Cold Spectrum

by Craig Schaefer

  “Must run parallel to the IT department,” Jessie said. She jumped in, clambering down the rungs and looked up at me. “I’m gonna see where it goes, but my best guess is out. Go find Cooper—see if she’s got any idea where Linkletter would run.”

  They hadn’t taken Cooper for processing yet. I found her in the back of an unmarked car, cuffed for safekeeping. She grimaced as I gave her the update.

  “Son of a—” She shook her head. “I had no idea. That’s one of the reasons Bobby’s organization is so hard to infiltrate: he compartmentalizes this stuff like crazy. There’s probably three other escape routes in that building, built special for the only three people who know about them. Why the hell would he run, though? He wasn’t under arrest, and even if he was, Linkletter knows better than that; he’d sit tight and wait for Bobby to get him out.”

  “I don’t think he’s running from, I think he’s running to. Bobby told him he should be ‘scrubbing.’”

  “Destroying evidence,” Cooper said. “At the very least, covering Bobby’s trail. The raid, the media blitz, an indictment on the way—trust me, I know Bobby. I know how he thinks, how he reacts to problems.”

  “He’s going into hiding.”

  “Deep underground,” she said. “He’ll bury himself in lawyers and red tape until this all blows over. Right now, Linkletter’s job is to kick dirt over his footprints and make sure you can’t track him down.”

  “That’s my hunch. Diehl Innovations has plants and offices all over the country, but there’s no reason to send Linkletter on a long haul when he’s already got people on-site there. He has to be headed someplace close. Maybe the Spearhead facility, out in Santa Monica?”

  Cooper shook her head. “No. After the Red Knight debacle, Bobby stopped keeping anything important at Spearhead. That whole place is squeaky-clean now. Maybe . . . damn. He’s going to one of Bobby’s houses. That has to be it.”

  “Where?”

  “Closest one is near Pacific Coast Highway, west of Topanga Beach.” She rattled her cuffed wrists. “Get these off me—I’ll text you the directions and the entry codes.”

  Jessie’s voice came in over my earpiece. “Yep, ‘out’ was the direction. Escape tunnel ends at a one-way door, locked and concealed on the far side, opening onto a drainage culvert about a hundred yards from the building.”

  “I’ve got a line on Linkletter,” I told her. “I’m near the parking lot with Cooper. We need to rally the troops. Looks like we’re doing two raids today.”

  Cooper’s eyes went wide. “You can’t. You can’t bring police in there.”

  “Why not?”

  “Traps. Remember those brain-burner curses from Spearhead? He’s got them in his house, too. That’s also where he keeps his ritual room. He’s got stuff we can’t allow people who aren’t us to lay eyes on.”

  I sighed and tapped my earpiece.

  “Cancel that, Jessie. It’s just you and me.” I looked to Cooper. “Don’t suppose he’s still slipping warding sigils inside your employee ID cards?”

  She plucked off her ID, dangling from a black lanyard, and pressed it into my hand.

  “This will keep you safe from the curses. Can’t say the same for anything else he’s got creeping around in there. That’s where he does . . . personal experiments.” She gritted her teeth. “You should get going. Not good if anyone sees us talking right now.”

  I recuffed her wrists and left her in the backseat. Jessie met me in the parking lot. As I walked, I peeled open the glued sides of Cooper’s ID card. The thin cardboard separated, exposing the secret hidden inside: a razor-thin silver disk, its face etched with faintly glimmering runes. I plucked out the talisman and passed it to Jessie.

  “Hang on to that,” I said.

  She turned the disk between her fingertips, catching the fading sunlight. “Brain burners, huh?”

  “And possibly other surprises,” I said.

  “Good times.” She punched my arm. “Let’s roll.”

  FORTY

  We took a Bureau SUV and drove west along Pacific Coast Highway. Straight into a golden sunset, between the glimmering ocean waters and the rise of the Santa Monica mountains. It was nightfall by the time we reached the long and winding private drive to Bobby Diehl’s estate. A sliver of waning moon hung in a starless sky.

  Cooper was a regular visitor to Bobby’s house. We had the passcode for the automated gates out front, cold iron bars humming open as Jessie tapped the keypad. A second passcode, down a long and sloping concrete canyon, for the garage door. Steel shutters rolled up, and white LEDs flared to life, guiding us inside.

  Bobby’s garage, lined with diamond-patterned rubber flooring, was a showroom of extravagance. He collected cars like some people collected shoes, each one waxed and buffed to a mirror sheen. Hard-winged Italian sports cars that looked like spaceships, vintage Detroit muscle, even a Packard from the Roaring Twenties. He had three stretch limousines—black, white, and silver—lined up side by side. Jessie whistled, moving from car to car, peering into the tinted depths of a cherry-red Lamborghini.

  “The odometers. Half of ’em are under ten miles. He doesn’t even drive these beauties—he just keeps them locked up in his damn garage.” She looked over at me. “I didn’t think I could hate him any more than I already do, but he keeps giving me reasons.”

  My eyes were on another ride, over by an elevator door. I pointed.

  “One of these things is not like the others,” I said.

  It was a slightly battered Lincoln, and from the road dust and dead bugs on the grille, this one definitely got driven. I put my palm on the hood. Still warm.

  “Linkletter beat us here.” I drew my pistol, the textured grip of the Sig Sauer firm against my desert-dry palm. “But not by much.”

  Jessie took the lead. We only had the one warding talisman, which meant I’d have to rely on my magical senses to steer clear of any invisible traps. Bobby had used his brain burners to protect his inner stronghold at the Spearhead facility: dormant and invisible curses that waited for the unwary, disintegrating neurons with occult fire. There was nothing left of the guard we’d seen fall prey to one—nothing but the pain centers in his nervous system, leaving him in mindless and endless, screaming agony. That was Bobby’s idea of a funny joke.

  A sleek, mirrored cage ferried us up to the main floor of the house on silent pulleys. The doors opened onto a mahogany-walled corridor, lit by softly glowing electric sconces crafted to look like Victorian gaslights. No sound but the whisper of the air conditioner as a cool breeze flowed through the labyrinth of halls. I caught a strange, peaty scent, like fresh-churned soil.

  We didn’t have a floor plan, though Cooper had given us a sketchy guide to finding Bobby’s office. Left, left, then a right, down corridors laid out with no rhyme or reason. Halls dead-ended with no doors, at least none we could see. A coat closet opened onto another, smaller coat closet.

  Jessie moved a half pace ahead of me, gun drawn and ready. “His architect’s as crazy as he is,” she murmured.

  “I think he was his own architect.” I squinted at faint carvings along the rich crown molding, carefully cut scars in the wood. “There’s a whole school of occult design theory. Building houses as spirit traps, as psychic funnels or resonators. The layout becomes a sigil; the place becomes a spell.”

  “And what’s this spell meant to do?”

  I tapped her shoulder, pulling her back from a darkened threshold. I sensed the razor-barbed coils of a mystical trap, the curse laid into the rococo flooring and waiting for a victim.

  “Nothing good,” I said. “C’mon, let’s go around.”

  The odor of churned soil grew stronger down one narrow passageway. And underneath it, something foul and cloying, like a bed of rotten flowers. I took the lead now. My magical senses pounded a red alert up and down my spine, a piano hammering a jagged, electric chord.

  On the other side of an open archway, a stone altar stood at the heart of an octagonal
chamber. I held up my phone and clicked on the light, strobing a thin beam through the gloom. Catching the sheen of the scarlet-and-black altar cloth, the pages of a fat and yellowed book. The light trailed across the floor of the ritual room. Soil, rich and black as a moonless night.

  “Is this where he does his sorcerer thing?” Jessie said, standing at my shoulder. She pointed at the altar. “We should grab that book. Grab it or burn it.”

  I shook my head, keeping the tiny light trained on the soil floor.

  “There’s something in there,” I said.

  Jessie leaned in, squinting. “I don’t see anything.”

  The soil burbled. A solitary bubble rose up to the light and popped, the stench of excrement wafting through the air.

  “Underneath,” I said. I pulled away from the threshold. “Leave it alone.”

  Jessie paused halfway up the hall. She tugged out her softly vibrating phone. Linder was on the line. I leaned in close.

  “Can’t talk right now,” Jessie whispered. “We’re inside—”

  Linder’s voice was terse, even by his standards. “Don’t speak. Listen. I miscalculated. I’m about to be taken or killed. If I’m taken, expect that they’ll use me to snare you: do not trust this line, or anything I say or do, until you have eyes-on verification that I haven’t been compromised.”

  “Taken by who? Crohn’s men? The eastern courts?”

  “If I’m killed, it was an honor serving with you.” I heard thumping in the background, wood splintering. “Have to go—just enough time to erase this call and cover my tracks. Good luck, Agents.”

  The line went dead.

  “Damn,” Jessie breathed.

  “Last we heard, he was on his way to take out one of Vigilant’s directors. A loyalist to the courts of hell. Think he got smart and saw Linder coming, laid a trap for him?”

  “If he did, we’re screwed. Linder’s our only point of access to the rest of the directorate. Even if we figure out who they are, we won’t know which one’s the bad apple.” She shook her head. “One problem at a time. Linder’s a survivor; he can take care of himself. Let’s get this done.”

  We took another turn. Jessie pointed left.

  “I hear him,” she said. “Linkletter.”

  I didn’t hear anything but the air conditioner’s hum, but her senses were sharper than mine. I followed her to an open door and pressed my back to the cool mahogany wall, ears perked.

  “You are completely useless,” Bobby was saying, his voice pumped over a high-resonance sound system. “You’re like . . . what’s the saying? Tits on a bull?”

  I crept a little closer and peeked around the threshold. Bobby’s office was a tech fetishist’s paradise. Cool LED lights shifted colors, bathing liquid-cooled computers in shades of luminous green. A massive screen dominated the entire back wall. Linkletter stood before the video feed of Bobby’s glaring face, wringing his hands, head bowed.

  “I . . . I’m not sure,” he said.

  “You’re not sure because you’re useless. Are you sensing a theme here?”

  I tapped my earpiece and whispered, “Kevin? The systems at Bobby’s house aren’t affected by the worm. Why?”

  “Probably not connected to the corporate network.” His voice crackled. “Trust me, I’m watching the status in real time. The Diehl Innovations plant in Shanghai just went dark. They’re gonna be unclogging this thing for a week, easy.”

  “The entire firm will be working on your case around the clock,” Linkletter said. “We’ve put all other business on hold. You’re in good hands, Mr. Diehl.”

  “Good hands? Have you noticed I’m being pilloried in the media right now? Have you seen our fucking stock price today?” Bobby held up his phone. “Oh, and my e-mail is frozen. I mean, seriously, what is this? Are we not a tech company? I’m pretty sure we’re a tech company.”

  “I really can’t comment on your e-mail, sir. I’m not an IT professional—”

  “Maybe if you were, you wouldn’t be useless. Forget it. Look, I need you to do something for me. The FBI hasn’t frozen my Grand Cayman account yet. You need to wire a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars to the Concierge. Same account as usual. He’s running a pickup job for me—gonna grab my new friend and bring him to safe harbor. He’s got all the details; he just needs the money. Contact him when the transfer is under way with confirmation; the man won’t move until he sees the green. At least I think he’s a man.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  “Great.” Bobby gave him two thumbs up. “Oh, and start working on an alibi for me? A bunch of people are about to die horrifically. Between that and the media hounding me and the FBI on my doorstep, I really need a rock-solid trail of deniability here. And get some good PIs hunting for Burton Webb. I’m putting a bounty on that traitorous little prick.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t tell me these things, sir.”

  Bobby tilted his head. He leaned closer to the camera. “Client-attorney privilege,” he said. “Stop whining and handle my business. And remember one thing, Linkletter, I’ve still got the video from your little sex-tourism adventure in Thailand. If I go down, you go down. I’ll land on my feet. You won’t.”

  He killed the feed. The video screen flickered to black.

  Jessie glanced at me. I answered her unspoken question with a nod. We moved in. When Linkletter turned around, he found us standing right behind him. He stumbled back, resting a shaking palm on Bobby’s desk to steady himself.

  “Thailand, huh?” Jessie asked. “You a pedo, Linkletter? Like ’em young?”

  “That’s—that’s not—” He swallowed, hard. “Do you have a warrant? This is a private domicile—”

  Jessie pressed the muzzle of her gun to the lawyer’s forehead. And kept pressing until he sank to his knees on the polished mahogany floor.

  “It’s written on the barrel,” she said. “Can you read it now, or do you need a closer look? By the way, I really hate people who fuck with kids.”

  “What my partner’s trying to say,” I added, “is that this is no longer a by-the-books situation. Who’s the Concierge?”

  “I don’t know,” he stammered. “Even Bobby doesn’t know for certain. He’s an independent contractor, a professional smuggler. He moves people, money, goods. He’s a ghost.”

  “Where’s Ben Crohn, and where is the Concierge supposed to take him?”

  “I can’t,” Linkletter said. “Look, you don’t understand. Bobby Diehl isn’t some run-of-the-mill tech magnate with a fat stock portfolio. The man’s a monster. You have no idea what he’s capable of.”

  I loomed over him. I thought back to Talbot Cove and tasted bile in the back of my throat.

  “I don’t know? I was at ground zero when Bobby unleashed a mutagen in my hometown,” I told him. “Right in the middle of Main Street. He was gunning for me. A dozen innocent people died instead. Want to see what they looked like when the gas cleared?”

  I took out my phone and called up the crime-scene photos. Arms twisted in spirals, bones gone to rubber. Corpses with distended jaws and tumor-bloated eyes. I shoved the screen in his face. He tried to turn away, and I grabbed his hair and yanked hard.

  “Look at it, you son of a bitch! This is Bobby’s handiwork. This is the man you’re protecting. And if you don’t talk, he’ll just keep hurting people and keep getting away with it. Do the right thing for once in your life and help us.”

  The lawyer squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t know where Crohn is, I swear to God. I just know where Bobby is probably taking him. Xanadu.”

  Jessie squinted at him. “Xanadu as in the Coleridge poem, or Xanadu as in the Olivia Newton-John movie?”

  “His new retreat. After the mess at Spearhead, he needed a new facility for his . . . special projects. That’s where he is right now. He won’t even tell me where Xanadu is. It could be a mile from here; it could be halfway across the world.”

  “But the Concierge knows,” I said.

  I shared a l
ook with Jessie. Her eyes narrowed as she caught my meaning.

  “On your feet,” she told Linkletter. “You’ve got a chance to live through this. Just a chance, and you’d better do exactly what we tell you, to the letter. You screw up, Bobby has to put out a want ad for a new lawyer.”

  He rose, petrified, still staring at her pistol. “What do I need to do?”

  “Exactly what Bobby told you,” I said. “Transfer the money to the Concierge. Then get him on the phone.”

  FORTY-ONE

  Linkletter hunched over Bobby’s console, tapping out strings of commands and shuffling money like Kevin shuffled code. Strings of numbers flew by with more commas and zeroes on the end than anyone could dream of spending in a lifetime.

  “How many secret accounts does Bobby have?” Jessie asked him.

  “Five that I’m aware of. Undoubtedly others that I’m not. Your freeze of his corporate accounts will be an impediment, but not a lethal one, I’m sorry to tell you.”

  “Probably don’t wanna use words like lethal right now. Oh, and we’ll take a list of what you do know. Account names and numbers, routing details—write ’em all down.”

  “None of this will be admissible in court—”

  “You believe this guy?” Jessie asked me, still covering him with her gun. “He actually thinks Bobby’s gonna live to see the inside of a courtroom. You oughta be more worried about yourself right now, Linkletter.”

  He rattled off a few final keystrokes. I watched confirmation numbers scroll on the screen, blocks of crisp black font.

  “It’s done,” he said. “The Concierge has been paid.”

  We moved off to the side, out of the camera’s eye, and Jessie gestured to the video wall. “Good. Call him up. When you do, we want to know where the pickup location is at, and where Xanadu is.”

  “I don’t normally ask questions. What if he gets suspicious?”