The Dead Sea Deception (55 page)

‘It is not for me to say,’ he murmured, his eyes cast down again.

The Yedimah breathed through his nose, almost a sniff of indignation. ‘No,’ he agreed. ‘It is not. Kuutma, there are those alive who may now know who we are and where we are. Their
deaths will be procured, in due course, but as of now their deaths are not even a priority. We have gone beyond such concerns. First, before all else, we must protect the people.’

Kuutma bared his teeth in a snarl, but kept his head bowed so that nobody would see it. ‘They have always been my care, Yedimah.’

‘We know it. And we know you must feel this as a reproach. Still, it must be done, and we must see it done. We look to your support in this, as in everything.’

Kuutma stood. Strictly speaking, he ought to have waited for permission to rise, but this seemed to be a time when protocol bled away into the spaces between thoughts and words, words and deeds. He stared at the Yedimah for a long time in silence, and the Yedimah waited for him to speak. All of them, the Oak and the Ash and the Seed, waited on the words of the Brand.

‘With
mapkanah
comes
maasat
, the paying of the balance,’ Kuutma said, stating the obvious.

The Ruakh nodded, once.

‘When?’ Kuutma demanded.

‘Two days from now,’ the Ruakh said.

‘So soon?’

‘So late,’ said the Yedimah, grimly.

Kuutma made the sign of the noose, yielding the point. ‘I want to stay,’ he said. ‘To efface my failure, let me be the one to hold the scales and make sure the balance is paid. Grant me this, Elders, and I will give up my place as Kuutma with a light heart.’

He was holding the Yedimah’s gaze. So many things were hiding in the thicket of that sentence, unspoken, so many shy, skittish meanings. What would it be like if I failed to surrender my place? Or if I did it resentfully, unreconciled? He spoke no word of threat, but his eyes prophesied.

‘The systems are automatic,’ the Yedimah said. ‘It needs no one to be here.’

‘Can a machine deal justly with a man?’ Kuutma intoned, with austere savagery. ‘Can a switch or a lever answer, before God, and say, “This is the balance, this thing is rightly done”? Elders, when a thing becomes possible, it does not therefore become inevitable. Grant me this thing. Let me stay.’

He waited them out.

One by one, they bowed, the Yedimah last of all.

‘You will hold the scales, Kuutma. You will pay the balance.’

He thanked them gravely. They accepted graciously.

And then he went from that place, with a terrible hurt and a terrible hope warring in his breast. He was still Kuutma: until Ginat’Dania ended, and was reborn, he held his name in his hands.

His name and one thing more.

It took Tillman a little longer to travel to Arizona than it would have taken anyone else. There were things that needed to be done before he could embark on that journey, and none could be skimped or compressed.

First, he had to collect the documents that Benny Vermeulens had bought on his behalf. Insurance had asked for an insane fee – twenty times higher than she would normally have taken for a package like this – and she’d demanded payment up front. That wasn’t an issue: Tillman had emptied his various accounts and sent the money. But the arrangements for the hand-over were more problematic.

Benny understood that Tillman wouldn’t provide an address or even turn up at a post office box to take receipt of the passport, the credit card and their attendant proofs. He knew, too, that Tillman would be concerned about how far he could trust his weight to the documents, given Insurance’s withdrawal of goodwill.

Benny solved these problems by travelling to London himself on the false passport. He and Tillman were very similar in build, so all that was needed to produce a reasonable resemblance was hair dye and coloured contact lenses. He arranged to meet Tillman at Heathrow, in the Café Rouge in the departure area
of Terminal 5. Tillman arrived first, ordered two double espressos and sat with his hands folded in his lap and his gaze fixed on his hands, pondering imponderable things. When the chair opposite him creaked, he looked up.

Benny slid a bulky envelope across the table. He was dressed in a suit of obviously expensive cut. Somehow it made him look less respectable and more dangerous than he’d ever looked in combat fatigues. Or maybe it was his physical impersonation of Tillman that was unsettling. ‘Here, Leo,’ he said. ‘Happy Christmas.’

Leo took the package without examining its contents. Vermeulens had earned that trust a hundred times over. ‘It’s July,’ he pointed out.

Benny shook his head. His jowled face was solemn. ‘December,’ he said. ‘Late December. The turning of the year, when nobody’s really sure whether or not the sun will come back.’

Tillman smiled awkwardly. ‘I didn’t know you were a poet, Benny.’

‘I’m the least poetic man alive, Leo. I’m telling you what you already know. You’re going off to do battle against the forces of darkness and you don’t think you’ll be coming back. That’s the only reason you’re cutting yourself to the bone like this.’

‘The money? I can always get more money.’

‘I meant the tone of your voice when you called me. The look I see in your eye, now that I’m here. Leo, I was on the roster at Xe longer than you were. I’ve seen a lot of men kill themselves in a firefight because they thought it was their time to die. They behave in ways that are …’ he gestured ‘… unsustainable. They forget to watch their backs or secure an exit. They lower their guard because they think their guard is irrelevant.’

‘I’ve seen that, too,’ Tillman agreed. ‘But that’s not me,
Benny. I’ll get in, I’ll do the job and then I’ll get out. Like always.’

Benny laughed a funereal laugh. ‘And what’s the job?’

Tillman didn’t answer.

‘Not the same,’ Benny said. ‘Not the same as what it was. Don’t bother to lie to me, Leo. This is a slash-and-burn mission, and the last thing you burn will be yourself. I hope it’s worth it.’

Leo turned the envelope in his hands, feeling its weight and solidity.

‘I think so,’ he said at last. ‘I think it will be.’

Then there was the provisioning, the sourcing of equipment – not in London but in Los Angeles. He didn’t trust Insurance for this. He had his own contacts in America, and although it had been years since he spoke to them, they were still there when he called. Guns? Guns of any size and specification could be obtained. Explosives? Likewise. Electronic eavesdropping items, even of professional standard, were universally available these days, as were crowd control devices like pepper sprays and tear gas. Tillman put together a long list, to be paid for C.O.D.

After that came the journey. Normally, he avoided planes because they were – by definition – enclosed spaces with no exits. Flying put you in the hands of people who might wish you harm. This time he didn’t spare a thought for those concerns. They belonged to a life in which there was a distinction to be made between ‘safe’ and ‘perilous’.

Normally, too, Tillman bore the tedium of long journeys well: he sat still, his mind working through logistical puzzles that needed to be solved. This time his thoughts were locked on a single idea: revenge. He spent the flight in contemplation of that monolithic ambition, like a supplicant kneeling at an altar no one else could see.

He’d paid for reconnaissance, as well as guns and ammunition, so he knew by this time that Arizona state police were holding Heather Kennedy – ex-sergeant – under guard at the Kingman-Butler Hospital in Kingman, Arizona, charged with first-degree murder, impersonating a police officer, false representation and a raft of lesser offences. He’d established the conditions in which she was being held, as well as her injuries and the likelihood that she’d be conscious at any given time of the day or night.

Tillman drove from Los Angeles, in a car hired under the temporary name he’d bought from Insurance. It took the best part of a day, with stops along the way, but it had the advantage of making his precise location difficult to determine, even if Insurance had sold the name and credit card details on to third parties.

From Bullhead City, he called the hospital and demanded to speak to Heather Kennedy. It was a calculated risk. He had to wait while the nurse put him on hold – to check with the police guard, he guessed – then she came back on and asked what this was concerning.

‘A death in the family,’ Tillman said. ‘Her mother. God forbid you keep this from her, ma’am. She needs to know, and it’s her right to know.’

Another wait. Then a gruff state trooper came on the line and asked a few more questions. Mechanically, his thoughts elsewhere, Tillman invented a lingering illness for Kennedy’s mother that had gone through a great many permutations but left her alive long enough to gasp out one final message for her only daughter.

‘Only daughter?’ the cop grunted. ‘Our information is she has a sister. What’s that about?’

‘Half-sister,’ said Tillman. ‘Same father, different mothers.’

‘And you are?’

‘Half-brother. Same mother, different fathers. Listen, does any part of your state or federal law allow you to hold Heather incommunicado? Because if it doesn’t, you should stop asking these stupid questions and just put her on the phone. I’m recording every word of this, officer … what was your name again?’

It turned out his name was ‘Wait a second.’ Tillman waited, and the next voice on the line was Kennedy’s. She sounded groggy and very tired but not drugged into stupor.

‘Who is this?’ she asked. There was a time-delayed echo on her voice: maybe just a bad line, or maybe a bad wire-tap, set up very quickly with no real quality control.

‘It’s Leo.’

A long silence. ‘Tillman.’ More silence. ‘Thank God.’

‘So. Murder? Conspiracy to murder? It’s like I don’t know you any more, girl.’

‘You remember Dovecote Farm?’

‘Sure.’

‘You remember hearing a woman screaming?’

‘Seems like I do.’

‘She did the murdering, and the conspiring, too. The local sheriff will vouch for me, but he’s in deep sedation right now. Bullet wound to the upper torso. He might not pull through. If he doesn’t, there goes my alibi. There was a woman who could have spoken up for me, but she’s dead, too.’

‘Sounds like you’re screwed.’

‘Doesn’t it.’

‘We miss you, Heather. All of us.’

‘All of you?’ She sounded wary. He wondered if she knew that the line was bugged. He’d have to assume that she did. There was no time to finesse this.

‘Me. Freddie. Jake. Little Wendy, with the squint eye. You’re in our thoughts all the time.’

‘I … miss you, too.’

‘You’re just being kind,’ Tillman said. ‘It’s no secret to anyone that you and I haven’t been close in recent times. I want you to know that’s going to change.’

‘Well, you always say that.’

‘I mean it, Heather. I’m going to see you again soon. I promise.’

‘Okay. Whatever.’

‘Are you ready, do you think? To see me again?’

‘Any time, Tillman. Name the day. Name the hour. Or just surprise me.’

‘I guess I’ll surprise you. You, um, you get many visitors there, Heather?’

‘Not that many, no. Just two big burly cops at the door to keep me company, and two more on the main corridor where it branches after the elevators.’

‘They don’t want you to go wandering off and get lost.’

‘Evidently. But in case I do, there’s always the GPS tag locked to my ankle.’

‘I see. Well, at least you’re among fellow cops. You guys can all sit around and talk shop.’

‘My shop’s a corner store in Queen’s Park. Theirs is a strip mall in Monument Valley. You’d be amazed how little …’

Her voice faded out and the cop came on again. ‘I’m limiting you to five minutes,’ he told Tillman. ‘You can call again tomorrow, if you want.’

‘I didn’t even tell her about mum yet,’ said Tillman. ‘I was still working my way around to it. At least let me—’

‘Tomorrow.’ The line went dead.

Tillman put the phone away and drove on, his mind starting
to move again at last. It was a relief to have something practical to think about. And it would be, he knew, an even bigger relief to have something he could set his weight against and push.

The girl named Tabe lived alone, although she was too young, strictly speaking, to be allowed to do so. Before that, she had lived in orphans’ house with the helpers. She had always been an obedient and courteous child, but as the helpers said,
beiena ke ha einanu
, her soul moved on silence. She seemed to live alone in a small, self-bounded world, barely aware of the people who lived and had their being around her.

This is not to say that she was selfish. Tabe was a warm-hearted girl, and kind, and even considerate, on the occasions when she surfaced from her own thoughts long enough to interact with others. But she was an artist: colours and tones and textures formed the dimensions of her world. Mostly she painted still lives. In the past she had painted people, too, but she had scandalised the helpers by asking if she could sketch a boy, Aram, with his robes removed. That had been the end of Tabe’s career as a painter of the human figure.