The Nameless Dead (8 page)

The major was surprised, though he didn’t show it. Since when did the FBI stand back in a case like this? he asked himself. Then he thought about the potential consequences. If the killer was hard to catch, there was nothing but failure and opprobrium in store for the officer in charge of the investigation. Which meant two things. Slim Andy needed to keep a close eye on the Bureau’s head of violent crime. And it was time he did some serious delegation himself.

T
here was a flash of white light and I came round. Doctors Brown and Rivers huddled at the foot of the bed. I let them confer for a while, my mouth and lips drier than raisins. Finally they noticed that my eyes were open.

‘You’re awake!’ Rivers’s face was unusually animated.

I looked at his colleague. Alexandra Brown’s cheeks were glowing and her eyes were bright.

‘Fantastic, Matt,’ she said, gripping my forearm. ‘You did really well.’

I was glad she was happy, but I was still tied down and desperate for a drink. I looked pointedly at the cup on the bedside table.

‘Undo the straps,’ I gasped, after I’d been given water through a straw.

They glanced at each other.

‘Not yet,’ Rivers said. ‘Dr. Brown’s protocol is that we must wait an hour.’

‘Wonderful. So what happened? I heard music, the Who, I think, then I was falling…’

‘I’ll need you to tell me everything you can,’ the
woman said. ‘But the results I have so far are very encouraging. Your readings are better than I ever expected.’ She was like a schoolgirl with a new crush, though not on a human, but a process.

‘Calm down, Alex,’ I said.

She shot me a look that was slightly less icy than normal. ‘Excuse me. I’ve been working on this for a long time.’

‘Good for you. Just tell me what it means for me.’

‘Very well.’ She went back to efficient-scientist mode. ‘It’s difficult to describe for the layman. Basically we tapped into the deepest levels of your memory. Much of the data will need extensive analysis before its significance can be established. The process caused you to speak numerous words in German that we think were triggers. The reverse-conditioning action that I have built into the procedure means that those words will no longer provoke you into predetermined courses of action.’

‘Try me.’

She looked at Dr. Rivers, who nodded. They went over to the bank of screens at the foot of the bed.

‘Blaue Reiter,’ she said.

I felt absolutely nothing.

‘Remarkable,’ Rivers said. ‘Quite remarkable.’

‘Machtergreifung.’

The same again.

‘Wohlauf.’

Ditto, and so on. In every case, I remained completely unaffected. That was unlike the sessions I’d had with Rivers, when I always had to fight the triggers’ effects consciously, with varying degrees of success.

‘Congratulations, Dr. Brown,’ Rivers said, gripping
her hand. If he hadn’t been such a dry old stick I’d have bet on him inviting her for a candlelit dinner when we were done.

‘That isn’t all, Mr. Wells,’ the female scientist said, levels of formality in the lab now fully restored. ‘You also gave certain information that I think will interest our FBI colleagues substantially.’

‘What information?’

‘Please, Mr. Wells,’ Rivers said. ‘You can’t expect us to share classified material with you.’

‘Classified material? You just said it came from me. Why can’t I know what it is?’

He was looking uncomfortable. ‘Those are the rules.’

Dr. Brown was getting excited again. ‘Are you sure you have no recollection of what you said?’

I shook my head. ‘I fell for a long time. After that, I found myself walking through a forest, and then crossing a river on a small boat. There was smoke in the air and I heard voices, a lot of them crying. I went through a ruined city, but there was no one around. Just more voices…’ The scene seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

‘That’s very gratifying,’ Dr. Brown said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘The “katabasis” was induced by my process,’ she said proudly.

I found my bearings. It so happened that I knew what the term meant—a descent, specifically to the Underworld. When I was at college studying English, I did a project on the literary tradition of such journeys. I’d always been fascinated by the depiction of hell in Milton’s
Paradise Lost
. That had led me in all sorts
of strange directions: from Wilfred Owen’s subterranean First World War trench poems, to the trips to the death god’s realm described by Homer and Virgil, to the urban wastelands of T.S. Eliot. I’d brought in works of art, too—ancient vases and sculptures showing Charon and Cerberus, visions of demonic horror by Hieronymus Bosch and Peter Brueghel, Rodin’s sculpted
Gates of Hell
. The fact that the Rothmann conspiracy had involved a satanic cult called the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant and had previously spawned a killer who left maps of hell attached to the victims meant that the literary and artistic traditions had extra significance for me, no matter what Alexandra Brown’s drugs and other methods of suggestion had brought out.

‘So you did brainwash me.’

She gave me an imperious look. ‘Certainly not. My process is directed toward the extraction of material from subjects, not the insertion of predetermined stimuli. The emphasis is on making use of structures already present. Do you have some knowledge of underworld voyages?’

‘You’ve read my file. My whole life has been one of those recently. What about the triggers?’

‘What about them?’ said Rivers.

‘Wakey, wakey, Lester. Do you think Alex here’s process has nailed them all?’

‘Please don’t call me that,’ the pale woman said.

‘How about Sandra? Or Lexie?’

‘Please, Mr. Wells.’ She was irritated. One-nil to me.

‘Probably,’ Rivers said, in a low voice.

‘Is that a scientific term?’ I asked.

‘Unfortunately it is,’ he replied. ‘We have now iden
tified a total of one hundred and seven trigger words and phrases. The likelihood is that there are few, if any, remaining.’

‘It’ll only take one,’ I said, remembering the murders in the cathedral. That shut them up.

Eventually they loosed my bonds and let me go. My legs were unsteady and there was a vile metallic taste in my mouth. Dr. Brown said those side effects would soon disappear. I hoped the same could be said for any psychological effects of her process.

On my way out of the lab, to my surprise, I saw that it was after four in the morning. The gorilla had been told to escort me all the way back to our apartment. I managed not to screw with him by turning into a werewolf on the way. Karen was awake, but drowsy, so I kissed her and lay down beside her.

‘What happened?’

‘They told you I’d be late, didn’t they?’

‘Yes. What was Rivers doing?’

‘He’s got a new sidekick. Dr. Alexandra ‘I’m Pale Because I Only Come Out at Night’ Brown. She’s not only a grade-one weirdo, but she’s got a process.’

‘That sounds worrying.’

I gave her a rundown, wondering if she’d be put through it after she’d given birth. Were the drugs safe? Then I felt myself heading rapidly toward sleep’s Niagara Falls. I managed to kiss her again before my barrel went into the watery void. My last thoughts were: what exactly was in Dr. Brown’s pharmaceutical cocktail? And was I about to set off on a trip to hell?

I woke up with a clear head and serious hunger, having had no dinner the previous evening. It was nearly
noon. Karen was encamped on the sofa, watching a kids’ cartoon on TV.

‘I’m getting in training,’ she said.

‘Yeah, we’ll be seeing a lot of those in the next few years. How do you feel?’

‘All right, I suppose. My appetite seems to have gone walkabout.’

‘So you don’t fancy a full English?’

She gave me a foxy smile. ‘As in breakfast? No, thanks.’

‘Sexual innuendo at this time in the morning? Shame on you, Karen Oaten.’

‘Why don’t you try “Karen Wells”?’

‘Because I know you’ll keep your own name. That’s who you are in the Met.’

‘Work isn’t everything, Matt.’

‘I never thought I’d hear you say that.’

She took my hand and put it on her bulge. ‘We’ve got someone else to think about now. Magnus Oliver Wells.’

‘Where did “Oliver” come from?’

‘My grandfather on my mother’s side. I liked him.’

‘Okay.’ There were worse names. Like Heinz. Or Sebastian. ‘I’m ravenous. Do you mind if I stuff my face?’

Karen shook her head, then pulled me closer, her eyes suddenly damp. ‘Don’t ever leave me, Matt.’

‘Of course I won’t. What’s got into you?’

‘Nothing. It’s an emotional time. Now go and have your grease feast.’

When I came back with a plateful of eggs, bacon and sausage, I sat at the table. Karen had drifted off to sleep, so I left the cartoon and found a news channel.

I was halfway through a mouthful of food when I heard the announcer’s voice get serious.

‘In the City of Brotherly Love, a gruesome discovery,’ said the over-made-up woman with huge hair. ‘TV stations, including our own, were directed by anonymous calls to a disused factory in North Philadelphia. There, the crews found human organs said to come from murdered university professor Jack Notaro. His body was…’

The pictures showed a scrum of cameramen and reporters around a police line.

I watched as a tall man wearing a senior officer’s insignia on his uniform jacket and cap inserted himself between two street cops. Microphones were immediately directed at him, like arrows on their way to Saint Sebastian. Which made me wonder where the FBI man with that surname was. I was sure this was where he and Bimsdale had flown off to last night. The caption read Major Andrew Carstens, Philadelphia Homicide Chief.

The reporters were baying like wolves. It wasn’t often they got to make the headlines in their own story. A particularly pushy type, an oxlike man with carefully sculpted facial hair, got his question in first.

‘Major, will you confirm what was found?’

The policeman gave him a weary look. ‘As I think you know, Wayne, a human eye and kidney were located in the building behind me.’

‘By the crew from WZNT News,’ the reporter said proudly.

‘Major!’ yelled another reporter, this one Chinese and almost as tall as the cop. ‘Major, what about the
Nazi objects that were with the organs? Are they linked to the murders in other cities?’

Carstens looked reluctant to answer. I wasn’t surprised. Peter Sebastian had probably fitted an explosive device to his backside. If he strayed onto the FBI’s patch, his colon would be well and truly irrigated. This was looking bad. Rothmann and his group of extremist thugs had to be involved.

Eventually the major went on, confining himself to stating that a copy of
Mein Kampf,
a Nazi flag and an SS dagger had been arranged around the eye and kidney. There were also Waffen-SS marching songs playing on a boom box.

I pushed the plate away, no longer interested in food. The camera was panning around the crowd, then zooming in on individual members of the public. These were the ghouls who rushed to rubberneck at crime scenes, the gorier the better. That was when I saw him, the shithead. He was wearing a beard—probably false—and had a woolen hat pulled down to his ears, but I recognized his ratlike features immediately. It was Gordy Lister, one of Heinz Rothmann’s sidekicks. In Washington before the slaughter at the cathedral, we’d made the mistake of letting him go before we knew just how important he was. Here he was, right back in the frame.

I picked up the phone—it only connected to our FBI minders—and told Julie Simms to get Sebastian on the line as quickly as she could. It wasn’t only Alexandra Brown who could make significant discoveries.

S
pecial Agent Arthur Bimsdale was perplexed. Back in his hometown for the first time since he had been posted to Washington six months ago, he had never seen Philadelphia in a worse light—even on the autumn day that his parents, killed in a car crash three years ago, had been laid to rest in the Episcopalian cemetery. It was then that he had questioned his faith for the first, but certainly not the last, time.

It didn’t help that it was winter and the city’s prevalent color was gray, in a plethora of merging shades, but there was more to his feeling of disquiet than that. A sensitive person would have put it down to his proximity to death, in the forms of Jack Notaro and his predecessors in recent weeks. That didn’t apply to Bimsdale. He might have looked like the Yale scholar he once was, but his few friends knew he had a stainless steel backbone. There was no question that the behavior of the local media had been horrifying—a school of barracuda would have shown more respect to the professor’s mutilated corpse. No, the root of the problem was that
his boss, Peter Sebastian, had chosen Philadelphia as the place where he finally showed his true colors.

And those, Bimsdale reflected as he hurriedly downed a cheesesteak at a stall near the university, were blacker than a pirate’s heart. He had suspected from the beginning that Sebastian saw him as a lightweight. His boss had read his personnel file, but quoted only selectively from it. In fact, the special agent in charge at the Butte, Montana, field office had given Bimsdale the best report he’d ever signed off on, commending in particular his aptitude for handling violent crime and his diligence in nailing the most hard-nosed felons. Sebastian seemed unimpressed by that. Arthur knew that his previous assistant was in jail, and he couldn’t understand what he was doing wrong. Maybe his boss had been romantically attached to the mysterious Dana Maltravers.

But all that was in the past. The fact was that Bimsdale hadn’t dropped the ball in the brief period they’d been working together. He had acted as the link between Sebastian and the Bureau’s investigators, both at the Hoover Building and in field offices, as well as dealing with local homicide teams. He had written reports, often in his boss’s name. Sebastian read and signed them, but he had never given him one word of praise. He even kept the media off Sebastian’s back, which had been quite some job since the career of ‘Hitler’s Hitman,’ as the killer was now called by the press, had started in Greenwich Village. Just remembering what information had been made public and what had been restricted in each case required an elephantine memory.

None of that really mattered. Arthur Bimsdale would have been having the time of his life. If his boss had kept him in the loop, he’d have been walking on air. But that wasn’t happening. The worst thing was that Peter Sebastian kept quiet about the details of earlier cases, particularly those which involved the Washington ‘Occult Killer’ and were confined to restricted files. Bimsdale suspected those murders were connected to the Rothmann conspiracy that had targeted the President, but Sebastian refused to discuss that angle. Most of what Arthur had learned, he’d found on the internet. What kind of a way was that to run a high-profile investigation? In fact, the violent crime unit wasn’t even running it—the day-to-day homicide work was being carried out by local detectives. That seemed like an abrogation of responsibility.

And then there was the question of Matt Wells. Why had Sebastian suddenly started visiting the British writer so regularly? Why did he spend so much time on those visits closeted with Dr. Rivers, whose career in mind control had been characterized as ‘highly dubious’ by several researchers and bloggers? Now Matt Wells was doing combat training and firearms practice. What kind of a way was that to treat a prisoner with dubious legal status, one that had tried to kill the President?

Arthur Bimsdale threw the remains of his lunch into a garbage bin. He was going to spend the afternoon in the University of Pennsylvania library, seeing if Jack Notaro had written anything that could have provoked his killer. Meanwhile, his boss had returned to D.C., for a meeting with the Director. At least that showed he had top-level support.

If it were up to Arthur, he’d have busted Peter Sebastian’s hindmost region to Guam, never mind Butte, Montana.

I heard several clicks on the line.

‘Hello? Sebastian?’

‘No, this is Special Agent Bimsdale. Who’s this?’

‘Matt Wells. Listen, I need to talk to him urgently. Is he there?’

‘I’m afraid not. Can I help?’

I thought about that. Obviously Sebastian wasn’t taking calls. I didn’t have any option but to talk to his worryingly young-looking bagman.

‘All right. Are you familiar with the name Gordy Lister?’

There was a pause. ‘Wasn’t he involved in the Rothmann case?’

At least he’d done his homework. ‘Correct. He was the scumbag’s fixer on the
Star Reporter
.’

‘And he was allowed to remain at liberty.’

‘Thanks for pointing that out, Arthur. Not one of our better calls at the time. The thing is, I just saw him.’

‘What? At the camp?’

‘No, you idiot. On the TV. He’s at the back of the crowd at the scene where the professor’s organs were found.’

‘Really? Give me a description.’

I did so. ‘Are you there?’

‘Yes. Stay on the line.’

The TV was no longer showing the live feed from Philadelphia, so I could only follow what was happening on the phone. I heard raised voices—one of which seemed to call the special agent ‘fuckface’. Bimsdale
responded with, ‘Coming through’. He wasn’t so dumb though—he wasn’t shouting, so Lister might not realize he was being approached. I zapped from channel to channel, but there was nothing relevant, not even on the 24-hour news stations.

Eventually I heard Bimsdale’s voice again.

‘I don’t see him, Mr. Wells.’ He was breathing heavily.

‘Shit. Are you sure?’

‘I’m standing on a newspaper dispenser.’ That would have made his tall figure stick out like a lighthouse, but it sounded like it was too late for caution. ‘No. I’m sorry, Mr. Wells, he must have gone.’

‘Circulate the description among the cops.’

‘Okay. I can do better than that. I’ll get hold of the TV footage. He’s bound to show up on at least one channel.’ He paused. ‘If he really was here.’

‘I’m telling you, it was him.’

‘He was wearing a beard, you said.’

‘Yeah, it could have been fake.’

‘So how did you recognize him?’

I sighed. ‘I don’t know, Arthur, I just did. It was something about his manner. Lister’s a shifty bastard and that was what I picked up on.’

‘All right, Mr. Wells, I’ll do what I can. The problem is, if his beard was a false one, he could easily have jettisoned it to aid his disappearance.’

He was right. Lister could also have dumped the overcoat he was wearing, or turned it inside out, and he could easily have dispensed with the woolen hat.

I signed off and thought about what Lister’s presence might mean. Could he be ‘Hitler’s Hitman?’ I’d had some run-ins with him and he had played the tough guy, but he usually made sure he had big men present
to look after him. I couldn’t see Gordy, who was skinny and below average height, hoisting a body as bulky as Jack Notaro’s onto a hook in the ceiling, nor could I see him killing people and cutting them to pieces.

So what was he doing at the scene? He was taking a hell of a risk, despite the disguise. He would have known that law enforcement often checked TV footage for suspicious individuals. What was so important that he had shown up in Philadelphia? Had Rothmann sent him? I was pretty sure that Lister would have hooked up with his boss after he disappeared. But if the Nazi was behind the murders, why would he risk incriminating himself and his underground organization by sending Lister to the locus? I was certain he was still scheming, no doubt having changed the name of his armed force from the North American National Revival, also known as the North American Nazi Revival, and no doubt still manipulating the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant. Details of the M.O.s had been scanty, presumably because Sebastian had censored the reports, but it seemed to me that the satanic cult’s sacrificial ritual might be being copied in the stringing up and mutilation of the victims. On the other hand, Heinz Rothmann was a subtle operator, at least until his plans came to fruition. These murders were about as subtle as a cockroach in a cup of coffee.

Karen moved her bulk on the sofa. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Nothing.’ I hurriedly turned the TV off. ‘I thought you were asleep.’

‘I was. Who were you talking to?’

‘What? Oh, Quincy Jerome. Just arranging a run.’ I didn’t want her to know about the latest murder, and
especially not about Gordy Lister. She hadn’t met him, but she knew who he was. The idea of her going into labor with him in mind was not appealing. Then again, the process might not start for days. Keeping the news from her would be impossible now we had internet and TV access.

‘How about some music?’ she said, hands on her bulge. ‘There’s a whole lot of kicking going on down here.’

I turned on the CD player. Julie Simms brought fresh disks from the camp library every week. I’d managed to get her to steer clear of garbage pop and concentrate on rock and folk. She was obviously a classical fan; there were always a couple of orchestral pieces in the bag.

The Manic Street Preachers blasted out. I’d forgotten that I’d left the CD in. They weren’t a top class band as far as I was concerned, but I couldn’t fault the sentiments of what was playing now—‘If You Tolerate This, Then Your Children Will Be Next.’

‘No!’ Karen cried. ‘Too raucous. Do you want your son to shake his way out of me?’

‘Sorry.’ I ejected the disk and put on one of Julie’s. A swathe of gentle strings and what sounded like a harpsichord filled the room.

‘That’s better. What is it?’

I looked at the box. ‘Monteverdi.’

‘Mmm, it’s nice. Come over here.’

I did as I was told.

‘I feel…funny,’ Karen said, taking my hand.

I was instantly alert. ‘Is it beginning?’

‘I don’t think so. It’s just…it’s just that I’m afraid, Matt.’ She let out a sob.

I pressed myself against her. ‘Don’t be silly. You’re my strong woman, you can stand up to anything.’

‘I don’t think I can. I keep…I keep thinking about what the Rothmanns did to me. What if the baby’s damaged? What if I can’t act like a proper mother?’

I squeezed her hands. ‘You’ve had plenty of tests. Nothing’s wrong with the boy. Or with you.’

‘How do you know?’ she demanded, pulling her hands away. ‘Rivers is still dredging triggers out of you and I’ve had much less treatment. What if some function of the conditioning is activated when I give birth? What if they designed the process to keep female subjects childless? That isn’t so unlikely. They wouldn’t want their robot soldiers to be distracted by kids—’

‘Karen, Karen,’ I said, wiping her brow. ‘Calm down. Take some deep breaths.’ I did that and she eventually followed suit. ‘That’s better. You know you mustn’t get overwrought. It’s bad for junior.’

‘Don’t call him that. He’s Magnus Oliver—Magnus Oliver Wells.’

‘That’s right, darling.’ I repeated the names. ‘He’s desperate to see us, so you have to look your best.’ I handed her a box of tissues.

‘I’m sorry, Matt. Sometimes it gets too much for me.’

‘I don’t believe that for a second. You’re just trying to make me sorry for you so that I’ll make your lunch.’

She laughed. ‘I don’t want anything to eat.’

‘Aren’t you supposed to keep your strength up?’

‘Look at me. I’ve got enough blubber reserves to sink a whaling ship.’

‘Rubbish. You’re the most attractive woman in the camp.’

She raised an eyebrow at that admittedly less than ringing endorsement. The average female soldier’s looks were forbidding and Julie Simms was no Venus de Milo, though she did have a full set of limbs.

‘Matt, don’t go out today.’

‘Okay,’ I said, alert to her tone again. ‘I think Rivers is expecting me in the evening, though.’

‘Let’s see if we get that far,’ she said, closing her eyes.

I took the phone into the bedroom and called the medical center. The midwife said everything was ready and there was nothing else to do, so I cut the connection. I felt useless, a spare part. I went back into the living room and turned the music down. Monteverdi was surprisingly pleasant, but the lack of guitars was a problem for me. I was going to make sure Magnus Oliver Wells had a working knowledge of classic rock music before he went to school.

There were certain things a father had to do for his son.

The boy was between two and three years old. His legs were short and bowed, in a pair of clean and well-pressed corduroy trousers. The black leather boots had been polished, but were now spattered with Central Park mud—the Filipina nanny wasn’t quick enough to stop him dashing onto the grass and under the trees. He screamed with delight every time she came after him, his cheeks red and his blue eyes sparkling. The last time the woman approached, he pulled off his woolen hat and threw it in her face. That earned him a stern talking-to and he started to sniffle as he was led back to the path.

Sara Robbins watched from behind a wider tree trunk than most. The day was milder than its predecessors, but there was still a bite in the wind. The water in the reservoir looked chill, low waves sweeping across its surface. As she walked out of the cover, she felt the plastic switchblade in the pocket of her Levi’s. She always had it with her, not least because it wasn’t picked up by metal detectors.

As the little boy walked past, trying to tug his hand away from the Filipina’s, Sara threw the ball she’d bought in his direction. The nanny looked round and stared at her suspiciously. Scott smiled at Sara and then ran to retrieve the ball.

‘Tana,’ said the boy, pointing at the picture of the steam engine on the ball.

‘Thomas?’ Sara said. ‘That’s right, it’s Thomas.’

‘Come, Scott,’ the nanny said firmly. ‘We do not talk to strangers.’