Darkness and Blood

Chapter 2: A Brief History of an Odd Death

Chapter 2

A BRIEF HISTORY OF AN ODD DEATHThe two heavies moved first out the darkened doorway, their hands inches from their shoulder holsters.

The moonless night had the clarity only the countryside could offer. Pablo noticed the diamond-bright dots of the seven stars of the Big Dipper constellation and the seven of the Little Dipper. He inhaled the chilly air to invigorate himself. In the near distance a cow bell clanged. Far away a lone dog howled. Then once more quiet.

Stuart clapped Pablo with brotherly affection on his shoulder as if to ease any tension between them. “It’s great to see you.”

Pablo merely nodded, still angry over the intrusion.

"You're really into the disguise thing with your black dyed hair and that beard." Stuart flipped up his coat collar against the morning chill and shoved his hands deeply into his coat pockets.

Pablo glanced sideways at him. "It's kept me off the CIA's grid so far." He held his gaze on him, concerned. "Who gave me away?"

"Settle down, no one gave you away. Maurice told me once about your bolt- hole. Like I said, I'm on your side. You should know that.”

“Any chance you were followed?” Pablo asked, still worried.

“I doubt it. I’m using some of the best counter-surveillance guys around. How’d you hear us coming by the way? You have a motion sensor rigged?”

“I was having one of my so so nights,” Pablo said and immediately realized his mistake.

“Still an insomniac?” Stuart looked at him, as though finding that hard to believe.

“From time to time."

"Berlin or something else?”

"Berlin." Pablo looked off into the darkness. He didn't want to pursue the subject.

“Anyway I don’t see how you can live out here. The quiet would drive me nuts."

"It suits me just fine, Stuart,” Pablo said, happy his friend didn’t pursue the matter of Berlin. “No phone. No car. No electrical lines...that purring sound you might have heard is from a generator out back. No credit cards. No documents period traceable with my name and address on them. Work only for cash. Grow my own vegetables. Hunt when I have to,” he continued, stepping through a puddle. “I'm off the map of the database states, and that's fine and dandy with me. Besides there’s Gabriella now for company," he added amused Stuart, out of fussy concern for his Gucci loafers, sidestepped the puddle.

"Your farmhouse off the map, too?"

Pablo caught the change of tone. Stuart the chatter had turned professional questioner again. He was doing his sums, adding up the pluses and minuses, trying to get to some bottom line, some hidden agenda. "More than likely. My dad bought it decades ago on the Q. T. to have absolute privacy. The title deed is buried on some dusty shelf in a retired notaire’s closet, if he's still alive. Or in a backroom of a certain Hotel de Ville some distance from the farmhouse, which town hall, Stuart"—Pablo glanced at him—"to ease your worry, was chosen by him to throw off any of his creditors."

"How many folks in the closest village?”

“Couple hundred or so in a nearby market town. A few cafés, a main street, an antiques store, some pedestrian only lanes, a few other things.”

"Couple hundred or so, my God. Oh well, to each his own."

The fragrance of wild lavender in the night air lifted Pablo's mood for the moment. Stuart didn't notice or care about the flowers, he saw. A city man, definitely. Or maybe his thoughts were simply on Maurice. “The peace helps my nerves.”

"Hey, whatever works for you."

They reached a black Peugeot sedan, its right rear passenger door open. The interior light illuminated in the driver’s seat a man, lean as a snake, and with dark hair combed forward like that of a friar’s. But Pablo, as he ducked in, doubted the man was the religious type.

Stuart slid in after him. “You look tanned and fit.”

The barrel-chested man settled his bulk into the front passenger seat; the sharp- faced one slid into the left rear passenger seat beside Pablo.

“It’s a life,” Pablo said.

“Guys, listen to him. Living with a French knock out in Van Gogh sunflower country, and that’s all he can say.”

"My heart breaks for the mate," the barrel-chested man muttered.

As Stuart pulled shut his rear passenger door, a soft click sounded from the dashboard. The barrel-chested man looked over his shoulder at him. “We’re good.”

Pablo caught a long s***h mark down the man’s left fleshy cheek. “What’s that about,” he asked.

“It’s an anti-eavesdropping gizmo some Langley wonder whiz dreamed up.”

Anti-eavesdropping against whom? Pablo wondered, but his thoughts really were on a death. “All right, we’re safe. Now what’s this about Maurice. Tell me how.”

“How what?”

Pablo realized he was still in shock over the news and not thinking clearly. “How'd he die?”

“Six days ago I phoned him from Paris. Told him taskmaster George had unchained me from his Eyes-and-Ears Section for some long overdue R&R. I was going to take the Eurostar over to London for part of my vacation. Would he like to get together for dinner? My treat. Some West End restaurant. Maybe a play later at his favorite theater, the Dominion, or just a stroll afterwards. Whatever. To my surprise, he sounded less than enthusiastic to my invite.”

“How do you mean?”

“He sounded jumpy.”

"Maurice? That wasn’t like him. Not like him at all.”

“No, it wasn’t, Pablo. I asked if anything was wrong. He said he couldn't talk about it.”

“He say why?”

“Only that someone had recently broken into his flat.”

“While he was there?”

“While at the British Library.”

“Anything taken?”

“Just his computer, though he had just had another deadbolt lock installed.”

“Another? That’d make what, Stuart, four of them?”

“Right, right, four. Plus a state-of-the-art alarm system."

"And still someone made off with his PC?"

"Yeah, go figure. Full of notes on his autobiography including his career at MI5…the first indication of trouble, I’d soon realize.”

“What do you mean, the first indication of trouble?”

“I’m coming to that. He said sure, we could get together. So I got into London yesterday. After checking into this hotel I thought I’d try out, I finished up with my tailor and decided to kill some time at a pub before taking the Tube to Bloomsbury. Nine o’clock arrived. I made my way over to his block of flats.” Stuart steadied his eyes on Pablo, as though to make his point. “Who should I see at that very moment stepping from a limo? None other than Percy Strickland.”

Pablo gave a low whistle of surprise. “The Director General?”

“None other than the head of MI5 himself, and not there for a social call, I suspect. And another heavyweight from British domestic intelligence, William Forsyth."

"Oh, come on, Stuart, don't give me that."

"I’m not bullshitting you. The forward thrust of Forsyth's walk, arms swinging as though always late for some appointment, was impossible to miss."

"Maurice said Strickland couldn’t stand the guy for the way he ran MI5's research."

"That may be, but whatever it was must have been important to bring those two together. And there's more, a third man I didn’t recognize. But my guess, also high up in the domestic intelligence apparatus."

“Anything about this third man you noticed?”

“Where I stood, the light was poor. But I’d say roughly the same height as Strickland, six feet or so. Short dark hair, running to white or gray along the sides. No beard or mustache that I could see. No glasses. In a raincoat.”

Two powerful establishment men calling on Maurice late at night? And who was this vague third man? Pablo wondered. Really from MI5? Or from MI6 or the CIA? "Could you pick up what they said?" he asked.

Stuart shook his head, clearly disappointed. "Only angry mutterings into a cell from a very, very agitated Director General and discreet silence from the other two."

“So what’d you do?”

“I figured whatever it was between the old man, Strickland, and friends was none of my business. But I was curious and stuck around. Next thing I knew, Strickland and company blew out of Marlborough Gardens like their pants were on fire. And minutes later, the street was awash with police, and shortly after that an ambulance arrived.”

"Any idea who called New Scotland Yard?"

"Not Strickland and company, that's for sure, judging by their panicky flight. Likely some neighbor, alerted by their suspicious behavior. Or a Community Support Officer making the rounds." Stuart shook his head. “It’s still hard to believe Maurice is dead. How old was he?”

“Seventy-one.”

“He have the usual health problems for someone his age?”

“A heart condition.”

“The medical examiner might attribute his death to that.”

“Maybe he did have a heart attack.”

"Pablo, there are attacks brought on by boozing, smoking, drugs. And those caused by a sudden external event. Maurice didn't drink, smoke, and certainly didn't do drugs."

"So some sudden external event?"

"That's my take. Add it up. Maurice sounded nervous on the phone. He had a fourth deadbolt lock installed. Plus that state-of-the-art security system. Someone still broke in. That someone stole no money or credit cards. Only the old man’s PC crammed with notes on his years with British domestic intelligence. Percy Strickland and William Forsyth, who hated being in the same room with each other, pay Maurice a late-night visit along with a stranger. Minutes later all three rush out. Maurice is dead. All troubling indications. Something stinks.”

"Go to the police."

"Reporting what, a stolen computer? Things like that happen every day in London. Besides, even if they took my complaint seriously, you think they’d want to step on the toes of two establishment figures like Forsyth and Strickland?”

The bodyguard in the front passenger seat pushed open his car door. He gripped his night vision binoculars in one hand, a gun drawn from his shoulder holster in the other.

“What’s up, Jumbo?” Stuart asked.

“I thought I heard something out there. I'm going to check it out.”

"Be careful," Stuart said, an edge to his warning.

"Don't worry, I will." He heaved his Falstaffian bulk out of the car, flicked off the safety to his gun, then paused to orient himself in the blackness. He gestured vaguely off to his left. "I think it came from somewhere over there."

"There's a cypress orchard there," Pablo said to Stuart.

Stuart stuck his head out his car window. "Pablo says there's a cypress orchard over there." He waited to see if the bodyguard needed backup. But he slipped off, quicker than his weight might suggest, deeper into the night without any response.