Headcase, p.24
Headcase, page 24
‘Yeah, why?’
Zara got into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. ‘I got a call while you were in there. My report hasn’t been well received up top. Headquarters wants the USA and no one else to have that formula.’
‘You’re not telling me she might actually get immunity?’
Zara grunted.
I could have told Zara about the auto-injector. It would have made her happy. Laurie would have gone to jail. There would have been justice for all those dogs. But even knowing that it wasn’t real blood, I still wanted to drink it—and its rarity made it even more precious.
‘If someone else used Laurie’s swipe card to activate the hypobaric chamber,’ I said, ‘can we work out which terminal they did it from?’
Zara cocked her head. ‘Why? We erased the CCTV. We don’t know who was using which terminal.’
‘Sure we do.’ I tapped my temple, like Laurie had.
‘You think if I can find out where the terminal was, you can remember who was swiped in to it?’
‘For sure.’
‘Okay. I’ll see what I can do.’ Zara looked pleased. I felt a funny glow, like a dog who had impressed his master.
We zoomed through the shadows between the streetlights, the roads empty of traffic other than the odd Uber driver. We seemed to be headed for the safe house. It was still a few hours before dawn—apparently Zara thought we had time for some sleep.
Or for something else. My heart rate went up a bit. We hadn’t talked about last night, not even in the moment. We had explored each other’s bodies in darkness and silence. But I’d been thinking about it all day. The way she’d touched me with no trace of disgust. Let me kiss her all over, without fear. In fact, the danger seemed to be part of the thrill, for her. I’d let myself wonder if this could work, long term.
In the morning, she’d seemed angry at me, though I couldn’t work out what I’d done wrong. Maybe it was because she knew she’d always be my second choice—I loved Thistle, even though Thistle had made it clear she wanted nothing to do with me. I’d let myself off the leash with Zara precisely because she wasn’t the woman I really cared about.
I tried to banish the thought. ‘There’s a Chinese spy at Space City,’ I said instead. ‘We’ve established this. Yes?’
‘Right. And they disguised Cho as a fallen astronaut so we’d go looking for a secret space station that doesn’t exist, exposing our best-placed asset in China.’
‘That was a secondary objective. Their main goal was to get rid of Cho, because he’d discovered something they wanted to conceal. We know that because they killed him in a hurry, not laying any groundwork ahead of time. Right?’
Zara nodded. ‘They killed him because he discovered the worm.’
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘Or maybe he discovered the identity of the spy themselves.’
Zara was accelerating again, pushing the Ford towards its limit. Houston hurtled past outside, streetlights strobing. ‘How does the crashed plane fit into this?’ she asked.
‘I’m still working on that,’ I said, because I knew she wouldn’t like my theory. ‘But think about this. Cho wasn’t shot, or stabbed, or beaten to death. He was suffocated in a hypobaric chamber. It would have taken the killer at least a couple of hours to organise that.’
‘Meaning that for at least the last few hours of his life, Cho may have known who the spy was?’
‘Right.’
‘So why didn’t he tell anyone?’ Zara asked.
‘I think he did,’ I said. ‘I’m just trying to work out who.’
CHAPTER 31
If I’m out, you’re relaxed. If I’m up, you’re done talking. If I’m on my own, you’re dead. What am I?
Sam Garcia’s house had changed radically. It was painted yellow rather than white. The cobwebs had been swept away from the corners of the windows. A neat path of stepping stones led through a manicured lawn to a front porch that hadn’t been built when I saw it last. I was starting to think he didn’t live here anymore.
I sat in the driver’s seat of the Silverado, parked across the street. Zara was meeting Wilcox, gathering as much intel about Rob Cho’s communications as she could. Every email, every call, every text message. I’d decided to stake out Garcia’s house in the meantime, because he was the only person who’d seemed to entertain the possibility of a secret Chinese spacecraft. I thought that meant Cho might have told him about the spy.
Esmerelda, Garcia’s ex-wife, walked out the front door carrying a folding chair, a rubber band around one wrist. She’d dressed up a bit, her dark hair blow-dried, big sunglasses hiding her eyes, a gold necklace hanging in the deep V of her black dress. She took quick, dainty little steps along the path, pausing to pick some flowers. Once she had a few, she bound them together with the rubber band and climbed into the Nissan Pathfinder in the driveway.
Evidently Esmerelda had got the house in the divorce. Garcia wasn’t here. But I was curious. Why the chair? Who was she going to meet?
The Pathfinder pulled out of the driveway and cruised towards the corner of the street. I turned the key and started the Silverado.
Esmerelda led me through the streets of Houston, always signalling, making no sudden turns, never doubling back. Whenever I could see her through the back window, her head was swaying to music.
Eventually she turned into the gravel parking lot of an old church, with large doors shaped like upright canoes and a stained-glass window like a huge red eye. The only modern touch was a cross made from solar panels on its steep roof. I rolled past without turning. Churches had pews. Why had Esmerelda brought a single folding chair?
Esmerelda got out of the car, pulled the chair out of the trunk and walked towards the church—then went around the back of it, rather than going inside.
I pulled over and thought for a moment. Then I unstrapped my prosthesis and chucked it on the passenger seat before I got out of the car and followed her.
Around the back of the church was a shady little glade filled with headstones. Some were crumbling, dating back to the 1800s. Most were newer, the granite polished, gold paint inside the carved letters. No one was there except Esmerelda, sitting on her folding chair. She had laid her flowers on a grave and seemed to be talking to it, though she stopped when she heard me behind her. She didn’t turn around.
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ I said.
Esmerelda glanced back. ‘It’s fine.’ Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. We’d briefly met seven years ago, but she showed no sign that she recognised me, perhaps because the guy she’d met had two arms.
I picked a headstone at random, kneeled in front of it and patted the dirt affectionately. The inscription read Alex Grayning, Beloved, 1961–2016. Not much information. Most engravers charged per letter.
‘I should have brought one of those.’ I gestured to her folding chair. ‘You must be a regular.’
She grunted.
‘I don’t visit my Uncle Alex as often as I should,’ I said. ‘I live in Dallas. You from around here?’
Esmerelda looked amused. ‘I didn’t know Alex had family in Dallas.’
‘I only moved there recently.’ I hadn’t guessed she’d know the guy. I gestured at the grave she was sitting at. ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’
‘Are you?’ She kept her gaze on me.
A beat.
‘I guess not,’ I admitted. ‘It was just something to say.’
A bird tittered in the awkward silence that followed. This was a waste of time. I shouldn’t have come here.
The name on the headstone in front of her was Harold Broughton. It looked more expensive than the others, with gold trim and the day and date of death, not just the year. ‘Who was he?’
‘A good man.’ Esmerelda stared down at the dirt, as though X-raying it to see the coffin beneath. ‘Not perfect. But good.’
‘Family?’
‘A friend. He drowned.’ She stood up and closed her chair with a decisive snap. ‘The pain doesn’t fade, Mr Blake. It just becomes a different kind of pain. You’ll realise that, when your Aunt Alex has been gone a while.’
She strutted back towards her car. So she had recognised me after all. I cursed the engraver who had charged by the letter. I should have guessed that Alex might be Alexandra.
Enough wasted time. Too much. I turned to leave, but then turned back. Because I recognised the date on Harold Broughton’s headstone.
He had died seven years ago, on the same day that Lilah Parget was kidnapped.
•
Back in the car, I dialled Special Agent Richmond’s number from memory. His rumbling voice kicked in after a few rings: ‘You’ve called Doug at SOS Security. Leave a message.’
My old partner had taken medical leave after he was shot six months ago. The bullet had broken a rib even through his vest. Seemed like he was in the private sector now.
‘Richmond, it’s Blake. Call me back, will you?’
He called back a few seconds later, apparently not having listened to the message. ‘Who is this?’
‘It’s Timothy Blake,’ I said.
There was an uneasy pause. ‘Hangman,’ Richmond said finally. ‘Long time.’
‘Yep. How’s the chest?’
‘Not too bad, most days.’ He sounded annoyed, possibly remembering that I’d been there at the time, antagonising the shooter. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m good. I was hoping you could help me with something.’ There was a receipt in the cup holder. I flicked the corner of it a couple of times, trying to sound like I was going through notes. ‘Do you remember Sam Garcia?’
It took him a minute. ‘Kidnapper, right?’ he said. ‘Took some little girl from a mall?’
‘That’s him.’
‘You got her back, right?’
‘I did. But the guy’s out now, and there’s been a suspicious death at his place of business.’
‘Shit.’ Richmond didn’t sound too concerned. ‘I’m not with the Bureau anymore, pal. I can’t help you.’
‘I think maybe you can. I remember you found a cigarette butt at his house. The DNA matched with the smokes I found at the mall, where Lilah was taken.’
Richmond didn’t reply. I wished I was there, so I could see his face.
‘You planted it, didn’t you?’ I said. ‘Don’t sweat it—we already knew he was guilty. You did the right thing. The evidence kept him off the streets for seven years. I just need to know.’
There was another pause as Richmond decided how much to admit. Then he said, ‘Nope. Sorry, man. If someone planted that, it wasn’t me.’
‘Huh,’ I said. ‘Guess it’s a mystery. Thanks anyway. Before I let you go, do you remember what brand Jeb Parget smoked? The victim’s father?’
‘Jesus, Blake, it was years ago. Look, I have to get back to work.’
He hung up, and I sat for a while, testing the weight of my new theory. It felt right. But there were only two people who could confirm it for sure. One of them was sure to lie.
And the other might knock me out again.
•
I found Lilah Parget in a below-ground sports bar on 14th Street, giant TVs blasting ESPN all around her. The lunch crowd had only just started to trickle in, staring slack-jawed at the menu behind the bar like it was a UFO. Parget was drinking a club soda at an otherwise empty table, her face lit by the ghoulish glow of her phone.
I sat opposite her, and she looked up. Her smile faded as she recognised me. I was used to that.
‘I’m meeting someone,’ she said.
‘Yep. Me.’
She wasn’t amused. ‘You don’t look much like your profile picture.’
The photo she’d swiped right on was a composite of all the other pictures she’d swiped right on over the years. The description had been Frankensteined together in a similar way. Terrifyingly, it had taken Zara less than ten minutes to organise this.
‘The camera adds ten pounds,’ I said.
‘Are you after another beating?’
I held up my hands. ‘Hell, no. Once was enough.’
‘In that case, I’m leaving.’ She stood up.
I let her get a few steps away, then I called out, ‘Like you left when you were twelve?’
She stopped.
The zombies near the bar glanced uneasily at me, then her, then me again.
‘That’s what really happened, right?’ I said. ‘You weren’t kidnapped. You ran away.’
Parget came back to the table. ‘Keep your voice down,’ she hissed. ‘I don’t know what you think you know, but—’
‘I’ll tell you.’ I took her soda and sipped it. ‘Your dad was a violent asshole. The kind who liked having power over people, particularly women. He’d been hitting your mom, and then one day he hit you. Right?’
A shadow crossed her face.
‘So one day you got him to drop you off at the mall, but instead of going in, you hid behind some trash cans. You waited until it was safe, smoking some cigarettes you’d stolen from him, and then you climbed down the ladder to the street and ran.’
‘This is all bullshit,’ Parget said.
‘But you were twelve,’ I said. ‘And you hadn’t thought it through. You didn’t have enough money for a Greyhound out of town. You didn’t know where the shelters were. So you wandered around until you found the homeless camp, hoping to disappear in there somewhere. And I found you.’
I remembered the look on the girl’s face. Not happy to be rescued. Devastated. Terrified.
‘You thought your father would kill you for running away,’ I went on. ‘But then—a miracle. He didn’t know. He thought you’d been kidnapped. And, even more incredibly, someone else had confessed to the kidnapping.’
Parget stared at me. She was angry, but there was a sense of wonderment, too. Like she still couldn’t believe her luck.
‘So you stay quiet,’ I continued. ‘You pretend you can’t remember anything. The police go along with that, because they already have all the evidence they need to put Sam Garcia away. They’ve even taken one of your cigarettes and planted it at Garcia’s house to make sure the conviction sticks. No one punishes you—maybe your father is even nice to you, for a while. And your saviour goes to prison, even though you wrote to the judge, begging for a lesser sentence. You write to Garcia himself while he’s inside, thanking him, and saying you’re sorry. But he never writes back, does he?’
I let that hang in the air. Parget didn’t reply.
‘Five years later, you escape from your father again. This time you’re better prepared. You get help from friends. Soon you have a new name, a new place to live, and a bank account he can’t touch. You’re finally free—but the lie still haunts you. When Sam Garcia gets out of prison, you keep tabs on him. That’s not hard—victims can request regular updates on the movements of perpetrators. Soon you find out that he got a job at the Space Center. So you apply for an internship. To watch him. Because you want to know why. Why would a man confess to a kidnapping he had nothing to do with?’
I could see from the look on Parget’s face that I’d finally reached the truth. Garcia hadn’t kidnapped her. His confession had been bullshit.
That was all I needed to know. I drained the last of Parget’s drink and stood up.
‘Well?’ she demanded.
‘Well what?’
‘Why did he do it?’
I could have told her. But it would have broken her heart. I would never hurt Sam. He’s everything to me.
‘No idea,’ I lied, and turned away.
‘Why?’ she shouted, heedless of the stares from the others in the bar. But I was already on the stairs, on my way back up to the street.
CHAPTER 32
One of me contains victory, two of me contain flesh, three or more contain drinks. What am I?
Zara’s meeting with Wilcox should have been over, but she wasn’t at the safe house. She hadn’t left a note—spies don’t do that. I could tell she’d left the house willingly, though. She’d sprinkled some sawdust near the exits to show any footprints, and arranged her cups in the usual way, ensuring the place couldn’t be searched without her knowledge.
I hung around for a while, gnawing on metacarpals. I thought about sleeping, but didn’t know where I’d wake up if I did. The sleepwalking got worse when I was stressed. To keep myself awake I ran through the last few days in my head over and over, wondering if I’d missed something or drawn the wrong conclusion somewhere. I felt like I knew what had happened, mostly, but I hadn’t seen much of it with my own eyes, and that made me nervous.
After a few hours there was still no sign of Zara, and she wasn’t answering her phone. I paced. What if the MSS agents had gotten her? What if they were on their way to get me?
I used the ladder to climb the fence again and broke into the house next door. That way, if anyone came to the safe house, I’d see them, and they wouldn’t see me. The next house was just like ours, but with a mirror-image layout, and furnished—I sank into a creamy leather sofa and listened to the ticking of a wall clock.
There was no sign that this house had been occupied recently. No one had been spying on us, at least not from here. This thought made me want to check the house on the other side of ours. I climbed two more fences and broke another lock. Another mirror-image house. Empty. No one had been here—or someone had been and was very good at cleaning up after themselves.
Skin crawling, I walked around a few blocks, making turns that would be hard for an observer to predict. I followed the Fibonacci sequence, turning left for odd numbers and right for even ones. I didn’t see many people, and saw no one more than once. No one seemed to be following me, but it was hard to shake the sense that this was because my pursuers were highly skilled.
Maybe spy work did this to everyone, eventually. You stopped wondering if some people might be enemy agents and started assuming everyone is.
A middle-aged man with a brown hat was watering his front lawn. At ten-thirty am, on a weekday, when it had rained less than two days earlier? Suspicious. He raised a hand in greeting, then saw my missing arm. He looked alarmed and stuffed his hand back into his pocket, as though I might be planning to steal it.
