The nameless dead

Thirty-Five

My FBI shadow Simonsen, whose name I saw on his ID tag before we left the Hoover Building, took me to a plush hotel not far from the White House. He checked me in using a Bureau declaration of my identity and a credit card with my name on it.

‘Two-thousand-dollar-a-day limit,’ he said, handing the piece of plastic over with what looked like disapproval. ‘I’ll be back at 6:30 to take you to the hospital.’

I went up to the room, which had a good view of the surrounding buildings but not much else, and took a shower. Then I headed out and located a cafe with a bank of computers. There were a lot of messages in my in-box, all of which I disregarded except Roger van Zandt’s. He had traced the email used by Sara’s broker to an apartment block in south Manhattan. I added him to the list of things to be done in New York. Then I went on the internet and did a search for ‘Hercules.’ Bingo. Third from the top, after a TV series and a thrash metal band, was Hercules Solutions, a company described as having ‘private security and military expertise.’ I logged on to its website, which had numerous bells, whistles and links-and a corporate logo with an image of the ancient hero gripping a pair of snakes that looked very like the one I’d seen on the big guy’s disappearing cap badge. The bottom line was that H.S. was a world leader in the provision of security for individuals, businesses and sovereign states; it also ran training courses at all levels and had compounds in several U.S. states and foreign countries. Were these the people behind the Hades complex? I clicked about the site, but found no locations in Texas-the nearest camp, ‘a fully integrated firing range, physical training and operations center,’ was in northern Oklahoma. Going back to the home page, I saw a picture of a smiling, middle-aged man, whose face was smooth as a baby’s and whose brown hair looked like it had been dyed a dozen times. He was the company’s chairman and CEO, and he was also a Baptist preacher-the Reverend Rudi Crane. I’d have moved quickly on, having a severely limited tolerance for men of the cloth, but I noticed a link to his forthcoming engagements. Tomorrow he would be attending the UN Climate Change Conference in New York-Hercules Solutions being committed to the most economical and sustainable use of resources in all its global activities.

Things were coming together at a frightening rate. I did a search for March Violet Partners. The Director had been right. The company was registered in Liberia but, unlike the H.S. site, there were minimal links and very little information was given out, although one of its subsidiaries was Cerberus Security. The holding company was involved in international trade and consultancy, but it didn’t say in what commodities and services. There were few references to it elsewhere, and nothing linking it either to Texas or to Hercules Solutions. Perhaps I’d have to ask the Reverend Crane himself. Maybe the Director could introduce us. I had no doubt that they would know each other.

‘Good coffee?’ Special Agent Simonsen asked when he picked me up outside the hotel. There was a hint of a smile on his thin lips.

‘I only drink tea,’ I lied. It didn’t surprise me that I was being watched. The Feds could check what I’d been doing on the computer, but it would take time and I had the feeling that everything would come to a head in New York soon.

The hospital was a military one, a lot better organized and staffed than the facility in the camp where Karen and our son had died. I pushed them from my thoughts, feeling like a traitor-the only way I would get through this was by focusing on the worrying number of targets I was gathering.

‘Quincy,’ I said, as I approached the tube-festooned, monitor-haunted bed in the single room where he lay. ‘How goes it?’ His upper body was swathed in bandages.

He looked up with initial bewilderment, and then recognized me. ‘Matt,’ he said, his voice rough from the feeding tube that had been inserted down his throat. ‘You okay?’

‘You should see the other guys. What about you?’

‘I’ll live,’ he said, frowning as he tried to move an arm. ‘Got a smashed shoulder on one side and a collapsed lung on the other. They say I’ll come through.’

‘Shit, I’m sorry, Quincy,’ I said, wiping his forehead with a tissue. ‘I didn’t think Sara…would…’ I let the words trail away as guilt flooded through me. Of course I knew she would kill him; that was what she did. I should have tried to stop her.

‘Forget it, man. What happened to her?’

‘I…I killed her. Rothmann’s dead, too, not by my hand. He killed the hit man Apollyon.’

‘Jeez, I missed a big show.’ He took a ragged breath. ‘Matt, I-’

I raised a hand. ‘Don’t talk, Quincy. You need to rest. I’m just glad to see you alive and doing well.’ I leaned closer. ‘Listen, did you ever hear of a company called Hercules Solutions?’

‘Shit, yeah,’ he gasped. ‘I…I was seconded…to them in… Iraq. They…they were cowboys. Paid…a fortune and killed anything that moved, ’specially after some of their people got…taken out.’

‘They’re run by a reverend.’

‘Yeah, I met him out there…’

‘Really? What’s he like?’

Quincy coughed painfully. When he finished, I saw that a smile had formed on his lips. ‘He…he makes like he’s full of love for everyone, but he still lives and breathes the old South. I didn’t tell you I was Jewish, did I? So…so I made sure my Star of David was obvious. He…couldn’t get out of shaking my hand, but he…looked like he wanted to spit in my face.’

It had never occurred to me that Quincy might be a Jew. Knowing that, I was even happier that he had escaped from the coven of racist shitheads with his life. I put my hand on his forearm. ‘Okay, my friend, that’s enough. I’m going to go now.’

‘No, Matt, I-’

‘Shh,’ I said, stepping back. ‘I’ll see you in a day or two.’

I heard his voice again as I reached the door. He was calling my name. A nurse brushed past, shooting me a furious look. I felt bad that I’d disturbed him, but at least I knew what kind of scumbag Rudi Crane was. How much good that would do me, I couldn’t tell. Then I thought of the Indian and Pakistani troops in the Hades complex. Had the color of their skins led to them being treated as cannon fodder? That wouldn’t have surprised me at all.

The Bureau plane landed at La Guardia at ten the next morning. The Director sat opposite me during the flight and tried to get me talking about Rothmann. I brushed him off without being rude and looked through the early editions of the newspapers. They all carried stories about the climate change conference to be hosted by the UN at its headquarters. The world’s main players would be there, but most attention was being paid to the Russians and Chinese, both of whom had indicated that they were finally prepared to make cuts in their emissions. This chimed with the U.S.’s new approach to the issue. Although the President wasn’t attending the first sessions, he would be at the Secretary-General’s dinner in the evening, while the secretary of state and several other cabinet members would represent the U.S. during the day. Writers were supposed to have big egos, but I still wasn’t sure why the Director had asked me along. Maybe he thought my presence alongside him would arouse media interest in advance of the evening press conference.

We were driven to a hotel on East 42nd Street, only a short walk from the UN complex. Rain was pouring down and Simonsen handed me an umbrella. I was glad it didn’t bear the letters FBI in bright yellow-I still had mixed feelings about the Bureau, given that my family died on its watch. We met in the lobby shortly afterward and I was handed a laminated UN tag with my photo and name and a bar code underneath.

‘Right, are you ready to talk the talk?’ the Director asked.

His use of the slang expression surprised me. He was wearing a suit that must have cost several thousand dollars, as well as a putrid yellow tie. I had again declined the suit I’d been given and stuck to smart but casual, no tie. I had nothing to prove, at least not on the sartorial front.

Security at the glass tower on the East River was tight and even the Director’s group had to pass through several scanners. Although there were armed personnel outside the building, there was no sign of weapons inside. That was reassuring, though I was sure the security detail was carrying concealed handguns. At least there wouldn’t be a rerun of the Washington Cathedral massacre, where members of the armed forces conditioned by the Rothmanns had fired automatic rifles into the crowd. Then again, why would anyone want to disrupt a climate change conference? Even the automobile lobby had begun to accept there was a problem. If a private security firm like Hercules Solutions could play the eco card, surely there was hope for the world.

Which reminded me. Where was the Reverend Rudi Crane? I wanted to have a look at him. I glanced round and was surprised by the person who had appeared behind me.

Crane led his group of executives toward the elevators in the UN building’s entrance hall. The security checks had been adequate, although he would have advised even more care if H.S. had handled the work. You could never tell what kind of demented terrorist might sneak into a gathering like this-the place was full of former communists: Muslims, Africans with a grudge against the civilized world, even misguided Europeans who thought the U.S. was the devil. They were benighted sinners, all of them.

Crane told himself to keep his breathing steady. He had struggled to do that sometimes in the field, resulting in costly reprisals against militias in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan. His personal rule was that the body count always had to favor H.S. or its subsidiaries, even if the numbers of enemy dead were inflated by noncombatant women and children. Some people called them collateral damage, but he preferred the company jargon, ‘fertilizer.’ Those people weren’t human beings, they were animals, put on earth for the benefit of their betters.

Entering the large conference hall, he took a deep breath. Even here, there was a hint of the high smell you got in underdeveloped countries, that mixture of sweat, excrement and death. It filled his nostrils and almost made him puke. Good Lord, give me strength, he prayed silently. It wasn’t the first time he had made that request today. The news from Texas had been bad. At least his supervisor there had managed to convince the FBI that he had been kidnapped by the ‘foreigners’ who ran the camp-who were now supposedly on the run. As instructed, he had mentioned March Violet Partners-much joy might they have of that carefully constructed ghost. The fact that Thomson/Rothmann/ the Master was dead, as were the assassins, was positive. No trails led back to him, as long as Xavier Marias held his well-paid tongue.

Cameras clicked ahead of him and people crowded around men in dark suits. One group had almond eyes and off-white skin-the Chinese: communist hypocrites who were doing their best to destroy American power. The others were mainly fair-haired, with high cheekbones and greedy eyes-the Russians: no longer communists, but liars and thieves whose former soldiers-turned-mercenaries were H.S.’s biggest competitors. How could anyone entrust degenerates like those with personal, corporate or national security?

If there was any justice, the Lord would smite them all with his glorious thunder, but Rudi Crane knew praying for that would be sinful. Maybe he would be lucky-it would hardly be the first time; maybe some individual or group with a justified grievance would take action.

He looked around the international crowd in expensive suits and curious national costumes, but didn’t see any likely candidates. Then he caught sight of a familiar figure. The Director of the FBI was striding purposefully toward the Russian delegation. But who was that man behind him, wearing inappropriately informal clothes? Surely he had seen images of those features very recently.

The nurses were still angry with Quincy Jerome’s visitor. The patient had been upset all evening, pressing the call button frequently and repeating the name ‘Matt’ over and over. He had become delirious and had been given medication. When he woke in the morning, he started the litany again.

What could it be that he wanted to tell the Englishman so much?