A Hard Man To Forget

by Dan Ames

  “Could be. Or not. My idea is, since we’ve been warned off of pursuing Rick Simmons, why not turn our attention back to Cassady?”

  “Because we just stashed her hundreds of miles away,” Tallon said. “If you recall, I personally drove her to the Phoenix airport and put her on a plane to Chicago.”

  “I’m not talking about questioning her again,” Pauling said. “We tried that and got nowhere. That well has run dry. She can’t tell us anything more. So we’ll have to learn what we can without her now. But I also wonder if we were asking the wrong questions.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, we were looking at reasons why someone would want to kidnap Rick. But we never asked about her. Specifically, would someone use Rick to get to Cassady?”

  Tallon nodded. “Yeah, I never really looked at it that way. It was either Rick. Or Rick and Cassady. Never just Cassady.”

  Pauling felt a surge of excitement. Intuition. Something felt right about this. Like when a puzzle couldn’t be solved, realizing it wasn’t the puzzle itself, but one’s approach that was all wrong.

  “Where did you say she worked?” Tallon asked.

  “Industrial Supply & Wholesale. Why?”

  “Honestly, there was nothing to Cassady personally,” he said. “No family in the area. Pregnant. And if she was faking all of that drama over her missing husband, she deserves an Academy Award. Hell, the one for Lifetime Achievement, because she played that role to the hilt.”

  “Look, we’re five minutes from her employer,” Pauling said. “I know exactly where it is because that’s where I met her the first time. Let’s see what we can find out in person, and then we’ll go from there.”

  Pauling directed Tallon and as they drove, Tallon said, “Plus what’s great about this approach is we’re not disobeying that FBI guy’s orders. He told us not to pursue the Rick Simmons angle. See?” he said. “We’re the epitome of well-behaved citizens.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Pauling said, as they arrived at the building from which Cassady Simmons had emerged just days before. To Pauling, it seemed like a long time ago.

  The went inside and told the woman at the front desk they were looking for some information regarding one of their employees. The receptionist asked them to wait. Fifteen minutes later, a woman appeared.

  She was overweight, with red hair that had been put back into a bun but had now started to fray.

  “I’m Debbie Macomb, Head of Human Resources here at ISW,” she said. “I understand you have some questions about an employee. You must understand that any information of that nature is private.”

  Pauling got the impression the woman was off-script and not happy about it. She guessed Human Resources personnel weren’t asked to improvise very often.

  “Yes, I understand that, but this is a very important matter,” Pauling said. She handed the woman her business card, where FBI was featured prominently.

  Debbie Macomb seemed to consider it and then she said, “There’s a small conference room down the hall, let’s talk in there.”

  She led them to the room which featured a small round table, four chairs, and a plant in the corner. Its leaves were drooping and covered in dust.

  “I can only provide information to you that is already public. Nothing that is confidential to the company. With that in mind, please go ahead and ask your questions. I’ll do my best to be helpful.”

  “OK, we appreciate that,” Pauling said. “I guess for starters, what does ISW do?”

  “We supply a variety of products and services to the healthcare industry.”

  “Is this the only office or do you have other locations?”

  “This is headquarters and the only office,” Macomb said.

  “How many employees?”

  “A little over two hundred as of the start of the year.”

  Pauling was trying to keep a rhythm to the interview. Keeping the questions easy to answer and hopefully let the woman relax.

  “Are you an independent company?”

  “Yes.”

  “Owned by an individual? Or a holding company?”

  “Our parent company is called Vanguard Holdings. This is all public information. And as much as I want to help, I have a meeting in five minutes. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “Well, I’m not sure if you’re aware of this but there’s been a tragedy. I’m not at liberty to go into the details,” Pauling said. “However, if there’s anything you could do to help me understand more about Cassady Simmons and her time here, that would be great.”

  Debbie stood up.

  “I’m afraid I have another meeting scheduled, and that is definitely not information I can provide. Sorry. I wish you luck in your efforts. Now, I’m afraid I’ll have to escort you out of the building.

  She didn’t wait for a reply, and ushered them first from the conference room and then out the front door.

  Pauling looked at Tallon.

  “Was it just me or did she become anxious once the name Vanguard Holdings came up?”

  “Definitely,” he answered. “Right after it was mentioned, she suddenly had an urgent meeting.”

  Pauling started walking back toward the Impala.

  “Let’s see what we can find out about Vanguard Holdings.”

  50

  Vance Walker loved globes. He loved looking at the world, miniaturized.

  He didn’t know why. At one point, he’d amassed a fairly large collection of expensive, antique globes.

  And then he’d set them all on fire as he watched with a dry martini in hand.

  There was only one he spared. A miniature that sat on his desk. Nothing valuable about it. He’d just liked having it on his desk.

  Now, he watched it.

  Imagined it with a population reduced by 99 percent.

  The thought electrified him.

  His cell phone rang and he looked at the screen, and then answered.

  “Yes,” he said.

  The voice on the other end of the line spoke for some time. The person described the current situation and provided a best guess on the timing of certain logistical realities.

  “I see,” Walker said.

  They spoke for several more minutes, and discussed an area near the western border before disconnecting.

  Walker got to his feet.

  Many, many years had brought him to this point in time and he wouldn’t have done it any other way. It was his vision that had created a new reality. Changing the world required that sort of single-mindedness, guided by proprietary knowledge. No one else had it and even if they did, they wouldn’t know what to do with it.

  Now, he went to a hook next to the door to his private office and removed the shoulder holster equipped with a .45 semiautomatic handgun. He shrugged on the rig, and followed that with a light camouflage jacket.

  He stepped outside and listened. There was the hum of machinery, a few voices in the machine shop, and his armed guards near the entrance.

  Walker found his second-in-command. A former Marine who’d lost a leg in Iraq and added a heroin addiction once he’d come back home.

  He was clean now, and owed it all to Walker.

  “Spread the word,” Walker told him. “We’re moving out in one hour. Make sure everyone follows the proper procedure. No mistakes.”

  With that done, Walker went down to the truck. It held everything he needed to begin what he considered to be his very own genesis. A fresh start. A chance to guide humankind back to the path from which it had deviated so long ago.

  For the first time in his life, he could imagine a scenario in which human beings achieved their full potential.

  Walker reached the oversized hangar door and breathed deeply. The scent of oil, gasoline and cigarette smoke filled the air.

  Along with an excitement that hummed with more power than the multiple generators running in unison.

  It was time, Walker thought.

  His time.

  51


  Tallon again drove, as Pauling worked her iPad and phone.

  “Okay, Vanguard Holdings,” she said, reading aloud. “Headquarters are listed as Las Vegas, for obvious tax reasons, I’m guessing.”

  “And just think of how much more fun their holiday parties would be in Vegas, than here.”

  “Hmm, interesting,” Pauling said. “Very difficult to find a publicly listed board of directors or executive leadership.”

  “Red flag,” Tallon said.

  Pauling picked up her phone. “I try not to use this source very much, but this calls for it.”

  She dialed a number and spoke briefly to someone on the other end of the line. She waited. While doing so, she tapped away at the iPad.

  “Yeah,” she said into the phone, after several minutes of waiting.

  “Vance Walker,” she said, turning to Tallon. “Okay, thanks. I owe you a drink when you’re in New York.” Pauling laughed and disconnected from the call.

  “I didn’t know you buy drinks when people do you favors,” Tallon said. “I would have exploited that a long time ago.”

  “Federal tax records show a man named Vance Walker is the owner of Vanguard Holdings,” Pauling said. “Looks like he’s a very wealthy man.”

  She was reading an article about Walker from several years ago. “Very wealthy.”

  Tallon tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “Sure, those medical inventors make millions, as long as they hold the original patent, right? Every time someone uses their widget, they get a cut. It can add up, especially considering what hospitals charge nowadays.”

  “The question is, what, if anything, a medical company might have to do with a truck driver hauling around nuclear materials,” Pauling wondered.

  “Do hospitals use nuclear stuff? For tests or something?”

  “Not that I know of. Maybe X-rays.”

  “So the question is, we know Cassady and Rick were both targets of abduction.”

  “Rick first, Cassady second.”

  “But what if it was the other way around?” Tallon asked. “Sandia information is highly classified, right? So how was Rick Simmons found in the first place? What if they located him through his wife? What if she filled out the paperwork at Industrial Supplies and put down Rick Simmons and then listed his current employer as Rio Grande trucking?”

  “That would mean that someone knew Rio Grande Trucking was actually Sandia.”

  They drove, and Tallon realized he was heading back toward Pauling’s hotel.

  “Holy shit,” Pauling said as she continued to read on her iPad.

  “What?”

  “I found an old medical journal where Walker said he was developing a new method for treating exposure.”

  “Exposure to what?” Tallon asked.

  Pauling looked at him.

  “Nuclear radiation.”

  52

  Pauling’s phone buzzed a block from her hotel. She glanced at it and then spoke to Tallon.

  “Ok. My contact just sent me the address for Vanguard Holdings. It’s west of here. Just beyond the abandoned gas station, not far from where Rick Simmons’ body was found,” she said.

  “Let’s go,” Tallon said.

  He turned the car and pointed it west.

  “Why am I not surprised at its location?” Tallon said. “It always seemed odd that Rick’s body and the gas station were in the same rough vicinity.”

  “Now we know why,” Pauling agreed.

  It took them less than fifteen minutes to get there, but when they approached the entrance, several squad cars had the road blocked.

  “Well, that’s not a good sign,” Tallon said.

  “Someone else may have beaten us to the punch.”

  An unmarked sedan was there, too. Either undercover cop, or FBI, Pauling thought.

  “No way to get around them,” Tallon said. “I’m going to pull over and see if someone notices we’re here.”

  He drove onto the shoulder and before he was able to put the Impala into Park, one of the plain sedan’s car doors opened.

  “Feebie alert,” Pauling said as she and Tallon watched the car.

  “It’s that Ostertag,” Tallon said.

  Along with him, Pauling saw a woman. Tall, with the build of a former athlete.

  “She’s FBI, too. But not local.”

  Ostertag waved them out of the car.

  Pauling approached them first.

  “Pauling, I thought I told you to stay away from this case,” Ostertag said.

  “I have been,” she said. “We were just getting some things from Cassady’s office and they told us she might have something out at her company’s holding company. That’s why we’re here.”

  “What a load of bullshit,” Ostertag said.

  “It’s the truth,” Tallon said. “Odd we should bump into you out here. What’s going on?”

  “And is this your boss?” Pauling asked, lifting her chin toward the woman.

  “This is Agent Hess,” Ostertag said. “By the way, they have your friend Cassady. Stashing her in Chicago didn’t work out very well.”

  He wasn’t being smug, but the criticism still stung Pauling.

  She was about to answer when the sound of a chopper roaring in from the south interrupted her.

  Sand kicked up around them.

  “Let’s go,” Hess said. She looked at Tallon and Pauling. “You’re coming, too.”

  53

  “There’s no way they have Cassady,” Pauling said after she’d put on her headset.

  “Nice job protecting your client,” Hess answered, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

  They were airborne and roaring to the west. Pauling wondered why they’d been brought aboard. Definitely against standard FBI procedure. But she wasn’t going to point that out to anyone.

  It looked like she was finally going to get to the bottom of who had killed Rick Simmons. And she couldn’t help but wonder if a rendezvous with Jack Reacher was in her immediate future.

  “You’re in way over your head,” Ostertag said. “You two have no idea what you’re dealing with. You really should have listened to my advice and gotten out of Dodge.”

  “What do you mean we’re in over our heads?” Pauling asked. “We found out about Vance Walker. We know he used information from Cassady’s personnel record to discover her husband was a driver for Sandia. He must have killed Rick in order to get his hands on some nuclear material. That’s what he’s all about, right?”

  Ostertag glanced around from the seat in front of Pauling. “I’m impressed,” he said. “You had part of it.”

  “They don’t need to know anything else,” Hess said. “They’re here just so we can keep an eye on them.”

  “Bullshit,” Tallon said. “We’re in it this far. You might as well use us.”

  “Use you for what?” Hess said. “You’ve got an overblown sense of self-importance. Just shut up and enjoy the ride.”

  “I don’t think so,” Pauling said. “How’s this? Vance Walker is an inventor,” she said. “What if he developed a treatment for radiation exposure. In other words, in a nuclear blast, cockroaches and Walker’s patients would survive. Maybe he even injected Cassady with his secret formula. How’s that, Agent Hess? Am I close?”

  Hess turned around and looked at her. “Not bad,” she said. “But again, that’s only part of it.”

  “So arrest him,” Tallon said. “You keep talking like you’re one step ahead of everyone, but it sure doesn’t look like it.”

  “We were planning to,” Hess said. “We had our eye on him but he proved to be a little more industrious that we realized. Turns out he’d built that underground complex back there and was doing all kinds of stuff. And then he whacked Rick Simmons and stole a truck full of nuclear material.”

  “Why? Did he run out of the stuff for his medical experiments?” Tallon asked.

  Ostertag and Hess didn’t answer.

  Pauling suddenly knew why.

&n
bsp; “Holy shit, he’s going to set it off somewhere as a huge medical experiment, isn’t he?” Pauling asked.

  “Not quite,” Hess said. “It seems Mr. Walker went from an interest in medicine to genetics.”

  “Like what? Starting a new race?”

  “He may have a bizarre plan to set off a nuclear war and that way, only he and the people he’s vaccinated will survive,” Hess said. “He’ll own everything, once everyone dies from the fallout. He’ll be the king of the world. Or, at least, what’s left of it.”

  “That’s crazy,” Tallon said. “Where is this bomb of his?”

  “We think he’s heading for Los Angeles,” Ostertag said.

  “Does he really think a nuclear bomb in L.A. will start World War III?” Pauling asked. “No one’s going to believe that.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Hess said. “He believes it will. And now we’ve got to deal with it.”

  “We’ve got an FBI SWAT team en route to where we’re hoping to cut off the truck,” Ostertag said.

  “Let’s get this party started,” Hess said.

  54

  “There,” Ostertag said.

  A single Crown Vic was parked on the side of the freeway. Pauling estimated they were maybe a hundred or a hundred and fifty miles from Albuquerque. Which meant that Walker and his truck had gotten a couple hours head start on them. She was surprised they had come that close to their operational launch.

  Pauling wasn’t a big fan of coincidence.

  Why had Walker pulled out just before they’d gotten there?

  “It’s about ten hours to Los Angeles from here,” Ostertag said. “We’re at the foot of the El Malpais Conservation Area. Nothing here. This is where we’re going to stop the truck.”

  Hess had directed the chopper to fly far enough away from the freeway to avoid being seen by Walker and his convoy.

  “Put her down!” Ostertag yelled to the pilot.

  They landed and Pauling removed her headset. She followed Ostertag out of the chopper, with Tallon behind.