Mappa Mundi (48 page)

Now the last thing he had to fulfil was his duty to pay back the bastards who'd made him into this omnipotent, short-lived wonder. Knowledge hadn't enlightened him to the point where he was so ready to forgive. Human weakness, sure, he could've gone for that, maybe, had the individuals concerned not been so blind to their own motives; a simple show of doubt or remorse might have softened his resolve towards them. But their commitment had convinced him that there were no mistakes in the accountancy of their ethics; they'd screwed him over for the bottom line. His death was to their profit. He knew their sort.

Natalie's state called to him. He could read her signature on the energy face and it was like no other. He surfaced close by. They were alone together in an office; small, cramped, the air unusually full of volatile chemicals, unusually barren of organic particles.

“You shouldn't have run it so long,” he said, launching straight in with helpful advice. She needed to get her head straight if she was going to be useful.

Natalie turned and at first her face was shocked. But then it became thoughtful. “Ian,” she said. “We need to scan you. It's important. Will you come?”

“'S why I came.” He was impressed by her self-control. She'd always been a much more complicated person, a smarter one. No surprises that she could move directly when needed. It was admirable, but he felt lonely because of it.

“You're right.” She was responding to his loneliness, accepting his advice, including him. “I was stupid, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.” She took a jumper out of her bag and put it on. “Have you seen them here?”

“Oh yes. That one whose son was killed. She's got an outside line. Waiting for her moment.”

“The others will all go along with Guskov in the end,” she said, waiting for him to confirm.

“Even your father,” he said. “Got to now. Gone too far.”

The right side of her mouth dragged down in misery. “Of all the people in the world—he was the one who believed in being rational, and here he is like all the rest of us, dragged along in the undertow of their lives, making it up after the fact, doing everything according to the map.” She tapped her head. “And you, too. And me. No bloody escape, even when you can see it happening.”

“It's not the end yet,” he said.

“Soon.” She walked across to the door and opened it for him with the touch of her hand on its sensor. As he passed her she said, “Does it get worse than this?”

“Not much,” he lied. He didn't know how to talk about what it became. He didn't know what it meant, only what it made him understand; he did not matter.

She touched his arm as they stepped out into the corridor. “Did you ever … move anything with you, through space?”

“What, carry something? You mean when I'm—”

“Yes.”

“Once.” He nodded. He looked into her face, careful that she didn't see what it was he'd done. “Part of my payback.”

“Payback!” she repeated and laughed, cynical and disappointed with herself. “Does it all come to that?”

“You tell me, love,” Ian replied. “What else is there?”

“Forgiveness,” she said, but in her heart she didn't feel it. She remembered Dan's death as if it had happened a moment ago.

Ian's stubble-covered jaw toughened. “Not from me.”

Natalie nodded and beckoned for him to follow her. You had it in you, or you didn't. To forgive was to let go, and she and he had a lot to hold on to.

After their arrival in Washington Mary and Jude spent a couple of hours collaborating on a report for Perez and the rest of the Sciences Unit, detailing the significant points of the Deliverance system, how
to identify it, what the lab might see in attempts at copies, and who they thought was most likely to try and obtain samples of it. Mary enjoyed their efforts—it was like old times. Except for Jude's undercurrent of sadness it was like any other case she'd written up with him—but this time there was no scrap-paper soccer under the table, no pizza take-outs and surreptitious listening-in to the baseball commentaries. When they were done it was almost midnight.

“Drink?” she suggested.

He nodded and looked at his Pad. “It's late, though, and I've got to get the early flight to Montana.”

“We don't have to go.”

“No, it's okay.” He slipped his jacket on and switched down the systems for the night. “I've got something I want to talk to you about.”

Mary pricked her ears up but didn't inquire any further. They walked a few blocks and caught the Metrorail, watching the late police stalk up and down the cars in their full body armour, like robots. They got off near his apartment and then turned south and through the doors of Mulrooney's, a bar where they'd once used to meet a snitch from the Russian mafia underground, Posey Tavorian. She'd been a mine of information about technology leaks until they found her face down in an abattoir's pile of ready-to-process cattle innards. Out of deference to her memory they'd avoided the place for a few months and staying away had become a habit. Mary wondered if Jude had a special reason to come back.

They ordered beers and got a corner of the bar to themselves. In the pleasant glow and the soft shushing sounds of the country songs Mulrooney's was famous for she almost couldn't believe it when he took the buff folder out of his case and slapped it onto the mahogany counter between them.

“Someone gave me this,” he said, keeping his fingertips on it for a moment longer. “I don't know who, and I don't know how. One moment it wasn't there and then it was.” He glanced at her and sighed, taking his hand off the folder and letting her touch it.

She had to focus so her hands didn't shake. She'd been right about it. Through a burst of relief and puzzlement she looked blankly at its old, dog-eared pages.

“Where—? You don't know?” She leafed through and made herself say, “It's all about our Russian.”

“Yes,” he said. “All of it.”

She glanced at him through a curtain of hanging ringlets and saw he must have pored over it a long time, figuring that out. “What, even these Bulgarian papers?”

“A man of many identities.” He drank half his beer and swiftly signalled the barman for another one. “A long story.”

“God!” She turned over the familiar cards, the Kodeks entry—Jude read Russian, of course, and she didn't. He must know what it was. “What's this?”

“Admittance to prison,” he said. “A life stretch, but he was out in three years.”

“Why?”

“It's where he met his mafia master and got into the company. Within eighteen months of getting onto the streets they were both dead.”

“Excuse me?”

“He took on another persona and took up science. Ask me why.”

“Why?”

“Don't know. I was hoping you and I might figure that out.”

“Well, why didn't you tell me about this before?”

“I wanted to be sure of a few things first.” He shifted on the high stool to a better position, leaning low on the bar top, contemplating his drink. “Like, was it real? Was it connected with White Horse? Was it going to count?”

Mary closed up the cover and took a drink, tapping the tough ends of her nails against the glass and watching the bubbles rise. “Where's it from?”

Jude flicked open the top sheet and looked at the stamps. “Pentagon.
Somewhere. Think we should take it straight back? I could drop it in the post box, plain envelope.”

“Your prints are all over it.”

“Then I can take it back in person and explain.”

“Saying what?”

“Well, now, that's a good question.” He closed the folder and grinned at her without humour, although his eyes glittered in a strange way beneath the low blue glow of the Labatt sign's neon.

“It's probably not going to yield any evidence except changes of identity and movements,” she said, making it sound like a guess. “That won't get us a case.”

“Was he on the team for Deliverance?” Jude pondered. “I'll bet he was. Think about it. Florida, Atlanta … not so far for a commute or a cover-up. And he is the contact man.”

“So what you're saying?”

“It's a big leap.” He finished his first beer and hauled the second closer. “But maybe he wants to ship samples out of the country, using his old network of friends. It'd be worth the gross national product to whoever buys it and gets it working first, specially if they're not keen on us.”

“Ivanov—” she began.

“Guskov, his name is now,” Jude corrected her, looking into the infinities of the bourbon optics.

“Guskov,” Mary repeated, careful, “wouldn't be used here if he had this kind of leakiness. You think the NSC's stupid?”

“No.” Jude reached over and with his fingers pushed her beer on its mat towards her. He smiled. She recognized that self-destructiveness: it wanted company. “I think it's full of players, and this stack of paper says they're playing with the wrong guy. He is too many people.”

She didn't know whether to be relieved or not that he hadn't made the right connection and linked everything to point at Mappa Mundi.

“So, what do you say? Pursue or drop? Your call.”

Steel-guitar music was playing. Its lonely plains sound rang against her teeth as Mary tried to see which way to go.

“It's not linked to your sister's case?” she asked, stalling.

“I don't think so.” He shook his head and his hair, inky and blue-black in the dimness, fell softly along his jaw and against his shoulder. She noticed he hadn't had it cut in a while.

“The stuff she had, when she had it, was another kind of tech—Micromedica-based. Different. He couldn't be on both those projects.”

The steel chords slid into one another on the airwaves. Jude had never looked more handsome than now when he was so beat. She could eat him. Mary didn't know what to do about it. Her mind was skimming, planning, fixing, but she couldn't stop looking at him and feeling that hunger she'd often had. Jude had always been unobtainable, but now? And she was an idiot for thinking that.

She straightened up on her stool and took a sip of her drink, putting it down further from her. She should have kept her idle thoughts in shape on that plane and not given in. What was the point in it? Nothing he'd said so far made him any less of a threat.

“I think we should take everything we have and hand it across to the CIA,” she said. “He's their boy. They can worry about him.” Watching his nodding, resigned reaction she felt suddenly grateful to him for cooperating his way out of his own death. If he was going to be biddable she might be able to preserve everything here for later, when Guskov was out of the frame and the entire wretched project was wrapped. Her whole never-have-anything-you-can't-walk-away-from attitude was faltering and it made her angry. She was going to lose it if she wasn't careful.

“And the Micromedica thing?” she asked. Was he going to admit going to England?

“I had someone look at it.” He finished his second drink. “She said it was some kind of attempt at an emotional control device. Not a good one. She wanted to report it but I said it was something I'd found
on investigation, criminal, better keep it all quiet until we'd made our arrests first. We left it at that.”

“Who?” Which was really pushing it.

“A Doctor Armstrong. A Brit. She was listed by Nostromo as an expert. I sent it to her.”

Sent, didn't go.
Was that important? It was a lie of a kind.

“Uh-huh, well, if you don't have it now …”

“I have a copy. But since it's not an original and there's no identification on it, it doesn't mean anything yet,” he admitted.

“Can I have a copy?”

He sent it across to her Pad, just like that.

“And can I take this home tonight, if you get some rest?” She reached out for the file.

“Sure, be my guest.” He called the barman over again. “Chaser?”

“No, thanks.” She watched him order Wild Turkey, a double shot, and, when it came, knock the whole thing back in one go. Even his movements were becoming more reckless. Concern made her say, “Take it easy. Early start, remember?”

“I just want to sleep,” he said and stood up to go.

On the street she decided to walk with him as far as the main street they had to cross, where she could get a cab. Her shoes were smart and they'd started to hurt. On the corner, in the street light made dappled by the trees they paused to say goodbye. The pavement was uneven and Jude was unsteady. He slipped slightly and Mary found them both suddenly much closer than they had intended, but he didn't move back and neither did she. Since she was tall and in heels, they were at eye level with each other.

“Em,” he said quietly—she couldn't see his face properly. The nickname was one he hadn't used in a while. She could feel his breath on her face. It was laced with bourbon, fiery. He put his hands out onto her arms, as if he was going to kiss her on the cheek as he often had, but instead he hesitated. Then he was kissing her on the mouth instead.

Before she knew what she was doing she'd responded, touching his tongue with hers and pressing up against him. He was that mixture of hard and soft, pushy and reactive that she liked the best. The traces of bourbon still in his mouth tasted divine. She was only just wondering what the hell she was doing when abruptly he pushed her away and held her at arm's length.

“I'm sorry!” he said, backing away another step. “Sorry, Em. I didn't mean to … that was a mistake. The drink. Stupid.”

“No, no,” she replied, light, silly. “That's fine. It's okay. Really. You're upset and—I know. It's fine. Don't worry about it.” She took a step back. Her heart was racing. Between her legs she felt a burning heat more fierce than she'd known in a long time. She stepped back again. “Forget it.”

“Shit. Sorry, really.” He raised his hand in a half-wave goodbye, still backing off awkwardly, embarrassment and vulnerability in every step. “I'll see you. Yeah?”