London Bridges: A Novel (14 page)

Aunt Judi seemed confused, her natural state as far as Shafer could tell. “How would I do that?” she blubbered.

“Just call the sodding police! Now shut up and listen. You're to tell the police that I came to visit, and I told you that no one is safe anymore. Not the police, not their families. We can go to their houses, just like I came to your house today.”

Just to make sure she got it, Shafer repeated the message twice more. Then he turned his attention back to Tricia and Erica, who interested him about as much as the ridiculous porcelain dolls covering the mantel in the room. He hated those silly, frilly porcelain doodads that had once belonged to his wife and that she had doted on as if they were real.

“How is Robert?” he asked the twins, and received no reaction.

What is this? The girls had already mastered the hopelessly lost and confused look of their mother and their blubbering auntie. They said not a word.

“Robert is your brother!” Shafer yelled, and the girls started to sob loudly again. “How is he? How is my son? Tell me something about your brother! Has he grown two heads? Anything!”

“He's all right,” Tricia finally simpered.

“Yes, he's all right,” Erica repeated, following her sister's lead.

“He's all right, is he? Well, that's all right, then,” Shafer said with utter disdain for these two clones of their mother.

He found that he was actually missing Robert, though. He rather enjoyed the mildly twisted lad at times. “All right, give your father a kiss,” he finally demanded. “I am your father, you pitiful twits,” he added for good measure. “In case you've forgotten.”

The girls wouldn't kiss him, and he wasn't permitted to kill them, so Shafer finally had to leave the dreadful house. On the way out, he swept the porcelain dolls off the mantel, sending them crashing to the floor.

“In memory of your mother!” he called back over his shoulder.

The most common complaint from soldiers serving in Iraq is that they feel that everything around them is absurd and makes no sense. More and more, this is the way of modern-day warfare. I felt it now myself.

We were past the deadline and living on borrowed time. That's how it seemed to me. Feeling as if I hadn't been able to catch my breath in days, I was on my way to London with two agents from our International Terrorism Section.

Geoffrey Shafer was in England. Even more insane, he wanted us to know he was there. Someone did.

The flight into Heathrow Airport arrived at a little before six in the morning and I went straight to a hotel just off Victoria Street and slept until ten. After that short rest, I made my way to New Scotland Yard, just around the corner, on Broadway. It was great to be so near Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, and the Houses of Parliament.

Upon arrival, I was taken to the office of Detective Superintendent Martin Lodge of the Met. Lodge told me, modestly enough, that he kept the Anti Terrorist Branch, called SO13, running smoothly. On our way to the morning's briefing he gave me a thumbnail sketch of himself.

“Like you, I came up through the police ranks. Eleven years with the Met after a stint with SIS in Europe. Before that I trained at Hendon, then a constable on the beat. Chose the detective track and was moved into SO13 because I have a few languages.”

He paused, and I spoke at the first break. “I know about your AT squad—the best in Europe, I've heard. Years of practice with the IRA.”

Lodge gave me a thin smile, a veteran trouper's smile. “Sometimes the best way to learn is through mistakes. We've made plenty in Ireland. Anyway, here we are, Alex. They're all waiting inside. They want to meet you very much. Get ready for some incredible bullshit, though. MI5 and MI6 will both be here. They fight over everything. Don't let it get to you. We manage to sort it all out in the end. Most of the time, anyway.”

I nodded. “Like the Bureau and the CIA back home. I'm sure I've seen it before.”

As it turned out, Detective Superintendent Lodge was right on about the turf wars, and I figured that the feud was probably hurting progress in London, even under the present crisis circumstances. Also in the room were a few Special Branch men and women. The prime minister's chief of staff. Plus the usual crowd from London's emergency services.

As I took a seat I groaned inside—another goddamn meeting. Just what I didn't need. We're past the deadline—they're blowing up things! I wanted to yell.

The large beach house outside Montauk on Long Island didn't belong to the Wolf. It was a rental, forty thousand a week, even in the off-season. A complete rip-off, the Wolf knew, but he didn't mind so much. Not today, anyway.

It was quite an impressive place, though—Georgian style, three stories rising above the beach, immense swimming pool shielded from the wind by the house itself, pebbled driveway lined with cars—mostly limousines, muscular drivers in dark suits congregating around them.

Everything here, he thought with some bitterness, paid for with my money, my sweat, my ideas!

They were waiting for him, several of his associates in the Red Mafiya. They were gathered inside a library/sitting room with panoramic views of the deserted beach and the Atlantic.

They pretended to be his dearest, closest friends as he entered the room, shaking his hand, patting his broad back and shoulders, muttering easy lies about how good it was to see him. The very few who know what I look like. The inner circle, the ones I trust more than anyone else.

Lunch had been served before he arrived, and then the entire household staff had been removed from the house. He had parked in back, then come in through the kitchen. No one had seen him except the men in this room, nine of them.

He stood before them and lit up a cigar. To victory.

“They have asked for an extension of the deadline. Can you believe it?” the Wolf said between satisfying puffs.

The Russian men around the table began to laugh. They shared the Wolf's disdain for the current governments and leaders around the world. Politicians were weak by nature and the few strong ones who snuck into office somehow were soon weakened by the process of government. It had always been that way.

“Drop the hammer!” one of the men shouted.

The Wolf smiled. “You know, I should. But they have a point—if we act now, we lose, too. Let me get them on the line. They're expecting an answer. This is interesting, no? We negotiate with the United States, Britain, and Germany. As if we were a world power.”

The Wolf raised his index finger as the call went through. “They're expecting to hear from me. . . .”

“You're all on the line?” he spoke into the phone.

They were.

"No small talk, the time for that has passed. Here is my decision. You have another two days, till seven o'clock, eastern standard time, but . . .

“The price has just doubled!”

He disconnected. Then he looked around at his people.

“What? You approve, or what? Do you know how much money I just made for you?”

They all began to clap, then cheer.

The Wolf stayed with them for the remainder of the afternoon. He endured their false compliments, their requests thinly disguised as suggestions. But then he had other business in New York City, so he left them to enjoy the house by the sea, and whatever.

“The ladies will arrive soon,” he promised. “Models and beauty queens from New York. They say the most beautiful pussy in the world. Have fun.” On my money, my sweat, my brilliance.

He was back in the Lotus then, heading toward the Long Island Expressway. He was squeezing the black rubber ball, but finally he set it down. He took out his cell phone again. Pressed a few numbers. A code was transmitted. A circuit closed. A primer fired.

Even from that far away, he heard the beach house explode. He didn't need them anymore; he didn't need anyone.

Zamochit! The bombs had broken every bone in all of their worthless, useless bodies.

Payback, revenge.

It was a beautiful thing.

We received word in London that the deadline had been extended forty-eight hours, and the relief, though temporary, was still extraordinary for all of us. Within the hour, we got word of a bombing on Long Island—several Red Mafiya bosses reported dead. What did it mean? Had the Wolf struck again? At his own people?

There was nothing useful for me to do after the long round of meetings at Scotland Yard. About ten at night, I met with a friend from Interpol at a London restaurant, the Cinnamon Club, which was on the site of what had once been the Old Westminster Library on Great Smith Street.

I was past being exhausted and, in fact, had gotten my second wind. Besides, I always looked forward to spending time with Sandy Greenberg, who was probably the smartest police officer I had ever worked with. Maybe she had a new idea about the Wolf. Or the Weasel. At any rate, no one knew the European underworld better than she did.

Sandy is Sondra to all but her closest friends, and I am fortunate enough to be one of them. She's tall, attractive, chic, a little gawky, witty, and very funny. She gave me a big hug and kisses on both cheeks.

“Is this the only way I get to see you, Alex? Some kind of terrifying international emergency? Where's the love?”

“You could always come to Washington to see me,” I said as we pulled apart. “You look absolutely great, by the way.”

“I do, don't I?” said Sandy. “Come, we have a table in the back. I've missed you terribly. God, it's good to see you. You look wonderful yourself, even with all of this going on. How do you do it?”

The dinner was a fusion of Indian and European that couldn't be found in the States, at least not anywhere around Washington. Sandy and I talked for well over an hour about the case. But over coffee we lightened up and let things get a little more personal. I noticed a gold signet ring and a trinity band she wore on her pinkie finger.

“Beautiful,” I told her.

“From Katherine,” she said, and smiled. Sandy and Katherine Grant had been living together for about ten years and were one of the happiest couples I had ever met. Lessons to be learned, but who can ever figure it all out? Not me. I couldn't even master my own life.

“I see you're still not married,” she said.

“You noticed.”

Sandy smirked. “Detective, you know. Investigator par excellence. So tell me everything, Alex.”

“Not a lot to tell,” I said, and found my choice of words interesting. “I'm seeing someone I like a lot —”

Sandy interrupted. “Oh, hell, you like everyone a lot. That's the way you are, Alex. You even liked Kyle Craig. Found some good in the creepy, psychopathic bastard.”

“You could be right, generally speaking. But I'm over Kyle. And I don't like anything about Colonel Geoffrey Shafer. Or the Russian who calls himself the Wolf.”

“I am right, dear boy. So who is this incredible woman you like a lot and whose heart you'll break, or she'll break yours—one or the other, I'm certain of it already. Why do you keep torturing yourself?”

I grinned, couldn't help it. “Another detective—well, actually, her title is inspector. She lives in San Francisco.”

“How convenient. That's brilliant, Alex. What is it, two thousand miles from Washington? So you have a date, what, every other month?”

I laughed again. “I see your tongue is as sharp as ever.”

“Practice, practice. So you still haven't found the right woman. Pity. A real shame. I have a couple of friends. Well, hell, let's not even go there. Let me ask you a personal question, though. Do you think you're truly over Maria?”

The thing about Sandy, as an investigator, is that she has thoughts that others don't; she explores areas that are often ignored. My wife, Maria, had been murdered over ten years ago in a drive-by shooting. I'd never been able to solve it—and maybe I wasn't over Maria. Maybe, just maybe, I couldn't find closure until I solved her murder. The case was still open. That thought had been tugging at me for years and still caused some pain whenever it entered my head.

“I am totally smitten with Jamilla Hughes,” I said. “That's all I know for now. We enjoy each other. Why is that a bad thing?”

Sandy smiled. “I heard you the first time, Alex. You like her a lot. But you haven't told me that you're madly in love, and you're not the kind of person who settles for smitten. Right? Of course I'm right. I'm always right.”

“I love you,” I said.

Sandy laughed. “Well, then, it's settled. You're staying at my place tonight.”

“All right. Fine,” I agreed.

We both laughed, but half an hour later Sandy dropped me at my hotel off Victoria Street.

“You think of anything?” I said as I climbed out of the taxi.

“I'm on it,” said Sandy, and I knew she was as good as her word, and I needed all the help I could possibly get in Europe.

Henry Seymour lived not too far from the Weasel's hideout on Edgware Road in the area between Marble Arch and Paddington that is sometimes known as Little Lebanon. Colonel Shafer walked to the former SAS member's flat that morning, and as he trudged along, he wondered what had happened to the city, his city, and to his bloody country as well. What a dismal scene.

The streets were filled with Middle Eastern coffee shops and restaurants and grocers. The aromas of ethnic cuisines were thick in the air that morning by eight—tabbouleh, lentil soup, b'steeya. In front of a paper store two elderly men smoked tobacco through a water-filtered hookah. Bloody hell! What the fuck has happened to my country?

Henry Seymour's apartment was located above a men's clothing shop, and the Weasel went straightaway to the third floor. He knocked once and Seymour opened up for him.

As soon as he saw Henry, though, Shafer was concerned. The man had lost thirty or forty pounds since he'd seen him last, and that was only a few months ago. His full head of curly black hair was almost gone, replaced by a few scraggly tufts of gray and white frizz.