Double Take

by Catherine Coulter

  And then he knew exactly what he was going to do.

  “Julia, tell Captain Paulette we’re heading west to Ocean Beach, just south of Cliff House.”

  The chances were good no one would be on the beach this early in the morning. It was cold and windy and the air was thick with mist. It would be foggy out near the ocean. And that meant a long stretch of empty beach.

  Julia said,"Captain Paulette, this is Julia Ransom. I’m with Cheney and we’re in a bit of trouble here—” and he listened to her tell Frank exactly where they were, and where Cheney was headed.

  He saw her punch off the cell and lay it calmly on the floor next to him. He gave her a quick smile. “Hang in there, this might get a bit hairy, okay? Keep down.”

  She heard another bullet strike metal, then the sound of a distant siren.

  Cheney cursed but didn’t slow.

  Julia said, “The cops can’t ignore two maniacs speeding through the city. If there are enough of them, they might box him in.”

  Dream on, he thought, but said, “Might happen, but it’s not what I want. Now, we’ve got to make it to the beach. I’ll try to keep this guy off us, Julia.”

  Cheney jerked to the left across Geary onto 29th Avenue amid blaring horns, ripe curses, and the sound of screeching tires. He dodged and swerved, cannoning his way through the Richmond District, with its narrow streets, funneled by cars parked bumper to bumper along the curb on both sides. He looked back, grinned at the white Charger speeding after him. “Oh yeah, nearly there now, nearly there, stay with me,” his mantra now, she thought, and when she heard him say it again, she laughed.

  “Hang in, Julia.”

  “No problem. Can I come up now?”

  Cheney looked back to see the Charger cut off by a screaming Chevy driver, then saw Makepeace back up and swerve around the parked cars on 29th. He’d gained most of a block on him. “No, stay down. He’s still there. That’s right, you putz, don’t give up on us yet. Come on, come to papa.”

  There were more sirens now, and they were closer.

  Makepeace fired twice. One bullet tore off the passenger-side mirror, sending it crashing against the side of a parked car; the other grazed the rear bumper of a Miata backing out of a driveway.

  Cheney flew across Fulton and into Golden Gate Park, saw a huge Lexus nearly on him. He slammed on the brakes and jerked the wheel to the right at the same time. He thought he felt the heat of that big monster as it roared past, massive enough to smash his Audi and kill both of them. He caught a glimpse of a woman’s white face, the terror in her eyes, before he took an insane fast left turn on John F. Kennedy Drive, nearly shearing off the front fender of a parked station wagon.

  There weren’t many cars in the park, thank God, but he had to slow some for a dozen or so bicyclists and a long tail of runners. He laid on the horn, giving them time to scatter, which they did. They jetted past the bison paddock, and took a fast right. It was a straight shot now. Julia eased up into her seat. She saw the Queen Wilhelmina Tulip Garden and the Dutch Windmill on her right, saw the looming red light, and managed to hold back a scream as Cheney drove straight through the light onto the Great Highway.

  CHAPTER 38

  Horns blared, brakes screeched, and rubber burned as he swerved and dodged the two-way traffic.

  Cheney yelled, "Did I ever tell you I learned to drive in a four-by-four on the beach?”

  He was smiling as he ripped across the Great Highway onto the long concrete parking lot, thankfully empty of cars and people, just as he’d hoped. The parking lot ran along the storm wall that rose above the beach a good six feet. Julia saw the storm wall looming diagonally up in front of them. She didn’t consider the narrow openings for beach steps until—her heart nearly stopped when they went airborne.

  “I won’t kill us! Hang on!” Incredibly, he was laughing with something like joy as they flew, and, truth be told, she felt a tickle of joyous terror in the air herself.

  The Audi landed hard on sand, still damp from high tide, slamming them against their seat belts, snapping their jaws together. Cheney whipped the Audi hard left, and the car flew forward along the beach wall. “I used to race dune buggies on the beaches in South Carolina, mainly Hilton Head. Come on, you maniac, come on, you can get me. Hot damn, he just went flying through.” He hit the steering wheel with his fist and yelled, “Gotcha!”

  “What do you mean? You wanted him to come after you?”

  “Oh yeah. This sweet little Audi A4 has all-wheel drive. He doesn’t.”

  Julia looked back to see the Charger hit the beach hard some forty yards behind them, kicking up sand and water like a rooster tail. “He looks like he’s having a problem getting traction. No, wait, okay, he’s turning toward us. He’s coming, Cheney.”

  Cheney was grinning again. She wondered whether, if she weren’t in the car, he’d have flipped the Audi back around to face the oncoming Charger, maybe gunned the engine a couple of times in challenge, and headed straight at Makepeace like a knight in battle.

  But he couldn’t take the offense because he had to protect her. Another bullet struck, close to the back tire. In that instant Julia remembered her SIG was in her purse. Sweet Mary and Joseph, where was her purse?

  She didn’t have time to find it. Cheney gunned the Audi toward the long storm wall. She’d sat on that wall many times with her legs dangling, watching the waves and the honking seals. Now it seemed a terrifying monolith waiting to crush both of them. She saw another beach access in the concrete wall, a dozen concrete stairs climbing up. As they closed on it, the Audi never faltered, never lost its traction. It took the stairs like a bullet and sped through the opening. Julia could have licked the concrete wall on either side. She was pumped. She yelled out a shout of wild exultant terror.

  Cheney slammed on the brakes and turned the wheel at the same time. They screeched to a one-eighty. He threw the Audi into park, yelled for her to keep down, and jumped out the door hunched over, his SIG drawn.

  But she didn’t get down, no way would she hide now. She stared, fascinated, as the Charger tried to pull out of a lunatic slide and gain some traction and speed toward those stairs, spewing sand. She saw the instant Makepeace realized the Charger wouldn’t make it up the stairs. He threw the car into reverse, bumped hard and fast back down the concrete stairs and lurched back onto the beach.

  Cheney ran toward the wall, firing at him, emptying his clip. He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out another clip, and fired again. The Charger’s windshield shattered, then the rear window, sending out shards of glass.

  Makepeace jumped from the Charger and crouched behind the driver’s side door, firing back short bursts. Cheney threw himself down behind the concrete wall.

  Julia eased out of the Audi, and looked over the top of her open door. Makepeace was twenty yards away. He looked as calm as a judge, his face expressionless behind his dark sunglasses.

  She spotted her purse on the floor of the backseat. She grabbed her SIG and kneeled down on the concrete, keeping the door between her and Makepeace. She saw Cheney was pinned, and she fired her gun as she waved wildly at Makepeace.

  He fired back at her in one smooth motion. She flattened herself on the concrete parking lot, her heart pounding in her ears, the sound of the bullets so close they deafened her for an instant. He continued to fire at her, emptying his clip. It gave Cheney his chance. He ran forward, nearly bent double, firing steadily. The Charger’s door window shattered, Makepeace’s arm jerked, and his pistol went flying to the sand.

  Makepeace looked toward Cheney once, back at Julia, and leaped into the Charger, gunning the engine. But the Charger couldn’t find traction in the sand. Cheney kept firing as he ran down the stairs toward the car. A bullet ricocheted off the hubcap of the left rear tire. Cheney emptied the second clip trying to hit the tires, but they were spinning madly, kicking up blinding sand, the car jerking and heaving, fishtailing again in the sand.

  He patted his pockets, but he knew he
was out of bullets. Makepeace stopped trying to gun the car, and the Charger finally gained some traction. He headed back down the beach away from them.

  Cheney stood there, his gun down at his side, staring after the car. “Well, damn,” he said as Julia came up to stand beside him.

  “You shot him. I saw him jerk. Did you see him drop his gun?”

  Cheney whirled around, grabbed her arms and shook her. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, yes, I’m okay.”

  He shook her again. “What were you doing? You shot at him, and waved! Made yourself a target! Are you nuts?”

  “Most definitely. If you hadn’t been so set on shooting him, maybe you could have shot out his tires?”

  “I tried. I got a hubcap.”

  “Yes, you did. Too bad we didn’t stop him.”

  Cheney let her go when his relief finally passed his anger. Still, he frowned back at her before he walked over to pick up Makepeace’s pistol, and stared at it. He’d seen only one like it before in his career—in a weapon collection owned by a former FBI assistant director. He ran his hand over the gun. “Would you look at this—a Škorpion VZ 61. This is a Czech-made machine pistol that hasn’t been manufactured since the seventies. I wonder where he got it, and why he’s not using a more efficient weapon. How did he get this thing into the country?” He shaded his eyes and looked down the beach. Makepeace was gone.

  The sirens were blaring so loud it hurt their ears. They walked back up the beach access steps just as half a dozen police cars piled into the parking lot. The lead car screamed to a stop not six feet from them. Two officers jumped out, using the car doors for shields and aiming their weapons over the tops of the doors.

  “Police! Drop your weapons now!”

  Cheney didn’t hesitate. He dropped his SIG and Makepeace’s pistol to the concrete. “There, no guns. Don’t shoot us! I’m raising my hands over my head, nice and slow.”

  The first officer’s gun continued to point right at Cheney’s chest. “Don’t either of you move! I said drop the gun, lady, drop it!”

  Julia dropped her SIG. “Sorry,” she yelled back.

  “Don’t move!”

  “No, we won’t,” Cheney said.

  They stood like a frozen tableau for an eternity—at least a minute—while the cops spilled out of black-and-whites and a couple of unmarkeds all around them. Cheney prayed no one would get rattled and start firing, when he heard a blessedly familiar voice. Captain Paulette yelled, “Don’t shoot them, Gibbs, they’re the good guys.” Cheney watched Frank climb out of his car, look south as he spoke on his cell—doubtless he was sending cars after Makepeace’s Charger. Frank punched off his cell, yelled out, “Hey, Cheney, my men tell me you were doing some wild-assed driving.”

  Cheney yelled back, “I may have wounded him, his gun arm, but he’s still driving, a white Charger. His car’s all shot up so you can hardly miss it.” Cheney leaned down and picked up the two pistols. “Look at this sucker, Frank.”

  Frank took the pistol. “Ain’t this something—long time no see. A terrorist’s wet dream, this pistol, way back when, particularly in Africa. It’s Czech—and surprise, surprise, the cartridge is American design.”

  “Maybe we can trace it,” Cheney said.

  “I doubt that, compadre, but we can try.”

  Cheney picked up Julia’s SIG from the ground, handed it to her. “Hey,” he said to her, “we made it.”

  “I think,” Julia said slowly, looking out over the pewter water, “that I just might let you teach me beach racing sometime.”

  He laughed.

  A patrol car skidded up. The officer yelled, “Captain, we found the car. The guy took off on foot, or maybe wired a car on the street. We ran the VIN already. The Charger was stolen out of a garage in Daly City last night. The owner sure isn’t going to be happy when he sees his ride.”

  CHAPTER 39

  CALIFORNIA STREET

  Tuesday afternoon

  Savich saw a flash of irritation on Thomas Pallack’s face as he turned from his window on the thirty-sixth floor of the Malden-Pallack building on California Street and looked at the two men and two women who stood in his office doorway. Then he saw a look of unease, perhaps fear, but it was gone quickly. Savich recognized the formidable intelligence, the suspicion in Pallack’s eyes, and thought, Dix, if you’d come, he would have called security in a heartbeat and removed us all.

  Thomas Pallack looked at each of them in turn, assessing them, Savich thought, for what sort of threat they posed to him. He stood motionless now, no expression on his face, and fingered the business card Savich had given to his assistant. When he waved to his assistant standing in the open doorway, she nodded and let herself out of the office, after a quick searching look at her boss.

  Pallack said, “The view would be splendid if the fog weren’t lying so thick over the city and the Marin Headlands, there”— he pointed—“behind the Golden Gate.”

  They all dutifully stared out the huge window. Only one of the Golden Gate Bridge’s suspension towers peaked above the fog.

  “The fog usually burns off by noon,” he continued, “but not today, unfortunately. Mrs. Potts tells me all three of you are FBI agents and for some reason I don’t understand, you, my dear Julia, have come with them.

  “Let me say both Charlotte and I are distressed at all your trouble. It has all been an immense shock to us, as well—we are very sorry.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Pallack,” Julia said.

  He inclined his head to her, nodding. “Perhaps that is why you’re here with the agents? They’re protecting you from this maniac?”

  “That’s certainly true, Mr. Pallack.”

  “You used to call me Thomas.”

  “Yes, Thomas, I will.”

  He said, “I see from your card that you’re Special Agent Dillon Savich. I hope you are all here to tell me you’ve caught the people responsible for all this.”

  Savich said, “Not as yet.”

  “A pity. Do these agents have names?”

  Savich introduced Sherlock and Cheney, each of them flashing their shields. He motioned them to sit in the stiff modern chairs facing his desk.

  “Now you may tell me what I can do for you.”

  Savich said, “As part of protecting Mrs. Ransom and investigating her difficulties, Mr. Pallack, we are reviewing Dr. August Ransom’s murder. We believe the two may be related. We would appreciate any assistance you’re able to provide us.”

  Thomas Pallack gave them a slight bow of his head.

  Savich said, “We understand you were a client of Dr. Ransom’s for many years.”

  Thomas Pallack nodded, sat back in the very comfortable-looking leather chair behind his very modern desk, all glass and polished steel, and folded his hands on his belly. He’d eased considerably, Savich saw, felt back in control of his universe, and that was what Savich wanted. Pallack said, his voice expansive and smooth with confidence, “Surely you must know the SFPD interviewed me after August’s murder, along with his other clients. They would have all those records. Unfortunately I wasn’t of much help, nor were any of his other clients, as I understand. So, I don’t know how I can help you now.”

  “You are obviously a very intelligent, very successful man, Mr. Pallack. Perhaps over the intervening months you’ve recalled or wondered about some details that could assist us? How long were you with Dr. Ransom?”

  “Over ten years when he died.”

  “You were pleased with his efforts on your part?”

  “Yes, of course, or I wouldn’t have stayed with him that long. August, as you know, was able to engage my dear parents for me in dialogue, pass along to me what they were saying and feeling, their advice and counsel on business problems, for example. My father was an incredible businessman, and I value his opinions. Our sessions were deeply meaningful to me.”

  Cheney sat forward, picked it up. “Do you find Soldan Meissen as helpful as Dr. Ransom, sir?”

  T
homas Pallack turned thoughtful, perhaps a pose, Cheney didn’t know, but he watched the man carefully. Pallack fiddled with an expensive pen, tapped it against an onyx paperweight, buying himself thinking time, Cheney thought. He saw Sherlock was watching Pallack as intently as he was.

  In point of fact, Sherlock had formed a picture of Thomas Pallack in her mind in the preceding days and she realized now she wasn’t that far off, except for his eyes. They weren’t the eyes of a megalomaniac or a political ideologue, they were dark gray turbulent eyes, a brooding poet’s eyes maybe, or a killer’s eyes. She didn’t know which. She shook her head at herself. No, Thomas Pallack was an extraordinarily successful businessman, very rich, still in full control of his empire at nearly seventy, accustomed to using his power. It was possible he was nothing more than he appeared—a man with one clearly insane obsession, but many people had obsessions or fixations of some kind. He’d communicated with his murdered parents for many decades now, but he was still able to run an empire. And there was something about him that drew you, that made you want to listen to him, hear what he had to say.

  The silence stretched on for a moment. No one attempted to break it. Thomas said finally, “You asked me about Soldan Meissen, Agent Stone.” He frowned, shook his head. “I doubt this means anything, but there is a lot at stake so let me be completely honest. There is something about Soldan that sometimes shakes my confidence. I can’t tell you what, exactly, only that I am never quite as satisfied at the end of our sessions as I was with August. Soldan is quite legitimate, I know that. He has proved many times that he can contact my parents. They speak through him to me, and yes, I recognize their words and expressions, their sly wit, their endearments. Soldan isn’t a fraud, if that’s what you’re after.”

  “Then what is the problem, sir? Do you think he isn’t telling you everything your parents wish him to?” Sherlock asked.

  Pallack shrugged. “Come now, three FBI agents, and you’re actually taking this seriously? You’re considering that one can really talk to the dead?”