by Dana Haynes
He turned back to face forward.
Kiki said, “I love you.”
“Me, too, babe.”
* * *
Peter Kim checked his watch. “Teresa’s been missing for hours. Something’s wrong.”
Chief Paul McKinney shrugged. “And I’d like to help but we’re evacuating a town here. The fire is picking up speed. There could not be a worse time to conduct a missing-person investigation than right here, right now.”
Peter started to protest when a deep rumbling sound filled the former real estate office. It was so loud and so low, he could feel his clavicle vibrate.
“What the heck is that?” He shouted to be heard.
“Air tankers!” McKinney shouted back. “Biggest damn birds I ever seen! They just got here from Vancouver! They’re gonna start dumping water on the fire!”
The Ilyushin II-76-P’s had been constructed originally for the Soviet military as well as civilian traffic. They’d seen service for the Soviets in Afghanistan, and for NATO in Sarajevo. With a wingspan of 165 feet and an empty weight of almost two hundred thousand pounds, the massive, four-engine aircraft were the largest air tankers in the world (the P stood for Pozhahrniy, or “Firefighter”).
And the airborne monsters were dropping water at the western front of the fire, trying to slow its remorseless march on Twin Pines.
* * *
Cates directed Kiki to the south end of Twin Pines, to a warehouse that looked like it hadn’t been used in years. The building was three stories tall and the aluminum siding had turned a sickly gray. A sign over the door read AMER AN S ORAGE AN ENTAL. It looked like Esperanto to Kiki.
The tall gate was open and an old padlock had been sheared through. She drove in, pulling onto hard-packed dirt with yellow, waxy sage grass sprouting up here and there. The rear side of the acreage ended with a twelve-foot-high cliff wall. Atop the cliff, they could see more sage grass.
“Park here,” Cates ordered at the base of the cliff.
She did. “What’s here?”
Cates ignored her. “Keys.”
She cut the engine, handed the keys back over her right shoulder. The big man grabbed them. “Now, stay put and—”
An enormous, four-engine Ilyushin cleared the cliff and zoomed away, not one hundred feet over their heads. The bellow of the beast hit the car like a physical blow. Everyone flinched.
Tommy twisted in his seat and darted for the gun.
The hit man may have outweighed him by eighty pounds, but he also was twice as fast. His fist caught Tommy in the jaw before Tommy’s hand was halfway to the Glock.
Tommy slumped forward until his seat belt pulled taut, his vision blurring, drooling blood out of a split lip.
Kiki contemplated making a move but didn’t see any.
“That’s for errand boy,” Cates growled. “Now, sit here and be good.”
He climbed out.
Atop the cliff, and twenty-five feet to the west, a bright yellow Caterpillar bulldozer hove into view. It was a behemoth, thirty-six feet long and fifteen feet high. Weighing 115 tons, it moved on two tank treads that rotated through a wedge-shaped frame. The deeply concave universal blade alone was larger than the crashers’ rental car. Seen from below, the dozer looked positively prehistoric.
Kiki took Tommy by the shoulder. “Baby?”
He leaned forward, head over his knees. “I’m all right,” he mumbled, wiping blood from his lips with the back of his hand. “Gimme a minute.”
“Your concussion?”
He nodded slightly.
Kiki leaned forward, looking up and out of the windshield, as exhaust belched from the upward-facing exhaust pipes atop the mammoth Cat. Its front shovel gleamed in the sun. It began rolling forward, drawing closer and parallel to the cliff. Within seconds it would be directly overhead, but perilously close to the cliff edge. If that fool isn’t careful, he’s going to topple right over the cliff, Kiki thought.
Then she gasped, realizing that was precisely the plan.
* * *
The mercenaries, Dyson in the tractor-dozer and Cates holding the crashers at gunpoint, weren’t using sophisticated comms for so simple a mission. Cates made a very broad head bob to confirm that the targets were in position. Dyson, in the glass-and-iron cabin so tall he could operate the Cat standing up, gave his partner a thumbs-up.
Dyson brought the tractor-dozer to the very edge of the grassy cliff, now fifteen feet from being straight over the NTSB rental car. He watched clay crumble away as the massive tank tread drew closer, finally peeking over the edge.
* * *
Kiki reached for her door handle and saw the blond guy, a dozen feet away, draw his Glock and aim it at her head. The crashers were stuck in the car.
Tommy peered up but his vision was blurred.
Kiki looked up again. About four inches of the left-side tank treads were visible over the edge of the cliff now. The Cat was ten feet away from being directly over their car.
* * *
The Ford Escort that had followed the crash investigators since Helena pulled slowly into the warehouse yard. The driver paused, brake lights flashing. Then the compact pulled forward, picking up speed.
* * *
Kiki’s military training kicked in. They’re going to use that bulldozer to crush us to death. If we stay in the car, it will look like a weird accident. If I step out of the car, that blond bastard will shoot me and I’ll die and my autopsy will be proof of our conspiracy theory.
She reached for her door handle.
* * *
The blond hit man turned, saw the Ford Escort zooming toward him, gaining speed. He raised his weapon, left hand bracing his right, and fired at the quickly accelerating car.
The windshield starred as his bullet hit home. He fired again and it shattered.
* * *
Kiki opened her door in time to see the big, blond man turn away from her and fire his weapon at the oncoming car.
* * *
Cates had never known an opponent he couldn’t put down with a good handgun. He fired and fired at the Ford Escort. He didn’t run. He knew his weapon would save him, as it had on battlefields around the globe.
The Escort hit him doing sixty.
He rag-dolled over the hood, slamming into the already-destroyed windshield and up onto the roof, rolling, spinning, limbs no longer constrained by knee or elbow joints. He was a limp washrag in a nice suit, more fluid than solid, as he rolled off the trunk and onto the hard-packed dirt.
The Escort threw a rooster tail of dust and gravel and weeds, spinning ninety degrees, brakes keening. An arm extended through the shattered windshield, a silver automatic aimed high at the Cat, squeezing off four shots as the car continued to spin.
* * *
Kiki grabbed Tommy’s shirt collar as she hip-checked the driver’s side door. It sprang open and she stepped out, long, rangy muscles garnered in a sailboat and on the packed sand of volleyball courts bunching as she dragged Tommy over the emergency brake, the driver’s seat, and out through the door.
She backpedaled, dragging him in her wake.
Still dizzy from the blow to his head, Tommy’s feet scrambled for purchase but his brain ground gears. “Come on!” Kiki huffed, stutter-stepping backward, dragging him away from the car.
* * *
Up above, in the cabin of the bulldozer, Dyson watched his associate die under the impact of the Ford. “Dammit!” he bellowed and drew his Heckler & Koch .45, firing at the still-spinning Escort, below. He got off only one shot before the scary-accurate return fire made him flinch back.
The Cat hovered at the edge, more than half of the left-hand tank tread now over empty air. Dyson thought about returning fire, but he was out of time. He crawled over the dead firefighter to get to the passenger door of the cab.
* * *
The Escort screeched to a halt, rocked on its shock absorbers, the rooster tail of dust and debris catching up, waving past. The driver stepped out into tha
t dust devil, obscured by flying grit.
The driver fired at the dozer cabin two more times.
* * *
Kiki heard the booming shots and turned to see a handgun fall from the driver’s right hand; left hand rising with an identical pistol, slide ratcheting, snapping off five more bullets in such close formation that one bullet left the chamber before the bullet in front of it hit the Cat.
* * *
Four of the last six bullets shattered the Cat’s windshield. One of them slammed into Dyson’s shoulder, just as he felt the cabin yaw madly to the left.
He was halfway out of the cab but fell back in.
The Cat rumbled off the cliff, taking a wide swath of clay and sage grass with it. The iron beast toppled and twisted. Upside down, it slammed into the rental car. Kiki caught a brief glimpse of a stranger in the cab, his shoulder blood soaked, upside down, scrambling madly to escape.
He didn’t.
The car was crushed flat. The tall cab of the bulldozer pancaked in on itself.
Under the impact of 115 tons of mostly iron falling a dozen feet, a surge of dust and dirt escaped in all directions, moving with such force that, when it reached Kiki, ten feet away, she was lifted off her feet and landed two feet back, on her ass, Tommy landing atop her.
He coughed and hacked up blood and dust, rolling off her, groaning, flopping onto his back on the hard-packed earth and squinting, unbelieving, at the massive wreck.
Coughing in pain, her barely mended rib cracked again, Kiki rose on her elbows, turned to the Escort as the rooster tail of dust subsided, revealing the driver.
The driver holstered the weapon. “Hallo, Kiki.”
“Daria?”
28
IT WAS GOING ON 6:00 P.M. in the Malatesta, Inc., headquarters. Terri Loew was packing her tote bag, getting ready to head home, when the receptionist knocked on her office door. “Terri? There’s someone here.”
Terri turned and saw a small, vaguely familiar woman with artificially red hair cut in a shoulder-length bob.
“Hi. Terri Loew, right?” The woman extended her hand. “Amy Dreyfus, Washington Post. Remember me? I was Andrew’s best—”
“Of course I remember you. Hi. It was … Amy Shinberg?” They shook hands
“Yeah, it was.” Amy flashed a small, modest wedding ring. “Andrew and I kept in touch. Not just because of my job, I mean. He spoke so highly of you. Of all of you. He called his designers the Starting Five.”
Terri’s eyes brimmed with tears. “I know. I loved that. We were such a family here.”
“Can I talk to you about Andrew? I … really need some answers.”
* * *
Terri called in Antal Borsa, who never left the office before 8:00 P.M. They chose Terri’s office and closed the door.
Antal said. “You did yesterday’s online piece about Andrew and the Halcyon subcontract.”
“Yes. Renee told me you guys had signed on to build weapons.”
A pregnant silence filled the office.
Terri and Antal exchanged glances. Antal said, “I know it’s not politically correct, but would anyone mind if I smoked?” He pulled a packet of German-made Ernte 23 cigarettes out of his double-breasted suit jacket.
Amy said, “Can I bum one off you?” She smoked maybe four cigarettes per year and only in interviews. She knew that interviewees who smoke sometimes answer questions more honestly with a reporter who shares the vice. Antal lit both cigarettes with an antique Ronson lighter.
“Andrew called me. He said he needed my help breaking a story to the media. I asked him if it was serious and he said, ‘Life-and-death serious.’ I’m quoting here: life-and-death. I’m such an idiot, I didn’t press him then. He said we’d talk when he got to Seattle for the Northwest Tech.”
She blew smoke toward the ceiling. “Andrew was going to break something very important to him. And, I’m sorry, but I don’t think it was to announce he was becoming Iron Man or whatever. I think it was something so secretive, he hadn’t even told Renee.”
Terri pulled Kleenex out of a decorative box on her desk and began crying in earnest. Antal Borsa adjusted the crease in his impeccable trousers, eyes avoiding contact with anyone. A halo of blue smoke surrounded his head.
He said, “Is this on the record?”
Amy reached into the tote for her digital recorder and a slim reporter’s pad. She set them both on the desk for the engineers to see. She pulled out a pen and uncapped it.
“Yes,” she said. “Absolutely.”
LANGLEY
Bloomberg’s cable channel played a clip of Renee Malatesta’s press conference, in which she confirmed that the software company had signed a deal with the nation’s number-one defense contractor, Halcyon/Detweiler, to become part of the military/industrial complex.
Liz Proctor called Barry Tichnor’s office. “Hello?”
She said, “Are you watching?”
“Yes.” He sounded tired.
“Barry? Did things just get better or did things just get worse?”
Renee Malatesta looked half awake and as brittle as a moth’s wing.
TWIN PINES
MSNBC played a different clip of Renee’s press conference. Wearing wide Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses, she sounded like someone in a sleep-deprivation clinical study.
In the break room of the former real estate office, Jack Goodspeed watched the taped press conference. “Hey. Listen to this.”
Hector Villareal sniffed the sleeve of his shirt. It reeked of woodsmoke. “What?”
“This. She’s the wife of the guy.”
Hector turned to him. “The guy?”
“I was telling you about. Chautauqua, Harvard. The saddlebag in the food services cart. Andrew Malatesta.”
Hector said, “Six degrees…”
“No, no, man. Listen.”
They did.
Jack shook his head. “That’s not what the guy’s speech said. I’m … I think it’s almost exactly opposite of what the guy was gonna say.”
* * *
In the front of the realty office, Ray Calabrese hung up the phone and turned to the Go-Team leaders. Peter Kim was present, along with Beth Mancini, Reuben Chaykin, Gene Whitney, and Lakshmi Jain.
Hector and Jack emerged from the break room, Jack saying, “We should call her. Tell her.”
“It’s none of our business.”
Peter Kim checked his watch. It was 4:15 P.M. Monday. “They’re late.”
Ray perched on the edge of a desk. “They went to get aspirin. Look, we’re now in a position to prove, at least in part, that there’s a conspiracy here.”
Peter buttoned his suit coat. “And we’re now in a position to prove that Tomzak has his head so firmly ensconced up his ass that he can see his spleen. That makes you either a dupe or part of his Area 51 Alien Conspiracy Fan Club.”
Beth rolled her eyes. “Peter! Come on. We can agree to disagree but—”
Another Ilyushin air tanker roared overhead, and everyone winced until it had passed on. Peter said, “God, those are annoying. Look, we cannot simultaneously investigate this crash, outrun a forest fire, and stave off Tomzak’s lunatic need to be center stage.”
Ray fought down his impulse to pop this guy in the mouth. He smiled, nodded. “The good thing about working in a huge bureaucracy like the FBI is, you get immune to nausea when dealing with arrogant, bantamweight demigods with a false sense of adequacy.”
Peter glared at him for two seconds, then, unintentionally, let a brief smile flicker. He turned to Gene Whitney. “At some level, you have to admire the complexity of that insult.”
Gene shrugged. “Had a poetic quality.”
Peter turned back. “And fuck you, too, Ray.” He checked his diver’s watch again. “Where are they?”
Ray shrugged. “Jesus Christ, Kim! We’ve got false federal agents, a wingless airliner flying under a balloon, air tankers barnstorming us every five minutes, a missing crasher, and a forest fire at the back doo
r. Absolutely nothing could surprise me today.”
The bell over the front door tinkled. Tommy and Kiki entered, escorted by Daria Gibron with twin .40-caliber Browning Hi Power autos strapped to her thighs.
Gene Whitney turned to Ray. “I was you, I’d stop saying shit like that, man.”
29
RAY STOOD, STUNNED. DARIA offered a small nod.
Tommy looked a little dazed and his lower lip was split. Kiki held an arm curled around her middle, under her breasts, hand in back supporting the rebroken rib. They looked like hell, their hair and clothes dusty, Kiki’s denim shirt ripped along one seam.
Kiki started in. “Peter, we can prove it! We—”
“And we can disprove it!” he shouted back.
Tommy said, “Hey. You wanna watch your tone, buddy.”
Reuben Chaykin stepped in. “Tommy, Kiki, we’ve been patient because you’re our people, but your story’s full of holes. I’m sorry, but there it is.”
And as people began to shout over one another, Dr. Lakshmi Jain cast a glance around the room, saw two aluminum Open House signs. She picked them up, one in each hand, and brought them together like cymbals.
Ka-lang!
Everyone in the room jumped. Hector, nearest to her, covered his ears. “Ow!”
“Enough! All of you! I have put up with your unprofessional, childish outbursts, but no more! Mr. Kim: you are our leader. Start acting like one!”
It was as if she’d physically slugged him. “I beg your pardon?”
Lakshmi went eye-to-eye with him. “You heard me.”
She turned to Tommy. “And your cowboy antics end here and now. Our investigation has disproved portions of your conspiracy theory. We are minutes away from evacuating this site. Please, in thirty seconds, give us one good reason we should lend credence to anything you say.”
“Okay,” Tommy said, rubbing his swollen jaw. “This here’s Daria Gibron. She just stopped two hit men from killing Kiki and me. She ran over one of ’em and she clobbered the other one with a bulldozer.”
Silence reigned for almost five seconds. Finally, Reuben Chaykin said, “Are you guys for real?”