The panels were usable but they would require too much filler to make clean repairs on whatever car they ended up attached to.
Morgan decided he was liking the brothers less and less.
They found the car they were looking for. The butchers in the shop hadn’t gotten their hands on it yet. It was a less than one-year-old four-door Mercedes. Obviously the kid’s parents’ car.
Inside the car, Morgan found the key. That was strange.
According to Shepard, there was no sign that Jason Fitzpatrick had been involved with Spellman’s doomsday club. In fact, he had no ties to any of the even mildly radical groups on campus.
Had the kid simply been carjacked the same day Dr. Apocalypse had disappeared with twenty students, including Alex? Morgan didn’t take much stock in coincidences.
He checked his watch; ten minutes. The brothers were certainly taking their time. With Dobrynin, he investigated the rest of the shop.
There were two late model American cars getting crushed fenders repaired. On one, the fenders had just been replaced and the gap between the new fender and the rest of the car was a crime. The other car’s replacement fender also had a gap—though not as bad—but the color match was a full shade off.
Morgan heard Dobrynin quietly muttering Russian curses. Morgan found the man behind two large sheets of plastic with two vintage cars. One was a white 1956 Thunderbird—white and in mint condition. The morons had already removed the front fenders and the hood.
The other car was a 1973 Corvette. It was a custom job, and very good one, cherry red with an oversized hood scoop. The car had been modified so that there wasn’t a hood anymore. Instead, a single custom-molded front-end body panel—that included both fenders—opened on a hinge at the nose. The new “hood” was open to reveal the heavily modified and largely stainless steel engine compartment.
It was a very over-the-top mod and Morgan recognized the work. It was the kind of custom job that drove stock Corvette purists crazy, but it was still very impressive. The car could only have come from one shop in California. It was bad enough that it was stolen, but for it to be stolen by morons was too much.
Morgan checked his watch again; it had been fifteen minutes since they had arrived. He grabbed one of the shop benches from against the wall and gestured for Dobrynin to do the same. They dragged the benches to the open center of the shop floor, sat down, and waited.
And waited.
Ten minutes later they heard the outer door open, followed by voices and footsteps. Then the doors separating the office area from the shop floor opened and four men entered.
“Glad you could join us,” Morgan said, making a show of checking his watch.
The two guys in the center were big, both over six feet and broad. One was Hispanic with a beard; the other was Asian with a shaved head. The two men flanking them were just muscle. Six-two or three, and even broader then their bosses. All four of them were somewhere in their late twenties to early thirties.
“What?” the bearded man said.
“Who are you guys?” the bald man added.
That was it. These must have been the proprietors, the ‘brothers’.
“We’re the guys who are going to ask you some questions,” Morgan said.
“Are you cops?” the bearded brother said.
“If you’re cops, you have to tell us.” the bald brother added.
“No we don’t,” Morgan said. “We’re not cops, but if we were, what makes you think we’d have to tell you?”
The brothers didn’t know how to respond to that. Finally, the bald brother said, “We run a clean business.”
“Clean? You keep shop hours like you want the police to pay attention to you. And your fillers look like they were done by kindergarteners trying out papier-mâché for the first time. No, there’s nothing clean about your business, but that’s not why we’re here. We’re here for information,” Morgan said.
“I don’t think you’re going to find any information here, but I think you just found trouble, smartass,” the bearded brother said.
The thugs were slowing fanning out to either side of Morgan and Dobrynin. Morgan kept an eye on them with his peripheral vision.
“You’re locked in now,” the bald brother said. “With us.”
“First of all, your locks didn’t keep us out, what makes you think they’ll keep us in?” Morgan asked. He felt the beginning of the red mist of anger rising up from his gut. “And the biggest problem you have right now is that you are locked in here with us.”
The Brothers laughed at that, but the laughter was a little forced. They just didn’t know what to make of the two men who had strolled into their shop.
“Boys, why don’t you show these smartasses how we treat burglars,” the bald brother said.
“We’re not burglars. We broke in but we haven’t taken anything. That makes us trespassers at best,” Morgan said, the mist growing thicker. “This is your last chance—”
He never got to finish. The thug nearest him swung out with a heavy wrench. Morgan sidestepped the tool easily and it whooshed past him. The thug had put some shoulder into it and the weight of the wrench had pulled him around, giving Morgan a clear shot at the man’s right kidney.
Morgan put some weight of his own into the punch and the large man dropped heavily to the floor, the pipe clanging down and skidding away. He heard a yelp behind him, followed by a quick scream. He turned to see Dobrynin’s thug moaning on the ground and holding his forearm.
“Like I was saying, we want some information,” Morgan said, turning back to the brothers.
The bald brother was pointing a .45 at them. It was a nice weapon, if a little flashy with its chrome finish. Like everything else in this shop, it was wasted on the brothers, Morgan thought as he watched the man hold his weapon sideways. His stance was crap. It would be amazing if the recoil didn’t knock him on his ass if he managed to fire the weapon.
After the short burst of action Morgan felt his head clearing. The red mist receded a bit. He didn’t want any more distractions. They had come for information.
“This is your last warning. Answer a few questions and we’ll get out of your depressing excuse for a shop,” he said.
“I don’t think you realize what’s happening, man,” the bearded brother said.
“Comrade, why don’t you give our friend here a warning,” Morgan said, glancing over at Dobrynin.
“I’ve had it with you mother—”
The Asian brother was cut short by the small explosion from Dobrynin’s weapon. Morgan didn’t have to turn to see that it was the Russian’s signature handgun, the Tokarev T-33.
The Brother shrieked in pain. Then he dropped the gun he had been holding and clutched his thigh as he fell to the ground.
“I meant a warning shot,” Morgan said.
The Russian shrugged. “It was a warning shot. He’ll live.”
“Fair enough.”
By now, the brothers had recovered a bit from the shock of actual gunfire. The Asian Brother was now holding his thigh where he’d been hit. The bullet had penetrated high and outside. As a warning shot, it was a pretty good one: through and through. He could always find some local quack to give him some antibiotics and sew him up.
The Hispanic Brother came out of his stupor and made a lurching motion for the chrome .45 on the floor. But by then Morgan’s Walther was in his hands, pointed dead center at the man’s chest.
“Don’t,” he said.
The man stopped.
“Would you like me to give him a warning?” Dobrynin asked.
“I don’t think that will be necessary, will it?” Morgan asked. The bearded brother backed away from the gun.
The other brother was still moaning loudly and clutching his thigh.
“If you keep it down, we can all have a conversation
and we’ll be on our way,” Morgan said.
“He shot me!” the bald man said.
“That’s what happens when you point a gun at people who want to talk to you,” Dobrynin said.
“Are you ready to talk now?” Morgan asked.
“I need an ambulance before I bleed to death,” the Asian brother said.
“You’re not going to bleed to death. My comrade here is a very good shot,” Morgan said as he grabbed a blue work shirt from one of the nearby workbenches and tossed it to the man. “Sit up, apply some pressure, and stop complaining,” Morgan said.
He saw that Dobrynin had ushered the two thugs to a corner of the room to keep an eye on them. Morgan waited as the bearded brother helped the other one sit up against one of the posts in the floor.
“What do you want to know?” the bearded man asked.
Now they were getting somewhere. Morgan pointed to Jason Fitzpatrick’s Mercedes, “I need to know where that car came from. I need every detail about how and where you picked it up.”
“One of our guys found it,” he said.
“I need details,” Morgan said, putting an edge to his voice.
“On Route 5 just outside of Modesto. He found it pointed south and running on the highway,” the brother said.
“Running?” Morgan said.
“Yeah, but no one was in it. Some guy jumped out in traffic and left the car there.”
“Abandoned the car? Your guy didn’t toss him out, jack the car?” Morgan said.
“No, I swear. It was weird. The driver left the car running. It was just lucky,” he said. The brother’s eyes never left Morgan’s gun.
“Not so lucky for your friend there,” Morgan said.
“You can take the car,” the bald brother added, stopping his moaning long enough to speak.
“If I need it I will and I don’t need your permission,” Morgan said, but he doubted a forensic team would turn up anything. He had a pretty good idea of what had happened to Jason Fitzpatrick.
“Can I go to the hospital now?” the bald brother said. He had gotten himself under control and was talking almost reasonably.
“I’ll let you know,” Morgan said. “I’ve got to make a call.”
He walked to the office area where he called Bloch.
“How do we know Fitzpatrick isn’t involved somehow?” she asked.
“It wouldn’t make sense. If he went with the Chechens freely he wouldn’t have left his car in the middle of a highway. I think he was set to meet Alex and saw whatever happened to her, followed her, and approached when they hit traffic. If he’s still alive, he’s involved now.”
“It’s possible. It fits the facts but there could be other explanations,” she said.
“There could be, but that’s what happened,” Morgan said.
Bloch didn’t argue. “We can have a local team look at the car,” Bloch said.
It wouldn’t hurt but Morgan had already found out what he needed to know. “We know when they were on the road and what direction they were going. Tell Shepard to focus his efforts Southbound on Route 5. I’d still assume a 250 to 300 mile range from Berkeley. It was still a large search area but considerably narrowed from their initial estimate.
Of course, they could have simply driven to a local airport—or even a private airfield—and flown anywhere from there. But Morgan didn’t think so. The terrorists were on a deadline, and air travel meant flight plans, radar, and too many ways to attract attention.
He hung up and headed back to the shop floor.
“We’ll be on our way soon,” Morgan said.
By now the bald brother had gotten to a standing position and held himself up with some help from his partner.
“Good, I want you out of my shop,” he said.
“I don’t want to spend a second more than I have to in your crappy criminal enterprise. It will be a miracle if the cops don’t shut you down in a week. This place is as depressing as your repairs. But you know what the real crime here is? You’re disassembling a 1956 Thunderbird that’s complete and all original. That’s just not a crime against the automotive industry, it’s bad business.
“We’ll go in a minute but I’m not done with you yet. You’re going to keep that Mercedes and none of your butchers will touch it. I may send some people to pick it up,” Morgan said, raising his hand before either man could protest.
“Also, I want you to put the Thunderbird back together and leave it where you found it. If your guys can’t handle the work, then I want you to send it out to a real shop. Then, I want you to take that Corvette and return it to Jerry’s Custom Vettes. And I want you to give Jerry something for all the hassle you’ve caused him. Let’s say two boxes of Cuban cigars—make them Montecristos, the number twos. You can just leave them on the front seat.”
“Are you joking?” the bearded brother asked.
Morgan turned to Dobrynin, “Have you even known me to make a joke, of any kind?”
The Russian raised his eyebrows. “Nyet.”
You have until the end of the day tomorrow on the Vette. I’ll give you until the end of the week on the Thunderbird. In the meantime, you’ll hear from me about the Mercedes.
The two brothers and the two thugs stared at Morgan with dull incomprehension.
“Do you have any questions?” Morgan said.
The four men all shook their heads.
“Good, get hopping on the cars. And you’ll want to get that leg checked. If it gets infected it might kill you…eventually.”
Chapter 23
Bloch saw that Shepard still appeared haunted, but he didn’t look quite as desperate. Part of it was the lead that Morgan had just provided. Shepard had run off back to his workstation to follow up on the new search parameters.
Even if Morgan was completely off base there was a benefit to giving the team some hope, or at least a new direction to follow. It certainly beat checking the same data over and over again.
Shepard was also better after a few hours of sleep. Somehow. Jenny Morgan had talked him into it—after Bloch’s own orders to get some rest had been ignored.
Bloch realized that she could use some sleep as well. She’d gotten a couple of hours but needed more. She had spent most of the night coordinating resources with the CIA, NSA, FBI, and Scott Renard’s tech empire. Though a private company, Renard commanded more hackers, hardware, software, and network resources than most European countries.
And yet with all that at Zeta’s disposal, the only real lead they had gotten had come from Dan Morgan and a former KGB agent—who was at least as much of a security risk as an asset—knocking heads at a small-time car ring.
Well, maybe that would turn into something. Now that Morgan had told them where to look, they might actually find something useful—before the terrorists intentionally or unintentionally released their virus.
Bloch decided she would get an hour of sleep on the couch in her office after she’d briefed Mr. Smith on what they’d learned so far. For that, she needed a cup of coffee.
In the mess, she’d found Jenny Morgan at the coffee machine.
“I think you should think about a little sleep yourself before you have another cup of coffee,” Bloch said. Jenny obviously hadn’t been taking her own advice on rest.
“I will, soon,” Jenny said, in perhaps the least convincing tone Bloch had ever heard.
“When?” Bloch asked.
“There’s just one thing bothering me,” Jenny said.
“I assume it’s the same thing that’s been bothering half a dozen government agencies, hundreds of Federal Employees, and thousands of local law enforcement,” Bloch said.
To that Jenny actually smiled. “Just one piece of it. I’m stuck on how they got the kids off the campus. Twenty students and one professor. And if they were kidnapped the kidnappers had to get o
n and off campus too. So that makes twenty five or more.”
“Conventional wisdom says they used rented a truck with false I.D. and paid in cash.” Bloch said.
“Yes, but all of the trucks that moved on and off campus have been accounted for, and all of them show up on one or more of the working security cameras. That leaves, what? The students left campus willingly, and separately, and then met up somewhere else later? Even if that were true and all of the students destroyed their phones at the same time, Alex would have found a way to contact us. And someone would have seen one or more of them as they left campus. They would have run into someone they knew or someone would have stepped in front of a security camera.
“That means they were together for their meeting and then all moved together. Yet according to everything we have seen that’s impossible,” Jenny said.
“This was a well-planned operation. They had time to think about how to do it and we have to assume they are at least as smart as—” Bloch began.
“But that’s it. I don’t think they are very smart. What have they done to show us their intelligence? They didn’t develop the virus themselves. And even after they have stolen it they need a professor and some students to synthesize it. We have a lot of the best minds in the country trying to figure out their brilliant plan. What if it wasn’t brilliant? What if we’re overthinking it?” Jenny said.
“Okay, let’s assume we are. What then?”
“We don’t look for a brilliant trick, we look for something obvious,” Jenny said. And then Bloch saw the flash on Jenny’s face.
“What?” Bloch asked.
“Buses. They used buses, or more likely a bus. When Alex was a sophomore, I helped organize a school trip to Quebec. I was in charge of transportation and we hired buses, nice ones, not the yellow ones you and I rode on our trips. That’s it, I’m sure of it.”
“We checked out every vehicle that entered campus,” Bloch said.
“All the ones we could see. Maybe we didn’t see it or saw the bus and missed something,” she said.
Jenny was certain, Bloch could see that much. It would be easy to dismiss her though. Mrs. Morgan was tired. She’d gone too long staring at the same screen with too much coffee and too little sleep.
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