Paul Johnston - Maps of Hell

“Who no doubt have a lot of pull on the Hill,” Pinker said. “But what’s that got to do with her man Matt Wells? Why would he suddenly hit on these particular victims? A metal singer with far-right connections, a voodoo huckster and a Jewish professor. They have anything in common that we’re missing?”

Maltravers was chewing the inside of her cheek. “Not much,” she said, in a low voice. “The drawings are the key, I think.”

Pinker gave a bitter smile. “The very-hard-to-understand key.”

Clem Simmons caught his eye. “Come on, Vers, we’ve got work to do.”

“What about my update?” Maltravers asked.

“You’ll get it when we do,” Gerard Pinker said. “Hot off the press.”

“I take it that means you haven’t come up with anything new?”

“Correct,” Simmons said. “You’ve got our cell-phone numbers.”

Dana Maltravers did not look impressed.

Richard Bonhoff had gone back to the building the twins had come out of. Although the stone facade was crumbling, the door was secured with a heavy padlock and the windows barred. He hammered and yelled to no avail. After waiting for over three hours, he went back to the hotel to catch up on his sleep.

The next morning, after doing some writing, he went over his options. He wasn’t sure how long his credit cards would remain unblocked, but he didn’t care. He’d scavenge for food in garbage bins if he had to, but he wasn’t leaving Washington till he found the twins. The obvious plan was to watch the building and approach them again. But he was outnumbered there and even his marine training would be little use against a gang of armed inner-city kids with their brains fried on whatever shit was popular these days. Better to concentrate on Gordy Lister. He was on his own most of the time, and when he had goons, Richard could handle them. Not that he expected Lister to repeat the mistake of underestimating him.

So what was he to do? There was only one option-tail Gordy Lister and squeeze him again. Now that the initial shock of seeing Randy and Gwen had faded, Richard had more questions for the newspaperman-such as, how had he known where to find them? And why did he have musclemen he could whistle up? Lister didn’t seem to be a reporter. Richard reckoned he was more of a fixer.

He went out of the hotel to the store on the corner. He bought some bread and cheese. The usual tabloids were displayed in a rack. He picked up the Star Reporter. Today’s edition led with a story about another murder-D.C. Prof Killed in Ritual Blinding? The article inside tried to link the murder in Georgetown to earlier ones with occult connections. Richard shook his head. At least they didn’t have lunatic killers like that in Iowa.

On his way back to the hotel, he came up with a plan of action. He would head into the city center by bus and buy some different clothes, if his card allowed him. After that, he would follow Gordy Lister till he found out what he needed to know.

The blood was flowing fast in Richard’s veins as he set out. He was doing something positive and he didn’t plan on letting anything knock him off course.

A visitor to Joe Greenbaum’s study would not have registered his presence behind the piles of books, folders and box files on his desk-until he lit one of the Cuban cigars, obtained from contacts in the intelligence world, and the smoke billowed up like a Native American signal.

Joseph Martin Greenbaum, doctorate from Harvard Business School, had grown up in Brooklyn. As the class genius, he’d been bullied at school until he’d put on enough weight to fight. Since then, he’d always had an interest in the underdog, which led him to investigate companies that mistreated their customers and workers. He had started writing the coruscating freelance reports that made his name during the Reagan presidency. His victims included a cigarette company that had paid for a whistle-blower to be run over, a bank that had used depositors’ funds to finance cocaine smuggling, and a blue-chip accountancy firm that had signed off on an oil company’s false tax returns. The magazines and newspapers who bought his articles knew they were always reliable. That was why Joe’s apartment was in a secure block in Adams Morgan, his doors reinforced by steel and his triple-glazed windows impenetrable by all but the heaviest caliber weapons.

Joe loved his work, but he was the first to admit it had disadvantages. He could never make a relationship with a woman last more than a month, though wearing spectacles with bottle-lenses probably didn’t help, either. He ended up staying in his apartment far too much. It wasn’t that he was afraid of the scumbags who were out to get him, it was rather that he enjoyed digging in companies’ entrails so much. And then there was his weight-250 pounds on a good day, more when he’d hit the Ben and Jerry’s big-time.

Right now none of that mattered to Joe. First, he had seen the news of Abraham Singer’s murder on the TV. He had only met the professor occasionally, but he’d liked his dispassionate take on Jewish culture and history. Joe himself had been brought up in the old ways, but he’d broken free of them at college. That didn’t mean he’d lost all respect for the faith. Singer hadn’t, either-he just put it under a more critical gaze than most believers. Joe’s immediate feeling was that the horrible way the professor was killed had nothing to do with rituals, as some of the reporters were saying. Joe was as socially progressive as it got, but he remained old-school in one way: whenever a Jew was killed, he put it down to anti-Semitism-until there was evidence to the contrary.

That wasn’t the only thing that was bothering Joe Greenbaum as he finished his morning delivery of doughnuts. Ever since his friend Matt Wells had disappeared-in fact, ever since Matt’s partner, the high-flying policewoman, had gone missing in the Shenandoah Valley-Joe had been picking the brains of his FBI insiders. They had been unable to help in any conclusive way until earlier that week when, to Joe’s amazement, he learned that Matt was a suspect in the murder of a black man who owned an occult supplies store. Apparently his fingerprints had been found in the victim’s apartment; as far as Joe was concerned, that had to be bullshit of the finest quality. He’d known Matt Wells for years. They had first met at a crime-writing conference in D.C., had instantly bonded and had kept the bar open all night. Since then, they had e-mailed back and forth on a variety of subjects. Joe had also seen Matt several times since the policewoman disappeared. The Brit had been angry, overemotional and suspicious, but no way had he turned homicidal. Joe was 100 percent positive that both Matt and his lover had been kidnapped. He’d pulled every chain he had, but no one had a clue. And now Matt was a murder suspect? Screw that.

Joe Greenbaum shook his head. He had been looking into the D.C. murders and he had some ideas he wanted to bounce off Matt. Where the hell was his erstwhile drinking companion? If he didn’t show up soon, Joe was going to have to make a move on the people the Englishman had been looking at. And that could have very serious consequences for all concerned.

I sat motionless in the pickup as Mary Upson slowed before the bulky Maine state trooper. The early-morning light wasn’t strong enough to raise more than a faint glow on the waters of the lake, the dark green of the pine-covered mountains stepping back into the gloom.

“What next?” I asked.

“Cool it,” Mary replied, keeping her eyes on the man ahead. “He’s looking out for my car, remember, not my mother’s pickup.”

That was true, but I presumed our descriptions had also been circulated. I was holding the pistol out of sight, not that I wanted to use it. Something my friend Dave had said during some kind of small-arms training session in some desolate hills came back to me. “Bear this in mind,” the ex-SAS man had said with a thin smile. “If you aim your weapon at someone, you’ve got to be 100 percent sure that you’ll pull the trigger. There’s no room for doubt.”