shadows.
His men had taken their damned time.
He had called them from the diner’s toilet over two hours ago. He was lucky this man Chris and his friend hadn’t a clue who they had in their care. In fact, after his initial fear of the impromptu ‘rescuing’ had passed, Wallace had begun to find the whole situation rather amusing.
It had been an appalling fuck-up, his men being caught out like that, allowing these two amateurs to best them and escape into the night. And then, to make matters worse, abduct him shortly afterwards, right under their noses. But, despite the fact that shots had been fired, and there were some people who had witnessed what had happened, it had worked itself out all right. Here they were, somewhere remote and quiet, and now it was time to tidy things up once more.
As he had waited for his men to arrive, Wallace had contacted the dive team. The deed was done, the package had been dropped into deeper waters. So, it was finally done, the only real evidence of the event was gone. All that was left now to think about was what these two amateurs might decide to say and do.
Wallace beckoned to the two men sitting inside the van to follow him and approached the motel rooms. Both men gently stepped out of the van, leaving the doors open rather than make a noise closing them. They came to a halt outside cabin five and Wallace raised a hand, an indication that they should wait right there.
It was silent now, except for the occasional whisper of a passing car on the nearby interstate, and the hum of the neon light above the motel cabins. There were no other guests tonight, only Chris Roland’s car in the parking lot… and the anonymous-looking black van.
Wallace studied the door in front of him. It had a flat-key lock, little more than a springed latch.
He turned to his men, motionless silhouettes in the dark poised for action, and pointed to the lock. The older of his two men, the grey-haired man who used the name ‘Jimmy’ for this particular contract, approached the lock and quietly produced an adjustable lock-pick, cradling it carefully so that the metal parts didn’t jangle. Deftly he inserted it into the lock and twisted it, feeling the resistance and adjusting the spacing of the teeth until the pick approximated the profile of the lock. It opened with the lightest of clicks. He nodded to Wallace to let him know that it was done and then took a step back.
Inside, Wallace could hear the faint rustling of rhythmic breathing. Chris Roland was in a deep sleep.
All the better, then.
He didn’t want a discussion with the guy, he needed time to think, not talk. If he was going to do it himself once more, he’d rather put a single cap into his unconscious head than endure a startled plea for mercy. Not something he was particularly keen to experience again.
He approached the side of the bed, feeling his way cautiously with one foot in front of the other. A shard of amber light from the arc lamp outside fell across the bed and picked out the English guy’s face.
Wallace smiled as he looked down on Chris sleeping deeply, no doubt dreaming of fame and glory and journalistic prizes. A smile spread across Wallace’s lips, not of compassion, but of satisfaction. The job was nearly done… just this last thing.
Truman had asked him all those years ago if he thought he could do the job.
Damned right he could. He had seen it through right up until now. There was only one name left on that list of Those Who Knew, one person left alive who had lived through the events of that day, and that last name was his. When his time was up, and if he was honest with himself, that wasn’t going to be too much longer now, there really would be no one left to tell the story.
It would die right alongside him. He had fulfilled Truman’s brief absolutely to the letter.
There was something about that thought that filled Wallace with an odd feeling of loss. The job needed finishing up with a single bullet into this man’s head, and that of his friend’s, and their bodies disposed of. That would be the end of it all. And then, with the few months he had left, he would need to close down the Department, shred what was left of file n-27, empty the safe that sat in the corner of his now rarely used office of the last of the money and close the door once and for all on that mezzanine floor.
There would be something poetically final about that; finishing off a job well done.
But it was the finality that troubled him. Once he had done away with these two young men, it would just be him once more. The last person… the only person to know.
A very lonely responsibility.
Chris stirred and muttered in his sleep and turned over. Wallace raised his gun and lined it up on the back of Chris’s head.
There was something else to bear in mind. Killing him now, after the unfortunately noisy skirmish earlier this evening, might result in some awkward complications he wasn’t sure he could square away with the money he had left. Making these two men vanish wasn’t going to be as easy as it once was. Those gunshots in the dark back in that sleepy little seaside town might attract the interest of some slack-jawed local law enforcement officer. But a murder? That would mean the FBI would get to stick its nose in, and frankly, with whatever time he had left, Wallace didn’t want to be worrying about a knock on his door and a visit from the G-men.
I could let him go.
There was nothing left of the story for Chris Roland. No bomb, no photographs of a bomb, no eyewitnesses, no testimonies, nothing. There was now just the plane and two skeletons dressed in shreds that might possibly be recognised as a Luftwaffe uniform; an intriguing story perhaps, but nothing that would lead anywhere. There was nothing that could be substantiated.
With a shudder of dawning realisation, the old man could see the job was already done. The secret was now safe. He decided that leaving it like this was tidy enough as far as he was concerned. And anyway, there was something about this bumbling British amateur he had grown to like.
He lowered his gun.
Your lucky night.
Wallace reached into his jacket pocket and pulled something out, something he had kept close to himself for sixty years, something he had once upon a time prised loose from the stiff grasp of a dead boy called Sean Grady, lying amidst blood-spattered ferns. It jingled ever so slightly as he lifted it carefully out and placed it softly on the bedside table.
You can have that, my young friend.
Wallace felt strangely light, as if the small metal disc and the chain attached to it had been a weighty shackle. It glinted in the amber light streaking in from the lamp outside. Wallace had never really understood why he had taken it off the dead boy. It was evidence, of course, something that really shouldn’t be found. He should have destroyed it. But instead he had kept it all these years, perhaps as a reminder of how ruthless he had once been, and might need to be again? Perhaps out of a sense of guilt — that boy, the young girl and her teacher in New York, none of them deserved to die… but they really had to.
Wallace felt his throat tighten and a momentary welling of a confused, unidentifiable emotion. He struggled to fight it down and put a lid back on it.
This young man can have it, he thought. On its own, the little disc could tell no one anything, but in some odd way, to the old man, it felt like he was passing on the baton, the secret, to someone else to keep close, to cherish.
Wallace eased his way back towards the door and slipped quietly outside. He turned to the motionless dark shapes of his hired men gathered by the doorway.
‘We’re done here,’ he whispered. ‘Let’s go.’
Chapter 61
The surf rolled across the pebbles and came to a reluctant halt a few inches away from his trainers, before drawing back with a hiss of frustration. Chris looked up at grey clouds rolling across the mid-morning sky. It was going to rain pretty soon. Another rainy day to join the other seven he’d endured out here amidst the coastal wilderness of Rhode Island.
