Level 26

by Anthony E. Zuiker

  “Wait…what?” Riggins asked. “Shit. Belated congrats, Dad. Though I should be insulted you didn’t share this bit of news. How many months?”

  “Baby’s due in a few weeks,” Dark said, annoyed at himself for blurting that out. “Point is, someone’s screwing around with my life. And I swore two years ago that it would never happen again. I was out this morning, and I’m still out now.”

  Riggins tapped another Lucky Strike out of the pack. “You probably think I’m pissed.”

  Dark shrugged.

  Riggins turned and put his hand on Dark’s shoulder. “Well, I’m not. Jealous, actually. You’ve got your life waiting for you back in that pretty little house in Malibu. And a baby…well, that changes everything. I guess what I’m saying is—I understand. There’s nothing I wouldn’t give to be in your shoes right now.”

  There was an awkward moment, and then Riggins put out his hand.

  Dark frowned, then took Riggins’s hand and shook it quickly. As he held it, Riggins leaned in.

  “There’s just one more thing. I don’t want to give these assholes the satisfaction just yet. So humor a dead man and walk with me for a while, okay?”

  From the inside of their van, Nellis and McGuire watched on a small video monitor as their subjects shook hands, and then headed up the pier.

  “Dark’s going on the move with Riggins,” said Nellis into a tiny mouthpiece. “Still no confirmation.”

  Their van was equipped with HD cameras and omnidirectional mikes. But the pickup distance was limited; as Riggins and Dark moved, Nellis and McGuire could pick up only snatches of the conversation. They’d have to move in closer, yet stay out of sight.

  Sooner or later they would know Dark’s intentions. A yes would spare Riggins’s life. A no would mean a busy night for them. Syringes. Knives. Acid baths. And sponges.

  Plenty of sponges.

  And with the endless stalling from Riggins, well…Nellis had to admit, if only to relieve the boredom, that he was starting to look forward to that part.

  chapter 26

  Somewhere in America / Outside

  Screeeeeeeeeeeee…

  The sharp blade dug a trench nearly a millimeter thick into the double-paned glass. It made a circle, and then the circle was removed with a suction cup.

  A white face appeared in the hole. Pushed its nostrils into the empty space. Sniffed. Looked to the right, then the left.

  Satisfied, a white-gloved hand reached in, grasped the lock.

  Flipped it.

  Click.

  Now it was easy. The glass door slid open noiselessly.

  Sqweegel was in.

  He moved through the house slowly. Quietly. The carpet was soft and expensive, with excellent padding beneath. The floorboards were tight. He knew he wouldn’t have any problems, since this house was built just a few years ago. Still, he also knew how to shift his weight and counteract any noise. He knew how to be patient and still, and how to sink into his next step.

  He also knew how to avoid the dogs.

  He crept by them like a dust mote, lazily floating through the air. He was slow, unworthy of note.

  He paused at the bottom of the stairs. Nearby was a credenza on top of which rested a beautiful pewter bowl brimming to the top with metal toy cars. An odd thing to collect among such an otherwise tastefully appointed house. Sqweegel had wondered about it when he first saw it months ago. He’d been tempted then—tempted now, in fact—to take one and add it to his treasure box.

  There were also ballet shoes on a small wooden shelf on the wall. Oh, what delicate yet strong feet had once slipped into them, danced with them. He coveted them, as well.

  But such thefts would be too much of a tell. Too many voices confusing the message. He was speaking to Dark, and he didn’t want the message garbled.

  He wanted his hunter to hear him loud and clear.

  The message would be left upstairs, on the second floor of the house.

  Sqweegel slithered up the stairs, joints and bones like the pistons and gears of a rubber locomotive. He traveled slowly. Languidly. Deliberately. There was no particular cadence to his movements. Just a long, slithering ooze up to the second floor.

  His body crawled over the top step, and then he began to move down the hallway on his hands and feet, spine slowly undulating up and down as if it were made of hard rubber. Sqweegel’s movements couldn’t be described as even remotely human. No person would think to move himself in such a way.

  No one had ever captured him on film. No one except Sqweegel, of course, in the early years when he would tape himself repeatedly and learn from his own mistakes on playback.

  But if you were to watch the movement on film, you would last maybe a minute before you reached for the FAST-FORWARD button. Mostly because nothing would appear to be happening.

  Then you would realize he had moved ten feet without your noticing.

  After a small eternity, Sqweegel was outside the door of the master bedroom. The décor suited his needs perfectly. His thin, bony body was camouflaged by the white walls. There was complete silence except for the gentle breathing coming from the bed.

  Where she was sleeping.

  To follow the intruder, log into LEVEL26.com and enter the code: sqweegel

  chapter 27

  Malibu, California

  Wednesday / 6:30 A.M.

  First thing in the morning is when the world looks the most unreal—bathed in those first blasts of light breaking over the horizon. Darkness has been banished. Everything’s going to be all right again.

  Dark was exhausted. He’d spent the early-morning hours wandering the streets of Santa Monica talking to Riggins until five A.M., when they finally happened upon a brightly lit diner. They chatted over plates of fried potatoes, runny eggs, toast, and cups of coffee. Riggins did, anyway. Dark abstained.

  Riggins shared some Special Circs gossip—or whatever passed for gossip in an organization whose members had no real lives. This, of course, didn’t last long; there were hardly any agents still around from Dark’s era. In fact, dozens of careers had begun and flamed out in the two years he’d been gone.

  So Riggins turned the conversation to the comings and goings of his kids. Dark pretended to care.

  But to Dark’s surprise, Riggins never brought up the Sqweegel case again. No baby, no president, no Level 26…nothing.

  Dark nodded, sipped his own coffee. The same cup of too-strong brew he’d sat down with hours before. It was now cold and bitter. Kept his brain fed with just enough caffeine to keep him awake.

  When the first rays of the sun had turned the skies a deep pink, Dark knew it was okay to say good-bye. He’d given Riggins a few hours; now it was time to return to Sibby. To ease back into the calm pattern that was his new life.

  And now he would lock the Yukon and walk to his front door. The dogs would smother him with thunderous affection and doggie saliva. And Sibby would be waiting for him. He’d touch her milky white, soft skin. Lean down and kiss the tender spot beneath her chin…

  Leaning down…

  Wait.

  Dark would have missed it if he hadn’t been leaning down, staring at the pavement beneath his feet.

  The broken watch, just a few inches from the curb.

  It was a cheap Timex, silver coated. Face smashed. Dark took a pen out of his pocket and used it to lift the watch from the ground. The face had been crushed at 3:14 A.M.

  Dark looked up and down his block. Birds chirped. Sprinklers spewed. Behind it all, you could hear the peaceful blasts of ocean waves against the shore.

  Nothing out of the ordinary.

  There was a leather bag holding the Yukon’s instruction manual in the glove box. Dark tossed the manual and carefully transferred the broken pieces of the watch into the bag, then zipped it.

  Dark keyed their front door—insert, twist, open. The second he stepped inside his dogs started barking. He tried to hush them as he moved toward the staircase.

  “Sibby?”<
br />
  No answer.

  Dark’s pulse began to bang in his neck. He ran up the stairs, hopping two at a time, hands on the walls.

  “Sibby!”

  He swung open the door to the master bedroom only to find her perfectly fine. Groggy, but alive.

  She blinked, ran her fingers through her hair, then sat up in bed fast.

  “Honey? Is everything okay? What’s wrong?”

  Dark couldn’t answer her. What was wrong, exactly? The fact that he found a broken watch in front of their home? It didn’t even make sense to him. Nothing, technically, was wrong.

  But he couldn’t stop the tremor that started in his gut and sent aftershocks throughout his entire nervous system. Dark closed his right fist so tight, his fingernails dug into his palm. He needed the pain to ground the live wires under his skin.

  He hadn’t felt this kind of panic, this kind of dread since…

  No.

  It wasn’t happening again.

  Or was it?

  Wasn’t that what you told yourself the last time, Dark? That you were being silly, there was no reason to be afraid, your foster family was okay, perfectly fine, because in the real world, nothing bad happened to families….

  Mom. Dad. Grandma. Evan. Callie. Emma.

  Sibby supported herself—and her protruding belly—with tired, rubbery arms. Clearly, she had been in a deep, dead sleep.

  “Steve! Please tell me what the fuck is going on!”

  Dark, though, was busy opening a drawer, pushing aside folded sweaters, and wrapping his hand around a Glock nine-millimeter. He popped in a clip.

  “Stay here,” he said.

  chapter 28

  Dark checked the closets first—the two downstairs. He pushed aside jackets, stomped the carpeted floor, tapped the closet ceilings with the Glock, listening for any kind of hollow sounds that would indicate a secret compartment or burrowing space. Dark was halfway across the living room when he had a second thought, then returned to the closets. On his hands and knees, he ripped up the carpet to check the floor beneath—there could be a false door or hinge there. But no. Nothing.

  He ran his fingers along the walls, especially in the corners. A tiny fissure could reveal a door…or it would just be a crack in the drywall.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Dark saw curtains flutter—over by the back patio doors. He made his way across the room cautiously, gun in a two-handed grip. He watched the curtains like they were the torso of a fallen beast and he was waiting for the slightest indication of a breath.

  Dark pushed the Glock between the two curtain panels, then slowly pulled to the right and…

  Nothing.

  Their home wasn’t large by Malibu standards, but it still took Dark a good thirty minutes to feel like he’d given it a thorough search. No room, cabinet, closet, shelf, vent, plumbing recess, or gutter was left unchecked.

  Still, he knew he could be overlooking something obvious. Something that Sqweegel would spot in an instant—and exploit.

  He also looked for anything—like the broken watch—that was out of place. Left there either on purpose, or not.

  There was something off. He could feel it. Some little detail he’d seen a thousand times in their home that was now askew. But if there was something, Dark had a hard time pinpointing it.

  He was exhausted beyond words now. The shock of Riggins, the sex, the bad diner coffee, the watch…it all blurred in his mind. He wondered, idly, if maybe this was just a bad dream, and soon he’d roll over and smell the pungent perfume of Sibby’s shampoo and know everything was okay.

  Dark slid the weapon in the back of his jeans, then leaned against their bedroom wall.

  Sibby was sitting in the middle of the bedspread—legs crossed, wrists on her knees. As if a peaceful yoga position could help her deal with the insanity that had broken out in her home.

  “Sweetheart,” she said calmly, “I want you to know how much you’re scaring the living shit out of me right now.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said after a while.

  “What’s going on?”

  Dark looked at her a long moment, as if to remind himself that this was Sibby, not his foster mom. He hadn’t traveled back in time. He wasn’t in the middle of a gruesome replay. This was here. This was now.

  He went to his dresser and picked up the leather bag he’d carried into the house. After unzipping it, he handed it to Sibby.

  “I found this in the driveway. It’s not mine.”

  Sibby looked inside the bag.

  “Whose is it?”

  “I don’t know. Could be that someone just dropped it. But sometimes, people use them to tell when a target leaves his house.”

  “Target?” Sibby asked. “Are you saying someone’s tracking you?”

  “Not someone serious. It’s an old trick. Almost a joke.”

  Sibby thought about this. “And whoever left it didn’t pick it up.”

  “Exactly,” he said. “It’s someone playing a joke. Or trying to distract me.”

  Dark looked at her. But not with warmth in his eyes. Now he regarded her clinically, looking her over head to toe. Examining her skin for unusual marks without trying to alarm her.

  “What?” Sibby asked, looking suddenly uncomfortable.

  “You didn’t hear anything while I was gone?”

  “If anyone would have come within ten feet of the house, Max and Henry would’ve woken me up.”

  “Right,” Dark said, then walked to the bedroom window.

  “Besides—who would be targeting you?”

  Who, indeed.

  Riggins had mentioned Sqweegel’s name not twenty-four hours ago, and already Dark was seeing him in every shadowy corner.

  Maybe the broken watch outside could be explained away by Riggins’s two babysitters. Maybe they were seriously old-school. Maybe their budgets had been slashed, too, and all they could afford were a bag of cheap Timex watches to track America’s most dangerous enemies.

  Right.

  No, it was someone sending him a message.

  But who?

  And what was he trying to say?

  chapter 29

  To be perfectly honest, Sibby did feel a little strange.

  Lightheaded, like she had skipped a meal last night. And her body was stiff in places it hadn’t been the day before. Her joints were sore. Mouth dry.

  But she wasn’t about to tell Steve that. Not with him prowling around their home with a broken watch and a loaded gun.

  No wonder she hadn’t told him about her Personal Jesus. If a broken watch on the street could set him off, imagine what would happen if she told him she had a cell-phone stalker.

  Besides, her stiffness was probably just another surprise from the pregnancy, which had already wreaked havoc on her body over the past eight months. Friends told her the worst was yet to come, as her body would physically transform to deliver the child. Her joints would be flooded with a chemical relaxant that would cause her hip bones to widen, like she was a child’s Transformer toy or something.

  Maybe that’s what was happening now. Her hips felt like someone had been pulling on them.

  This was no reason to worry Steve. He was already panicked enough for the both of them, even though he did his best to hide it.

  He was sitting on the edge of the bed now, close to her but not facing her.

  She fought the urge to cry. Her emotions had been a volatile cocktail her entire pregnancy, and the closer she drew to the nine-month mark, the worse it got. Overwhelmed with sadness one minute. Furious the next.

  Sibby tried to push it away. She said, “I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”

  “I’ve put a lot of people away,” Steve said calmly. “People who might want to pay me a visit.”

  “Is there someone specific, Steve? Someone you think is coming after you now?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “Is that why you were out with your old boss last night?”

  Still noth
ing.

  Max and Henry were both sitting at attention. Panting. Waiting for their walk on the beach. They didn’t understand why they weren’t going for their walk. Wasn’t it time for their walk?

  Sibby had oceans of patience when it came to Steve; she had to. He was slow, methodical, guarded, secretive. Yes, it could be maddening.

  But it was also what attracted her to him.

  Steve was the quintessential man of stone, and Sibby was always amazed when she was able to break through the hard exterior and feel the little bursts of warmth locked inside.

  The little fragments of his past that he’d shared with her throughout their relationship—he was an ex-Fed, his foster family had died, he blamed himself for their deaths—had been enough to sustain her. Sibby didn’t want to take a crowbar to the rock and lay bare all of his secrets. If anything was worthwhile, it had to be given willingly.

  “You’re not telling me everything,” Sibby said, as calmly as she could.

  Steve seemed to struggle with the words.

  “I put a lot of bad people away, Sibby. People like that wouldn’t think twice about hurting me or you if they had the chance. I freaked, okay? I’m sorry….”

  They held each other for a while. She felt his lips on her forehead. All was calm. Safe.

  Then something shattered a downstairs window. Steve and Sibby jumped as though electric currents had coursed through their bodies.

  chapter 30

  Dark grabbed the Glock from the small of his back and told Sibby, “Dial 911.”

  He sidestepped down the stairs, gun ready.

  On the oceanside patio he saw curtains flowing. His heart was pounding again with every step. His brain screamed one name: Sqweegel.

  But this wasn’t like Sqweegel at all. He didn’t waste time placing watches under tires or smashing windows. He didn’t announce himself. For him, the thrill of the hunt was hiding in the last place you’d expect to find him, and you’d see his dark eyes at the very last moment. And by then it would be too late.