“Do you recall anything unusual about him in the time before he disappeared?”
“Don’t you think the police and the other detectives have asked me that?”
“Of course they have. But think again.”
She closed her eyes, sighed. “Okay. The time before. It’s always divided between before and after, isn’t it?”
I didn’t reply.
“The time before . . . He’d been moody for months. He made a lot more computer searches than he usually did, but was vague about what he was after. Then, around November, his mood broke. He was cheerful, looking forward to the holidays. But he still spent a lot of time away from me. I put it down to an extra-heavy workload. Toward Christmas, I sensed a change in him, but I’m not sure I can explain it.”
“Try.”
She kept her eyes closed for a moment, then opened them. “I could feel an edgy energy in him. It was like he . . . hummed with it.”
“As if he was making plans?”
“. . . Something like that.”
“Did he seem excited?”
“No. He was more . . . purposeful.”
“What about anger? I understand he had a problem with that as a child.”
“So he told me. But, no. He wasn’t angry.”
“How was Christmas?”
“Wonderful. He gave me great presents, and I gave him an engraved Rolex. He took it with him when he left.”
“What did the engraving say?”
“‘To Chad. Love always, Veronica.’”
“I don’t want to go back to San Francisco,” Mick said. “Why can’t I come down to the training camp with you?”
We’d dropped off the rental car and were in the terminal at KSBA. I’d just handed him his ticket on Southwest.
“Mick, it’s time. Spend the weekend rearranging the condo. Buy a real bed. Get on with your life.”
“But I found out something good from that neighbor of Wylie’s. Maybe I could help you out at the training camp.”
The chatty neighbor had told Mick that a dozen red roses came for Wylie three days after Chad disappeared; she’d been at work, and he’d taken them in and, he admitted, “peeked” at the card. The message was: “I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Love, Chad.”
It made me wonder why Wylie hadn’t told anyone about it. Was the message some kind of code? Was she still in touch with Chad? Did she know what he was doing?
To Mick I said, “You going down to the training camp would only make things awkward. Hy will be there.”
Pause. “Oh, I get it.”
“They’ve called your flight. Get going.”
He hugged me, then got into the security line. Once he passed through, I headed for the private tie-downs.
I flew southeast toward El Centro, with the familiar feeling that bits and pieces of information were starting to form a recognizable pattern. I concentrated on piloting, not trying to force the connections.
Kessell/Tyne’s son Chad was old enough at the time of his mother’s death to know what had happened to her and who had supplied the drugs. Good reason to hate Gage Renshaw. When his father gave him up for adoption and sent him off to Los Angeles, the boy had been sad and angry. Good reason to hate Dan, too.
As a child, Chad had anger management problems and an aversion to anything having to do with airplanes. But he’d been a good son to his adoptive parents and an excellent student. And later an excellent employee and fiancé.
So what had sent him over the edge into a vendetta against the company his birth father had founded?
Veronica Wylie had noticed a change in him the November before he disappeared. Or so she said.
November, two years and some months ago . . .
Right. One of RKI’s clients, a wealthy Montecito businessman and philanthropist, was kidnapped. Their operatives traced the kidnappers to a run-down house in rural Santa Barbara County. Kessell/Tyne made the decision to bypass ransom and hostage negotiations, and instead operatives had made a dramatic raid on the house, rescuing their client and killing the two men who had taken him. The incident had generated nationwide attention, as well as a debate over what limits should be placed on private protection firms. I recalled that Hy was angry because Kessell/Tyne had ignored his suggestion to negotiate with the kidnappers.
Gage Renshaw, one of the men Chad Merkel had reason to hate, had dealt with the press. The name Kessell would have alerted Merkel to the whereabouts of his birth father. Further research set off an old anger that tipped the scales in favor of vengeance.
The training camp looked strangely deserted as I approached its small airfield. Nothing moved, and there was only one aircraft parked there—a company helicopter. Hy must have flown it over from San Diego. A few years before, he’d renewed his chopper rating and now enjoyed flying machines that—as any pilot experienced in them will tell you—are composed of ten thousand movable parts, each one of them trying to do you serious bodily harm.
I landed and taxied over next to his dangerous bird.
As I got out of the plane, I immediately became aware of the intense heat and an eerie silence. I’d never been to the camp before, but Hy had told me it usually buzzed with activity. New operatives trained twelve hours a day—classroom work, evasionary driving tactics, firearms instruction and practice, self-defense disciplines, hand-to-hand combat.
But now, I heard nothing, saw no one. The guard who Hy had said would come out of the UNICOM shack to greet me didn’t materialize. Neither did anybody else.
I tied down the plane, keeping a watchful eye, then took my .357 Magnum from my purse, where I’d stowed it before leaving San Francisco. Tucked it into the waistband of my pants, locked the plane, and walked toward the shack. No one there, but the UNICOM was on.
Something really wrong here.
I stood at the window on the other side of the building and surveyed the camp. Straight ahead stood a large two-story structure that probably was the dormitory and dining hall. The buildings to the right and left of it were equally large but single-story—classrooms, exercise facilities. The firing and evasionary driving ranges must be beyond them. As well as the administration building, which, Hy had said, was near the front gate and guardhouse.
That was most likely where I’d find him. Or not. More likely not.
I thought I knew what was wrong.
I stood very still, holding my breath as the pieces of information I possessed formed one perfect image.
There was a phone on the desk; I picked up the receiver. But there was no dial tone. Probably the camp’s whole system was disabled.
The ever-running man was here. He’d somehow gotten everybody out of the camp, taken Hy hostage. He’d heard my plane, knew I was here, too. And he most assuredly had an explosive device.
What could I do? Hy had warned me my cellular wouldn’t work here. I couldn’t search the camp in daylight without the possibility of being seen and taken hostage or even shot.
I looked out the window again. Already the sun was sinking in the west. Not long before nightfall. I’d wait till then.
I moved out around six-thirty, under cover of darkness, the .357 in hand. The dormitory and classroom buildings were unlit. I slipped alongside the nearest one and peered around its front corner; a paved road led away to the left and the right. Beyond it I could make out little but the shapes of cacti and scrub vegetation; there was only a slice of moon—not enough to help me get my bearings. But also not enough to illuminate me to a watcher.
After a few moments’ hesitation I went right, walking along the edge of the road. Even in the sand, my footfalls sounded loud. I smelled sagebrush; now and then a branch brushed at my leg. The night was cooling; I wished I had my jacket, but I’d locked it in the plane. I walked faster, past three smaller outbuildings, and after about a hundred yards the road widened to a large paved area where at least two dozen cars were parked.
I moved slowly toward them, slipped between the first two rows. The vehicles looked as if
they ought to be in an auto salvage yard: scrapes, dents, crushed hoods, missing bumpers, shattered windows, sprung trunks. The clunker fleet. On the other side of the parking area, several roads branched off: the evasionary driving range.
Back the way I’d come, past the outbuildings, dark dormitory, and classroom buildings. The road divided and, although it hadn’t worked before, again I went to the right.
Bad choice. I’d seen enough firing ranges to know this was one, even though the targets weren’t visible.
Back again, and straight ahead. Soon I could see the administration building and guardhouse; there were lights on in both, as well as along the perimeter fence.
Hy . . .
Careful, McCone. Don’t go rushing in.
I moved to the side, crouched down next to a saguaro cactus, and studied the situation. It wasn’t good. There was no one in the guardhouse and I couldn’t see into the administration building.
A trap?
Yes. He’s there, and he must’ve heard the plane. Why didn’t he come after me? And what’s he done with Hy?
I tried to put myself inside the ever-running man’s head. He had no reason to kill Hy. But me . . . if he thought I was getting close to learning his identity he’d have to take me out. Hy was the live bait to reel me in, and then he’d kill both of us.
I extended the Magnum in both hands as I moved toward the lighted building. At its wall, I stopped, listening. Inside, someone coughed, and the sound drew me to a high window that was slightly open. I went up on my toes and peered over the bottom of the frame.
Brent Chavez—aka Chad Merkel—sat at a desk, his profile to the window. He was tinkering with what I recognized as the makings of a bomb. After a moment, he glanced at his watch—probably the Rolex Veronica Wylie had given him.
Had a warning phone call from Wylie triggered this situation? I didn’t think so. The woman had seemed genuinely bewildered at Chad’s defection. Just because she hadn’t told me about his final gift of roses didn’t mean they’d had any further contact.
I came down off my tiptoes, crouched, and put distance between myself and the building. Took refuge by the saguaro and ran the facts through my mind again. My conclusions were the same.
I didn’t know where he’d come up with his new identity, but Brent Chavez and Chad Merkel were one and the same. He’d been in San Francisco the night the Green Street building blew, and probably at the safe house when our apartment was broken into. And when the Chicago building exploded, he’d supposedly been out sick.
I was willing to bet he’d been away from La Jolla on the dates of all the other bombings.
A childhood hatred, nurtured over the years but kept under control, had been unleashed when Merkel found out that both his birth father and the man who had supplied his mother with a fatal dose of drugs were living successful lives in San Diego. But he hadn’t lost control; it was a skill he had learned over time. Instead, he’d made a careful plan, and now was about to carry it out to its conclusion.
But why hadn’t he stopped when his birth father was killed and Renshaw vanished? He could have slipped away and gone back to his real life, claiming something as ridiculous but unverifiable as amnesia.
But that would be too rational. I suspected Merkel had become monomaniacal where RKI was concerned. Or perhaps once he’d tasted the ultimate power—to take or spare lives—he’d become addicted to it.
Well, he wasn’t going to take Hy’s life—or mine. No way.
Where are you, Ripinsky?
The psychic connection that Hy and I had shared until recently—a connection I’d at first found strange but now took for granted—gripped me. He was nearby, waiting for me to come free him. I moved away from the saguaro, into the darkness. Stopped and studied the large buildings.
No.
Merkel wanted to kill us with that bomb, but he didn’t want to create an explosion that would be seen for miles and bring the county fire department and sheriff’s deputies to the compound. If the admin building or any of the others blew, it would create a conflagration that would light up the desert sky and provoke an immediate emergency response. An explosion at one of the smaller outbuildings up the road toward the evasionary driving range probably wouldn’t create a stir; after all, they were always firing guns and doing God knew what else out here.
I moved through the darkness alongside the road. Again, my footfalls on the sand seemed loud. I came to the first building; its door was padlocked. I said in a low voice, “Ripinsky?”
Nothing.
My God, what if Merkel’s drugged him and he can’t answer me?
Keep going.
The second building was a wellhouse, its interior illuminated by a low-wattage bulb, two big holding tanks taking up most of the space. Merkel could have drowned Hy . . .
No. Not possible: I feel the connection; he’s alive.
The third building was the largest, and locked with a deadbolt. I pressed my face to the edge of the door, said Hy’s name.
“McCone, what took you so long?”
I sagged against the door, weak with relief.
“Get me out of here,” he added.
“I can do that— Shit!”
“What?”
“My lock picks—they’re in my purse in the plane.”
“Don’t go back there. You’ll be too exposed.”
“He’s in the administration building, assembling a bomb. He won’t see me.”
“No. Don’t risk it.”
“I have to.”
I moved away through the darkness, heart pounding. Every few yards I stopped to listen for motion nearby. The airfield was deserted; white lights outlined the runway. The UNICOM crackled and a pilot’s voice announced he was turning for final at some airport nearby that I’d never heard of. I ran for the Cessna. Ducked down and clutched the strut as I unlocked the door and grabbed the lock picks from the zippered compartment of my purse. Then I pushed the door shut till the latch barely clicked and began my return.
All was as quiet as before. In the brush small desert creatures scurried away as I passed. How long, I wondered, did it take to construct a bomb? And when did Merkel plan to detonate it? I moved as quickly as I could on the unfamiliar terrain.
“I’m here,” I whispered when I got to the outbuilding. “And I’ve got the picks.”
“Thank God. I was getting worried.”
“Ripinsky, where’re all the people?” I selected a pick, tried to insert it. That one wasn’t going to work.
“Off-site exercise in survival skills. The notification of it never got to my desk. Chavez’s doing, of course.”
“But the staff and the guards—”
“The staffers’re given time off during exercises. Whatever’s happened to the guards isn’t good.”
Another pick that wasn’t going to work. Damn! I told myself to go slow, keep my hands steady. “You know that Chavez is really Chad Merkel, Kessell’s . . . Tyne’s son?”
“Oh, yeah, he was determined to tell me the whole pitiful story of his life while he was wrapping me in duct tape. I’ve managed to work a lot of it loose.”
“How come you brought him out here?”
“He asked to ride along, since he’d never been here. Turned out he had, when he blew up those clunker cars.”
I rejected another pick.
“I don’t understand why he went after you,” I said. “His father’s dead, Renshaw’s vanished, the company’s in plenty of trouble.”
“Because of a remark I made in his hearing, attempting to reassure a couple of the employees at headquarters. I told them I was meeting you down here and you’d have the case solved by then.”
The Serpentine, my last resort. I began maneuvering it gently.
“So he thought I was on to him, and decided to kill both of us. He try anything in the chopper?”
“Nope. He was so afraid of flying I thought he might puke. He didn’t make his move till we were on the ground.”
The Serpe
ntine was doing its magic. I should’ve tried it first.
I asked Hy, “How’d he manage to get control of you?”
“I’m damned cooperative when facing down a forty-five.”
Quick upward thrust, and the lock gave. Finally I opened the door and Hy, ankles still bound by the duct tape, fell into my arms.
“You’re a woman of rare talents, McCone,” he said into my hair as he rested his head on top of mine.
I pushed him back inside. “What is this place?”
“Storage building.”
“Do the lights work?”
“Yes, but you don’t want to use them.”
“. . . Right. What now?”
“There’re plenty of phones in the camp.”
“Plenty of nonfunctional phones. I think he’s disabled the system.”
“Dammit!”
“Let me get that duct tape off your ankles.” I knelt down, began sawing at it with a sharp-pointed pick.
I asked, “How could Chavez have gotten on with RKI, considering the background checks you run on prospective employees?”
“Because Brent Chavez is a real person, with college and grad school transcripts, letters of recommendation—the whole thing. He was Merkel’s roommate at USC when they were both working toward MBAs.”
“Merkel told you that?”
“Sure. He was in a very confessional mood. People who’re raised thinking they’re the center of the universe constantly crave attention—even from somebody they’re planning to kill.”
“So Merkel’s as talented at appropriating someone else’s identity as his birth father.” I sawed through the last of the tape, ripped it off, and Hy was free. “We’ve got to get out of here,” I told him as he flexed his ankles.
“You say he was still building the bomb?”
“Half an hour ago, yes. I wonder why he didn’t assemble it in San Diego.”
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