Final Crossing: A Novel of Suspense (11 page)

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“It’s what I do best.”

She shook her head. “Now you’re being borderline annoying.”

He set down his wineglass. “First of all, I’m doing you a favor by being here. I’ve got enough work to keep five of me working until midnight, but the Senator asked that I cooperate as long as it’s unofficial business, which, by the way, I assume this is.”

“It is. I won’t reveal you as a source unless you give me permission.”

“Good. Second of all, there’s no way in hell you’re hypnotizing me. So why don’t you ask me what you want to ask me.”

She nodded in the way someone does who is used to being confronted. Calm. Patient. “Very well, Jonas. I do appreciate you coming tonight, so we’ll do this any way you want.”

Jonas was immediately placated, which annoyed him. “Let me tell you what I think,” she said. She reached over and grabbed his hand. Jonas knew she didn’t do it out of affection, but rather to try to voodoo herself into his psyche. Still, the warmth of her skin was not unwelcome. “I get a sense from you, a sense of connection to the Calloway murder. It might just be that you had met with the victim before. Trust me, many if not most of my...intuitions...wind up amounting to nothing. But I have to try, don’t I? And I get something from you that’s stronger than just a casual connection. There’s something about Michael Calloway’s death that connects you to it. Tell me something, Jonas.” She seemed to search for her words, but maybe she was just trying to control the pace of the conversation. “What did you think when you heard about the second crucifixion?”

Jonas bristled. The news of a second brutal killing had occupied countless hours of reporting, speculation, and shameless fear-mongering on every television news outlet. Serial killers were usually enough to get the public salivating. Original ones really commanded attention.

Jonas shrugged. “To be honest, I’m fascinated by it,” he said. He remembered first seeing the breaking news on CNN, then the aerial footage of the cross, the hole in the ground with the bloody sheet draped over it. Jonas had watched the coverage well longer than he would normally pay attention to anything on TV, and he couldn’t shake the feeling of
There but for the grace of God go I...
“Maybe it’s because of...the type of crime itself. Or just the seeming randomness of the two victims. Or maybe it’s because I had met one of them.”

He felt himself being studied.

“Do you feel a connection to the second victim?”

“The student? No. Not at all. Should I?”

“I’m just trying to determine if your connection to the first killing has a relationship to the second. Whoever killed Calloway likely also killed that student in West Virginia, so I’m looking for more than a murderer here. I’m looking for a serial killer. And maybe your connection isn’t to Calloway. Maybe your connection, if there is one, is to the killer.”

Jonas could feel his forehead heating up. He hated feeling like he was hiding something, especially if he didn’t even know what he was hiding.

“I don’t know who killed Calloway.”

“I didn’t say you knew who killed him. Just that you might know the person who did. Big difference.”

“This is weird.”

She released his hand. “And we’re just getting started.” Jonas thought of something. “When you get your senses, is it from people or things?”

“Both,” she said. “Though people give off stronger indicators than objects.”

Jonas reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out the pamphlet he’d found on his desk.

“What is that?”

He handed it to her.

Anne’s hand began to shake.

“WHO GAVE
this to you?”

“How do you know someone gave it to me?”

She ran her fingers over the glossy paper. “This is something you didn’t ask for.”

Jonas studied her face and tried to read how much of Anne Deneuve’s power of perception was training versus talent.

“I found it on my desk this morning.”

Anne’s gaze remained steady and firm on the front of the pamphlet for at least a minute. Finally, she opened it and read the inside. When she was done, she put in on the floor rather than handing it back to Jonas.

“You need to find out who gave that to you,” she said. “Why?”

“I’m not ready to tell you the answer to that.”

Jonas felt his patience asking for the check. “Are you fucking with me?”

“Trust me, Jonas. You would know it if I was.”

“So what now?”

“I want to talk to you. The real you.”

“Anne...”

“Jonas, let me hypnotize you. There’s something going on inside your head that I need to get to. I don’t know what it is or if you even know what it is, but it’s important.”

Jonas remained silent. The idea of opening up didn’t scare him. It terrified him.

“Anne, I really don’t want to do this.”

“That’s obvious, but it’s not all about you.”

“Yes, it is.”

She brushed an imaginary piece of lint off her knee, making him focus momentarily on her legs.

“Tell me something, Jonas. Have you been...remembering things lately?”

“Remembering things?”

“Yes. Things from your past. Things you’ve been suppressing coming back into your consciousness.”

Jonas felt his breath sharpen, and to the extent his heart ever beat faster from anxiety, it did so now. The more he spoke with Anne, the more he believed her credentials. And the more he wanted to run from her. He was uncomfortable with another person peering through the layers he chose to present.

Still...

There
were
the memories. In that, Anne was right. Things
had
been coming to the surface lately.

“How did you know that?”

“So you have.”

“
How did you know that?
”

She leaned forward and placed her hand on top of his. He felt her warmth flow through him. “Jonas, it’s what I do. You can choose to believe or not.”

He heard her refrigerator humming in the silence after she spoke.

“I...yes, I have been remembering things. Since my accident, I’ve had some...I’m not sure what to call them. Flashbacks?”

“While you were awake?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes during sleep.”

“Okay.”

“But...they aren’t pleasant things.”

“I know.”

“I don’t know how much I want to keep dragging them up again.”

She ignored his request.

“I need you to tell me what happened. What you’re suddenly remembering. I think it’s important to my case.”

“But how can that be?”

Anne stood and walked a tight circle in the room before ending behind him. Her voice draped over him like a heavy, comforting cloak.

“I stopped asking myself that question a long time ago, Jonas. I just know that it
can
be. Things can
be
, Jonas. And once you start accepting that, there’s almost no limit to what you can discover.” She placed her hands on top of his shoulders and brought her lips next to his ear. “Let’s do this and see what we can discover.”

Jonas felt himself nod, lured more by her voice than her words. He would do it, but he knew it was only to convince a beautiful woman he could relinquish control if he had to. He didn’t think hypnosis would help her case, and it was certain to be unpleasant for him. Whatever it was swimming just below the surface of his memory would soon be coming up to feed.

And it was hungry.

RUDIGER PEERS
through the window. A man and woman inside. On the couch.

The beam from a nearby streetlight cuts into him, spotlighting him against the old row home. Not smart, he thinks. Should be in the car, waiting for Jonas to come out.

But he can’t help himself. Lets himself believe the risk is worth it.

God wants me to see what’s happening.

He gazes through the slats of the wood blinds and into the room. The woman is beautiful. Strong. She reaches out and touches Jonas.

Jonas Osbourne.

Rudiger hasn’t seen him since the time in the Mog. Since the day he almost died. Rudiger found out Jonas had survived the attack that day. In fact, Jonas had always been in the back of Rudiger’s mind over the years, enough so that Rudiger even tracked his progress as a successful politician, knew he was in D.C. Now Jonas Osbourne is sitting twenty feet away from him.

Rudiger feels the connection, feels it deep in his bones. It would have been easy to simply take him, but instead Rudiger gave Jonas some warning. First the phone call. Then the pamphlet.

He needs Jonas’s mind lubricated, wondering what is happening. Open to all possibilities. Just like Preacherman said. Open minds bring open hearts.

Listen, boy, Preacherman had said, open up your mind to what’s out there. Open up to all I ken give you. Open up to my flesh. Receive me as the One. Feel my heat pass through you. Feel the pain and the glory. The blood and the spit. The hair and the skin. Feel it all, because there is no redemption without sin. You can’t be saved if you have nothin’ to be saved from, boy, don’t you see that? What me and the woman do to you—that ain’t no punishment, don’t you see that? It’s a means to eternal glory.

Rudiger tries to shake the image of the Preacherman’s teeth puncturing his thighs and focuses instead on the couple inside the row home.

Jonas isn’t sleeping, but his eyes are closed. The woman moves from the couch and sits across from him, leaning forward. She speaks, but Rudiger can’t hear her. Probably has a deep voice, he thinks. Deep and smoky.

He pulls back for a moment. Looks behind him. Street is empty, but two cars have passed in the last minute.

Rudiger leans forward a last time and looks into the house. Jonas is talking now. Eyes still closed. The woman looks uncertain, the confidence in her face replaced with hesitation. She begins to speak but stops. Jonas keeps talking. The woman shifts back in her seat. Away from him. Doesn’t like what she’s hearing.

Rudiger pivots and walks back to his car. Flips the collar of his black peacoat up against the cool night air. The street is quiet. Rudiger slides into the driver’s seat of his car, which is parked behind Jonas’s car.

Jonas could be inside for minutes or hours, but it doesn’t matter.

Rudiger waits.

MOGADISHU, SOMALIA 1993

FUCKING REGULAR
Army piece of shit, Jonas thought. It would be a shame not to kill the sniper, but it was better than a green PFC trying to play Rambo and getting his skull separated from his body.

He moved to the open doorway and readied himself for the sprint, hoping he could still run in his condition. He began counting in his head, preparing to run on three.

One.

Squeezed his eyes shut.

Calm yourself. You can do this.

When he got to two he heard the screams.

• • •

Jonas sprinted across the street and ran straight into the same building where PFC Rudy Sonman had disappeared. Once inside, his brain registered that the sniper hadn’t taken a second shot at him.

So far, so good.

The building was a three-story concrete shell, its exterior unpainted and scarred by time and violence. Rough layers of mortar scabbed over random parts of the façade, and hand-cut fenestrations served as windows, protected by neither glass nor shutters.

It was dark and dusty inside. To Jonas’s eye, it was an abandoned building, though he knew the Somalis abandoned nothing except hope. Probably a residence, he thought.

The scream came again. A woman. Then shouting. A man. American.
Sonman
.

Jonas took the first flight of uneven concrete stairs with ease, his adrenaline overpowering the pain in his ribs and the fifty pounds of gear on his body. At the top of the steps he crouched and aimed his rifle into an empty corridor extending fifty feet in front of him. Halfway down, a small black face peered into the hallway from a room. Just a boy, Jonas saw. Probably no more than ten.

But even boys carry guns in Somalia. And they used them. “
Hoyadaa futada ka was!
” the boy shouted.

Jonas had been in the Mog long enough to pick up some of the choice local phrases. He knew what the boy had said.
Go fuck your mother in the ass
.

The boy disappeared back into the room. Seconds later, the barrel of an assault rifle inched its way into view. Jonas sighted the weapon and considered firing as a warning, but then decided against it. An open hallway was not a place he wanted to be during a firefight.

More screams erupted from above him, this time followed by three shots. The woman stopped screaming. Seconds later, Jonas could hear the cries of a baby.

“Sonman!” Jonas shouted. “Sonman, what’s your situation?”