Cowboy Angels (21 page)

‘I’ve told you everything Tom told me. Unless you want to read me my rights and turn this into a formal interrogation, I believe we’re done.’

‘We need to make sure we have everything squared away,’ Dvorak said. ‘Mr Waverly told you that Dr Barrie was part of this mysterious black op.’

‘Operation GYPSY,’ Stone said. ‘And he didn’t exactly say she was involved. I asked him if she was part of it, and he said, what do you think?’

Dvorak made a mark on the screen of her palmtop, as if crossing off an item on a shopping list. She was generically attractive but prim and self-contained, completely lacking any sexual presence. One of those people who look exactly like their ID photograph. Her light brown hair was done up in a French braid and Stone could see an earpiece in her left ear, with a coiled wire running inside the collar of her blouse. He was certain that Kohler was watching the interview behind the two-way mirror and feeding her questions.

‘Did Mr Waverly say anything about Dr Barrie’s role in this so-called black op?’ she said.

‘No, he didn’t.’

‘Did he tell you where he first met her?’

‘No.’

‘Did he tell you how long he had known her?’

‘No.’

‘Did he know her before he disappeared and allegedly joined the black op?’

‘I don’t recall that he ever mentioned her name before today,’ Stone said, and suppressed a yawn. His exhaustion had taken on a voluptuous weight, and the air in the little room was stale and stuffy. ‘I really want to help, but I think we’ve pretty much wrung the juice out of this.’

‘Bear with us for just a little longer, Mr Stone,’ Carella said. He was in his thirties, with a relaxed manner and sharp blue eyes and black hair brushed straight back from his forehead.

Dvorak said, ‘Mr Waverly told you that he was killing Dr Barrie’s doppels because he wanted to make a difference. Do you have any idea what he meant by that?

‘No, I don’t. I
do
know that this black op, GYPSY, has something to do with a couple of gates and a research facility. And Tom mentioned something about delivering a few megatons somewhere, so a nuclear weapon may be involved . . . But you already know all about this, don’t you?’

‘It’s not a question of what we do or do not know, Mr Stone,’ Dvorak said. ‘It’s a question of reconstructing your conversation with Mr Waverly.’

‘Tom told me he killed Nathan Tate because Tate was part of GYPSY. What about the rest of Knightly’s cowboy angels? Some of them could be involved too. Have you checked them out?’

‘You can bet we’ll be checking out every angle,’ Carella said.

‘I’m not interested in flattery,’ Stone said, speaking to the mirrored window behind the two agents. ‘But I
am
interested in how much you already know about this thing. How much you already knew when you sent me after Tom. How much you kept back from me.’

Dvorak glanced at her watch and said briskly, ‘You’ve had a hard day, Mr Stone, and we’ve kept you up for far too long. We’ll have to go over this again, of course, and work up a formal statement. But I think we’re done for now.’

‘You did a good job,’ Carella said. ‘We really do appreciate your cooperation.’

‘I came here to help out an old friend, and now he’s dead. What exactly do you mean by a good job?’

Stone wasn’t angry with the two officers. He was angry with himself.

‘You need to get some rest, Mr Stone,’ Dvorak said, and with a stab of her stylus switched off her palmtop. ‘We’ll escort you back to the Real tomorrow. You’ll complete your debriefing at Langley, and then you’ll be able to return to the First Foot sheaf. If you have any questions, I’m sure that the debriefing team will do their best to answer them.’

‘If your boss is behind that two-way mirror, I’d like to ask him a few questions right now. I’d like to talk to him about Linda Waverly.’

‘Perhaps you’ll have an opportunity to speak with him before you leave for Langley,’ Dvorak said.

‘I’m sure he appreciates your help,’ Carella said.

‘Linda Waverly is young, she doesn’t have much field experience, and her father just now killed himself,’ Stone said. ‘If she’s holding out on you, it’s either because she’s in shock, or it’s because she feels that she can still help him. Help redeem his honour, help finish what he started, whatever. Tom Waverly told her that I’d help her. If you let me talk to her—’

‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible,’ Dvorak said.

The two officers stood up, and Stone did too. He had a sense of things closing around him, shutting him out. He said, ‘I do have one more question.’

Dvorak raised an eyebrow.

‘Tom Waverly was seriously ill. He more or less told me he was dying. What was wrong with him? And don’t tell me you don’t know. Your pathologist will have autopsied him by now.’

Dvorak looked past Stone for a moment, listening to her earpiece. She said, ‘Apparently, Mr Waverly was suffering from some kind of advanced cancer.’

‘Some kind of cancer? What kind?’

‘That’s all I can tell you, Mr Stone.’

‘Right. Why is it I keep hearing that?’

Stone was driven to the Plaza Hotel and escorted to his room by three officers. One of them, a lantern-jawed veteran with a salt-and-pepper crew cut, told him that they would be posted right outside the door.

‘Your phone has been disconnected so you won’t be bothered by locals. If you need anything from room service, give your order to one of us. We’ll pass it right along.’

‘Am I under arrest?’

‘We have orders to confine you to your room for security reasons,’ the officer said, returning Stone’s hard stare.

‘“Confine”,’ Stone said. ‘You want to tell me the difference between “confine” and “imprison”?’

‘It’s for your own safety, Mr Stone.’

‘Is there a specific threat? Does it have a name?’

‘We’re not at liberty to say. But don’t worry, we’ll take good care of you.’

Stone took a shower and put on the towelling robe hung on the back of the bathroom door and sat at the window, staring at the dark trees beyond the streetlights along Central Park South. His thoughts moved in slow, futile circles. He still didn’t know how much the Company knew about GYPSY, or what GYPSY was, or how Dick Knightly had been involved. He didn’t know if it was still running or if it had been busted and Tom Waverly had been a loose end. He didn’t much care. His part in this was nearly over. All he wanted to do before he went home was speak to Linda Waverly, persuade her to give up whatever it was her father had told her back in the motel room, convince her that it was in her own best interest to let the Company deal with it . . .

He dozed off in the chair and was woken a few hours later by one of his guards. The man laid out a white shirt and a black suit on the bed, brought in a breakfast tray, and told Stone that he would be leaving in thirty minutes.

It was seven in the morning. Crows were busy around the corpses hung on the row of gallows. Traffic was beginning to build up, horns and distant sirens muffled by the room’s triple glazing. Stone did several sets of sit-ups and squat-thrusts, took a shower, hot then cold, and shaved and dressed. He was nibbling a piece of dry toast and sipping a cup of black coffee when someone knocked at the door.

It was David Welch, uncharacteristically rumpled. He closed the door and stood with his back to it and said, ‘I have some bad news.’

Stone’s first thought was that something had happened to Linda Waverly.

Welch said, ‘There’s been an incident at New Amsterdam. Susan Nichols was shot.’

Stone jumped to his feet and Welch braced himself and said quickly, ‘It was two days ago. The news took a while to get through to us via the Real. I came over as soon as I heard.’

Stone’s body was flooded with adrenalin. His fists were raised. He was ready to defend himself from something he couldn’t fight. ‘She was shot. What does that mean?’

He couldn’t ask if she was alive or dead.

Welch shook his head and said, ‘I’m as sorry as hell, Adam.’

‘What about Petey?’

‘Her son’s fine. Got away without a scratch.’

Stone took a deep breath, filling his lungs all the way to the bottom, and let it out slowly. He had to stay calm. He had to stay calm so that he could work out what to do next.

‘Tell me everything.’

It didn’t take long. Two people, a man and a woman, had broken into the cabin at the farm just before midnight. Something must have alerted Susan - probably her dog, its body had been found near the barn - because she’d had time to wake her son and tell him to run to the neighbours’ house as quickly as he could.

‘We don’t know exactly what happened after that, but there must have been some kind of confrontation,’ Welch said. ‘Mrs Nichols shot the man dead and wounded the woman. And the woman shot her.’

‘Susan kept a pistol by her bed,’ Stone said. ‘Her husband was in the army - it was his sidearm.’

‘She knew how to use it. She killed the guy with two shots to the chest,’ Welch said, placing his thumb and forefinger close together over his heart.

‘Who were they?’

‘The dead guy is an ex-Marine. Buddy Altman. He worked for a firm of security consultants that supplies bodyguards for celebrities, that kind of thing. We’re turning it over right now, investigating everyone who had any business with it.’

‘What about the woman?’

Welch looked at Stone, looked away.

Stone said, ‘It’s someone I know, isn’t it?’

‘Marsha Mason.’

‘Jesus Christ.’

‘My sentiments exactly,’ Welch said.

‘Was it quick? When she killed Susan?’

‘Are you sure you want to talk about this now, Adam?’

‘Answer the question.’

‘Mrs Nichols shot and killed Altman, and wounded Marsha in the thigh. Marsha had a machine pistol, and we believe Mrs Nichols was killed instantaneously when Marsha fired off an entire clip.’

‘Susan wounded Marsha, and Marsha killed Susan. What happened after that? What about Petey?’

‘The kid managed to get to the neighbours.’

‘Susan bought time for him. She saved his life.’

‘That’s what I think,’ Welch said. ‘Mrs Nichols’s pistol made a pretty big hole in Marsha’s thigh. She packed the wound and bandaged it, but she couldn’t travel. A search party found her early the next morning, hiding in the barn. They also found an inflatable boat hidden in reeds on the river bank.’

‘I want to talk to her,’ Stone said.

‘Marsha killed herself soon after she was captured,’ Welch said. ‘A cyanide pill.’

‘She was involved in the black op, wasn’t she? In GYPSY.’

‘We believe it was a kidnap that went bad. Altman and Marsha were probably planning to snatch your friend and her son, hide them somewhere in the forest, and ask you to offer yourself in exchange.’

‘They must have made their move as soon as I was brought into this. How did they know? Who told them?’

‘Only three people were privy to the decision to ask for your help, Adam: the DCI, Ralph Kohler, and me. But a lot more knew about it after you came in, of course, and knew about that message Tom left, too. It’s going to take a little time to check everyone, but if we’re lucky, if we can find who ratted you out, we might be able to unravel this whole thing.’

‘How did Marsha and this ex-Marine get into the sheaf?’

‘They could have posed as locals returning home, or tourists. They could have smuggled themselves in with a freight shipment, or they could have waited until the gate was activated when a train was about to go through, and simply walked in ahead of it. We do know that an all-terrain vehicle was stolen from a farm at First Foot some time in the afternoon. It’s possible they used it to get to the East River, and then used that inflatable to get across to New Amsterdam. We haven’t found the stolen ATV yet, but we’re looking hard. We’re checking everything, Adam.’

‘They planned to kidnap Susan and Petey, offer a straight exchange. And after I surrendered myself, they were going to put me to the question, find out exactly what Tom told me . . . Except I hadn’t found Tom, two days ago. I’d only just arrived here, in New York. So either they were confident I would find him, and desperate to know what he might tell me, or this wasn’t about anything I might find out. It was an attempt to force me to quit the search before it began.’

‘You need to calm down, Adam. Sit. Let me get you a drink.’

‘Susan was murdered. And the Company sat on the news until I found Tom. That’s why I was confined to this room, isn’t it?’

‘I wouldn’t know anything about that,’ Welch said. ‘And this isn’t the time to be making wild accusations—’

‘Fuck it, David. We both know how the Company works. This thing that Tom Waverly was involved in. GYPSY. It isn’t just a few rogue operators with some crazy, half-assed plan, is it? And don’t tell me you don’t know anything about it, either. There are rumours that something big is going down inside the Company, and you’re not only a well-connected guy, you’re also my handler.’

‘I was brought into this on a need-to-know basis, just like you,’ Welch said.

‘They didn’t tell you anything about GYPSY? Come on.’

‘Well, I did hear something on the old Chinese telephone—’

‘And?’

‘It’s only rumour, Adam. It isn’t hard information.’

‘
And?’

‘It seems that a group of people inside the Company may have been planning some kind of coup,’ Welch said. ‘Possibly involving the assassination of the President.’

‘Was it something to do with a nuclear weapon?’

‘I heard there was a raid on a clandestine facility, but I don’t know any details.’

‘Tom Waverly was involved. So was Marsha Mason, and so was Nathan Tate, which is why Tom had no scruples about shooting him. And Knightly was involved, too, before he had his stroke. Who else? How deep does it go, David? What have I stepped into?’