Deadly Additive

by Donn Taylor

  Mike seemed to understand. “We knew you’d had a hard day, so we let you sleep. We’re still in contact, headed north on US 95. The Canadian border is less than a hundred miles away, so their options are limited.”

  Kristin’s mind cleared quickly, though her mouth retained the acrid taste of sleep. Her energy seemed restored, though, and she felt better able to cope.

  Far up ahead she could see taillights and assumed they belonged to the Jeep. In the darkness outside she saw only a few road signs marking their northward progress: Sandpoint, Naples, Bonner’s Ferry.

  Now on either side of the highway she saw the black bulk of mountain ranges silhouetted against the lighter darkness of a starry sky. As the hulking blackness seemed to close in, she felt as if she were being poured into a funnel.

  “Getting close to the border,” Mike said. “They’ll have to do something soon.”

  “What if they go into Canada?” Kristin asked.

  “Then they’re home free.” Mike sighed. “We can’t get three pistols through the border checkpoint.”

  Kristin’s heart sank. Had she come all this way only to fail? “If one of you would keep the pistols on this side—”

  “Wait,” Mike said. “They’re turning off.”

  Light from the Jeep’s headlights moved at right angles from the highway and then disappeared. Sam continued driving past the turnoff.

  Alarmed, Kristin asked, “What are you doing?”

  Sam grunted. “They’ll know we’re behind them, and they’ll wonder if they had a tail. If they’re smart, they’ll pull over and turn their lights out to see if we follow. Better to let them think we’re headed for the border.”

  “But they may get away—”

  “There aren’t many places they can get to,” Mike said. “The map says that road goes about six miles and dead-ends in a small town.”

  Sam switched off the headlights and running lights. He braked to a stop on the deserted highway and, aided only by starlight, gingerly turned the car around. Still in blackout, he crept back the way they had come and parked on the shoulder. He checked something on the dashboard with the aid of a penlight, which he shielded with his other hand.

  “According to the odometer,” he said, “we’re one-tenth of a mile from where they turned off. We’ll see them if they come back. Meanwhile, we wait for daylight.”

  Without further words, he switched off the ignition. Kristin found the silence startling after so many hours of monotonous engine drone. The others must have felt the same, for no one spoke. For perhaps an hour they waited and watched, but the Jeep did not return. Nor did any other vehicle disturb the night. Then the eastern sky slowly lightened, giving definite form to the mountains and softening the darkness of the valley. In another thirty minutes, visibility had increased to several hundred yards.

  “OK,” Sam said, “let’s go take a look.”

  He started the engine and eased the car back onto the highway, again driving without lights in the pale dawn. True to his calculations, the road the Jeep had taken soon appeared, and they turned into it. The narrow road, though winding, led eastward toward the mountains. There were no turnoffs, and the areas on either side showed no signs of habitation.

  Full daylight had arrived as they rounded a bend and entered a small town whose faded sign identified it as Mineral Creek. Kristin saw no signs of life and wondered if they had blundered into a ghost town. She soon revised that estimate, though, for three aged but apparently operable pickup trucks were parked on side streets. In one house she saw a light.

  The road ended abruptly at the far edge of town, and Sam retraced their course a couple of blocks and parallel parked at the curb.

  “Time to report in,” he said. “We have to be close enough for someone to follow up.”

  Had they come all this way only to stop short of a decisive finding? Kristin hid her disappointment as Sam dialed a number on his cell phone.

  A disgusted look crossed his face. “Nothing,” he said. He punched a few more buttons on the phone. “The battery’s OK, but it keeps telling me ‘No service.’ Try yours, Mike.”

  Mike tried his phone with similar results.

  “I saw a phone booth back by that store,” Kristin said. “If it works, we can call Brinkman collect.” She searched in her coin purse and came up with two quarters.

  They parked near the store, and neither man objected when Kristin got out to make the call. The chill mountain air cut into her flesh, so she reached back into the car and retrieved her heavy coat, thankful for Mike’s thoughtfulness in providing it.

  The phone booth proved to be a relic of the 1950s, with a stubborn sliding door that required all Kristin’s strength to close. From the deep recesses of childhood, Kristin remembered how to use the old-fashioned dial instrument, and she soon maneuvered through a disinterested operator to the watch officer in Roger Brinkman’s operation. He accepted the charges and said he was recording their conversation.

  She gave their location and situation, then summarized the events from her arrival in Spokane up to the present. As she spoke, engine noises from outside grew louder and interfered, so she shut them out by putting a finger in her free ear and turning her back to the street. Only when she hung up did she hear a heavier engine than the Chevrolet’s.

  At that moment, someone slammed open the door of the booth so violently that the glass shattered. Kristin spun and found her way blocked by the huge hulk of a man. A man with bulging muscles and blond hair. In the moment she had dreaded for more than a day, she looked into the cruel eyes of Erich Staab.

  He dragged her from the booth and shook her until she feared he would break her neck.

  When the shaking stopped, he gripped both her arms. “Who did you call?”

  “My—my mother,” she gasped. “She worries when she doesn’t know where I am.”

  He shook her again, as violently as before. “Don’t lie to me. Who did you call?”

  “My mother,” she said when the shaking stopped. “I—I’m not lying.”

  Cursing, he spun her around and seized her hair with one hand while his other twisted her arm behind her back until she cried out. He propelled her several steps along the street toward the Chevrolet, which now was flanked by two tough-looking men. They watched Staab’s approach through narrowed eyes.

  Without acknowledging them, he twisted Kristin’s arm until she cried out again. “Stop lying. We’re not playing games.”

  With that, he forced her head forward so that she looked into the Chevrolet. Sam and Mike lay sprawled inside, mouths agape and eyes staring blindly into space. Spreading crimson stains on the chest of each revealed their manner of death.

  Staab’s voice was flat. “You’ll get the same if you don’t tell us the truth.”

  Kristin sobbed in horror and despair. And grief. A grief made deeper because, despite the pain in her shoulder, her cheek still tingled where Mike’s stubble had scratched it.

  31

  Denver, Colorado

  In his office two levels underground, Roger Brinkman leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He had to admit he was feeling his age. Managing his organization’s search for the Preening Peacock had worn him down. Then Kristin Halvorsen’s sighting one of the Staab brothers had triggered another telephonic scramble.

  His own assets had been committed to finding the ship. Government reinforcements would arrive too late to support Kristin, so he’d had to hire private investigators in Spokane. Then he’d committed Sledge and set up more PI help for him.

  Soon afterward, Kristin’s report from Mineral Creek required a further request for government help. Thankfully, Brian Novak was coordinating that. If everything worked out, the FBI would soon have a sizeable force on site.

  Brinkman’s quick mind still rose to the battle like a seasoned war horse, but his aging body no longer held up under stress. The body said it was time to pass direction of his organization to a younger man. Novak looked like the best candidate if he c
ould be convinced to retire from the CIA.

  The ringing phone called Brinkman back to the present.

  “Señor Brinkman,” said the voice of his friend in Balboa, Panama, “the Preening Peacock has passed through the Miraflores Locks and is heading for the Pacific. I apologize for my failure to find it sooner. My contacts did not notify me when the ship entered the canal.”

  “Thank you, Miguel. I’ll take it from here.”

  Brinkman did not grant himself the luxury of a sigh, but phoned Brian Novak. The information could be passed within minutes. But could the government react quickly enough?

  If it could not, the ship would disappear in the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean, a nameless blip on radar screens among hundreds of other nameless blips.

  Then Kim Jong-un and his generals would receive those deadly weapons to use against American soldiers.

  ****

  Mineral Creek, Idaho

  At Staab’s instruction, one of his henchmen drove the Chevrolet away to dispose of the two bodies. The other got into the driver’s seat in the Jeep. Without relaxing his grip on Kristin’s hair or arm, Staab forced her into the rear seat. Remaining behind her, he pushed her face into the seat’s cold vinyl. She managed to turn her head enough to breathe, but that cost her another violent twist of her arm. After that she lay unresisting, unable to see anything except a few square feet of the Jeep’s stained plastic seat covers.

  The vehicle halted and she heard the driver shift into four-wheel drive. Afterward, the slow labor of engine and gears told her they were climbing on a rough trail that bounced her face repeatedly on the seat. Each bounce brought a cruel laugh from Staab. His grip on her hair and arm never relented.

  Were they climbing east or west of the valley? She could see no shadows in the jeep. Apparently, the sun had not yet climbed above the eastern mountains, so she guessed they were climbing the western slope. But how far had they come?

  The Jeep halted and Staab hauled Kristin outside. They were in deep woods, but she also saw a high chain-link fence topped by barbed wire. Like a prison, she thought, as Staab marched her through a group of five gibing toughs into a one-room cabin. A man seated at a battered desk looked up in obvious irritation. He had raven-black hair with a touch of lighter color at the roots. The morning light reflected from copper-colored stubble on his jaws. With a jolt, Kristin realized he was the dark-haired man she and Sledge had sighted at the weapons factory.

  “Well, Staab?” The man’s tone dripped sarcasm.

  “She and two men were tailing us.” Staab spoke with a harsh German accent. “Fifty miles that we know of, but maybe from Spokane. They’re pros—drove past the turnoff to throw us off, then waited for daylight to make a move. We set up on the hill above town and watched them come in, then took care of them before they could leave.” At the other man’s questioning glance he added, “No fuss in town. We used silencers. Joe’s ditching the car and bodies. Rob has gone to pick him up.”

  “Why didn’t you dispose of this one?”

  “She used the payphone before we could close in. I thought we ought to know why.”

  The man at the desk showed a grim smile. “Then let’s find out.”

  Staab pushed Kristin into a straight-back chair and released his hold. Relief flooded through her as the pain in her shoulder eased. Staab stared down at her from a position in front and to her right.

  The man at the desk swiveled his chair around to face her and spoke in a teasingly cruel voice. “Suppose you tell us what you and your friends were doing.”

  Kristin took a few breaths and turned up the collar of her coat, hoping that would make it harder for Staab to seize her hair again. She knew Brinkman was planning some action against this place, but she didn’t know when. Her best course was to stall for time and try to stay alive.

  “I was on a date with my boyfriend,” she said, adopting the tough blonde act she and Jocelyn had amused each other with in college. “My boyfriend’s name is Mike, and he’s a private investigator. So last night we’re doing dinner when he gets this hurry-up call for a job of tailing somebody. He doesn’t have time to take me home, so we follow that silly Jeep and wind up here. I phoned my mother ’cause I knew she’d worry when I didn’t come home.”

  As she spoke, Kristin scoped out her surroundings. The room held only the desk, a table beside it, and a few scarred straight chairs. On the table rested two portable file boxes brimming with tightly stuffed file folders. With windows on three sides, the room was connected on the fourth side by a door into a longer frame building. Through the window beyond the black-haired man, she saw that the other building extended some fifty feet. She had a fleeting impression that it stretched about the same distance in the other direction.

  “So you followed my men from the Spokane airport?” The man at the desk tapped a pencil on his desk.

  Kristin worked her jaw as if she were chewing gum. “My boyfriend did. I was along for the ride.”

  The thug who’d been detailed to dispose of the Chevrolet entered and spoke to the man at the desk. “I left the car in a gully near Bonner’s Ferry, Mister…uh…Williams. The two guys were in it.” He held up a gloved hand. “No fingerprints. And I found this in the car.” His other gloved hand held Kristin’s purse.

  Her heart hammered as she waited for them to find out she’d lied. The man—Williams—emptied her purse on his desk. He ignored its feminine clutter and went directly to her identification cards.

  “So you’re really Kristin Halvorsen from New York.” He held up her driver’s license, then one of the Panorama Weekly business cards she hadn’t discarded. “And a journalist for a national magazine. You came a long way from New York to date a private investigator.”

  Kristin said nothing.

  “And you didn’t need this passport to come to Spokane.” He held up the guilty document, then thumbed through her receipts from San Juan and Chicago. “Quite the international traveler, aren’t you?”

  Kristin silently chided herself for keeping the receipts to claim reimbursement. Her heart pounded again as Williams studied her airline ticket.

  His face showed an evil grin as he spoke. “Staab, did you know you had a traveling companion? She’s been with you all the way from Saint Kitts.”

  Staab cursed and slapped her across the mouth. Her head snapped back, and she tasted blood.

  “Enough!”

  The sharp command stopped Staab even as his hand cocked for another blow.

  “There are better ways.” Williams resumed his low-key sarcasm as he addressed Kristin. “Will you tell us now, or must we persuade you?”

  “I’ll tell,” Kristin said, her voice almost a whisper. Anything to gain more time. How long would it take Brinkman to mount his operation? Had she given enough information for him to move? She still tasted blood, though it didn’t seem to be flowing.

  She took a deep breath and began a story she didn’t think they could disprove.

  “Yes, I’m a journalist. I was on vacation in Saint Kitts. About a week before, a friend in the FBI showed me this man’s picture and said he was a wanted criminal. When I happened to see him in Saint Kitts, I thought it would be great for my career if I followed him and tipped off the FBI when he lighted somewhere. The trouble was, he never lighted.”

  Williams began tapping the pencil again. “And of course you called in during those long layovers in San Juan and Chicago.”

  Kristin thought fast. “I tried to, but I never made contact. The FBI is such a bureaucracy that it’s tough to get the right people on the phone.” She gave a sad half-laugh. “You ought to try it some time.” Before he could retort, she continued. “When I had no luck in Chicago, I called a private detective I knew in Spokane. He set up the tail from the airport.” She hoped they wouldn’t ask her Mike’s last name.

  They did not. Williams probed again. “And whom did you call from that payphone?”

  “The FBI.” She looked him squarely in the eye and showed a disgusted fa
ce. “All I got was my friend’s voicemail that said he’d be back in a couple of days. I hope his system doesn’t bump the old messages when it reaches capacity.”

  “You can’t believe her, Mr. Williams,” Staab said angrily.

  Williams gave a sarcastic laugh. “I don’t, really, but I know a way to find out. Take off her coat and bring her into the lab.”

  Kristin tried to get it off herself, but Staab ripped it off of her, wrenching her shoulder again so that she cried out. A surprised look of recognition crossed his face as he viewed the leather coat she’d bought in O’Hare International Airport.

  “I’ve seen this woman,” he said. “She got on the plane in Chicago. I’d recognize that leather outfit anywhere.”

  Williams paused in the doorway to the larger building. “You only noticed her in Chicago, Staab? Have you forgotten that she followed you all the way from Saint Kitts? You’re slipping.”

  Staab seized Kristin’s hair and arm again and thrust her along behind Williams. This half of the long building consisted of one large room filled with equipment that looked like an elder brother of the chemical lab she’d known in her college days.

  Williams pointed to an ordinary-looking sink. “Hold her arm over that.”

  He walked a few paces farther while Staab’s grip kept Kristin from seeing what he was doing. Williams returned a few minutes later carrying a bottle of clear liquid and wearing latex gloves that extended to his elbows.

  “Hold her arm over the sink,” he ordered again.

  Staab hesitated. “I want no part of that chemical stuff.”

  Williams gave a derisive laugh. “It’s only a simple acid. I won’t spill any of it, but it’s easily counteracted if I should.”

  Reluctantly, Staab took Kristin’s right elbow and forced her hand palm-down against the bottom of the sink. As if he knew what was coming, he twisted the other arm up behind her and used his body to pin hers against the sink’s outer rim. She fought against him, but his bulk and strength held her immobile. As in a dream, her situation triggered the memory of being pinned against the wall by the high-school football player. With it came the terror she’d felt then, magnified by her terror in contemplating what these men were about to do to her.