introduced himself, but I immediately forgot his name. He ran an eye over me and suggested that I might like to change clothes. I was handed a couple of suit bags and ushered to a washroom in the executive lounge. There was a dark blue suit and accoutrements that I wouldn’t be seen dead wearing in one bag. Fortunately, the other contained a pair of casual trousers and a green herring-bone jacket, along with a pair of smart but solid boots and a pale blue shirt. Everything fitted, which showed that someone had done their homework-of course, there was no shortage of information about me in the Bureau’s files. I left the silk tie untouched.
A long car with dark windows took me to the center of the city.
‘The Director will see you as soon as we arrive at the Hoover Building,’ my escort said, glancing at his watch. ‘I have orders to take you to your hotel afterward.’
Rain began to fall as we crossed the Potomac, picking holes in the surface of the gray-green water. I remembered Rothmann’s escape from the boat nearby. Now he was dead, taken out by one of his sidekicks. My urge to kill him had been a waste of time and emotion. Karen and our son were still lost to me. So was Sara. She could be seen as another victim of the Rothmanns’ conditioning, but that didn’t get me off the hook. I still felt sick that it had been my finger on the trigger.
I was whisked up to the top of FBI headquarters in an executive lift and ushered straight into the Director’s spacious office. The tall, distinguished-looking man with white hair whom I had seen on TV rose from behind a huge desk and came to meet me.
‘Mr. Wells,’ he said, with a Southern accent, ‘I am so glad to meet you. Please come and sit down.’ He led me to a three-sided square of leather-covered sofas. ‘Would you like something to drink or eat?’
‘Water’s fine.’
He poured me a glass from the cut-crystal carafe on the central table. ‘Mr. Wells, I-’
‘What really happened to Peter Sebastian?’ I interrupted, determined not to let him run the exchange.
To his credit, he didn’t look either surprised or irritated. ‘Ah, what a tragedy that was,’ he said, his cloudy blue eyes meeting mine. ‘It seems he was the victim of a robbery.’
‘You really believe that?’
Now he did look taken aback. ‘That’s what the police and our people are surmising, Mr. Wells. Do you have evidence to the contrary?’
‘Evidence, no. Suspicion, plenty. He gets killed on the same night as Heinz Rothmann and the assassin Apollyon? It looks to me like somebody’s tidying up.’
The Director nodded. ‘I can see that logic. Do you have any idea who that somebody might be?’
‘That’s your area, isn’t it? Do we know who owned the camp in Texas yet?’
‘Yes, a company called March Violet Partners. It’s based in Liberia.’
‘What a surprise. The partners’ names are presumably straight out of a mystery novel.’
‘So it would appear,’ he said dolefully. ‘We are, of course, interrogating everyone on the scene.’
I thought of the man with the badge that had gone missing from his cap, but I wasn’t going to share that with him. I still didn’t know why he had summoned me.
Either the Director was a mind reader or he wanted to change the subject. ‘Mr. Wells, there are two reasons I invited you to Washington. The first is that I thought you would appreciate seeing one of the survivors of the Antichurch massacre.’
My heart missed a beat. Who could that be?
‘Sergeant Quincy Jerome of the Airborne Division is in Walter Reed hospital.’
Jesus, Quincy.
‘He underwent an emergency operation, but he is out of danger. One of his lungs collapsed.’
I nodded, suddenly doubtful of my ability to speak without breaking down. Only now did I realize how much I’d needed some good news.
‘You will be driven to the hospital in the evening,’ the Director continued. ‘Secondly, I know how much you have been through, Mr. Wells, and I don’t just mean in the past days. Allow me to offer my sincerest commiserations, and those of the entire Bureau, for the deaths of your wife and son.’
I didn’t correct him over Karen’s status. I would have married her if she had survived and would always think of her as my wife.
‘In gratitude for your help in closing the Rothmann case, I would like to invite you to accompany me to New York tomorrow. I have to attend the UN Climate Change Conference, but we will arrange a press conference afterward. The White House has instructed the Justice Department to drop all charges against you regarding the attack on the President at the cathedral here, and I would like the opportunity to clear your name in public.’ He sat back and regarded me with an encouraging smile. ‘As you’ll understand, that will also give me the opportunity to blow the Bureau’s trumpet after the successful end to the operation in Texas.’
I could see he would want to do that, with Rothmann and the others dead. It all seemed very quick, but if that was what the White House wanted, who was I to stand in its way? More to the point, I would be in New York, where I could get hold of Sara’s treasure trove, if that was what it turned out to be.
‘Thank you,’ I said, trying to sound more impressed than I was. I hadn’t trusted Peter Sebastian that much, but I found myself wishing he was still alive.
Thirty-Five
My FBI shadow Simonsen, whose name I saw on his ID tag before we left the Hoover Building, took me to a plush hotel not far from the White House. He checked me in using a Bureau declaration of my identity and a credit card with my name on it.
‘Two-thousand-dollar-a-day limit,’ he said, handing the piece of plastic over with what looked like disapproval. ‘I’ll be back at 6:30 to take you to the hospital.’
I went up to the room, which had a good view of the surrounding buildings but not much else, and took a shower. Then I headed out and located a cafe with a bank of computers. There were a lot of messages in my in- box, all of which I disregarded except Roger van Zandt’s. He had traced the email used by Sara’s broker to an apartment block in south Manhattan. I added him to the list of things to be done in New York. Then I went on the internet and did a search for ‘Hercules.’ Bingo. Third from the top, after a TV series and a thrash metal band, was Hercules Solutions, a company described as having ‘private security and military expertise.’ I logged on to its website, which had numerous bells, whistles and links-and a corporate logo with an image of the ancient hero gripping a pair of snakes that looked very like the one I’d seen on the big guy’s disappearing cap badge. The bottom line was that H.S. was a world leader in the provision of security for individuals, businesses and sovereign states; it also ran training courses at all levels and had compounds in several U.S. states and foreign countries. Were these the people behind the Hades complex? I clicked about the site, but found no locations in Texas-the nearest camp, ‘a fully integrated firing range, physical training and operations center,’ was in northern Oklahoma. Going back to the home page, I saw a picture of a smiling, middle-aged man, whose face was smooth as a baby’s and whose brown hair looked like it had been dyed a dozen times. He was the company’s chairman and CEO, and he was also a Baptist preacher-the Reverend Rudi Crane. I’d have moved quickly on, having a severely limited tolerance for men of the cloth, but I noticed a link to his forthcoming engagements. Tomorrow he would be attending the UN Climate Change Conference in New York-Hercules Solutions being committed to the most economical and sustainable use of resources in all its global activities.
Things were coming together at a frightening rate. I did a search for March Violet Partners. The Director had been right. The company was registered in Liberia but, unlike the H.S. site, there were minimal links and very little information was given out, although one of its subsidiaries was Cerberus Security. The holding company was involved in international trade and consultancy, but it didn’t say in what commodities and services. There were few references to it elsewhere, and nothing linking it either to Texas or to Hercules Solutions. Perhaps I’d have to ask the Reverend Crane himself. Maybe the Director could introduce us. I had no doubt that they would know each other.
‘Good coffee?’ Special Agent Simonsen asked when he picked me up outside the hotel. There was a hint of a smile on his thin lips.
‘I only drink tea,’ I lied. It didn’t surprise me that I was being watched. The Feds could check what I’d been
