The Necromancer's Gambit: Wit No Han
Nicolas Wilson
It’s cold, but at least it’s dry, though the clouds in the sky guarantee that won’t last. Vergara called me out here, but I suspect it’s because she wants to eat at the vegetarian Chinese place run by the cultists down the street.
She’s waiting next to her car, gives me a nod when she sees me. She shivers. It’s subtle, because she catches herself; can’t show weakness like that.
I slide out of my coat and offer it to her.
“If I’d wanted a coat, I’d have worn one,” she says, but she slips into it anyway. I try not to get distracted by why she didn’t want a coat; it wasn’t to show off that low neckline, was it? I’m less successful at resisting that distraction, and I lose what could be whole minutes before she produces an evidence bag from her pocket. “Explain to me again where this fingerprint came from,” she says, swinging the bag so the scotch glass from the Cauldron smacks me in the forehead, bringing me back to reality.
“A man. He tried to kill a friend of mine.”
“If all your friends are as charming as you, I can understand why. Wait, another of your friends in mortal peril? This isn’t related to the serials, is it?”
“I don’t think so, at least, I don’t think he’s the same guy. Different MO. But he did it while using my name.”
“I thought your name wasn’t your name.”
“That doesn’t mean I haven’t grown attached to it.”
“Well I ran the print. It came back with a hit from Interpol. No name, but an alias, Wit No Han. He’s wanted by the Hague for war crimes committed in Sierra Leone, and that’s just the first charge from a seventeen page indictment. What the fuck have you gotten me into?”
“Another career-making case, by the sounds of it.”
“Yeah, your career-making cases don’t ever seem to deliver- as evidenced by my personnel file, which has three write ups versus precisely no commendations.”
“The write ups aren’t on me; it’s what happens when you waste tax-payer dimes trying to put me in jail.”
“Whatever. This guy’s not even a ghost, because they at least get stories told about them. But nobody’s ever seen him. No existing pictures.”
I lean forward, “If you’ll pardon my reach, this,” I pull a burnt CD out of my outside jacket pocket, “ought to get you a gold star.”
“A mix? Hopefully with a lot of Men Without Hats; the captain goes nuts for them.”
I pull a picture from the pocket on the other side. “It’s a digital copy of this handsome portrait, taken from a witness’ cell phone. It’s Han. Or No Han, I’m not particularly clear which part of his pseudonym is supposed to be the surname.”
She takes it from me, and tries not to act pleased. “This could be any angry-looking old guy whose obviously never heard of the existence of skincare products- including aftershave and sunscreen. And that single thumbprint you got me, it’s the only print they have- they don’t even have a full set. It was retardedly lucky you got a match- in fact, since it’s you, I kind of believe you planted it.”
“If you’d prefer I can hand him over to the FBI, instead. I don’t think Thomasina completely hates me.”
“You know where he is?”
“Not yet.”
“So right now he’s just the tooth fairy, and you handing him over is speculative.”
“Everything is hypothetical until it happens.”
“I hate you, and yet I can’t seem to manufacture a way to send you somewhere to be raped by convicts. That doesn’t seem right.”
“The world just isn’t fair. But on that subject, any word on our secretor?”
“Well, he isn’t you.” I react, confused at first, then pissed off. “I kept the duct tape. There was a little blood on it, and it’s the wrong type- which saved me the cost of having the hair sequenced- at least until I’ve got some other case to charge it to. But officially you’re no longer a suspect for the murder.” I want to be upset, but our relationship is based upon lies and these kinds of little violations, so really it’s just our status quo.
“My parents will be so proud.”
“But sequencing the semen is still going to take a few days- not the actual work, really, but right now we’re in the queue. And since right now I don’t actually have multiple bodies with semen secretions, it’s not a serial on paper, so we’re stuck in the same pile as the rest of the homicides and sexual assaults.”
“I’m disappointed no one else has been murderaped, too,” I say.
“You know what I mean. I want to get the bastard before that happens to someone else, I’m just impatient…” I take out my phone, “maybe he’s got an alias in the database that might give us a lead. Because right now, all I can say for sure is Portland isn’t much of a warzone, so I have no clue what this merc piece of shit would be doing here. Are you texting? Am I boring you? Is it because I’m not showing enough leg?”
“What?” I ask, looking up at her.
“That girl the other night”
“Tress.”
“She wasn’t a hooker, right? Because from her hemline it was hard to tell, and I think we’ve known each other long enough that you can be honest if next time I need to take her in for soliciting. I’m not judging. 30 percent of men over the age of thirty have paid for sex.”
“But you would still charge me.”
“Yes, but I would barely enjoy it.”
“She’s not a hooker. But next time you intimate that she is it should be in front of her. And I should be there to watch.”
“Cat fights are less hot when one of the women has been trained to take down hardened criminals.”
“I want you to note that I’m not saying anything about that hardened criminals bit, despite the context.”
“Perfect gentleman that you are.”
“But no. Tress, she’s more of a coworker. An intern, really, if you want to get technical.”
“So long as you don’t mean that in the Monica Lewinsky sense, I guess I shouldn’t be too disgusted, then.”
“I think you’re dating yourself with that reference- which you shouldn’t do. The severity of the pulled back hair and the minimalist grooming to the side, you could easily pass for someone who doesn’t remember BJ-Gate.”
“I was in school when it happened. It’s not like I voted for Clinton or anything- either time.”
“I think the lady doth protest too much.”
“In a second I’m going to be a hell of a lot less ladylike.”
“Withdrawn.”
“So, do you have anything else for me?”
“The print and the picture aren’t enough? Talk about high maintenance. Witness description said he had an unsexy accent, which gels with the presumably African origins of your suspect. Beyond that, I don’t think I’ve got anything you don’t.”
Her expression changes; she’s uncertain, soft, more feminine than she usually lets herself be, at least around me. “Your friend okay?”
“He had a, condition, the attacker didn’t know about, probably saved his life.”
“Good. I figure you must not have many friends left to spare…” she says, but there’s something like worry in her voice, so I know it isn’t a dig. Or maybe it’s a compassionate dig.
She slides close to me with her back turned and her shoulders arched. It exposes her neck in a way that makes me want to kiss it, on account of that damn neckline- and I wonder if that might have been her intent. She looks over her shoulder, and there’s something knowing in her look, and I think maybe she blushes, though I can’t be sure in the low light from the street lamps. She rolls her shoulders as I grab the coat by the collar and peel it off her. “Thanks,” she says, and walks back to her car.
Queen responds to the text I sent earlier as I get back to my car, and he’s CCed everybody else, to head meet him at the Centre. I’m the last one to arrive, since everybody but Pawn was already there, and he was drinking at a strip club a few blocks away. They’re gathered in a conference room where Queen’s standing near a projection screen, wearing, I shit you not, an ascot. “Hit the lights,” he tells me as I come in.
“Wit No Han,” Queen says as a blurry image appears on the screen, taken from a distance, several years old from the look of it. “The National Gambit has a big file on him. A couple of the regional African Gambits took a swipe at him, but he was a phantom. They could never pin him down- and the couple of times they thought they had him, their people didn’t come back. We know he’s a Dutch Afrikaner, specifically born and raised in Apartheid era South Africa. Worked for the State Security Council- basically a bastard factory- under the name Arjen Vorstedt- not a given name. He was fired pretty summarily when it became clear that the order of the day was no longer going to be racism and throat-stomping- his two main areas of expertise.”
“But the name he’s been linked to- Wit No Han- it’s a pun in Krio, roughly meaning ‘“armless.’ It came about while he was working as a merc in Sierra Leone; rumor has it he was also sub-contracting for Executive Outcomes, the defunct South African mercenary company- playing both sides against the middle. Anyway, he comes into a village, ahead of the rest of his contingent. He’s greeted by the shaman, and when asked if he presents a danger to the village, he replies that he’s ‘mostly armless.’ The ‘joke’ being that in the conflict, they were chopping off limbs of the men they captured. It might have also been a reference to the Hitchiker’s Guide- no one’s ever gotten close enough to ask.”
“Mostly ‘armless. That’s actually kind of funny,” Pawn says.
“And is anyone surprised Pawn chortled at that? No? Then moving on… rumor is, he was too despicable for EO, so they kicked him to the curb in Angola. Then he sub-conned for Sandline. He was in Iraq and Afghanistan, working for a lot of different merc contractors; it seems they all knew by then he was good for certain things, but that he was also a violent sociopath who would eventually go too far and kill the wrong people, so nobody ever puts him officially on the payroll. But usually, he goes where there’s blood. He’s been linked to basically every Middle Eastern tin pot. We’re pretty sure he spent a little time in Libya, as Qaddafi was on his way out. Questions?”
“Ascot is my witness,” I start, “I have no questions.”
Queen glares at me. “Cock.”
“You promised you wouldn’t talk about it anymore- stealing the occasional illicit glance is one thing- but discussing it in front of our peers like this creates a hostile work environment.”
“You are a knob-gobbling, closeted ass and on the day you come to grips with that, I will break you in like a softball glove.” Rook makes a disgusted face, and I know we’ve ruined softball for her forever.
“That’s better. But actually I do have a question. Exactly how very bad is this bad bad man?”
“We weren’t able to get a copy of the indictment, but the highlights include genocide, and crimes against humanity, which include using rape as a weapon of war.”
“On the lighter side of things, I’m no longer so scared of Baldur,” the King says. “This is the kind of monster the Baldurs of the world want to grow up and be like- the kind of bastard that isn’t supposed to exist outside of faerie tales or at least parts of the third world.”
Bishop’s phone rings. “Shit,” she says looking at the caller ID, getting up, “somebody’s at the front door. Hello?” she answers, running out of the room.
I fight the urge to follow her; it’s to the point every time someone leaves, I wonder if it’ll be the last time I see them. And if there’s trouble at the front door- but I can’t shadow her like that- I can’t always be there. Besides, if she’d been concerned she would have asked.
She’s back a moment later. “Knight, it’s for you,” she says, without really looking at me.
I leave the room, and understand why she didn’t look at me. Devi’s standing just inside the front doors, soaked. She’s wearing a trenchcoat that’s plastered to her skin, and cinched so tight I assume she has to be naked underneath. “Sorry,” she says, a little self-conscious, leading my eyes down her body with her hands, “I came straight from work and this was all I had to change into.”
“You should have called. I’d have come to you.”
“You were busy,” she says with a knowing smile. Psychics.
“So what do you have for me?”
“Sorry it took so long. This reading is more intricate than usual. Every piece of information I found begged new questions- which required more energy to pursue. I spent most of last night on the main stage to bank enough power to finish up. Someone’s going to impersonate you- duh, I know, as if the Cauldron thing isn’t all over the Eyeblog. But the attack on the Gambit- you guys have seriously terrible information security, by the way, because everybody knows about it- he was in on it.”
“That confirms a suspicion.”
“You didn’t think that’s all, did you?”
“You’re going to tease me with the reading, now, too?”
She leans in close to me, brushes her lips against my ear, but it’s the tickle of rainwater painted along my cheek by her hair that makes me shiver as she whispers, “It’s what I do.”
She stays there, pressed against me, her body smaller and more fragile than I would have ever guessed from her presence in the Bust, “You’re warm,” she says, as if she’s surprised. “And I’m cold. And wet.”
“You could always take off the coat.” She raises an eyebrow. “You could take mine, if you like,” though the moment I offer I wonder if it would still smell like Vergara.
She looks me over, then bends her neck, as if trying to imagine how it would fit on her- or how much it might cover. Maybe she thinks it wouldn’t cover enough, because she says, “That’s all right. But your doppelganger’s in trouble. Things got out of hand, at the Cauldron. He wasn’t supposed to be shooting his mouth off. And he certainly wasn’t supposed to be noticed. He needs to clean up the mess. As soon as he finds out Tim survived, he’s going to try and find a way to kill him.”
“Hell of an opening,” I say, adding unintended subtext as I spend a little too long watching a droplet of rainwater slide down her neck, towards her cleavage protruding out of the top of her coat.
“It certainly would be,” she says, and touches a large, round button on the coat, “if you could exploit it.” She traces her finger around the button, like she’s looking for a purchase to thread it through the hole, then stops. “But I should go; my car’s waiting.”
I bite my lip, but can’t help myself. “I have to know; what are you wearing under the trenchcoat?” I ask.
She considers a moment, whether or not the reveal will be more satisfying than the power she gets from me not knowing. Then she unbuttons the top, then middle button, and spreads the coat open. There’s a hint of brown flesh, and she says, “clothes,” just as I see a red dress, slinky, maybe even revealing, but certainly more than I’d been hoping for.
“Tease,” I say.
“You can consider that the beginning of what you owe me for the spell.” She smiles, and adds a little extra wiggle to her movement for me as she walks away.