The Memory Collector

by Meg Gardiner

  “Take the exit,” Murdock said.

  With her wrists cuffed to the steering wheel she couldn’t signal. Calder hit the blinker.

  Heart drumming, she pulled off the freeway. In the distance she could see the airport terminals, the control tower, and a jet rolling down the runway. She prepared to turn right.

  “Go left,” Calder said.

  Jo looked at her sharply. “What? Where are we going?”

  “Drive.”

  Instead of turning toward the terminals, they went south on Airport Boulevard, around the perimeter fence at the south end of the runways. They passed bristling electronic masts. On her right, a chain-link fence offered glimpses of the tarmac. The runways were black gashes brightened with Christmas-tree lighting. Jo drove past a long, gleaming jet blast deflector. A 737 screamed overhead, lights glaring, engines at high pitch, and touched down.

  Ahead, on the far side of the airfield, the private aviation terminals were brightly lit. A phalanx of corporate jets and charter aircraft gleamed under brilliant hangar lights.

  Riva made a phone call. “We’ll be there in ten minutes. Be ready to go.”

  This was not good. This was, in fact, very bad.

  Kanan slowed the pickup and swung around the off-ramp. He scanned the road ahead and turned onto Coleman Avenue, west of the airport. Mineta San Jose International Airport—International meant that plenty of airliners lifted off from there and winged away to Mexico, South America, Canada, as well as the U.S. Midwest and East Coast.

  He could see over the perimeter fence and across the runways. Jets were lined up at the commercial terminals, hooked to Jetways and fuel hoses like piglets suckling at the teats of a sow. The airfield was a dark expanse between the airliners on the east side of the airport and the private terminals on the west. The runway and taxiway lights shone vividly. Red, yellow, green. He saw them with prism clarity, so clearly that he thought he could pinpoint their exact frequency on the electromagnetic spectrum.

  The thing in his head, the memory eater, was bizarre. It was chopping out most of his world, scooping away his experiences like a combine, collecting all information before he could store it as memory. But this thing wasn’t only about recall. It wasn’t simply collecting. It was firing inside his head. He felt, when he slowed his breathing and concentrated, that he’d been rewired. He felt like his brain went to eleven.

  He could use that to get his family back.

  The voice of the GPS purred at him. “You have reached your destination.”

  She had no idea.

  “Keep it slow,” Calder said.

  At ten fifteen on a Friday night, Coleman Avenue was quiet. It was a major road, but the business parks and warehouses along the road were dark, chilly, and empty. To the west were railroad tracks and, beyond them, Santa Clara University. All the activity was east, beyond a block of industrial parks and aviation businesses, at the airport.

  “Turn right,” Calder said.

  Jo turned from Coleman onto a side road and headed through a business park toward the airfield. The buildings, the ubiquitous white concrete and blue glass architecture of Silicon Valley, were shut for the weekend. The road ran east for eighty yards, made a left turn, and ran north-south between Coleman and the airport runways. It was absolutely deserted. Jo passed more bristling microwave and radar towers and the entrance to the airport traffic control center.

  “Slow down,” Calder said.

  Jo slowed the Tahoe to a crawl. At a corner, Calder held up her hand.

  “Stop. Pull over.”

  Jo pulled to the curb. On the lawn of an office complex, eucalyptus and pines stood cold in the night. To her left, the cross road offered a clear view back toward Coleman. She could see streetlights and, very occasionally, a passing car.

  To her right, the cross road narrowed to an access drive. It ended after seventy yards at a gate with a swing arm. Beyond were the private aviation terminals.

  There was no guard at the gate, only a card-reading machine and a one-by-four piece of plywood painted black and white. Jo reminded herself yet again that airport security was a game. It was played to placate the flying public and keep security personnel employed and feeding their massive authority complex.

  In the sky above, the landing lights of an airliner blared and turbines whined. A jet crossed the runway threshold, flared, and touched down. As it streaked past its thrust reversers howled.

  On the airfield apron, parked at varying angles, tail in, tail out, edge on—like a flock of gulls that had circled and landed all askew—were white corporate jets. They were mostly locked up, windows dark. But one jet wasn’t tucked in for the night. It was large, with a T-tail and two engines at the back. The door was open and the stairs were down. Inside the lights were aglow. She saw a man walk up the aisle, pass the door, and go into the cockpit.

  She wondered if the same crew that had flown Alec Shepard in from Montreal that morning was prepping Chira-Sayf’s jet for its flight tonight.

  Riva planned to get Slick from Ian Kanan and then fly away. And the only way she could get Slick was by showing Kanan that his wife and son were alive. Jo clutched tight to that thought.

  But why exchange them here, instead of at the Valley Fair Mall ten minutes down the freeway? Did Riva plan to put Jo and the Kanans on the plane and fly them someplace where they’d never be seen again—such as the Pacific Ocean?

  But that would never work. The pilot would never agree to it. The idea was crazy.

  Crazy, however, seemed to be Riva Calder’s business plan.

  “Cut the lights,” Calder said.

  Jo looked at her. “How?”

  Chagrined, Calder reached over and turned off the Tahoe’s headlights. Jo sat, hands growing numb from the plastic handcuffs, and watched the pilots moving around inside Chira-Sayf’s corporate jet.

  Next to her, Calder shifted and her energy swelled. She was looking past Jo out the driver’s window, back toward Coleman Avenue.

  A truck was stopped at the curb there, lights blazing.

  “That’s him,” Calder said.

  She opened the door and got out. Leaned back in and looked into the back seat. “I’ll call you with instructions.”

  Murdock leaned forward. “Give me your field pass.”

  “I’ll bring it back.”

  She shut the door and jogged across the street. Keeping to the shadows, she headed for the distant truck.

  “What do I do now?” Jo said.

  Murdock shifted and exhaled. “You wait.”

  Kanan kept the truck idling at the curb and surveilled the area. Traffic on Coleman Avenue was sporadic. Three hundred eighty-five meters to the east, an American Airlines 757 taxied into takeoff position. Two hundred forty-five meters north, in the parking lot of a commercial building, two parked cars sat cold and empty.

  A tap on the passenger window startled him.

  He turned, and anger washed over him. Then confusion. “Riva?”

  He unlocked the door. She jumped in the cab.

  “What happened to you?” he said.

  She touched a hand to the blistered red burn mark on her forehead. “Accident.”

  She was breathing fast and her pupils were dilated. She leaned too close and put a hand on his arm.

  “This is it.” Her hand was hot. “I’m scared.”

  “It?”

  Confusion clouded her face. “Yes—Ian, I called you. What—”

  “The exchange?”

  “Yes, of course. I don’t—”

  “What did the kidnappers say? Just tell me. We get Misty and Seth back, and then I’ll explain everything.”

  “I don’t—Ian, please . . .”

  He pulled his arm away from her. “I don’t think we have any time left. What do I need to do?”

  She lowered her hand to her lap but kept looking at him like he was a drug, a hit of crack she wanted.

  A look of hurt and self-restraint came over her. She got out her phone. “We tell the
m we’re here.”

  Jo was wound like a countersunk screw. The zip ties cut into her wrists. The SUV idled like a disgruntled bear.

  Murdock’s phone rang. He put it to his ear, listened, and said, “Got it.”

  He climbed over the center console, slid his sausage body into the front passenger seat, and pointed ahead. “Drive up to the next block and cut back over to Coleman.” He put the SUV in gear. “Slow and steady, chickie.”

  She drove slowly up the side street.

  Chaos was the world’s great leveler. It entered lives with neither forethought nor purpose and cut like a scythe through the dreams and plans of everybody it touched. For years she had convinced herself that this truth must be acknowledged. And now that chaos was here, hell if she was going to accept it.

  She knew she couldn’t control the chaos. But she could try to control what happened to her and the Kanan family. She could try to get them all out of this.

  She glanced in the rearview mirror. She saw Misty’s eyes staring back, deeply frightened. And determined.

  The red digital clock on the dashboard read 10:17. She drove up a block, turned left, crossed through another darkened business park, and turned left again onto the broad sweep of Coleman Avenue.

  “Pull over,” Murdock said.

  She stopped at the curb facing south. “The stuff that Kanan’s going to exchange is extremely volatile. Nobody should be around it. And especially not at an airport.”

  “Shut it,” Murdock said.

  Vance said, “What if she’s telling the truth?”

  “I said, shut it. All of you.” Murdock straightened and stared out the windshield. “Here we go.”

  Several hundred yards down the road, parked facing them on the other side, was the pickup truck. It sat, headlights bright, idling.

  Kanan peered up Coleman Avenue. An SUV had turned this way from a side street and pulled to the curb several hundred meters away. It looked like a Chira-Sayf corporate SUV, one of those brawny vehicles his brother loved and trusted.

  He forced his eyes to focus. He forced his mind to concentrate. He forced his heart to still.

  The SUV was a blue Chevy Tahoe. Misty’s Tahoe. It held his family.

  Hold on to that, he told himself. He was seconds away. He could almost touch them, almost feel Misty in his arms, hear Seth calling his name. They were real, they were there, they were coming home. Hold on to it.

  Riva rustled through his backpack. “Where is it?”

  “The computer battery.”

  She took it out, weighed it in her hand. And she smiled. It looked like joy. Like victory.

  “Ian,” she said.

  He looked at her.

  “What did the kidnappers tell you before you went to Africa?” she said.

  “That I had till Saturday to get the sample of Slick for them, or my family wouldn’t survive.”

  “Do you know what day it is?” she said.

  He searched, found nothing but blank space. “No.”

  She leaned toward him an inch. “It’s Sunday.”

  “What?”

  She took a pen from her pocket, a fat black Sharpie, and pulled off the cap.

  His pulse soared. “What are you talking about? If it’s Sunday, and I didn’t turn Slick over . . .”

  She took his arm and pushed his sleeve up. Words were written on his forearm.

  Christ. His heart thundered. Riva pressed the Sharpie to his skin and began to write.

  The thunder filled his head like water roaring over falls. Those words . . . it wasn’t . . . no . . .

  He grabbed the pen from Riva and jerked his arm away. He looked again at the Tahoe parked at the curb up the road. It held his family. Hold on to that thought.

  Wrong, Riva was wrong, this was wrong.

  A pimped-out Honda rushed past, low-profile tires and mag wheels shining, hip-hop bass booming from the speakers. The smell of the ink was sharp and intoxicating and cleared his head.

  He was behind the wheel of a truck. He had a pen in his hand. Words

  “Ian ,”someo ne said. He was behind the wheel of a truck. He had a pen in his hand. Words were written on his flesh.

  He turned his head. Riva Calder was in the passenger seat of Nico Diaz’s tricked-out pickup.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  He looked at his arm. His world crashed down around him.

  Saturday they died.

  36

  Jo watched out the windshield. Her heart was hammering.

  Down Coleman Avenue, the pickup truck idled at the curb, headlights glaring. Murdock hung up the phone.

  “Riva’s all set. Hang on. We do this and everybody goes home. Five minutes.”

  But the other car didn’t move. Jo’s stomach twisted tighter.

  All set. That meant Kanan had to have Slick with him.

  Jo tried to put it together. Kanan didn’t know that Calder was behind everything. She had, until tonight, managed to stay in the background. If he was willing to sit in the pickup talking to her, he must think she was an innocent colleague, helping him out of a desperate situation.

  Calder knew her plan was near ruin. Unless she was in denial or remarkably stupid, she would see only one option left: to flee. And she wasn’t stupid. She was ruthless. She was going to run. And she wouldn’t run without Slick.

  And she would want as clean a getaway as possible. Her accomplices, Murdock and Vance, were not top-shelf conspirators. They struck Jo as opportunists and cowards. They didn’t strike her as men who would stay silent and go down for Riva Calder. If the police caught them, they would flip for a deal.

  Riva had to know that. So what was she going to do about it?

  “Oh, my God,” she said.

  Calder planned to climb aboard Chira-Sayf’s company plane and fly to freedom. She wanted to take two things with her. And those were not Sausage and Scrambled Eggs, mouth-breathing in the Tahoe with Jo. They were Slick and Ian Kanan.

  In the pickup truck down the road, Calder had them both.

  Her magic getaway carpet was loaded with Jet A and waiting on the far side of the airport perimeter fence. With sickening clarity, Jo heard Riva telling Murdock, I’ll give you the field pass when I come back.

  She didn’t plan to come back. She planned to split and cheat her partners out of their share of the profits.

  “Murdock, this is bad,” Jo said. “There’s no good reason for Riva to sit there in the pickup. Something’s squirrelly.”

  “You made a mess of my evening, that’s what’s squirrelly.”

  “She’s going to run, and she doesn’t want to leave witnesses.” Because she wanted to give herself a head start. Because she hated Misty. “Put the car in gear. I want to be able to get out of here.”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  Jo turned to him. “Murdock, she’s going to double-cross you.”

  Kanan stared at Riva in the darkened pickup. “They’re not dead.”

  Riva was breathing hard. Her eyes were wide. “Ian, no. I’m sorry to have to tell you this again.”

  “Again? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I hate this. It rips the wound open every time.”

  “What do you mean, every time?” How many times had she told him this?

  No. It wasn’t possible.

  She put her hand on his. “Honey, they’re gone.”

  Honey?

  Her palm, resting on his, throbbed with heat. She squeezed his hand and licked her lips as though they were dry.

  “Listen carefully,” she said. “I know it’s a blow. But you have to hold it together. We only have a few minutes.”

  “What the hell are you saying, Riva?”

  “It’s okay.”

  “It’s fucking not.” To him she looked—frantic behind those doe eyes. Needy, and . . . cagy, and like she was taking a chance.

  “Baby,” she said, “you can’t think about things right now. Just listen to me. We have to grab this opportunity. We
’ll never get it again.”

  He slid his hand out from under hers. “I’m not your baby. Are you—Christ, Riva. No. What are you trying to pull?”

  “Ian.” Her hand came up, as if she wanted to reach for him.

  He recoiled. “Where’s my wife? Where’s my son?”

  “I told you. They’re dead.”

  “And I’ve hooked up with you instead? You’re in fantasy land.”

  Her voice sharpened. “Stop this. We don’t have time to mess around.”

  Abruptly, self-consciously, she softened and reached to touch his shoulder. The ring on her finger caught the light. He grabbed her hand.

  “Why are you wearing Misty’s wedding ring?” He looked at her neck. She had on the dolphin necklace. “I gave those to her. Take them off.”

  His fear, his panic and confusion, seemed to fill the air around him like a hiss.

  “What’s going on? And do not tell me I’m sleeping with you. My memory’s shot to hell but I know I am not getting between the sheets with you. No way. So stop playing this goddamned game and tell me where my family is.”

  Slowly Riva withdrew her hand. When it reached her lap it was a fist. For a moment her lips quivered. Then she swallowed. She snatched the necklace and yanked it off, breaking the chain. She wrenched the ring off her finger. She shoved the jewelry at him, clutched in her fist. She lifted her chin and spoke through her teeth.

  “They’re dead.” She looked out the windshield. “And their killers are in your Tahoe.”

  Murdock glowered at Jo. “Stop trying to mind-fuck us. Riva’s getting the stuff from Kanan.”

  Jo tried to keep her breathing even, but her heart was drumming. The red dashboard clock read 10:24.

  “Riva’s been in the pickup with Kanan more than five minutes,” she said.