Warrior in the Shadows (5 page)

But Alfie didn't like to think of those days, preferring to leave those thoughts alone and remember them as the days of preparation for his real life, the life that had begun after his military service when he met old Ralph, the Aboriginal bush doctor who'd first shown Alfie the dark ways of the old magic. He called up a ritual, a simple piece of hunting magic that called for a long, low chant and a drone through his nose, made all the more sibilant by the air blowing through his pierced septum. And while he droned, he stilled his mind, letting his body go through the mechanics of steering his fast-moving motorcycle as he made his way closer to the target, and let the picture of his prey come up in his mind. Not his enemy, no, they weren't important enough to be enemies. They were prey, the prey designated by the man who bought his time with enough money to enable Alfie to pursue his study of the lost black arts of his people.

Harold Nyquist was a former running back for the Minnesota Vikings, who'd cashed out at the top of his game and started a restaurant that he later franchised with great success. The money he'd made from his restaurants he poured into real estate, anticipating the big boom the dot-coms and other computer intensive businesses would bring.

Harold had also sunk big chunks of other people's money into the downtown Warehouse District, where fancy nightclubs and expensive restaurants mixed with cheap diners and coffeehouses. His work with foreign capital investors accounted for substantial sums in his offshore accounts resulting from his "consulting services." Among the minor services he provided were the pleasures of extremely beautiful and surgically enhanced dancers from the high-class gentlemen-only strip joint he owned through a front in downtown Minneapolis.

His activities brought him the money to build the finest house around, but it was characteristic of his Lutheran and Norwegian up-bringing that he preferred to live modestly in a good home in Plymouth. While the lot and the house— custom built to his wife's specifications— cost him close to half a million dollars, it was to all appearances just one more nice house on a quiet cul-de-sac that backed onto the W&O Rails to Trails bike path, where he could take his wife and grandchildren for walks.

Alfie needed to take a look at Harold's house.

He went for the bold drive-by first. His clothing, while completely in synch with fashion in Uptown or the artsy Warehouse District, stood out in the white, staid, and moneyed suburbs, especially at four-thirty in the morning. But he roared down the street, bearing in mind the old axiom that if you can't be discreet, be bold. He slowed when he passed Nyquist's home, mentally photographing the house, the yard, and the side yard that backed onto a low hill that rose up onto the highway's roadbed. He slowed at the end of the cul-de-sac, where a narrow walk-way allowed egress for bicycles and walkers, made note of the trail, then turned around and roared away. He rode to a larger major entrance to the W&O bike trail, beside a series of shops in a strip mall. Strip mall was too plebeian a description for this collection of upscale shops and restaurants, but what appealed to Alfie was the loading zone behind the mall had plenty of nooks and crannies to hide his bike in.

He crossed the street on foot, moving fast, as the Plymouth Police Department didn't have much to do and was known to respond very quickly to calls from their rich citizens, of which there were many. He walked quickly down the trail, then paused in the shadows by the entrance that led out onto the cul-de-sac where Nyquist lived. The street was well lit, and while it was the deadest time of night, when most people were deepest in sleep, Alfie didn't want to risk making a simple walk up and across to the front door and window.

No, the back way would be best.

He continued down the bike trail for a short distance and saw that he could cut through the yard closest to the bike trail and then scale a low mesh fence to enter Nyquist's backyard. A better way would be to go down to where a small tunnel took the bike path under the highway, then cut along the sloping hill that came down from the highway pavement bed to the yards on Nyquist's street.

Alfie crouched in the bush, then slowly let himself stretch out full length on the chill ground, the weeds and sparse grass fading into brown, crisp stalks beneath him. The early morning chill seeped in around the layers of his clothing. He turned off the sensation of cold as he went inward in a way he'd learned long before his military service, in one of the many white foster homes he'd been in. He shut down his feelings and went inward, with a steady rhythmic chant in the back of his mind, and visualized the path he would take in to the target. He saw the whole line laid out in front of him, visualizing himself walking the line he hummed to himself, moving from cover to cover, hugging the shadows. He visualized so intensely that he could see an image of himself walking that path and when the image was perfect in his mind, he felt himself lifted up, as though he were leaving his body, and then his material body followed that dreamlike vision he projected forward, through the thin brush, the hiss of passing cars coming from overhead and behind him, carefully placing each foot down so cautiously, toe gingerly probing so as not to make noise, then the rest of the foot, toe, heel, toe, heel till he was crouched behind the low mesh fence and could see directly into the kitchen, illuminated dimly with lights from the oven hood and the other electric utensils there.

He could make out much of the house layout from there: kitchen, a short hall leading through into the front room, a space that was probably the dining room to one side. Alfie stilled himself even more, evened out his breathing, and let his pupils expand so that his peripheral vision might take in details that the conscious mind would miss and let the options for entry grow in his imagination. He let the stillness grow in him, and then he felt the sudden twinge that drew his attention to an important detail: on the sliding-glass door there was an unsecured security bar, but at the top corner of the door was a small square that was either a pin lock or an alarm sensor or maybe both. No sign in front alerting the passerby to an alarm system, but that didn't mean there wasn't one.

It didn't matter anyway; there wasn't a locked door in this neighborhood that could keep Alfie out. He smiled to himself, looked at the growing light in the sky, ran his teeth over his partial plate, and clicked it twice.

Time to go.

1.7

Charley had slept fitfully in Mara's bed, his dreams jagged shards of light and sound, and only once could he remember a piece of his dream, and it was the image of the painting drawn in blood and body fat on the wall of Madison Simmons's entertainment room.

Mara was still and distant in the morning. The two of them dressed in silence, sat and drank coffee together in silence.

"I'm going to church," Mara announced.

"What's with this church thing?" Charley said.

"Just because you've never seen me go to church doesn't mean I don't go regularly, Charley." She looked out the window as she spoke.

"Okay, I'll go," Charley said.

"I'd rather you didn't," Mara said. "It's something special to me and I don't see the point of you going if it means nothing to you. You can stay here or go home."

"I'd like to go, look we can…"

"No, Charley. I prefer going alone."

And with that, she gathered up a coat and left, a hint of jasmine perfume in the air and Charley with the feeling that he'd failed some kind of test.

"Fuck," Charley said.

He drained off the last of his coffee and rinsed the cup and put it in the drying rack. He gathered up his camera bag and the crime scene prints, then went out the door and down to his car. When he got to the street he found a parking ticket on the windshield of his Camry.

"Fuck me," he said.

He sat in the car, started the engine, turned it off. He wouldn't think of her but he would. He couldn't seem to help himself. The whole thing with the two of them was crazy. She's too young for me, she's convenient, what does she mean she loves me? What the hell is that all about? What's this about church anyway? She'd said she went to the Catholic church in his own neighborhood and he'd never seen her around there and she'd never mentioned anything at all about that before.

And he hated leaving things like this.

It wasn't right. He liked resolution, clarity, a clear picture and a clean end to things. So he had to see her.

He started the car again and pulled out into the flow of traffic, holding up a middle finger for the cars that slammed on their brakes to avoid hitting him.

* * *

It surprised him that the church was so full. He didn't know why he should be so surprised, after all lots of people still went to church. He himself hadn't been to church or participated in a mass since he was in the Army, since he'd been kneeling on the airfield at Pope Air Force Base before shipping out for the Gulf. He'd never been big on religion anyway, but the seemingly pat blessing the priest had put on all the little soldiers before they went off to battle put him off even more.

There were a surprising number of devout Christians in the CIA, even in the Special Operations Division, but they seemed able to compartmentalize that part of their life from the operational demands of special operations, which called for the cunning and deceptiveness of the devil's own.

Maybe it was those thoughts and memories that contributed to his unease as he stood in the back of the church. The service had already begun and he was unsure about where to sit. There were two empty pews at the very back of the church, so Charley slipped into one with a semblance of genuflection and the hasty sketching of the sign of the cross. He remembered that much, at least.

The mass was halfway through, because the priest had ended his sermon and was preparing the host for communion. Charley scanned the pews in front of him, looking for Mara, but he couldn't make her out in the crowd. He cursed himself, conscious of his blasphemy, for giving into the random compulsion to come here without a plan and for just sitting here without any idea about what he'd say to her if he did see her.

Now the ushers went to each pew, starting at the front, and indicated the celebrants should come forward for communion. Charley thought for a moment about if he would take communion, but reminded himself that he hadn't been to confession in at least ten years and to take communion at this point would be a mortal sin since he hadn't cleansed his soul through confession. Cleansed his soul. That was an interesting thought. What would he say to the priest in the confessional? Bless me, Father, for I have sinned in so many, many ways? I have killed, I have spilled blood, I have lied, I have cheated, and worst of all, Father, I have reveled in it all.

Charley felt a grin grow, just a little.

What would happen out of that?

There was a sudden commotion in the two lines leading up the center aisle to the altar. Charley heard someone cry out, and leaned out to see what was happening. An older man, well into his sixties or seventies, heavy and corpulent with the flushed features of a drinker who liked a good meal with his booze, was stopped, grasping at his chest and the arm of the woman in front of him, bringing the line to a halt. He fell, slowly and ponderously, like a great tree. The woman knelt beside him.

"Jerry! Jerry!" she cried out. "Someone help me!"

Charley was already moving. He pushed the gawkers out of the way and knelt beside him, one hand loosening the too-tight collar and the neck tie knotted there, one hand slipping to the belt buckle and loosening it, his sure eyes and hands of experience saying myocardial infarction, a heart attack and this old man was in the middle of a massive one. Charley felt for a pulse at the neck, then put his cheek beside the man's mouth, gaped wide like a fish's maw.

No heartbeat, no breath.

"Call 911," Charley commanded. "Tell them you have someone in full cardiac arrest."

"Cardiac?" the woman companion said. "Oh, my God, he's having a heart attack, Oh, Jerry, help him, please."

Charley covered the old man's mouth with his and breathed two quick breaths, saw the chest rise, then began compressions, counting out loud, "One, two, three, four, five, breathe," then two quick breaths, then again with the compressions. Charley's heart was racing and he felt sweat pouring down his face and an inexplicable anger: why wasn't someone calling the paramedics and why did he have to be the one to help this old bastard and why did he have to have a heart attack on his watch and this wasn't his watch, it was a church and he didn't even know why he was here even while he kept up the compressions and the breathing and nothing was happening and he was furious and reared up and slammed his fist down on the man's chest and shouted, "Christ! Breathe, damn you! By the power of Christ!"

And suddenly the old man was gagging, choking, struggling to get Charley off him as Charley suddenly sat back on his heels and the ring of onlookers drew back and the priest was standing there, making the sign of the cross and everyone was looking at Charley except for the paramedics who were suddenly there, kneeling beside the man gagging and choking for air on the floor.

The woman fell to her knees in front of Charley and said, "You saved him, you saved him, oh, thank you, you saved him…"

Charley stood and quickly walked away, the crowd parting for him, but the priest caught his arm and held him.

"You saved a life," the priest said. He was in his sixties or seventies, too, with a thin Irish face that might be humorous on another occasion, but drawn now in intensity. "You called on the power of Christ and he moved through you. Do you know what you did just now?"

"I need air, Father," Charley said. He shrugged off the priest's hand. "Excuse me." He pushed his way through the crowd and out the door into the clean fall air. He stalked down the stairs and began to walk toward his apartment building down the street, abandoning his car in the church parking lot.

"Charley!" he heard. He stopped and turned and saw Mara coming to him with that curiously awkward half trot she did when she was in a hurry.

"Charley," she said. "What did you just do?"

* * *

Charley dreamed of somewhere outdoors, in the wild, a terrain he'd never seen and yet he was seeing it now: scrub trees, like manzanita grown larger, knee-high grasses that might slice at his legs, in the distance dark hills, smoothly humped in some places, jagged and sharp in others. It was as though he glided without substance or form through this bush, and there were a series of earthen humps, each as tall as a man, in a clearing where the trees did not go. He went to the humps and there was a stirring, a movement from inside that he could sense but not see, then one of the lumps cracked open and fell apart and inside was the curled skeleton of a man, crawling with termites, giant ones, inches long, the skin drawn like leather parchment tanned almost black, the bark of the trees nearby curling up like pale hands and when he looked closely at the face of the man it was his own
…

… and that image brought him fully awake in his bed, Mara gripping his arm, one hand to her mouth, saying, "Charley? Charley, are you all right?"

He was momentarily confused as he looked around his apartment and one hand went involuntarily toward the dresser drawer where he kept his .45.

"Charley!" Mara said, shaking him. "You're having a dream, a dream, look at me!"

He was in a strange state midway between dream and waking, and when he looked at her it was as if each pore on her face were a tiny whorl of spinning light that came in through the open window and fell across the narrow bed. Daylight? What time was it and where was he and why was he lying in bed?

"What time is it?" he said.

"It's almost four o'clock."

"In the day?"

"Yes, Charley," Mara said gently. "In the day. You've been napping. You had a dream."

"Dream, hell," Charley said. He swung his feet out of bed. He was fully clothed except for his shoes. He went to the sink in the kitchenette and drew a glass of water and greedily gulped it down. "That was a full-blown nightmare."

"What did you dream?"

Charley drew more water from the tap and drank two glasses in rapid succession.

"What were you dreaming, Charley?"

"I must have been tired."

"Do you remember what you did earlier today?"

Charley looked at her for the first time since waking. He remembered seeing her after the incident in the church, but he drew a blank after that.

"I remember that old man."

"You seemed as though you were a little out of your head after that, Charley. You were confused, and I came here with you. You said you had to lie down and then you fell asleep. A deep sleep. I stayed here with you."

She gestured at the file folder that held the Simmons crime scene photographs.

"I looked at the photos. I hope you don't mind."

"I must have been tired, didn't sleep well last night. Probably the excitement, the stress, something like that… been a long time," Charley mumbled.

"What was a long time, Charley?"

"Ah, first aid, that kind of stuff. It was hot in there."

"You don't want to talk about that, do you?"

He realized that he didn't want to talk about what happened, not with her, maybe not with anyone. The whole thing smacked of strangeness to him.

Mara nodded slowly but not unhappily. She changed the subject.

"Do you still want to meet Kativa?"

"Kativa?"

"My friend who can tell you about that image."

"Let's get coffee. I need coffee."

They went downstairs. Jill served them coffee without comment, but gave a long curious look at Mara, who'd never joined Charley in the diner before.

"So, Kativa?" Mara said after Charley drained two cups of coffee.

Charley poured the remains of his third cup into a foam to-go cup. "Yeah," he said. "Let's meet your friend Kativa."