Bloodshift Read online

  The Colonel thought of his wife and her accident. The doctors had said she would be fine. That she was lucky. The priest had said something else. Something sickening. It had not been an accident.

  “No. I know. A posting for them.”

  The priest nodded. “That’s right, Colonel. A posting. To Belfast. A transport truck. A terrorist mine, or attack. A minor tragedy. But no more questions. The mistake doesn’t spread.”

  The Colonel stared at the flashing button. There were thirty-four of his soldiers at Heathrow. Thirty-four.

  The priest went to the coatrack by the door, slipped on his overcoat, and bent over.

  Tremworthy stared uncomprehendingly as the priest who had killed five people and sentenced thirty-four others to death, struggled with his galoshes.

  No, said a voice within him, you are sentencing the thirty-four to death. That man has ordered it. You are carrying it out. After forty-five years. A traitor and murderer. For my wife, he thought. Lila, for Lila. Murderer, murderer. The years were coming to an end.

  “Perhaps,” said the Colonel, “perhaps Washington will have more success with her now that you’ll be operating in America.”

  Clement’s face hardened. His hand tightened on the doorknob. The look of contempt returned.

  “You poor fool. You understand nothing of this. You think that I … Washington? Washington is an obscenity. They work together, Colonel. Washington and she, together. Why else do you think we must stop her at all costs?”

  Tremworthy felt sick. Too many things. Too much to think of. “But your organisation? The way you operate. Where does the power come from? What’s your control?”

  The priest paused, letting the look of utter confusion and loss grow on Tremworthy’s face. He considered his answer carefully.

  “Colonel Tremworthy, despite all we have revealed to you, do you actually think that I am other than this?” He gestured to his cleric’s collar. “Do you consider us an insane group of terrorists? Or government spies or agents or whatever you will? This collar is no disguise, Colonel. Many years ago I even served in a parish, a terrible parish with mines and poverty, ignorance and disease. I came to know my parishioners well. I came to know how they reacted to the pressures and forces of a world far too complex for them. I could look at a man, Colonel Tremworthy, and from the tone of his voice and from an understanding of what he had recently experienced, tell just what that man was going to do. How he was going to deal with his situation. If he could find the strength.” The priest paused again, staring at the Colonel, then at the Colonel’s desk. The right side. Where the drawer was. Where the gun was kept.

  “I’ve never thought to ask you, Colonel. Are you still a Catholic?”

  The Colonel nodded once, almost imperceptibly.

  “I shouldn’t worry about it.” The priest looked toward the right side of the desk. “Extraordinary times. I can make the proper arrangements afterward. It will be all right for you.”

  Colonel Tremworthy was motionless, recognition slowly growing in him. Recognition of action he knew he had already decided upon.

  “To answer your question, Colonel. Ad majoreum Dei gloriam. I take my orders from Rome.”

  The priest closed the door behind him as he left.

  Rome. For the greater glory of God. The enormity, the hideousness of the words echoed in the silence. It was the Jesuits’ creed. All of what had happened had happened for them. For Rome. Old men caught up in costumes and rituals most people no longer took seriously had come to this? Is this madness what became of them when the world had turned away? Jesuits who killed? On orders from Rome?

  After a long time, Colonel Tremworthy depressed the interrupt button and talked to his sergeant. When he was finished, he telephoned an aide to release the prepared story of an aborted IRA attack on Heathrow, then began the paperwork which his staff would complete, sending his men to their silence in Belfast. Murderer, Murderer.

  He did it all for his wife.

  For himself, he knew as well as the priest that the gun was there, in the drawer. The priest had said he would make it all right. Like an invitation to escape from the insanity which surrounded him.

  The priest—no, not just a priest, the Jesuit—had said it. The world had grown too complex for the Colonel’s understanding. Rome, his deeply held base, had risen like some monstrous worm, twisting and writhing in impossible, unbelievable directions. And those monsters from the shadows, they had somehow become real. Colonel Tremworthy was too tired to struggle with them any longer. He was too tired.

  He left it to the Jesuit and to whomever it was who was so important, so inexplicably dangerous, now hurtling across the Atlantic to America.

  He left it all to them.

  Sometime later, he opened the drawer.

  Ad majoreum Dei gloriam.

  Rome.

  Chapter Three

  THE DARKNESS THAT enveloped her was her comfort, for in that darkness was her strength. Just as her hope lay within the drone and soft vibration of the engines pushing her through the night.

  The brutality of Heathrow was behind her now. The risks, for her, had been worthwhile.

  She had survived.

  But after the switch she had heard the gunfire as the decoy coffin was rolled through the waiting area. Her familiars could not withstand such weapons. She knew the last of them had been killed as the price of her escape.

  The Atlantic, January 13

  Now she was safe in the container marked Medical Isotopes. Its radiation warning labels granted her protection far greater than any lock against the prying of customs officials.

  Cramped and confined in the container in the baggage compartment of the 747, she thought of her freedom. Freedom from the container would come first. Then from the darkness, and from the hunger. Most of all from the hunger. With that would come her final freedom: from the Conclave.

  Lost in her thoughts of the future, images of sunrises shone in her darkened eyes. She smiled because she was travelling at 600 miles an hour away from those who would destroy her. She thought she was safe.

  But eight miles below her and over twenty thousand miles above, it had already begun. The voices, deep and sibilant, whispered their way through the web of transatlantic cables, flew through the tenuous net of satellite relays.

  For the first time, a conflict was to reach overseas. But the voices often considered the impossible and contingencies had always been available.

  Someone new would be drawn in; someone whose usefulness had long ago been calculated, noted, and filed. Now he would be found and activated. It had worked with others in the past. It would work again.

  Inquiries were made. Dormant networks came alive. A location was established.

  Hours later, as the aircraft began its descent, all was in readiness. The voices were silent.

  Within a day it would be known where she had landed, and the conflict would reach its final, inevitable conclusion.

  Then Rome and Washington would be as dust in sunlight, swirling to oblivion, and the Conclave would rule.

  Forever.

  Chapter Four

  THE MAN IN the blue parka stopped to study the tracks he had followed in the snow. They had not yet filled in with new snowfall. They were minutes old.

  He took a deep breath of the winter air, enjoying its bite as it chilled his throat and lungs. The cold had flushed his cheeks, bringing back colour and taking off years. He was nearing forty but his face did not show it. The skin was tight; his nose sharp. It was the face of an athlete long used to taking care of his body. His age showed only in his eyes; large, blue and hunted. There were too many lines around those eyes. They had seen too many things he would have preferred not to witness.

  New Hampshire, West Heparton, January 14

  The man stood up slowly, staring ahead at the thicket a hundred yards away. The larger soft snowflakes had formed a mantle of white across his shoulders and salted his black toque to a shade of grey.

  He brushed a
t the snow caught in his eyebrows and remained still. He knew the deer would be in the thicket, rooting through the light snow under the trees for winter forage, but he could not summon the will to go in after it.

  He carried only his Olympus with its motordrive and telephoto lens, but he couldn’t move. The thrill of the chase, if he could call it that, had left him. Even in this harmless situation.

  The man hooted and yelled at the deer he couldn’t see, slapping his mittened hands together. For a moment he thought the noise hadn’t carried in the snow-muffled stillness. Then a doe burst from a seemingly solid section of the thicket, its legs drawn up in a perfect, gravity-defying bound, and was gone.

  That moment of its disappearance triggered the memory. The snowbound landscape fell away from his eyes, replaced by that fine mist of blood, sprayed out in tiny droplets, beaded upon the filthy floorboards and slowly sinking into the grooves and cracks. The memory staggered him. He gasped for breath in its ferocity. He saw the startled face, eyes open, still moist, staring lifelessly at the delicate tongue tip, inches away, lying useless in the dust.

  He shook his head to lose the image. Behind him was an old fallen tree trunk. He walked toward it, needing to sit down.

  When he had calmed himself, his breathing steady, and his hands without tremors, the man prepared to examine the memory in detail. He had long ago learned that his subconscious was an important element of his success, and if something could affect him this strongly, he must review. It would not be the first time he had noted a mistake after the fact. But this time, it was far enough after the fact that he might not be able to do anything about it. He could only wait for them to come and get him.

  With that, Granger Helman gazed out over the snow-covered hills of New Hampshire and reflected on the Delvecchio closing, the twenty-third and last time he had killed for money.

  One year ago, Joe Delvecchio had vanished on his way to a luncheon appointment with business associates. Delvecchio was the president of the Interstate Handlers Brotherhood and had been implicated in a number of quasi-legal actions involving pension fund misappropriation, election rigging and, it was rumoured, the murder of union officials and non-union protesters who had opposed him. The Handlers were approaching a level of power equal to or surpassing that of other major transportation unions when Delvecchio disappeared. No one seemed too surprised; it was known with whom he was dealing. Certain organisations which had made considerable investments in the shipment of goods across state lines, without the intervention or taxation of government, did not tolerate interference.

  Most people believed Delvecchio had interfered. It was generally assumed he was dead, even though no body had been recovered, and no charges had been laid.

  Helman had sources different from those of most people. He knew Delvecchio was dead, and for the reasons most people suspected, even though those reasons were wrong. Helman also knew why no body had been found or would ever be found.

  The organisations Delvecchio appeared to be moving against routinely invested in legitimate businesses as a method of disguising their cash income from other sources. There was not a single similar organisation operating in the United States which did not own or control at least one funeral parlour as one of its legitimate businesses.

  Business was carried out as usual at these places, except when, occasionally and late at night, a delivery was made of an unidentified and unclaimed body.

  After the next scheduled cremation, the body did not exist. True professionals left no traces.

  Joe Delvecchio had been invited into the car of an associate, who had urgent news. Delvecchio’s knuckles were scratched with a needle held in the barrel of a ballpoint pen. Three seconds later his striated muscles were useless. The drug was a curare derivative developed for certain types of brain surgery during which the probing of brain tissue might trigger sudden body movements. Delvecchio could see, hear, and breathe, but he couldn’t move.

  He was taken to an underground garage and transferred to a private ambulance.

  The ambulance delivered him to an independent funeral parlour. A cremation was already scheduled for that evening.

  His captors told Delvecchio exactly what they were doing. They also told him that the drug prevented the development of the shock syndrome. Despite his panic and terror, Delvecchio would not pass out or faint. He could count on being conscious for the rest of his life.

  He was placed on a corpse in a coffin and slid into the crematorium. His last sensations were of the thud of the fire door being sealed behind him, the rush and bump of the gas jets igniting, and the air searing his lungs as the first flames crackled through the lid of the coffin.

  They told Delvecchio to expect all of this, but they didn’t tell him why. If they had, he wouldn’t have understood. They had killed the wrong person.

  Six months later, when the political bickering and manoeuvring among the Handlers Brotherhood subsided and the transfer of powers had taken place, the people who had arranged for Delvecchio’s removal realised the connections they had tried to sever were still operative. They were hidden, convoluted, but untouched by Delvecchio’s elimination.

  Delvecchio had been a puppet. New puppets were already in place.

  The real power had lain, and still remained, with Delvecchio’s wife, Roselynne. Wife, mother, killer of the innocent.

  At this time, negotiations were begun with a specialised broker operating out of Miami. Granger Helman was brought in to correct the situation. As he thought of it, to close the deal.

  The fee was exorbitant for a non-political, domestic closing: $100,000 American, in cash.

  Helman’s broker took a third from the top. Helman’s share was delivered in cash, some of which would appear in his bank account after his return from a Las Vegas vacation, duly reported as gambling winnings. The rest was left with one of three ‘soft’ casinos in Las Vegas. For another percentage off the top, the management would invest Helman’s cash in a number of prominent corporations where it would be turned around into consulting fees paid out to bank accounts owned by individuals who would carefully report the income to the IRS and pay full taxes. All the individuals were Helman. They were his ‘drops’.

  When in doubt, the government audited those whom it suspected of illegal activities. Helman’s cautious use of a broker, which gave him the opportunity of refusing a closing—something which would lead to his own death if he attempted it as an independent—and the careful, complex manner by which the broker hid the source of his income had contributed to his survival. Helman had seen too many top professionals lose everything because of a simple tax audit in which they were unable to explain the presence of twenty thousand dollars in small bills.

  The excessive fee was justified. Other people had developed an interest in the activities of Roselynne Delvecchio. Helman would have to complete the closing while the deal—his target—was under the surveillance of the FBI.

  Other conditions were also established. In this case, the body must be found. A lesson would be taught to the people dealing with Roselynne Delvecchio on both sides. There must be no doubt that she was deliberately executed.

  The last condition was the most difficult. The Justice Department was expected to call a grand jury investigation into the operations of the Interstate Handlers Brotherhood within three weeks. At that time, Roselynne Delvecchio would disappear into the impenetrable security of protective detention.

  Helman reviewed the conditions again, and analysed the methods he chose to meet them.

  One. He knew the deal could not be closed while the FBI was involved because he could not guarantee his safe withdrawal. For the same reason, he could not kidnap her and remove her from the FBI’s presence. He must arrange for Roselynne to remove herself from surveillance.

  A threat had to be made. One obvious to her but invisible to the watchers. Roselynne was a mother. The threat would be made against her children.

  Helman paused in his review, uncomfortable as he recalled the
ease with which he had made that decision to involve the innocent. The change which he felt struggling deep within him pushed that much closer to the surface. He gathered his thoughts again and continued, uneasy.

  Two. The location of the closing could be made as secure as possible. The body could always be found as a result of a short phone call to an interested party. For the lesson to be evident, the call must not go to police or newspapers. Instead it must be made to members of the groups working with Roselynne; high-ranking members who believed they were unimplicated, untouchable. Panic would ensue and the lesson would be learned.

  Three. For an execution to be obvious, many methods were immediately unsuitable. The undetectable drugs which Helman favoured, disguising themselves as heart attacks and insulin shock, were too subtle. Mechanical methods like bullets and cutting instruments left too many possibilities for forensic detection. A drop of blood, a single filing of metal, and a chain of events could be followed back to Helman. He would use his hands. If records were checked to assemble a list of all those who had the training to inflict such injuries, Helman’s name would probably be on it. But unless a list could be assembled naming all those who had the will to use their training, he would be invisible in a list of thousands.

  Helman could see no flaws in his reasoning. The plan had taken him a day to develop, two weeks to prepare. He was ready to close the deal a week before the grand jury was convened. He moved immediately.

  Breaking into Delvecchio’s house was the riskiest phase of the operation. But Helman knew how the FBI worked, how they thought, and acted accordingly.

  He penetrated the FBI’s surveillance at night. He took three hours to carefully move through the unlit back garden and conceal himself in the well of a basement window. If he had entered the house then, the first perimeter of the house’s commercial alarm system would have been activated and he would have been caught. Instead, he waited.