We took a flight to Newark and caught a connection to Houston. Neither plane was full. Quincy kept his distance. I looked around from time to time, but I didn’t see anyone else I recognized. Fortunately, I managed the same anonymity. My picture had been all over TV screens and front pages after the attack on the President, and the last thing I needed was for some dutiful citizen to clamp a hand on my shoulder. I wore a Maine Forever cap low over my forehead. Sebastian was ahead of the game: he gave me a British passport with the appropriate entry visa, which listed my name as William Andrew Ronson. I memorized that. There was a credit card to go with it. Remembering the PIN code was a lot harder-I’d never been good with numbers.
On the plane to Houston, I thought about what had happened in Portland. Nora Jacobsen had got the jump on us. Sebastian was pissed off with me for getting her cuffs removed, but I had reckoned that was essential to weaken her guard-she might have let a vital piece of information slip. As it was, she and Mary had given us a lead that had at least put us on Rothmann’s trail-or so I hoped.
I thought about Mary Upson. She had seemed genuinely upset about Karen and the baby. Was that why she told me what her mother had been saying? Was it possible she had lived in the same house as the older woman without realizing she was still active in the Antichurch? Could she really be so innocent? There was a maelstrom of emotion under those soft features.
Still, Mary wasn’t the most pressing problem to come out of Maine. While we were at the airport, Major Hexton heard about an incident in a parking lot near police headquarters in which one of his officers had been injured. No one was very clear about the details, but a woman with long dark hair and a baseball cap had been seen talking to the policeman just before a black Grand Cherokee hit him and another vehicle before tearing off. The interesting thing was that the dark-haired woman had left the scene before any of the other cops could talk to her. None of them got a good view of her face, nor had they gotten her plates, so concerned were they about their colleague. He had come round in hospital, but had a bad concussion and didn’t remember what had happened. So what had happened? Who was in the Grand Cherokee that had left at high speed? One report said the driver had been another woman. Why had the dark-haired woman also made tracks so quickly? One rapid departure was conceivable, but two? I had noticed the parking lot as we left. It had a good view of the State Police headquarters building. Were the drivers there for a particular reason-were they waiting for me? An icy finger twisted in my gut. Could one of them have been Sara?
I took another look around the passengers. No dark-haired woman in a cap. If Sara was after us, I should tell Quincy and the others. Sebastian had provided us with cell phones, so I could call or text him when there was a signal. Then again, what good would that do? He was a professional and he knew we were heading into the lion’s den. What more could he do? Besides, I thought as I emptied my bottle of water, knowing Sara was on your tail didn’t reduce the chances of her nailing you. She’d have changed her identity and her appearance-like a vengeful ghost, you would never hear her coming.
Lack of sleep finally caught up with me, but I got no real rest. They were there again, the shadowy figures. The woman had one arm extended, the other holding the infant. Her mouth opened wide as she called to me, her face soaked with tears. But I could hear nothing and I struggled even to remember her name, while the baby’s was long gone.
Even though it was cold in the crypt, Gordy Lister was sweating. He was exhausted after the long drive back from Tallahassee, but the Master, as he’d taken to calling himself, didn’t care about that. He’d shown no interest when Gordy told him about Mikey’s death, saying only that he should get back as quickly as he could, but refusing to allow him to take any of the cars. Gordy could see the point, though he’d had the hassle of wasting a fake ID to rent the Taurus and leaving it back at the depot in Houston, meaning that one of the dead-eyed bodyguards had to go and pick him up. At least he had something to tell the split-cheeked one now.
‘Look at this.’ The man who had been Heinz Rothmann pointed to the computer screen.
Gordy watched as flames played at the windows of a wooden house and smoke billowed into the night. ‘What is it, boss?’
‘It belongs to one of the Antichurch faithful in Portland, Maine. She detonated the safety charges.’
Gordy Lister thought the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant was for the seriously deranged, but he had kept that from the Master. ‘Why do that?’
‘Because she had been taken by the police. The FBI was also involved. It would only have been a matter of time until they found sacred documents and other material.’
Gordy felt a stab of concern. ‘Documents that would have led to this place?’
The Master nodded.
Gordy relaxed. ‘So she did good.’ He tried to keep his eyes off the fresh wounds on the other man’s cheeks. What was he now? Some kind of Zorro freak?
‘Indeed. Of course, they are coming, all the same.’
‘What?’
‘Look at this.’ The Master’s fingers played on the keyboard.
Gordy watched as he zoomed in. ‘What the fuck? That’s the Englishman, Matt Wells.’
‘And his FBI puppet-master Peter Sebastian.’
‘What are they doing there?’
‘A good question, and one which I hope our sister-in-evil will be able to answer when she gets here. She is taking a rather roundabout route. Wells may be more direct.’
‘I don’t get it, boss.’
‘I don’t imagine you do. You see, I want Matt Wells here. He belongs to me. He will do great things for us.’
‘Right,’ Gordy said doubtfully. ‘And if the FBI comes with him in force? We’re in the right state for another Waco.’
‘There are other places we can go. Besides, the midwinter rite is tomorrow. The faithful are coming from far and wide.’ The Master’s eyes narrowed. ‘Faithful who are armed and capable of using their weapons. If the FBI wants another showdown, we can oblige.’
‘Is that a good idea, boss?’ Lister asked. He’d seen what happened during Antichurch rites. It was a toss-up whether there would be more blood spilt in the midwinter blowout or in a full-on battle.
‘Matt Wells is an essential part of my strategy. The fact that he is being used by the FBI shows he is important to them, but that is nothing compared with his importance to us. He is the only subject who was not fully coffined. That means that I can complete him in my own image.’
Gordy let that mumbo jumbo go. When he’d run the operation in Washington, he’d been spared the boss’s more lunatic schemes-special camps, the Nazi militia, the Antichurch, the plot against the President. His main role had been to provide young people for the conditioning process. He was beginning to wonder what part he had in his boss’s plans, now that he seemed to have flipped his lid in a big way.
The Master drank from a tall glass containing what Lister hoped was red wine. ‘You notice there have been no more of the so-called Hitler’s Hitman murders since you were in Philadelphia?’
‘Yeah, well, I might know something about that.’
The other man put his glass down heavily. ‘Tell me.’
‘My brother Mikey, I think he was murdered. He was run down by a pickup driven by a blonde woman.’ Gordy had a flash of the bronze-skinned Latina bent over his groin. ‘That’s not all. He was under surveillance before the hit. Probably Feds, as the local cops are much less subtle.’
‘Have a drink, Gordy,’ the Master said, filling another glass from an ornate carafe. ‘There are several interesting points to your story. One, the killer was a blonde woman.’
Lister sipped suspiciously. ‘Yeah, she had short blond hair.’
‘Begging the questions, who is she and who hired her? Two, if I understand you correctly, there was no surveillance at the time of your brother’s death. My condolences, by the way.’