A Murder of Crows (25 page)

It was exactly the kind of spot Hicks would’ve picked for such a meeting.

But his instincts told him something was wrong. He sensed a connection that shouldn’t be there. He played a hunch and hit the voice prompt button again. “Retrace the previous call.”

Again, the female voice responded, “Call was from an unnamed University extension. Call originated from Savannah, Georgia.”

Hicks damned near drove onto the shoulder of the highway.

OMNI’s computerized voice was the same as the woman who had just called.

H
ICKS PARKED
the Buick and pulled on his black suit coat as he walked toward the Columbia Square. There wasn’t much of a breeze, so he kept the jacket unbuttoned. The Ruger under his left arm would be easy to reach if he needed it.

He spotted the Trustee sitting alone on a bench in the middle of Savannah’s Columbia Square. The thick branches of four ancient trees planted at each corner of the square spread out high above them, casting the entire park in rich shadow. An ornate fountain gurgled in the center of the square, successfully drowning out the noise of the early evening traffic.

Hicks noticed the Trustee was the only other person in the square. He didn’t know if she had arranged things this way or if the benches were empty by coincidence. Since coincidence was rare in their world, he figured there was a good chance she had arranged it somehow.

The closer he got, Hicks judged the Trustee to be a woman in her late sixties, maybe a little older. She had long white hair streaked with gray beneath a black hat. She was painfully thin and may have looked frail if one looked at her quickly.

But Hicks never looked at anyone quickly. He had been trained to observe, and he could see this wasn’t some little old lady sitting on a bench. Her back was ramrod straight and her black shoes had a decent heel to them, something an older woman with balance problems would never wear.

Even in the shadow of the trees, he could see her eyes were large and strikingly blue. They locked on Hicks for the briefest of moments as he approached before she looked away. She had looked at him long enough to see whatever she had needed to see. There was no reason to look at him any longer than she had. She had obviously been trained, too.

Hicks thought her pale skin and overall bone structure belied an Anglo-Saxon origin, the type who could be a descendent from a moneyed family of old-line breeding, maybe all the way back to the Mayflower.

Her attire supported his assessment. She wore a simple black suit carefully tailored to accentuate her delicate frame. The pearls around her neck were obviously cultured and didn’t come cheap. She had a black, gold trimmed clutch on her lap that might have been big enough to conceal a .22, but he couldn’t tell if it was.

She was smoking a cigarette with a black-gloved hand, flicking the ashes on the ground with a single definitive tap of a long, crooked finger.

She didn’t react when Hicks sat next to her on the same bench. A thick ornate iron armrest was between them.

To anyone who might be passing by the square, the woman seemed more interested in her cigarette than the man sharing her bench. No one was within earshot when she said, “You look younger than the picture taken upon your enrollment at the University, James. Remarkable, considering how long ago the picture was taken and the life you’ve led since. Our way of life seems to have agreed with you far more than your service in Coast Guard Intelligence.”

Hicks smiled. “I was wondering which factoid from my past you’d use to break the ice. I figured you’d call me by my real name.”

“I hate being predictable. Besides, ‘James Hicks’ suits you much better than your given name.”

Hicks understood why having his past thrown in his face had disturbed Roger. Some things were better left buried, especially things about ourselves. He tried not to let the casual reference to his file get to him by focusing on his training instead. He surveyed his surroundings.

A few buildings were close by but all the windows were closed. No one seemed to be watching them. In fact, nothing looked out of place. Birds sang overhead. The fountain drowned out everything else. It would have been a pleasant late afternoon scene if it hadn’t been for the nature of their discussion or the reason for their meeting.

“Okay. You’ve proven you have access to my records and asserted your influence. Let’s dispense with the bullshit and jump to the part where you tell me why I’m here.”

Her gray eyebrows rose, revealing more lines in her forehead than were already there. “Not very polite, are you?”

“Not very patient, either. I’ve spent twelve hours in a car driving down here to bury one of the few friends I have. My ass hurts, my legs are stiff, and I’m short on manners. So you’ve got five seconds to convince me why I shouldn’t walk away right now.”

She allowed a long stream of smoke escape through her narrow nostrils. “I suppose you have a right to be cautious. Being hunted by no less than three intelligence agencies is enough to fray anyone’s nerves, even yours.”

“Four seconds.”

“I am one of the University Trustees our mutual friend mentioned to you yesterday before his unfortunate passing. My fellow board members have asked me to speak with you on their behalf so I might gauge your mettle for myself. They want to make certain you are up to the task of being Dean.”

Hicks decided the woman had bought herself thirty additional seconds. Maybe a minute. “My predecessor already put me through a dry run by selling out me and my people to the Barnyard. I passed and got the job. If you’ve got the access you claim you have, you and your board can read twenty years’ worth of information about me with a few keystrokes. There’s no reason for a face-to-face like this.”

“You’re a cautious man, aren’t you?”

“I haven’t lived this long being reckless. And I never heard much about the Trustees until yesterday.”

“You were never Dean before,” the woman said, “so there was no reason for you to know about us. I wanted to meet you in person because I believe the only way to be certain about a thing is to see it with my own two eyes.”

“Kind of an old fashioned notion for a high tech organization like ours.”

She smiled. “This coming from the man who sent Rahul to London so he could give Shaban personal scrutiny instead of simply relying on remote surveillance. There’s still a place for the personal touch in the modern world, don’t you think? You still can’t email a handshake to close a deal.” Her smile faded a bit. “Or a bullet into someone’s brain should the need arise. At least not yet, anyway. I hope I’m long dead before such an eventuality occurs.”

She looked at him for the first time since he’d sat down. She had a shade of clear blue eyes that could be mistakenly described as kind. “My associates wanted me to see you with my own two eyes so I could see your soul or a lack thereof. Do you still believe in the notion of souls, James, or are you the jaded type who believes such notions are quaint superstitions? There’s no right or wrong answer, I assure you. All I ask is you tell me the truth because if you lie, I’ll know it.”

Hicks laughed for the first time in days. “You’re kidding, right? I haven’t had to pass a psych evaluation in a long time.”

Her eyes stayed on him. “Answer the question.”

Hicks could tell she was serious, so he decided to answer. “For the Dean’s sake, I’d like to believe souls exist. I’d like to hope he has a shot at enjoying peace or something like it.”

She flicked the ash on her cigarette. “He’s not the Dean anymore. That title has fallen to you.”

“I don’t intend on letting it fall anywhere.”

“I’m glad to hear that but it remains to be seen. You didn’t know him, did you? Your predecessor.”

The question hardly even made sense to him. “I’ve spent the past two decades speaking to him on the phone through a voice-modulating program. On his orders, I’ve crippled people, blackmailed people, assaulted and killed people without even laying eyes on him until two weeks ago. Yesterday was the second and last time I had even seen the man. So, no, I never knew him because he never wanted me to know him. Not until the end.”

“I suppose you have a point,” she allowed. “Al was always afraid of getting too close to people out of fear they may betray him one day, either intentionally or unintentionally. I always saw it as one of his greatest strengths, his ability to fear not only people’s dubious intentions but also their honest carelessness. Al was his real name, by the way. Al Clay. Not Alfred or Albert. Just plain Al. It says so right on his birth certificate. Fitting for a man like him, don’t you agree?”

Hicks had never spent much time thinking about what the Dean’s real name might have been. He had always been so distant, it would have been pointless to try. The man on the phone and behind the emails had always simply been the Dean. That had been enough for Hicks because that’s all of him there was.

But now he finally had a name to go along with the man. Al Clay. Hicks was surprised by how little it mattered to him. Al Clay had been the Dean of the University and now Al Clay was dead.

And Jabbar’s network was still trying to kill people. And Mark Stephens and the intelligence community were still hunting the University. And Hicks still had a job to do.

Life stopped for no one. Dead or alive. Cemeteries were filled with indispensable men.

Hicks stood up to leave but didn’t button his coat. “Thanks for the stroll down memory lane, but since you’re plugged into what we do, you know I’ve got things to do. You already know about Rahul being in London, so…”

The woman’s blue eyes flashed. “Sit back down, James. Now. You have a rather large red spot on your tie. I happen to think it’s a very nice tie. It would be a shame to ruin it.”

Hicks looked down and saw a red laser dot moving up his tie to the center of his chest. He followed the path of the red beam to an open window of an old building across the street. It was too dark inside to see the shooter, but the beam was clear enough.

He knew the window had been closed when he’d first sat down. He should’ve seen it open, but hadn’t.

The woman took a final drag before allowing the cigarette to fall to the path. She crushed it beneath her shoe. “Don’t make any sudden moves—especially for the Ruger—or my associate will pump two high velocity rounds into your chest. Politely sit back down and all will be forgiven.”

Hicks sat back down. “Well, this is a first. I’ve never been mugged by an octogenarian before.”

“Don’t be insolent,” she snapped. “I’m not even seventy and you’re not being mugged. You’re being briefed.”

“At gunpoint.”

She smiled. “It got you to sit back down, didn’t it?” She reached into her clutch and produced a slim gold cigarette case. She opened it and held it out to him. “Your file says you prefer cigars, but I’m afraid these will have to do under the circumstances.”

He looked at the cigarettes in the case—Dunhill’s, of course—then back at her. “A final smoke for a condemned man?”

Her smile remained unchanged. It was no kinder than her eyes had been. “See it as a peace offering between new friends.”

Hicks took one and the book of matches she offered. He struck the match and lit the cigarette. He drew the smoke deep into his lungs before letting it out. She was right. It wasn’t a cigar, but it helped calm his nerves.

She discarded her old cigarette and selected took a new one for herself and lit it. She didn’t look to Hicks to light it for her and Hicks didn’t offer. She said, “The other Trustees and I appreciate the challenges you face and we agree with Al’s assessment. You’re exactly the right person for the job at hand. Al was a programming genius who gave the University a technological edge in the digital age. OMNI was his idea and its creation helped keep us relevant. I dare say it has kept us several steps ahead of the federal agencies who are only now beginning to catch up to our capabilities.”