and sat on the edge of the desk. ‘Detention,’ he said, and took a tin of Smokey Mountain from his pocket. He placed some in his cheek, compressed it, then slid off the desk again.

  ‘Going down to Byrne’s office to straighten things out.’ With that, he left them and walked to the elevator, smiling at the support staff girls, who were stroll
ing back from lunch. He went down to the fifth floor and rapped on the locked door of the International Terrorism Section.

  Byrne’s office was open, but he wasn’t there. Harrison looked at the feather and photograph on the wall, together with the seven commendation certificates, and a photograph of him and the Director, with President Clinton between them. That had been taken on the White House lawn, after Boese was imprisoned in England. Harrison sat down to wait for him. Papers settled like so much debris on the desktop and one piece caught his eye. He glanced at the agents milling about the outer office, then, picking up the sheet of paper, he crossed between their desks and photocopied it. When he was finished, he looked over the partition and smiled at Byrne’s secretary. ‘Tell Louis, I’ll catch up with him later,’ he said.

  Boese was on the street in Spanish Harlem. His clothes were rags, soiled greatcoat dragging the floor as he shuffled, half limping, behind his wheeled shopping trolley, where his plastic bags were piled. His hair was long and one eye was half closed and his beard stuck to his chin in little, flat strands. Across the street, a man in his late forties sat on the steps of the tenement, watching the world go by.

  Henrique Corazon Valentin, one-time bomb-maker for the FALN. He had spent ten years in various state penitentiaries, for what he considered minor offences, and for which he was still bitter. The others had tried to contact him after his release: Morales, Torres, Luis Rosa. But he had resisted. The organization had petered into nothing with the arrest of its five leaders. He had gone straight since getting out of the pen, had drifted for a while, before ending up back here where he came from, the Puerto Rican population of Spanish Harlem.

  Leaning wearily on his trolley, Boese watched him. It had not been difficult to locate him. Mannero had kept in touch throughout his parole and knew Valentin was in New York. From there, it was simply a matter of recalling Valentin’s speciality: electronics. Now he ran a small shop in the basement of one of the more run-down tenements, doing favours, more than anything else, for his friends; fixing their TVs and VCRs, etc. He made enough to get by, his tastes had always been modest. Last night, Boese had followed him to a little bar two blocks from the attic apartment he rented. It seemed he was a regular, drifting in at around five o’clock most days, and heading home for some dinner at seven-thirty. As far as Boese could gather, Valentin lived on his own.