The Eighth Trumpet (The Jared Kimberlain Novels) (4 page)

“You asked all the right questions already.”

“And got all the right answers. What am I left with?”

“The impossible.”

“Your specialty.”

Captain Seven started to lift the bong back to his lips, then thought better of it. “They didn’t like my style in Nam. Know why? ’Cause it was too damn effective. I come up with perimeter mines that really knocked the shit out of the Charlie bastards. Lucky ones died quick. Not so lucky ones had their balls blown off. Thing was, I designed the mines thin and dark so we didn’t have to busy ourselves burying them. Coated them with a special epoxy that made dirt stick to the frames. Ultimate camouflage. In-fucking-credible. Anyway, the brass hears about them and instead of giving me congrats and a medal, they tell me I’m in violation of the Geneva conventions. We’re losing boys who barely got hair on their balls and they tell me
I’m
in violation. I realized then that they had sent us over there but they never wanted us to win. You read me?”

“It was before my time.”

“Right. You and The Caretakers came later, when they wanted to avoid another Vietnam. Suddenly all the skills that violated Geneva were very much in demand. Nobody gave a shit anymore, and the object was to win, so I figured when they asked me to sign on, sure, what the hell. Only I couldn’t tell the difference. Yanked myself out ’cause the winning and losing all felt the same.”

“This time the winning or losing is up to you.”

“Ain’t that nice.”

“There’s more. Need you to work a little computer magic for me, Captain. Like I said, we know of three murders but there have probably been more. Either way, there’s got to be something the victims have in common besides the obvious.”

“Expecting more impossible murders?”

“I’d bet on it. Be a bonus if you could come up with a few potential next victims for me based on whatever it is you turn up.”

“No sweat. And where will you be while I’m sneaking into data banks and solving impossible crimes?”

“Seeking out an expert on the homicidal personality,” Kimberlain said. He paused. “Winston Peet.”

Kimberlain had been in his hotel room for twenty minutes and was nearly ready for bed. He was thinking how much he missed the quiet of the forest when the phone rang.

“Yes,” he answered, expecting to hear Kamanski’s voice.

“Ferryman, how good to hear your voice again.”

Kimberlain froze. He squeezed the receiver tight. “Hello, Zeus.”

“After so long some measure of enthusiasm might have been exhibited.”

“Excuse my manners.”

“They’re excused. Now switch on your television. Channel three.”

Kimberlain placed the receiver on the bed and moved to the television. A moment later channel three sharpened before him.

“Very good, Ferryman,” said the voice, now coming through the television speaker as well while a shape gained focus. “I wish I could say it’s good to
see
you, but of course …”

Zeus sat centered in the screen at the head of a conference table, sunglasses in place over his sightless eyes. His hair was jet black—dyed, probably—his features milky white and unchanged since last they’d met. The camera pulled back just enough to include in the frame the hulking brutes flanking him on either side.

“Neat trick,” Kimberlain said.

“It seemed a practical expedient. I wished to avoid unpleasantries.”

“Then you shouldn’t have called.”

“The knob’s there, Ferryman. Turn it off.” The sightless man’s eyes seemed quite impossibly to regard him from the other side of the screen. “You can’t, can you?”

“What do you want, Zeus?”

The picture blurred a bit, then sharpened to crystal clarity. Kimberlain realized his initial impressions of the former leader of The Caretakers had been mistaken, as if Zeus had fooled him, controlled him, even here. The old man’s cheeks were creased and worn, his chin and jowls tired and drooping. There was an instant of pity for the blind man before the memories came flooding back. The screen filled with Zeus from the shoulders up as Kimberlain felt his heart beat faster.

“I need you,” said Zeus.

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I created you. Gave you your name, your—”

“It stops there, Zeus. You gave me my name; you gave all of us our names. And you were the god in ultimate control. We were part of a game you were playing. Don’t expect me to play again.”

“I was right, though, wasn’t I? I called you ‘Ferryman’ after Charon, who took the dead across the river Styx, because I knew that would be your specialty. You see, I knew you better than you knew yourself.”

“Forgetting that last mission, aren’t you, Zeus? You abandoned me, left me to die. I knew too much about the way The Caretakers really functioned, about the truth behind our operations. My term was almost up. You couldn’t have me coming out alive.”

“And wasn’t I proven right? You talked after you came in, didn’t you? It was the beginning of the end, it lead to our dissolution. We’re talking about my life here, Ferryman.”

“What about
my
life, Zeus?”

“It’s all behind us. I never meant for you to die. Believe that or not as you wish, but my own heart is secure. I would have helped you if I could have. Don’t you think I knew you would survive anyway and what the consequences would be to me? Think, man!”

“That was never one of my options during the term.”

“Leave the past,” Zeus pleaded, “for both our sakes.”

Kimberlain started to reach for the knob.

“Millions of people may be about to die,” Zeus said before he could turn it.

Kimberlain stopped his hand in midair and held it there.

“You are familiar, of course, with C-12 plastic explosives?”

“Roughly twenty times more potent than C-4. The most deadly incindiary short of an atomic bomb.”

“Five hundred pounds of it is unaccounted for.”

“Stolen?”

“In a very subtle fashion. Inventory sheets were altered, security circumvented at all levels. Very deep. Very professional.”

“If you’ve gotten far enough to realize all that, you don’t need me.”

Zeus’s features became less sure. “At this particular installation, security was my responsibility.”

“Ah,” Kimberlain said. “So you have yet to report your discovery to interested parties within the government and military. Worried about your reputation, Zeus, your career?”

The blind man sneered. “Nonsense! Acting as if the theft has gone undiscovered gives us the best chance of recovering the C-12.”

“ ‘Us’ as in you and whatever army you’re running these days. I’m out.”

“There’s more.” Zeus started to reach into his jacket pocket. “We interrogated a man believed to be one of the perpetrators. Killed himself with a cyanide capsule before we could confirm our suspicions, but something else about him told us plenty.” He pulled a photograph from his pocket and signaled the camera to draw closer. “This tattoo was found on his right shoulder, Ferryman. Might be of interest to you.”

The camera zoomed in. A death’s-head with a spear running through it from temple to temple filled the screen. The death’s-head was smiling.

“The Hashi,” muttered Kimberlain.

“It’s good to see your memory has not deserted you. The Hashi indeed. An international society of assassins for hire dating back a thousand years.”

“You didn’t believe me when I told you they still existed.”

“But if the Hashi are anywhere near as dangerous as you claimed years ago, imagine the potential calamity we’re facing if the C-12 has fallen into their hands. We have a concrete trail to follow this time, Ferryman. Find the explosives and you find the Hashi.”

“And save your ass in the process.”

“A minor subtext. Consider this as my providing sanction for your pursuit a bit after the fact, though not too late, hopefully, to save millions of lives.”

“I don’t need your sanction anymore, Zeus,” Kimberlain said quite calmly. “And I’m done chasing ghosts.”

The blind man yanked off his sunglasses to reveal the crystalline lenses that had never functioned as eyes. “Now you’re chasing other people’s ghosts, hiding behind a veil of morality to justify the kind of actions I used to justify for you. You’re still the Ferryman. Only your passengers are different.”

“Because they’re chosen by me, not by some omnipotent organization that alone knows what’s best for America.”

“This conversation concerns the present.”

“No, it concerns the past, and mine doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Damn it, Jared, I need you!” Zeus screamed like a spoiled child.

“Yes, Zeus, how does it feel?”

The Second Trumpet
Winston Peet

Tuesday, November 17; 8:00
P.M.

Chapter 4

“COME ON! GET A MOVE
on, ladies. Off we go!”

The women were herded off the van like so many cattle being led to the slaughterhouse. Of the six, four were reasonably attractive, one pleasantly plain, and the last a blonde of stocky build with a head too small for her body. The streets of Nice, France, were not exactly teeming with prostitutes at this hour of the night. Those available brought with them the risk they might take something from the villa besides compensation for their services.

“Right this way, ladies. Follow me,” continued the huge, bearded guard in poor French. He led them toward the double-door entrance of the old converted hotel. Its isolated location and fortified exterior stone wall suited its present occupants well. Before becoming a hotel it had been the summer residence of a French nobleman. It had been built centuries ago by a famous Frenchman who’d made a successful living as a sea pirate.

The whores’ faces glowed as they passed through the entrance into the surfaced granite foyer. The huge guard poked a finger like iron into the breast of the chunky blonde.

“Look but don’t touch, bitch.”

She swore at him in French and feigned a spitting motion.

The guard laughed heartily. “Upstairs, ladies. Touch any of the paintings and I’ll slice off your fingers.”

He led them to the fourth floor, where a right turn at the head of the staircase brought them to a series of six doors, three on each side spread equally apart.

“One hour with each man,” came the guard’s next instructions. “We’re on a tight schedule here. The next shift will knock on the door when their turn comes.” Then, with a crude wink, “Make sure all the coming is done by that time, eh?”

The whores giggled.

The guard started directing them through the doors, and the blonde drew the second one down on the left. Once inside with the door closed behind her, her eyes fell on a thin boyish figure lying naked to the waist on the bed.

“Well, hello, there,” he said, licking his lips. “You’re a big one, aren’t you?”

Bravado talking, the blonde figured. The boy couldn’t have been more than sixteen, seventeen maybe.

“Like to find out, wouldn’t you?” she teased, but her eyes wandered to the tattoo on his right shoulder: a smiling death’s-head with a spear running through it from temple to temple.

The boy started fumbling with his zipper, but the blonde was over him quickly, pinning him with her weight as her mouth lowered to his.

The boy moaned and hugged her tight.

The blonde returned his hug briefly, then let her hands glide to his chin, one on each side. The boy didn’t see her eyes. If he had, perhaps he would have moved, or at least tried to.

The blonde jammed both her hands forward under his chin, jolting his head straight back at an impossible angle as she threw her frame forward to provide the final thrust she needed.

The boy’s head snapped back and went slack. The body spasmed and stilled instantly, toes twitching and nothing more.

The whore lunged out of the bed as quick as a cat and yanked her dress off over her head. Under the discarded garment her body was wrapped with packs of explosives expertly positioned so that a body frisk would have revealed nothing but normal contours.

Twenty-two minutes later all the plastic explosives had been divided into individual blocks and the detonators readied. The grenades she pulled from a hidden pouch were the Soviet-made square variety which clung comfortably to the belt. The gas canisters were bulky but necessary. All she lacked was a hand-held weapon, and a search of the boy’s closet yielded her a choice of many. She draped a pair of Ingram machine pistols over her shoulders and wedged an oversized Beretta into her belt. Then she completed her transformation by rolling down the sleeves of a top that was the companion piece of the tights worn beneath her dress.

This done, the woman settled the mounds of C-4
plastique
into a pack she’d also found in the closet and lifted the strap over her neck. She wedged the set of detonators into her belt for easy retrieval. Stilling her breath, she pressed her ear against the door. Once confident the corridor was empty, she glided stealthily out. The only sounds came from the Ingram butts clicking against each other.

She started down the corridor, one with the darkness, stopping at regular intervals to wedge packs of the
plastique
home. This first set was purposely misplaced. There would be lots of noise but minor structural damage on this level, the idea being to draw attention and bring the majority of the building’s inhabitants up here.

The second batch of explosives, which she now began to set, would bring the entire floor down. When this set followed the first by a generous sixty seconds, the rest of the villa’s occupants would have had ample time to charge to the source of the initial blasts and be gathered conveniently when the next series erupted. A five-minute timer for the first, a six for the second.

The blonde finished packing the fourth floor and moved to the stairway. Her plan called for the packing of the third floor with C-4 as well. When both crumbled she would have the freedom she needed to move about on the floors below. Packing the third floor with
plastique
took precisely three minutes, which left her comfortably ahead of schedule.

She checked her watch: under two minutes to go now before the explosions began. She had to be in position by that time to complete the second stage of her plan. The guards patrolling the walled courtyard enclosing the villa had to believe the attack was coming from outside the compound as well as inside; confusion had to be created, with illusion as the framework. Her reports indicated that the headquarters for this stronghold was in the basement. She would rely on the confusion to allow her to gain access. The woman started for the stairway, intending to descend to the second floor.