For now, though, the call to hunt had come. There was no rogue this night running at the edges of their formation, confusing the youngsters and distracting the adults. Tonight, there would be prey and there would be meat. The Flock flowed out of the palmettos and out of the piney woods. And they gave chase.
Life, for now, was still good.
Chapter Nineteen
They had come into his room!
Tim Dodd could, technically speaking, say that they had broken in. If it was Berg Brothers employees, as it must certainly have been, then they owned the property. But it was still an invasion. The fact that they were so suspicious that the studio would break and enter was amazing. That they were so desperate had frightened him.
The thing that had really gotten to him was the laptop. Tim had installed a wonderful security system on his hard drive. An associate at the Inquirer had been one of the top hacks in the underground before he’d grown weary of being chased and had, so to speak, come in out of the cold to a legitimate job with the paper. So Tim had asked him to theft-proof his laptop’s hard drive. While the programs his acquaintance had provided could not prevent a truly gifted individual from hacking into it, the attempt would leave a telltale sign behind. The hacker at the office had laid in a set of commands that would bring up an icon on the Windows program—a little screwdriver—if any of the security systems had been breached. At that, all Tim had to do was click on the screwdriver and the system would boot to DOS text and the files that had been tampered with would appear on the screen.
Dodd had hidden the laptop as well as he’d been able when he’d left the room. Of course, before that, he had put the photo files he’d made on disk and had erased them from the hard drive. While a good troubleshooter could unwipe them, he’d first have to crack the security barriers Tim had installed. And that would take time. And, if they ran out of time and had to leave the laptop, Tim would see what had happened as soon as he switched the computer on.
And that was precisely what had occurred.
He had stashed the laptop in the briefcase-sized safety box in the suite. Again, any expert could pick the lock, and someone obviously had. Only this expert had probably had a key and had also been a computer whiz who had worked his way through about half the safeguards the Inquirer’s resident hack had put in place. The screwdriver icon had told all. And the experience had frightened Dodd. When he’d unlocked the box to work on the cover letter he was going to be sending out to bidders, his heart had frozen in his chest. Who’s been sitting in my chair? Who, indeed.
And that was when he had known that he might be into some trouble. Anyone desperate enough to break and enter might also be desperate enough to go another step further. When you were dealing with a mega-billion dollar corporation, the step was most likely going to be a giant one rather than a baby step. Either way, he didn’t relish the idea of being stepped on.
So he had decided that he had to get some corroboration. Who else was likely to know of the existence of something that looked like a dinosaur in the forests around Salutations? Who else had suddenly reappeared at the company’s ideal town shortly before Tim had made his discovery? Who had Dodd been following when he’d stumbled upon the creature? The answer, of course, was Ron Riggs. All Dodd had to do was find the man; that had been painlessly simple. The first pass he’d made in revisiting where he’d parked his car at the substation had revealed the Fish & Wildlife truck with the government naturalist inside. The rest was simple, with only the added problem of an unknown companion becoming a slight difficulty. But he’d sidestepped that one, too.
Immediately after his talk with Riggs, Dodd had returned to the suite. All along the drive back, through the postcard perfect streets with their manicured lawns and past the rows of flawless homes, he had watched suspiciously for anyone tailing him. Cars with gray-haired wives had turned off going to bridge games. Sedans with young professionals on their way to jobs or meetings in town had dogged his bumper so obviously that he had known he’d had nothing to fear from them. All of them, though, had been targets for his rising paranoia.
He’d pulled into the parking lot of the hotel complex alone. There wasn’t even a random auto tailing him, and that had made him feel good. As he’d gone into the lobby, though, he had looked up, and for the first time had seen—really seen—the video cameras tastefully, but conspicuously placed all around the big, central gathering area. It was to make the tourists feel secure. A chill had gripped him, then. These cameras, he had seen. How many were hidden around the lobby? How many were hidden in the halls? How many were concealed in the rooms? His rooms?
As quickly as he could, he had gone back to his suite. But not alone. He’d actually accosted one of the bellboys—a college age youth with short red hair—in the lobby, the only one he’d seen there.
“Excuse me…son?”
The boy had looked up at him, gesturing to his own chest with a white-gloved hand. The hotel had the menial laborers decked out in old-fashioned bellboy uniforms, and the doormen looked like decorated soldiers.
“Yes. You,” Dodd had told him, waving a twenty he’d drawn out of his wallet. “I need some help getting my luggage.”
“Checking out, sir?”
Dodd knew that the boy must certainly be aware that he was checking out, for everyone had buzzed about his mad appearance all scratched and bloodied from two nights before. Still, Dodd supposed, he had his own games to play for a decent tip.
“Yes. Checking out. And I need some help with the bags.” In fact, Dodd had only a single suitcase, a clothing bag for his one suit, and the laptop that he was lugging with him even then. He had decided not to let the computer out of his sight again. Not after what had happened. But he did not want to go back to that room without another person with him, even if that person were just a bellboy. There was safety in having a companion. One was less likely to be ambushed with another pair of eyes watching out.
He’d felt much better—safer—with the bellboy dogging his heels. Together, in silence, they had taken the elevator up to the fourth. In silence, they had walked the hallway down to his room, only the slight scuff of their shoes to mark the way. All down the hallway, Dodd had looked up at the ceiling, in the corners, at potted plants on pedestals, looking for flaws where a tiny camera might be hidden. He’d seen nothing, though, merely the perfection of the new hotel, solidly built. It did not reassure him.
Finally, as they’d entered the room, the boy had spoken.
“I hope you enjoyed your stay,” he said from behind Dodd as they’d gone in.
Dodd had not even had the time to reply. Just as he heard the door click soundly shut behind them, the door to the bedroom had moved slowly open and two men, men who looked exactly like some stereotype of the northern tourist in sunny Florida appeared before him. They were all decked out in floral prints with white shorts that showed pale legs and ruddy knees. But their faces were expressionless, their eyes hidden by dark shades over fatless cheekbones. They came swiftly in and grabbed for his arms, one on each side. These were certainly no harmless tourists accidentally admitted to the wrong room. They knew where they were and just what they were going to do. The reporter tried to escape, tried to back away.
But the bellboy was behind him, to prevent his retreat.
Of course.
The reporter started to yell for help, and was quickly gagged by the application of a rag held over his face by a strong hand. He gasped, smelling something with a powerful chemical odor, and wondered if this were the legendary chloroform rag. Whatever it was, he blacked out during the second inhalation.
He never felt them take his laptop out of his rubbery, drugged grip. He never heard any of the things they said to one another after the bellboy had asked him if his stay had been a nice one.
And, some hours later, after they’d beaten his story out of him, Dodd never heard anything again. Not ever.
Chapter Twenty
It was the ringing of his phone that woke Ron. For som
e reason, even in his sleep, he’d been thinking of the remainder of the previous day. He was thinking of it even as he reached for the receiver.
After he and Mary had informed Tatum of their suspicions, even handing over the severed dog foot, the two had figured their jobs were over, as far as this little problem was concerned. Ron had enjoyed seeing Tatum’s expression when he’d unwrapped the towel to reveal the plastic bag with the rotting canine paw inside. Mary had made some comment about eating it there or taking it home.
“Still the joker, Ms. Niccols?” Tatum asked. He had not been amused at her humor.
Ron was a little surprised to see that the security cop and Mary knew one another. “You two have met?”
“My other visits,” Mary had told Ron.
Ron was growing certain of one thing—Mary Niccols would be a frequent visitor in the future, as the village quickly expanded to take up more and more of that prime wilderness. Such was life.
And then he had gone to the Eyesore, to try to see if Ms. Kwitney was there. He was growing more and more disappointed that she had not called him, and the prospect that he was just not her type was beginning to bother him. Maybe she just hadn’t been as enamored of Ron as he had been of her. If so…oh, well, he told himself. But, truly, he hoped that was not the case.
He took the single sandy track leading out to the Eyesore. Finding it had proven to be something of a chore. The road was not marked, of course, and it was such an ephemeral avenue that it was nearly invisible in the wall of pines from which it emerged. He’d had to make two passes in his truck before he’d spotted it. Others must have had the same problem, for as he had turned off the paved road and into the forest; he had spotted a small yellow flag of nylon fabric tied to a pine sapling, close to the ground. That was Holcomb’s idea of a road sign, he supposed.
Ron kept expecting to encounter someone else along the way. An employee headed out for supplies, or maybe one of Holcomb’s people out spotting wildlife. But there had been nothing to encounter except for the ever-present buzz of central Florida’s insect population screaming wildly in the yellow sunlight, and an occasional bird flitting from tree to tree. It had really been too hot for anything but the liveliest of Mother Nature’s progeny. He’d watched clouds of sandy dust billowing up in his wake as he had driven down the road, perhaps moving just a bit faster than he should have. But it was the thought of talking again to Kate that drove him to push the pedal too close to the metal.
At last he had come out of the woods and into the clearing where Holcomb’s compound sprouted out of the ground like a gigantic set of building blocks. Ron had pulled up to the front gate, shut the motor off, and had climbed out. For a minute or two he had stood in the golden light, feeling it press down on the crown of his scalp like a hot, but weightless hand: God caressing the hair of yet another of his children.
Ron had stood there, waiting. He had looked to the gate, expecting to see someone come out of the guardroom, which stared at him with a great, reflective eye of a window. No one came. He expected to see someone moving around, doing work, going from one building to the next, carrying boxes or equipment. He thought that he might see one of the four-wheelers come putt-putting out of the garage, or maybe one of the trucks.
But all was still. All was silent.
After a few minutes, Ron had called out.
“Hello!” Silence. “Anyone here? Anyone home?” Cicadas screamed at one another, yelling out their lust for all to hear. “Mr. Holcomb! Adam Levin?” A pair of Love Bugs floated on a hot current, joined genitally, one to the other, locked in a moment of reproductive passion. “Kate,” he had screamed. “Kate! It’s Ron Riggs!”
Only the bugs replied.
He’d reached into the cab of the truck, honking the horn once, twice, again. No one called. No one came. No one moved.
Ron had stood there for a moment or two more, thinking that he could feel that he was being watched. He knew that a number of people worked in Vance Holcomb’s weird little compound. Ten or fifteen at least, just to keep it going. There were windows looking out at him, gilded filters of golden film making mirrors of them. Ron could see himself reflected in them; he was small and vulnerable as he leaned against his truck. He wondered who might be in there, seeing him, looking at him as if he were a specimen to be studied. Levin, perhaps, laughing at him. Or not laughing.
It was then that a chill had passed down his spine. This was not right. He was not wanted here. Not now, at least. Shivering away the gooseflesh, he had broken his gaze from the buildings and had climbed back into his truck, finding not a small amount of comfort when the engine fired right up. Perhaps he had turned around a little too quickly, had gunned the engine a tad too much, and had left the place in just an embarrassing bit of a hurry.
The way out was longer than he had thought, driving in. He kept expecting to see the paved blacktop of Salutations around each curve, but met only more of that sandy roadway and more pines and more palmettos and more oak. Once, he thought he saw someone, a dark figure behind a tall growth of bear grass, but he couldn’t have been certain. And he hadn’t cared really. All he had wanted to do at that point was get out of there, get back to the road, get on his way back home so that he could wash and dress to meet up with Dodd back in Orlando.
When he had come out of the woods and onto the asphalt, he had left a good hunk of rubber there, heading out.
At home he had checked his mail and his answering machine. Nothing but a few bills in the former, and, at last, a message from Kate on the latter.
“Ron. This is Kate,” the machine said, accentuating her husky voice. Ron smiled. “Since I guess you’re out chasing gators or teaching kids, I’ll just leave a message. We’ll be busy here today, so I won’t have time to get up with you, but maybe this evening. Why don’t you give me a call? I’m going to give you my number, so write it down and call me back later.” He had scrambled through the mild jumble that was his house, and had found a pad and pen and soon had her number jotted down for posterity.
And that was why he had called her shortly before leaving for Dodd’s new temporary abode on International Boulevard. Luck being still with him, she picked up on the first ring. No answering machine.
“Kate. This is Ron Riggs.”
“Hello, Ron. I’m glad you got my message.” She sounded tired. There was a breathless catch in her throat. Her husky voice excited him, though. Yet again he felt himself aroused by her, as he had not been aroused since he’d ended his romantic relationship with Mary.
“You sound pooped,” he told her.
“I am. Hard time today. We’ve been all over Creation.”
“Creation?”
“Well, the back country. I went with Vance and a crew out into the wilderness today. We had some work to do. Some population studies. We were gone most of the day.”
“Well, that explains why I couldn’t get a rise out of any of you today.”
“What?”
“I went down to the Eyesore. To see you. But no one was there.”
“You went down there today?”
“Yes.” He could tell that she sounded annoyed, for some reason. “I figured I might be able to see you. I didn’t have much to do in Salutations today, and we figured our job was over there, anyway. So I had some time to kill.” Ron was nervous, now, and trying to hide it.
“You came down to the compound, though? And no one was there? How do you know no one was in?”
“Well, I thought someone would be at the gate. They weren’t. I called out. Pretty loud. For Adam. For you. Even hollered for Vance Holcomb, which I guess he’s probably not used to.”
“You’d be surprised,” she told him. He could hear a chuckle in her voice, which reassured him.
“And then I honked the horn a time or two. No one came out. I guess they were too busy. That is…if there was anyone there.”
Kate said nothing to that. Neither denying nor confirming. Finally, she spoke. “Why’d you finish up early in Salutati
ons? Catch any big pythons?”
“No. Not at all,” he told her. There was no reason she shouldn’t know what he and Mary had discovered. And maybe if he were frank with her, she’d warm up to him. She was playing a bit too hard to get, and he didn’t really care for too difficult a chase where women were concerned. “Mary Niccols—a woman I work with sometimes—I took her with me to talk to a gentleman who lost a dog, and he showed us something he’d found.”
“What was it?” Her voice sounded tense again.
“Well, it was kind of gruesome, really. But it was his dog’s paw.”
“Its paw?”
“Yes. Just the paw. And part of its leash,” he added.
“Part of its leash?”
“Yeah. The really nasty thing was that the paw, and the leash, had been cut with some kind of tool.”
“A tool? What do you mean? What kind of tool?” She sounded really very interested now, and Ron imagined her sitting on the edge of her chair, leaning into the receiver, hanging on his words.
“Yes. We took a close look, and the cut was too clean and too smooth to have been made by anything other than some kind of blade or clamp. Even the metal links in the leash had virtually no scoring on the chopped ends. Whatever the guy used, it went through bone and metal like cutting rubber with a razor blade.”
“Good grief.”
“Yeah. That’s what we thought. In a way, I was kind of relieved. I don’t like having to have animals trapped and euthanized, even if they do pose some vague threat to people. It was nice that it wasn’t a snake.”
The Flock Page 13