by K R Hill
You might want to take up your case with the Israeli government, too. They have a team in the city. It was dug up in Israel, right?”
The commander marched toward the door and stopped. He spoke a sentence in Italian, then switched to English. “We shall deal with them. My employer will double whatever Mrs. Devonshire is paying you.”
“Funny thing about me is I’m old school. A deal is a deal. I intend to honor my contract.”
The commander flipped a hand through the air, slapping an imaginary person. “You Americans, so brash and foolish. The artifact, or should I say Solomon’s Key, is the property of the Vatican. Anyone who gets in my way will be treated with extreme prejudice. Good day to you.”
The instant the door closed, Nick ran to it and looked at his boss.
Dalton nodded and Nick slipped out the door.
“I count five getting into the car,” called Ted from the window.
Nick came back into the office. “Yeah, they all left.”
Dalton opened a drawer and dug around inside until he found extra clips and shoved each one inside a pouch on his shoulder holster. When he finished stuffing the extra ammo away, he looked up. “You heard what he said. Am I the only one taking extra rounds?”
“Hell, no, of course not. What’s our next move?” Ted sat the shotgun between the filing cabinets.
“After that visit, I’m taking you to meet Sophie Devonshire. She’s getting a new bodyguard.”
“No, I got to be on the street. I’m not gunna babysit.” Ted held out a hand, as though to plead his case.
“Look, you’re guarding the money. If anything happens to Mrs. Devonshire, we won’t get paid. Day and night, I need you at her side, ready for the worst. You understand? These are bad boys we’re dealing with.”
“Oh, I can watch money real good. But I gotta take my ladies with me, wrapped up warm in their rug.”
Dalton walked to the clothing rack and picked up his blazer. “I’ll visit the bank and the attorney’s office. If I can identify the guy that demanded payment, then we’re on a trail.”
Nick lifted the stack of files and dropped it on the table. They hit the table with a loud thud. “And I have to search through papers. How exciting.”
“And fast, Nick. Mrs. Devonshire said that she noticed some discrepancies. Look at the times when the professor was supposed to be out of the country. She circled the dates on the top file. If he wasn’t abroad, then where was he? I need to know.”
“Boss, do I have to sit and read?”
“You’re the computer guy. No more shooting through walls. Settle down. Do your job.”
Nick lowered his head. “I just love the sound that .45 makes.”
“Man, you’re scaring me.”
Nick laughed and starting shoving papers into his bag. “My crew is waiting. I should have everything we need in the morning.”
“Good.”
“But that reminds me. Ted, what type of phone do you have?” asked Nick.
“I’m an iPhone guy.” Ted set his phone on the desk.
“Cool.” Nick flipped it over and smashed it four times with the butt of his pistol, as if hammering in a nail. Then he ran out of the office, and said in passing, “Tell him about the radio black-out.”
“Someone’s been bugging us,” said Dalton. “You have to buy a burner phone.”
Ted stood at the desk and pushed small pieces of his phone around with a finger. “I can’t believe he did that. I got guns, and he still did that.”
***
Sophie Devonshire’s house stood on a street with several empty lots. The ones with houses had driveways kept private with wrought iron gates, immaculate flower beds and lawns, and Roman statues illuminated by perfect lighting. But her house sat alone. The field of brown weeds and dirt clods in the vacant lots on either side made her house look too bright, like a Disneyland replica.
Dalton drove up the street to check things out. He looked at the cars parked here and there. None of them had people inside.
“Is that the house?” asked Ted, shifting about.
“Yeah, that one.” There were lights on in the flower beds that illuminated palm trees, and lights on stakes bordered the driveway and brick walk. But the house itself was dark.
“This ain’t right. If she’s in there, why aren’t the lights on? I need my shotgun.”
“Easy,” said Dalton. “Her car is there. She said she’d be in all night. Let’s play this smart. We’ll drive by and come back.”
Ted looked over his shoulder. “You think the house is being watched?”
“I think so. Keep looking straight ahead.” Dalton drove around the corner and turned onto another street. Two blocks away from the house he parked and took out the cheap burner cell phone. He tried Mrs. Devonshire’s number three times, and each time it rang and rang.
“She’s not answering?” Ted opened his door.
“Nobody gets shot, okay?”
Dalton hurried to the trunk and fiddled with the key fob.
“You heard what that guy said in the office. You think they’re going to be all nice and smiles?”
“All I’m saying is don’t shoot unless you see a weapon.”
Ted got his shotgun, and Dalton led the way around the side of the house and slipped in through a window. He held his automatic as though it was a flashlight as he listened and searched.
Inside, a dim light shone down the stairwell. He inched along toward the light and slowly climbed the stairs. That was where he found her.
Sophie Devonshire was sitting on the sofa in the one lit-up room of the house. In her hand was a glass of bourbon. A half-empty bottle stood on the side table. She held a pillow to her chest.
Dalton pointed down the hall.
Ted nodded, raised the shotgun, and walked down the corridor, as though walking through a mine field.
“Sophie?” Dalton whispered, jerking the weapon right and left, scanning the room.
He called again. When no response came, he clicked off the safety of his weapon, and moved his finger from the guard to the trigger.
“I’m here,” she said.
“Are you alone?”
She set the glass on the table and stood up. “Dalton, I’m very glad you’re here. This is the one room in the house that doesn’t have an exterior wall.”
He hurried over and touched her arm. “Why are you hiding?”
She closed her eyes and tilted her face toward the ceiling. “Maybe you better see for yourself. Someone was watching me.”
“The place is clear,” said Ted.
“Where are they?” asked Dalton.
She led them to the master bedroom and was about to step through the doorway into the room when Dalton stopped her.
“Let me go first, okay?” He stepped around her and opened the bedroom door with the muzzle of his automatic. “Ted, take your safety off.”
“Hell, it ain’t never been on. Mrs. Devonshire,” said Ted, nodding quickly, “you get behind me where I can protect you.”
Dalton stepped into the room, and after a moment he said it was clear.
Ted led Sophie Devonshire into the room.
“You want to tell us what happened?”
She pointed to the window. “I got home, took a shower, and was changing my clothes. It’d been dark for about an hour. I was getting dressed, drying my hair with a towel. I went to leave the room and turned off the light and pulled the drapes. Then I glanced out the window.” She took Dalton’s arm and pulled him to the window.
“Right up there, in that gully. See the shadow of the trees? He was right in front of them. Someone was up there smoking a cigarette. I could see the red glow intensify when he’d take a drag. He was watching me.”
Dalton pulled her away from the window. “I’ll go and check it out. It might be nothing. I mean a beautiful woman walking around naked is going to attract an audience. Maybe some guy was just out on a hike and decided to enjoy the show.”
“I’m so
embarrassed.” Mrs. Devonshire looked at the ceiling. “There didn’t used to be other houses around, so I never thought about being watched.”
“Don’t worry,” said Ted.
“By the way, this is Ted, your new bodyguard.” Dalton shoved his weapon into its holster. “He goes everywhere you go, until this is finished. You’re safe with him in the house.”
Outside, Dalton walked along the sidewalk through the neighborhood until he was on the street that over-looked Sophie Devonshire’s house. Whoever had been watching her had been stationed up here. He climbed through the weeds of an empty field, stumbling here and there over rocks and gopher holes. Dead weeds crunched beneath his shoes.
There was just enough light to reveal where the ground dropped away and turned into a ravine. Dalton sat and crawled like a spider to reach an area where he could stand upright. This had to be where the man had watched.
He searched the area with his cell-phone flashlight, and found five cigarette butts. He picked up one. It wasn’t one of the popular brands. It was a European cigarette, only sold in a few shops in the city. He searched further, found an empty water bottle. Someone had carried water. Their visit was planned. And then Dalton saw something that sent a shiver up his spine. Stuck in a tree branch that was lying on the ground stood a small knife, its tip wedged deep into the wood, handle pointing up. It was a message. Someone wanted him to find the knife.
Chapter 14
Commander Rossi stood on the narrow balcony overlooking Long Beach. In the distance was the Queen Mary, a fence of huge stones surrounding it. And out beyond the harbor, where the city lights danced on the black water, monster cranes towered over a field of containers.
The commander turned and stepped into the apartment. Several men were sitting at the long conference table. Another one moved about the photos hanging on the wall and read the notes attached to them.
“Gentlemen, I received word from Europe. The Key has been traced to Mr. Devonshire. He was at the conference in Cologne when we missed the courier. The only other possibility was that Russian doctor. What was his name? But he was eliminated as a suspect. You took care of that. Right, Uri?”
Uri Dent set down his knife and fork and wiped his mouth with the linen napkin. He cleared his throat and looked at the commander. “Yes sir. Professor Urtsen was his name. He was eliminated in Chicago. He did not have the Key.”
The commander nodded and walked slowly around the table. When he reached the end of the table, he stopped. “I got orders this morning to take the gloves off. His Eminence wants this completed as quickly as possible. We have seven days to complete our mission. If it’s not completed in that time, we are not to return to our homes. Europe will be off-limits to every man here.”
Chapter 15
It was past midnight by the time Dalton returned. The office was as empty as a dancehall on Sunday morning. His steps made a strange hollow sound as he walked to the desk. From the bottom drawer, he took out a bottle of bourbon and poured two fingers into a glass, took a drink, and made his whiskey face. At the sofa he set the glass on the floor, plopped himself down, took off his jacket, and pulled it over himself as he stretched out.
But then he started thinking about Ted and Jax, and the days when the three of them were thick as thieves in high school. Everything had been new and thrilling. He tried to drift off into sleep, but it was no use. Having Ted around, and having seen Jax’s new house, made him want to reach out and touch them, to be around them and remember the laughter and the dances, the Friday nights munching popcorn at the drive-in, the speaker hooked on the driver’s window. He laughed about Ted’s old Pontiac and how the windows kept fogging up. Every few minutes Ted had jumped out and wiped the windshield.
Dalton gave up on sleep and walked to his desk and turned on the computer. He didn’t need to do a search to find the site he was looking for. Over the years he’d been there many times. It was where he went to touch the past, to ground himself. On the home page he typed the year he had graduated, and his high school yearbook opened. The faces took him back to morning English class, friends shoving notes into his hand while the teacher was at the chalkboard. Each name, each photograph, brought back a memory. All the browsing, the flipping through the pages, was leading to one thing. After some time with his buddies, he could wait no longer and went to the photo of cheerleader Jax, pom-poms held high.
That night of the photo was their first spent together. Staring into her eyes, sparkling with erotic joy, changed the way he thought about the world, and his place in it.
Dalton didn’t know how much bourbon he drank. He didn’t look at the clock. This journey had nothing to do with life outside. He was alone in the computers bubble of light. And he slept on the keyboard.
***
“Oh no, boss, you didn’t sleep like that, did you?” Nick said, waking Dalton as he locked the door behind him, pushing his shoulder bag out of the way, holding a Starbucks carry tray in one hand. He rushed across the room and set the tray on the desk, and pulled the blinds open. The moan of traffic, distant horns, doors slamming, people shouting hellos, entered the office as though carried with the sunlight.
Dalton sat up and rubbed his face and leaned back in his chair. He slowly looked around the room, squinting.
“What are you doing here?” He reached for the Venti coffee, pulled the top off, and put the paper container to his lips.
Nick took the napkins out of the carrier and wiped up the spilled whiskey from the desk, twisted the top back onto the bourbon bottle, and shoved it in the bottom drawer.
“You have to see this.” Nick opened his laptop and started typing. “We finished those papers and found a whole bunch of good stuff. You have to see this.”
“Okay. Coffee. I’m glad you brought coffee. Let me wash my face.” Dalton stood up and grabbed the edge of the desk and walked to the bathroom.
Nick followed with the laptop. “Remember those listening devices? Someone has been passing your information to a Major Thomas Trenton Gregory.”
Dalton leaned over the sink and splashed water over his face and hair. “That’s good work. So, someone has hired this Gregory to take me out?”
“That’s what it looks like.”
Dalton wiped his face with a towel and crossed the office. “You always bring such pleasant news.”
“That’s what I’m good at.”
Dalton sipped his coffee. “Strong coffee is the only thing that gets me out of bed.”
“Or off the desk.”
“You really have your smartass going. How many energy drinks did you slurp down last night?”
“Maybe a few, after a few.”
“That’s way too much caffeine. But you got a name. That means we can track him. Maybe it’s time to spin the table on this Gregory guy. What else did you get?”
“That Mr. Devonshire was one sneaky dude.” Nick pulled a poster-board from his bag, unfolded it on the desk, and searched while moving a finger over the surface. “Here it is. The house that Sophie mentioned is actually two houses.”
“How is that possible?”
“Because they own the one, and a shell corporation owns the second.”
“And Mr. Devonshire owns the shell corporation.”
“Exactly.”
“And the houses are beside each other?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the perfect way to make sure your neighbors don’t get nosy.”
Nick laughed and straightened up. “Holy crap, I need to crash.”
“Sleep on the sofa. Good work. You’re going to need the rest. We have a lot of legwork coming up.”
***
They hadn’t been in the car for more than a few minutes before Nick looked around and asked: “Where we going? This isn’t the way the San Pedro.”
“I want to check something at the Hall of Records. They should have a record of the house. I want to check the floor plan. The county will have a record.”
The county registrar,
where all real-estate records for LA County were kept, was in one of the busiest sections of Norwalk. In front of the hall ran a six-lane boulevard between two of LA’s busiest freeways.
The parking lot of the Hall of Records had turned into a place of business. The main pedestrian corridor out of the parking lot was filled with people selling legal forms and the services of a notary public. A visitor could get married and file a property lien the same day.
After wading through a line and speaking to the public service agent behind the glass, and then paying a fee, Dalton was given access to the property records for the address in San Pedro.
As a clerk turned over the records and pointed to a computer terminal, he asked about the address once more, and called to another agent working two windows away. When the other agent heard the name of the street, he climbed down off his stool, and walked to Dalton’s window.
He read the address and smiled. “Yeah, I grew up on Daisy, the next street over. But all of the kids spent their time on Petaluma.”
“Why is that?”
“That’s where the fort was. There used to be a couple of underground warehouses on Petaluma. The other kids and I converted one into our clubhouse.” He smiled and stood up straight. “Rumor was they belonged to a dairy farmer. Back when he stored his cheese there.”
“What happened to them?”
“That’s a good question. Now it’s just houses out there. The city must have torn them out, filled them up when I was in the military. That’s what I always thought.”
Dalton thanked the guy and sat down at a computer terminal. He flipped through the house blueprints, and detail page that showed the yard.
“This is strange.” Dalton drummed his fingers on the desk. “How old do you think that guy is?”
Nick glanced to the civil servants behind the windows.
“I’m guessing he’s in his early sixties. That would’ve put him playing in that neighborhood in the 1960s. But these plans are dated 1982. I’m guessing that somebody, possibly Mr. Devonshire, paid a handsome sum to make the warehouse plans disappear.”