floored the gas pedal.
Mikey Lister flew out of his wheelchair and headfirst into the trunk of a nearby palm tree. The last thing he saw was the set of the woman’s lips. It looked like she was in pain.
Fifteen
Peter Sebastian drove us to the airport outside a town called Rockford. Quincy Jerome and I were in the back of the SUV. I looked out through tinted windows at the world I’d been excluded from for what seemed like years. It was icy cold and there were few people around. The exhaust fumes from vehicles hung in the air like ghosts unable to take corporeal form. Northern Illinois did not look in any way inviting.
‘If you don’t mind me asking,’ Quincy said, ‘what’s the plan?’
I flexed my fingers. ‘We find Heinz Rothmann and I get rid of him.’
Peter Sebastian glanced into the mirror. ‘Partially correct. We need to find Rothmann, but I want him brought in, like any other felon.’
‘So I’m an officer of the law now, am I?’ I asked ironically.
‘But if you have to use extreme force to defend yourself,’ the FBI man continued, ‘then so be it.’
‘Uh-huh,’ Quincy said. ‘That applies to me as well, does it?’
‘You’re a soldier,’ Sebastian said. ‘You’re trained to fire back if you’re attacked, no?’
‘You sure this is aboveboard?’ the sergeant asked. ‘I don’t want to find myself in a court accused of murder.’
‘Not going to happen,’ Sebastian said emphatically. ‘As for legitimacy, I can show you an authorization signed by the Director of the FBI.’
‘Maybe later,’ Quincy said, glancing at me.
I didn’t respond to his look. All I cared about was nailing Rothmann.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked, as we arrived at the airport.
‘D.C.,’ Sebastian replied, showing ID at a gate. ‘I want to review the murders. Then we’ll come up with a detailed plan.’
I didn’t buy that. The FBI’s head of violent crime was about the most structured person I’d ever met. We wouldn’t just come up with a plan, he’d have several carefully structured strategies already.
We were waved past the terminal building and through a gate in the security fence. Sebastian drove into a hangar and stopped next to an executive jet.
Quincy Jerome let out a low whistle. ‘Cool. Never been on one of these babies.’
Neither had I, but I didn’t feel any exhilaration. It was like my emotions had been streamlined-everything was directed toward finding Rothmann.
A few minutes later, we were in the air and arcing upward through a thick cloud cover. Quincy had his eyes glued to the porthole, until a tray of food arrived from the galley. When Sebastian sat down opposite me, I leaned forward and spoke to him in a low voice.
‘I presume you’ve publicized the fact that I’m in circulation.’
He shook his head. ‘We’re not telling the media anything as that would provoke a feeding frenzy. But we will pass the word to some of our informers in the criminal underworld.’
‘So I’m the bait.’ I gave him a cold smile. ‘Don’t worry, I can see the attractions of that idea. But what if he doesn’t come after me?’
‘You killed his beloved twin sister, Matt. Trust me, he’s going to come after you.’
I sat back. ‘So why are we going to D.C.? Why don’t we go somewhere easier for him to target?’
Sebastian thought about that. ‘Got a suggestion?’
‘I have, actually. You remember Mary Upson?’
‘The woman who got you out of Maine.’ His memory was as sharp as I had expected. ‘Her mother was involved with the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant.’
‘Correct. Maybe we can kill two birds with one stone. You can interrogate the old woman about the cult and I can find out what Mary didn’t tell me.’
‘They were both interviewed at length after the cathedral massacre. The mother denied any involvement with either the Antichurch or Rothmann. Besides, your relationship with Mary Upson didn’t exactly end happily, Matt.’
‘True. I’ll try to make it up to her.’ The fact was, I was in pure manipulation mode. Rothmann would have been proud.
Sebastian looked up from the notes he was making. ‘How do we let Rothmann know where you are?’
‘We won’t have to. If you give Mary’s mother a chance, she’ll find a way to get in touch with him.’
‘Smart, Matt. Okay, I’ll talk to the Maine State Police and find out if the women are still living there.’
‘Sparta, that was the name of the town.’ It was the first place I’d reached after I escaped from the Rothmanns’ camp.
‘I know,’ he said testily. ‘I went there to catch you.’
I watched him as he went to the front of the cabin and picked up the phone.
‘I haven’t been to Washington since I was a kid,’ Quincy Jerome said, taking Sebastian’s seat.
‘Don’t hold your breath, big man. We’re rerouting.’
‘Where to?’
‘Probably Maine.’
‘At this time of year? Shee-it.’
‘Even worse than Illinois, eh?’
‘You know where I’m from?’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Mobile, Alabama. That’s about as different from Maine as you get.’
‘I’ll take your word for it.’ I feigned exhaustion and closed my eyes. I didn’t feel like talking. I liked Quincy, but often he made me laugh and I didn’t want to do that anymore. I tried to think of Karen and our son, but they wouldn’t come to me. My memory seemed to be working fine when it came to other things, but their faces-even Karen’s-had gone. If this was what grief did to you, I could do without it. I wanted to see them and weep.
‘Matt?’
My shoulder was shaken and I snapped awake.
‘You’ve been out for over an hour,’ Peter Sebastian said. ‘Mary Upson and her mother-’
‘Nora Jacobsen.’
He nodded. ‘They’ve moved to Portland-Maine. Not Oregon, fortunately. We should be there in an hour and a quarter.’
‘You realize there’s a serious drawback to this plan,’ I said, after I’d gulped down a bottle of water.
‘What’s that?’
‘Sara Robbins.’
Sebastian studied me impassively. ‘She’ll see that you’ve been released, sure. But how could she know you’re in Portland?’
‘Trust me, she’ll find out. It wouldn’t even surprise me if she was working for Rothmann.’
‘Then we really will kill two birds with one stone.’
Quincy Jerome leaned across the aisle. ‘Who’s Sara Robbins?’
‘You do not want to know,’ I replied. ‘On second thoughts, you have to know.’
By the time I’d finished telling him about the Soul Collector, we had almost reached Portland.
Abaddon had been given that name by her brother. As far as she was concerned, that was who she was. The family was from Atlanta, but she had lived in St. Louis for the last five years, mainly because it was centrally located and had good flight connections. She often worked on both east and west coasts, as well as plenty of places in between, so a hub was essential.
She looked out of the window in the roof of the converted warehouse in Laclede’s Landing. The apartment had been an expensive buy because the area was a historic district, but that hadn’t been a problem. She liked the view of the Mississippi, the pair of bridges on one side and the open space around the Jefferson National Expansion
