The nameless dead

Seven

One had a Mossberg shotgun and the other a Smith amp; Wesson Sigma pistol, but I tried to blank them out, the soldiers who were covering me. Quincy Jerome was standing behind them, carrying an M4 carbine. There was only one thing to do. I pulled down my ear protectors.

I took aim at the target that had started to move toward me up the lane of the range. It had been nearly two months since I’d fired a shot, but I remembered the training Dave had given me. I had taken up the correct stance, feet apart and legs bent at the knee, and was holding the Glock 17 in a doublehanded grip. I took a breath and fired off nine shots, a second between each one.

The target kept on coming, stopping a yard in front of me.

‘Suck on that, Quincy,’ I said, looking over my shoulder.

The big man strode up. ‘Shee-it. You’re even better with a moving target. Everything in the inner head ring and five, no, six, nose shots.’ He clapped me on the shoulder. ‘You don’t need no refresher course, man.’

He didn’t know about Sara. She was a better shot than I.

‘How about some rifle shooting?’ I asked. When he’d showed up at our place earlier on and told me that the range had been approved, he hadn’t specified which weapons I’d be able to use. I hadn’t pressed him, but had tried to find out who had given the okay. He didn’t say Sebastian’s name, but he did nod when I mentioned the Bureau. Although it hadn’t struck me at the time, I wondered about that now. Did the army take orders from the FBI? It didn’t seem likely, even though they shared the camp. Presumably Sebastian had gone to a senior officer.

‘All right, Mr. Wells,’ Quincy said, the formality for the benefit of the two other soldiers. ‘Let’s go see what we can find you.’

What we found was a Colt M16A4. As it happened, I had fired an M16 after I escaped from the Rothmanns’ camp, but I wasn’t going to bring that up. I reckoned the better I performed, the more likely Peter Sebastian would be to sanction our release, though that raised another question. If I was expected to use pistols and rifles, it was unlikely we’d be sent back to the U.K. Surely we weren’t going to be cut loose in the U.S.? Sara would have a field day.

Quincy took me and the others to the open-air range. ‘All right, Mr. Wells,’ he said, ‘you’ve got a thousand-yard lane in front of you.’ He checked with his binoculars. ‘The target is currently at 500 yards. Give me five shots there. Then we’ll go back a hundred yards each time till we hit 1000. Five shots at each stop, okay?’ He handed me a thirty-round magazine.

As soon as I slapped it home, I felt the other soldiers tense. I grinned at them and got down on the ground, resting the rifle on a sandbag. There were no telescopic sights, but I’d trained without them so I wasn’t worried. I pulled down my ear protectors again and got into the zone, breathing steadily.

Before I knew it, the magazine was empty and there was a dull ache in my right shoulder. By the time I got to my feet, Quincy had scoped the target.

‘Very funny, motherfucker,’ he said, this time paying no attention to the men behind him.

I tried not to laugh. ‘I thought you’d like it.’

He handed me the binoculars. I was impressed. Although the legs were a bit uneven, I’d managed to shoot a decent outline of the human form around the charging infantryman image on the target. The oversize heart that I’d put on the chest was unmistakable.

‘What was that Woody Allen film?’ I asked. ‘There was a loudmouthed black sergeant in that, too.’

Quincy Jerome gave me the eye big-time.

‘I remember. Love and Death.’

‘Asshole,’ said the big man.

The other soldiers only just succeeded in keeping their faces straight.

I decided to move things along. ‘Can I have a go with the shotgun now?’ I asked, pointing at the Mossberg.

‘No, Mr. Wells, you cannot,’ Quincy said, relieving me of the M16. ‘That isn’t included in your program.’ He turned away. ‘I just decided.’

I found Karen on the sofa, the laptop on her chest.

‘Guess what?’ I said, after I’d kissed her.

She gave me a languid glance. ‘You shot a perfect score?’

‘More or less,’ I replied, deflated. Then I had a worrying thought. Could my ability with the firearms have something to do with the Rothmanns’ conditioning? I had been a reasonable shot in the past, but I’d never done anything like I had on the range today. Maybe the same went for my unarmed combat skills. It wasn’t unlikely. The Rothmanns had trained people to become top-class warriors, as the mayhem in the cathedral in Washington had shown. Then an even worse idea came to me. What if the combat skills, lurking deep in my subconscious, actually freed up more trigger words formerly hidden? I decided not to share those fears with Karen.

Her due date was still a few days away, but the obstetrician had told us the baby could come any time. She preferred to be horizontal, even though the doctor recommended that she keep active, and she lost her breath easily. She hadn’t said anything, but I knew she was wishing things would get underway. Still, first babies were often latecomers-I remembered that from my daughter Lucy, nearly a week overdue.

‘What are you looking at?’

She pursed her lips. ‘Have you read about these murders?’

I shouldn’t have been surprised. Karen was a homicide detective at heart, despite the fact that she’d been working on financial crime before the kidnapping, and she wouldn’t let a little thing like childbirth distract her from her calling. I had seen the stories, which had become a lot more high profile with the poor woman in Boston, who had been stripped naked, defenestrated and daubed with the title of Adolf Hitler’s repulsive book.

‘The FBI isn’t confirming anything, but some reporters think there are now three in a series with hate crimes elements.’

‘The others being in Manhattan and north of Detroit.’

‘I might have known you’d be keeping up-to-date. Do you think the bastard Heinz Rothmann’s behind them?’

‘It’s not beyond the realm of possibility. There could easily be another brainwashed killer out there.’ Before the attack on the President, there had been a series of so-called ‘occult killings’ in Washington D.C., which were linked to the Rothmanns. There was no guarantee that all the conditioned subjects had been caught at the National Cathedral.

Karen closed the laptop and shifted her bulk gingerly. ‘Don’t you think it’s odd that Peter Sebastian is here rather than at his desk at FBI headquarters?’

‘Did he say something to you?’

‘Not about the murders, no. He was very interested in you, though.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh, how you were getting on with Dr. Rivers and Sergeant Jerome, that kind of thing.’

Concern stirred in my gut. Then I saw how tired she was, her eyes drooping.

‘Screw Sebastian.’ I squeezed her hand. ‘Let’s get you to bed.’

‘Oh, no you don’t. You’ve forgotten something.’

I stared at her. It wasn’t her birthday-that was in March. I couldn’t think what she meant. ‘Er, is it the anniversary of your first murder case?’

She leaned forward with surprising speed and grabbed my nose between her thumb and forefinger.

‘Ow!’ I pulled free. ‘First time we had…I mean, made love?’ I asked desperately.

‘No!’ she said, laughing. ‘Come here.’

I moved cautiously back into her range.

‘Here.’ She patted her chest.

I laid my head there.

‘Bloody men.’ Her voice vibrated into my body. ‘Was I dreaming, or did you really ask me to marry you?’

‘Of course I-’

‘I know you did, Matt,’ she said, her tone lighter. ‘Don’t you think we should fix a day?’

I raised my head. ‘I though you wanted to wait until after Magnus arrives.’

‘I did. But I’ve changed my mind.’

I laughed. ‘Bloody women.’

‘Thirty days after he’s born,’ she said. ‘No matter what.’

I wondered if she knew what she was asking, given everything that could happen. In the end, it was easier to agree. I had no qualms about marrying her.

‘Thank you, Matt.’ Her face was wreathed in smiles. ‘Now I’ve got something to look forward to after all the pain and screaming.’

I kissed her. ‘Don’t worry, it’ll be fine.’

Karen seized my nose again. ‘There’s one more thing.’

‘What?’ I said, doing a passable imitation of a duck.

‘Where’s my engagement ring, you tightfisted bastard?’

I was saved by the doorbell. Peter Sebastian was standing outside with his baby-faced sidekick Bimsdale.

‘What?’

‘Charming,’ Sebastian said, his expression hardening. ‘I need you to come with us.’

‘I’m helping Karen to bed.’

‘This is nonnegotiable, Matt.’

I was tempted to slam the door in his face, but I had a favor to ask.

‘I’m all right,’ Karen said.

I grabbed my jacket and went out into the cold.

‘What’s the big deal?’

‘Rivers’ came the reply. ‘He needs an extra session of trigger identification every day. Starting now.’

Was it Rivers who wanted that or Sebastian himself? I let the thought go and concentrated on my number one priority.

‘Okay, but you owe me.’

The FBI men looked at me curiously.

‘Do you know any good jewelers?’

Doctor Jack Notaro had been sculling on the Schuylkill River. Despite the chill of the December morning, he enjoyed himself greatly. It was still dark when he left his apartment north of the university to run to the boathouse, but by the time he lifted the long craft onto the water, a gray dawn was permeating Philadelphia, blurring the lights of the buildings on the eastern shore.

Jack spent an hour alternately pitting himself against the current and feeling the thin hull race along with the flow. He remembered early mornings on the Isis in Oxford, the college eight which he stroked being put through its paces before the bumping races. Worcester had been head of the river in both Hilary and Trinity terms, and he’d been approached to try out for the Blue boat. He declined the chance of rowing against Cambridge on the Thames, even though he had dreamed about it. Work had to take priority in the second year of his post-graduate degree-that was a requirement of his scholarship. Besides, it was either give up competitive rowing or cut back on his dalliances with the university’s most eye-catching women. The first form of physical activity stood no chance.

Sitting in his office in the University of Philadelphia later that morning, Jack didn’t regret the choice he’d made. He knew himself too well. There were only two serious interests in his life-women and researching the full horror of fascism in Italy during the Second World War. Thirty-five now, his muscular six-foot-three frame and rugged looks still attracted more doe-eyed female post-graduates than he could handle. He drew the line at undergraduates-too much like jailbait. He managed his workload well, despite the distractions. His books and articles had been well received, except by the odd right-wing academic and the usual crazy extremist groups. He was hoping to make full professor in a year or two, and generally life was good. Even his mother, eighty-eight and as spirited as ever, had got off his case, accepting that he wasn’t going to get married any time soon.

The rest of the day went well. His current girl, a willowy third-year PhD student from New York named Alicia Finn, had dropped by on her way to the airport. She was attending a conference in San Francisco on gender representations in war writing and would be away for five days. Jack gave her something to remember him by: he locked his door, pulled down her panties and took her from behind over his desk. After she left, he found that she had deposited a pool of saliva on his copy of Michaelis’s Mussolini and the Jews. That made him smile.

Jack Notaro got back to his apartment on 38th Street around seven. He was in a rush to get showered and changed. He was meeting Professor Norma Winston, the head of the history faculty, for dinner at an Italian restaurant in the Old City and he didn’t want to be late. He had high hopes of gaining her support for his latest research project. He also reckoned there was a good chance of getting her into the sack. Although Norma was in her fifties, her recent divorce had turned her into a sex machine. She had a thing for even younger men, but Jack was still betting on himself to score.

That was why he didn’t notice that the drapes in the living room had been drawn shut, or that a hook had been inserted into the ceiling. He did see the briefcase that was open on the dining table but, a second later, lost contact with his senses and surrendered to the eternal dark.