Dead of Night by Blake Banner

Author:Blake Banner [Banner, Blake]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-05-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

In the end I flew to Boston. I was met at Logan International Airport by a man whose neck was wider than his head. He was wearing an expensive Italian suit that made him look like his name was Tony and he took care of business. He was holding a photograph and methodically checking the faces of passengers emerging from arrivals. When he saw me he stepped over and spoke in a surprisingly agreeable voice.

“Mr. Bauer?” I told him I was and he said, “Lieutenant Bernstein. The brigadier sends his regards. I have a car waiting, may I take your bag?”

The waiting car was a black Chevy Tahoe. The lieutenant opened the rear door for me and closed it as I climbed in. I wasn’t surprised to see Brigadier Alexander “Buddy” Byrd sitting on the black leather seat, waiting for me.

“You made it,” he said, like I’d crossed the Atlantic swimming. “Well done. Sorry about the change of venue. Going straight to Los Angeles struck me as a little on the nose. Have you seen the French news?”

I settled in my seat and Lt. Bernstein got behind the wheel and fired up four-hundred-brake horsepower of whispering engine. I said, “I just got off the plane, sir.”

He ignored me and went on as we cruised toward the spaghetti junction at Jeffries Point.

“The Police Nationale are scratching their heads over the murder of two Afghan nationals in an apartment on the Rue de Naples the day before yesterday. One of the two men appeared to have been tortured before he was killed. They are attributing it to internal conflicts among rival Muslim factions, as it seems the two men had links to the Mujahidin.” He examined his black leather gloves a moment. “There was also an, apparently, unrelated murder in one of the poorer districts of Paris, an American, shot in the knee and then in the head. They put that one down to drug trafficking for some reason.”

I shrugged. We took the turn for the Sumner Tunnel. “I am not impressed with your organization, Brigadier. Mary Brown should not have died. She should not have been in the field at all. She was murdered by one George Santos, a CIA officer.”

“This would be the chap near the Parc des Beaumonts, Rue Condorcet.”

“Yeah. He was acting on the orders of his unit chief, Samy Arain. She’d gone to George after leaving me that morning, to ask him if the CIA were cutting some kind of deal with al-Qaeda.”

I turned to look at him as we plunged into the tunnel under Boston Harbor. Amber light slipped across his face in a slow, steady rhythm in the sudden darkness. He was expressionless, looking out at the grim walls of the tunnel. I said:

“That was naïve. It was a naïve thing to do. She might have been a brilliant analyst, sir, but she was still green. George Santos was a killer. When she went to talk to him, she signed her own death warrant. She should never have been put in the field.

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