The Face of the Assassin Part 6

Chapter 12.

After visiting for another hour or so, Bern left Gina's in a taxi, leading her to believe that he was headed to the airport to fly back to Austin. She would have insisted he stay with her if she had known he was going to be in Houston overnight, but he wanted to be alone. He went to a pharmacy, where he bought a toothbrush and toothpaste, a plastic razor, and shaving cream. Then he checked into a hotel overlooking the West Loop Freeway.

He stood at the window, watching the traffic going north and south in the blistering heat of the summer afternoon, and thought about his situation. He was caught up in something very weird here. He had no doubts now that the genetic testing was going to confirm that the skull was indeed that of his twin brother. That was a huge leap of logic, he knew, but something told him it was inevitable.

He remembered Becca Haber saying that her husband (was he really?) had been an "orphan. Abandoned. Parents unknown." Now Bern had discovered that his own origins were exactly the same. He could not believe that this was a coincidence.

What about Becca herself? How much of her lie was a lie? What part of it was truth? The thing that concerned him about all of this was that someone was orchestrating it-if not Becca, then someone else. If someone wanted him to know that he had a twin brother who was now dead, why would they do it this way? What was this approach going to achieve that couldn't also have been achieved by simply coming to him and telling him?

According to Gina's story, Bern must have been separated from his brother at birth, because the hospital doc.u.ments made no reference to another child. Or perhaps there had been two children left at the hospital, but someone there-or at child protective services-decided to split up the two boys and falsified the doc.u.ments. Maybe they'd thought it would be easier to put the boys up for adoption as singles rather than as a pair. Was that sort of thing done? It seemed improbable, although conceivable.

Or had his biological mother separated the brothers at birth? And the reasons why she might have done such a thing could be endless.

Picking up the ballpoint pen and notepad from the hotel desk, he sat and jotted down these questions and others, then looked at them, as if staring at them would bring some clarity to the bizarre problems that they presented.

Did someone want him to investigate his brother's death? Had he been murdered? Who would have known about the twins? Someone at the hospital. Someone at child protective services. His biological mother? Or his father? Again, why wouldn't whoever was behind all this just come to him and reveal the truth and ask for his help? It seemed unnecessarily perverse to do it the way it was being done.

Or maybe none of these questions came even remotely close to what was happening. Maybe he had been swept into an unimaginable situation, as bizarre and unbelievable to him as Alice's aphasia had been to Becca Haber when he had tried to explain it to her. He could imagine now how she must have felt.

He stood up from the desk and went down the hall to get a bucket of ice. From the minibar, he took a miniature bottle of gin and some tonic and made a drink. No lime. He really wished he had a lime. He stared out the windows again. The freeway was packed now as the rush-hour traffic began to build up.

Picking up the telephone, he called home and listened to his voice mail. Several messages, though none from Becca Haber. But there was a curious one. A man's voice. He said only, "Important that you call me," then gave a number. No name. Houston area code.

Bern was beginning to lose patience with apparent coincidences. He took another drink of gin, picked up the telephone again, and dialed the number.

"h.e.l.lo."

"Who is this?" Bern asked.

There was a momentary pause and then the man said, "h.e.l.lo, Paul. How odd that you are in Houston."

"Who is this?" Bern repeated.

"Vicente Mondragon," the man said. "I knew your brother."

It was a strange moment. Though Bern had convinced himself that the skull that he had reconstructed in Austin was indeed that of his brother, to hear this idea-never before even imagined by him-confirmed so casually by a stranger was disorienting.

"I'm sorry," Mondragon said. "I know you must be horribly confused by what is happening to you. I would like to explain some of it to you, if I may. Can you meet with me this evening?"

Bern felt a flurry of emotions, some of which he couldn't explain. On the one hand, he was eager to talk to this man, but on the other, he was furious at being jerked around like this, and, rightly or wrongly, he immediately blamed this Mondragon for it. Also he was, irrationally, angry at the sound of Mondragon's voice, which was mellow and sophisticated. But there was also something else about it, too, a hint of a speech impediment. That, and an air of the imperious.

"Where? When?"

"I'll have someone pick you up at eight-thirty."

"Just give me an address. I'll be there."

"I'm afraid I'll have to insist," Mondragon said.

Chapter 13.

Washington, D.C.

It was already dark as Gordon pulled into the parking lot of a low-dollar motel on Jefferson Davis Highway near Reagan International. He locked his car and went inside, where he found Kevern in the stale gloom of the c.o.c.ktail lounge. He had commandeered a relatively quiet corner, despite the creepy piped-in music. Gordon quickly ordered a scotch and soda and Kevern tapped the tabletop for another one of whatever he was having. Gordon just wanted to get it over with.

"When's your flight?" he asked.

Kevern looked at his thick wrist.

"Coupla hours." He was wearing a white guayabera, and his hairy, muscular forearms rested on the table.

"Okay," Gordon said. "You've got your clearance for your jump start. The Bern deal's a go. But I'm telling you, they broke into a collective sweat before they checked off on it. Lots of discussion, some of it heated. Lots of agonizing."

Kevern nodded.

Gordon stared at him in the silly, moony light of the lounge. Expressway atmo. Jesus.

Kevern asked, "So . . . how'd you handle Mondragon's Tepito thing?"

Gordon didn't flinch. "I didn't."

Kevern was a sphinx, but Gordon knew that he understood the implications of two of Gordon's decisions. One, he'd given Kevern the break he wanted. The drug hit in Tepito was the official story and would remain the official story. If the Heavy Rain group had learned the truth, they would have pulled the plug on the operation. Two, the only way Gordon was able to push through the Bern operation was by not telling the group that Kevern had already initiated it six weeks earlier.

Gordon had covered for Kevern twice and had lied to the group twice by omission. Kevern owed him. But there was a flip side.

"Now, give me the downside," Kevern said.

Gordon didn't even offer a preface.

"If either the Tepito slaughter or your six-week jump on the Bern operation ever come to light," Gordon said, "I'll deny I knew anything about it. I'll swear to that in court. I'll swear to that before a special intelligence panel. I'll sign doc.u.ments to that effect. You stepped out into the void all alone on this one, Lex, and whatever happens to you as a result, you'll have to deal with all by yourself."

Kevern's expression was a mixture of sobriety and sour amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Well, I appreciate it, Gordy," Kevern said. The irony of his remark wasn't lost on Gordon. "That's one of the benefits of being up here in Washington, isn't it?"

Gordon waited for the explanation that he knew Kevern wanted to lay out for him.

"I mean," Kevern said, "you think this little scheme just might work after all, don't you? f.u.c.kin' twisty, you think. Twisty and, by G.o.d, maybe a real possibility. And if it does work, well, then all the talk up here is, 'G.o.dd.a.m.n, old Gordy, he's an ace. You want a clandestine op to go sweet, get Gordy. h.e.l.l, let's promote him.'

"On the other hand, if this thing goes south, well, n.o.body can blame you. Your man got killed, for Christ's sake. And then you had the nuts to get innovative to try to save the thing. h.e.l.l, heroic effort. Slap on the back."

Kevern wasn't smiling. Gordon wasn't going to respond. He'd learned a long time ago about the interpretive possibilities of silence. He took a drink of the scotch.

Kevern, still not smiling, took a drink of whatever he was having.

Gordon could taste the lingering essence of scotch at the back of his sinuses.

"I've got to tell you, though," Gordon said. "You have to rein in Mondragon. The group's more indulgent these days about the contractors we deal with, but I'd say that Mondragon pushes the limit of their indulgence."

Kevern strung out a long grunt under his breath, as if he were straining at something.

"And I'm really going to worry about the limit of their indulgence," he said.

"Listen to me." Gordon lowered his voice and leaned forward. "These people sit on the NSC, for Christ's sake. You do something stupid, you bring them blowback, and they'll hang you out to dry so fast, your nuts will shrivel up like they were freeze-dried."

Kevern's thick neck seemed to swell even thicker when he was holding in his temper.

"Cobalt-sixty," he grunted slowly. "Cesium-one-thirty-seven. Plutonium. And that's just the little stuff. But I doubt if Baida's even bothering to put anything together at that level. We've been through this . . . s.h.i.t"-he shook his head-"how many times? Intel points to something bigger. We think he's been at it-what, nearly two years? That points to a significant scheme, something complex. Complex means big.

"I'd p.i.s.s off a whole army of NSCs to get Paul Bern next to Ghazi Baida, because the alternative is just too f.u.c.king freaky. And if Mondragon can help me do that, I don't much care who he s.h.i.ts on in the process, and I care even less about some Washington fatties' limits of indulgence."

This was precisely the kind of situation that drove Gordon mad. The intelligence about Ghazi Baida was grim and scary, like the rumors of a beast lumbering through the night in your direction. If you don't act on the rumor and it turns out to be a reality, then you're screwed and people will die in numbers so large that it will change the way historians will write about the century.

But if you do act, you do so with the full knowledge that the only way to stop the beast coming after you is to send your own beast out into the night to meet him. And your beast has to be fed and nurtured and indulged and treated in the same way you'd treat a friend or someone you respected. You have to collude with him, and abet. You have to get close enough to him to feel his warmth and smell his breath. And you have to do all of that knowing full well that he isn't any different from or any better than the beast you are sending him out to meet. Except that your beast doesn't want to eat you, and the other one does.

"Look," Gordon said, "all I'm saying is that you've got a reputation, Lex. Reputations have a way of gaining weight. When you get too heavy for those guys to carry, when it's just not worth the effort to them anymore, they'll cut you loose." He paused. "Just don't let Mondragon take it too far. There are limits."

"Not for Ghazi Baida," Kevern said evenly.

Gordon said nothing more. They'd been in this circle too many times to count, each taking his respective side and pushing it as far as he could. It made for constant tension. Maybe some people would call it balance, neither side giving anything to the other, but both of them keeping the other from indulging in extremes. It was exhausting, unrelenting, never ending.

He shifted his weight, and the subject.

"Tell me something," Gordon said. "Just for my own curiosity: How in the h.e.l.l did you get Jude's skull?"

"One of the Koreans," Kevern said. "Before he got killed in the drug raid, we had the opportunity to put him through a little questioning. Turns out he'd dumped the bodies himself. Him and his buds. He took us out to a garbage dump in Nezahualcoyotl."

Kevern hesitated a beat, just enough for you to notice something if you were perceptive, but he kept it tough.

"There he was"-he shrugged-"all crumpled up under an old truck radiator and some other s.h.i.t. The feral dogs had been at him. And the possums and cats. He was kind of scattered around. We got what we could. At first, we didn't believe the d.a.m.n slope, didn't think it was him. And then we found his head. Rats had cleaned it slick, but they hadn't chewed on it. It was weird. Clean as a lab specimen. I knew the key dental markers, so . . .

"We shot the slope right there and left him where Jude had been. Kind of a swap. Made the rats happy."

"s.h.i.t," Gordon said. He took another drink. "And the woman who took the skull to Bern?"

"Paid and gone."

Gordon was going over all of it in his head again. h.e.l.l, he hadn't stopped going over it from the moment he first heard the plan from Kevern. When he presented it to the group the first time, they were dumbfounded; then the more they thought about it, the more it began to seem like a crazy kind of possibility to them. Especially in light of the potential horrors of the alternatives.

One of the deciding factors in favor of letting Kevern go ahead with it had been his successes in the past. He had that much of a reputation. He also had another kind of reputation. These were the things the group had weighed, and in the end, they went with the devil they knew, as wild as he was, because the devil they didn't know was just too appalling to imagine.

"And the idea . . . of doing it this way?" Gordon asked. "Sending him his brother's skull-"

"I told you," Kevern said. "The idea was to get the guy emotionally invested before we approached him. He's a forensic artist, Gordy. We wanted him to puzzle it out, rev up his curiosity. We wanted him motivated and steaming under his own momentum before we approached him."

"I know, I know, I remember that, but what if it just scares the h.e.l.l out of him instead?"

Kevern shook his head. "No. Won't happen. We think he's too much like his brother. What if you'd done that to Jude? You have any doubt about what would've happened?"

"But let's just ask ourselves this: What if he isn't convinced?" Gordon said.

Kevern leveled his eyes at Gordon. "Mondragon will convince him."

And that was exactly what Gordon had warned Kevern about. Jesus H. Christ, putting a psycho in charge of psy ops. Gordon looked across the table and held his tongue. With a sense of resignation, he decided to let Kevern go with it. In twenty-four hours, forty-eight at the most, they would know. He would let it go that far.

"Okay, fine," he said. "What about Jude's partner? Mejia's going to have to prep Bern, right? I'm guessing this is creating a little stress."

"Mejia's got guts. That's why we went through the big ordeal in the beginning, remember? These were two of the best people that ever went through training at the Farm. There're d.a.m.n few like them. Mejia will do what's got to be done, and what's got to be done comes from me. Mejia's on board."

Where did these people come from? Gordon had monitored the five-month training ordeal that these two officers had gone through in preparation for Heavy Rain. At the time, it had seemed over-the-top, and Gordon had chalked that up to the overzealous, gung ho types at the Farm. That was their deal; he left it up to them.

But now it seemed that the extreme psychological preparations had been right on target. He didn't want to think what was waiting for Mejia and Bern as they tried to salvage the operation in the wake of Jude Lerner's death.

"One last thing, Lex." Gordon lifted his scotch and finished it off. He put down the empty gla.s.s and then slowly shoved it across the table until it touched Kevern's beefy hand, and left it there.

"By wiping out Khalil's cell, you may have kept Baida from finding out that Jude was a spy, but it seems to me you've also created a big problem for yourself. How the h.e.l.l are you going to find out who exposed Jude in the first place?"

He thought he saw a beat of hesitation in Kevern's eyes, but then maybe he only imagined it. Maybe he had wanted to see it just so he'd know that the guy had something left in him that could still be scared.

"We're working on that," Kevern said.

Chapter 14.

The windows of the large Mercedes were dark-tinted, so Bern couldn't see where they were going. The driver, efficient, polite, and clearly also a bodyguard, explained that it was for Mr. Mondragon's security, and he even apologized for it, as if it were an impolite inconvenience for Bern.

As best as Bern could tell, they drove roughly in the direction of the posh River Oaks section of West Houston, and after about ten to fifteen minutes stopped at what seemed to be a security gate, and then went down a slope into what must have been an underground garage. They descended several floors, then entered an elevator and ascended thirty-four floors, where the elevator doors opened into a private entry hall. Mondragon had the whole floor, wherever they were.

The lighting was subtle here, and the furnishings were uncluttered, sleek, and elegant, with a predominant color scheme that seemed to favor dun and deep chocolate. A young Mexican woman who wore a simple black c.o.c.ktail dress and was just as sleek as the decor ushered Bern into a living room situated on the corner of the building. Houston spilled out before him, glittering into the distant darkness.

The woman offered to get him something to drink, but Bern declined. She said Mr. Mondragon would be with him in a moment, and then she left.

Bern's attention was at first pulled to the dazzling view of the city laid out against the night as if for an exhibition, the lights shimmering in a single iridescent color spectrum of white and aquamarine and powder blue and beryl. But very quickly, his eyes caught sight of something more fascinating. Scattered about in the twilit room were a dozen or so clear acrylic cubes sitting on glistening black pedestals about chest-high. The cubes were slightly more illuminated than the rest of the room, so that they seemed to hover and float in the dusk. Displayed in each cube was a human face.

More fascinated than startled, Bern moved toward the first face and leaned in close to the acrylic case. The face, which appeared to be that of a man in his mid-twenties and of Chinese descent, stood on a pedestal of its own inside the box. The face was complete up to the hairline, including the ears, but the back half of the head was replaced by a smooth, black, and slightly concave surface upon which the face was mounted. It looked rather like the theatrical masks of Comedy and Tragedy.