The nameless dead

Twenty-Four

Rudi Crane was at the top of the control tower of the Hercules Solutions facility known as Cedar Fort, fifty miles south of Columbus, Ohio. Although night had fallen, he was watching the exercise below with thermal optic glasses. His instructors had set the Arab troops a pretty straightforward task-the storming of a sparsely occupied bunker-and so far they were making quite a mess of it. The swarthy colonel to his left was puffing and blowing in disgust. Crane would have liked to see him take command on the ground, but that wasn’t the corpulent officer’s style. Only blanks were being fired, which was just as well-live rounds would have reduced the attackers to a handful.

Swinging the binoculars to his right, Crane picked up the faint glow of lights in the distance. The nearest town, not much more than a general store and a few rundown houses, was nearly ten miles to the west. On the other sides, the fort was surrounded by Wayne National Forest. His contacts in the Pentagon had provided Hercules Solutions with access to different kinds of terrain in and around the forest, making Cedar Fort the world’s most attractive destination for armed forces and police departments requiring specialized training. That access was still guaranteed, despite the government’s cooler approach to the company. The men in suits had to react to public pressure, largely stirred up by busybodies and unelected organizations. Deep down, they knew how essential the company was to national security.

The crackle of automatic weapons fire died down. Rudi Crane looked back at the compound below. Smoke was drifting over a lot of immobile forms. The Arab troops had been told they were all dead.

‘Exercise over,’ a clipped voice said in his earpiece. ‘Attackers neutralized.’

‘Your men are enthusiastic,’ Crane commented to the colonel, who was struggling to contain his rage.

‘They have disgraced the uniform of our country,’ the heavy man said, stamping the floor with one of his highly polished boots. ‘I will send them back immediately.’

‘Don’t do that, Colonel. Give us three days. I guarantee they will improve beyond recognition. But you must turn them over to my people for the whole of that time.’

Like most of his Middle Eastern customers, the colonel had refused to allow that when they arrived-he wanted to retain command. They all came around, after they’d seen how useless their men were when confronted by true professionals. Of course, the colonel would have to be otherwise occupied-Hercules Solutions had operatives who could meet any demand.

Crane went over to the elevator, after pointing the customer in that direction. He didn’t need to have personal contact with the commanders, given that he knew the men who ran their countries well. He preferred to handle business this way, though-it showed his personal commitment to every deal and detail. The money paid by oil-rich rulers fearful for their survival in the modern, terrorist-ridden world made everything worthwhile.

The elevator was met at ground level by two female Hercules employees.

Crane had already ascertained where the colonel’s tastes lay. Both women wore camouflage jackets and skirts, the latter reaching only halfway down their thighs. He was sure that the fat man’s wife-or wives-had to cover themselves from head to toe when they left their homes. The colonel obviously thought he was in some version of paradise.

He went down to the command post and swiped the security lock to his office. Even though it was nearly seven, his secretary was still at her desk outside. He had brought Joanna with him from Georgia when he moved his business and family up to Ohio ten years ago. He knew his wife had been suspicious, but she didn’t have the nerve to complain. Not that there had ever been anything between Crane and the buxom Joanna. He was serious about his marriage vows-they were an integral part of his religious beliefs. He wasn’t one of those preachers who lied and cheated, or so he told himself every day.

Rudi Crane logged on to his computer and bypassed the Hercules Solutions network. He wanted to know what was going on down in Texas. It was time he had a report. But the secure site he accessed had no new messages, and that bothered him. He felt a stir of unease. One or other of his people should have been in touch by now.

There was only one thing to do. Rudolf Maximilian Crane got down on his knees and prayed.

The noise in the hall was deafening-wailing, chanted words, screaming. Weird music was coming from speakers hung on the walls between the animal corpses. It sounded like the cries the unfortunate creatures would have made as they stared death in the face, synthesizers and electric guitars producing a cacophony that might have raised the devil. Which, no doubt, was exactly the impression the Master was aiming at. It was working, too. The naked faithful were swaying like trees in a hurricane, their arms outstretched and their flesh shaking. Given the age of many celebrants, I chose to look to the front instead.

What I saw there was no better. Hyena-Head had started lashing Quincy’s chest with his whip. I tried to get to my feet, but was immediately restrained by the guards flanking me. The figure in the gargoyle mask was concentrating on the woman, touching the breasts that were hanging toward her face. I had a feeling that it was Gordy Lister-the cloak was loose and too long. The bastard. At least he wasn’t hurting her though, upside down and with her head in a sack, she must have been terrified.

Hyena-Head stopped hitting Quincy, who yelled something at him. The naked man gave him several more blows for his trouble. I was glad to see the sergeant hadn’t lost his nerve, but I didn’t know how I could save him from the horror that was coming. I tried to get myself into some kind of zone, but the noise of the congregation and the stench in the air made that difficult. I stared at the empty cross, my heart thundering. Was I going to end up there, blood rushing to my head, vulnerable to anything the cult wanted to do? They hadn’t taken my clothes off yet, but that wasn’t much of a consolation.

Rothmann in the hyena head mask raised his whip high and the crowd fell silent. I was ready for a sermon, some rant about the glories of Lucifer, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he looked toward the door at the side of the barn. Shrieks broke out when the woman came in. I peered at her and, stomach shrinking, recognized who she was. She wore a black gown with her breasts bare but, although she had a pair of long horns on her head, she had no mask. She was carrying a knife with a thin, curved blade. Nora Jacobsen.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. The old woman had shown how dangerous she was in Portland. But seeing her here, features daubed in what looked like ash and mouth set hard, still made my skin crawl. She bowed almost to the ground in front of Hyena-Head, then put the fingers of one hand around his erect penis. The crowd erupted again and I wondered if I was going to have to sit through a porn show. Fortunately, Nora Jacobsen let go after a few seconds and walked over to the woman on the inverted cross. She crouched down and wrenched the sack from round the prisoner’s head.

I recognized Mary Upson immediately despite the battering she had taken. Again, I was thrust back into my seat by the guards. Before I could move, Nora Jacobsen had cut a vertical line between her daughter’s breasts, then a horizontal one under them. Blood dripped over her face and onto the stones supporting the cross. So much for family.

Now Rothmann started to talk. ‘Followers of Lucifer Triumphant! True followers, who have cast out the false leaders!’

I didn’t know if he had been expecting applause or other forms of approbation, but they didn’t come. The faithful were silent, their faces strangely impassive. I wondered how many of them had been brainwashed by the Rothmanns’ conditioning process and how many were just old-fashioned religious lunatics.

‘We gather here for the great annual rite, at which we renew our vows to Lucifer and pledge ourselves to the increase of his glory in the months to come. Your Master has already made preparations to strike a blow that will bring the misguided government of this land to its knees. With your participation, the Antichurch will gain the power it deserves.’

Again, the congregation remained silent. Perhaps they had been told in advance, but it didn’t look that way because Rothmann was looking from side to side as if he was trying to elicit a response. There was a long pause before he got going again.

‘And now, for the greater glory of Lord Lucifer, I bring you the new ritual that has been promised-a ritual that will bring us all closer to the life of the underworld-closer to death! Once a year, Our Lord requires self-coffining. Our sister here will give herself to Lucifer.’

There was a wave of what seemed to be discomfort across the faithful, but Nora Jacobsen wasn’t waiting. She went to the empty cross, grasped it with one hand and then stabbed herself in the chest with the knife she was holding in the other. Her body dropped with a crash into the coffin that lay underneath.

Mary Upson’s shrill cry split the air. Rothmann strode over to her and beat her with his whip until she was reduced to sobbing. The congregation remained quiet but, again, I sensed they were unhappy. So did Rothmann. He picked up the bloody knife that had fallen from Nora Jacobsen’s hand and headed for Quincy. I was held down by the guards when I moved.

‘Members of the Antichurch,’ the Master yelled, ‘here is an example of the races that are destroying this country. Watch as his animal heart is removed!’ Then he turned to me.

I felt a tingling over my skin even before he spoke, which showed how much power he could exert. When it came, the word was almost superfluous.

‘Schalk!’ Rothmann screamed. ‘Schalk! Execute the negro!’ The crowd roared its approval.

The trigger affected me immediately. The part of me that was beyond his control-the part that still remembered the ones I had lost-separated from my body and rose above the people in the hall. I watched as the guards allowed me to stand. I walked stiffly to the man in the hyena mask, my right hand extended. There was nothing I could do from my vantage point. I moved toward the cross from which Quincy was suspended. I tried to scream, tried to distract my corporeal self, but no sound came. The congregation had fallen silent. Transfixed, I raised the knife and then plunged it straight toward Quincy’s defenseless throat.

Peter Sebastian had spent most of the last two hours talking to the Bureau’s people in Houston. He had finally pressed the panic button at 5:00 p.m. Either Matt Wells or Quincy Jerome should have been in touch during the afternoon. He had called and sent text messages to their cell phones, but there had been no reply from either of them. He knew that the signals from their tracking implants might have been poor in the Big Thicket, so he gave Wells and Jerome a few more hours. That now looked like a mistake.

Houston’s people in the vicinity had also lost contact, having held back to allow Matt and the sergeant a clear run at the Antichurch. By the time they found the tree to the east of Warren with the inverted cross carved on it, there was no sign of anyone in the vicinity. Quincy Jerome had attached a positioning device to his BMW. That led them to a clearing south of Warren. The vehicle was empty. Agents were spreading out across the area, but it was dark and there was little chance of sightings.

Sebastian had considered sending Arthur Bimsdale to Texas to keep an eye on things, but decided against that. His assistant would be of more use in Washington, especially since Sebastian himself had an urgent appointment that evening. As usual, he hadn’t been given much notice. The message on the secure site that he accessed every midday was as terse as ever, providing only a time-8:00 p.m.-and a location-Room 13 in the Happy Trails Motel, a mile north of Middleburg, Virginia. He had never been there before. Checking his road map, he saw it was about thirty-five miles west of D.C. He’d allow himself an hour. Arriving late was not an option.

If Bimsdale was surprised by his departure from the office, he didn’t show it. His assistant had proved himself to be perfectly capable of working unsupervised, even if this operation was a lot more sensitive than anything he’d dealt with in the past. It wasn’t ideal, but Sebastian had no choice. The worst of it was that he would be turning off his cell as soon as he left the Hoover Building, even though that was contrary to standing orders. There were other priorities for him.

Driving onto I-66 from the Beltway, Sebastian thought about Matt Wells. Had he blown it by using an amateur? He still didn’t think so. The fact was, Rothmann was bound to want Wells back, both to find out what he knew and to complete the conditioning process. The Englishman might have been aware of those factors, but he seemed only to want revenge for his family. That was why it was so essential that they kept track of Wells before he managed to strike at Rothmann. Sebastian himself needed to catch Rothmann to justify the Director’s faith in the operation. That was now looking in serious jeopardy.

In the last five miles, he took a circuitous route to the motel, stopping several times to see if he was being tailed. He wasn’t, at least as far as he could ascertain. He had developed a talent for countersurveillance over the years, among other things checking his car for bugs every morning before he left home. His wife had found him doing that once, but he’d scared her off by saying he was looking for bombs. It was two minutes to eight when he drove into the motel’s parking lot. He parked as far from reception as he could and took in the scene. Number thirteen was at the end of the long building, deliberately chosen for that reason. Resting his hand on the butt of his Glock, Sebastian walked to the door. There seemed to be no one around.

He knocked twice, paused, and then three times more. The door opened immediately and he went inside. The room was in darkness until the chain was applied to the door. A small light on the dresser came on.

‘Peter.’

‘Valerie.’

He looked at the middle-aged woman. This time she was dressed as a soccer mom, in matching blue sweatshirt and pants. Her dark brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she wore no makeup.

‘Did they win?’ he asked.

She ignored that and sat down on one of the beds. ‘I’ve heard something that disturbs me.’

Sebastian kept a smile on his lips, hoping that the somersault his stomach had just taken wasn’t obvious. If Valerie Hinton had found out about the stunt he was pulling with Matt Wells, he’d be in deep shit.

He stayed on his feet. ‘What’s that?’

‘Sit down,’ she said, refusing to allow him a dominant position and locking eyes with his. ‘You’ve been playing hardball with Sir Andrew Frogget.’

‘So?’

‘So stop. Right now. That’s an order.’

Sebastian looked down, aware that by breaking eye contact he had handed the field to her. He needed to find out how much she knew. ‘His company worked for Heinz Rothmann-who, I would remind you, tried to take out the President and most of the cabinet.’

‘Routh Limited is off-limits, Peter. I’m serious.’

‘What’s the CIA’s interest?’

Valerie Hinton gave him a brief smile. ‘That’s way above your pay grade, Peter. Just do what I say. I’ll leave first.’

He watched her go. During the fifteen minutes that the established protocol required him to wait before leaving, he thought about the order. The CIA had been interested in Rothmann from the beginning. He had been told to pass all his case notes to the agency as soon as the Nazi’s involvement in the attack on the President was confirmed. Thankfully they hadn’t used the information in a way that would implicate him-at least, not yet.

Sebastian had been working as a CIA informant for years, ever since he was caught screwing a woman with links to a drug gang in Puerto Rico. He’d have been shit-canned by the Bureau if the CIA hadn’t buried his involvement, but he’d been blackmailed into keeping them advised of all his activities. So why were they so interested in Rothmann? Did they want to use his conditioning process? The Agency had a history of mind control experiments. Then again, did they imagine they could they get away with using a method developed by the children of a Nazi doctor who had worked with Mengele at Auschwitz, and had nearly assassinated the President?

The answer to that was obvious.

The real question was, could anyone stop them?