Blood Hunt

FOURTEEN

REEVE TRIED TO EAT the proffered breakfast on the plane but found he had no appetite. Instead he asked for an extra orange juice, and then for another after that. Heathrow was busier than Orly had been, but he still couldn’t spot anyone waiting for him. He went down to the Tube station and made the call from the telephones there.

“Hello?” a voice answered.

Reeve waited.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Jay,” he said.

“I think you must have a wrong number.”

“Oh?”

There was a long pause at the other end. Reeve watched the units on his card click away. The voice came back on.

“Hey, Philosopher, is that you?”

“Yes.”

“What’s new, pal?”

Like they’d spoken only last week and had parted the best of friends. Like Jay wasn’t in charge of a band of mercenaries with orders to hunt Reeve down and terminate him. Like they were having a conversation.

“I thought you were dead,” Reeve stated.

“You mean you wish I was.”

“Every day,” Reeve said quietly.

Jay laughed. “Where are you, pal?”

“I’m at Orly.”

“Yeah? Then you must have met Mickey.”

“He gave me your number.”

“I hope he charged you for it.”

“No, I charged him.”

“Well, I knew you’d be tough, Gordon.”

“You don’t know how tough. Tell your paymasters that. Tell them I’m taking this personally. Not a job, not a mission, just personal.”

“Gordon, you’re not really at Orly are you? Don’t make me run all the way out there.”

“Maybe we’ll talk again.”

“I don’t think so, Philosopher.”

And Jay put the phone down first.

Reeve took the Tube into central London.

He thought about Jay. Paddling ashore with him in darkness, hitting the coast just south of Viamonte. Their target, Rio Grande, was twenty miles to the north. They were on the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, the western half of which belonged to Chile. If their escape route back to Viamonte was compromised, their best bet was to head west. A forty-mile walk from Rio Grande would take them into Chile.

Jay was carrying the transmitter, Reeve most of the rest of their kit. It was a 100-pound load. Additionally, he carried his M16 rifle and 200 rounds. The M16 came fitted with an M203 grenade launcher. The other armaments consisted of a 66mm antitank missile, fifteen HE grenades, a 9mm Browning, and an assortment of SAS flash-bangs, more for cover than anything else.

He carried binoculars, a night-sight and tripod-mounted 60x telescope, a sleeping bag and quilted trousers, a change of clothing, Arctic dried rations and compo rations, plus a hexamine stove for cooking the latter.

And the song Jay had been singing had somehow stuck in his head, so he couldn’t think straight.

They’d begun their march under cover of darkness, aiming to complete it before dawn. That first night, they knew they probably wouldn’t reach a good spot for an OP. They’d just find a good hiding place, maybe making a scrape and lying doggo all the next day under their netting and camouflage. And that was what they did. They maintained radio silence throughout. If only Jay was as easy to shut up…

“Fucking Argies better not expect me to eat their scummy corned beef again. You know how they make that stuff? I read about it in the Sun or somewhere. Makes sausages look like best fillet steak, I swear to God, Philosopher.”

He was a good-looking man, a bit heavy in the face, but with short fair hair and greeny-blue eyes. His looks were his best feature. Reeve didn’t like him and didn’t know too many men who did. He was a braggart, cruel and bullying; he followed orders, but always with his own agenda hidden in there somewhere. Reeve didn’t know if he was a good soldier or not; he just knew he didn’t like him.

But there was something else about Jay. Early on in the conflict, he’d been part of a team dropped by Wessex helicopter onto the Fortuna Glacier. It was an important reconnaissance mission. They landed in near-whiteout conditions and sixty-mile-per-hour winds. Snow turned their guns to ice. They somehow had to cross the glacier. In the first five hours they progressed less than half a mile. To save them from freezing to death, they erected tents, but these blew away. Finally, the order came to abandon the mission. A helicopter sent in to lift the men out crashed in the blizzard conditions, killing three. A second chopper eventually succeeded in getting everyone out. Most of the survivors were suffering from exposure and frostbite. Jay’s cheek had been slashed in the crash and required seven stitches.

He should have been out of action for days, weeks even, but insisted he wanted straight back in. The command applauded his readiness, and a psychologist could see no aftereffects from the ordeal. But Jay wasn’t the same. His mind was on revenge, on killing Argentines. You could see it behind his eyes.

“You know, Philosopher,” Jay said in the scrape that first night, “you may not be the most popular man in the regiment, but I think you’re all right. Yes, you’ll do me.”

Reeve bit off a question. He’s just trying to wind me up, he thought. That’s all. Let it go. The mission’s all that counts.

Jay seemed to read his thoughts. There was a roaring in the sky east of them. “Rio Grande’s getting plenty of action tonight. Wasn’t that a film, Rio Grande? John Wayne and Dean Martin.”

“Just John Wayne,” Reeve told him.

“Now Dean Martin, there’s an actor for you.”

“Yes, a fucking awful one.”

“You’re wrong. Ever see Matt Helm? Or those comedies he did? Great actor.”

Reeve just shook his head.

“Don’t shake your head, I’m serious. You can’t let anybody else have a say, can you? That’s why you’re not popular. I’m only telling you for your own good.”

“Fuck off, Jay.” He liked to be called Jay. Most of the Regiment were known by their first names, but not Jay. He liked people to use his surname. Nobody knew why. He called Reeve the Philosopher after finding him reading Nietzsche. The nickname had stuck, though Reeve hated it.

The second evening, they set up the OP properly with a half-decent view of the airfield. That night, they sent out their first signals, then moved again double-quick, an eight-man Argentinian patrol heading in their direction.

“They were fast,” Jay conceded, carrying the half-packed transmitter.

“Weren’t they though,” said Reeve, almost slipping under the weight of his rucksack. They must have picked up the transmission straight off. It had been no more than a burst of a few seconds. Whatever direction-finding equipment they had down at the airport, it was earning its keep. Jay had sent a “burst transmission”: a coded message, its contents predetermined, which could be transmitted to sea in a split second. Prior to transmission, he’d keyed the scrambled message on a machine which looked like a small electronic typewriter. In theory, the Argentines shouldn’t have been able to use the direction finder on them given the brevity of the transmission. Theory was a wonderful thing, but fuck all use on the ground. The Argentines obviously had some new bit of kit, something they hadn’t been told about, something that Green Slime-the Intelligence Corps-had missed.

There was aircraft noise overhead as they moved. Skyhawks, Mirage jets. Earlier there had been Pucaras, too. The Argentine Air Force was keeping itself busy. Both men knew they should be noting the flights in and out, ready to send the information on. But they were too busy moving.

The main problem was the terrain. As with most airfields-and with good reason-there weren’t many hills around. Flat grassland and brush with some outcrops, this was their territory. Hard territory in which to remain undiscovered for any length of time. They shifted a couple of miles and scraped themselves another hide. They were farther away from the airfield, but still able to see what was flying out. Reeve stood guard-rather, lay guard-while Jay got some sleep. They didn’t dare brew up for fear of the steam being seen. Besides, you never knew what a heat-seeking device could find. So Reeve drank some cold water and ate raw rations. He was carrying out conversations in his head, all of them in Spanish. It might come in handy later. Maybe they could bluff… no, his Spanish wasn’t that good. But he could use it if they were caught alive. He could show willing. Not that he was obliged to, not under the Geneva Convention, but then Geneva was a long way from here…

Reeve blinked his eyes. The Tube compartment was full to bursting. He looked over his shoulder out of the grimy window and saw the station sign: Leicester Square. He got up and pushed his way out of the train, making for the Northern Line. Standing-room only for the first couple of stops. He stood next to a very beautiful young woman, and stared at her reflection in the glass, using her to take his mind off the past.

He alighted at Archway and, after a couple of questions, found Harrington Lane and Pete Cavendish’s house. Cavendish was still in bed, but remembered him. When Reeve apologized and said what he wanted, Cavendish gave him the key and told him to bring it back when he was finished. He didn’t need to ring the bell, just stick it through the mail slot.

“Thanks,” Reeve said. Cavendish nodded and closed the door again.

It took him a little while to figure out how to access the lane behind Cavendish’s street, but eventually he found a road in and walked down the lane until he saw what looked like the right garage, empty cans and bottles and all. He unlocked the garage door and pulled it up. It took him a few goes, and a few gentle applications of a half-brick on to the rollers, but eventually the garage was open. Dogs were barking in a couple of the walled back gardens, making as much noise as he’d done.

“Arnie! Shuddup!” someone yelled. They sounded fiercer than any dog.

Reeve unlocked the car, fixed the choke on, and turned the ignition. It took a while, reconditioned engine or not, but the car finally started, shuddering a little at first, then smoothing itself out. Reeve took it into the lane and kept it running while he went back to shut the garage door. This set the dogs off again, but he ignored them, relocked the garage, and got back into the Saab. He drove slowly to the end of the lane, avoiding glass and bricks and sacks of rubbish. A couple of lefts took him back into Cavendish’s street, and he left the car long enough to put the garage key through the mail slot.

He searched for a London street map, but didn’t find one. The glove compartment didn’t have one, and there was nothing under the seats. The car was what he’d call basic. Even the radio had been yanked out, leaving just wires and a connector. Basic maybe, but not as basic as his own Land Rover, its carcass somewhere in France. A lot had happened this past day and a half. He wanted to sit down and rest, but knew that was the last thing he should do. He could drive to Jim’s flat; maybe Fliss Hornby would be there. But he couldn’t do that. He didn’t want to put her in any danger, and he’d already seen what a visit from him could do to a woman on her own…

The tank was nearly empty, so he stopped in a gas station, filled up, and added a newspaper to his purchase. He sat flicking through, looking for a news story from France, finding nothing. He wondered how long it would take the French authorities to link the torched car to its owner. He guessed a couple of days max, which gave him today and maybe tomorrow. Maybe, but not for certain. He had to get moving.

He only had the one plan: advance. He’d tried a tactical retreat last night, and it had cost several lives, including, for all he knew, that of Marie Villambard. Now that he knew he was up against Jay, he didn’t want to hide anymore, and didn’t think he could hide-not forever. Not knowing Jay was out there. Therefore, the only tactic left was to advance. A suicide mission maybe, but at least it was a mission. He thought of Joan and Allan. He’d have to phone Joan; she’d be worried about him. Christ, what lies would he concoct this time? He couldn’t possibly tell her about Marie Villambard. But not to tell her might mean that the first she’d hear of it would be the police knocking at her sister’s door, asking his whereabouts. She’d hear their side of it, but not his.

Marie Villambard… Marie had said Jim would’ve kept copies of his working notes. He wouldn’t have entrusted all his information to disks alone. He wondered if Marie herself had kept an extra set, maybe with another journalist. Would someone else pick up her baton? A safe place, she’d said: maybe a friend’s flat or a bank vault. Reeve turned back and headed to Pete Cavendish’s. Cavendish couldn’t believe it.

“This is a nightmare,” he said. “I told you to stick the key through the letterbox.”

“I did that,” Reeve said, pointing to the spot on the floor where the key lay.

“What then?”

“It’s just, my brother trusted you with his car. I wondered if you were keeping anything else safe for him.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t know. Some files, a folder, papers…?”

Cavendish shook his head.

“Maybe he told you not to tell anyone, Pete, but he’s dead and I’m his brother-”

“He didn’t give me anything, all right?”

Reeve stared into Cavendish’s eyes and believed him. “Okay, sorry,” he said starting back down the path.

“Hey!” Cavendish yelled after him.

Reeve turned. “What?”

“How’s the motor running?”

Reeve looked at the idling Saab. “Sweet as a nut,” he said, wondering how soon he could ditch it.

Tommy Halliday lived in Wales, because he thought the air and drinking water there were better; but he didn’t have much affection for the Welsh, so lived as close to the border with England as he could while remaining near a funny place-name. Halliday lived in Penycae; the funny place-name was Rhosllanerchrugog. On the map it looked like a bad batch of Scrabble tiles, except that there were way too many letters.

“You can’t miss it on the map,” Halliday had told Reeve, the first time Reeve was planning a visit. “They always like to put Rhosllanerchrugog in nice big bold letters, just to show what silly fuckers the Welsh are. In fact, everybody around here just calls it Rhos.”

“What does it mean?” Reeve had asked.

“What?”

“The word must mean something.”

“It’s a warning,” Halliday had said. “It says, the English are coming!”

Halliday had a point. Penycae was close to Wrexham, but it was also within commuting distance of Chester, Liverpool, even Stoke-on-Trent. Consequently, English settlers were arriving, leaving the grime and crime behind, sometimes bringing it with them.

All Halliday had brought with him were his drug deals, his video collection, and his reference books. Halliday hated films but was hooked on them. Actually, more than the films themselves he was hooked on the film critics. Barry Norman was god of this strange religion, but there were many other high priests: Maltin, Ebert, Kael; Empire, Premier, and Sight & Sound magazines. What got Reeve was that Halliday never went to a movie. He didn’t like being with other people, strangers, for two darkened hours. He rented and bought videos instead. There were probably six or seven hundred in his living room, more elsewhere in the semidetached house.

For Halliday, films were not entertainment. His tussle with the movie form was like a student tackling some problem of philosophy. It was as though, if Halliday could work out films-why some were good, others bad, a few works of genius-then he would have solved a major problem, something that would change his life for the better and for always. When Reeve turned up at the house, Halliday was in a tizzy. He’d just found an old Guardian review by Derek Malcolm panning Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction.

“You should see the reviews in Empire and Premiere,” he said irritably. “They loved that film.”

“What did you think of it?” Reeve waited in the hall while Halliday triple-locked the reinforced front door. He knew Halliday’s neighbors thought the reason his curtains were always closed was that Halliday was busy watching films. There was a rumor Halliday was writing a film of his own. Or that he was some En-glish director who’d made a fortune in Hollywood and decided to retire young.

He looked younger than his years, with thinning short red hair, a faceful of freckles, and tapering ginger sideburns plus dark red mustache. He was tall and lanky, with arms that seemed to be controlled by someone else. He flapped them as he led Reeve down the short hall into the living room.

“What did I think of it? I agreed with Empire.”

Halliday seldom had an opinion of his own-only what he’d gleaned from the reviewers and the theorists. There was a homemade bookcase, precariously angled, which held his store of film knowledge. There were library books and books he’d bought or lifted from shops. There were bound volumes of magazines, scrapbooks full of reviews from newspapers and magazines. He had video recordings of several years’ worth of Barry Norman and the other film programs. He slumped into his large easy chair and jerked a hand towards the sofa. There was, of course, a film playing on the TV.

“Going through your Scorsese period?” Reeve asked. He recognized the film as Mean Streets. “How many times have you watched this one?”

“About a dozen. There are a lot of tricks he does here that he uses again in other films. Look, this slo-mo run through the bar. That’s in Goodfellas. Later there’s a good bit with Harvey Keitel pissed. How come Keitel plays Catholics so often?”

“I hadn’t noticed he did.”

“Yeah, I read that somewhere…” Halliday’s eyes were on the screen. “Music, too, the way he uses music in this film, like he does in Goodfellas.”

“Tommy, did you get the birdy?”

Halliday nodded. “You’re not going to like it.”

“How do you mean?”

Halliday just rubbed his thumb and forefinger together.

“Not cheap, huh?”

“Not cheap. The Colombians I used to deal with, they aren’t around anymore. They worked for the Medellin cartel, but the Medellin people got shafted by the Cali cartel. So now I seem to be dealing with Cali, and they’re not quite so-I don’t know-friendly. Plus, as you know, this stuff is thick on the ground in Colombia but thin on the ground over here…” He looked at Reeve and smiled. “Thank God.”

“So what did it cost?”

Halliday told him.

“What, did I buy the whole fucking crop?”

“You bought enough to get you into bed with the Dagenham Girl Pipers.”

Looking around the living room, or indeed the rest of the house, you would not suspect Tommy Halliday of being a dealer in everything from drugs to arms. That was because he kept absolutely nothing incriminating on the premises. Nobody knew where the cache was hidden, but Reeve guessed it was another reason for Tommy’s choice of this part of Wales. There was a lot of countryside around, mountains and forests frequented by hikers and picnickers-a lot of potential hiding places in those sorts of terrain.

No, the only things about Tommy’s house that might make someone suspicious were the antisurveillance devices and the mo-bile phone. Tommy didn’t trust British Telecom, and in the house he used the phone with a portable scrambler attached. The scrambler was U.S. Intelligence Corps standard, and Reeve guessed it had been “lost” during the Iraqi war. A lot of armed forces equipment had been lost during the campaign; a lot of Iraqi gear had been picked up quietly and tucked away for resale back in Britain.

Most of the arms Tommy dealt in, however, were eastern bloc: Russian and Czech predominantly. He had a consignment of Chinese stuff for a while, but couldn’t give it away it was so unreliable.

Halliday glanced at his watch. “Wait till this film’s over, all right?”

“I’ve got all the time in the world, Tommy,” Reeve said. He didn’t mean it, but he found that the time spent in the living room was time well spent. He cleared his mind and relaxed his muscles, did a little bit of meditation, some breathing exercises Joan had shown him. He gathered himself. And when he’d finished, there was still half an hour to go.

“Mind if I use the equipment?” he asked.

“You know where it is.”

So he headed upstairs into the spare bedroom, where Tommy kept his weights and a couple of exercise machines. Reeve worked up a sweat. Sweat was the quickest way to void toxins from your body, assuming you weren’t in the mood for sticking two fingers down your throat. From now on there was a regime he would follow: exercise when he could and eat well. Keep his mind and body pure. He would guess Jay had kept fit. He’d recruited from a gym: no mere accident. He probably frequented a few gyms. Reeve had to prepare as best he could. He considered taking steroids, but ruled them out quickly: their effects were short-lived, the side effects long-lasting. There was no “quick fix” when it came to fitness. Reeve knew he was pretty fit; family life hadn’t completely destroyed him, it had just robbed him of a little willpower.

Joan-he should call Joan. When he got downstairs the film was finished, and Halliday was on his computer. The computer was new, and boasted CD-ROM. Halliday was studying some kind of film encyclopedia, open at Mean Streets.

“Look here,” he said, pointing feverishly at the screen. “Maltin gives it four stars, ”a masterpiece‘; Ebert gives it four; Baseline gives it four out of five. Even Pauline bloody Kael likes it.“

“So?”

“So it’s a film about a couple of arseholes, one smarter than the other, but both of them plainly fucked from the start. This is supposed to be great cinema?”

“What did you think of De Niro?”

“He played it the same way he always plays those roles, eyes all over the place, demented smile.”

“You think he’s like that in real life?”

“What?”

“What do you think his background is?”

Halliday couldn’t see where this was leading, but he was prepared to learn. “Street punk, a kid in Brooklyn or wherever, same as Scorsese.” He paused. “Right?”

Reeve shook his head. “Look up De Niro.”

Halliday clicked the cursor over the actor’s name. A biography and photograph came up.

“See?” Reeve said, pointing to the relevant line. “His parents were artists, painters. His father was an abstract expressionist. This isn’t a street kid, Tommy. This is a well-brought-up guy who wanted to be an actor.”

“So?”

“So he made you believe in his character. You got no inkling of his background; that’s because he submerged it. He became a role. That’s what acting is.” Reeve watched to see if any of this sank in. “Can I use your telephone?”

Halliday flapped an arm towards the windowsill.

“Thanks.”

Reeve walked over to the window.

“So you know about films, huh?” Halliday called.

“No, Tommy, but I sure as shit know about acting.” He picked up the telephone and dialed Joan’s sister. While he waited for an answer, he pulled the curtains apart an inch and looked out on to the ordinary lower-middle-class street. He’d parked the Saab outside another house: that was an easy rule to remember. Someone answered his call.

“Hi there,” he said, recognizing Joan’s voice. The relief in her next words was evident.

“Gordon, where are you?”

“I’m at a friend’s.”

“How are you?”

“I’m fine, Joan. How’s Allan?” Reeve watched Halliday get up from the computer and go to a bookshelf. He was searching for something.

“He’s missing you. He’s hardly seen you lately.”

“Everything else okay?”

“Sure.”

“No funny phone calls?”

“No.” She sounded hesitant. “You think they’ll find us here?”

“I shouldn’t think so.” But how difficult would it be to track down the wife of Gordon Reeve, to ascertain that she had one brother and one sister, to locate addresses for both? Reeve knew that if they needed a bargaining chip, they’d resort to anything, including ransoming his family.

“You still there?”

“Sorry, Joan, what did you say?”

“I said how much longer?”

“I don’t know. Not long, I hope.”

The conversation wasn’t going well. It wasn’t just that Halliday was in the room; it was that Reeve was fearful of saying too much. In case Joan worried. In case someone was listening. In case they got to her and wanted to know how much she knew…

“I love you,” she said quietly.

“Same goes,” he managed, finishing the call. Halliday was standing by the bookcases, a large red volume in his hand. It was an encyclopedia. Reeve walked over and saw he had it open at Art History, a section about abstract expressionism. Reeve hoped he hadn’t set Halliday off on some new tangent of exploration.

He touched Halliday’s shoulder. “The birdy,” he said.

Halliday closed the book. “The birdy,” he agreed.

Birdy was their name for burundanga, a drug popular with the Colombian underworld. It used to be manufactured from scopol-amine extracted from the flowers of the borrachero tree, Datura arborea, but these days it was either mixed with benzodiazepine, or else it was 100 percent benzodiazepine, this being safer than scopolamine, with fewer, less harmful side effects.

Reeve followed Halliday’s car. Tommy Halliday was as cautious as they came. He’d already taken Reeve’s money and left it at the house. Reeve had made a large withdrawal in a London branch of his bank. They’d had to phone his branch in Edinburgh for confirmation, and even then Reeve had taken the receiver and spoken to the manager himself. They knew each other pretty well. The manager had come on one of Reeve’s tamer weekends.

“I won’t ask what it’s for,” the manager said, “just don’t spend it all in London.”

They’d had a laugh at that. It was a large amount of money, but then Reeve kept a lot of money in his “sleeper” account; an account he kept hidden from Joan and from everyone else, even his accountant. It wasn’t that the sleeper money was dirty, it was just that he liked to have it as a fallback, the way SAS men often took money with them when they went on missions behind enemy lines-gold sovereigns usually. Money for bribes, money for times of desperate trouble. That’s what Reeve’s sleeper fund was, and he judged this to be exactly the sort of time and occasion it was meant for.

He hadn’t been expecting the birdy to cost quite so much. It would put a big dent in his bankroll. The rest of the money was for contingencies.

It would give the police something else to mull over, too, once they’d connected him to the mess in France. They might well find the account-his bank manager wouldn’t lie about it-and they’d wonder about this large withdrawal, so soon after the killings. They’d be even more suspicious. They’d most definitely be “anxious” to talk to him, as they put it in their press releases.

Well, Tommy Halliday had some of that money now. And once he’d handed over the powder, that would be good-bye. Reeve wouldn’t be allowed to return to Halliday’s house, not carrying drugs. So Reeve had asked his questions beforehand. Like, was it scopo, benzo, or a mix?

“How the fuck do I know?” Halliday had replied. “It’s tough to get scopo these days, so my guess is pure benzo.” He considered. “Mind, these Colombians have good stuff, so maybe it’s ten, fifteen percent scopo.”

“Enough to put someone in a psychiatric ward?”

“No way.”

The problem with scopolamine was, there was just the one antidote-physostigmine-and neither man knew how readily available it was to hospitals and emergency departments, supposing they were able to diagnose burundanga poisoning in the first place. The drug was little known and little used outside Colombia; and even when it was used outside that country, it was normally used by native Colombians. No one in the British Army would admit to ever having used it as an interrogation aid. No, no one would ever admit that. But Reeve knew about the drug from his days in the SAS. He’d seen it used once, deep undercover in Northern Ireland, and he’d heard of its use in the Gulf War.

“Is there any physostigmine with it?”

“Course not.”

Tommy Halliday drove into the hills. He drove for half an hour, maybe a little more, until he signaled to pull into the half-full parking lot of a hotel. It was a nice-looking place, well lit, inviting. The parking lot was dark, though, and Halliday pulled into the farthest, gloomiest corner. Reeve pulled up alongside him. They wound their windows down so they could talk without leaving their cars.

“Let’s give it a couple of minutes,” Halliday said, “just to be on the safe side.” So they waited in silence, headlights off, waiting to see if anyone would follow them into the lot. No one did. Eventually, Halliday turned his engine on again and leaned out of his window. “Go into the bar, stay there one hour. Leave your boot slightly open when you go. Does it lock automatically?”

“Yes.”

“Right, that’s where the stuff will be. Okay?

“One hour?” Reeve checked the time.

“Synchronize watches,” Halliday said with a grin. “See you next time, Reeve.”

He backed out of the space and drove sedately out of the lot.

Reeve had half a mind to follow. He’d like to know where the cache was. But Halliday was too careful; it would be hard work. An hour. He’d guess the stuff was only ten minutes away. Halliday would take his time getting there though, and he’d take his time coming back. A very careful man; a man with a lot to lose.

Reeve locked the car, opened the trunk, and walked in through the back door of the hotel, into warmth, thick red carpeting, and wood-paneled walls. There was a reception area immediately ahead, but the bar was to his right. He could hear laughter. The place wasn’t busy, but the regulars were noisy as only regulars are allowed to be. Reeve prepared smiles and nods, and ordered a half of Theakston’s Best. There was a newspaper on the bar, an evening edition. He took it with his drink to a corner table.

He was thinking about the long drive ahead, back to Heathrow, not much relishing the idea. It would be good to stay put for a night, tucked between clean sheets in a hotel room. Good, but dangerous. He checked the newspaper. On one of the inside pages there was a “News Digest” column, seven or eight single-paragraph stories. The story he’d been dreading was halfway down.

FRENCH FARMHOUSE MURDER MYSTERY

French police confirmed today that a burned-out car found at the scene of a murder had UK license plates. Three bodies were discovered near a farmhouse in a densely wooded area of Limousin. One unidentified victim had been savaged by a dog, which belonged to one of the remaining two victims, a local journalist. The journalist was killed by a single bullet to the head, while the third victim was stabbed to death.

Reeve read the story through again. So they hadn’t taken Marie-or if they had, they hadn’t taken her far. The first thing the police would have done was shoot the dog. Reeve felt bad: Foucault had saved his life. And Marie… well, maybe she’d have died anyway. She was almost certainly on somebody’s list. Police would have linked the deaths to the Land Rover. Maybe they’d think one of the other bodies was that of the owner. It depended on the other car, the one Reeve had backed into. He doubted they’d be able to track it down. It had probably been stolen. But they could track his car down.

He went into the lobby and found a telephone. There were three of them, each in its own booth with stool, ledge, writing pad and pen. Reeve phoned Joan again.

“What is it?” she said.

“Something I’ve got to tell you. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to so soon.”

“What?”

“The police may come asking questions. The thing is, I had to leave the Land Rover in France.”

“France?”

“Yes. Now listen, there were some bodies at the scene.” He heard her inhale. “The police are going to come looking for me.”

“Oh, Gordon…”

“It may take them a few more days to get to you. Here’s the thing: you don’t know where I was going, you only know I said I had to go away on business. You don’t know what I’d be doing in France.”

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?” She wasn’t crying; crying wasn’t her style. Angry was her style-angry and let down.

“I couldn’t. Last time I phoned, there was someone else in the room.”

“Yes, but you could have told me before now. Look, is this all about Jim?”

“I think so.”

“Then why not just tell the police your side of it?”

“Because my side of it, as things stand, doesn’t amount to anything. I’ve no evidence, no proof; I’ve nothing. And the men who did it, the police would have trouble finding them.”

“You know who did it?”

“I know who’s responsible.” Reeve was running out of money. “Look, just don’t tell the police any more than you have to. They may think one of the bodies is mine. They may ask you to identify the body.”

“And I just go along with it, like we haven’t spoken? I have to look at this dead man?”

“No, you can say we’ve spoken since, so you know it can’t be me.”

She groaned. “I really think you should go to the police, Gordon.”

“I’m going to the police.” Reeve allowed himself a small smile.

“What?”

“Only not here.”

“Where then?”

“I can’t tell you that. Look, trust me, Joan. You’re safest if we play it this way. Just trust me, okay?”

She didn’t say anything for a long time. Reeve feared his money would run out before she did say something.

“All right,” she said, “but Gordon-”

The money ran out.

Back in the bar, no one had touched his drink or his paper. He left the paper folded at the crossword, but now opened it up again and read, or at least stared at the headlines. He didn’t think they’d be watching the airports yet-well, the police wouldn’t. Jay and his team might, but he thought they were probably gone by now. Regrouping, awaiting new orders. One mission was over for them, only a partial success. He guessed they’d be back in the States, maybe in San Diego.

Which was exactly where he was headed.

After sixty minutes, he went back out to his car. At first he couldn’t see anything in the trunk. Halliday had tucked it deep underneath the lip. It was nothing really, a small packet-white paper, folded over. Reeve got into the car and carefully unfolded the A4 sheet. He stared at some yellowy-white powder, about enough for a teaspoon. Even with the interior light on, the stuff didn’t look pure. Maybe it was diluted with baking soda or something. Maybe it was just a benzo-scopo mix. There was enough of it though. Reeve knew how much he needed: just over two milligrams a dose. Three or four per dose to be on the safe side; or on the unsafe side if you happened to be the recipient. He knew the stuff would dissolve in liquid, becoming only very slightly opalescent. He knew it had no flavor, no smell. It was so perfect, it was like the Devil himself had made it in his lab, or dropped the borrachero seeds in Eden.

Reeve refolded the paper and put it in his jacket pocket.

“Beautiful,” he said, starting the car.

On the way south, he thought about how Tommy Halliday might have stitched him up, or been stitched up himself. The powder could be a cold remedy, simple aspirin. Reeve could take it all the way to the States and find only at the last crucial minute that he’d been sold a placebo. Maybe he should test it first.

Yes, but not here. It could wait till America.

“Another bloody night in the car,” he muttered to himself. And another airplane at the end of it.

FIFTEEN

ALLERDYCE HAD TAKEN WHAT FOR HIM was a momentous, unparalleled decision.

He’d decided he had to tread carefully with Kosigin and Co-World Chemicals. As a result, there was to be no more discussion of either topic within the walls of Alliance Investigative-not in his office, not in the corridors, not even in the elevators. Instead, Dulwater had to report, either by telephone or in person, to Allerdyce’s home.

Allerdyce had always kept his office and home lives discrete-insofar as he never entertained at home, and no Alliance personnel ever visited him there, not even the most senior partners. No one except the dog handlers. He had an apartment in downtown Washington, DC, but much preferred to return daily to his home on the Potomac.

The house was just off a AAA-designated “scenic byway” between Alexandria and George Washington’s old home at Mount Vernon. If streams of tourist traffic passed by his house, Aller-dyce didn’t know about it. The house was hidden from the road by a tall privet hedge and a wall, and separated by an expanse of lawn and garden. It was a colonial mansion with its own stretch of riverfront, a jetty with a boat in mooring, separate servants’ quarters, and a nineteenth-century ice house, which was now Allerdyce’s wine cellar. It wasn’t as grand as Mount Vernon, but it would do for Jeffrey Allerdyce.

Had he chosen to entertain clients there, the house and grounds would have served as a demonstration of some of the most elaborate security on the market: electronic gates with video identification, infrared trip beams surrounding the house, a couple of very well-trained dogs, and two security guards on general watch at all times. The riverfront was the only flaw in the security; anyone could land from the water. So the security men concentrated on the river and let the dogs and devices deal with the rest.

The reason for all the security at Allerdyce’s home was not fear of assassination or kidnap, or simple paranoia, but that he kept his secrets there-his files on the great and good, infor-mation he might one day use. There were favors there that he could call in; there were videotapes and photographs which could destroy politicians and judges and the writers of Op-Ed pages. There were audio recordings, transcripts, scribbled notes, sheafs of clippings, and even more private information: copies of bank statements and bounced checks, credit card bills, motel registration books, logs of telephone calls, police reports, medical examination results, blood tests, judicial reviews… Then there were the rumors, filed away with everything else: rumors of affairs, homosexual love-ins, cocaine habits, stabbings, falsified court evidence, misappropriated court evidence, misappropriated funds, numbered accounts in the Caribbean islands, Mafia connections, Cuban connections, Colombian connections, wrong connections…

Allerdyce had contacts at the highest levels. He knew officials in the FBI and CIA and NSA, he knew secret servicemen, he knew a couple of good people at the Pentagon. One person gained him access to another person, and the network grew. They knew they could come to him for a favor, and if the favor was something like covering up an affair or some sticky, sordid jam they’d gotten into-well, that gave Allerdyce just the hold he wanted. That went down in his book of favors. And all the time the information grew and grew. Already he had more information than he knew what to do with, more than he might use in his lifetime. He didn’t know what he’d do with his vast (and still increasing) store of information when he died. Burn it? That seemed a waste. Pass it on? Yes-but to whom? The likeliest candidate seemed his successor at Alliance. After all, the organization would be sure to prosper with all that information in the bank. But Allerdyce had no successor in mind. His underlings were just that; the senior partners aging and comfortable. There were a couple of junior partners who were hungry, but neither seemed right. Maybe he should have fathered some children…

He sat in the smaller of the two dining rooms and considered this, staring at a portrait of his grandfather, whom he remembered as a vicious old bastard and tightfisted with it. Genes: some you got, some you didn’t. The cook, a homely woman, brought in his appetizer, which looked like half a burger bun topped with salmon and prawns and a dollop of mayonnaise. Allerdyce had just picked up his fork when the telephone rang. Maybe two dozen people knew his home telephone number. More knew his apartment number, and he kept in touch by monitoring the answering machine there morning and evening. He placed his napkin on the brightly polished walnut table and walked over to the small antique bureau-French, seventeenth century, he’d been told-that supported the telephone.

“Yes?” he said.

There was a moment’s pause. He could hear static and echoes on the line, like ghostly distant voices, and then a much clearer one.

“Sir, it’s Dulwater.”

“Mm-hm.”

“I thought I’d let you know the situation here.”

“Yes?”

“Well, I kept watch on the house, but nobody’s been near. So I decided to take a look around.”

Allerdyce smiled. Dulwater was an effective burglar; he’d used the skill several times in the past. Allerdyce wondered what he’d found in Gordon Reeve’s home. “Yes?” he repeated.

“Looks like they’ve moved out for a while. There’s a litter tray and a bunch of cat food, but no cat. Must’ve taken it with them. The cat’s name’s on the food bowl. Bakunin. I checked the name, thought it was a bit strange; turns out the historical Bakunin was an anarchist. There are books on anarchism and philosophy in the bedroom. I think maybe they left in a hurry; the computer was still on in the kid’s bedroom. The telephones were bugged, sure enough-hard to tell who did it; the mikes are standard enough but they are U.S.-sourced.”

Dulwater paused, awaiting praise.

“Anything else?” Allerdyce snapped. He sensed Dulwater was saving something.

“Yes, sir. I found a box of magazines, old copies of something called Mars and Minerva.” Another pause. “It’s the official magazine of the SAS.”

“SAS? That’s a British army unit, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir, mostly counter-revolutionary warfare: hostage rescue, deep infiltration behind enemy lines in time of war… I’ve got some stuff from the libraries here.”

Allerdyce studied his fingernails. “No wonder Reeve dealt so diligently with the two personnel. Have you spoken to them?”

“I made sure their boss got the picture. They’ve been kicked out.”

“Good. Is that everything?”

“Not quite. There was some action in France-a journalist was killed. Her name was Marie Villambard. I recognized the name because it was thrown up during our background search on James Reeve. He’d had some contacts with her.”

“What happened?”

“I’m not absolutely certain. Looks like a firefight. A couple of burned-out cars, one of them British. The Villambard woman was shot execution-style, another guy had his face ripped off by a guard dog. Last victim had his throat cut. They found other bloodstains, but no more bodies.”

Allerdyce was quite for a minute. Dulwater knew better than to interrupt the silence. Finally, the old man took a deep breath. “It seems Kosigin has chosen a bad opponent-or a very good one, depending on your point of view.”

“Yes, sir.”

Allerdyce could tell Dulwater didn’t understand. “It seems unlikely Reeve will give up, especially if police trace the car back to him.”

“Always supposing it’s his car,” Dulwater said.

“Yes. I’m trying to think if we have contacts in Paris… I believe we do.”

“I could go down there…”

“No, I don’t think so. What is there to find? We’ll have Paris take care of that side of things for us. So Reeve is ex-army, eh? Some special unit. What some would call a tough nut to crack.”

“There’s just one more thing, sir.”

Allerdyce raised an eyebrow. “More? You’ve been busy, Dulwater.”

“This is conjecture.”

“Go on.”

“Well, the muscle Kosigin’s using, the one from L.A. He’s supposed to be English.”

“So?”

“So, he’s also supposed to have been in the SAS.”

Allerdyce smiled. “That could be interesting. Dulwater, you’ve done remarkably well. I want you back here.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Dulwater?”

“Sir?”

“Upgrade your flight to First; the company will pay.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Allerdyce terminated the call and returned to the dining table, but he was too excited to eat right away. He didn’t know where this story was headed, but he knew the outcome would be anything but mundane. Allerdyce could foresee trouble for Kosigin and CWC. They might have need of Alliance’s services again; there might be a favor Kosigin would need. There might well be a favor.

Maybe he’d underestimated Dulwater. He pictured him in his mind-a large man, quiet, not exactly handsome, always well dressed, a discreet individual, reliable-and wondered if there was room for a promotion. More than that, he wondered if there was a necessity. He finished his water and attacked the food. His cook was already appearing, wheeling a trolley on which were three covered silver salvers.

“Is it chicken today?” Allerdyce asked.

“You had chicken yesterday,” she said in her lilting Irish brogue. “It’s fish today.”

“Excellent,” said Jeffrey Allerdyce.