Jig (56 page)

He stepped down from the stool. He was anxious to get back to the hill overlooking Kevin Dawson's house. He had the strong intuition that the money was there, maybe because he wanted it to be there. Maybe because he longed for the end of this particular road.

He moved towards the front door of the diner. Then paused. There was a telephone in a small alcove to one side. He stared at it. Then he was going towards it even as he resisted. Even as he thought
No, I don't need this now. I don't need this ever
.

John Waddell sat at the wheel of the rental truck. He had braked at an intersection where there was a four-way stop sign, an American traffic peculiarity to which he was unaccustomed. He was reluctant to edge the vehicle forward because he was uncertain of what the sign meant exactly. Did he or did he not have right of way? There was no other traffic in sight, just rows of frame houses and porches. On one porch an elderly woman was watering a potted plant, bent like a worshipper at a shrine. She looked up once, glanced at the truck, then went back to her watering-can.

‘What are you waiting for?' Houlihan asked. ‘The fucking weather to change?'

Waddell eased the truck forward. He was flustered by the unfamiliarity of the vehicle and the strangeness of driving on the right side of the road. Houlihan, who sat beside him, was extremely impatient this morning, more so than usual, always snapping when he talked. On his lap Houlihan had a sheet of paper on which he'd scrawled the directions he'd been given over the telephone. He'd been in the phone-booth a long time and when he emerged he'd looked dark-faced and determined, the muscles clenched furiously in his long Irish jaw. The sheet was a mess of black lines and scribbled words.

Waddell reached the other side of the intersection. The old lady raised a hand and waved, and he thought
Missus, you wouldn't be waving if you knew, if you really knew
. He drove slowly for a block, then Houlihan said, ‘This is Makepeace Street. Turn right.'

Makepeace Street, Waddell thought. If ever a street was wrongly named. He swung the truck right and followed the street, which looked the same as all the back streets of New Rockford, until Houlihan instructed him to turn left. Nantucket Street. Here the houses were starting to thin out. At the end of the block there was a school behind a wire fence. Three yellow school buses were parked just inside the fence. Waddell glanced at a playground with basketball hoops, a soccer field, and a set of wooden swings. In the distance, at the end of the field, a group of small kids chased a ball around, and the sound of their play reached Waddell's ears. It was a sound he found particularly unsettling because it reminded him of his own history, of a time when he'd stand on the sidelines of muddy fields and watch his boy play soccer, when his nerves would be taut on behalf of the kid who played with the clumsy determination of a child with two left feet but an enormous heart. The kid had heart all right.

Waddell held his breath. He hadn't really thought about the boy in a long time. There wasn't much point in bringing all that up again, because he'd buried the pain along with the bodies, but you never really buried pain, did you? He blinked out across the field. He just wanted to be away from this place.

Houlihan looked at his notes. ‘Keep going,' he said. ‘When you get to the end of this road, turn left.'

Waddell put his foot on the gas pedal. He followed Seamus's instructions. Now, beyond the school, there were no more houses and the road was very narrow, barely wide enough for one vehicle to pass. Trees grew on either side, mature trees whose lower trunks were covered with deep green moss. The branches made a bare arch overhead, reaching out to touch other trees, creating all manner of shadows. Waddell kept driving until Houlihan told him to pull over. There was a flat area, grass worn by old tyretracks, at the side of the road. It was a rectangular patch of land surrounded on three sides by woodland. Waddell thought there was something forlorn about the place.

Seamus Houlihan opened the door and jumped down. He went to the back of the truck and released Rorke and McGrath, who had obviously been sleeping because they emerged unsteadily, rubbing their eyes and yawning. Rorke cleared his throat and spat out a ball of phlegm and looked very satisfied with his output.

Houlihan walked over the rectangle of land. Here and there candy wrappers lay around. A kid's discarded sneaker, weatherbeaten and abused, was caught in the tangled branches of a bush. Waddell stepped down from the cab and watched Houlihan, who stood with his hands on his hips, his face turned towards the woods beyond the clearing. John Waddell shuddered. The wind blowing out of the trees was biting.

‘Over that way,' Houlihan said, directing Rorke and McGrath into the trees. The two men moved between the trunks, waiting for Houlihan to tell them when to stop. When they were about twenty yards away, Seamus told them to halt. ‘That's far enough,' he said.

Waddell looked at Rorke and McGrath. They were hardly visible there in the woods. If they were to bend down you couldn't see them at all. Houlihan whistled tunelessly a few seconds, then approached Waddell and slung his big arm round Waddell's shoulders.

‘You'll be over there with me, Waddy,' Houlihan said.

Waddell licked his lips. The surface of his tongue was very dry. He was trying to make his mind go far away, sending it off on a journey, as if it were a javelin he could toss through the air at will. Anywhere but here.

He followed Houlihan into the trees, then stopped when the big man came to a halt. Waddell wanted to ask why they were out here, what it was that Houlihan was planning now, but he didn't want to know. Something was going to come this way, he understood that much. And it was going to be ambushed.

‘This is where we'll be,' Houlihan said, squinting back the way they'd come. He dug the heel of his boot into the ground, making a mark. Waddell wanted to think it was a game, kids playing in the woods, cowboys and indians, a game of hiding, anything at all but what it really was.

Waddell turned up the collar of his jacket. The wind blew into his eyes and made the branches overhead rustle. It had to be pleasant here in the summer, he thought, leafy lanes, bowers, a romantic spot. But it wasn't pleasant now, not even with the yellowy sun streaming behind the threadbare trees.

‘When the time comes, we'll have the weapons in our hands,' Houlihan said. ‘The real thing, Waddy.'

Waddell shifted his head slightly. He peered through the trees to where Rorke and McGrath were situated. The real thing, he thought.

‘Are you up for it, Waddy?'

Waddell tried to imagine standing here, hidden from the road, with a machine-gun in his hands. The prospect alarmed him.

‘What are we going to be shooting at?' he asked.

Houlihan smiled. He tapped his nose with his index finger, a gesture indicating secrecy. ‘You'll know when the time comes.'

‘Is it a vehicle of some kind?' Waddell asked.

‘You're an inquisitive wee bugger, Waddy.'

‘Do we just stand here and open fire on it?'

Houlihan nodded. ‘That's all you have to do.'

Waddell stared up into Houlihan's eyes. The look he saw there was the same he'd seen that night in Finn's house when the old man lay trapped and dying between the strings of a bloody harp. It was beyond cold, more than the mere absence of light. There was nothing in the big man's eyes but a vacancy, a frightening void where everything that breathed and had life perished.

‘What chance will this vehicle have?' Waddell asked.

Houlihan said, ‘None.'

Waddell was quiet a moment. What was it Houlihan wanted to ambush? A truck? A car? ‘How many people will be inside it?'

Without answering, Seamus Houlihan walked away. When he'd gone about ten yards, the big man turned back and said, ‘Let's get the hell out of here. It's time to get some lunch.'

New York City

Leonard M. Korn looked at the huge wall map that had been hung in Zuboric's office. A few coloured pins, each indicating a place where Jig had either been seen or had allegedly operated, were stuck into the surface. There was one for Lower Manhattan, another for Bridgehampton, one for Albany, and a fourth in White Plains. Since coming to New York City by helicopter from Washington, Korn had dispatched six field agents to each of these locations to do what he called follow-up, which consisted mainly of going over the territory and asking questions of inhabitants who might have seen Jig without actually knowing it. It was a blunderbuss operation, in fact. You scattered men all over the place, compiled hundreds of pages of notes, fed the raw information into computers and hoped that some kind of pattern, capable of predicting Jig's movements, capable of sketching a variety of scenarios, would emerge from deep within the electronic brain after a process of analysis, comparison and collation. In addition to the twenty-four agents presently in the field, Korn had also sent six explosives experts to White Plains to sift through the charred remains of the church. A further ten agents were involved in checking the backgrounds, movements and financial records of Nicholas Linney. All in all, it was exactly the kind of operation The Director enjoyed because it gave him the opportunity to leave his mark everywhere.

Korn turned in his chair to look at Arthur Zuboric over the bank of special telephones, each a different colour, that had hurriedly been installed since his arrival. Agents came and went along the corridors, rushing to feed data by direct computer link to Washington, making phone calls, keeping tabs on the men in the field. Zuboric, who no longer recognised his own office, was impressed.

Korn said, ‘This should all have been done before, of course.'

Zuboric nodded slightly.

‘Still,' and Korn rose in his platform shoes. ‘Better late than never. Our President's motto.' A small smile played on Korn's mouth. He folded his hands in front of his body and swayed back and forth on his heels a moment. ‘But we're not here to criticise our elected officials, are we?'

‘No, sir,' Zuboric said, in a dry voice.

Korn turned to the window and looked out at Manhattan with disapproval on his face. He was a Washington man through and through and generally unhappy with any city that wasn't The Nation's Hub.

‘Frank Pagan,' he said.

Zuboric had been waiting for this. The full wrath of The Director could come down on him now. It crossed his mind that this would be a highly appropriate moment to say suddenly that he'd decided to resign from the Bureau. The perfect time to run away. He caught a tantalising glimpse of freedom beyond the reach of Korn's mighty arm. Out there, away from the Bureau, was another country, a pleasant sort of place where he might be happily and peacefully married to Charity. And broke, too.

‘Frank Pagan has a history of curious behaviour,' Korn said. ‘I assume you've read his file.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘He should have been put out to pasture a long time ago. But who can understand the British? Instead of firing Pagan when he didn't fit in at Scotland Yard, they gave him his own little dominion with his own powers of rulership. Crazy. And now he has to go and have a breakdown in the U.S.A.'

A breakdown. Zuboric flexed his fingers. The Director was silent for some time. It was spooky and unnerving.

‘A Lone Ranger complex,' Korn finally said, sighing, shaking his head. ‘Didn't you notice? Didn't you see the signs?'

Zuboric stared at the floor. If he admitted he'd seen signs of what Korn called a breakdown, then it would be tantamount to confessing his lack of insight into human behaviour and consequently an inability to predict situations. If he didn't admit it, then he was damned on the grounds of insensitivity. Either way he was lost. He opened his mouth to say something, but Korn cut him off.

‘The point is, he's out there somewhere,' and one of The Director's white hands flew up in the direction of the map. ‘Presumably with the intention of capturing Jig. If he succeeds, well, that would be an unacceptable state of affairs. How would we look then, Zuboric? How would The Bureau look if this lone man brought in Jig?'

Zuboric shook his head. He knew the answer to that question.

‘Does Pagan know something we don't?' Korn asked.

‘Not to the best of my knowledge, sir.' But Zuboric wasn't sure. Lately he'd had the disturbing feeling that Pagan was hiding something, although he hadn't been able to put his finger on it.

Leonard M. Korn sat down and said nothing for a time. Then, ‘The point is, Zuboric, Pagan's expendable. Just as expendable as Jig.'

Expendable. Zuboric thought the word had a fine ring to it. He liked the idea of it being applied to Pagan. When he thought of Frank Pagan attacking Tyson Bruno he was enraged. Apart from the assault on a Federal agent, Pagan had made Zuboric's operation look very bad indeed, clumsy and inept.

‘What I'm saying, Arthur, is that while Frank Pagan doesn't rank priority as far as I'm concerned, it wouldn't be altogether a tragedy if he had an accident of some kind during the course of our investigation.' Korn shrugged. ‘If he gets in our way, that is.'

A death-warrant, Zuboric thought.

‘On the other hand, it would be more
tidy
if he were simply bundled up and shoved on to a plane for Heathrow.' The Director ran a hand over his shaved head. ‘I really don't care one way or another. You do understand what I'm saying, don't you?'

‘Yes, sir.' Zuboric moved his feet around.

‘His photograph has been circulated to everyone involved in this operation,' The Director said. ‘Let's talk about something else. Let's talk about you, Arthur.'

Here it comes, Zuboric thought. His heart fluttered. He knew that Korn had something in mind for him, perhaps one of those banishments into exile for which The Director was notorious. If it wasn't the bat caves of Carlsbad, it could be the frozen tundra of The Dakotas. He suddenly had an insight into Korn's powers. This small man, with the shaven head and the voice that barely rose above a whisper, was privy to all manner of confidential information, and had all kinds of power over others. At a whim, he could consign you to oblivion, ruin your career, wreck your whole life. With the stroke of a pen, Leonard M. Korn could make it seem as if you'd never existed. Zuboric wondered what that sort of power did to a person.