by Steven James
He grinned. “Oh. I see. You want to play it like that. Well, you’re the hotshot federal agent. Why don’t you work that out for yourself?”
“Well, you know, Detective, that sounds like a good idea. I believe I will.”
His voice stiffened. “So, the guy who called this in, you didn’t happen to get a good look at him, did you?”
“Mid to late thirties, blond hair, no sideburns, slight goatee.
He was seated the whole time, but his head was near the ceiling of the maroon 2003 Ford Mustang he was driving, so height was maybe six-three or six-four. He used a Nextel phone, had a bald eagle tattoo on his left forearm but no other visible body markings or jewelry. The Mustang has a scratch approximately twenty centimeters long on the front panel, driver’s side. Arizona plates number B73—” Dunn just stood staring at me. “Are you writing this down?” I asked.
“Are you making this up?”
“No,” I said, looking past him to the profile of Petco Park against the skyline. “This is what I do.”
During the last two hours, Creighton Melice and the brunette, who’d told him her name was Randi—with an “i”—had shared drinks at a downtown wine bistro and visited two nightclubs. Now, he was aiming the car toward the shipyards while she fussed with her hair in the car’s flip-down mirror. “So, where are you staying, Neville?”“I have a place down in Chula Vista.”
Creighton loved how she’d gotten into the car by her own choice.
He hadn’t been sure that she would, but it ended up being just that easy. Open the door. Let her climb in. Close the door. It was so much better when it happened that way. So much more satisfying.
Creighton kept an eye out for cops. You could never be too careful. He stopped at a light.
“You said you’re new to Diego,” she said, flipping the mirror up. “What brought you here?”
“A film project I’m working on. I tend to move around a lot.”
“How long are you planning to stay this time?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“On how long it takes to tie things up here.”
The light clicked green, and he turned onto the street that led to the warehouse with the cameras.
In my job, you don’t often have the luxury of working only one case at a time. As you move forward solving one crime, another one creeps up on you from behind. So, even with the arson case at the center of my radar screen, I couldn’t ignore the fact that the odd circumstances revolving around John Doe’s suicide were tapping me on the shoulder.
So, I made room in my mind for both cases.
I didn’t think it was likely the man with the black duffel and his buddy were just passing by and yet didn’t bother to look at what happened. Most people naturally rubberneck, unless, of course, they want to appear disinterested—and usually it’s only people who have something to hide who want that. Besides, I had a growing feeling that something more was going on here, especially after hearing the words of my new jurisdictionally paranoid detective friend.
So, after I finished giving my statement to Detective Dunn and letting a paramedic bandage my arm, I took a few minutes to ask the people who’d been on the trolley if any of them had seen a man with a black duffel bag aboard the trolley before it stopped.
None of them had.
I could check video surveillance from the trolley depots later to see if the two men had boarded.
Before leaving the scene, I walked to the metal fence again and looked down into the rift.
A couple city workers were scrubbing off the front of the trolley. One of them was complaining about missing Leno, the other guy was trying to get his buddy interested in discussing the Lakers’
starting lineup.
Just past them, a somber-looking police officer retrieved the shoe.
And just like I thought.
It wasn’t empty.
I took one more look around, then hopped into my car. Since human bites nearly always result in infections, I stopped by the hospital for some more antibiotics. The emergency room doctors also did a hepatitis C and HIV test because of the bite, and told me to check back with them in a week and then get retested in six months. Nothing more to do about all that right now, so I put it out of my mind.
Before leaving the hospital, I took a moment to picture what the Avis representative’s face would look like on Saturday when I explained what had happened to the windshield.
That would be interesting.
I didn’t want Tessa to see the streaks and splatters of John Doe’s blood on the glass come morning so I went searching for a twenty-four-hour car wash.
My mind cycling back and forth between the two cases the whole time.
13
Creighton and Randi arrived at the warehouse’s expansive parking lot. He saw Randi sending a text message.
“Who’s that to?”
“My roommate. I’m telling her not to wait up for me.”
“That’s a good idea.”
She closed up the phone and set it down, then peered out the window. “Where are we? I thought we were going to your place?”
“I need to take care of something here first. Come on. I don’t want to leave you out here alone.”
“What are you talking about? What do you need to do here?”
He didn’t answer her, just opened his door. But as he did so, the cell phone in his pocket vibrated to life. He knew who it was right away. Only one person had this number. He retrieved the cell. “Yeah?”
“It’s time,” the electronically altered voice said. “We do it tonight.”
“What?” Creighton’s eyes danced over to Randi. “You can’t be serious.”
A pause. “You’re ready, aren’t you?”
“Of course I’m ready. But we were set up to do it during the day. I need at least a few hours to find her and—”
Randi folded her arms. “To find who?”
“Shh,” he said.
“Who’s there?” asked Shade.
“It’s nothing,” Creighton said. “Listen, I’m telling you, tonight’s no good. I don’t like being rushed. The plan was to pick her up on her way home from work—”
Randi put away her makeup, then zippered her purse shut and set it on her lap. “Pick up who, Neville?”
Creighton turned the phone away from his mouth and glared at her. “Just a minute,” he hissed.
“Things have changed,” Shade said. “We do it now. Hunter’s on the run. Don’t let me down.”
The phone went dead and Creighton realized it was too tough to jam it into his pocket while he was sitting down. He set it beside him, between the seats.
“What’s going on?” asked Randi.
Creighton rubbed his rough fingers together. It seemed he needed to make a decision. “Let me think.”
“It’s another girl, isn’t it?”
“Quiet.”
Creighton weighed his options. Randi … Cassandra … Randi
… Cassandra … who should he give this night to?
“Who is she?” Randi asked.
Then Creighton made his decision and started the car. “We’re not going to my place. Something’s come up.”
“Oh?”
“Get out.”
Randi looked at the weary warehouse district stretching to the ocean. “I’m supposed to get out here? You’re not dumping me out here in the middle of nowhere!”
Creighton let his voice become a two-by-four. “Get out of the car.” He reached across her, cranked open the passenger side door.
She cussed loudly as she scrambled to grab her things, and then swung her legs outside. “I could have given you a good time.” He put a hand on her back, pushed her out the door. She staggered to her feet. “You don’t know what you’re missing!”“Neither do you.” Before she could close her door, he stamped on the gas, jerking the car forward, using the momentum to slam the door shut.
In the rearview mirror he saw her kick at the ti
re of the car as he sped past her. She was shaking her arm at him, yelling.
For a moment he was tempted to go back for her, to see just how good a time Randi with an “i” might have provided him. But no.
He had a job to do for Shade, and if he stuck to the plan, then he would soon die happily ever after.
But before that, an FBI agent would die too.
But not quite so happily.
Creighton needed to pick up a few things. He wanted to break the speed limit but was careful to keep all the traffic laws on his way to his condo to pick up the darts and the dart gun Shade had given him to use.
After all, you can never be too careful.
14
Victor Drake was irritated. And when he got irritated, he couldn’t sleep.
And when he couldn’t sleep, it only made him more irritated.
So, after laying wide awake in his bed for nearly two hours, he climbed out and plopped into the Jacuzzi in the glass-enclosed sunroom overlooking the ocean. He shut off the whirlpool’s jets so he could hear the high-def TV screen mounted on the wall beside his Monet, but then got annoyed at the sound and turned it down and simply watched the numbers of the Nikkei Stock Index scroll across the screen.
Just as he was beginning to relax, the guard at the front gate buzzed him.
Victor ignored the buzzer. All he wanted to do was unwind enough to go to sleep.
Another buzz.
Victor didn’t move.
Another.
He slammed his finger against the remote control, and the television screen split into two images, with the mute stock index on the right side and the live video feed of the guard station at the driveway’s entrance on the left.
“What!” yelled Victor.
“Senor, I have two men here who—”
“Do you have any idea what time it is?” Victor shot back.
“I know, senor. They are very insist—”“You don’t bother me unless—”
Another voice cut him off, and a face appeared on the screen next to the guard. “It’s Octal. I’ve got Geoff with me. We’re coming up.”
Victor’s fingers shook slightly and he dropped the remote control into the whirlpool. He cursed and fished it out, but by the time he’d retrieved it, he saw on the screen that Dr. Octal Kurvetek’s BMW
had cruised past the confused-looking guard and was on its way to the house. Victor decided to fire that useless rent-a-cop tomorrow, but for right now, he needed to deal with Geoff and the doctor.
They were never supposed to come here.
Never.
He’d made that very clear.
Victor switched off the television, stepped out of the tub, and dried himself off. A few moments later, before he had time to finish getting dressed, he heard the footsteps of the two men on the stairs.
He knew he’d locked the front door earlier, but that hadn’t seemed to slow Geoff down one bit. Victor cinched his bathrobe around his waist and stalked out of the master bedroom.
The two men were waiting for him in the hall.
“What are you doing here?” His voice was seething. “I told you never to—”
“I know what you said.” Geoff was an immobile mountain of a man with a broad nose that looked right at home mounted on his bulky face. “But this is important.”
The other man stood beside him quietly. A gray-bearded man in his sixties with cool, piercing eyes, Dr. Octal Kurvetek had worked for twenty years for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice as the supervising physician for the executions by lethal injection.
He’d always made Victor nervous, but his skills had made him the perfect man for the job Victor had hired him to do.
Victor tore his eyes off Dr. Kurvetek and glared at Geoff. “Well, what is it? And this better be good.”“There was a slight problem.” Geoff’s face registered no emotion.
“What kind of problem?”
“Hunter never showed up,” Dr. Kurvetek added.
“What?” gasped Victor. “He didn’t show up? How could he not show up?”
“The subject reacted unexpectedly,” Dr. Kurvetek said. “And the police were called in.”
“And?” Victor demanded.
“Obvious suicide,” said Geoff. “Hunter probably bolted.”
“We kept an eye on the scene, but even after everyone left, he didn’t come,” Dr. Kurvetek said. “We went to his apartment but he wasn’t there either. His drawers are a mess. It looks like he left in a hurry. I thought that instead of calling you on the phone we should discuss this in person.”
Victor tried to connect the dots. It was hard to tell how much Hunter knew. He hadn’t been told much, but it was almost certainly enough to hurt them if he decided to talk to the authorities.
Plus General Biscayne would be arriving on Thursday.
No, no, this couldn’t be happening. Not now.
“Where’s Suricata?”
“At Hunter’s,” said Geoff. “Case he comes back.”
Victor let all this sink in for a moment. If anything happened to the device and the Project Rukh Oversight Committee found out about it, Drake Enterprises would lose its defense department contract. And then the investigations would begin. “And, you took care of the—”
“Don’t worry,” Dr. Kurvetek said. “It’s safely tucked away at the base. We did that first.”
This was one time Victor was glad he’d put Octal on the books so that he could receive unlimited access to Building B-14, but still he didn’t want to think about any of this. His head was beginning to hurt. It was all too much. But at least the device was secure. He needed a drink. “Take care of the house, and find Hunter. Call me when you know more. Let’s rein this in. No more loose ends.”
The two men left the house and Victor went searching for his bottle of pills.
It only took Creighton five minutes to gather the necessary items from his condo. Even though he didn’t like the idea of having to move on this so quickly—and he was more than a little ticked off at having to say good-bye to Randi—now that everything was in play his adrenaline was jacked up and that was something he liked very much.
After loading the darts in the hydraulic-powered dart gun, he left to find Cassandra Lillo, the woman he’d already started to think of as his next girlfriend.
15
Tuesday, February 17
5:10 a.m.
I rose before dawn for a jog. Tessa would be asleep for another three or four hours, so it gave me a chance to be alone, think through the events of the previous night and not feel guilty about splitting my attention between her and my work.
The wind had calmed down but left the morning cool enough to warrant sweatpants. Despite all that had happened the night before, after twenty-five minutes of running I felt my mind clearing.
Last night, when I’d returned to the hotel and tapped on Tessa’s door, Lien-hua had stepped into the hall and told me that Tessa was asleep.
“Is she doing all right?” I’d asked Lien-hua.
“I believe so. Yes. But I thought it would be best to stay with her, anyway, until you arrived.”
It seemed like there might be something else on her mind. “Are you OK?”
“Just processing some things. Maybe we can talk about it tomorrow. I need some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning, OK?”
There was more to be said, but it wasn’t going to happen that late at night. After I’d thanked her again and she’d left for her room, I began to wonder if maybe Tessa had said something to her. Maybe John Doe’s suicide had been harder on Tessa than I thought. If so, my plans for the week might have to take a dra-matic detour.As dawn arrived, a streak of high cirrus clouds drifted above me, and early morning sunlight squeezed out the night. But with the day came the heat. In contrast to last night, it seemed like God had dialed the thermostat for Southern California up all the way the moment he sent the sun to awaken the city.
I came to an intersection, saw a sign for Bryson Heights High School, and wondered i
f they might have a track or a fitness trail. I jogged toward the school, found that they didn’t have a track, but they did have a football field. And that was good news because football goals meant I could crank out some pull-ups.
I found the goalposts, jumped up, grabbed the horizontal bar, and it felt good to get into the rhythm. Up. Down.
Up.
Down.
When I was nineteen I worked for a year as a wilderness guide and I fell in love with rock climbing; and the best way to stay in shape for the crags is doing pull-ups. At first a couple hundred pull-ups a day was impossible—I could barely do ten. But over the years, I’ve worked my way up, and, after more than four thousand days of doing them, pull-ups come almost as natural as walking.
Up.
Down.
I squeezed out a set of forty, took a breather, and then tried flying solo with my left arm. The homeless guy’s bite didn’t affect my arm as much as I thought it might, but with every pull-up I could still feel it sting.
Up.
I thought of him. Bewildered. Raving. Losing his life. All so meaningless. So tragic.
Down.
Most of the time I try to focus on the positive impact that my work at the NCAVC has, but sometimes I wonder what the point of it all is.Up. The majority of people who’ve ever lived on our planet have led short, difficult, brutal lives and then died before their dreams could come true.
Down. People like Sylvia Padilla and that man last night and Christie, my wife who passed away last year, taking all of our plans for the future with her.
Up. It’s tragic and pointless, but it’s the way the world is.
Down. We live in a country where television newscasters are allowed to get excited about the score of a baseball game but aren’t allowed to show emotion or remorse while reporting a homicide, a suicide bombing, or a rape.
Up.
Down. That’s our world.
Enough with the left. Only managed nine. Time for the right.
Sweating, sweating. Today would be a scorcher.