‘That’s quite a party trick,’ said Sophie.
‘I told him about the weatherman stuff,’ Tommi continued. ‘He said he wanted to chip in. It’s five a.m. in New York but he’ll be at his desk.’
Tommi dialled a number, put it on speaker. The box room echoed to the single-note American ringing tone.
‘He’ll think I’m a dumbass for certain,’ said Famie.
The call was picked up after four rings.
‘Coolidge.’
‘Hey Dave, it’s Tommi again. Not too early?’
A rattling cough and laugh combined. ‘Ha! Been at it for an hour already. Great to hear you, Tommi. Good morning from New York. You have the famous and fabulous Famie Madden there with you now?’
Famie rolled her eyes, smiled. It had been five years, but the image in her mind was still strong. Black, Chicago, mid-forties, probably still stick-thin, certainly still bald. ‘Hey Dave,’ she called out. ‘How’s tricks?’
‘Hey, not bad at all, Fames, but listen, I just wanted to say first up how devastated we were and still are about your losses. You know the whole bureau here just stopped everything. Just so devastating. I remember working with Anita. And Seth of course. I’m so sorry.’
The four in the box room all glanced at each other.
‘That’s appreciated, Dave, thank you,’ said Famie. ‘I’m here with Sam Carter and Sophie Arnold who you never met but they’re top people. And Tommi says you know about my weatherman correspondence?’
‘He told me, yeah. Is this an official police line of inquiry, because that would be some story?’
‘Oh. No. That’s definitely a no,’ said Famie. ‘And not sure what it means myself just yet. We got a new message in the paper today. It said, “Freaks are revolutionaries and revolutionaries are freaks.” That’s it.’
There was a transatlantic pause, longer than just the satellite delay.
‘OK,’ said Coolidge, drawing out each syllable as far as it could go. ‘Well that’s certainly a Weatherman reference, but how it fits in with your story I have no idea.’
‘Go on,’ said Tommi.
‘Well the Weathermen, or Weather Underground – they had a number of names – are an American story and a black American story at that. We’re coming out of the sixties and into the seventies here. A pretty heavy time as you know. Vietnam. Black Panther. Riots. Nixon. All of that shit. Well the Weathermen were revolutionaries. They weren’t just antiwar, they were anti-everything, anti the whole American way of life. They said they were against everything that was good and decent in honky America. I got the quote right here …’ The rattle of a keyboard. ‘Here we go. “We will burn and loot and destroy. We are the incubation of your mother’s nightmare.” Not bad, huh?’
Sam whistled. ‘Good quote. And they did destroy, didn’t they? They turned pretty violent.’
‘Sure did,’ said Coolidge. ‘They set off bombs. Pretty small by today’s standards but bombs none the less. But they never killed no one, apart from themselves when they messed up the explosives one time. In Greenwich Village that was.’
Famie knew all this. She’d even read the quote. It was good to hear from Coolidge again but she knew she wasn’t getting anywhere.
‘It’s hard to see how that fits with what’s happening here,’ she said.
‘Agreed,’ said Dave. ‘I don’t think it does.’
Famie shrugged. ‘So why are we doing this?’
The rattling cough again. ‘Because, Ms Madden, you might not have a big hippy-led underground organization on your hands but it sounds like you do have someone who thinks he or she is a Weatherman. Or is with other Weathermen. And they’re sending you notes. Someone who thinks the struggle – the violent struggle – against the West, against imperialism, needs to continue. Of course he or she could be a freak. But then …’
‘He could be a revolutionary,’ said Famie.
‘Or both,’ said Coolidge.
‘Or both,’ conceded Famie.
30
10.05 a.m.
THE STUDENT AND the woman were on the dead drop. Another cell had requested it, he didn’t know which one. He didn’t know how many other cells there were, but they had been told of a growing movement. The leader spoke of grand schemes, and the London attacks of 22 May had proved the citizens’ potency. Their communication with other cells was deliberately, purposefully cumbersome, so each drop was significant, every message mattered.
There was an envelope to pick up. The leader had appeared agitated, wondering out loud if he should get it himself, before deciding at the last minute that the risks for him were too high. His fear of attacks ‘from the forces of oppression’ increased by the day. He had tested each room with his Geiger counter. Each random ‘click’ that came from its speaker made him jump.
The student had the car, the woman had been told where to go.
The leader had made much of her being a martial arts trainer and had insisted on them all learning karate punches, elbow and hand strikes. Today she wore a loose white polo shirt and blue joggers. Her black hair was now shaved on the sides almost as closely as the leader’s. A homage maybe. The student wondered if they were sleeping together but had noticed no overt displays of affection. Today, she smelt of shampoo and cigarettes.
Sometimes the woman was friendly, other times not. Occasionally she appeared interested in his life, most of the time she didn’t. His main contact with her was always the martial arts classes.
The sessions were brutal. She said she taught her own mix of fighting styles from around the world. They were taught the ‘Four Pillars’ from the Russian Systema Spetsnaz: breathing, relaxation, body position and movement. There were six ‘levers’: elbows, neck, knees, waist, ankles and shoulders; each one could incapacitate. From the American Marines she taught them hand-to-hand combat. Never staying head-on with your enemy, moving at forty-five-degree angles to either side to increase your chance of landing a blow. From tantojutsu in Japan she taught them to aim for the squishy parts of the body, where to cause maximum pain. Around the shoulder blades, kidneys, the sweet spot between the ribs.
The student was starting from scratch. He had never fought anyone before, never needed to, never felt the need.
She taught him the horse stance from Indonesian silat, mimicking the posture from stallion riding. He learnt joint-locks and chokeholds from Brazilian jiu-jitsu, then how to use side control, pinning the leader to the floor by lying across his chest. ‘Use your levers!’ she had shouted. The student had dug his elbows into the leader’s hips until she had told him to stop. When the leader retired (hurt, presumably, thought the student) she had one more trick up her sleeve.
The woman was in jogging bottoms and a loose T-shirt, the student in running shorts and a football top. His ‘games kit’, she called it. Her hair was loose, her eyes wide and her smile broad. It made him nervous.
‘You’re about to enjoy yourself,’ she said, taking the horse stance, crouching low.
She threw a white plastic knife to him. He caught it.
‘Come at me,’ she said. ‘Stab me somewhere. Anywhere.’