Down Among the Dead Men (34 page)

In the absence of Terry Peters, Frank's going to get Ben Noone.

What about Noone? What was his family background? Would there be something in Los Angeles that might help Frank understand Noone, and more importantly, stop him from killing again?

The wheels of the plane touch down and Frank's jolted back to the here and now.

Turns out the lying upper-class bastard had been telling the truth.

There's a long queue at immigration. By the time Frank's shuffled to the front he's lost the good feeling generated by the simple pleasure of having his feet on solid ground. He's got no idea what time it is in the real world but it feels like 4 am to him.

The fat uniformed woman sitting in the booth motions him forward. Frank hands his passport over and tries not to look too impatient. The immigration officer glances up at Frank without expression and places his passport face down on a scanner. She moves her head across to a computer monitor and then back to Frank.

'One moment, sir,' she says and looks across to her right to where two of her colleagues are standing. She beckons to them.

'Is there a problem?' says Frank. The woman holds up a hand, signalling him not to speak.

The other two immigration officers arrive. They look at Frank in utter distaste. One of them is Hispanic and one white. Both are enormously overweight. Both carry guns on their vast belts.

The Hispanic immigration officer takes Frank's passport and then looks at the screen and then back at Frank. He then shows
the passport to the white guy and they exchange a pantomime of worried looks, all knitted brows and cold stares gleaned from TV shows.

It's almost laughable.

Frank turns briefly back in the direction of the crowded immigration hall and the smile is wiped from his face. To his right, through a thicket of passengers, he spots a face he's seen before. It's just the briefest of glimpses and then it's gone, hidden by a pillar, but it's like a slap.

'Sir.
Sir.'

Frank turns slowly back towards the immigration officers.

'You're going to have to come with us.'

'I know I do,' says Frank. 'That's why I'm here. I'm a police officer. I'm here to see someone called Gloria Lopez. She's the FBI field agent acting as liaison. I'm sure she'll confirm my details.'

Frank flicks his gaze back to the hall trying, without success, to find the face he'd seen.

'Sir. I repeat, you will have to come with us.'

The Hispanic guy is resting his hand on the butt of his pistol.

'Seriously?' says Frank, looking down at his hand. 'This is what you're doing?'

Frank shakes his head and mutters something. The fat white officer points in the direction Frank should take. Frank starts walking and looks back but can't see anything.

Now he's wondering if he's imagined it. Why would the guy who put him on the bathroom floor in the cafe in Liverpool be in New York?

Six

Back when he'd been doing the job Frank Keane's doing now, Menno Koopman had come to Los Angeles to do a job swap in the US. He and Zoe had stayed in a chain hotel in an area of town that seemed to consist entirely of outlet stores and fast-food restaurants. It had been a depressing experience. So much so that Zoe had checked them out of the hotel and into a small rented apartment on Nichols Canyon. In the new location, the city had slowly begun to reveal its charms.

Now, sitting on the narrow balcony of the rental unit Frank had lined up for them just off San Vicente Boulevard in West Hollywood, he's having a hard time convincing the jet-lagged Warren Eckhardt about the city's good points.

'I've already been told three fucking times there's no smoking,' says Warren. 'And one of those times was on the street by a bloke wearing lime green shorty shorts and holding hands with another bloke.' He inhales deeply and blows a thick jet of smoke out into the Los Angeles night. 'I mean, it's not like my little bit of smoke is doing much to the air, is it? Fucking smog's making smokers of every bastard in the joint as far as I can see. I'm not even supposed to smoke in this fucking place and we're paying for the damn thing!'

'Merseyside Police are paying,' points out Koop, but Warren pretends not to have heard him.

Koop leans as far back from Warren's smoke as possible. Perhaps bringing Australia's most committed smoker to the least smoke-tolerant city on earth had been a mistake. For the life of him Koop couldn't see how Warren Eckhardt was going to last two days in California, let alone two weeks. And if the anti-smoking mob didn't get him, surely the Rainbow Coalition would finish the job? Right on cue, Warren starts up again.

'And did this mate of yours know he's booked us into the gayest neighbourhood outside of Darlinghurst?'

Koop shrugs.

'Did you see the little Indian guy at the desk when we checked in? Thought me and you were a pair of poofs. I could tell he wasn't happy about it.'

Koop sometimes forgot Warren was from Queensland.

He laughs.

'What's so funny?' asks Warren.

'When you filled in your address on the form you put "Queensland". That's why he was looking at you. Probably thinks it's some sort of special gay town in Australia.'

'I never thought of that.'

'You'll be safe,' says Koop. He looks at Warren's lumpy form, his fingers yellow from nicotine and eyes like two oysters past their sell-by date. 'Can't see too many of the boys making a beeline for you, mate.'

'Well, yeah.' Warren takes a couple of drags and then jabs his cigarette at Koop. 'Are you saying I'm not good enough?'

'Stop worrying.'

Warren picks up a laminated folder that lists local amenities and attractions.

'Look at this,' he says. 'Here's another thing.' He puts his cigarette in his mouth and points a thick finger the colour of earwax at a photo of a bland apartment building. 'Scene of the 1986 quadruple homicide,' he reads. 'The Packham Apartments, just fifty yards south, were the scene of 1986's most talked about killings.' He puts down the folder. 'They're fucking proud of it!'

Koop leaves Warren smoking on the balcony and goes inside to get some air. The TV's on with the sound down showing some news show. Warren's got a habit – Koop's discovered – of having the TV on at all times. Onscreen a tall man in his sixties with a grim expression is facing a barrage of microphones. Some congressional hearing. Iraq or Afghanistan. Koop recognises the guy as a politician but can't remember his name. One of the bad ones, he thinks.

On the coffee table are the fruits of their trip to the shopping mall that afternoon: three prepaid mobiles, two short-wave
walkie-talkies, a camera, several cardboard files, a couple of clipboards, two utility tool belts, two plain khaki shirts, two pairs of olive-coloured cargo pants, two green baseball caps, two pairs of workboots and the remains of a Chinese meal.

The meal was the one they'd just eaten but everything else, including the plain white panel van they'd rented, was for tomorrow. The prepaids and vehicle were Frank's suggestion but the other stuff had come from Koop. All you needed for successful stalking.

He and Warren had flown in this morning on a Qantas flight from Sydney. Frank was on his way to New York and would fly on to Los Angeles in two days' time, once he'd finished digging through the CCTV.

He wouldn't be staying with Koop and Warren. Instead Frank had booked a room at a hotel a few blocks north. Why they needed the cloak and dagger stuff, Koop didn't know. It didn't matter, really. What did matter was that tomorrow they'd take a look at the guy they'd travelled halfway round the planet to see.

For the first time in a long while, Koop is looking forward to waking up.

He takes one of the cardboard folders, sits down on the couch and reads the contents one more time.

Seven

'Gloria Lopez.' Frank's getting sick of saying the name.

He's been in the immigration interview room for an hour, sitting across the desk from the Hispanic officer. A badge on the guy's ample left tit says 'Muno-Cappiea'. Frank doesn't know if that's his name or the name of some sort of contract company.

'We haven't got anything about Agent Lopez on file,' the man says. He taps a chubby finger on the file in front of him. 'What we do have is your name on a Homeland Security watch list.'

'And I'm telling you, again, that I am a police officer with Merseyside Police in the UK and I'm here to meet with Agent Lopez. I've had an MLAT application approved by your government.' Frank looks at the badge again. 'Is that your name?'

The white officer, leaning his vast behind against a filing cabinet, taps his colleague on the shoulder and whispers something. He turns back to Frank and glares at him.

'Does that ever work?' says Frank. 'The stare? Christ.' He leans back and rubs his face. His eyes feel sandy and he's starting to feel nauseated.

'You're going to have to answer some questions.'

'Fuck off.' Frank's had it. 'Get me someone wearing a suit. Not one of you desk monkeys. Do it now before there's a diplomatic incident.' Frank leans forward and taps the file. 'What do you think is the more likely explanation? That I'm on your list and making up some bullshit story that could be disproved with a phone call, or that there's been some sort of bureaucratic mix-up? If you can't find the number for the FBI, call my office in Liverpool and they'll find it for you. Then, once they've done that, they can talk you through some more simple tasks, like tying your own
shoelaces, or finding your fucking face with your fucking fork. No, wait, I can see that neither of you has the slightest difficulty performing that function.'

Muno-Cappiea flushes and moves in his seat.

'Careful, big boy,' says Frank. 'You might bust an artery.'

He doesn't know what will happen next but before anyone can do anything the door to the office opens and two people enter. A man and a woman. Both are wearing business clothes and both look to be in their mid-thirties. The woman shows a badge to the immigration officers.

'FBI Agent Lopez,' she says. She turns to her partner. 'This is Agent Monroe. Apologies for this, DCI Keane. I should have been here to greet you but I got held up.'

'His name's on our list,' says the white immigration officer. 'He's ours.'

'Your list is obviously wrong,' says Lopez. 'DCI Frank Keane is here legitimately to apply for evidence from the US Justices Department under an approved MLAT. This falls under Federal jurisdiction. You two can go before I issue an obstruction of justice notice. Go on, get going.'

The immigration officers make a show of moving slowly but eventually they make the door.

'Bye,' says Frank. He makes a phone signal with one hand up to his ear. 'Let's do lunch? Call me.'

'Fuck you,' says Muno-Cappiea. He closes the door to the office with force.

'Let's get you over to your hotel,' says Lopez. 'We can go over tomorrow's details on the way.'

'No,' says Frank. 'Let's see the footage now.'

An image of the guy from Bean flashes into his head. The longer he leaves the CCTV footage, the less chance there is of getting what he needs.

'I'd rather do it straight away, Agent Lopez.'

'Whatever you want.'

MIT had emailed a list of required footage through several days ago, but no one at JFK seems to have seen it. After the clowns at immigration Frank's not surprised. He hands a new copy of
the list to Lopez and they wait while Monroe tracks down the right people.

Two hours and two bad coffees later they get word that what Frank's after is in the security control room.

'This is what you asked for,' says an officer wearing a Port Authority Police uniform. He's sitting at a desk with a large computer monitor in front of him. Frank's sketchy on the details of jurisdiction but there's no disguising the cop's distaste for handing over his CCTV tapes to a couple of Feds and a foreigner.

Frank checks his notes.

'The text came through at 2.01 am UK time. We've already established that Noone was booked on the 9.30 pm flight to LA with Delta. We can assume he was at or near the gate when the call was made. He came into JFK on a Virgin Atlantic flight from Manchester, arriving at 6.27 pm.'

'There're thirty-three cameras across the terminal,' says the Port Authority cop. 'Six of them are in the area you're looking at.' He brings up six windows onscreen and clicks on one to make it bigger. 'This first one is the security gates coming through immigration. Your guy's here.'

The cop fast-forwards to a point in the digital recording. It shows the camera on the immigration desk. Ben Noone, dressed in dark clothes, looks calm and relaxed. The cop freezes the camera as Noone stares directly at the lens.

'Benjamin Noone. This is him, right?'

'That's him.'

'OK. Next time I got him is getting his bag and coming through customs.'

Another window appears and Frank watches Noone waiting for his luggage to come off a carousel. He doesn't use a phone.

'No phones permitted before clearing customs,' says the cop operating the computer. 'So he's unlikely to have used it then. Next time I can find him is just down from his onward departure gate.' An image flicks up.

Noone's sitting on a bench seat. Frank leans in close. There's something about his movements here that make Frank think this might be the likeliest place for him to have called. He watches the
screen as the Port Authority cop fast-forwards through the recording. The screen jerks and suddenly there's an Asian family sitting in Noone's place.

'What happened?' Frank stands back from the screen and looks at the cop behind the keyboard. The cop rewinds and Noone reappears. He stops at the point of the jump. There's Noone and then there's a flash of white noise, electronic, and he's replaced by the family.

'Uh,' says the cop. He checks the timing and rolls back once more. He points at the timer. 'We lost some.'

Frank turns to Lopez. You seeing this? Lopez and Monroe are more alert now.

'What does that mean, "We lost some"?' Frank's trying hard to stay diplomatic but he's struggling.

'I'm just saying that's what's happened.' The cop's New York accent has hardened. 'There's been a glitch.'