‘He’ll call you over when he’s ready.’
‘Great.’ She nodded, her tight smile masking a desperate urge to make some pointed observation about the irony of having been harried halfway across the city only to now be kept waiting.
‘And I’d lose that if I were you, too,’ he muttered, nodding at her cup. ‘It’s probably better he doesn’t know you stopped off for a coffee.’
Taking a deep breath, she theatrically placed the cup on the ground, then looked up with a forced smile. It wasn’t Salvatore’s fault, she knew. Gallo clearly orbited his waking hours like a small moon, the gravitational pull off his shifting favour governing the ebb and flow of Salvatore’s emotions. But that didn’t make him any less annoying.
‘Happy now?’
‘Ecstatic.’
Greeting the two uniformed men guarding the entrance with a nod, Salvatore held a plastic flap in the sidewall open and they stepped inside. It revealed a long, narrow space, the scaffolding forming a sturdily symmetrical endoskeleton over which the white sheeting had been draped and then fixed into place. In one place some of the ties had come loose, the wind catching the sheet’s edges and snapping it against the metal frame, causing it to chime like a halyard striking a mast.
Salvatore motioned at a crumbling pediment, his gesture suggesting that he wanted her to sit there until she was called forward, then made his way towards a small group of people standing in a semi-circle fifteen or so feet in front of her – all men, she noted with a resigned sigh. Making a point of remaining standing, she counted the minutes as they ticked past – first one, then three, then five. Nothing. In fact no one had even turned round to acknowledge that she was there. Pursing her lips, she decided to give it another few minutes and then, when these too had passed, she made an angry clicking noise with her tongue and set off towards them. Busy was one thing, rude was another. She had better things to do than sit around until Gallo deigned to beckon her over like some sort of performing dog. Besides, she wanted to see for herself whatever it was they were and discussing so intently.
Seeing her approaching, Salvatore frantically signalled at her to stay back. She ignored him, but then stopped anyway, the colour draining from her face as a sudden gap revealed what they had been shielding from view.
It was a corpse. A man. A half-naked man. Arms spread-eagled, legs pinned together, he had been lashed to a makeshift wooden cross with steel wire. Allegra glanced away, horrified, but almost immediately looked back, the gruesome scene exercising a strange, magnetic pull. For as if drawn from some cursed, demonic ritual, the cross had been inverted.
He had been crucified upside down.
FOUR
Arlington National Cemetery, Washington DC 17th March – 11.46 a.m.
‘You sure about this?’ Special Agent Bryan Stokes stepped out of the car behind her, his tone making his own doubts clear.
‘Absolutely,’ Jennifer Browne nodded, surprised at the unforced confidence in her voice as she watched Tom set off towards them, his short brown hair plastered down by the rain. He had seemed pleased to see her, his initial surprise having melted into a warm smile and an eager wave. That was something, at least.
‘So what’s the deal with you two?’ Stokes wedged a golf umbrella against his shoulder with his chin and flicked a manilla file open. Medium height, about a hundred and seventy pounds, Jennifer guessed that Stokes had been born frowning, deep lines furrowing a wide, flat forehead, bloodless lips pressed into a concerned grimace. In his early forties, he was dressed in a severe charcoal suit and black tie that had dropped away from his collar, revealing that the button was missing.
‘There is no deal,’ she said quickly, looking away in case he noticed her smile.
‘Then how do you know him?’
‘We’ve worked a couple of cases together, that’s all.’
Tom was navigating his way towards them through the blossom scatter of white gravestones like a skiff through a storm, tacking first one way and then the other as he plotted a route up the hill. Not for the first time she noted that despite his tall, athletic frame, there was something almost feline about the way he moved – at once graceful and fluid and yet strong and sure-footed.
‘It says here he was Agency?’
‘Senator Duval was on the Senate Intelligence Committee and recommended him,’ she explained, picking her words carefully. FBI Director Jack Green had made it crystal clear that the specific circumstances in which Tom had joined and left the CIA were highly classified. ‘They recruited him into a black op industrial espionage unit. When they shut it down five years later, Kirk went into business for himself, switching from technical blueprints and experimental formulas to fine art and jewellery.’
‘Was he any good?’
‘The best in the business. Or so they said.’
‘And the guy with him?’
‘Archie Connolly. His former fence. Now his business partner. And his best friend, to the extent he allows himself to have one.’
There was a pause as Stokes consulted the file again. It had been Jennifer’s idea to come here, of course. INS had flagged Tom’s name up when he’d landed at Dulles and it hadn’t taken her much to figure out where he’d be headed. But now that she was actually here, she was surprised at how she was feeling. Excited to be seeing Tom again after almost a year, certainly. But there was also a nagging sense of nervousness and apprehension that she couldn’t quite explain. Or perhaps didn’t want to. It was always easier that way.
‘And now they’ve gone straight?’ There was the suggestion of suppressed laughter in Stokes’s voice.
‘I’m not sure that someone like Tom can ever go straight,’ she mused. ‘Not in the way you and I mean it. The problem is, he’s seen too many supposedly straight people do crooked things to think those sorts of labels matter. He just does what he thinks is right.’
‘And you’re sure about this?’ Stokes pressed again, her explanation seeming to have, if anything, heightened his initial misgivings.
She didn’t bother replying, hoping that he would interpret her silence in whichever way made him most comfortable. Instead she stepped forward to greet Tom, who had reached the final incline that led up to where they were waiting. Tom, however, hesitated, his eyes flicking to Stokes and then back to her. He was clearly surprised that she hadn’t come alone.
‘Tom -’ She held out her hand. It felt all wrong, too formal, but with Stokes hovering she didn’t exactly have much choice. Besides, what was the alternative? A hug? A kiss? That also didn’t seem right after eleven months.
‘Special Agent Browne,’ Tom shook her hand with a brief nod, having clearly decided to ape her stilted greeting. He looked healthier than when she had last seen him, his handsome, angular face having lost some of its pallor, his coral blue eyes clear and alive.
‘This is Special Agent Stokes.’
‘Agent Stokes,’ Tom nodded a greeting.
Stokes grunted something indistinct in reply and glanced nervously over his shoulder, as if he was worried about being seen out in the open with him.
‘Come to pay your respects?’
‘We need some help on a case,’ Jennifer began hesitantly.
‘You mean this wasn’t a coincidence?’
Despite his sarcastic tone, she sensed a slight tension lurking behind his smile. Annoyance, perhaps, that she was only there because she wanted something. Or was that just her projecting her own guilty feelings?
‘I need your help,’ she said.
There was a pause, his smile fading.
‘What have you got?’
‘Why don’t we get in…’ She held the Suburban’s rear door open. Tom didn’t move. ‘There’s something I want to show you. It’ll only take a few minutes.’
Tom hesitated for a moment. Then, shrugging, he followed Jennifer into the back, while Stokes climbed into the driver’s seat.