Red Eye - 02 (36 page)

“The Tina Checkley who has a website called Tick Talk?”

“That’s me.”

Her heart started to beat faster.

“Ms Checkley—may I call you Tina?”

“I guess. Who is this?”

“An admirer, you could say. Someone hugely impressed by your work. Someone in a position to make a highly lucrative bid for your footage and your future services.”

Fuck Jesus shit fuck holy frigging Christ...

Tina kept her voice even and businesslike, as cool as could be, the voice of a woman who took phone calls like this every day. “Yeah, really? You run a TV station or something?”

“I don’t run one,” said the man. “I
own
one. Three, as a matter of fact. Including a major network with a top-rating news outlet.”

“This better not be a prank call.”

“Not in the least.”

“Because if you’re punking me, mister...”

“Tina, I am entirely on the level.” His voice was refined and beguiling. Nothing in it gave Tina any cause to suspect that he was a bullshit artist or a time-wasting crazy. His accent was Boston, but high-end Boston; not the slovenly drawl of someone from Charlestown, say, or Roxbury. “I’ve seen that you’ve been consorting with vampires, putting yourself at great personal risk to bring us some truly remarkable reportage.”

“Listen, I love having smoke blown up my ass as much as the next person,” Tina said, “but I’m on the clock here. Let’s cut straight to it. What are you offering?”

“What am I offering? Only everything you’ve ever dreamt of.”

“And who are you?”

“My name? J. Howard Farthingale the Third. Perhaps you’ve heard of me...”

T
INA RETURNED TO
the shop, where Redlaw was paying for gassing up the bus. She noted that he had wrapped some of the parcel tape around his left sleeve to cover up the rips in the fabric.

“Tina? Are you all right?”

“Sure,” she said. “Why?”

“You’re looking a little... dazed.”

“No. Well, yeah. Hardly surprising, though. We’ve been on the go since who-knows-when and it’s all been pretty, you know, stressful. Must be catching up with me.”

She grabbed some candy bars and a couple of bags of Doritos off the shelf and tossed them on the counter. The attendant added them to the bill and took Redlaw’s money.

“Need refuelling myself,” Tina said, unwrapping a king-size PayDay as they walked back to the bus. “You want some?”

Redlaw shook his head.

“So where to now, boss? What’s the deal?”

“I’m open to suggestions.”

“’Cause we can keep driving around aimlessly from now until doomsday if you like. But if you ask me, we ought to be thinking about some kind of endgame. Taking the fight to these people rather than letting them make all the running.”

“Where has this sprung from?” Redlaw said. “The sudden attack of gung-ho?”

“I’m tired of being pushed around, is all. And of seeing the vamps get victimised. Also, the way you’re defending them, I’ve got to say it’s pretty inspiring.”

He looked askance at her. “Who are you and what have you done with Tina Checkley?”

“No, seriously. It’s cool. Your dedication to them. They haven’t done anything wrong except be who they are. Okay, we’ll overlook the part where they were going to drink you and me dry. Blame the Russian priest for that. Bad leadership. Jim Jones in a cassock. But here are American soldiers who want to just wipe them off the map. It’s genocide, pretty much. Ethnic cleansing. It’s a disgrace, and we shouldn’t stand for it.”

“I’m not,” said Redlaw. “But—”

The phone in his pocket trilled.

“Call for Colonel Jacobsen,” he said, pulling it out. “Or more likely me. Yes?”

He listened to the voice on the other end. For a time he said nothing other than “Hmm” and “Yes” and “I see.” Then he said, “I’ll think about it. Give me a few minutes and I’ll call you back.” He shut the phone.

“Who was that?”

“Farthingale.”

Tina frowned. “Who is...?”

“The man—and I use the term loosely—who’s behind all this. Rogue billionaire sociopath. There’s a surprising number of those about.”

“You know him?”

“Not personally. We’ve talked before. Just the once. Last time he was making threats. Now...”

“What does he want?”

“A truce.”

“Really?”

“Apparently. He says his soldiers have gone AWOL. He’s not running the show any more. He’s in over his head and he’d like to parley.”

“Where?”

“His place. It’s a couple of hundred miles from here. He wants us to go there and, in his words, ‘try to sort out this mess before it gets any worse.’”

“And what do you think to that?”

“I think, Tina,” said Redlaw, “that I’d be a fool if I didn’t suspect a trap. But I also think I should go.”

“Yeah, walk into a trap, that’s not at all foolish,” said Tina. “What good will going do?”

“Because,” said Redlaw simply, “if I meet this Farthingale face to face, then I can kill him.”

CHAPTER

THIRTY-FIVE

R
EDLAW DROVE.

He drove north-east through New England, a region that seemed to him like a cartographical remix of his own country—the names were the same, but the placements differed. He had a map, purchased at the Sunoco station, open on his lap. Portsmouth could be found due east of Manchester. Norwich lay south of Worcester. Rutland loitered way up north while Gloucester perched on a coastal promontory. It was England, but not as he knew it.

Tina had taped over the fresh holes in the bus’s bodywork, so the vampires were free to occupy the seats as normal. They were asleep now. It was the middle of the day, their natural rest time.

As for Tina herself, she dozed too, and the peace and quiet, to Redlaw, was bliss. He had his thoughts to himself and wasn’t having to deal with her almost incessant chatter.

It couldn’t last, alas. Shortly after they had bypassed Providence and were heading for the state line between Rhode Island and Massachusetts, Tina woke up. She came forward and peered over Redlaw’s shoulder into the viewing slot. It was bright out, the sky unbroken blue, sunshine glaring off snow. They passed a road sign: Boston 70 miles.

“Not far to go, huh?”

“We’ve broken the back of the journey,” said Redlaw. “We’ll give Boston a wide berth, then we’re more or less there.”

“At which point, what? You make like John Wayne and go do what a man’s gotta do?”

“Pretty much. Farthingale left the arrangements loose enough that I’ve room to play it by ear.” In his follow-up phone conversation with the plutocrat, they had ironed out the very vague terms of their meeting. “I intend to go to his island, handle whatever resistance he has lying in wait for me—if there is any—then bring him to justice.”

“What if he’s on the level, though? What if he wants to say sorry and throw himself on your mercy, just like it seems he does? You’re a Christian. What is it the Bible says about sinners who repent?”

“‘Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance.’”

“Exactly. If it’s redemption he’s after, don’t you sort of have to give it to him?”

“I think things have gone a little too far for that,” said Redlaw. “Anyway, it’s God who does the redeeming.”

“And you’re the man who sends folks to the Pearly Gates so’s He can do that.”

“Don’t make it sound so arbitrary. I don’t go around killing people willy-nilly.”

“Only whoever deserves it, yeah?”

“Whoever endangers that which I believe is right.”

“But what gives you the right to say what’s right?” said Tina.

“It’s obvious. Basic morality.”

“So that’s how it is with you. Cut and dried. Black and white. No grey areas. Kind of childish, don’t you think?”

“Tina, if someone tries to harm me, I don’t let them. That’s not childish. It’s purely practical. I’m not going to back off from a foe or show leniency, not when my life’s at stake—or the lives that are under my protection. That’s not what Jesus meant when he talked about turning the other cheek.”

“But according to you, Farthingale’s saying he’s lost control of the situation. Sounds to me like he wants you onside. He’s scared now—of what he’s done, and of you.”

“That’s if he isn’t lying and setting me up.”

“But if he isn’t, shouldn’t you give him the benefit of the doubt? A chance to make amends, anyways?”

Redlaw took his eyes off the road long enough to fix her with a curious stare. “Why are you defending him all of a sudden?”

“I’m not.”

“Not so long ago you were talking about taking the fight to the enemy. Farthingale
is
the enemy.”

“His soldiers are. He’s... probably not. Not any more. He’s Victor Frankenstein and his monster’s on the rampage and he doesn’t know what to do about it, which is why he’s turned to you. Out of desperation.”

Redlaw
hmm
ed sceptically.

“It’s possible,” Tina said. “You have to at least take it into consideration.”

“Tina,” Redlaw said after a long pause, “is there something you need to tell me?”

“No. Such as?”

“Anything you know that I don’t. Anything at all.”

“I don’t think so. Why do you ask?”

“You didn’t strike me as this conciliatory when I first met you. You’re the woman who, as I recall, zapped me with a stun gun just for putting a hand on you. You’re the aspiring journalist who’ll stop at nothing, put up with anything, to get her story.”

“I’ve been through a lot since then,” she said. “Not surprising my outlook might have changed.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure I’m sure.”

“Because if there’s something I should know, now’s the time to confess.”

“You are so suspicious, you know that?”

“I was a policeman once. I have a policeman’s instincts. When people are hiding things from me...”

“...your cop sense tingles, I get it. It’s just a shame.”

“What is?”

“That you don’t trust me. After all we’ve been through together these past few days. After all the help I’ve given you.”

Redlaw glanced at the map, then back at the road—the broad six-lane sweep of I-95. “We’ve another two or three hours of driving time,” he said. “It’ll be dark by the time we reach our destination. You do some thinking, Tina. Make up your mind. Honesty will get you much further than deceit. Take a long, hard look at yourself and let me know what you find.”

Tina rolled her eyes, gave a disgusted grunt, and slouched back to her seat.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-SIX

T
HE TOWN WAS
a pretty colonial-era sea port nestling at the tip of one horn of a large bay. In summer the streets would be thronged with tourists and seasonal residents, milling and meandering. The quaint clapboard and shingle-sided houses with their birthday-cake paintwork would gleam in the sun. The bay itself would be a glittering expanse dotted with countless yachts gliding to and fro, mainsails and jib sheets billowing, a pleasure seeker’s vision of paradise.