* * *
The same moon and stars were visible high above the mountains at the edge of the desert floor. Alpha’s body had come to rest facedown in the wet sand and mud, the knife still firmly planted in his ear. The cell phone was wedged deep inside a nylon pocket on the front side of his combat vest. It rang for the hundredth time, the sound of the ring tone muted by the weight of his dead body pressing down, barely audible at all in the cool desert night.
CHAPTER 108
They emerged from the mountains as the storm began to shift to the east. The rain finally began to taper off. They followed the dirt track for another few miles and eased to a stop midway to the second gate. The landscape was flat and dark.
Archer found a folding camp shovel stowed behind the seat of the Scout. He stomped out across the dirt and scrub for about a hundred feet. Dropped to his knees and began chopping away at the sandy soil.
He labored for half an hour. Exhausted, weary, fueled mostly by rage. His muscles burned with every spade of earth he removed and heaved aside. He labored with the shovel until the edge of the pit came up to his hip. The hole was just deep enough and wide enough to suffice.
Archer opened the Scout’s passenger door and hooked Simeon under the arms. Dragged him out across the gloom. He dropped the body into the pit and collapsed to his knees in exhaustion. Lightening traced across the sky, briefly revealing the corpse in the crude grave. He muttered a short prayer he’d heard a thousand times back in the Army. Then he filled the pit with the turned dirt, dropped the shovel beside the grave, and staggered back to the road.
CHAPTER 109
The work was completed an hour before dawn. Rydel ran through his checklist and found nothing had been overlooked. He was ready to dispatch his men. He gave the order and the big bay door opened, fluorescent light spilling out into the predawn haze.
The big trucks rolled out into the streets one at a time, spaced at ten-minute intervals. The drivers had specific instructions. Everything had been perfectly planned and choreographed.
When the last of the trucks exited the warehouse, Rydel stood in the open door, looking past the haze toward the edge of the city, and then he phoned Leonard Monroe to give him the news.
* * *
Noella Chu pulled in at a truck stop and purchased a prepaid cell phone from a display rack on the sales counter. She returned to the Kia and found Penny settling back to sleep.
Noella Chu flicked the overhead light on and took a moment to study the map.
They would be there soon. Another hour, perhaps. She’d have plenty of time to set up her trap. She was confident they’d never see it coming. They simply had no idea who they were dealing with.
* * *
A long night had followed a long day, and Special Agent David Kline wasn’t sure he had anything left to give. He stood in the shower of his hotel room and leaned into the hot spray from the shower head with both hands planted against the wall of the shower stall.
He stood with his face downturned, eyes closed, half asleep. The past couple of days had been more like a dream than real life. His muscles ached. A thousand different kinds of pain ricocheted through his skull. He felt very old. Steam plumed up and around, rolling up and over the shower curtain, clouding the bathroom and heavily fogging the bathroom mirror.
All he really wanted to do was to clear his mind for a few short hours. Shut his eyes and drift away for ninety minutes, then drink coffee and watch the sunrise. Dunbar was almost dead, but Kline still needed to go back and find out where the bodies were hidden. He still had to face the lunatic one more time. He would beat it out of him if he had to. He couldn’t allow Dunbar to take his secret to the grave.
Kline heard his cell phone ring. Raised his head against the spray, eyes still closed. Released a long, tired breath. Pushed a hand through his close-cropped hair. Heard the cell ring again.
“Give me a break, people,” he sighed.
He ignored the call and tried to blank his mind. He couldn’t shake the image of Julie Sperry and the piano wire.
After a minute the cell rang again.
Kline left the water running, shoved the shower curtain aside, and stepped over the side of the tub as water pooled on the bathroom floor. He put the cell to his ear.
“Kline,” he grumbled.
“Special Agent Kline, this is Vince Fortner,” a gravelly voice said.
Kline’s eyes snapped open. Vince Fortner was the warden at San Quentin.
“Uh, good morning, warden.”
“How far are you from the prison?”
Kline frowned. “I’m in L.A.”
“I’d suggest you get on a plane.”
“I don’t understand.”
“We’ve had an emergency.”
Kline felt his stomach drop.
“What kind of emergency?” he asked.
“Gaston Dunbar attempted suicide about half an hour ago.”
CHAPTER 110
The FBI helicopter landed in Marin County shortly before dawn. A car was waiting. Special Agent Kline dropped into the backseat.
“Go,” he told the driver.
They weren’t going to the prison. Dunbar had been rushed to Marin General Hospital. Fortner had reported that Dunbar was in bad shape. Looked like the execution might not be necessary after all, Fortner had said. Might save the taxpayers a couple of bucks.
Kline’s stomach twisted into a thousand tiny knots.
He called up to the driver.
“You smoke, son?”
The driver glanced at him in the mirror.
“Yessir.”
“Pass one back.”
The kid blinked in the mirror, then handed a pack over the seat. “Keep them,” he said.
“You’ll make a fine agent one day,” Kline said, sucking hard on the filter.
“Thank you, sir.”
The car delivered him to the emergency room entrance. He barreled out into the cool morning air. The sliding glass doors whisked open for him. There were hulking prison guards loitering inside. Kline flashed his badge. A doctor in blue scrubs came out to greet him.
“Dr. Ghinnish,” a tall, fit, dark-skinned Pakistani young man said, extending a hand.
“Where is Dunbar?”
Dr. Ghinnish hooked a thumb toward a closed door, guards posted on either side in the corridor.
“What happened?”
“The inmate slashed both his own wrists. He’s lost a great deal of blood.”
“Will he live?”
The doctor nodded.
“Is he conscious?”
“Yes.”
“Is he responsive?”
“Yes.”
“I need to talk to him.”
Dr. Ghinnish led him through the closed door.
Dunbar was on a table surrounded by medical staff. There were intravenous tubes running to his arms. Blood and fluids. Medical equipment beeped and hummed. The atmosphere was tense and nervous.
Dunbar’s eyes were open, staring calmly at the pale ceiling above him.
Kline approached the table. Glared down at the patient/inmate.
Dunbar did not acknowledge his presence in any way.
Kline studied him. Dunbar’s arms and legs were restrained by heavy straps. He wasn’t going anywhere. Kline turned to Dr. Ghinnish and the nurses.
“I want everyone out of the room,” he ordered.
The members of the medical staff turned to him and stared.
Kline addressed Dr. Ghinnish directly.
“Doctor, get them out. Now.”
Ghinnish reluctantly ushered his nurses out the door.
Then Kline addressed the pair of armed prison guards.
“Please wait outside the door. I need to speak with him privately.”
The guards glared at him, unsure. Then they nodded and turned for the corridor.
“We’ll be right outside the door if you need us,” one of them said.
Dunbar’s wrists were heavily bandaged. His skin tone
looked even paler than it had in the unforgiving fluorescent lights of the prison. Dunbar blinked, eyes tracking contentedly back and forth across the ceiling tiles.
“What the hell are you up to?” Kline said.
“I wanted you to understand how important I am to you. You needed a wake up call. See how easily I was able to do this? And I wasn’t even really trying. If I had really intended to kill myself, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. My body would already be in a drawer downstairs.”
“Why did you cut yourself?”
Dunbar spoke plainly and calmly. “So that you won’t take me for granted. You believe you have another two days to dig the truth out of me, and I wanted to make it clear to you that no one is control here but me. I know exactly where the bodies are. Sydney and Robin. Mother and daughter. The woman I married and the child I fathered. I can point to a map and put you within six inches. But I’m the only one. And the notion that I might die before I tell you my secret absolutely terrifies you, Special Agent Kline. Quite honestly, nothing makes me happier than possessing that knowledge.”
“You don’t have power over anyone, Dunbar. No one cares how you die or when.”
Dunbar grinned.
“You are a sad little man, Special Agent Kline. You are pathetic. I’m the only person in this entire world who can give you what you want, and so you are reduced to crawling on your knees and bowing before me to beg and grovel, to plead for my cooperation.”
Kline didn’t respond.
“I’m going to give you the bodies,” Dunbar continued.
“I’m listening.”
“I know what it’s worth to you.”
“Do you?”
“Of course.”
“So tell me. Where did you put them?”
Dunbar smiled.
“You will be quite surprised.”
“Tell me.”
“I’m going to give you ten minutes to make a very important decision. Perhaps the biggest of your pathetic career. Do you think you’re up to it?”
“Try me.”
“I will personally take you to the bodies. We will leave at noon. We will ride together, you and I, and I will lead you hand in hand to the place I put Sidney and Robin. You will have them today.”
“No,” Kline said, flushed with rage. “Forget it.”
“Ten minutes,” Dunbar said. “Make a phone call if you have to. You will agree to let me breathe fresh air one last time, or this conversation is over. Your time starts now.”
* * *
Kline stood on the lawn outside the emergency room door with an unlit cigarette between his lips. His cell phone was glued to his ear. He glanced at his watch. He had to give Dunbar his answer in less than three minutes.
The conference call was a screaming match between the governor, the DA, Leonard Monroe, and Kline himself. The governor had been dragged from bed after a late night raising money for his reelection campaign. He roared like a lion over the fiber optic lines.
Kline held the cigarette between his fingers and stared at it, listening to the yelling and cursing. The moon was fading beneath the treetops beyond the far edge of the parking lot.
A decision was finally reached.
Kline again glanced at his watch, dropped the cigarette into the newly mowed grass, and stepped back through the automatic doors.
He was down to less than thirty seconds when he stood next to the table and glared down at Dunbar.
“OK, you win,” Kline said. “We leave at noon.”
CHAPTER 111
The colors of dawn burned across the horizon. Alternating stripes of black and purple and gray giving way to brilliant shades of orange and pink and indigo rising slowly over the distant mountains. Archer could feel his eyes growing heavy with the monotony of the highway. He grasped the wheel hard with both fists. Forced himself to focus on the road. Willed himself to fight through the exhaustion. For hours he had listened to the moans of pain coming from the rear of the Hummer.
As the first light of Saturday morning broke before them, Archer eased off the gas. The Hummer drifted onto the gravel shoulder so that he could check on Raj.
Both kids were asleep, piled together on one side of the vehicle.
Lindsay was sitting up, her eyes open but full of weariness. She looked up at Archer.
“Where are we?” she asked him.
“My best guess is the middle of nowhere.”
“I haven’t seen a town in a couple of hours.”
Archer nodded.
“How much longer?” she asked.
He shrugged, glanced ahead at the highway. “We’ll get there when we get there.”
“Raj won’t make it.”
“He’ll make it.”
“He needs help or he’s going to die.”
“I won’t let him die.”
“Please hurry,” she said.
Archer nodded. Closed the back door, put the SUV in gear, and drove toward the sunrise.
* * *
The town was exactly as Simeon had described. A dot on the map. A city limit sign flashed by, the triple-digit population mostly scratched out and faded by wind and dust and decades of the sun’s intensity.
The town had a gas station with a tiny video rental store and a coin-operated laundry attached like cancerous growths, and a couple of diners facing each other from opposite sides of the highway, competing for the same sparse business. Most of the buildings looked abandoned. It was just a town that had risen out of the sand and heat in the middle of the Nevada desert, forgotten by time, baked by the sun.
Archer spotted a motel sign sticking up on the side of the road at the far edge of town and pulled the Hummer into the lot. A light was on in the office.
Archer paid cash for a room and sat on the edge of one of the beds and grabbed a battered phone book from the nightstand. Flipped through the pages until he found a listing for the only doctor in town. Dr. Fay Macintosh. He dialed the number on the ancient phone bolted to the nightstand.
A gravely voice answered, “This is Dr. Fay.”
“Good morning, doctor,” Archer said.
* * *
They left Ramey and Wyatt at the motel. They told them to lock the door and keep the lights off and to not answer the door for anyone but them, no matter what.
Archer followed the directions Macintosh had given him over the phone. They pulled down a side street to a low cinderblock building with a long Buick parked in the rear. The building was sheathed in dust just like everything else. Archer couldn’t imagine grinding through years of undergrad and med school to end up in a dustbowl like this, barely scraping by. Everyone has a story, he thought.
The door opened and a short man with bright green eyes and a wild, sprawling beard stepped out.
“Dr. Fay?” Archer said.
“Was yesterday, and hope to still be tomorrow,” the doctor replied.
“Where’s the patient?” the doctor asked.
Archer pointed at the SUV.
“Bring him,” the doctor said.
“Could you give me a hand?”
“Most certainly, most certainly,” the doctor said with a nod.
Together they hoisted Raj out of the Hummer and moved him inside to a table in Dr. Fay’s ramshackle little medical clinic.
Dr. Fay was dressed in a stark white, long-sleeved button-down shirt and blue slacks. His thick-soled loafers had to have been twenty years old, Archer guessed.
“What’s the story?” the doctor asked.
Archer glanced at Lindsay, then at the doctor.
“Gunshot wound,” Archer said.
“Uh-huh,” the doctor frowned.
“Long story,” Archer said. “Please don’t ask.”
Dr. Fay hitched his hands on his hips. Glared at Archer, then flicked his gaze to Lindsay. Stared at her long and hard.
“Yes, yes,” he said, combing his fingers through the tangled curls of his beard. “I believe I know who you are, young lady. Yes, indeed. Quite a story ther
e. I’m a bit surprised to see you still alive, actually. Figured someone would have gotten you by now. Looks like you are quite the trooper, though. Yes, indeed. Good for you, honey. Don’t worry about your friend here. I’ll get him patched up. No problem. No problem at all.”
“Thank you,” Lindsay said, hugging her arms around the elderly doctor.
“So you understand that no one can know we are here?” Archer said.
The doctor offered a quick wink.
“Don’t worry about me, son.”
“Can we leave him here for a few hours?”
“You’ll have to if you want him to live,” Dr. Fay said.
“Thank you for understanding,” Archer said.
Dr. Fay nodded.
“Now, if you folks will excuse me, I need to get to work on your friend,” he said.
* * *
The Hummer sat at a stop sign where the gravel side street intersected the highway. Archer and Lindsay sat for a moment in silence, listening to the big V8 idle. A few lights had by now blinked on in windows inside various businesses along the strip.
“Do you know the way?” Lindsay asked him.
“Yes and no.”
Archer had counted on Simeon coming along and being present to lead the way, but now he had to rely on the crude map Simeon had scribbled in the dust across the hood of the Hummer.
“We might make a few wrong turns, but we will find it,” he said.
His left hand was at 12 o’clock on the wheel, his right hand gripping the knob on the shifter on the center console. The sun was visible on the horizon, razor-sharp rays of morning light streaming down the highway and between the buildings of the town.
Lindsay placed her hand on his.
He cocked his head a half-turn.
She rubbed his thick knuckles with the soft smooth flesh of her thumb and she stared at his face without blinking for a long moment.
Archer did not look away.
Lindsay leaned toward him.
Archer reacted by leaning in. He kissed her once, but then reluctantly leaned away.
“What?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”
72 Hours (A Thriller) Page 23