Curious, Pope did a little digging and discovered the boy had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. He learned that the symptoms — hallucinations, delusions — could exist on a spectrum and were present sometimes in people who were otherwise highly functioning.
The trucker, Joel, was bantering with the blowsy blonde behind the counter as he settled the bill. Pope leaned towards Nina and said, ‘It’s the voices, isn’t it?’
She didn’t look at him, quite, but her eyes flicked sideways in his direction, and her breathing caught.
‘We can talk later, if you want,’ he murmured. ‘I know what it’s like. I hear them, too.’
It was, by his calculation, only the third lie he’d told her. He’d lied earlier when he told her the CIA men pursuing her wanted her dead.
And he’d lied when he told her: You can survive this.
Thirty-Two
Manhattan, New York City
Monday 20 May, 10.25 pm
Giordano’s phone rang as he was heading down the corridor to the offices where Campbell and Barker were being kept. He was in the Company’s Midtown base, a cleverly anonymous warren fronted by an old, apparently residential brownstone.
It was Naomi. ‘Boss, can you talk?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You may have heard already, but there’s been a shooting out in New Jersey. Four Company agents dead.’
‘What?’
‘A real firefight. Some kind of explosion, M16s being used, the works. At the home of an ex-agent, Dennis Crosby.’
‘What the hell happened?’
‘I don’t have much else at the moment. One of my contacts in the Jersey PD who I’d primed to look out for Purkiss phoned it in a few minutes ago. Happened around six this evening.’
‘I haven’t been told any of this… Naomi, thanks. Keep me up to date.’
‘Sure.’
Giordano paused in the corridor, gripping his forehead. Then he continued down to the office he was looking for, the floorboards wincing under his bulky stride. He knocked on the door and opened without waiting for a reply.
The two men, Campbell and Barker, sat with another agent.
‘Giordano,’ he said to the third man. ‘Out. I want to talk to these guys alone.’
*
Afterwards he wandered back and found Krugmann, the head of Midtown, in conversation with a group of people in an open plan area.
‘A word,’ he said. Krugmann glared at him craggily. He dismissed the others and took Giordano to his own office, closing the door. Giordano knew the man resented his intrusion, felt the Langley officer was pissing all over his territory. That was too bad. Whatever you need, you’ve got. No restrictions, the Director had said.
‘They talk to you?’ Krugmann said.
‘Never mind that. Four operatives killed in a firefight three hours ago? You were going to tell me this — when?’
Krugmann wiped a hand across his face. ‘You just got here, Ray. And with the greatest respect, what’s it got to do with you?’
‘What’s it — ? With slightly less respect, Bob, I’m investigating the systematic assassination of until tonight three Company executives. Investigating on the express orders of the Director. So that’s what the shooting of four more agents has to do with me.’
Krugmann gazed at him from under tortoise lids. ‘You’d better sit down,’ he said, indicating a chair and sinking into one himself.
Giordano sat.
‘What were the agents doing there? At this Crosby’s house?’
Krugmann steepled his fingers, touched the tips to his lips. ‘We don’t know.’
‘Don’t know.’
‘That’s right, Ray.’ Krugmann leaned back in his swivel chair, clasping his hands behind his head, sighing as he stretched. ‘There was no sanctioned operation. These four men were acting on their own.’
‘Oh, Jesus.’ Giordano stared at Krugmann. ‘A freelance cell.’
‘Something like that, it appears. Yes.’ Krugmann’s tone dropped. ‘These guys were from New York, which means I and the other borough chiefs are up to our eyelashes in the shit right now.’
Giordano flicked his fingers in a come hither gesture. ‘Give me some facts. Names.’
*
Despite his bulk he could work quickly, Giordano, and he absorbed and assimilated the information as he read it off the reports. One fact caught his attention and he paused at it.
The police responded to an anonymous call from an individual claiming to be a Federal agent.
There was nothing unusual about a person phoning in anonymously with information, nor with such a person living out their fantasies and pretending to be someone they weren’t. But it made Giordano think of something.
To Krugmann he said, ‘Keep Campbell and Barker in the building. I need to speak to them again for a minute.’
Campbell had told him there’d been a woman on the scene. He’d caught only a glimpse — he’d been buried beneath an airbag at the time — but she’d looked tough, like a professional.
Giordano pulled out his phone and called Naomi. She’d work more quickly than anyone here could, even if she was more than two hundred miles away.
‘Yeah. Get me someone in the FBI. The Director if you can, but somebody more junior will do if necessary. Just not too junior.’
In twenty minutes, and with only the briefest recourse to the co-operation is in the interests of both our services shtick, Giordano had a name. Two names, in fact. Barbara Berg and Daniel Nakamura. Both Special Agents with the Bureau who’d gone off the radar earlier this afternoon, and were now operating without sanction.
They were the same two agents who’d pulled Purkiss in for questioning at the airport.
They had Purkiss with them, he was sure of it. And that made finding him easier, because three people were more conspicuous than one.
‘I need an office,’ said Giordano. ‘I’m going to be here for a while. This one will do.’
Thirty-Three
Interstate 95, between Washington D.C and New York
Tuesday 21 May, 2.05 am
The truck was an eighteen-wheel behemoth, its white refrigerated trailer like a carapace from beneath which the head-like red cab protruded. Pope saw all manner of decorations through the windscreen as they approached; multicoloured disco lights, a statuette of a nude woman on the dashboard that no doubt gyrated when the engine was running, a buffalo skull mounted on the inner roof.
It was unlikely transport for two people on the run, so it would do.
Joel sang tunelessly under his breath as he helped up first Nina and then Pope. The inside was trimmed in red leather. Pope pulled the door closed and then shifted against it to give Nina room in the middle. She lowered her violin case into the footwell.
Since he’d mentioned the voices, she’d been noticeably different: readier to comply with his suggestions immediately, and even making eye contact on occasion. He had some way to go to get her back, but he felt he was making a start.
The engine started with a great coughing rumble, the entire vehicle shivering slightly as it shook itself awake. The cab smelled of onions and spearmint and diesel.
‘Rock and roll, people,’ said Joel, and the beast began to pull out.
Through the window Pope saw, back don the interstate, the massing emergency vehicles. The traffic cops were already setting up, diverting the stream of nighttime cars around the scene.
‘Damn,’ said Joel, staring at the rear view mirror. ‘That’s some fender bender.’
For a moment Pope thought the man would turn the truck round to investigate; but he joined the northward flow.
Joel was going to Queens. Pope had told him his destination was Brooklyn, but he intended at the last minute to ask to be dropped off in Manhattan. Just in case the driver was in radio contact with anybody during the journey and mentioned where he was taking his passengers.