The Company of the Dead (44 page)

“What the fuck are you doing?” Watanabe shouted at him.

“Take the left side.”

“Crazy fucker.”

Watanabe ran to the first door on his left and crashed into it. Yelled and crashed it open with the second blow. “Some crazy fuck wants to save your lives,” he shouted. “Get out now.”

There were more shots from the staircase.

“Captain?”

Lightholler was face down on the landing.

“John?”

“I’m out, throw me your gun.”

Kennedy tossed his Mauser down the hallway. He heard more blasts from behind him and didn’t look back. There were four more doors between him and the fire escape, seven people were crowded round it.

“Go, go,
go
.”

Further encouragement was unnecessary as the dull thud of a detonation swayed the corridor.

“These are empty, you crazy, crazy fuck.” Watanabe was laughing.

Kennedy checked the last door. “We’re clear.”

Down the corridor Lightholler was clicking on empty.

“John, get over here.”

Watanabe rammed another clip into his Shingen. The last of the civilians had taken the fire escape.

“John. Over here.
Now.
”

Lightholler was on his feet and running. A hail of bullets smashed the top of the stair where he’d crouched moments ago. He ran low, careening side to side along the hallway. His foot snagged a tear in the carpet and he tumbled forwards, Watanabe firing over his head. The discharge in the narrow passage was deafening.

Two Topknots fell away from the landing in a heap, one crashing through the banister, a blood-chilling scream wrenched from his throat.

Lightholler, back on his feet, was steps away. Kennedy leapt forwards, grabbed his extended arm and yanked him towards the fire escape. Lightholler stumbled down the concrete stairs.

“Too many.” Watanabe’s tortured exhalation. “Not just Shimamura’s crew.”

Four Topknots were now on the opposite landing. Kennedy grabbed the back of Watanabe’s kimono. The gangster brushed his hand away, thrusting Kennedy backwards.

“Go.”

Watanabe twisted and Kennedy saw a dark stain spread where his hand had been. Watanabe was falling back onto the concrete.

Kennedy caught him in one arm and slammed the door of the fire escape shut behind them. He took the gun from Watanabe’s wavering grip and fired twice into the lock. Counted to three and emptied the rest of the clip through the door. Lightholler was clambering back up the stairs. He took Watanabe’s legs as Kennedy slung his arms under the man’s shoulders.

“I’m never wrong.” Watanabe was smiling, and the gold of his teeth was ruby-tinted. Spittle of blood marked the corners of his mouth. “You’re a crazy fuck.”

Lightholler took point and they staggered down the two flights in darkness, Watanabe swaying between them. Kennedy felt the jagged end of the yakuza’s blade coursing along the surface of his thigh.

There was a splintering crash from above, then another. The Topknots were almost through.

Below, streetlight cast crazy shadows against the landing. Beams of torchlight probed the stairwell. Kennedy’s holstered Shingen slapped uselessly against his chest. Shifting the bulk of Watanabe’s weight, he struggled to unsheathe the broken blade. A curtain of sweat filled his eyes.

“Police.” A voice cried out from below. “You okay?”

“Above us,” Lightholler yelled. “More of them above us.”

Men poured into the fire escape from below. Nashville’s finest. One joined Kennedy in supporting Watanabe’s back. His head lolled under the folds of Kennedy’s jacket.

“You okay, bud?” the officer asked.

“Better now,” Kennedy replied hoarsely. “The place is mined. Kennedy’s holed up there. Jap bodyguards.”

“Kennedy?” An anxious expression flickered across the officer’s face. “Fall back, for Christ’s sake,” he shouted to his men. “Fall back. Resume your positions.”

A press of bodies hemmed them in a tight crush. Kennedy felt Watanabe being prised away from his grip. The scent of sweat and panic and blood was a tide engulfing him.

A shove and he was out on the street.

Pressure against the back of his legs and he was on the ground.

Someone’s knee held him to the pavement, his face rubbing against gravel.

Someone’s gun lodged itself firmly at the base of his skull.

Shine worked his way down from the roadside to a line of tall trees. He was on the edge of a gentle slope. The woodland fell in a grand sweep towards darkness. He had been here a number of times with the major, but only once at night, and that time they had arrived by light aircraft, skirting the tree tops in moonlight before dropping onto the private airstrip.

Nothing about this place was familiar now.

Twin beams of light swung across the branches of the nearest trees. He crouched down and let his palms rest against the thin topsoil. The truck crunched along the unpaved road behind him; a low rumbled echo of its passing that was swallowed by the night. He rose to his feet slowly. He examined his watch. It was almost three days to the hour, and many miles, since they’d all parted company over the Atlantic.

Behind him, the foothills of the Ouachita Mountains climbed into the black jagged horizon. A road sign informed him that Lake Hamilton lay somewhere past the next turn-off. The ranch would be beyond the next valley. Instinct suggested that the front door might not be the most advisable form of tentry.

He spent the next hour working his way steadily through the undergrowth. He crossed wide paddocks, approaching a line of foliage that marked one edge of a wide, flat clearing: the ranch’s landing field. Trees stretched out along both sides of the runway. A rustle of unseen leaves carried the breeze, punctuated now and then by the sharp crack of canvas. Shine tracked the sound to the outline of a small crop-duster secured beneath a tarpaulin.

An ethereal glow, distant and dim, swathed the ranch house. The evening had conjured a thin mist. Lamplight poured through it. He strained his ears, catching only the sounds of the night.

Two shadows bounded out of the darkness.

He dropped to the ground.

Growls slashed the dark. If Shine didn’t know better, he’d have made them for lions. Rhodesian ridgebacks. It took less than a moment for the dogs to catch his scent. He fought the instinct to scramble into the undergrowth. They would harry him till he dropped.

He didn’t bother with his blade. He kept still.

There was a blast of fetid breath. He kept still.

A torch beam swept over him. Cantered. Caught his blinking eyes.

“
Ayusta
.” The command issued from the shadows. The dogs drew back.

Shine moved slowly. He rolled up a sleeve to reveal his tattoo. Torchlight played over it.

“
Lechi u wo
.”

The dogs vanished.

A ghost dancer slid out of the night. He held the torch in one hand, a pistol, waist high, in the other. “
Nituwe he
?”

Shine said, “I don’t speak Lakota.”

The ghost dancer examined his tattoo, a splayed red hand, the index finger surmounted with a small triangle. He slid the pistol into a holster. “Come inside.”

He led Shine up to the ranch house. The dogs trotted along at his heels.

The doorway opened into a small dining area. A candle flickered on the kitchen bench beside the remains of a meal. An ivory-shaded lantern on a table by the wall offered its own trickle of light.

Shine turned to the ghost dancer and asked, “Where are the others?”

The Box contained a table, three chairs, an ashtray. No windows. The bottle was long gone, along with Newcombe’s glass. The two-way mirror ran along a third of the back wall, close to the single doorway that opened into the chamber and as far away from Newcombe’s seat as was humanly possible.

She’d heard that the Box was where rookie agents cut their teeth. She’d heard that they ran it three to five degrees warmer in summer and a darn sight colder in winter. Heard that the perp’s chair wasn’t built for comfort and the phone books weren’t there for looking up numbers. Each field office had an interrogation room and each Box held its own share of mythology.

Five years of Evidence Response had brought every possible rumour to Malcolm’s notice and from all that time she had been able to glean one truth amongst the chaff. Each Box held one exit, and it wasn’t necessarily as obvious as the way in.

Lost in her own thoughts, she found herself missing scraps of the interview. It was a dance of words, and caught in her own suspicions she had difficulty following the twists and turns of Reid’s inquiry.

Reid had given her a series of photographs and asked her to work her way through them while making the odd notation on a pad he’d provided for her. He’d asked her to lay them out on the table when she’d finished with them. The photographs were mostly aerial shots, the detail was poor—flotsam around the half-submerged remains of the German vessel—but Newcombe wasn’t to know that. Reid had thrown in a couple of photographs of the bodies for good measure. Charred, unrecognisable imitations of human beings that had been taken prior to letting the MEs get down to business.

Newcombe hadn’t batted an eyelid, but he was talking now. His bandage had loosened further and seemed to be held to his head by a clot of matted hair and blood. Though one of his arms remained wrapped in gauze, she had the impression that his burn injuries might have been overestimated. He winced as he spoke. She focused in.

“You’re calling me an enemy combatant?”

“You were in the company of known conspirators,” Reid replied. “What else should we call you?”

“Am I under arrest?”

“Why? Have you committed a crime? Maybe I should get you a lawyer.”

Reid pushed himself out of the chair. He glanced at Malcolm and snarled, “Come on, let’s see what Morgan’s had to say. They should be through with him by now.”

Newcombe opened his mouth as if to speak.

Reid waited for a long moment. A cold smile formed on his lips. He gestured towards the door.

She waited till they were clear of the Box to speak, but before she could say anything Reid was talking.

“He doesn’t know the others are dead. I thought it was worth a shot.”

“The Prisoner’s Dilemma?”

“Like he doesn’t have enough problems.”

Reid’s expression was blank and she didn’t feel like explaining the reference.

They were back in the observation room. She’d left the photographs on the table and they watched as Newcombe sifted through them. He kept returning to the same shot. It was difficult to say from the angle but Malcolm thought it may have been one of the cadavers. She said, “He’s definitely lying.”

“Everyone lies,” Reid replied. “We just need to know if he’s lying more than usual. Four hours in there with him and I’ve got nothing but a headache. Says he can’t remember what happened in New York before boarding the
Shenandoah
, says he has no idea where Morgan and Hardas were headed.”

“I checked with 15th Bomber, Baton Rouge,” Malcolm offered. “Neither Tucker nor Rose have signed on yet, but they aren’t due in till the twenty-sixth.”

Reid nodded distantly.

“Do we know for a fact that these guys weren’t working with Kennedy in New York?”

“Nope. Nor can we question any of the pilots’ KAs. This has to stay under wraps.”

“How long can we hold him?”

“As long as we like,” Reid replied. “What are you thinking?”

“You haven’t got confirmation on his ID yet, have you?”

“Pending.” Reid scowled. “We don’t have positives on any of the stiffs either.”

She thought about her call to the evidence lab in Houston. “What about prints?”

“You need fingers if you want prints.”

Malcolm suppressed a flinch. “I’m talking about our guy.”

“
Our
guy isn’t under arrest.”

“But we can hold him as long as we like?” Malcolm asked incredulously.

“We’re investigating treason. We aren’t building a case yet, and chances are that when we do, he’s going to cut a deal. Besides, he’s small potatoes next to Kennedy’s crew.”

“He may
be
part of Kennedy’s crew.”

Reid seemed to be thinking. He said, “We could lift one from the bottle, I guess. We can always print him formally later on.”

His eyes met hers, and for a moment she felt they shared the same thought. War had come to America. North and South might be hours away from bloodshed. What would “later on” bring?

She said, “My Raptor isn’t due till tonight. Provided he’s on file, and I get a decent latent, I might have an answer for you in two hours.”

The evidence lab had been working in tandem with response all day. Staff from the night shift had stayed on and every station had at least two technicians working on some aspect of analysis. There was a faint stale odour. A nimbus of cigarette smoke writhed beneath the ceiling.

She grabbed some bench space and got to work on the bottle.

It was almost a pleasure to return to lab work. For a short time she could forget the mystery of covert operations and the motives behind bloody slaughter. For now, it was all ridges, curves and imperfections. All her attention was focused on localising the whirling vortex of a brand that would exist only once throughout eternity, as individual as its owner.

She didn’t notice the minutes slipping past, didn’t notice Reid till he coughed a second time to get her attention.

“I’ve got three decent prints,” she said. “I’ll run them by one of the latent examiners and we can scan it against the database.”

“I’m hoping we won’t need it.”

She had her eyes on the last print. There was some puckering on the ridge detail that suggested a recent injury. Perhaps a small cut. She said, “What was that?”

“We won’t need it.”

Malcolm glanced up. A number of technicians were looking their way. They caught the cold wall of Reid’s eyes and returned to their work.

“Where’s your Raptor bound for?” he asked softly. He had a stillness about him that implied restraint rather than calm.