The Bureau, page 15
The guards slumped against the walls. Des shifted in his chair. Nothing else happened for a very long time.
Then footsteps echoed in the corridor outside, and two men entered the room. One of them was another guard in the familiar ugly green uniform. But the other one… he didn’t look like a guard at all.
He wore a black suit, crisp white shirt, and navy-and-gray-striped tie. He was tall and quite slender, with white sprinkled among the black of his closely-shorn curls. His face was on the narrow side, with a strong nose and chin. He would have been entirely average-looking if it weren’t for his hazel eyes. They glittered with intelligence and life, and they made him almost beautiful.
He paused just inside the door and stared at Des, who became suddenly self-conscious about his unkempt appearance and perhaps offensive body odor.
“Wait outside, please,” the man said to the guards. Not at all loudly, but in a tone that suggested he was used to being obeyed.
The guard who’d accompanied him appeared alarmed. “But Agent Powell, we can’t leave you—”
“He’s chained in place and I’m handy with my gun. We’ll be fine. Please wait outside.”
What kind of agent? And what did he want? Des considered those questions while all five guards reluctantly left. Agent Powell slammed the door shut, strode across the room, and settled in the other chair. He moved easily, a man confident in his ability to control his own body. He said nothing to Des, instead keeping his expression neutral while he stared at Des’s face.
Des considered remaining silent too, cultivating an air of brooding mystery, perhaps. Except this man undoubtedly knew a great deal more about what was going on than Des did. Besides, Des wasn’t about to lose a chance for conversation—and to stay out of his monotonous cell a little longer.
“Are you going to tell me who you are, or do I have to guess? They called you Agent and you’re not dressed like a guard, so you’re not an employee of this fine establishment. But you’re a Fed of some sort. Could be INS, but I’ve been a US citizen since I was a teen, and I can’t imagine anyone suddenly getting the notion to deport me now. FBI? Maybe. But my guess is you’re with the Bureau of Trans-Species Affairs.” He tried to pretend that the Bureau didn’t terrify him.
Powell leaned back in his chair. He had a scar on his face, a fine line that snaked across one cheekbone and past the corner of his eye before disappearing into his hairline. His fingers were long and thin, and although the nails were immaculately clean, they were a trifle ragged, as if he bit them sometimes. For some reason, that made Des want to like him—and Des had never felt kindly toward law enforcement.
“It’s a funny way to interrogate a man, Agent Powell. Just staring at him. Unless you’re some sort of psychic who’s reading my mind. Does the Bureau have those? It’d be handy. My mind, though, is probably a nasty place. Asking me might be more pleasant.”
Still no word in response. Des huffed and tipped his head back. The ceiling in this room was arched like an old church, with dusty spiderwebs hanging in the uppermost reaches. It was cold in here too, even though it was the middle of the day. Thick walls. Good for keeping heat out and prisoners in.
With a sigh, Des looked at Powell again. “If you won’t ask me anything, will you tell me things? I’d like to know what’s been going on in the world. I watch a few programs on the telly, but it’s hard to tell from that what’s real.”
“Nothing on television is real.”
Des smiled because Powell had finally spoken. “Then tell me what is.”
After a brief pause, Powell leaned forward over the table. Des caught a whiff of him—coffee and another scent that might have been shampoo or cologne. Good smells. They made Des extra conscious of his own body odor; but if Powell found him offensive, he didn’t show it.
“I’m Agent Kurt Powell. From the Bureau, as you so astutely deduced. For the record, tell me your name.”
“Desmond Hughes. I go by Des, if that matters.”
Without breaking eye contact, Powell pulled a small black notebook out of his inside pocket, along with a cheap ballpoint pen. He set them both on the table. “Birthdate?”
“April fifth, nineteen fifty-three. How old does that make me now?”
“Birthplace?”
“Belfast, Northern Ireland. A long way from here, yeah?” He hadn’t been back since he was ten, but he still missed the soft dampness of the air.
Powell picked up the pen and opened his notebook. Illegible scribbles filled the left-hand page, but the right was blank. He wrote for a moment. Des had a hunch that he wouldn’t be able to decipher the words even if he weren’t reading at a distance and upside-down. Powell looked at him again. “You were an associate of Lawrence Krane.”
Des’s stupid heart clenched into a tight knot. “Larry. We were lovers.”
He’d hoped to shock Powell with that bald admission—or at least elicit a disgusted expression—but Powell remained stone-faced. “I have some questions about your activities with him. Outside the bedroom.” Was that a glint of amusement in those beautiful eyes? Maybe, but Des assumed that a sense of humor was distinctly missing from most Bureau agents’ skill sets.
His history with Larry, however, was no laughing matter.
“What difference does it make?” Des growled. “He’s dead and I’m locked up.” He rattled his chains for emphasis.
“It makes a difference.”
Shit. The one thing in all the world that Des didn’t want to talk about was what happened with Larry. He’d rather have been back in his cell with his tattered books and tedious routine. But the Bureau owned him—mind, body, and whatever was left of his soul—and if their agent wanted to discuss something, there wasn’t much Des could do about it.
“What do you want to know?” he asked wearily.
Chapter Six
Kurt hated prisons. They reminded him too much of his own poor decisions and near misses with disaster, and they triggered bouts of claustrophobia that brought bad dreams for many nights afterward. Fortunately he rarely had to enter them, but sometimes investigating a case meant talking to an inmate. It was bad enough when that meant spending a day in a state or federal facility, but the Bureau’s special supermax prison in Nevada was the worst of all. As soon as he drove through the heavily guarded gate, the world seemed to close in on him, pressing at his head and shoulders. It took a great deal of strength to maintain his cool as he walked the corridors that smelled like a zoo but were always eerily quiet.
Now he sat in a cave-like room and considered the chained prisoner sitting across from him.
He’d read the extensive files on Desmond Hughes, so he had a good idea of what to expect. Or so he thought. He hadn’t known, though, that Hughes would be handsome despite his lack of grooming opportunities. Or that instead of menace, he’d exude an air of mingled despair and surrender.
God, Kurt wanted a drink.
Not for the first time that day, he gave an envious thought to Edge and Terry, who were no doubt frolicking in the forest. He wondered why Townsend had chosen this particular assignment for him.
Kurt reminded himself that the sooner he got the answers he needed, the sooner he could get the hell out of here. Time to stop dicking around and get his work done.
“When and where did you meet Krane?” he asked, pen poised. That wasn’t really the important point but he had to begin somewhere.
Hughes screwed up his face as if the memory were painful. “Nineteen seventy-two. Late spring or early summer; I can’t remember which. I was sitting at a dime-store lunch counter in Portland when the fellow next to me started grumbling about the news article he was reading. Antiwar demonstrations, if I remember right. He was against them. We started talking. That was Larry.”
Hughes’s voice was pleasant to listen to, with more than a hint of his Northern Irish roots. He had the cadence of a natural storyteller, the type who’d enjoy entertaining friends over a lazy meal or around a crackling fire. Except Hughes’s friend had been a murderer and, as his accomplice, so was Hughes.
“Why did you become close to him?” Kurt asked, more out of curiosity than need to know. Prior to meeting Krane, Hughes had been a drifter with a string of petty crimes; he hadn’t seemed destined for true infamy.
“Well, he was pretty enough, wasn’t he? I was young and it didn’t take much to get me randy.” Hughes paused, eyebrows raised, as if he expected some response. But Kurt simply waited, and eventually Hughes went on. “He had some money he was willing to spend on me, and I was flat broke. And he was interesting. Smartest person I ever met, always going on about things I didn’t understand, but that was all right. I liked to listen to him.”
“What did he see in you?”
Hughes shrugged, making the chains clank softly. “I reckon I was pretty too. And I was big. Larry, he was just a tiny thing. He liked having someone around who could lift things and move them, and who could protect him when needed. It made him feel powerful too, I think, ordering a big man around.” He gave a bitter chuckle.
“When did you find out what he was up to?”
“Not for a long time. I don’t know if his plans were already settled when we first met. He was young—twenty-seven, I think—and still doing his medical residency. It took over a year before he let me in on his secret.”
Yes, Krane had been young, but Hughes had been even younger—only nineteen when they met. And from what Kurt had gleaned from the files, Krane had done an excellent job of grooming a lonely, lost boy into becoming his henchman. Nineteen-year-olds made all sorts of stupid decisions. Like fucking up the opportunities their parents had worked so hard to give them and then ending up drafted into a vicious war.
Kurt tried to tamp down the pity that welled in him for young Hughes. Sure, kids did dumb things. But most of them didn’t spend four years sleeping with—and assisting—monsters.
“Tell me what you and Krane intended to do.”
Hughes shook his head, more in disgust than negation, Kurt thought. “You know. You people questioned me for days before you dragged me here. I told you everything a hundred times over.” He sighed. “And I didn’t ‘intend’ much at all. It was his plan; I was only along for the ride.”
“That doesn’t absolve you of responsibility.”
For a few moments, Hughes stared up at the high ceiling. His nose twitched as if it were itchy, and he raised his hands as far as the cuffs allowed, but that was nowhere near close enough to scratch.
The orange prison jumpsuit didn’t fit him well. His shoulders seemed hunched uncomfortably and the sleeves were too short. He’d been wearing that jumpsuit—or ones exactly like it—for seventeen years, so maybe he was used to it. But was he used to his confinement? If Kurt were locked up in a tiny cell, unable to run laps, he’d quickly lose his sanity. He’d be like one of those pathetic predators he’d seen in the zoo, pacing their cages endlessly, blank-eyed with hopelessness.
With another clink of metal, Hughes shifted in his seat. “Larry told me that Vietnam wasn’t the only war going on. Wasn’t even the most important war. He said that it was only a symptom of something bigger, like a little cough is a sign that someone’s got tumors in his lungs. The real fight was between good and evil, and angels and demons were the soldiers.”
“You accepted this?” After years of working for the Bureau, Kurt was accustomed to the fact that humans were not the only sentient beings in the world. Most people, however, went around happily oblivious to the creatures the Bureau dealt with.
“I told you, Larry was the smartest person I’d met. A lot smarter than me. He was right about everything. And anyway, what he said wasn’t so different from what Father Burke used to tell us in church. Are you a religious man, Agent Powell?”
Kurt didn’t bother answering. His parents hadn’t had an easy time finding a congregation that would accept a mixed-race couple, even after they moved to Los Angeles. So although they were both devout, they hadn’t sent Kurt to church or Sunday school, and they hadn’t spoken much about the topic at home. “Be good to others and do what’s right,” his father used to say. “That’s what it all boils down to. You do those things and you won’t face trouble from the man upstairs.”
Kurt had encountered and helped destroy a few demons through his work at the Bureau. He’d also met a demon who worked with—and lived with—a former Bureau agent. Sometimes the pair of them did consulting work for the Bureau, which made that particular demon an ally rather than enemy. Kurt didn’t understand how a demon could be good, but it wasn’t his place to question these things.
“Angels and demons,” Kurt prompted.
“Right. Larry wanted a part in that. He said that corporations profited from ordinary wars by selling guns and bullets and things to the government, so why couldn’t we profit too? Only, angels don’t use bullets. He wanted to create…. I never really understood what he was talking about. These things, these objects, that angels could use to destroy their enemies. Like bombs, only nothing blows up, right?”
From what Kurt had read in the files, that was a simplistic but fairly accurate analogy. Earthly weapons were useless among angels and demons, but those beings were nonetheless vulnerable to other uses of power. When that power was wielded correctly, even humans could control or destroy these creatures. The demon who sometimes helped the Bureau? He’d been held prisoner for years by human beings.
Kurt checked his watch. Although it felt as if he’d been in this room for hours, it had been less than thirty minutes. The breakfast he’d eaten at the motel restaurant sat heavily in his stomach.
“Tell me about those objects,” Kurt said.
“I don’t know enough to tell. They didn’t look like much to me—just wooden boxes with some carvings on them. Larry made them. Then we had to….” He fell silent, his lips clamped tightly together as he looked down at the floor. His long hair hid his eyes.
“You had to…?”
Hughes answered in a rough whisper that carried well in the stone-walled room. “We had to test them.”
“How?” Kurt asked, although he knew the answer. He felt a little thrill of cruelty in making Hughes spell it out.
“We couldn’t just summon up test demons, could we? Too difficult and too dangerous.” Hughes caught Kurt’s gaze. “So we tested them on people. They…. I don’t know what they do to demons, but if Larry used them the right way, they killed people. You didn’t have to point the boxes or anything. Just put one near people and… activate it. Anyone you focus on drops dead.”
“You and Krane murdered a dozen people.”
Hughes worked his jaw. “I put the boxes where he told me to. He did the rest.”
“So you were just following orders. Do you think that’s an excuse?”
“He said… he said if this worked, he could negotiate with the angels. They would give him healing powers that could save hundreds of people. Thousands, even.” Hughes had the palest skin Kurt had ever seen. He’d no doubt been fair to begin with, and he hadn’t seen the sun for a very long time. Now, though, a hectic red circle colored each cheek as if he were running a fever. His fingers moved restlessly on the scarred wooden table.
“What happened to the boxes?” Kurt asked crisply.
Now Hughes frowned. “The boxes?”
“The boxes you used to murder twelve people.”
“I don’t… I don’t know. I assumed you people destroyed them after you captured me.”
Kurt wasn’t exactly an expert on liars. It wasn’t a subject the Bureau touched on during training, probably because lying was rarely the issue when handling chupacabras, pocket dragons, and harpies. What was a vampire going to do as she stood there with blood on her fangs—claim not to be the undead? A little bit of sunshine settled that question pretty well. Despite the lack of formal training on duplicity, Kurt was an amateur student of human behavior, and he was good at recognizing when someone wasn’t playing straight. Right now, he was certain that Hughes was honestly confused.
“How many boxes did Krane make?” Kurt asked.
“Don’t know. I wasn’t a part of that bit. I was his muscle, that was all.”
“And his lover.”
Hughes glanced at Kurt’s ringless fingers. “Do you tell your girlfriend everything you do at work? Are you going to get home when you’re done with me and give her all the details about this fucking prison and about the filthy scum you had to interview? I’m sure you’ll snuggle down with her in your comfy bed and tell her all about demons and angels and the unlucky sod who got mixed up with it all and lost his life over it.”
“It wasn’t lack of good fortune that put you here.”
Tired of this conversation and more than tired of this awful place, Kurt spent a good five minutes silently staring at Hughes and his bowed head—which might have been penitent but was likely only defiance. Sea monsters didn’t seem so bad anymore. He would have welcomed fresh, damp air on his face and the scent of salt on his skin.
“Why are you asking about the fucking boxes?” Hughes finally asked.
“The Bureau did destroy several of them when it destroyed Krane.” He looked for a flinch from Hughes and was mildly surprised when it didn’t come. “We understand three of them were wrecked prior to that, during your testing.”
Hughes gave him a quick glance. “Yeah. Before Larry got them right, they’d go all twisty when he tried to use them.”
“Much like your victims.”
Hughes did twitch at that, which was interesting. But rather than pressing the point, Kurt moved on. “A few months ago, a white supremacist attempted to incinerate a synagogue in Boise. He apparently didn’t know what he was doing, fortunately, and all he managed was to set himself on fire. The investigation revealed that he used a device very much like—if not identical to—the ones you and Krane used.” That investigation had also led to the discovery of two unused boxes and the imprisonment of several of the dead Nazi’s best friends. Kurt wasn’t at all sad about that last part.
