Mirrorman Read online

  ‘So you got the message,’ Kersh says, trying not to make too much noise breathing.

  ‘I came running,’ Baby Sam says, squatting in a watery brown puddle just inside the bathroom door. ‘In a manner of speaking. What’s up?’

  ‘What’s up?’ Kersh snarls. ‘What d’ya think – we’re being attacked by the Easter Bunny?’

  Baby Sam extends a claw and scratches the place between his head and torso where his chin should be. ‘Take it easy, Frank. Cawdor’s still in the dark. He’ll never break through into here. He doesn’t know how –’

  ‘You –’ Kersh points a finger ‘– had better fucking well make sure he doesn’t. But he’s got a whiff something’s screwy. That’s what my gut feeling tells me, and it ain’t never been wrong. So what are you going to do about it, scumbag?’

  ‘No call to get personal, Frank.’

  ‘Let me put it this way,’ Kersh says, his voice softly hissing. ‘If you don’t come up with an idea, and pretty damn quick, I’m going to use you for football practice and punt you off the balcony out there. You get my drift?’

  Feeling the strength return to his legs, Kersh strides past Baby Sam into the living area. Baby Sam squirms round and flops after him, lidless eyes bright and anxious to please, leaving a trail on the carpet.

  Trust me, Frank,’ he whines. ‘Have I ever let you down?’ ‘I don’t know. Have you?’

  ‘You’re here,’ Baby Sam points out. ‘And in one piece.’

  That’s true, Kersh concedes. He’s still king of the heap. And ifs also true, as the scumbag says, that Cawdor don’t know jackshit. A big fat zilch. He begins to feel a little more easy and relaxed. Even so, he reminds himself, don’t forget there still is a problem. Somewhere there’s a weak spot –the other world bleeding through into the one he, Kersh, has created – and Cawdor has stumbled across it. How else could he know his wife and kid were in any sort of danger? He has to put a stop to this before it gets any worse and Cawdor really sees the light.

  ‘Any ideas, Frank?’ Baby Sam asks, stroking the white fur of the couch with one of his feelers.

  ‘Why is it always me has to come up with the ideas? You’re supposed to be the protection.’

  ‘Yeah, but you call the shots. You’re the brains.’

  True. Kersh modestly shrugs and sighs. Always was and always will be. Everything depends on him. A feeling like a cold blade sliding into his stomach brings home the truth of this. Christ Almighty, everything does. That’s a fact – they need him more than he needs them. Without Frank Kersh they’re nothing.

  Swallowing down his fear, he says, ‘We gotta dream up something. Something that’ll stop Cawdor in his tracks.’

  ‘Like what for instance?’

  Kersh strokes his jaw and starts to smile. From out of nowhere he’s had a brilliant idea. ‘The wife and kid, he thinks he’s saved ‘em, right? OK, swell, we let him go on believing it.’

  ‘Huh?’ Baby Sam says, mouth hanging open. ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘Cawdor’s saved ‘em, so he thinks,’ Kersh explains patiently, ‘and, by sticking his nose in and interfering, he gets ‘em killed. It’s perfect.’ He rubs his hands. ‘Shit, it’ll totally destroy him.’

  ‘Still don’t get it, Frank. How we gonna work it?’ Baby Sam gnaws at his lipless mouth.

  ‘I don’t know how.’ Kersh stares off into space. ‘Gotta give it some thought.’

  ‘Don’t take too long, Frank. I mean if he’s, you know, getting ideas already –’

  ‘Don’t lecture me, scumbag!’ Kersh spits at him. ‘Just get back down there and do your job. I don’t want that motherfucker sneaking up on me while you’re jerking off in a corner somewhere. Earn your keep and leave me to handle the tough part.’

  When Baby Sam has trailed off, sullenly, without a word, Kersh paces to and fro over the thick shag-pile carpet, cracking his knuckles and muttering to himself. He knows he’s on to a good idea; it’s just how to make it work that’s giving him a headache.

  He goes to the bar and reaches for the Jack Daniel’s before remembering his strict no-booze rule until this is over. He slams the bottle down and turns away from the bar, catching sight of the sickle moon hanging there above the darkened city. Pasted to the starry night sky, unmoving, never moving, immoveable …

  Seeing the sliver of moon puts another thought into his head.

  Where time doesn’t exist, one second stays the same second for ever. In this everlasting second, Kersh has all the time in the world to think and to plan and to act. And as Cawdor also inhabits this world – the world Kersh created inside his own head – what’s to stop Kersh himself from not just thinking and dreaming what to do, but stepping in there and doing? Getting things done.

  Holy shit. That’s it. So simple, now he’s thought of it, Kersh is amazed it never occurred to him before now.

  Kersh can’t help but grin. That’s the best idea he’s ever had. He’s a fucking gold-plated genius, no question.

  A slimy feeler touches his bare ankle. It’s Baby Sam, back again, looking up at him with worried bloodshot eyes. ‘If ya don’t do somethin’, Frank, it’s curtains.’ He says ‘coituns’ like Jimmy Cagney, and even sounds like him. ‘Give him time, he’s gonna come and getcha. Ya gonna sit there like a dummy and let him? From me to you, I’m tellin’ ya, better shape up, or we all of us gonna take the dive. Ya gotta dream somethin’ up, and make it fast!’

  Kersh is angry, but he knows Baby Sam is right.

  And he knows why Baby Sam is right. Because Baby Sam is the place where the dream phantoms come from. The weird imaginings that even Kersh doesn’t want to think about, and certainly not dwell on.

  He says, Take it easy, I figured on a way. Leave it to Uncle Frank.’

  ‘Really? You positive?’ Baby Sam is so nervous and excited he emits a wet fart on to the shag-pile carpet.

  ‘Absolutely. Guaranteed to wipe him out, no question.’

  But there is a question. A big one. Leaving the protection of the tower, where he’s safe, means that Cawdor can get to him. In here he’s untouchable, invulnerable. Out there he isn’t. Is it worth the risk? Graye and the Messengers should’ve stopped Cawdor before he got this far, that’s what bums him up. But if they can’t, or won’t, it’s all down to him, Kersh knows, staring at the moon and reaching for the Jack Daniel’s.

  Yessiree. Time to make an unscheduled guest appearance in his own show.

  FLYING DOWN TO ZERO

  1

  A TV camera crew had set up shop next to the panoramic window overlooking the floodlit observation deck; it was fronted by a glossy blonde creature holding a stick mike as if she intended to throttle it. Cawdor couldn’t see who she was interviewing, but as he entered the first-class departure lounge with Sarah and Daniella he heard an excited female voice behind him squeal, ‘It’s Linda Gray! Denny, look – Linda Gray!’

  Although the celebrity’s name sounded familiar, Cawdor couldn’t put a face to it.

  They got themselves settled, and Daniella said she wanted something to read on the flight. Cawdor turned to watch his daughter as she went over to the newsstand. His anxiety was irrational, he knew that – this prevailing fear of her being out of sight, even for moments at a time. But he couldn’t help it. Three weeks had elapsed since their return home from Florida, and it seemed to him a miracle that his family life had resumed its pattern of old, exactly as before. True, for the first few days Sarah had been silent and withdrawn – more so, in fact, than Daniella, which surprised him. But then both of them seemed to suddenly snap out of it, as if recovering from fever, and he kept being reminded of what Sarah had said that night, parked in the forecourt of the Best Western hotel in Daytona Beach. Like coming back into the light after a long, dark journey.

  It had been a long, dark journey for him too. As if the three of them had been in the grip of a collective frenzy. For a while back there the world had gone haywire. The analogy occurred to him that it was like a circuit that had shorted
– throwing the system out of kilter – and then the circuit had mysteriously righted itself. The juice was flowing again, the three of them plugged in together as father, mother and daughter, a proper family once more.

  Their planned vacation to Europe couldn’t have come at a better time, Cawdor felt. A complete change of scene would do them the world of good: long golden days in which to relax and enjoy themselves and velvet-soft evenings dining out under the stars, drinking the delicious local wine he remembered from his last trip to Italy.

  His attention was distracted from Daniella by a gaggle of reporters and photographers. It was getting to be more like a media feeding trough around here than a departure lounge, Cawdor thought with annoyance. He watched the pack as they closed in on a man in his sixties, built like a quarter-back run to seed, with snow-white hair cropped close to his pink scalp, the squashed nose of an ex-boxer, and a florid face that was mostly jowl.

  It took Cawdor a split second to recognise him, and he blinked in stunned surprise.

  Byron T Cobb. Senator Cobb, with his homespun Kansas farmer’s drawl, whose cousin was married to Don Carlson. Cawdor had spoken to Don already about seeking the senator’s help, and Don had E-mailed Senator Cobb’s office with a personal request to set up a meeting. The response had been favourable. The senator was more than happy to meet Cawdor upon his return, in three weeks’ time, from a foreign trip in his role as chairman of the Senate House Committee on External Pro-American Affairs. A foreign trip, it turned out, on which he and Cawdor were sharing the same flight to London. The coincidence seemed to present a heavensent opportunity. Now wasn’t the right moment, but maybe during the flight he could introduce himself as Don Carlson’s partner and bend the senator’s ear a little, prepare the ground and grab Senator Cobb’s interest.

  It was a good omen, and Cawdor felt buoyed up with optimism. Reason in itself to order a large brandy from the white-jacketed attendant hovering nearby.

  ‘What happened to the strict no-booze rule?’ Sarah inquired, sitting back in the low, squat armchair that resembled a piece of Henry Moore sculpture. ‘You always insist on staying teetotal when you’re flying.’

  ‘Celebration.’

  ‘Celebrating what?’

  Cawdor grinned at his wife but decided not to tell her the real reason until after he’d had words with the senator. ‘Our family vacation – what else?’

  Sarah gave him a look and beckoned the attendant. ‘Make it two. With a ginger ale on the side.’ She pointed a finger at her husband. ‘If you’re gonna get smashed, you got company, mister.’

  ‘Good scout. Knew I could rely on you,’ Cawdor said, and gave her a solemn wink.

  In a tailored cream-coloured suit over a royal-blue silk blouse, wearing a single strand of pearls with matching earrings, his wife looked positively stunning. She had acquired a light tan from sitting in the garden these last couple of weeks, and her skin glowed richly against her shoulder-length fair hair, which was touched here and there with silver streaks from the sun.

  Sarah smiled into his eyes. She didn’t feel like smiling. But she was so thankful, deep in her heart, that he had no inkling of the despair that lay behind the façade. Every minute of every day she had to live with the terrible memory of what had happened to her, and the sickly dread of what might yet happen. She had told Jeff everything about her enforced stay in Messiah Wilde’s house – everything except the single fact that really mattered. She couldn’t bring herself to tell him that. At first it was because she was afraid of what he might do. The scenario played itself through in her mind with all the stark melodrama of an afternoon soap: her husband hellbent on revenge, taking a gun and shooting the evil bastard, and ending up on a murder charge. Then that fear had been replaced by another, eclipsing her alarm that Jeff would be driven to murder.

  It was that she might be pregnant.

  Sarah was on the pill, and she hadn’t missed her period, not yet. Physiologically there was no reason why she shouldn’t be perfectly all right. She kept telling herself this, repeating it like a comforting mantra, but the terror refused to give way to logic. It was implanted deep within her, as she feared Messiah Wilde’s evil seed might be, germinating at this very moment, cells splicing and multiplying and growing inside her body.

  She smiled again, brightly, as Cawdor held out his glass, looked deep into her eyes and murmured, ‘Bottoms up, kiddo.’

  They clinked glasses.

  ‘Happy landings,’ Sarah said.

  The 747 flew steadily on through the night.

  Dinner had been eaten, the lights dimmed, and everyone in first class had reclined their seats to stretch out and get some sleep.

  Cawdor was drowsing in his aisle seat, a blanket tucked up under his chin, when he became aware of movement in the cabin. He opened his eyes to find that several other people had been disturbed also. Then he heard Senator Cobb’s unmistakable drawl, sounding choked and outraged. ‘Jeesuss, I don’t believe this! What in hell ya think ya playin’ at, boy?’

  ‘Shut it, fat man. When I wanna hear you, I’ll ask.’

  He was tall and gaunt, with sharp features, a plume of brown hair brushed back from a bony forehead and growing thick on his neck. He was the dead spit of the young Clint Eastwood, even wearing a fur-lined sleeveless suede jacket with rawhide tassels front and back. His voice was a tight-lipped low growl. The fearsome muzzle of the large handgun in his fist was less than an inch from the senator’s hairy nostrils.

  ‘Get up. Come on – up – outta your seat.’

  Now most of the passengers had awakened, and those who hadn’t were coming rapidly to their senses.

  Sarah dug her fingers into Cawdor’s arm. Next to her, in the window seat, Daniella was looking round quizzically, aware that something was happening but not sure what. Then she saw the gun and her whole body stiffened. Sarah looked at her with warning eyes and a rapid shake of her head.

  A woman gave a nervous trill that sounded oddly like a laugh. The young Clint Eastwood glanced at her sharply and put a finger to his lips.

  Senator Cobb was on his feet, his face a furious purple mask. It was taking all his self-control not to lash out. He said, ‘Listen, you asshole punk, this is an airline of the United States, not some tinpot Mid-East ramshackle outfit you can –’

  His head jerked back as young Clint shoved the barrel of the gun into the loose fleshy pouch of his throat.

  ‘I said to be quiet.’ Young Clint’s eyes glinted with a dangerous light. ‘Now be quiet.’

  With the gun at the senator’s throat, young Clint backed along the aisle to the curtained-off doorway that led to the flight attendants’ compartment. Everyone prayed for an arm with gold braid on its sleeve to come through the green curtain, lock itself round the gunman’s neck and throttle the life out of him. Instead, a thin freckled arm in a blue work shirt rolled up to the elbow appeared, and with it the blunt snout of a machine pistol, which was thrust into Senator Cobb’s belly. The senator was taken inside. Young Clint listened through the curtain, nodding, and muttered something in reply. He turned to face the cabin.

  ‘Passports. Up here to me.’ His sharp, narrowed eyes scanned the seats, row by row. ‘I wanna see thirty-six passports.’ When they had been collected he passed them through the curtain.

  Cawdor was holding Sarah’s hand, and she was holding Daniella’s. Careful not to make any sudden movement, Cawdor turned his head. Daniella was sitting very still, her face drawn and pale under its light tan. Her eyes were very large and glassily bright. Cawdor smiled at her. Daniella’s tongue crept out and moistened her lower lip, and she smiled back, her cheeks stiff, chin quivering. Cawdor stared hard at her. We’re going to be OK. Keep it up, girl. It’ll be all right. Trust me.

  Daniella nodded. She believed him and trusted him. Cawdor believed it, too. They were going to come through this. Every fibre of him willed it. These people – terrorists, hijackers, whatever they were – wouldn’t harm anyone, providing they got what they were after
. It wasn’t in their interests to kill over 300 innocent people. They had nothing to gain by such a senseless, futile act.

  He piled up the reasons in his mind, building a shaky edifice of belief on shifting sand.

  In the quietly humming cabin the man with the uncanny resemblance to Clint Eastwood stood like a statue, feet braced, the gun held close to his chest. If he was sweating, it evaporated in the swirl of air conditioning before it had time to show. He looked calm and in control. But his dark eyes were never still. They raked along the rows of faces, watching for telltale signs. Cawdor forced himself to look straight ahead. He knew to avoid direct eye contact. An inquisitve glance could be taken as an insolent challenge. Don’t forget, he told himself, these people are keyed up to breaking point. They’re dicing with death and they know it. They can snap at the slightest thing. So don’t give them an excuse. Any excuse, even an imaginary one.

  Senator Cobb hadn’t reappeared; there had been no sound; and from memory Cawdor visualised the layout up there. The first-class passengers had entered via the forward door and passed through the flight attendants’ compartment. There was a food-preparation area, folding seats for the cabin crew, storage lockers, and various small cubicles off to the sides. Further forward, a short narrow passage led on to the flight deck itself, which was hidden by a thick blackout curtain. And behind that curtain? Cawdor wondered. Was the captain flying with a gun to his head? There had been no announcement, so maybe the rest of the airplane was in blissful ignorance. Had the captain spoken over the intercom, warned the attendants in the body of the plane not to enter the first-class cabin? Cawdor thought of all the people back there, the hundreds of other passengers, snoozing peacefully, dreaming their sweet dreams.

  We’re going to be OK. It’ll be all right. Trust me.

  Cawdor stuck to the rule, eyes front, as the young Clint lookalike came down the aisle in his suede jacket with the dangling tassels. He was holding a passport and glancing at faces. The passengers shrank into their seats. Sarah clutched Cawdor’s hand convulsively as the gunman stopped at their row. He studied the passport photograph, then Cawdor’s face, and jerked the barrel. ‘Up front.’