Текст книги "Ghosts"

Автор книги: Mark Dawson

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Chapter Eight

Beatrix would wonder about what she did next for the next decade of her life, running the sequence of events through her mind in the squalid rooms and opium dens that would become her home. She knew that this would be the only chance that she had; the odds were against her, and unless she was prepared to sacrifice either her husband or her daughter she knew, beyond question, that they would all be dead within a matter of minutes. She would wonder, too, during the long lonely nights of her exile when she numbly chased the dragon, whether Lucas had looked at her with a flash of understanding – and perhaps even silent approval – just before she dropped the letter opener down into her hand, spun it, and leapt for Five.

Chisholm was trained to act on instinct and the shot, from this range, couldn’t possibly miss. The 9mm round struck Lucas in the face, boring a hole in his forehead just above his nose and almost perfectly between his eyes. It was a small mercy that he died immediately and he did not see his wife lunging across the room with the blade clasped in her fist. Five swung her gun arm around in a blur of motion, preternaturally fast, and fired another shot. The range was too close to miss, again, although Beatrix had anticipated it and arced away from the bullet’s track at the final moment; it missed the centre of her body and sliced through the flesh and bone in her left shoulder instead. Her nerves screamed but the rush of adrenaline drowned them out. She tackled Five, the sudden impact of the collision tipping the armchair over and onto its back, spilling both women onto the floor. Five tried to block Beatrix's downward stab but her arm was pinned and Beatrix had all the momentum. Their wrists clashed but Beatrix forced the blade down and down until she couldn’t press it down any more.

Isabella screamed, leapt to her feet and ran for the door.

Five’s Sig was on the floor; Beatrix reached for it and rolled over onto her back, aiming and firing twice as Ten came back into the room. Her broken ribs impeded her aim and the first shot went wide, splintering the door jamb, but the second hit him in the leg. He dropped his gun and collapsed, falling sideways to the floor.

Five struggled to her haunches and then fell backwards onto her backside. Her head hung forwards, but at an angle, and her breathing came in ragged hisses in and out. Beatrix aimed the gun as Chisholm raised her head and looked at her.

The letter knife was buried halfway into her throat.

There was sound of hurried movement from upstairs. She had no time. She got to her feet. Isabella was at the door. Her face and the white dress she was wearing had been sprayed with blowback from the shot that had killed her father.

“Isabella,” Beatrix moaned through the sudden curtain of pain that fell across her. “Come here, darling.”

She was covered in blood: her own, and Five’s.

The girl hesitated.

“Isabella, come to Mummy.”

She took a half step but it was too late. The door opened and Eight was there, encircling her waist with his left arm and aiming the gun at Beatrix's head with the other.

“Drop it!” he said.

Beatrix aimed back at him. “If you hurt her…” she began, the words trailing away. Nine and Eleven were clattering down the stairs. They would go around through the kitchen and flank her. This was a standoff she couldn’t win.

“Put the gun down,” Eight ordered.

Beatrix ignored him as she backed away. “Listen to me, very carefully. If anything happens to her – and I mean if you hurt a single hair on her head – I’ll hunt you down and kill you and everyone you’ve ever loved. That goes for the rest of you and Control, too. It goes double for him. Tell him. The only thing that is going to keep me from doing that is my daughter. If anything happens to her, I’ll have nothing to lose.”

Eight nodded. He was wise enough to know when to compromise. “Fair enough.”

Beatrix held the gun steady, aware that by aiming at Eight she was aiming at her daughter, too. “Isabella,” she said. “I want you to listen to me. I want you to go with this man. He’s going to look after you. Mummy has to go away now. I don’t know for how long, maybe for a very long time. But I’ll always be watching you. And I will always love you. Very, very much. Do you understand that, baby?”

The girl was only three years old. How could she understand? She had been sitting next to her father as he was shot in the head and then she had watched as her mother had been shot, then stabbed a woman in the throat and shot a man in the leg. If she could understand what she was telling her now, she did not show it; she stared at her dumbly, her mouth slack. Beatrix desperately wanted to remember her blue eyes with their usual sparkle of mischief but now they were empty and dull.

She backed away, her eyes beginning to blur from the tears, and opened the door to the garden. Ten was on the floor, clutching his leg, and Eight did not come after her; perhaps he was tending to Five, perhaps he recognised that it made more sense to accept the truce. The pain of her wounded shoulder blazed as she ran into the garden, scattering the chickens pecking at their seed, and clambered up and over the fence and into the garden of the adjacent house beyond. She thought of Isabella, and the fear and confusion in her priceless face, and choked down a sob as she opened the gate and passed into the road beyond.

PART TWO

TEXAS

Present Day

Chapter Nine

The detective removed the handcuffs from John Milton’s wrists and he rubbed the skin where it had chaffed against the metal bracelets. The officer dropped the cuffs on the scuffed and scarred surface of the table, went around to the other side, drew back the chair and sat down.

“Sit,” he instructed.

Milton did as he was told. The detective was young. He couldn’t have been that long out of the Academy. Young and fresh and keen to make a name for himself. Just his luck.

There was an old-fashioned tape recorder on the table. The detective tore the plastic sheath from a micro-cassette, took it out of its box and slipped it into the slot. He set the unit to record.

He cleared his throat. “All right, then. For the record, the speaker is Detective Dennis Bennington of the Victoria Police Department, and, also present, Detective Robert Kenney. The man being interviewed here this afternoon is Mr. John Smith. That’s S-M-I-T-H. Can I have your address, please, sir?”

“I don’t have one.”

“No fixed abode?”

“I’m travelling.”

“I see. And your accent?”

“I’m English.”

“Alright, then. Before we get started, you must understand your rights. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to talk to a lawyer for advice before we ask you any questions and to have him or her with you during questioning. Do you understand that?”

“I do.”

“If you cannot afford a lawyer, a lawyer will be provided for you at no cost. Do you understand that?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “Fair enough. Put your initials right here, please.”

Bennington gave Milton a pen and a printed form that noted that he was waiving his rights. He initialled it. “Can we get on with this, please?”

“You say you’re English but you have an American passport?”

“My mother,” he said. It was a lie. The passport was a fake, but it had been useful to have one as he passed through South America.

“Where were you before you came here?”

“Just got out of San Francisco.”

“How long were you there?”

“Six months, give or take.”

“Doing what?”

“I had a couple of jobs. I worked for an ice distribution company in the day and drove taxis at night.”

“Why did you leave?”

“Is it relevant?”

“Answer the question, please, sir.”

“It was just time to go.”

“And where are you headed?”

“Nowhere in particular. Wherever I end up.”

“Alright, then. What did you do before that?”

Milton hesitated. What would they say if he told them the truth? I was an assassin for the British government for the better part of a decade, I killed one hundred and thirty six men and women, my employer ordered that I be eliminated after I tried to resign and now I’m on the run.

What would two good old boys make of that? They would think he was insane.

“This and that,” he said instead.

“So why’d you stop in Victoria?”

“I’ve never been to Texas before,” he said. “And it was on my way.”

“So you want to explain what happened in Bill’s?”

“You were there, officer. You saw what happened.”

“Why don’t you tell me your side of things.” He tapped a finger against the tape machine, spooling quietly on the side of the table. “For the record.”

Milton sighed with frustration. “I went to the bar for something to eat and to watch the game on ESPN. It’s a nice bar, reasonably busy. I was sitting at the counter, right next to you. You tried to start a conversation about the chicken wings I was eating. The sauce, I think. You said it was good. I agreed. You tried to start a conversation but I wasn’t interested in talking to you and, eventually, you got the picture and shut up. I concentrated on the game and my food again. Then two men came into the bar. Big guys. Both drunk and looking for trouble. They went over to a table where three girls were sitting down having a drink and made a nuisance of themselves. They made inappropriate advances. The girls asked them to leave and they didn’t. I went over and asked them to stop. I was polite but I don’t think they took too kindly to it. One of them tried to stab me with a broken glass. I banged his face against the table. The other man swung a pool cue at me. I broke his nose. You arrested me. How does that sound, officer? About right?”

“Have you ever met either of the men you attacked before?”

“Never. Have you?”

Bennington shuffled a little in his chair.

“You arrested them, too?”

Bennington shuffled a little uncomfortably. “No.”

“Who are they?”

“Cliff Manziel and Johnny Robinson.”

Milton frowned. He remembered a sign on the wall as they were booking him last night. “Manziel – that’s the Sheriff’s name, isn’t it?”

He nodded.

“And let me guess – Cliff is his son?”

Milton closed his eyes and smiled. Just his dumb luck: out of all the drunken bullies he could’ve gotten into a brawl with, he had to pick them. He had no idea the guy was the son of a cop. He just looked like some idiot in a bar. It probably wouldn’t have made a difference, but he might have handled it differently. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so inconvenient.

“Did you have any other questions?” he asked the detectives.

“Not now.”

“So what’s next?”

“We arrange a bail hearing for you.”

“And until then?”

“You’ll be transferred to the county lockup. It’ll be a couple of days before we can get you in front of a judge.”

Milton sighed. He’d beaten the son of the local sheriff. That couldn’t possibly be good. If daddy was upset, and he would be upset, he was going to want to get some revenge. That spelt trouble. He could imagine what it might mean for him in the short-term: a few good ole boys in an empty cell back at the lock-up, a fight where he would be badly outnumbered and retaliating would just make things worse for him. He would have to suck it up and take it. And what then, assuming they didn’t put him in the hospital? The judge would undoubtedly be a friend of the sheriff. The jury, if it was to be a jury trial, would look at him as an outsider who thought it was acceptable to start bar brawls with the sons of local dignitaries. Texas was an insular kind of place. That kind of thing was probably a big deal. All kinds of witnesses would turn up to say that the attack was unprovoked. He would end up convicted and in the penitentiary, just like that. He would end up with a long stint in some dismal establishment.

Although, of course, it would never get to that.

He doubted whether he would even get to the bail hearing. Control would find him before two days were up. His prints and personal details had been taken when they booked him last night. They would have been transferred by now, passed between servers, an electronic handshake that would trigger an alarm somewhere. The Group had located him easily enough when he was in Ciudad Juárez and that had been a pit. How much simpler would it be to find him in Texas?

Options? He looked around the room. It was secure – bars across the window, a double-locked door – no obvious way for him to get out. Bennington and Kenney were armed but he would have been able to disable them both without much difficulty, but where would that get him? What would he do then? He was inside a locked room in a police station. Even if he managed to escape, how far would he be able to get? Victoria was a town he didn’t know. He had no means of transport. He had looked out of the window as they brought him to the interview room. It was mid-morning and the sun was already burning bright, heatwaves radiating off the scorched ground. Not the kind of weather to be hiking across open country. He figured he’d have five minutes to find a ride before the locals had enough time to raise a posse and come after him. Five minutes, maybe ten if he was lucky.

And then what?

It was pointless. Hopeless. He was going to have to let things play out. He started to prepare himself for the inevitable: a beating and then, much worse, whatever would happen to him when the Group finally found him. Forced rendition back to London if he was lucky; a bribed guard to press a shiv into his heart in the penitentiary showers if he wasn’t.

It turned out he was wrong about that; he was wrong about all of it. It turned out that he was wrong about a lot of things, and his day was about to take an unexpected turn.

Chapter Ten

It was early evening when he heard footsteps approaching down the corridor. He had been lying on the squalid cot, staring up at the ceiling. The bugs had come out of the cracks and were marching across the ceiling two by two. He lay there, his fingers laced beneath his head, watching them with vague disinterest, when he heard the cage door at the end of the corridor open and swing closed. He swung his legs off the bed and stood, bracing himself. Here they come.

The key turned in the lock and the door swung open.

It was Bennington.

He was alone.

“What is it?”

“Up you get, partner.”

“What for?”

“You’re free to go. The charges have been dropped. Come with me, please.”

Milton hid his surprise. He followed Bennington out of the cell, along the corridor and out into the office beyond. There was a desk, two chairs and a couch pushed up against the wall. A woman was sitting on the couch. Medium height, slender build, long legs, lots of red hair. Milton had never seen her before.

Bennington touched his hand to a cardboard box on the desk. “Here are your things,” he said. Milton looked inside: his wallet, cigarette lighter, leather jacket and shoelaces. “Sign for them, please.”

Milton signed the form and took his belongings.

The woman stood. “Mr. Smith?”

“Yes?”

“My name is Frances Delaney. I’m with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

“How can I help you?”

She paused and turned to Bennington. “Is that all, detective?”

“Yes, ma’am. He’s free to go.”

“Thank you. Mr. Smith, will you come with me, please?

Milton was confused; he had anticipated several possible outcomes and this was certainly not one of them. Delaney stepped across the office, through the public waiting room beyond and then into the hot night outside. Milton looked around: he had been driven to the station in the back of a patrol car and it had been daylight. It looked different at night. Neon displays glowed above the entrance to bars and clubs. Youngsters hung out of car windows as they cruised down Main Street.

A Lexus with blacked out windows was parked against the curb.

“What’s going on?” he asked her.

“Get in the car, Captain Milton.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Let’s dispense with that, shall we? I’m sure you’d rather get away from here?”

“How do you know my name?”

“I’m not from the F.B.I., Captain Milton. You’re fortunate that you were arrested in a place like this. Somewhere they’d leave an officer like that to look after you. I’ve managed to pull the wool over his eyes, but it won’t stand up to scrutiny. It’d be better if we got moving.”

“How did you find me?”

“I’ll tell you later. I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

“No,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what you want.”

“Just to talk, Captain Milton. Get in the car, please.”

She took the key fob from her bag and blipped the door. She crossed the sidewalk and opened the driver’s side door. Milton paused, working out the angles. He looked out at Main Street, the cars rolling slowly by in either direction. There was a bar nearby, the sound of loud music and raucous, unfriendly hollering spilling out. It was a boiling hot evening: fighting weather. The place suddenly felt charged and hostile. The sheriff was still around, plus his boy. He didn’t know what Delaney had pulled to get him out, but he didn’t doubt that if he stayed and ran across the Manziels there would be nothing to prevent them from settling the scores. If they found out that he had been freed by deception, they would come after him. It would be even worse.

He would have to leave. He would walk back to his hotel, collect his things and catch the first Greyhound out of town. Or he could go straight to Hertz, hire a car and drive himself away. He would do that. The girl was intriguing, but he hadn’t lasted as long as he had by trusting good-looking women he had never met before.

“Thanks for your help. I’ll take my chances.”

She shook her head. “I know about the Group, Captain Milton. I know how close they were to catching up with you in Mexico.”

He fought to maintain a nonchalant front. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“There are some things you need to know. You should know that they’re already in the country. There are four of them. They flew out of RAF Northolt last night and landed in Houston an hour ago. They’re driving here now. The last I heard, they were in Ganado. That’s not far. They’ll be here in thirty minutes. How far do you think you’ll get with them on your tail?”

Milton tried hard to hide his discomfort.

“Captain Milton – John. Get in the car, please. I’d rather not be here when they arrive. And I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

He couldn’t deny that Delaney was intriguing. There was a quality about her that made him want to hear her out.

“Alright,” he said.

He stepped around into the street and got into the other side of the Lexus.

* * *

They drove for half an hour. If Delaney wanted conversation then she was happy to wait to get it started. She paused behind a truck until the road ahead was clear and then pulled out behind it without a word. Milton took a moment to check out the interior of the Lexus. It was a four door, a big executive number, very fancy. He would have guessed it was six months’ old; it still had the smell of a new car and it was kept in good shape. The leather had that deep smell that spoke eloquently of money and the glass was tinted black like a hearse. There were two small suitcases on the back seat. They were identical Samsonite models, the kind of wheeled design favoured by business travellers who prefer to avoid checking their things into the hold. A garment cover was hooked on the handle above the right-hand rear door.

The road became a three-lane interstate and she accelerated up to seventy.

“Comfortable?” she asked him.

“Fine.”

“Put the seat back if you want more room.”

“How long are we going to be driving for?”

“About an hour.”

The chair was motorised. Milton pressed the rocker button on the door and, with a hum of its motor, the chair slid back a few inches. Might as well stretch his legs out; he didn’t know what he was going to find when they got to where they were going and the last thing he wanted was to have his muscles cramp up.

He thought about what she had said. He had no idea how she could have known about the Group but, if what she said was true, she had probably saved his life. He looked out through the window at the sparse traffic heading into Victoria as they sped away from it. The lights of the cars and trucks shone brightly, high-beams raking into the sky until the drivers approached and flicked them down. He looked at them and wondered if he would see a face that he recognised.

Delaney glanced into the rearview mirror at the traffic behind them and changed lanes. Milton took the chance to look at her reflection in the windshield. She was average height, slim and had a delicately-boned face. The auburn hair was the most striking thing about her: long and glossy, all the way down past her shoulders. He guessed she was a hundred and thirty pounds and five-nine. Age? Somewhere between thirty or thirty-five, he thought, although he’d never been good at guessing women’s ages. Her eyes were vivid emerald, her skin was flawless with little make-up. She was very striking. She was wearing a trouser suit with a white shirt that had a prominent collar. It was simple and elegant and obviously expensive. Her hands were slender and her nails were polished and manicured. She didn’t wear a wedding ring. The only jewellery she wore was a discrete silver cross around her neck.

“Where are we going?” he asked her.

“Houston,” she said.