Beloved Enemy (5 page)

“Sure,” Brixton said, “I know you can’t tell me. National security. No doubt. I’ll bet you’re taking him for interrogation, I’m right, aren’t I?” He tried to force more of himself through the open window. “How about taking me along? I just want to observe. I’ve heard so much about … You guys still waterboarding? That’s what I really want to see.”

“Waterboarding is illegal,” Nona said.

“Sure it is.” Brixton winked. “I know that, but hell, you’ve got a terrorist there. It’s a matter of national security to find out what’s inside his head. Secrets, right?”

“I’m not at liberty to say—”

“Sure, sure. I understand.”

Nona stared up at him. “We’re on the clock. We need to pass.”

“Yes, ma’am. Of course.” Brixton stepped smartly back. “Sergeant Robert J. Brixton, ma’am.” Maybe she’d remember him and put in a good word for him the next time he applied. But who was he kidding? He was never going to be a fed; he was doomed to remain a sergeant in the state police until the day he collected his pension.

Like an idiot, he saluted her as the SUV rolled majestically through the aperture between the two cruisers, picking up speed as it headed toward the airport perimeter.

*   *   *

“That was close,” Jack said from beneath the hood, as Nona unlocked the manacles. “I owe you more than I can say.”

Her eyes locked with his, and he saw the strength and determination there.

“Just don’t make me look like a fool,” she said.

“You have no worries there.”

The SUV reached the chain-link fence surrounding the foreign trade zone. There were six warehouses, beyond which could be seen four runways outlined in blinking bluish-purple guide lights.

“This is where we part company,” Nona said. “Metro has no jurisdiction out here. I have no believable excuse to enter the FTZ, and my presence will only call unwanted attention.” She handed him a slim packet. “Keep this safe, will you.”

“Nona—”

The form and quality of her smile stopped him. “I know what it’s like to lose a boss who was also your friend. The difference is I know who was responsible, and he’s dead.”

As Jack opened the door, she added, “Jack, if you need me for anything, my private number is in the phonebook of the mobile I gave you. And don’t worry, the conversation will be encrypted. No one will eavesdrop; no one will know who you are or where you’re calling from.”

He stepped out onto the pavement.

“Godspeed, Jack,” she said just before slamming the door shut.

He watched the SUV make its arc as it turned around, heading back to downtown D.C., then he turned and surveyed the immediate area, making his assessment. One of the advantages of being dyslexic was that he could assimilate an entire area with a single glance. Another, was that his brain worked a hundred times faster than those without his gift.

Within the space of several heartbeats, he had the plan of Dulles Cargo securely memorized. Had he been Nona, he would have accessed the plan on his mobile via Google. But he would have been looking at two dimensions—he was far better at seeing in three.

There was a great deal of activity on the other side of the fence, but none at all where he was. Five hundred yards to his left the gate into the FTZ was manned by an airport security officer, who this night was joined by a pair of suits, who were either FBI or CIA.

Vehicles—trucks and vans of every sort and description—were driving in and out through the gate. The manifest of each truck entering was scrutinized, its cargo inspected to ensure it matched up. Jack moved back, away from the airport lights, toward the road that led up to it. A large van with an unusually tall profile slowed as it turned off the road to join the line of vehicles awaiting entry. As it passed through a shadowed area, Jack swung onto its rear bumper, hoisted himself to its roof, and immediately flattened himself against it.

The van rumbled forward, a bit at a time, until it arrived at the gate. The inspection was made, the manifest read, the rear doors unlocked so the suits could make certain no one was hiding inside. The driver and the two suits were inside the van for several minutes. When he felt them emerge, Jack held his breath, but no one thought to check the roof. After a short exchange, the driver returned behind the wheel, put the van in gear, and passed through the gate.

Jack was inside the foreign trade zone.

The sun was just rising off a low pink, cotton-candy cloudbank in the east. The sky was filled with a pearly radiant light. Jack checked his watch: twenty minutes to takeoff. Plenty of time left. Now that he was in the FTZ, the worst was over. From the truck’s roof, he had a clear look at three of the four runways. The InterGlobal Logistics aircraft was scheduled to use runway 1R/19L. In fact, he could see the plane. It was not yet moving, Ben King having notified the pilot of Jack’s last-minute, clandestine boarding.

Jack waited until the truck slowed, then wormed his way down onto the ground. He made his way directly toward the aircraft, which was no more than a thousand yards away. He had made the decision that once inside the FTZ, the best way to proceed was to look like he belonged there, rather than skulking about in the shadows. Around him maintenance people were hurrying to and fro, calling to one another. Small trains of crates were being ferried back and forth between warehouses and the cargo holds of aircraft being serviced prior to takeoff.

Last-minute packages and crates were still being loaded into the InterGlobal aircraft; the open cockpit door, reached via a rolling aluminum ladder, shone in the morning sunlight, beckoning tantalizingly. A cargo vehicle finished loading up the next plane over and rumbled toward him, then stopped, turned, and slowly backed up to the rear of the warehouse along which Jack was striding, where a small crane was waiting.

As soon as the cargo vehicle was in place, the crane began loading enormous windowed crates onto its flatbed. Jack paralleled the warehouse wall in order to keep to the most direct route to the InterGlobal Logistics’s aircraft and had just passed a side door when he felt a sudden presence behind him. Before he could turn, he felt the cold steel of a pistol muzzle press into the back of his neck.

“Don’t move,” a deep male voice said from just behind him. “Don’t even fucking breathe.”

F
OUR

R
EDBIRD’S HANDS
were full of blood when the call came in. Amid the stench of death, he stripped off his latex gloves, and responded to his master’s voice.

“Here.” His voice was a low rasp.

“Commission status,” Henry Dickinson said, half a world away in his D.C. office.

“Done and done.” Redbird stared down at the two corpses, lying in dark pools of their own blood. Bare limbs entwined, they looked like lovers caught in an eternal embrace. Perhaps that was what death was, Redbird thought—an embrace by an unknown lover.

“That’s a relief,” Dickinson said.

Redbird frowned. “Did you have doubts?”

“Not at all. But I have a new commission for you that can’t wait.”

Redbird stepped carefully over the corpses and went to the window, stared out into the German early afternoon, dull as flint. “I’m—Hold on.”

An American Air Force jet, taking off from Ramstein Air Base went screaming through the leaden sky, the sound of its engines rattling the small items inside the cheap hotel’s ground-level room like an earthquake. There was an elevated risk in closing this commission so close to the U.S. military presence, but that very risk was what he lived for, sinking into the delicious shiver down his spine when he trod the dangerous precipice.

When the noise subsided sufficiently, Redbird’s mind returned to the conversation. “I’m good to go,” he said.

“Fine,” Dickinson said. “I’m sending the dossier to your mobile. But I have to warn you, there isn’t much.”

“There rarely is.” Redbird’s lips were curled into a permanent smile he did not feel. The smile was a quirk of genetics, as was his white hair, which he wore in a clipped military brush. He was at once slim and powerful, his energy coming from his lower belly, the spot sensei had taught him where
ki
, the life-force energy, began.

“This commission is different. You are to find one man, but as you’ll see, the commission could turn out to be a complex one.”

There was a pale scar in the sky cut, moments before, by the stubby wings of the military plane. He turned away from the window, admiring as much as surveying the careful mayhem he had wrought. As always, there seemed to be a second heart beating deep inside him.

“All the better.” Now Redbird did smile. It was a sight to chill the blood.

*   *   *

“Face the wall,” the voice said from behind Jack, “hands and legs spread. Lean in.”

Standard law enforcement officer procedure, Jack thought, as opposed to a fed. But what kind of a cop?

The leo began to pat Jack down, looking for concealed weapons. “Thought you were so clever lying on the top of that truck.” One hand ran up the inside of Jack’s left leg and down the right. “You’d have made it, too. Except for the fact that I was looking out my fourth floor window, taking a break from my monitors, and saw you spread-eagled atop that truck and thought what the fuck is that fuck up to?” The hand made a circuit of Jack’s right and left sides, up into his armpits. “So I came down to have a look at the clever boy.”

He grunted. “So you’re clean. Turn around.”

“Listen.”

“Shut the fuck up!”

Jack had a momentary impression of a long, lean face atop a wiry body clad in the uniform of airport security just before his right hand lifted, drawing the leo’s attention. Instantly, Jack’s left arm swung up, his fist smashing into the leo’s jaw. As the man staggered back, Jack immobilized his gun hand, wrapping the wrist in a fierce grip. But the leo jabbed out his left hand, grabbing Jack by the throat.

“You fucker!” the leo whispered. “You’re not going to get away from me that easily.”

“You’re making a mistake that’ll cost you your job,” Jack said in a half-strangled voice.

The leo’s eyes narrowed. “Let go of my hand or I’ll rip out your throat.”

Jack unwound his fingers from the leo’s right wrist, and, released, the gun was pointed at Jack again.

“How’s that?” the leo said.

“I’m Interpol.”

The leo snickered. “Sure you are, pal.”

“Check my ID,” Jack said. “You’ll see.”

“When we get back to my office. Let’s go.”

“I don’t have time; I’m following a lead,” Jack persisted. “You want to check my creds, do it here.”

The leo hesitated, then, relinquishing his grip on Jack’s throat, said, “Stand the fuck back.”

When Jack complied, he said, “Okay, hotshot. Hand ’em over—slowly.”

Jack put his hand inside his jacket, drew out the folder, and dropped it open. The leo’s eyes flicked to the Interpol ID, then back to Jack’s face to check it against the photo. Then he put his gun up.

“Okay. Sorry. No hard feelings.”

Jack slammed his fist into the point of the leo’s chin with such force, the officer’s head slammed back against the corrugated steel wall of the warehouse.

Turning away as the body slid down the wall, he was about to emerge from the shadow thrown by the corner of the warehouse when he saw two suits standing between him and the now fully loaded InterGlobal Logistics aircraft.

*   *   *

When his hands weren’t steeped in blood, Redbird was a meditative and studious individual. He read assiduously, his knowledge both deep and wide-ranging. He loved Carlos Fuentes and Amitav Ghosh, but his heart and soul belonged to the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke. Often, when he read Rilke, Redbird felt that they were spiritual twins, or, even, that he might be Rilke reincarnated.
“I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone,”
Rilke had written, just as if he had somehow time-traveled into the future to read Redbird’s innermost thoughts.

Redbird, sitting in the first-class lounge at Flughafen Frankfurt, waiting for his flight to Bangkok, had his tattered, German-language copy of Rilke’s
The Book of Images
open on his lap. Redbird was fluent in more than a dozen languages and always chose to read in the author’s native language, not trusting translators to capture the masterly beauty of the original.

The soft buzz of hushed voices, the comings and goings of wealthy passengers, cradled him. A cup of black coffee and a plate with a hard roll and a pat of foil-wrapped butter sat on the low table by his right hand. Occasionally, he sipped his coffee while studying the made-up and well-oiled faces of those around him, but the roll remained untouched. Food was of little interest to him. It was people he found fascinating.

He looked like a professor, or a researcher, which, in a way, he was. Being a student of human behavior had served him well in his chosen profession. Though he seemed to be reading, he was actually absorbing all the intel Dickinson had provided from Dennis Paull’s dossier on Pyotr Legere and the late Leroy Connaston. His mission ultimately was to find Jack McClure, who was believed to be following Legere’s trail, and bring him back to D.C.

“As you’ll see, the commission could turn out to be a complex one,”
Dickinson had said, and now Redbird knew why. Redbird was, by and large, an expert in dealing death. He could count on one hand the number of commissions that had involved something other than straightforward political murder.

But there was something about this commission that excited him. Maybe it was Legere’s connections to the Kremlin’s elite or his curious involvement in the clandestine world of espionage. But, on second thought, maybe Legere’s involvement wasn’t so curious. With his highly charged client base, Legere was in a unique position to trade secrets.

Redbird glanced up just as his flight was called. Rising, he grabbed his overnight suitcase and joined the small exodus out of the lounge.

Plunged into the maelstrom of the airport, he felt a surge of adrenaline, and thought of another line from Rilke:
“It is a tremendous act of violence to begin anything.”

*   *   *