The nameless dead

Twenty-Seven

The Master, whose wrists had been bound with rusty wire, watched the driver out of the corner of his eye. The bearded man was handling the pickup with relaxed movements, his eyes glinting in the light from the dashboard. There was a curious smell in the cab, something organic but decidedly unhealthy.

‘Where are you taking me?’

Apollyon glanced at him. ‘Need to know basis only. Don’t worry, you’ll be going to meet Lord Lucifer soon enough.’

Heinz Rothmann thought about that. When he had revived the Antichurch, he had been completely cynical about it-who worshipped the Devil in the 21st century other than needy degenerates? But gradually he had come to understand the attraction of occult knowledge, despite the fact that Adolf Hitler had ultimately discounted its power. It seemed, as in many things, that Heinrich Himmler had more imagination than his Fuhrer, with his deep interest in Teutonic lore and symbols. Since the failure of the plot against the President, Rothmann had found the Antichurch a more pressing interest than the militia of conditioned subjects he and his sister had set up.

‘I am ready to meet Our Lord whenever he desires that,’ he said devoutly.

Apollyon gave a hollow laugh. ‘Don’t be too hasty, asshole. My sister was a Mistress of Lucifer. What kind of a welcome do you think she’s preparing for you in Hell?’

Rothmann saw a way to exert pressure. ‘You shared power with a woman? There is no sanction for that in the Antigospel.’

‘Not even in the one you rewrote so your sister could wear the gargoyle mask?’

The Master wondered how Apollyon knew about that. Security in his organization had been tight until the meddler Matt Wells had intervened. Where was he now? Had the female assassin dealt with him as she had Apollyon’s sister and the negro? That would be a pity. He had hopes for the Englishman, hopes that could still be fulfilled, whatever Apollyon did.

The bearded man jabbed his elbow into Rothmann’s ribs. ‘I’m not hearing your answer, Kraut.’

‘My sister…’ Rothmann fought the pain. ‘My sister and I were twins.’

‘As if that makes a difference.’

The Master needed to divert his captor to more fertile ground. ‘Do you know who the blonde woman is?’

‘The Soul Collector? Sure I do. She kills for money.’ The bearded man turned to him. ‘Like me.’

Rothmann decided to twist the knife. ‘So she killed your sister to reduce the competition?’

Apollyon reduced speed behind an eighteen-wheeler. ‘Don’t get cute with me, shithead. You heard what the blonde bitch said-she saw Abaddon in Maine.’

‘That doesn’t seem like a reason to blow her head apart.’

‘What are you trying to say, asshole?’

‘Simply this. The Soul Collector used to be the Englishman Matt Wells’s lover. It can hardly be a coincidence that they both turned up at the barns.’

Apollyon hit the horn as the eighteen-wheeler slowed to a crawl. ‘They’re in this together?’

Rothmann kept as cool as he could. He knew that survival depended on sowing doubt in his captor’s mind. ‘Of course. This whole thing is a trap. Someone engineered it so that you and your sister would be neutralized.’ He paused. ‘Do you have any enemies, Apollyon?’

The bearded man swerved to the left and floored the gas pedal. Rothmann pressed back in his seat as he saw headlights approaching fast. At the last moment, Apollyon wrenched the wheel to the right. There was a horn blare from the other vehicle.

‘I’ve been a gun for hire for eleven years,’ the bearded man said. ‘I’ve got more enemies than your false Antichurch has got followers.’

Ten minutes later, he pulled into a gas station and made a call. His face was still set hard when he got back into the pickup. Then his nostrils flared.

‘What is that stink?’ he said, searching under the dashboard. He found a small package loosely wrapped in silver foil and opened it. The smell immediately got worse. ‘For the love of Lucifer.’

Heinz Rothmann looked at the shriveled heart. He had added a commandment to the Antigospel, requiring the faithful to keep the vital organs of their deceased loved ones. The owner of the truck had obviously been obedient. He was gratified to see that Apollyon looked physically ill. Obviously, he wouldn’t be going back to remove his sister’s heart.

‘They’ve stopped,’ Sara said, taking her foot off the gas. ‘Just over two miles ahead, outside a place called Caluga.’ She pulled up and reached toward the backseat.

I had visions of her preparing for battle. ‘What are you doing?’

She laughed. ‘Don’t worry. I need to educate myself before I take further action. Let’s see what’s in Abaddon’s rucksack.’

I watched as she removed the contents. There wasn’t much-a combat knife, some ammunition clips and a laptop.

‘Bingo,’ Sara said, opening the computer and turning it on. After a few moments, her fingers started moving rapidly over the keys. ‘I’m in.’

I was impressed. ‘The last time I saw you with a laptop, you knew even less than I did.’

Her eyes stayed on the screen. ‘A lot of things have changed since then.’ She looked up. ‘Including my appearance. What do you think?’ She moved her head like a film star advertising shampoo.

‘Em, fine.’ I was trying to remember what she had looked like when I loved her, but that had gone into the void.

‘Fine?’ she said, in annoyance. ‘The surgery cost me fifty thousand dollars.’

‘It was worth it,’ I said, not wanting to incite her to further violence. I didn’t tell her that her gait had given her away.

‘Like the twenty grand I spent on technology skills was worth it.’ She gave me a dead-eyed stare through what I presumed were contact lenses-her eyes weren’t blue when we were together. ‘Okay, the woman who called herself Abaddon knew what she was doing. There are no obvious files and no favorites on her internet program.’

‘How about email?’

Sara gave me another hollow stare. ‘Oh, thanks for reminding me.’ Her fingers flew about. ‘Completely empty. Either she didn’t use it or she deleted all her messages.’

‘In which case, they’ll be in the hard drive.’

‘Yeah, but there isn’t time to access that now.’

I suppressed a smile. ‘Did you take voice coaching from a New Yorker?’

She ignored that. After several more minutes, her fingers stopped moving.

‘Shit,’ she said, chewing her bottom lip. I remembered her doing that when she had a deadline from her editor on the newspaper. Our evenings together had often been interrupted by urgent stories and updates. We often ended up having wild sex after she filed. That was an unwelcome recollection. Why was it more lucid than visions of Karen?

‘Wait a minute.’

I watched as her fingers hit the keys again.

‘Bastard,’ she said, her eyes wide. ‘The fucking snake.’ She sat back, her face suddenly damp with sweat.

‘What is it?’ Talking to her was painful, but necessary. The only way I was going to survive was by softening her attitude toward me. Pretending to care about what she was going through was one way of achieving that. I imagined the ones I had lost covering their eyes and shunning me.

‘My fucking broker, Havi,’ Sara said. ‘Abaddon had his email address buried in a maintenance file.’

‘What does that mean?’

She gave me a stare that was marginally less empty. ‘It means he was screwing with me.’

‘Playing you off against Abaddon?’

‘Maybe. I’ve been picking up rumors that I was the so-called Hitler’s Hitman. You hear about those murders?’

‘Greenwich Village, Michigan, Boston and Philadelphia,’ I said, trying not to sound too much like a Rothmann-conditioned robot.

She raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re very well informed.’

‘What do you expect? The FBI reckoned that Rothmann was behind them and I was their main link to him.’

She laughed emptily. ‘But, of course, Rothmann had nothing to do with the killings.’

For a moment I thought she really was the murderer-messing with me had been her modus operandi since she’d gone on the run after the White Devil’s death. Then I saw the anger on her face.

‘That piece of shit,’ she said, spittle flying. ‘I think Abaddon did those murders and Havi set up the deal. Since then, he’s been trying to pin them on me.’

‘Why?’

She looked at me as if I were a small child. ‘Jesus, Matt, use your novelist’s imagination. If you were my broker, would you get a nice warm feeling every time I got in touch?’

She was right there. No doubt she was brilliant at her work, but she was a naked flame that attracted insects and then burned them up-I had personal experience of that. I could imagine this Havi guy might have thought he’d live longer working for other principals.

‘Then again,’ I said, rubbing my wrists together to restore the circulation, ‘if Abaddon killed those people, she was even worse than-’ I broke off.

‘Even worse than me? Oh, Matt, say it ain’t so.’

I remembered what she’d done to my friend Dave Cummings. She had also almost killed my mother, my ex-wife and my daughter Lucy, as well as numerous others. No matter how bad Abaddon had been, she could never have matched my ex-lover.

‘Don’t worry, Matt, you might still be saved. Abaddon’s brother Apollyon has got an even worse reputation for savagery. Maybe he’ll get me before I get him.’

I didn’t find that very comforting. Apollyon was hardly likely to let me go with a pat on the back if he disposed of the Soul Collector. Besides, there was another factor.

‘What about Rothmann, Sara? You’ve been contracted to kill him. Doesn’t he take priority over Apollyon?’

She gave me a dark look. ‘That deal was fixed by the scumbag Havi.’ She raised a finger. ‘Wait. If he’s transferred my share of the advance, he’s in the clear.’

I watched as she tapped away. Even though we were in what seemed to be an underpopulated part of Texas, the laptop’s wireless connection was good. No doubt Abaddon had earned enough to buy the best technology.

Sara scowled. ‘The fucking bastard. Not only has he not sent anything for the Rothmann job, but he hasn’t paid the balance on my last contract.’

‘Whose death did that involve?’ I asked, hoping she might come clean without thinking.

‘Good try, Matt. Do I look like I’ve lost it completely?’

I was thinking about the hit-and-run incident in Florida, the one that had killed Gordy Lister’s brother. If she had been hired to kill Rothmann, it wasn’t unlikely that the same employer would have wanted to put Rothmann’s number two under pressure. But who was that employer?

‘They’re on the road again,’ Sara said, shutting down the laptop.

The flashing cross on the monitor had started to move.

I watched this former lover of mine as she drove on. I was thinking about the question she had asked-‘Do I look like I’ve lost it completely?’ Until she’d said that, I hadn’t thought anything of the sort. But now I had begun to wonder about the sweat on her face and the tension around her eyes. Could it be that the invincible Soul Collector was finally beginning to come apart at the seams?

‘I wish to see my lawyer immediately.’

Peter Sebastian was sitting across the table in the interview room from Sir Andrew Frogget, Arthur Bimsdale by his side. He looked down at the photographs that had been taken on their entry to the apartment in Adams-Morgan.

‘I’ve already outlined the law pertaining to sexual acts with minors,’ Sebastian said. ‘Would you like me to send these photographs to your lawyer?’

Sir Andrew stared back, but there was less fire in his gaze than before.

‘Since you’ve spent weekends with Mr. Mallinson at his place in the Northern Neck, you’ll know his daughters Molly and Kirsten.’ He glanced at his assistant.

‘Molly is thirteen and Kirsten eleven,’ Bimsdale supplied.

Sebastian watched as the Englishman looked away. He bided his time. The guy had medals from the Gulf War; he wasn’t going to crack so easily. After several minutes, he picked up one of the photos and examined it. Frogget was in the fore as he stood over the girl, who was naked on the sofa. She had just registered the sound of the FBI team’s entry to the apartment, but it looked like she was turning from Sir Andrew in revulsion.

‘I imagine Lady Annabel would be interested in this,’ Sebastian said. ‘Have you got a fax machine at home?’

Sir Andrew smiled frostily. ‘If you think that my wife will be in the least bit disturbed, you know even less about the British upper classes than your fat-arsed countrymen who hang around outside Buckingham Palace.’

Sebastian knew the investment banker’s marriage was under strain, but he didn’t come back on that. He wanted to see how much punishment Frogget could take.

‘All right,’ he said impassively. ‘So you won’t mind if we send the images to your old regiment?’

The Englishman blanched, but attempted to rally. ‘Surely you don’t believe all that crap about officers and gentlemen, Mr. Sebastian.’

‘What I believe is not germane to this interview.’ The senior FBI man looked at his notes. ‘We can also send them over to the British ambassador. I believe you knew him at Cambridge?’

There were spots of red on Sir Andrew’s cheeks now. ‘I-’

Sebastian raised a hand to cut him off. ‘Of course, we will have to provide your board of directors with the images. We also have the fax numbers of the London Times and BBC News.’

The knight’s shoulders dropped.

Peter Sebastian had one last lance to pierce the bull’s hide. ‘We would be sure to send the photos to your London club, as well.’

All the fight had gone out of the old soldier. ‘Enough,’ he said, his voice cracking. ‘What is it you want from me?’

‘You know that very well, Andrew,’ Sebastian said, deliberately dropping the title. ‘I want to know every detail about the backers of Woodbridge Holdings.’

It was only as the Englishman began to spill what was a very revealing can of beans that Peter Sebastian fully realized what he had done.