Dark Fissures

by Coyle, Matt;

  The backyard was dark. Grass under our feet, we crept along the side of the house until we hit a wooden deck. A wood-framed glass door connected the deck to the house. Diffused light from deep in the house bled through the glass.

  Rollins stopped at the door, looked through the glass, then tried the knob. Locked. He stepped back, took a shooters stance, and scanned the yard. I knelt in front of the door and looked inside. The kitchen, dark except for light coming from another room. I took out my lock pick set and went to work. A few tweaks with the rack and tension bar and I had the door open in less than a minute. No alarm went off. At least not one we could hear. No noise at all. No conversation. No TV. Not even the hum of a refrigerator.

  I stepped back and Rollins advanced through the door. He swept the Glock along the left side of the room. I pushed in behind him and traced the Mossberg along the right. Kitchen, clear. Living room, clear. We slowly, silently, worked our way down the hall and checked the rest of the house. All clear.

  Our gambit hadn’t worked. The adrenaline slowly backed off from life or death down to full ready. We searched the house, looking for some residue of Brianne or a clue to where she and her captors were. Nothing. Except in the quiet, still air, I felt more than smelled the scent of Brianne. A gossamer trace or just my imagination, but I knew she’d been in the house tonight. I had to get to her before the killers ended her life or all I’d have left of her was the memory of a scent I couldn’t smell.

  We exited the house the way we entered and retreated to our cars. I drove down the street a half dozen houses in the opposite direction I thought Bates would exit the main drag and parked. Rollins parked his rented SUV opposite me on the other side of the street. I spied the street and waited until it was time to make the call.

  A couple cars pulled into driveways and homeowners entered their houses. No sign of Bates and the other killer, McCafferty.

  I stared at my phone from nine fifty-five until ten o’clock. The longest five minutes of my life. I tapped Brianne’s number at the same time a one and three zeros appeared on the screen.

  The phone rang four times. No answer. My mouth sand-papered dry by the fifth ring.

  The call connected, but no one spoke.

  “Let me talk to Brianne.” I tried to stay calm, but my voice, tight in my throat, betrayed me.

  “Right on time. You’re being a good little soldier, Rick.” The same devil voice.

  “Put Brianne on right now or I go to the police.”

  “We both know you’re not going to the police, Rick. Not with the life-changing wealth you stumbled across.”

  Silence. Finally, “Rick. Thank God!” Brittle.

  “Stay strong, Brianne. I’m coming for you.”

  “They’re going to—”

  “How about a steak, Rick?” The devil.

  “Let’s get this over with. I give you what you want, you give me Brianne. That’s the deal.”

  “I decide what the deal is.” Silence to let his command of the situation sink in. “Back to your old haunts. The phone in Muldoon’s Steak House is going to ring at exactly ten thirty. Anybody but you answers, she dies.”

  Click.

  I peeled out down Bates’s street, slammed a left, and sped up toward Orange Avenue. Muldoon’s was about twenty miles away up in La Jolla. Twenty-seven minutes to go. Traffic should be limited this time of night. I could make it in time. If nothing got in my way.

  My phone rang. Rollins. I picked up.

  “They’re running me. I have to make it to Muldoon’s Steak House at 1250 Prospect Street in La Jolla by ten thirty. I used to work there. They have music in the bar tonight. There will be too many people to make an exchange there.” I made a right onto Orange Avenue. “They’re going to call the restaurant, and I have to answer. They think I found some money or something valuable and they’re expecting me to bring it.”

  “Maybe they had something stashed at the house in Pine Valley and McCafferty fled without it.”

  “Or maybe Townsend brought something up to the house. Brianne followed him from his office to his car in the parking garage. She said he had two briefcases and he put one in the trunk and the other in the front seat with him.”

  “That must be it. They think you took whatever was in the other briefcase.”

  “Whatever it was in exchange for Brianne.”

  “Maybe, but don’t rule out them killing you on sight. They may be luring you to a familiar place so you feel safe and shoot you as soon as you get out of your car.”

  “What about whatever was in the briefcase?”

  “They grab it while you bleed out. Don’t get out of the car until I can give you cover.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I think they’re running me to take the time to get set up at the real drop location.” I turned right onto Fourth Street and headed toward the massive bent horseshoe bridge that connected Coronado to San Diego. “Maybe there’s a lookout in La Jolla to see if I bring the cops or anyone else.”

  “That would mean there’s a third man. They will need at least two people at the drop. One high up with a sniper rifle, one on the ground to make the fake exchange.”

  I thought about the echoed door slam at the auto body shop and the quick getaway from the hospital parking garage. A third man? Had he always been there outside the periphery? Within reach, but out of sight?

  “Who could the third person be? Someone from your old unit?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Bates and Dirt were as tight as anyone in the unit. I don’t see them letting anyone else in on the scam. Must be someone else. Someone on the money end who came in later.”

  The Coronado Bridge rose up out of the water, banking softly to the left as it climbed to its two-hundred-foot summit. The water dark and dangerous below. The skyline lit up and welcoming off to the left. The twisting span of steel and cement hovering in between.

  The gateway to paradise. And all the shadows hidden beneath.

  Rollins hung in my rearview mirror as I exited the bridge onto Interstate 5 North. I checked the clock on the dashboard:10:11. Nineteen minutes. Doable. I pushed the Mustang up to seventy-five and scanned the road for cops. A pull-over now could get Brianne killed. A car chase speeding into La Jolla could do the same to me. Traffic was light. I’d make it with a couple minutes to spare.

  Then I saw the brake lights on the smattering of cars up ahead and beyond them a California Highway Patrol car slowly swerving across all lanes, light bar lit up. Shit! He was slowing traffic for some obstruction ahead. Could be a quick shutdown of a couple lanes with traffic still moving. Could be a complete shut down for a jackknifed big rig. I couldn’t gamble on Brianne’s life.

  I swerved around the slowing cars out to the far left lane and then back hard all the way to the right lane before I caught up to the CHP. I flew onto the Grand/Garnet exit and just held four wheels on the ground under the bridge on-ramp. A red light stopped me at the busy Balboa and Mission Bay Drive intersection. Rollins pulled up behind me. Seconds ticked by. A minute.

  Green.

  I fishtailed into the left-hand turn and had to make a decision as I approached the next light. Continue on Balboa and then onto Mission Boulevard and its stoplights or over the mountain with fewer lights but greater distance? I slid through the right turn onto Soledad Mountain Road and sped up the hill. Rollins mirrored me in the rearview. Stoplight ahead. Good visibility and no traffic. I slammed the gas instead of the brakes. I checked the time at the top of the hill next to the French American school across from the Presbyterian church.

  Six minutes left.

  Red light at La Jolla Scenic. I stopped, scanned traffic, then slammed the gas and ran the red onto the Nautilus extension long downhill S turn. Race-carred into the opposite lane around a dawdling SUV. Blew through the light at West Muirlands and made it to Fay Street and the high school with three minutes to go. I gunned a straight line to Prospect.

  Genter cross street. Mercedes. Brakes. I s
napped the wheel to the left and the world spun around me. Smoke peeled up from my tires and burnt rubber stink filled the car. My car stopped perpendicular to the road. A car horn stuck on anger blared through the night. I hit the gas and whipped the steering wheel left. More rubber. A fisted middle finger from the Mercedes in my rearview mirror disappeared behind Rollins in the SUV.

  Green through Pearl. One minute. Hard right onto Prospect. Cars stopped three ways at the T intersection of Prospect and Girard. I jumped on the horn and swerved around a Beemer in the intersection.

  10:30 p.m.

  Muldoon’s three hundred yards up on the left. Gas. I whipped a left turn in front of a braking Tesla into the valet parking spot chasing a red-coated valet onto the sidewalk. If there was a sniper out there, now was his chance. I jumped out of the car and raced across the sidewalk. No gunshots, loud or silenced. No projectiles into my body.

  “What’s your problem, asshole?” the valet shouted at me as I ran by.

  I leapt over the stairs down eight feet onto the patio, tumbled onto the ground, tucked and rolled back up to my feet and through the door into the restaurant. A cocktail waitress held the phone to her ear at the hostess stand. I charged her and snatched the phone from her hand.

  “Hello? Hello? It’s Rick.”

  The waitress gaped at me with wild, frightened eyes that probably matched my own. She rushed into the bar.

  The phone went dead. I hung it back up, whipped out my cell, and hit Brianne’s number.

  Ring. Another. More until voicemail stopped them.

  “That was an employee who answered Muldoon’s phone. I just got here. Traffic. Call back. Please!” I ended the call. And waited.

  “Rick? What’s going on?” A minute later, Pat the bartender marched toward me from the bar. “You scared the crap out of Jessica.”

  The restaurant phone rang. I grabbed it off the hook. “Hello?”

  “What the hell are you doing?” Pat reached for the phone.

  I pushed his arm away and held up a finger.

  “You like to make things interesting, don’t you, Rick?”

  “I got here as soon as I could. Traffic.”

  “Coronado Beach. Lifeguard hut 3C in front of Hotel Del. Get there by eleven or she dies.”

  “I need more ti—”

  Click.

  I dashed out of Muldoon’s with Pat’s voice trailing after me. Three leaps up the twelve-step staircase and I was on the sidewalk. I ran to my car and spotted Rollins double-parked across the street with his window rolled down.

  I shouted, “Back to Coronado,” and jumped into my car. I keyed the ignition and saw Rollins peel away through my rearview mirror. Then a large SUV blocked the view. I waited for it to move past. It didn’t. I honked the horn. The SUV didn’t move. I leapt out of the car and bounded to the SUV. The passenger side window rolled down and the valet who called me an asshole smiled at me from behind the wheel.

  “Move this fucking thing now!”

  “You almost killed me and parked illegally in the valet spot. The cops are on the way.”

  I flung open my coat so the kid could see the handle of my Smith & Wesson in my shoulder holster. “Move the fucking car!”

  The SUV sped out of the way. I jumped back into my car, slammed it in reverse, and whipped a turn, out of the parking space, almost hitting an Escalade on the other side of the street. I caught red at the light onto Torrey Pines Road. 10:36 p.m. Twenty-four minutes left.

  Green. I burned down the four-laner and out the back door of La Jolla onto I-5 South.

  10:38 p.m.

  My phone rang a couple minutes later. Rollins.

  “Where are you? I never saw you get onto the freeway.”

  “I’ll catch up.” I told him the when and where for the exchange.

  “McCafferty’s going to be somewhere up high. He’s the better shot.”

  “Hotel Del Coronado has a tall turret on top of the Grand Ballroom on the left side that overlooks the beach.”

  “I went there a couple times when I was stationed at The Center in Coronado. I remember the turret. It has a kind of bird’s nest look out on top, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s where McCafferty will be. He’ll have a view of the street to see if the police are coming and he’ll have a view of you on the beach through his crosshairs. Wait until I take him out before you walk onto the beach. I’ll back you up, and we’ll get that son of a bitch Bates.”

  “We don’t have time. I’ll be lucky to make the beach in time as it is. They won’t try to kill me until after the exchange.”

  “You’re taking too big a chance.”

  “I can’t risk being late.” I checked the clock as I sped down I-5 past Mission Bay. 10:41 p.m. I pushed it up to eighty miles per hour. “They’ll kill Brianne.”

  “They’re going to kill her anyway if she isn’t already dead. And then they’ll kill you, too.”

  “This is the only shot we’ve got. If we call the police, they’ll kill Brianne when the cops show.”

  “I don’t want the police. I’ll take care of this myself. You can walk now. And you probably should.”

  “I can’t.”

  “I don’t get you, Cahill. You’re not too smart, but you don’t seem stupid. Why are you risking your life for someone you just met? You couldn’t have fallen in love that fast.”

  “She’s my responsibility.” I scanned the horizon and mirrors for cops. Clear. “Just like she’s yours.”

  “I’m keeping a promise to a friend. This is about Jacks, not Brianne.”

  “Let’s not fail either one of them.”

  We put together a plan for Coronado and ended the call. I put my phone’s ringer on vibrate and prayed I’d get a vibration before I did a bullet in my head.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  I BLEW PAST the Interstate 8 merge. 10:43 p.m. Old Town exit flew by. Then Washington Street and a view of the airport and the San Diego skyline lit up beyond. Civic Center/Front Street exit then the slight drop and the rolling right-hand turn down to the 75 connection to the Coronado Bridge.

  10:49 p.m.

  The speed limit for the bridge was fifty. I hit it at seventy-five and slid toward the concrete divider on the climbing right-hand turn. I pulled off the gas, death-gripped the wheel, and rode it out inches from the wall. Sweat boiled out of me. My heart shotgunned in my chest. The Mustang held the road, but when I straightened out, I had to brake hard to keep from rear-ending a Toyota Prius out sightseeing. I swerved behind an Audi doing the speed limit.

  10:50 p.m.

  I rode the Audi’s bumper until it cleared the Prius and swerved into the other lane and pushed it up to seventy-five. Both the Audi and the Toyota stood on their horns. They disappeared in my rearview mirror as I crested the summit and started the rolling right-hand turn down onto the island.

  10:51 p.m.

  Adrenaline pumped sweat and thumped my heart. I wouldn’t make it on time. I pushed through the sharp S on 4th Street and gunned past a couple cars to catch a green light onto Orange Avenue.

  10:53 p.m.

  Orange Avenue hockey-sticked to Hotel Del, but stubborn lights always halted traffic. Only a few cars on the road tonight, but I caught red at the first light. A police cruiser sat diagonally to me going the other way. I waited. My stomach vacuumed in on me turning my guts into a black hole.

  Green. I eased away from the light and watched the cop do the same in my rearview mirror. Red on light number two.

  10:55 p.m.

  No cross traffic. The cop disappeared from my view. I punched it through the light and caught green on the last. Coronado Beach didn’t have a parking lot. You had to park on the streets around the hotel and walk a quarter of a mile or so to reach the beach.

  I slammed into an open spot about fifty yards from the entrance into the hotel grounds. 10:58 p.m. I flew out of the car, popped the trunk, grabbed my duffel bag, and sprinted toward the hotel. A handful of couples strolled the grou
nds. The hotel turret, lit from below, looked like the top of a giant merry-go-round. The bird’s nest on top. I glanced up as I sped below it down the hotel’s walkway. No sign of a shooter. Maybe Rollins was wrong about where the sniper was hiding.

  I cleared the hotel grounds and hit the beach. The rain had firmed the top layer of sand, but the sand underneath gave way with each stride. The night swallowed up more and more residual light from the hotel grounds with each stride deeper into the beach. Twenty yards in, the scythe half-moon and pinhole stars provided the only light.

  Coronado Beach has a massive swath of sand before you hit the ocean. I could hear a gentle shore break but couldn’t yet see the water. Or lifeguard hut C3. Or another human. I was an easy target for a sniper with an infrared scope. I hoped Rollins was back there somewhere with a bead on the man who had a bead on me.

  Fifty yards. I saw shore break whitewater dance atop slick sand. Then a hulking shadow to my right. Another five strides, the shadow turned into a self-composed lifeguard stand. I pulled out my cell phone, tapped the flashlight app, and pointed it at the structure. A large “3C” was painted in black on the back of the powder blue stand.

  I swung my head around. No Brianne. No Bates. No one.

  I dropped the duffel bag and hunched over, hands on my hips. The adrenaline that had powered me from my car, past the hotel, and through the sand drained out of me. I gasped for breath and sweat rolled down my face. The night squeezed in on me. I pulled out my phone and checked the time.

  11:01 p.m.

  Late, but not by much. Bates couldn’t have been waiting here a minute ago and then disappeared off the beach. Maybe this was just the second leg in a multi-leg runaround. Tire me out so I couldn’t think or act quickly when my life depended on it. I punched Brianne’s number on my phone. Straight to voicemail.

  “You’re late.”

  I whipped around, saw a shadow against the night twenty feet away. It stood next to a much larger mounded shadow. A sand dune.

  “Where’s Brianne?” My words, raw energy.

  “You bring what I wanted?” Kyle Bates, still just a shadow, took a step toward me. Former Navy SEAL, present-day murderer. His arm outstretched with something in it pointed at me. Long and cylindrical. A pistol with a silencer attached to the barrel.