Bite Back 05 - Angel Stakes

by Mark Henwick

  I felt her lips press against my forehead and I slipped backwards into sleep.

  ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

  It’s not a teepee this time. It’s a chateau. A freaking French chateau.

  The rooms are magnificent. Wooden floors. Crimson carpets. Gold drapes. Crystal chandeliers. Oil paintings. Empty.

  Speaks-to-Wolves is here, I know it, but I can’t see her.

  Where’s my great-grandmother? Why are people hiding from me?

  A door on the other side of the room is just closing.

  I follow, running into the next room. It’s exactly the same as the last room.

  Speaks-to-Wolves is standing at a window, and someone has just left the room by another door on the far side.

  Who’s hiding from me?

  I run to the next room, the same room. And someone leaves by another door.

  Speaks-to-Wolves is there, but she’s wearing the face of Cassie, my school friend, who’s a psychiatrist in New York now.

  “Your Joan of Arc complex is getting out of control,” Cassie says. “Just because you’re driven to save the world doesn’t mean you have to do it every day. You need to trust that authority figures aren’t always working against you.” She begins to fade like mist. “Though it might seem that way.”

  The next room. The door closing. I know who’s running away from me. Don’t I?

  This time Speaks-to-Wolves wears Chatima’s face. Chatima, the shaman Adept who gave me the necklace with messages woven into the beads.

  I chose my path. Death and pain.

  “Even a great river may mix with many others. Your choice is not all choices,” Chatima says. “Others choose, too.”

  She turns to smoke.

  Faster. The next room.

  And here, she wears Diana’s face. Diana recovered. Face young. Hair cut short, but black as a midnight raven.

  She cured me, but it’s only complete if I take the last step and move on.

  Redeem myself. Save Fay as a symbol for all the girls I didn’t save.

  But Fay isn’t there to be saved. She’s in it with Forsythe.

  “Is she? Anyway, that doesn’t mean you can’t redeem yourself,” Diana says.

  It’s not all about me. I feel shame when that keeps slipping from my mind. I have to do whatever is necessary to stop Forsythe first. Then I can think about my own needs, about redeeming myself.

  If I can be redeemed.

  If not Fay? I repressed my memories of what happened to her, and yet my guilt at what I didn’t do made me what I am today. I am all things I’ve ever done.

  What if there’s something else I’m repressing?

  No. No. No.

  Another…

  “Amber,” Diana says. “Concentrate. First things first.”

  I’m turning to smoke.

  “Amber.”

  “Amber.”

  Jen was shaking me gently.

  “Bad dreams?” she said quietly.

  “Uugh,” I managed. I rubbed my face. I’d been asleep five hours. That looked like four hours more than Jen. “What’s happening?”

  “Daniels—I mean Spiegler—is driving somewhere. She’s not heading into town. I thought you’d want—”

  “You’re right.” I kissed her and stretched, trying to shake the phantoms from my head.

  Concentrate.

  I looked like I’d slept in my clothes. Well, because I had. What I needed was a bath and a brush and maybe an hour of massage and pampering down at whatever spa Jen could recommend in the city.

  I ran fingers through my hair. Close enough.

  Chapter 54

  The command team was sitting at the dining table. Yelena, Julie and Keith. Laptops and cellphones. Maps of LA marked up with Forsythe’s home and his TV production company’s premises scattered through the northwest of the county. Fay Daniels’ home—Spiegler’s home. A second map showed the scatter of werewolf teams and the areas where they’d passed through without getting any scent.

  Not the same as being sure she wasn’t being held in the area. The packs couldn’t exactly break down doors and search houses.

  “Alex is still out hunting with the teams,” Jen said. “Elizabetta’s back at the conference center.”

  My team wasn’t what the scale of the task needed. I needed a full Ops 4-10 command post and live tactical comms with every team on the ground. Enough teams of werewolves to swamp the city. Data flow on every asset that Forsythe might have.

  And an angel standing over my shoulder.

  “It looks as if Spiegler is heading for Forsythe’s house.” Julie looked up from the map and moved a marker.

  “Who’s tracking her?”

  “Five teams from Long Beach,” Julie said. “Daylight rules. One behind, two flanking and two in reserve. Three motorcycles, two cars. The chaser swaps out with one of the reserves every mile or so. Motorcycles with passengers to handle the comms.”

  I nodded. An Ops 4-10 sort of setup, even if the teams weren’t trained and cellphones weren’t the right equipment. Spiegler might be alert, but she’d have to be well trained to spot a tail like the one Julie was running. Trained and lucky.

  “Who’s on Forsythe?”

  “Billie and Vig are still there, on their Harleys, with a couple of other Belles to handle the comms when needed. Plus three teams: two cars from Redondo; a van from Pasadena. The car teams just swapped out with fresh ones.”

  I grunted. “Harleys kinda stick out.”

  “No problem. Turns out the house at the end of the road belongs to some band that Billie knows. She and Vig have been out of sight the whole time.”

  A break. About time we had one.

  “Any trouble between packs?”

  Julie shook her head.

  Yelena was staring at the map, her eyes hard.

  “Spiegler’s alone. She’s clearly operating of her own free will. No one’s forcing her,” Yelena said.

  “Doesn’t mean she’s not a victim,” Jen argued. “Not proof of free will.”

  The Stockholm Syndrome argument was still going on.

  I tuned it out and looked at the map.

  Julie listened to a comment on her cell and moved Spiegler’s marker another block closer to Forsythe’s house.

  What was happening?

  It might be nothing. A business meeting. A legal briefing.

  But my gut told me otherwise.

  Despite the bluster of lawsuits and official complaints last night, Forsythe had to be rattled.

  His plan, whatever it was, that had involved Tamanny had gone wrong. Something had happened in that club. There were witnesses to her stumbling in distress from the Fashion District all the way down to South Central. I’d turned up, like the ghost of someone he thought he’d buried. He found out I’d talked to Tamanny. The police had invited him in to discuss the abduction of the star of his latest show.

  He might look unconcerned—hell, he’d be thinking he might weather the storm of publicity and come out on top. But just at the moment, he’d be sweating.

  What was he going to do?

  “Anything on the judge?” I said.

  “Stayed at his house,” Keith said. “No sign of movement.”

  I frowned. “None? Positive? What about ways out the back?”

  Keith shook his head. “It’s a cul de sac, so surveillance is more difficult than Forsythe. I’ve got one team from the Heights on each of the roads leading away from his house. We’re running a continuous mixture of guys pretending to be cyclists, dog walkers, joggers, street maintenance, cable repairs, that sort of thing. They’re a hundred percent sure the judge has stayed put.”

  That didn’t feel right.

  Forsythe might have ice on his veins, if he’d been doing this for years. He’d have processes in place. People he knew he could rely on. However rattled he was feeling, he’d be the kind of guy who thought he could regain control. And he’d have plans if he couldn’t.

  Not the judge. He was a bit player. Some
one at the periphery. He’d be feeling more exposed than Forsythe.

  Unless he’d been involved the whole time too. One of the organizers who felt in control.

  Even with that, something felt off.

  Spiegler was about to arrive at Forsythe’s. I’d have to come back to the judge later.

  Jen brought me coffee and toast, kissed my ear.

  “Victor’s on his way and he’s arranging for a couple of helicopters we can use if we need to get around the city in a hurry,” she said. “And I finally managed to get hold of Matt. He’s working online, finding out more about Forsythe.”

  Sweet relief.

  For both of those. Victor and a helicopter would be an ace in the hole, letting us be somewhere people wouldn’t expect us to be. And Matt—Forsythe might have hidden his criminal activity well, but he had no way of controlling every pathway of information on the net. If it was there, Matt was the person to find it.

  Julie put one of the stakeout team on speaker.

  “Just drove past Foxhole,” he said, overdoing the tactical comms codes. “Fox One and Fox Two now loading suitcases into Fox Two’s car.”

  “How many cases?” Julie said.

  “Two, full-size, hard shell. ’Bout three by two.”

  Julie got him to park a block down and look back.

  “They’re both in the car and heading up the street away from us,” he said a few minutes later.

  Keith alerted the other surveillance teams assigned to Forsythe. The surveillance teams joined forces, moving like an invisible cloud around the car carrying Forsythe and Spiegler.

  Two more minutes and we had them heading West on the Santa Monica Freeway.

  “He’s running?” Jen said.

  I chewed a lip for a moment, then shook my head. Gut call. “Evidence,” I said. “Clearing his house.”

  “That’d make sense,” Keith said. “He’s worried Jefferson will get a search warrant. He can’t buy off every judge in LA. Someone will sign.”

  “Two whole suitcases of evidence?” Jen said.

  “We don’t know what’s in them.”

  “I’m sorry, Boss,” Yelena said. “I have to say this. A body can be made to fit into a suitcase.”

  All eyes on me.

  Silence until Jen, looking ill, raised her eyes from her laptop. “Matt says he can’t find any airline ticket purchases for Forsythe or Spiegler.”

  “He could be heading out to the Santa Monica Mountains looking for somewhere to throw the suitcases,” Keith said.

  “Stop him?” Julie was holding her cell, ready to make the call.

  My decision.

  “No,” I said. “He’s too smart. He wouldn’t have had her at his house, and suitcases can be traced. He’s got to suspect he’s being watched, even if he doesn’t know who it is.” I paused. “It might even be a trap to flush us out.”

  A clever move. If we stopped him and it turned out the cases were empty, he’d have enough ammunition to stop the entire police investigation and probably get us arrested.

  But if the cases weren’t empty?

  I leaned on the table and studied the map.

  Julie edged the marker indicating Forsythe and Spiegler further down Santa Monica Boulevard. I traced where it ran, into Santa Monica itself, down on the coast. North to the parks and mountains. South to the marina. And…

  “Jen, get Matt to check out whether Forsythe has a private aircraft, maybe in a hangar at Santa Monica airport, or a yacht at the Marina Del Rey.”

  No airline tickets, Matt had said, but Forsythe didn’t need airlines if he had his own plane.

  A minute later, Spiegler turned off the freeway to take Olympic Boulevard.

  Could mean either the marina or the airport.

  “Matt says Forsythe has a yacht,” Jen reported. “And Spiegler runs a company that owns a business jet.”

  A jet.

  Is he running?

  A film of sweat cooled on my forehead.

  Double bluff?

  Getting out right under our noses because we were too afraid to act until it was too late?

  I hedged. “Ask Billie if she can get to the airport ahead of them and take photos of them getting on the plane with those cases. If that’s where they’re going.”

  Julie relayed.

  “And ask Matt what kind of aircraft. What capability.”

  “Cessna Citation Mustang,” Jen read off her screen. “Four passengers. Range of 1200 miles, flies about 400 mph.”

  Shit. 1200 miles from LA! Dallas. Kansas City. Seattle. More than half of the USA in three hours. Most of the way to Mexico City.

  Is he running?

  “Ask Matt if he can hack the database for flight plans and tell us where they’re going.”

  Stop them now?

  Call Reed?

  I didn’t even know if Reed had told Forsythe to remain available for the investigation. And calling him now, after he’d told me to keep out of it, would only cause more problems. We needed some slam-dunk evidence.

  “Matt says nothing on the international flight plans,” Jen said, and minute later: “Nothing on domestic flight plans either.”

  “You don’t need to file flight plans for domestic flights,” Yelena said.

  Jen clicked on another message from Matt. “Spiegler’s company charters the jet out to business people, mainly US travel. They provide flight crews, and he can’t find any evidence that Forsythe or Spiegler is qualified to fly it, so there’s probably a pilot on board if that’s where they’re going.”

  “Good info,” I said.

  If they were flying somewhere, there would be another witness. And if we were right on it, Reed could arrange to have the plane met wherever it landed in the time it took to get there.

  “Turned onto Ocean Park,” Julie said. “Looks like the airport all right. Billie’s inside and she says any speeding tickets are coming to you.”

  I smiled, even as I wondered whether Tamanny might be on the plane already. Not unless the pilot was part of it. In a small four-seat jet, the pilot would be able to see every seat. Just too risky for Forsythe. This still felt like hiding evidence to me.

  And if he’d taken the chance and had gotten Tamanny on board, there were more layers of risk. The plane would be kept in a hangar in the middle of the airport; it would be difficult to get someone on board without anyone noticing. Security issues would spiral out of control.

  Not his style.

  No. Gut decision time. Tamanny wasn’t on board. Forsythe wasn’t running. That left him removing two suitcases of evidence to take them somewhere in the west of the US.

  He didn’t need to file a flight plan, but we’d know where he landed. The jet wasn’t the kind you could put down on a farm strip. It needed asphalt, and a lot of it. Any airport would log his arrival.

  What’s in those cases?

  If we knew where he was going, there was a chance that we could have someone ready to tail him when he landed. At least we’d know where the suitcases went. Then maybe…

  “Loading,” Julie said. “Both of them have gone inside.”

  “What—”

  Keith held up his hand. He’d taken over talking to Billie. “Billie’s stolen a handheld from a loader truck. What’s the radio frequency for the plane to talk to the tower?”

  Yelena rattled something on a keyboard. “One two zero decimal one zero.”

  “Forsythe’s getting back out,” Julie said. “Doors closing.”

  I let out a long-held breath.

  Yelena took over the cell that Billie was calling on and started to brief her, switching her to speaker so we could all follow.

  We could hear Billie’s voice over a background of hissing and cracking. “Why can’t they speak frigging English?” she complained.

  “Once he’s airborne, the pilot will switch to calling himself Cessna Zero Charlie Mike, okay?” Yelena said. “And he’ll probably refer to his destination using four phonetic letters starting with Kilo.”
<
br />   “Yeah, yeah, got it,” Billie said. “Hold on. He’s talking.” There was more buzzing background.

  “Jesus Christ! Listening to this is making my head hurt. Okay, he said something about overhead Kilo Bravo Uniform Romeo and en route Kilo Alpha Papa Alpha.”

  “He’s saying he’ll pass over Burbank, and he’s heading for Centennial at Denver,” Yelena translated.

  She and I looked at each other. We had one of those silent moments of complete understanding and agreement. Wherever the pilot had said, Spiegler wasn’t heading for Forsythe’s house in Denver. It was too obvious, too open, too unsecure. If the evidence in those suitcases was critical enough it needed to be out of LA, no way was she trying to hide it in his Denver house.

  “She’s not going to the house he owns in Denver,” I said. “So where?”

  Jen got Matt looking for other secure places that Forsythe might have access to in Denver.

  I looked at the maps. They were no good; they stopped at the boundaries of LA county.

  “If he’s told traffic control he’s heading for Centennial, is that like a flight plan?” I asked Yelena. “He’s expected there?”

  She shook her head. “It’s just to give them a vector for him to leave their area.”

  She got Jen to pass over the data that Matt had downloaded on the past operations of Spiegler’s jet.

  I grabbed Keith’s laptop and looked at a map of the western US.

  Yelena was frowning and copying numbers into a spreadsheet. “Yeah. These fuel costs aren’t right. No way this plane flies to Denver when Forsythe’s on board. Denver’s 900 miles from LA. He’d have to refuel there.”

  “He’s never flown to Denver?”

  “No, he flies to Centennial once or twice a year according to this data. The rest of the time he goes somewhere else, doesn’t record where, and comes back with…uh…say, half a tank.”

  I looked at the map.

  Something tugged at the corner of my memory. Forsythe’s house in Denver. The study.

  “Bellagio,” I said.

  Everyone looked at me.

  “It’s less than 300 miles to Vegas. Say 600 round trip. Half a tank. Vegas is pretty much directly on the way, so any LA radar pattern would show him heading the right way. Would that fit the fuel patterns you can see?”