Spiral

by David L Lindsey

  "How about his office? You've checked that?"

  "Yeah, sure did. It's been ransacked."

  "Damn."

  "They're checking with the political science office, and gettin' the names of the other professors teaching this afternoon, gettin' names of the students in his afternoon class to see if anybody noticed anything. That's gonna take a while. What about Moreno? She know anything that's gonna help us?"

  "A lot. I'm getting ready to take her home with me. She'll be staying there. You're going to find what she has to say pretty interesting."

  "Well, this is purty damn bad over here on Stang, but I think Pete's about got it whipped. I'll be over there as soon as I can."

  "There's going to be a lot to sort out."

  "Listen," Dystal said. "I hate to bring this up now, but I don't think I can cover you on this anymore. We got too much happening, Stu. You gotta understand that."

  "I understand," Haydon said. "I appreciate what you've been doing."

  "I'm on my way," Dystal said, and hung up.

  Haydon put Dystal's last remarks out of his mind and stepped out of his booth. He went around and got into the car.

  As they drove to Richmond and then turned east, Haydon's mind was jumping as far ahead as his imagination would allow with the available facts. He wasn't paying any attention to Celia.

  "What's going to happen now?" she asked finally.

  "You're going to stay with us until we get some of this sorted

  out."

  In his peripheral vision he could see her looking at him.

  "I mean, right now, tonight," she said.

  "I've called my superior officer, Lieutenant Dystal. He's going to come over to my house and I want you to go over everything with him. Everything you know from the beginning." He looked over at her. "Did you keep copies of your reports to the FBI?"

  "No. There was a strict rule about that."

  "Obviously we're going to want to know everything you can tell us."

  He could see that she was continuing to stare at him, but she didn't say anything else. After a while she settled back and turned her eyes out the window on her side of the car.

  Less than a block from the house, Haydon pushed the remote control on the gates, and they drove through to the brick drive without even stopping. He lowered the windows on the Vanden Plas to let in the fragrance from the damp lawns in the night air, an odor that often brought him outside to the terrace on summer nights despite the oppressive heat. As they followed the curve of the drive to the porte cochere, Celia sat up and bent forward, looking through the windshield at the old limestone home with its Belgian slate roof. When Haydon stopped in front, they could see through the tall front windows into the living room, and from outside, the incandescent lights made the shell-white interior appear fawn.

  "Jesus," Celia said, leaning into Haydon and looking through his window at the front of the house. He felt the cushion of her breast against his chest.

  In the entranceway Haydon introduced Celia to Gabriela, who, excited to have a guest, had come in as soon as she heard the door open. She asked if Celia would like to freshen up in her room, and the two of them started down the hall.

  "We'll be in the library," Haydon said.

  He turned and went up the stairs to their bedroom, where Nina was finishing dressing, sitting in front of a mirror combing her hair. She had bathed and changed dresses.

  "How did it go?" she asked, stopping and turning to look at him.

  He immediately took off his suit coat and flung it on the bed as he walked over and kissed her.

  "Better," he said. "I think we're getting somewhere." He loosened his tie, walked into the bathroom, and turned on the cold water, letting it run while he rolled up his sleeves. "If Celia Moreno knows half of what I think she does, she could break it open for us, maybe keep Gamboa from getting blown away. If we have time."

  He took off his watch and laid it on the marble vanity while he washed his face, holding it in the cold water cupped in his hands. Taking the soap, he worked up a thick lather and washed his arms to the elbows, then his face, and rinsed in more cold water. Drying with a towel, he walked back into the bedroom.

  "Bob's on his way over, too," he said.

  "What's the situation with Celia Moreno?"

  "In essence she'll be in protective custody here. I was afraid to take her back to her place tonight to get clothes, so she's only got what she's wearing. We'll have to go over there tomorrow and get some of her things for the next few days."

  He returned the towel to the bathroom and came back to the dressing table, where Nina was trying to decide whether to put her hair up in a chignon or leave it down.

  "Why don't you leave it down?" he said, buckling his watch band. "Would you mind sitting in on this interview? I'd like to get your reaction."

  "My reaction to what?" she asked, picking up her brush and running it through her hair a couple of times.

  "To Celia Moreno."

  The buzzer for the front gate sounded, and Haydon walked over to the wall and pressed the intercom.

  "This is Dystal." The lieutenant's drawl sounded tired. Haydon pushed the button to open the gates, and they went downstairs.

  Celia was coming down the hall with Gabriela just as Haydon and Nina got to the bottom of the stairs and Dystal rang the doorbell. There was a little disorganization until everyone had been greeted and introduced, and then Haydon asked them into the library. Both Dystal and Celia turned down offers to get them something to eat, but accepted his suggestion for drinks.

  When they finally settled down, Celia Moreno was visibly uneasy. Haydon was sympathetic. He didn't know what she might have expected, but this certainly wasn't it. He saw her watching Nina. Even for a savvy young woman who was used to operating in the fast lanes of the Post Oak world, Nina was a class act that definitely had a humbling effect.

  Haydon himself was not entirely at ease. He was well aware that Dystal had gone far beyond the jurisdiction of official license in letting him operate in the way he had, and sooner or later was going to have to explain—exactly, or with a considerable strain on the truth—how all this new material had come to him from outside the official investigation being organized by Lapierre. It was possible to attribute a great deal to "tips," but this wasn't going to fit. He and Dystal would have to work it out.

  "Celia," Haydon said, "I've told Lieutenant Dystal only a little background regarding your situation, so I want you to start at the beginning, just as you did with me. Try to present as much detail as possible." He glanced at her. "I'm going to record this. It's standard practice. There's simply no way we can remember it all otherwise, and we want to have something to reference when we ask you questions later."

  "Fine," she said. "But I've got one question." She looked a little apprehensive, yet determined, as if she were going to ask the question even though it might be inappropriate at this point. "Where does this put me with the FBI? I mean, couldn't this be construed as giving some kind of evidence against them? Can't they prosecute me for this? Where do I stand if there's a federal-state conflict over this?"

  Haydon glanced at Dystal again. The lieutenant's eyes were settled on the girl as if the rest of the room did not exist. Celia's reference to the FBI had concentrated his attention. He wasn't going to miss anything about this woman, and when she was through talking to them he would have very strong opinions about her story, and about Celia Moreno.

  "I don't think there's any conflict here, Celia," Haydon said. "I'll tell you why later. Right now I'll give you my personal guarantee you're not going to get yourself in legal trouble by talking to us." It was a guarantee that meant nothing. Dystal didn't flinch.

  Haydon got up and turned on the recording system. A microphone sat on a small vitrine between them so it could pick up all their voices. He stated the date, the circumstances, and the people present at the interview.

  "Okay, Celia. Go ahead."

  Chapter 36

  BlAS MEDRANO
drove back to La Colombe d'Or and went up 1 his suite. It was shortly after eight o'clock when he sat down at tl desk in the living area and picked up the telephone book. He looked under railroads, Southern Pacific Transportation Company. Their were several numbers listed, so he called the general offices. There was a recording saying the office was closed and giving the hours it w open and numbers that could be called for passenger service, freight service, and the roadmaster's office for reporting repairs.

  Before dialing he made a few notes about the questions needed answered, mentally going through the mechanics of his ph Then he picked up the telephone.

  "Roadmaster's office." The woman sounded like a dispatcher, a switchboard operator.

  "Yeah, I need to speak to somebody about repairin' a track c street crossin'," he said. He slipped into a heavy Chicano speech f tern, knowing he wasn't going to be able to disguise his Mexican flections anyway, and that in the subsequent investigations a distinguished voice would simply be described as Mexican.

  "Which crossing is that, sir?"

  "Oh, the place where it crosses Richmond," he said, lookin his map.

  There was a second's pause. "That'll be Mr. Branard's divis Hold on, I'll connect you."

  Another woman answered.

  "This is Lisa Welch."

  "Yes. I would like to ask some questions about how you re your street crossin's?"

  "How?"

  "Yeah. You know, like do you check them crossin's at regular times, or do you just fix them when they need it, or when somebody reports it, or what?"

  "You want to report a crossing that needs repairing, sir?" She was a little testy.

  "I just wanted to know how you handle it."

  "Look, you don't want to report something wrong?"

  He could tell she wasn't going to be easy to deal with, so he had to explain.

  "Lady, I'm sorry to bother you." He tried to sound contrite. "But if you're not to bissy I would like to ask a few questions." He heard her sigh dramatically, but he went right on. "See, I'm kind of a railroad buff, you know. I been in a wheelchair ever since I was in Vietnam. While I was gettin' over it I used to sit by this window all the time. I was near this railroad track so I started watchin' the trains coming and going and the work crews, and all that. I got some binoculars, and watched those guys all the time. I could tell you everything that went on along those tracks, you know. I memorized the numbers of the engines so I could tell how many times they went east or west, learned the switchin' schedules, the different kinds of things they carried. You know, caliche, oil, cattle. Different kinds of cars. Longest train ever went by there wass one hundred sixty-eight cars. Anyway, see, I just moved here from Laredo and I don't know nothing about your routines here. Man, I knew everything down there. So I was just wonderin' about your work crews. It's just a hobby, you know, 'cause I'm in this wheelchair. I ain't got nothin' else to do."

  There was a pause. Bias could imagine what was going through the woman's mind. He would be surprised if she hung up on him now.

  "Yeah, well, okay," she said finally. She didn't want to be a bitch to a man who couldn't walk. If his legs had been good she would already have hung up on him. "What is it . . . what do you want to know?"

  "You sure you have time right now ... I mean ..."

  "Oh, yeah. It's okay."

  "Thass great. Okay, in Laredo I used to watch them so much I knew everything about the repair crews, too, just like the engineers. How many they had on each shift, the color of their uniforms. One crew had women on it. Worked just like the men, you know. Did all right, too. Drove these big ol' green trucks with the name of the railroad on the side in yellow letters: Santa Fe Railroad Company. Your people drive special trucks, and have uniforms too?"

  "Okay, I see. Yeah, the crews drive orange dump trucks. Usually there's three or four on a crew. A couple of patching men, a flagman, the crew chief. No women, though."

  "They wear uniforms?"

  "No, no uniforms."

  "Do they always drive those big trucks? I mean, if they're working there the big truck's there too, huh?"

  "Oh, yeah. They have to have them because of the asphalt."

  "How many shifts you guys have here?"

  "Only one. Seven in the morning until three o'clock in afternoon."

  "No kiddin'? I thought you'd have a night shift."

  "No one works on the tracks after three in the afternoon."

  "Man, I wouldn't have thought that in a big city like this. I used to see 'em workin' at night in Laredo. It was fun watchin't through the binoculars at night with their lights. It was like a movie, I was hopin' to see some night crews here, too."

  "The only time they work at night here is if it's a real emergency that holds up traffic or something, or the signal crews get called

  "The signal crews?"

  "Yeah, the signal crews work anytime they're called," she said. "If there's something wrong with the signals at those crossings have to be fixed whenever they break, no matter when it is. You have a gate that doesn't go down, or flashers that don't work. Those things break we have to repair them right away. That's a safety thing."

  "Yeah, you can't let that happen. How many people on a crew?"

  "Just two."

  "They drive big drump trucks, too?"

  "No, they don't have any big equipment. Just electrical small tools. We've got those S-10 Chevys for those guys. You those little pickups."

  "Oh, yeah. They have the railroad name on the side, too

  "No. They don't put any name on those."

  "So they just show up at the track and start workin', huh?'

  "Well, yeah."

  "Do they put up those sawhorses or anything?"

  "No, one of the guys just flags the traffic."

  "No uniforms either?"

  "No. Well, they wear those yellow hard hats and bright orange plastic safety bibs, but that's it."

  "That's interestin'." Bias was hurriedly making notes. He glanced over them, trying to see what else he should ask. "Well, I will know what to look for. I really get a kick out of watchin' those guys. I got real strong binoculars. Sometimes I can even see what it is they're doin'."

  "That's good," Lisa said. "Anything else?"

  "No, I guess not right now. Maybe I'll call back sometime."

  "That'll be fine."

  "Thanks a lot for takin' the time to talk to me. Have a good evenin'."

  "You too," Lisa said. Her voice was a lot cheerier. She had done something that fell into the "good deed" category.

  Bias studied his notes, then looked at his watch. He picked up the radio, called Rubio, and told him he would meet him at one of the parking lots near the Medical Center. Hurriedly, he packed the RDX in one side of one of the larger suitcases, placed the switchboard on the other, and put the Futaba radio transmitter in the canvas airline bag. He walked over to the small mahogany table and poured a dash of brandy. It was still burning in his throat when he walked out the door carrying the two bags.

  They found a car rental agency on the Southwest Freeway that had the small Chevrolet pickups they needed. Bias transferred his bags to the pickup, and Rubio followed him to Sharpstown, where he stopped at a large discount store. Rubio watched the pickup while Bias went inside and bought hard hats, gray work overalls, flashlights with orange lens cones, battery-operated roadside amber safety flashers, a pick and shovel, a large gray toolbox, an assortment of electrician's tools, and leather electrician's bags to hold them.

  The intersection where the Southern Pacific railroad tracks crossed San Felipe seemed at first to be a highly inappropriate location for what Bias wanted to accomplish. First of all, it was only a little more than a block from the eastern edge of the exclusive business complex of Post Oak Park, and the elegant Remington Hotel located in the park's southeastern corner. The West Loop Freeway was a couple of blocks beyond, with apartment buildings on the left and an Exxon service station adjacent to them where San Felipe went under the freeway overpass on its w
ay to intersect Post Oak Boulevard a few blocks farther on. Directly overlooking the crossing from the west side of the Loop was a towering mountain range of office buildings, 3D International, Control Data, West Loop Place, West Loop Tower; and to the right was the looming column of Five Oak Place. In short, it was a high-profile area.

  But in addition to its being the most frequently crossed intersection in Benigo Gamboa's weekly itinerary, it was precisely this prominent visibility that attracted Bias. It was an area of assumed security, and assumptions like that were the terrorist's gift from a complacent society.

  They passed over the tracks several times, Bias in the truck Rubio in the rental car, each appraising the crossing from differen perspectives. Bias had spent nearly a thousand dollars for his trans mitter alone, almost all of that price to acquire a special feature called pulse code modulation which converted the radio signals to a digita binary code. One of the gravest hazards of remote-control transmiters was that the receivers were highly susceptible to signals from sources other than the intended transmitter. This risk was greatly reduced by the PCM feature which enabled the receiver to reject most "dirty" transmissions on a given frequency, and minimized the loss of control problems caused by adjacent and direct band interference. But it only reduced the risk. It didn't eliminate it. From the moment he set the explosive in place and turned on the receiver, there was the chance it could be inadvertently detonated by an errant, strong signal.

  By ten-thirty, the traffic had slowed considerably, and then drove to the underground parking garage in the Galleria and change into the clothes Bias had bought earlier. While Rubio drove, Blas began wiring together the bricks of RDX, two in one bundle, three in another. He did not connect the two bundles, deciding to make that final connection after the bundles were in place.

  It was almost eleven o'clock when Rubio slowed the pickup the crossing, pulled off on the shoulder, then turned parallel with t tracks and stopped beside the signals with his left-side wheels on the caliche bedding. Bias got out and quickly used a screwdriver wrench open the control box. He did not disconnect the wires. They didn't want to be caught by surprise. Rubio got the pick and shovel out of the back of the truck while Bias hung a few dead wires out of the control box for effect.