Abbot Lawlor had been told by a military man that Atwood's party had discovered some unexploded ordnance in their trench and were evacuated to the mainland for safety. In the intervening twelve days, a steady flow of army transit lorries were ferried to the island by Royal Navy barges, and one by one the heavy vehicles rumbled up to the tent. Squaddies who had no idea of the significance of what they were handling did the backbreaking work around the clock of hauling wooden crates out of the ground.
The general entered the library vaults, the clop of his boots reverberating sharply. The rooms were stripped bare, row after row of towering empty bookcases. He stepped over the Elizabethan skeleton with complete disinterest. Another man might have tried to imagine what transpired there, tried to understand how it was possible, tried to wrestle with the philosophical vastness of it all. Stuart was not that man, which perhaps made him ideal for the job. He only wanted to return to London in time to get to his club for a scotch whiskey and a rare beefsteak.
When his walk-through was done, he would pay a visit to the abbot and commiserate about the terrible mistake the army had made: that they'd believed they had cleared all the ordnance before allowing Atwood's group to return. Unfortunately, it seems they missed a German five-hundred-pounder.
Perhaps a mass in their honor would be appropriate, they would somberly agree.
Stuart had the area cleared and let his demo man finish the wiring. When the percussion bombs went off, the ground shook seismically and tons of medieval stones collapsed in on their own weight.
Deep within the pancaked catacombs, the remains of Geoffrey Atwood, Beatrice Slade, Ernest Murray, Dennis Spencer, Martin Bancroft, and Timothy Brown would lie for eternity beside the bones of generations of ginger-haired scribes whose ancient books were packed into a convoy of olive-green lorries streaming toward a U.S. Air Force base in Lakenheath, Suffolk, for immediate transport to Washington.
JULY 29, 2009
W ill's hangover was so mild it almost didn't qualify as one. It was more like a light case of the flu that could be cleared up in an hour by a couple of Tylenol.
The night before, he figured he'd drop off the deep end, bump along the bottom for a good long time and not surface until he was nearly drowned. But a couple of drinks into his planned bender he got angry, angry enough to rev down the self-pity and keep the flow of scotch at a steady state where his input matched his metabolism. He leveled off and engaged in largely rational thought for much of the night instead of the usual volatile nonsense that masqueraded as logic, quickly forgotten. During this functional interlude, he called Nancy and arranged to meet early.
He was already at one of the Starbucks near Grand Central, drinking a venti, when she arrived. She looked worse than him.
"Good commute?" he quipped.
He thought she wanted to cry and half considered giving her a hug, but that would have been a first-a public show of affection.
"I got a nonfat latte for you," he said, sliding the cup. "It's still hot." That nugget set her off. Tears started flowing. "It's only a cup of coffee," he said.
"I know. Thanks." She took a sip then asked the question: "What happened?"
She leaned in over the small table to hear his reply. The store was packed with customers, noisy with chatter and explosions of the milk steamer.
She looked young and vulnerable and he reflexively touched her hand. She misinterpreted the gesture.
"Do you think they found out about us?" she asked.
"No! This has nothing to do with that."
"How do you know?"
"They haul your ass to H.R. and tell you. Believe me, I know."
"Then, what?"
"It's not us, it's the case." He drank some coffee, glancing at each face that came through the door.
"They don't want us to arrest Shackleton," she said, reading his mind.
"That's what it looks like."
"Why would they block the capture of a serial killer?"
"Great question." He massaged his forehead and eyes wearily. "It's because he's special cargo."
She looked quizzical.
He dropped his voice. "When is someone taken off the grid? Federal witness? Covert activity? Black ops? Whatever it is, the screen goes dark and he's a nonperson. He said he worked for the feds. Area 51, whatever that is, or some such bull crap. This smells of one part of the government-us-bumping up against another part of the government, and we lost."
"Are you saying that officials in some federal agency decided to let a killer walk?" She was incredulous.
"I'm not saying anything. But yeah, it's possible. Depends how important he is. Or maybe, if there's some justice, he's dealt with quietly."
"But we'd never know," she said.
"We'd never know."
She finished her latte and rummaged her purse for a compact to fix her makeup. "So that's it? We're done?"
He watched her remove the streaks. "You're done. I'm not done."
His squared-off jaw was set in a classic pose of truculence, but there was also a serenity, the troubling kind when someone perched on a ledge has decided to jump.
"You're going back to the office," he said. "They'll have new work for you. I hear Mueller's coming back. Maybe they'll team you up again. You'll go on and have a great career because you're one heck of an agent."
"Will-" she blurted.
"No, hear me out, please," he said. "This is personal. I don't know how or why Shackleton killed these people but I do know he did this to rub my face in this dung heap of a case. It's got to be a part-maybe a big part-of his motivation. What's going to happen to me is what's supposed to happen. I'm not a company man anymore. Haven't been one for years. The whole idea of minding my fucking p's and q's to coast through to retirement has been bullshit." He was venting now, but the public space was keeping him from really broadcasting. "Screw the twenty and screw the pension. I'll find a job somewhere. I don't need a lot to get by."
She put her compact down. It looked like she'd have to redo her makeup again.
"God, Nancy, don't cry!" he whispered. "This isn't about us. Us is great. This is the best male-female thing I've had in a long time, maybe ever, if you want the truth. Apart from being smart and sexy, you're the most self-sufficient woman I've ever been with."
"That's a compliment?"
"From me? It's huge. You're not needy like one hundred percent of my exes. You're comfortable with your own life, which makes me comfortable with mine. I'm not going to find that again."
"Then why blow it up?"
"Wasn't my intent, obviously. I've got to find Shackleton."
"You're off the case!"
"I'm putting myself back on. One way or another it's going to get me booted. I know how they think. They won't tolerate the insubordination. Look, when I'm a mall security guard in Pensacola, maybe you can get a transfer down there. I don't know what they've got for art museums but we'll figure out ways to get you some culture."
She dabbed her eyes. "Do you have a plan at least?"
"It's not a very sophisticated one. I already called in sick. Sue'll be relieved she won't have to deal with me today. I'm booked on a flight to Vegas later this morning. I'm going to find him and make him talk."
"And I'm supposed to go back to work like nothing's happened."
"Yes and no." He pulled two cell phones from his briefcase. "They're going to be all over me as soon as they realize I'm off the reservation. It's possible they'll put a tap on you. Take one of these prepaids. We'll use them to talk to each other. Unless they get our numbers, they're untraceable. I'll need eyes and ears, but if you think for a second you're compromising yourself, we're going to pull the plug. And give Laura a call. Tell her something that puts her at ease. Okay?"