Blood and Ashes (31 page)

‘I understand enough to know a murdering son of a bitch when I look at him.’ I lifted the SIG again, my face flat as sheet-steel.

Kwon squirmed away. ‘No, wait! Remember that you owe me my life, Yankee. We made a deal.’

‘There you go again with the misconceptions. I’m not a cop and I’m not a Yankee,’ I said, face going lax. ‘But you’re right. I made a deal to hand you to the police.’

‘Good,’ said Kwon, smiling.

‘Not that good. I didn’t promise you a goddamn thing,’ said Rink, and shot Kwon in the skull.

Chapter 40

‘Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea.’ Special Agent Vincent fiddled with his damp hair, as though he still wore the Everett pompadour. His conservative feebie cut just didn’t have the same effect.

‘He deserved exactly what he got,’ I said. ‘He’s as responsible for the bombing as anyone, and do you think Hicks will be treated any differently when we find him?’

Vince jammed his hands in his suit pockets, staring down at the dead Korean. Kwon’s features had relaxed in death, his eyes rolling up as though trying to see the bullet hole in his forehead. ‘We could have learned much more from him. We could have traced the consignment of plutonium back to its source, found who was behind this.’

‘And then what? Declare war on North Korea? Seems to me like Rink just did the world a real service.’

Vince wasn’t swayed, he just shook his head. ‘From what I gather, we won’t let this rest. Walter will have a team on this already, plotting the Koreans’ movements. We’ll get to the bottom of it sooner or later.’

‘It’ll be a dark day if you do.’

‘Maybe, maybe not. Those freaking Koreans have been given too much slack. Diplomacy isn’t going to make them disarm; maybe it’s time we showed them they can’t fuck with the US any longer.’ The agent turned and walked away, indicating to a couple of his FBI colleagues to take over. Feeling redundant now, I followed, going back down the stairs to the ground floor.

The Red Moon Bar looked like an NYPD convention. Interspersed among the officers were plain-clothed FBI agents, as well as others in black windcheaters and ball caps. The semi-naked dancers and the bar staff were all sitting along one wall while officers took their details and statements. The FBI people followed along debriefing them, maybe with warnings of what might happen if any of them blabbed about this to the press. The girls were the real victims here, not the terrorist scum that we had put down. A crew from the Medical Examiner’s office had arrived and it was annoying to see that the Koreans were afforded the same respect as the dead doorman as they were bagged and transported away.

Vince wandered away to confer with some of his government pals, and I scanned the bar area for Rink. The big guy was sitting on a stool, sipping water from a tall glass, as morose as hell.

‘You OK, Rink?’

Rink wore a dazed expression. He was a veteran of as many battles as I was, but where we differed was in our capacity for compartmentalising the delivery of cold-blooded death. In the heat of battle, Rink was as frighteningly effective as any warrior, but never at the expense of his morals or sense of honour. He was suffering from his split-second decision to shoot Kwon. I kneaded Rink’s muscular shoulder.

‘I’m OK, brother,’ he said.

He wasn’t, he was sickened that he’d fallen below the line he’d always set for himself.

‘Desperate times, Rink . . .’

Rink shook his head. He couldn’t help thinking that the measures he’d employed were anything but desperate: they’d been delivered with cool and deliberate calculation.

Rink lifted his chin like it was a dowsing tool, and pointed it across the room at nothing in particular. ‘You haven’t heard the good news, yet?’

From his deadpan delivery, I guessed there was nothing good about it. I looked at him, then over at the plasma screen. Someone had turned it off. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The bombing at Lincoln Square.’ Rink studied his glass as though seeking out impurities. ‘It was just that: an ordinary, everyday bomb. There’s no trace of any radioactive particles.’

I felt weightless, like a giant hand had lifted me off the floor and suspended me bodily in mid-air, the burden of millions of dead bodies plucked from my shoulders.

‘Thank God for that.’

Rink swirled the water in the glass, and continued to stare at it. ‘Don’t you see, Hunter? I executed that man upstairs because I thought he’d been pivotal in murdering thousands of people. I was wrong.’

‘Whether Hicks’ bomb failed to discharge the plutonium or not, Kwon was still responsible for supplying it. He deserved to die.’

‘Did he?’ Rink asked. ‘Go get Vince over here, get him to explain to you how the flasks of
plutonium
held nothing more dangerous than this water.’

Inhaling deeply, I looked for Vince, but the agent had moved elsewhere. ‘What are you saying, Rink?’

‘Don’t know. There are only two things I can come up with, and I don’t like either of them.’ Rink stood up, took my elbow and led me towards the exit door. ‘C’mon, I gotta get outa this place.’

There was no argument from me. The stink of death was in the Red Moon, more pungent than the spilled liquor and sweat that permeated the place. Outside, we stood on Delancey out of earshot of any of the gathered law-enforcement officers. The rain that had pounded Pennsylvania had found its way to New York, and the streets glittered under the downpour. Neither of us gave it any mind. I, for one, felt that some of the associated dirt of our actions was being washed away.

Rink rubbed his chin, his fingertips playing distractedly with the scar he’d picked up while we’d fought for our lives with Tubal Cain, the Harvestman. The scar was a reminder of his mortality. My take on the scar was something different: it was a mark of how I’d torn Rink from a happy retirement and dragged him into the nightmare that dogged me everywhere. A little over a year ago Rink had been our voice of reason, reminding us that we no longer had a licence to kill: now Rink had committed the ultimate sin, reverting to the level of the executioner he’d striven so hard to leave behind.

‘Two things,’ Rink said, resuming his train of thought from inside the Red Moon. ‘Two things, and I don’t like the way my mind’s working.’

I could guess where Rink was going with this, but allowed him to continue.

‘I overheard a couple of those FBI guys talking. They were saying that the bomb that went off was more flash than substance. A number of people were hurt, but it was mainly minor burns or scrapes. When the car exploded it was rigged so that the trunk blew off and most of the flames went into the sky. To me it sounds like the blast was channelled to cause as little damage as possible.’

I hadn’t taken much notice of the images on the TV screen at the time but when I thought back there had been very little structural damage. Plenty of paper and trash lay scattered around the site, some shattered windows, but none of the usual smoking debris and tumbled masonry. Now Rink was telling me that the supposed plutonium flasks contained nothing more dangerous than water. What did that mean: that Hicks had been bluffed into buying the bogus isotope or had been party to the sham? The fact that Hicks’ bomb had gone off like nothing but a large firework gave credence to the latter scenario.

‘What are you thinking, Rink?’

‘I’m thinking I may have murdered the one man who could have given us all the answers we need.’

‘Wasn’t murder, Rink. Way I see it, it was justified.’

Rink snorted. He pushed back his hair, and droplets of rain spattered all around his shoulders. ‘OK. There are two ways of looking at this, like I said. Either Kwon supplied the real thing, or he set Hicks up. Either way it doesn’t make him a good man. But I still have a problem with that. Why would he set Hicks up? Makes me think he had no intention of hurting anyone, like maybe he wanted to save lives?’

‘I doubt that. Maybe Kwon didn’t know that the flasks were fakes.’

‘Maybe not.’

‘For someone who didn’t want anyone hurt, he put up quite a fight,’ I reminded him. ‘If he was a good guy, why didn’t he just put up his hands and surrender when the first cops got there? Why’d he let his friends die?’

‘Maybe he had to put on a good show. He said we didn’t understand. Understand what, Hunter? And why’d he say he wanted to speak to the CIA? Plea bargain? I don’t think so.’

‘He was just looking for a way out of his predicament. He knew that if he didn’t talk, I was going to kill him.’

Rink didn’t have an answer for that. Instead he said, ‘There’s always the chance that Hicks still has the original flasks. Maybe he’s planning on using them for something else and Lincoln Square was just a warning of worse to come.’

I didn’t credit that; why would Hicks go to the effort of fabricating an explosion? But I went along with my friend. Rink was trying to find justification for killing Kwon, and this was a feasible way out of his funk. It wasn’t in me to deny him the peace of mind. ‘I think we need to speak to Walter without Vince being in the same room. What do you reckon?’

The two commandeered motorcycles were still parked where we’d left them. ‘I’m up for it,’ Rink said.

Less than a minute later we were kicking the bikes into life, pulling out through the cordon of police vehicles. There was a shout and Vince came dodging through gaps in the parked cars, but I resolutely ignored him. Rink was correct: too many contradictory elements were at play. It was time we had a private conversation with Walter without the young agent eavesdropping on our every word.

On our way to FDR Drive, we discovered that the traffic had resumed its normal flow. Once they heard the news that the explosion at Lincoln Square had been nowhere near as disastrous as the first accounts had it, the people of Manhattan had returned to a semblance of normality. Finding a way back to the office opposite the Woolworth Building wasn’t a simple task, but that was due to our unfamiliarity with this section of the city rather than the hold-up in traffic. Worried that Walter had already moved on, now that events had proven less serious than feared, we pushed the bikes to their limit. When we arrived at the building I was glad to see the CIA man’s personal bodyguards flanking the door. I’d conversed with both these men on occasion, had done them a kindness in a hotel in Miami when they’d otherwise been ignored by their boss, but that didn’t mean a thing. Both men reached for their handguns as we headed for the door.

Once the guards had checked with Walter that all was fine, they allowed us to enter. A wink their way was reciprocated by a nod of respect from both.

‘I thought you might head back here,’ Walter said, getting up from behind his desk. Then he craned his neck to see past us. ‘No Vince this time?’

‘We gave him the slip,’ I said.

Walter touched a finger to his lips, then said loudly, ‘Come with me. I just bet you’re ready for a coffee?’

That the room was bristling with listening devices was a given, and we went with him extolling the virtues of a strong Americano. Once out of the room, Walter told his guards to stop anyone entering his office. ‘You don’t let a soul in there. Not Stephen Vincent, not even the President if he turns up. Got it?’

He led us along a corridor and up a short flight of stairs. We went out through the main foyer of the building and found an espresso bar a short walk away. Walter ordered drinks, then patted his pockets. ‘Ah, my wallet’s back in my office.’

‘Cheapskate,’ I grunted, and handed dollars over to the barista.

The coffee shop was not the ideal location for talking over state secrets, so we walked, finding a bench in City Hall Park that was protected from the rain by the thick canopy of branches above. The leaves were long fallen, but the branches were thickly woven so the trees also served to conceal us from sight and directional microphones. The tinkle of a fountain made the only happy sound; everything else was the dull groan of traffic on Broadway, the hushed tones of pedestrians stunned by the recent events. Walter sat in the middle, like he was a tome wedged in place by sturdy bookends.

‘What I’m about to tell you must never be repeated,’ Walter began. ‘I need your word on the subject, boys. No exceptions.’

Rink cursed. I felt as though someone had just drilled a white-hot spear into my guts and was twisting it with malicious glee.

‘You’ve lied to us, Walter. Now you want us to swear a solemn oath to you?’

‘You are honourable men, Hunter. Your word binds you. Without it our conversation ends here. You can go back to Florida and forget all about Carswell Hicks and everything else you’ve heard here.’

I sipped coffee, mindless of the steam burning my lips. I couldn’t taste a thing. I leaned forward past Walter and met my friend’s eyes. ‘I gotta know,’ Rink said.

I nodded for us both. ‘OK, Walt. You have our word.’

Walter placed his cup on the floor between his feet while he searched for his cigar in his jacket pocket. The cigar was proof of Walter’s concentration over the past few hours, having been chewed down to a short stogie. He jammed it between his teeth, a necessary emotional crutch as he gathered himself to tell all. As soon as he started to speak, I felt dirtier than when I had been muddy and blood-spattered back in the Alleghenies.

Chapter 41

‘The Senate Judiciary Committee has made life very difficult for the entire intelligence community, and as you know they absolutely despise the CIA. If it were up to them the Agency would’ve been disbanded a long time ago.’ Walter shifted on the park bench, holding out his cigar and studying it: a habit he was no longer aware of, a conditioned response to something he found distasteful. ‘Their lawyers scrutinise everything we do, enforce their liberal ideas of the way in which we should treat enemies of the state. You can blame Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib if you wish. It was the furore over the
perceived
mistreatment of enemy combatants that has led to this.’