“Turbulence on the chopper could’ve set it off. And I suspect he’s biding his time. He may even figure to wait for morning when an explosion’ll attract less attention.”
“But he knows I’m here—”
“And he’s not looking for you. He’s probably counting on the explosion drawing you out, making you easy prey.”
“Then we have to move now.”
“Give me a minute, McCone. It’s not easy getting over being trussed up for hours like the Thanksgiving turkey.” There was a strain in his voice that told me he was in more pain than the ordinary type that being confined will cause.
Before I could ask what else was wrong, he said, “You know, this Merkel is a very weird mix. He’s bright—ingenious, really—and he’s made this plan and killed all those people. But while he was taping me up he lapsed back into little-boy mode, trying to convince me that he didn’t really intend to kill anybody: he didn’t know there would be anybody in the Detroit office; he placed the charges in the wrong places at Green Street. But he didn’t make any excuses for Chicago. I think by then he’d started getting off on the killing.”
“He had a great upbringing, a promising future, but something inside him is warped, I guess.”
“Heredity. Dan’s contribution.” Hy moved toward the door. “Let’s head for the airfield.”
We slipped out of the storage building and stood at its far side, looking around and listening. It was very dark and silent now, the lights of the administration building and guardhouse faint in the distance.
I whispered, “What if he’s been there, disabled the plane and chopper? I didn’t think to check when I was getting the picks.”
“Well, that’s possible. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to open the engine compartment and yank a few wires.”
“Then it’s too risky. Is the fence around this compound electrified?”
“Yes. We can’t climb it and walk out, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Well, what about that fleet of clunker cars? Let’s find one with a lot of power and enough gas in it to get us to El Centro.”
Over the sand, staying a safe distance from the road. Hy leading—he knew the terrain. We’d pause every now and then to listen.
Silence.
The parking area came into view. Hy’s hand stopped me.
“What?” I whispered.
“I’m studying on which one is the best. They’re all high-powered, but some’re better than others.” A pause. “Okay, I think that flashy Chevy, two cars back on the right.”
“What if he’s taken the keys out?”
“It would never occur to him. I know this guy. He’s been clever and lucky so far, but in a lot of ways he doesn’t think things through.”
“Okay, let’s go for the Chevy.”
Practically crawling through the sand. At the edge of the parking area, Hy stopped me and pointed to the car. It was at least twenty years old, had caved-in side doors and a broken rear window. Scrapes and dents galore.
This was a flashy Chevy?
“You drive,” he whispered. “Bastard dislocated my right shoulder.”
“Why didn’t you tell me—?”
“It’s no big deal.”
“How can you be in that kind of pain and not—?”
“Shut up, McCone. We’re on our way out of here.”
He nudged me forward and we moved low to the ground toward the Chevy. I went to the driver’s side, reached up to open the door, and slipped in. The keys dangled from the ignition. Hy got in on the passenger side.
“We’ll make a quick run for the front gate,” he said. “Put your seat belt on tight.”
“What about gas? I can’t see the indicator.”
“Switch the dash lights on, but not the headlights. We’ll have to run dark.”
“No problem. Together we’ve got a pretty good idea of the lay of the land.” I switched the dash lights on; the gas indicator showed the Chevy’s tank was half full.
“We’re okay,” I said, and started it up. The heavy-duty, reliable purr of its engine told me why Hy had chosen it.
“He’ll hear us,” I said.
“Not till we get close to the admin building; sound carries strangely out here. And by the time he realizes we’re on the move, we’ll be going so fast he won’t be able to stop us.”
I put the Chevy in forward gear, eased out of the parking space, and drove between the rows of cars to the road. Then I pressed down on the accelerator.
We were nearing the administration building, headlights still off, going at least seventy miles an hour on the straightaway.
“Brace yourself,” Hy said. “That gate is one heavy mother.”
I gripped the wheel to control its shuddering. Wondered if the car had been retrofitted with airbags.
“Christ!” Hy exclaimed. “Look out!”
A figure had leaped out of the darkness to the right, and was running diagonally toward us.
Merkel. He held a rectangular object in his upraised hand.
The bomb!
I jammed the accelerator to the floor. Merkel kept running toward the car, but in the darkness he misjudged the angle and our speed. Before he could hurl the bomb, we were upon him. The Chevy’s bumper grazed his body, knocked him sideways. I controlled a potential skid and kept going.
The bomb detonated close behind us, the concussion shaking the car.
The ever-running man had finally stopped running.
I aimed straight for the gate, braced for the impact. When we burst through, metal shrieked and tore, the hood crumpled, the windshield cracked. I was thrown forward so hard I was afraid the seat belt would give.
No airbags. But we’re out of there.
Hy was gasping; the impact had sucked the breath out of him. The car skidded, veering toward a ditch at the side of the access road. I reclaimed control of the wheel, wrestled with it, and got us out of the skid. Then I turned off the ignition and let the Chevy slow of its own accord.
The sky behind us, reflected in the rearview mirror, was bright with smoky firelight.
I laid my head on the wheel, closed my eyes, breathing heavily. Finally I sat up and turned to Hy. He had twisted around, was staring out the side window.
“Jesus, McCone,” he said.
I released my seat belt and looked back through my window. The administration building and the guardhouse were both aflame.
“We could’ve been in there,” he added.
“But we aren’t. We made it.”
“Yeah, we did. You’ve always been a good driver, but that was one spectacular run.”
“To tell the truth, I didn’t know I had it in me.”
He turned to me, took my hands, and held them tightly in his. “I did,” he said.
Saturday
MARCH 11
It was three-fifteen in the afternoon before the Imperial County authorities, the FBI, and the ATF let us go. We’d made statements, promised to turn over investigative reports, and drunk entirely too much bad coffee. When we left, the sheriff’s deputies and FBI and ATF agents had already begun to wrangle over jurisdiction. The FBI, of course, would prevail.
The county fire department had been able to control the flames before they spread to the airfield. The deputy who had driven Hy to the hospital for treatment of his dislocated shoulder and brought in food while we were making our statements agreed to drive us back to the compound and to wait till we checked both aircraft for flightworthiness.
The camp was a disaster area. Emergency crews still patrolled the twisted rubble of the administration building, dormitory, and one classroom building, looking for hot spots. The smell of smoke and ashes and chemicals was thick in the air.
I said to Hy, “I want to get out of here as soon as possible.”
He squeezed my hand. “We will.”
Neither the plane nor the chopper had been tampered with. We said good-bye to the deputy, and I went about preflighting Two-Seven-Tango. I’d pilot; Hy was on strong pa
in meds, his right arm in a sling.
“Will the chopper be okay here?” I asked.
“It’ll be fine. I’ll have somebody from headquarters pick it up soon.” He turned, smiled, and added, “Ready to go, McCone?”
Wednesday
MARCH 15
The Ides of March: inauspicious for Julius Caesar, auspicious for home owners. At three that afternoon Hy and I did the final walk-through at the Church Street house, and found everything to our liking. More than to our liking; it was perfect.
I wrote the last of many checks to Jim Keys, and he departed. He’d left a welcome-home bottle of champagne in the fridge, but no glasses, and ours were in storage in order to avoid the ravages of heavy construction. We opened it anyway, and passed it back and forth while sitting on the deck. Ralph and Allie alternated between brushing around our legs and running back to the fence to cast suspicious looks at the house. They wanted to think our presence was permanent, but still had their doubts.
Hy and I had spent Saturday night at Rae and Ricky’s. They’d wanted to hear all about what had happened at the training camp, and we’d stayed up late talking with them, then gone to bed and fallen asleep immediately—miles apart on the king-size mattress. On Sunday, Hy was up by the time I woke, and packed to fly down south. Since then, he’d either been in La Jolla or at the training camp, coping with the aftermath of the ever-running man’s final rampage. I’d moved back into the RKI apartment, and had actually managed to get in some shopping on Tuesday, buying more items for a new wardrobe. The rest I’d order off the Internet on the weekend.
Hy said, “Imperial County sheriff’s people discovered the bodies of two guards at the training camp; they were in the classroom building that didn’t burn—both shot in the head. I’ve been dealing with their families. It’s a job I don’t look forward to doing again.”
“I don’t blame you. What else?”
“The FBI’s established Merkel’s presence in each city where our offices were hit. He didn’t cover his tracks all that well.”
“You were right about him: he didn’t think things through.”
“Well, it’s over, thank God.”
“Have you decided anything about RKI?”
He shook his head, passed me the champagne bottle. “It’ll take a lot of thinking, a lot of time with our lawyers. No one knows where Gage is, or what his rights are.”
“He shouldn’t have any rights.”
“I know that, but the lawyers might think differently, since he didn’t make off with any company funds. In the meantime, I’m committed to servicing our current clients.”
“When d’you go back to La Jolla?” He’d come up on Southwest, arriving at noon.
“I’ve got a seven o’clock flight.”
I felt a stab of disappointment, followed by relief. Things were still awkward with us; we needed to talk, but right now too much was going on.
He asked, “You okay about dealing with the storage company alone?”
“No difficulty in that. I call, they deliver. There’s no hurry about unpacking the breakables, and they’ll put the furniture where I want it.”
“Good.”
“Ripinsky, I need to ask you a favor.”
“Anything.”
“Remember when I hired Charlotte Keim away from RKI? I want you to rehire her.”
He looked surprised, but said, “No problem with that. She was one of the best financial experts we had. But why?”
I explained about her breakup with Mick and the disharmony it was creating at the agency.
“Too bad. But what’ll you do without her?”
“There’s no shortage of young, hungry MBAs who would love a job like hers. I bet I can find somebody within two weeks. In the meantime, Patrick can handle what jobs come in. And I have a feeling Keim will jump at the chance of a change of scene.”
“It’s gonna cost me plenty; Keim never came cheap.” A pause. “McCone, when I get a break from La Jolla, I’m going to fly up to the ranch.”
“Oh?”
“Just overnight. There’s some stuff I need to get. What d’you say to meeting at Touchstone a week from Saturday?”
“What stuff?” I asked.
“You’ll see. Is it a date?”
“It’s a date.”
Saturday
MARCH 25
The Pacific was a brilliant turquoise, the sky cloudless, the breeze warm—one of those rare early-spring days we get on the Mendocino Coast, when you erroneously think that the fog will never again appear on the horizon, much less creep in.
I took it as a good omen.
I’d driven up the night before, and Hy wasn’t due till around noon, so I took a morning walk in the cove. There had been a recent heavy storm that had brought in some interesting driftwood. I collected a couple of the better pieces, poked around in the sea caves where bootleggers had once hidden their illegal Canadian whiskey, and did a bit of thinking.
I thought about the value of a long-term relationship, and how it should be nurtured. Thought about the importance of truthfulness, and the betrayal of trust. Thought about love. And forgiving.
Thought about Hy—and me.
When I heard the drone of the plane, I dropped the driftwood—we had too much in the house already—and hurried up the stairway to the platform. By the time I got to our airstrip, he was already tying down. I grabbed one of the chains and helped him.
“Great day,” he said, and hugged me as one would a party hostess. “Let’s get my gear.”
He opened the plane’s right door, handed me a small flight bag, hefted a cardboard carton. “That’s it.”
We walked toward the house.
I asked, “You have a good flight?”
“Very good.”
“How’s the ranch?”
“Looking better than ever. How’s the Church Street house?”
“I’ve actually unpacked everything.”
“Good for you. The cats okay with it?”
“They love it. All those new carpets and paint smells to sniff.”
“No more glaring from the fence?”
“Nope.”
We lapsed into silence until we reached the house. I took Hy’s bag to the bedroom. When I came back, I found him in the kitchen opening a bottle of Deer Hill chardonnay—my favorite.
“Let’s go out on the platform,” he said. “Can you handle the bottle and glasses?”
“When have you known me not to handle bottles and glasses?”
“Never.” He picked up the carton that he’d set on the counter.
We crossed the gopher-mounded excuse for a lawn—if you’re a lawn fanatic, it’s best to stay away from our part of the coast—and sat down on one of the benches on the platform. Earlier I’d taken the cushions from their storage box and set them out. Hy put the cardboard carton on the floor at my feet and poured the wine. Toasted me and said, “Here’s to great escapes.”
“Amen.”
We drank, and then he said, “We need to talk.”
“I know.”
“But first open the box.”
I reached down, pulled the flaps loose, and looked inside. “Pilot’s logs?”
“Mine. From the time I worked for K Air. You can read them. They show that I only flew into the Middle East twice—one time with Dan, to rescue that idiot Ralston. And I swear to you, the cargo was pipe fittings for the oilfields in Kuwait. The other time, Dan claimed he’d checked the cargo, and I was fool enough to believe him and neglect my responsibility. When I found out we’d illegally imported arms, I stewed about it for a couple of weeks and quit. All of a sudden, the business seemed so ugly, and I felt so dirty. I’d had enough.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“One of your fellow pilots told me.”
“And you believed him? If he knew, he was as crooked as Dan.”
“He made no bones about that, but what he said about you—that was the man I know and love.” I reached do
wn again and closed the box. “I don’t need to read these.”
“I’m offering them—”
“I know. As proof. But it’s totally unnecessary.”
“McCone—”
“Let’s close the books on this past month and move on.”
He smiled, brushed a lock of hair from my cheek, where the sea wind had blown it.
“Okay,” he said, “but to where?”
“I don’t know. There’ve been a lot of unpleasant scenes between us, mostly of my doing.”
“There’re always unpleasant scenes in any marriage.”
“Even in your first marriage—even with Julie?”
“God, yes.”
“I thought she was a saint.”
“Nobody’s a saint.”
I felt an easing inside me, even though I still didn’t know the answer to his question of where we’d move on to.
After a moment I laid my head on his shoulder and we watched the play of the light on the water—together.
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