The nemesis manifesto, p.3
The Nemesis Manifesto, page 3
He handed over a sheaf of photos taken by his forensics team. Evan went through them carefully, a frown deepening the line between her eyes.
“Ligature marks on their wrists and ankles.”
“Yes,” Butler affirmed. “They were bound.”
Evan looked up at him. “I don’t see any sign of blood. None at all.”
“The coroner we sent out there told me that the mutilations were done elsewhere, then the bodies were drained of blood.”
Evan stared at him. “After they were mutilated.”
“Yes.”
“So it’s possible that their throats were torn out while they were still alive.”
“That’s the coroner’s guarded opinion. And here’s the kicker. The coroner found blood in their feet, mouths, and, in Jules’s case, hair.”
“Which means they were strung up by their ankles, like pigs.” Evan studied the photos again. “Some form of ritual then.”
“Ritual is my prime suspicion.”
Evan shook her head. She was fully on board now. “Where?” she said softly. “Where were they found?”
“You’ll love this. It’s why I sent for you.” He took back the photos. “The Caucasus Mountains, the ancient dividing line between Europe and Asia. Georgia. To be exact, inside a national park with the longest name in the world: Racha-Lechkhumi-Kvemo Svaneti Planned National Park.” He gave Evan a hard stare. “The Russian Federation is virtually your backyard.”
He shuffled the photos. “This is bad, Evan. As bad as it gets. These were highly skilled field agents, not a bunch of friends out for a picnic in the park. Racha, their end point, will be your starting point.”
“Did you send them out together?”
“A month apart.”
“But they were dumped in the same place.”
“That’s right,” Butler said.
“And our third, the one who came back. Patrick Wilson—the Toad, as we used to call him.”
Butler gave a grimace. “Seems an unfortunate nickname now. Save for being thinner and suffering from dehydration and exposure, he came back unharmed … physically. On the surface, at least.”
“How is that?”
“Unknown. He won’t see a psychologist or even a PTSD doctor, but something major is clearly wrong. Maybe you can … You should visit him before you head off to Georgia. He knows you. I think it would be instructive.”
“And?” She rose and stepped toward the doorway. “With you there’s always an ‘and.’”
The ghost of a smile played across Butler’s lips. “Take Brenda with you.”
“You know I work better alone.”
“You and Brenda have history, an excellent rapport. I’m not sending another lone agent out on this.”
Butler rose as well, crossed to where she stood, still holding the paper. “The two names below our people are the MI6 agents.”
Dropping her eyes, Evan looked at the list. “Have they been found?”
“Not as of today. No word from them. Nothing.”
“And the sixth name?” She stared past the page to Butler’s expression. “Charles Isaacs?”
“As I said, there’s no info on him. None at all. He’s a blank slate, a tabula rasa.” His gaze turned searching. “Charles Isaacs is a legend. A manufactured identity. Must be. He’s a complete enigma.” He put the list aside. “One thing I have been able to determine absolutely is he’s not one of ours. And I’ve checked with our cousins across the pond. As I said, we’re not so friendly these days, but I have a few personal friends, and we still trust one another. He’s not one of theirs, either. And, of course, they’re intensely interested as to what happened to their two MIA agents.”
“Isaacs belongs to an agency that Nemesis is out to eliminate,” Evan said. “Which could mean Isaacs is an ally of ours.”
“Possibly, but he could also be Russian, Interpol, or anything else, for that matter.” Butler was looking more and more troubled. “As yet, we don’t know Nemesis’s goal, which is why we need to be extremely vigilant.”
“You’re sending us out on a fact-finding mission?”
“That’s a Nemesis kill list, Evan, one that’s destroyed the lives of three of our agents, and maybe two of theirs.” He waved the sheet of paper. “This is not simply another group of netbot trolls. It’s not just another terrorist organization. Nemesis is targeting Western clandestine agents. My intuition told me that you were the right one for the job. The only one.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Evan noted Brenda standing in the doorway, silent as a shadow. How much had she heard? How much did she know?
“Go see Patrick Wilson, Evan.” Butler stepped closer, gripped her arm briefly. “See if you can find out what the hell has happened to him.” He nodded in Brenda’s direction. “She’s ready, Evan. Are you?”
2
Evan, staring out the side window of the armored black Chevy Tahoe, was reminded of her history with Butler, of their work together in the field, and of the one time they had succumbed to the pain and loss that work sometimes rained down on them, and had had frenetic, sweaty comfort sex all night long in an anonymous hotel room in Berlin. She had made such poor decisions when it came to men. But none worse than Josh, to whom she had willingly given her heart, only to have him crush it. “I thought our love was forever,” she had said stupidly, naïvely. Only to have him respond: “Forever is fungible.” He was a high-powered lawyer. “I live in the moment and each succeeding moment changes.” It was positively, absolutely the worst, cruelest breakup, one she never in a million years could have imagined. A breakup that even to this day, four years later, made her feel as if she had been shot through the heart.
“How bad is the Toad?” she asked, trying to bring herself back to the present. I live in the moment and each moment changes.
“I think that’s for you to decide,” Brenda said, maneuvering deftly through the traffic flow. “And by the way, thanks for that vote of confidence.”
Evan ignored her gentle dig. “But you’ve seen him—Wilson.”
“Afterward, I had nightmares for two nights running.”
Evan glanced at her. “That bad.”
Brenda shivered. Evan had seen Brenda on the field of battle, how fearless she was, and this made her wonder what was awaiting her in the Toad’s hospital room. Then she turned back to the window, her head filled with Butler. Their shared past was why she was here, why she had acquiesced to his request to come on board when he was given his own shop. He understood her. Understood her need to stay away from DC, her desire to have no permanent home, but rather live wherever her briefs took her. And it was imperative that she work, stay occupied, although it certainly wasn’t for the salary he paid her. She had long ago stashed away money—as well as other practical items—in a Cayman Islands account. More than she could ever spend in a lifetime. But then again she wasn’t a spender, material things had little meaning for her. She wasn’t, she reflected, much of anything. She was like a ghost, a walking, talking shell that every once in a while sprang into action, afterward retreating to her own netherworld, untouched, untouchable. That was the way she needed it, or, in any case, wanted it. She had learned over and over again that being intimate with others brought only misery, betrayal, and death.
Amid this wasted landscape there was Butler, always Butler, who lived in the shadowed margins as she did. And yet somehow he still managed to love his daughter, to be a good father. To be a complete human being. She envied him that, but she didn’t understand it.
They crossed the Potomac into Virginia. For the next twenty minutes Brenda took them south by southwest, along a highway, before exiting onto a secondary road, passing by tony enclaves of large homes, guarded, set off, an all too regular sign of nervousness and paranoia. Not long after they’d passed a large shopping center, the road went from a four-lane blacktop to a two-lane rural byway. There were no signs, no markers in this part of Virginia’s rolling hills, but Brenda obviously knew the way as she slowed and turned left onto an easily missable crushed stone lane.
“We’re here,” she said after a several bumpy minutes, pulling up before the entrance to a gated area that included a main building parking lot and heavily manicured grounds.
Brenda slid down her window, handed over a pair of ID passes. The guard checked them, peered in at her and at Evan, then nodded, handed them back.
“Spot 11,” he said, handing her an official slip. “Place this on the dash before you leave the vehicle.” The gates swung open, and Brenda eased the car along a wide paved drive bordered with cherry trees, bare now in their winter sleep. Ahead of them was a large, perfectly anonymous-looking structure, similar to other hospitals Evan had seen.
Brenda pulled the Tahoe into Spot 11, between a green Jaguar and a white Nissan Altima. As they got out, the chill air hit Evan’s face. She followed Brenda up the gold-veined granite steps to the entrance with its seeing-eye glass doors. There was no signage, no indication whatsoever as to what the building housed.
“Butler said this used to be called St. Agnes Charity Hospital,” Brenda said over her shoulder, “before it fell into disrepair and the feds bought it dirt cheap.”
They passed through the sliding electronic-eye doors. Showing their credentials at the front desk, they were assigned a nurse, who arrived at speed and walked them briskly down a carpeted hallway lined with closed doors, wood panels, and abstract paintings so generic they might have been Rorschach test rejects. The light was cool and indirect. In contrast with the institutional exterior, the repurposed interior had the feel of a five-star hotel.
The Toad was waiting for them in the library and from the get-go the optics were wrong. His hair was washed and pomaded, his cheeks so clean-shaven they shone in the lamplight. He wore cognac-colored corduroys, a clean white shirt with a starched collar, and a rep tie with an impeccable knot. A black wool blazer was draped over one arm of the upholstered chair in which he reposed, one leg over the other. In his left hand he held a cut crystal glass which appeared to hold three fingers of whiskey. By his left elbow was a small oval side table on which was a cut-glass decanter with more whiskey. He smiled when they were ushered in. The nurse did not walk them over, but vanished the moment they stepped into the room.
And what a room it was. Octagonal in shape, high in ceiling, with tall windows on three sides overlooking skeletal rear gardens which, apart from several yews, were showing their winter bones. Heavy velvet curtains framed the windows. Three walls were covered in mahogany shelves filled with books of every sort. The seventh wall was taken up by the kind of enormous fireplace usually found in hunting lodges deep in the woods. The only thing missing was a mounted deer or elk head above it. Instead, there was a wall of stones on which was hung a portrait of a religious nature. Possibly St. Agnes, though whether the cowled figure holding out a hand either in supplication or in warning was female or male was difficult to discern.
Patrick Wilson watched them approach with glittering eyes. It was only when Evan and her companion neared the Toad that the illusion of normality was shattered. Wilson’s eyes, once the same rich hue as his trousers, were now almost colorless. They reflected the light, making them appear depthless. And then there was his complexion, which was as pale and bloodless as moonlight, and almost as insubstantial.
Two chairs had been arranged facing him. Without waving them to sit, Wilson said, “The last time I saw you, Evan, you were a lot younger.”
“I don’t recall.” Given the effect he had had on Brenda, Evan was determined to make this interview as straightforward and businesslike as possible.
“Ah, yes. I remember now. Forgive me, I’m feeling a little peaked these days.” The Toad smelled strongly of a cheap cologne that was inadequate in masking both the alcohol on his breath and his body odor. “And looking a good deal worse.”
He hadn’t said a word to Brenda, hadn’t looked at her, hadn’t so much as acknowledged that she was even in the room with them.
“Wilson,” Evan said, seating herself, “we’ve come to find out what happened to you and where you were when it happened.”
Something akin to a shadow passed behind the Toad’s eyes.
“Wilson, eh?” Those colorless eyes turned canny. “Why don’t you call me Toad? Everyone else does.”
“I prefer your real name,” Evan said.
With that, the Toad’s demeanor brightened, he bared his teeth in the semblance of a smile. This was a mistake; they looked like bits of burnt toast. They reminded Evan of photos she’d seen of prisoners released from Dachau after World War II.
“Names. What are they, really? They only mask what’s underneath. The rotting self inside.”
Wilson took a long draught of his whiskey, rolling it around his mouth before swallowing noisily. “Back in the day I never much cared for this stuff,” he said, as if to no one in particular. “But now I’ve come back I’ve found an appreciation I never knew I had.”
“And where was that, Wilson? Where did you come back from?”
Wilson twitched. “Oh, many places, Evan. Many, many places.”
“Let’s start with the last place. Where were you when you were damaged?”
Wilson let go a croak of a laugh the way others pass gas. Another shadow seemed to move behind his eyes. “Damaged, is it? Oh, yes, I’m damaged all right. But not in any way these quacks and cranks can figure out. I’m an enigma to them, Evan. That should be familiar to you. You’re also an enigma to anyone you come in contact with. Nobody can figure you out.”
“Just answer my questions, Wilson.”
The Toad glugged more whiskey. The glass was all but empty. He reached for the decanter, Evan put a hand out to forestall him, but he batted it away. “This is my place,” Wilson said in a steely tone. “My rules.” His voice was full of needles as he bared his toasted teeth again. They looked loose, ready to fall out, as if he were ninety-five years old.
The Toad poured himself more whiskey. “But I shouldn’t be surprised.” As he placed the decanter back on the table, he threw Evan a sideways glance. “You always were afraid of the past, weren’t you?”
Evan was about to tell him how wrong he was, but the image of a red-brick monstrosity rose up in her mind, clear as if she had been there yesterday. She could almost hear the ravens shriek. Then her eyes refocused, and she saw Wilson peering at her with a curious, almost avid expression.
Without knowing why, Evan felt herself withdrawing, felt herself wanting to be far away from here, as if she couldn’t bear to be in the presence of this person one moment longer. She had to steel herself, had to remind herself that she was here for a purpose. She’d never cut and run from anything in her life; she wasn’t about to start now, no matter the bizarre effect the Toad was having on her.
“The last place you were—the last place you can remember—was it in the country, a city, what?”
“And ravens,” the Toad said. “Don’t forget those fucking ravens.” A muscle in one cheek began to spasm. “Where’s that place, Evan? I don’t remember.”
3
At this time of day the church was all but deserted. The morning Mass had been given, the choir practice wasn’t scheduled until 3 P.M. One or two penitents could be seen in the pews, heads bowed over clasped hands. A smattering of tourists standing in the rear. And a security detail.
“Ah, Mr. Secretary, I hoped I’d find you here,” Riley Rivers said.
“You’re in big trouble, meeting me like this,” Brady Thompson said, waving away one of the security suits. “Get the fuck out of here.”
Thompson was Secretary of Defense. Unlike with other presidents, this POTUS used Thompson, rather than the CI heads, as his sole advisor on intelligence matters. He alone had a direct pipeline to the president. He listened to others, skimmed their daily reports, but acted only on Thompson’s say-so.
“I’m the newest member of our snug little cadre here in America. I have a control back in Moscow same as you.”
Thompson looked to the left, at an enormous painting of the Assumption. To his right was an old-fashioned wooden pulpit straight out of Moby Dick. He felt a shiver run down his spine; he never felt comfortable in churches. He was a lifelong politician; politics was his religion.
“Talking directly to me is way above your pay grade.” His lips barely moved, and he hadn’t so much as glanced at Rivers since the other had sat down beside him. “Go,” he said. “Now.”
Rivers made to get up, then changed his mind, plunked his butt back onto the pew. “The thing is—the reason I sought you out, Mr. Secretary—I have an idea I think you’ll like very much.”
Thompson sighed. This kid was like a no-see-um you couldn’t get rid of. Might as well humor him, he thought. “What is it?”
“OOC,” Rivers said with a sly smile.
An older woman rose, threaded her way up the center aisle. Thompson waited until the church door shut behind her before he said in a harsher tone than he had intended, “What the fuck is OOC.”
“The Office of Official Communications.”
Thompson cocked his head. “There is no such thing.”
“Not today, there isn’t,” Rivers told him. “But tomorrow’s another day.”
“Okay,” Thompson said slowly. “So what is OCC, and what does it mean to me?”
Rivers told him the barest outline. “I’ll need fifty million,” he said in conclusion. “To start.”
Thompson was on the verge of laughing. “You’re out of your mind.”
“Just hear me out,” Rivers said.
And he did.
* * *
It was a snap for Thompson to summon the White House’s director of communications. Dan Derry was a harried-looking man with thinning, sandy hair, flushed cheeks, and a mouth pursed in a perpetual expression of hauteur that reminded Thompson of the Russian Sovereign’s demeanor of choice. His hands were as small as a child’s, the fingers constantly in motion, drumming on the tablecloth, fiddling with a fork, tapping the bowl of a spoon against the stem of his glass, until Thompson was compelled to say, “Stop! For the love of Christ, Dan, stop.” Derry withdrew his hands, held them in his lap. His right leg started to pump up and down as if he were about to jump on a bike and pedal out of town.
