Lost (40 page)

“We're going to scare the son of a bitch half to death,” he says excitedly.

Pete looks at me. “You got sunglasses—wear them. And don't look at the light. You only have a few seconds to grab him while he's disoriented.” We give Moley a ten-minute head start. Weatherman Pete and I keep on opposite sides of the tunnel, feeling our way blindly along the wal s and stepping in oily puddles and nests of leaves.

Slowly the tunnel begins to change in character. The roof slopes down where the roadway above has been cut into the old ceiling. The Portakabins are just ahead of me. I can see the faint yel ow glow of the lantern, leaking around the edges of a window that has been covered up or taped over.

Crouching, I wait for Moley. He could be right next to me and I wouldn't know it. My mouth is dry. For two days I've been popping codeine forte and craving morphine, tel ing myself my leg doesn't hurt and it's just my imagination.

What happens next wouldn't find a place in many training manuals. The explosion of noise is so sudden and ferocious it feels like I've been shot from a cannon. Darkness turns to light, as a flare of bril iant white arcs overhead and lands in the doorway of the nearest Portakabin.

Squinting into the dazzling ivory, my eyes sting. I see nothing but white. Turning my face away, I begin to move, crossing the last ten feet to the door. The second flash-bang explodes and a shape comes bursting out the entrance, with legs pumping in midair as though trying to gain traction. Blinded by the light, he runs smack into the far wal and almost knocks himself unconscious.

I grab him from behind, locking my arms around his waist. He pitches to the left, arms flailing. Both of us crash into a puddle. I don't let go. Pul ing his arm behind his back, I try to put on the cuffs. He snaps his head back like he did to Ali but I'm ready.

Keeping behind him, I straddle his torso and twist his arm until he roars. He's fighting blindly, arching his spine to reach me. I wrap my forearm around his neck, cutting off his windpipe. With my arm squeezing his throat, I add more weight, pushing his face into the floor. He can't breathe. His legs are twitching as if he's made of rubber.

I could kil him now, so easily. I could hold on until he suffocates or I could snap his neck. So what if he dies? It's no great loss to humanity. There won't be any grand achievements left unfulfil ed or prizes unclaimed. The only mark Gerry Brandt was ever likely to leave on the world was a bloodstain.

My forearm loosens and I let his head drop. It makes a dul noise against the concrete. He's gasping for breath.

Dragging his other arm behind his back, I snap on the handcuffs and rol away. Stumbling to my feet I look down at him for a moment. Dark hair spikes from his head and pieces of crushed glass are stuck to his cheekbone. A thin line of blood trickles past his ear as the burning flares begin to die out.

There are police sirens in the distance. “Come on, let's get him out of here.”

“Are we going to get in trouble?” asks Moley, fal ing into step beside Weatherman Pete.

“You'l be fine. Get to the van and let me do the talking.”

We're almost at the end of the tunnel. The gate gives off a hol ow clang as it opens. Two armed response vehicles have pul ed onto the ramp beside the van. The officers are armed with MP5 carbines. An unmarked police car pul s up alongside them. “New Boy” Dave gets out, along with Campbel who walks like he's got bowling bal s down his Y-fronts.

“Arrest him,” he yel s, pointing at me instead of my prisoner.

Gerry Brandt raises his head. “I didn't mean to do it. I let her go.”

“Where is she?”

He shakes his head. “I let her go.”

“What did you do with Mickey?”

“You got to tel Mr. Kuznet, I let her go.”

A red dot appears on his cheek, just above where he's bleeding. For a moment it catches in his eye, making him blink, and then rises to his forehead. Recognition jars inside me but it's too late. In a fleeting puff of blood and vapor, he spins and fal s.

The bul et, fired from somewhere above, has passed through his cheek, down his neck and exited below his col arbone. I can't hold him. He's six one and more than two hundred pounds. He carries me down. I rol away, letting gravity take over, bouncing my head against the cobblestones until I strike the wal .

The ramp is empty. People have scattered like cockroaches. Only Gerry Brandt is unmoved by it al , lying with his jacket half covering his head, slowly soaking up the blood.

There are no more shots. One was enough.

33

According to the experts the world is going to end in five thousand mil ion years when the sun swel s up and engulfs the innermost planets and turns the rest of them into charcoal. I've always imagined it more like a dual second coming, where Jesus and Charlton Heston compete to see who gets the final word. I don't suppose I'l be around.

This is what I think about as I sit in the backseat of a police car, watching them photograph Gerry Brandt's body. Teams of armed officers are going door to door, searching shops, offices and flats. They won't find anything. The sniper is long gone.

Campbel has also slipped away, escaping from me. I fol owed him al the way to his car, yel ing, “Who did you tel ? Who knew?” The moment I phoned for backup, somebody put in a separate cal , tipping off Aleksei. How else did the sniper know where to find Brandt? It's the only logical explanation.

A dozen police officers walk in single file down the ramp, peering between their polished boots at the cobblestones and sodden leaves. A handful of Camden Council workers watch the proceedings as though they're going to be tested on it later.

This whole business reeks of a setup. The guilty are gunned down and innocent people get caught in the crossfire. Howard might be one of them. I stil can't figure out where he fits into al this, but I can picture him, lying on his prison bunk, planning his first days of freedom.

Child molesters sleep the sleep of the damned in prison. They listen to their names being whispered from cel to cel , turning to a chant as the noise rises and becomes a frightening symphony that must open and close their sphincters like the wings of a butterfly.

The SOCO team, dressed in white overal s, has set up arc lights on mobile gantries, casting grotesque shadows against the wal s. Noonan is in charge, shouting into a tape recorder: “I'm looking at a wel -developed, wel -nourished white male. A light purple contusion is visible on the left forehead and another over the bridge of the nose. He may have fal en after the shooting or someone hit him in the face prior to the shooting . . .”

“New Boy” Dave hands me a coffee. It tastes like tar and brings back memories of surveil ance operations and endless predawn shifts.

Noonan rol s the body over and checks the pockets and lining. His hand emerges with a smal foil packet wedged between his fingertips.

Dave screws up his face. “Wel if you ask me, I'm glad he's dead.”

I guess that's understandable given what happened to Ali. He doesn't understand why I needed Gerry alive. Dave loosens his tie and undoes the top button of his shirt.

“They say you're trying to destroy the Howard Wavel conviction.”

“No.”

“They also say you stole diamonds from Aleksei Kuznet. They say you're bent.”

“What do you think?”

“Ali doesn't think so.”

A double-decker bus rumbles by, glowing red and yel ow. Bored faces peer out from the bright interior, heads resting against the glass. London doesn't seem so exciting from this angle. The landmarks are rendered featureless by the gloom and there is no magic in the Monopoly board names.

I am under arrest. Campbel insisted on it. At least Dave hasn't bothered with handcuffs so my past must count for something. I could even handle the police officers staring at me, if one of them was Ali and she'd never been involved in this.

After SOCO has finished at the crime scene, I'm driven to the Harrow Road Police Station and taken through a back door into the charge room. I know the dril . Strands of hair are sealed in plastic. Saliva and skin cel s dampen a cotton swab. My fingers are pressed in ink. Afterward I am taken to an interview room rather than a police cel .

They make me wait. I lean forward, with my elbows braced on my knees, counting the pop rivets on the side of the table. This is al part of any interrogation. Silence can be more important than the questions.

When Keebal final y arrives, he carries a large bundle of files and proceeds to shuffle through the papers. Most of them probably have nothing to do with me but he wants me to think evidence is stacking up against me. Everybody is having fun today.

Keebal likes to pretend he's a patient man but it's bul shit. Maybe it's the Rom blood in me but I can sit opposite someone al day and not say a thing. Gypsies are like Sicilians.

We can share a drink and be smiling our heads off while out of sight a knife or a shotgun is pointed directly at the other guy's stomach.

Final y he turns on the tape recorder, giving the time, date and names of everybody present.

He pats his coiffed hair. “I hear you got your memory back.”

“Can we do this later? You obviously have an appointment at a beauty parlor.”

He stops touching himself and glares at me.

“At approximately 1600 hours on September 25, you were given a briefcase containing 965 one carat and above, superior-quality diamonds. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“When did you last see these diamonds?”

I feel my stomach lurch as if an internal gear has suddenly engaged. I can stil picture the packages spil ing from the sports bag beneath my linen cupboard. A dry thunder is pounding in my head—the beginnings of a migraine. “I don't know.”

“Did you give them to someone?”

“No.”

“What were these diamonds for?”

“You know the answer to that question.”

“For the benefit of the tape, please answer the question.”

“A ransom.”

He doesn't bat an eyelid. I'm doing just what he wants—digging myself deeper into a hole. I start at the beginning, recounting the whole story. I have nothing left to lose, but at least I'm getting it down. There'l be a record somewhere if something happens to me. I tel him about the ransom demand, the strands of hair, the bikini and my journey through the sewers.

For the next ninety minutes I relate the details. Hundreds of cumulative hours are condensed and laid out like stepping-stones for him to fol ow. Even so, it sounds more like a confessional than an interrogation.

Keebal looks like he should be sel ing used cars or life insurance. “You admit you were present on the boat when Ray Murphy died?”

“Yes.”

“And you say the diamonds were in packages on the deck?”

“Yes.”

“Was there a tracking device with the diamonds?”

“Yes.”

“When you went overboard did you take the diamonds?”

“No.”

“You were the last person to see them. I think you know where they are.”

“That's an interesting theory.”

“I think they're tucked under your mattress at home?”

“Could be.”

He studies my face, looking for the lie. It's there. He just can't see it.

“Let me help you out,” he says. “Next time you try to steal a ransom, remember to take the tracking device out. Otherwise someone might fol ow you and realize what you're doing.”

“How is Aleksei? How much is he paying you to recover his diamonds?”

Keebal tightens his lips and sighs through his nose like I've disappointed him.

“Tel me this,” I ask him. “A sniper put a bul et in my leg and I nearly bled to death. Eight days I lay in a coma. You think I took the diamonds. How? When?” A sense of triumph is stenciled on his face. “I'l tel you how—they never left your house. You helped set this whole thing up—the ransom letters, the DNA tests . . . you fooled everyone. And the people who know the truth keep dying when you're around. First it was Ray Murphy and then Gerry Brandt . . .” Keebal can't real y believe any of this. It's crazy. I always had him pegged as a fanatic but the man has squirrels juggling knives in his head.

“I got shot.”

“Maybe because you tried to double-cross them.”

I'm shouting at him now. “You cal ed Aleksei. You told him where he could find Gerry Brandt. Al these years you've been persecuting honest cops and now we see your true colors—yel ow right through.”

In the silence I can hear my clothes creasing. Keebal thinks he knows. He knows nothing.

The Professor col ects me just after 5:00 p.m.

“How are you?”

“I stil have my health.”

“That's good.”

I savor the sound of my shoes on the tarmac, pleased to be free. Keebal didn't have enough to hold me and there isn't a magistrate in the land who would deny me bail with my record of service.

Joe's office is stil ful of our ragtag task force, manning telephones and tapping at keyboards. They're searching electoral rol s and reverse phone directories. Someone has pinned a photograph of Mickey to the window—to remind everyone of why we're here.

The familiar faces acknowledge me—Roger, Margaret, Jean, Eric and Rebecca—along with a few new ones, two of Ali's brothers.