Kill Chain

by Meg Gardiner

  She glanced at me, hanging up. “You alive? That was the department. The Santa Barbara call that bounty hunter received on Sunday came from a pay phone outside Wind-catchers restaurant. Not much help.”

  I rubbed my hands over my face. “Turn up the stereo. I need to bang my head. Hard.” I looked around and came wider awake. “Oh, no.”

  Up the road, a suspension bridge soared into the afternoon, a sweeping green dragon that curved over the water ahead. We were in San Pedro, headed for the harbor.

  “She has him locked up down on the docks,” I said.

  “Looks that way.” Her voice was terse. “No other point in going to Terminal Island.”

  I blinked myself into focus. Rain clouds scudded across the sky, purple and orange against the sinking sun. We swept up the approach to the bridge and I saw the black Mercedes, still a couple of hundred yards ahead.

  “Where’s Jesse?” I said.

  “Behind. Call him.”

  I got on her phone. “You see it?”

  “I know,” he said.

  San Pedro was home to the Port of Los Angeles. These were the busiest docks in the country.

  The bridge rose steeply, its pea green towers soaring skyward. Suspension cables streaked by on my right. Big rigs crowded the roadway. Far below I saw glittering water, and a colossal container ship steaming under the bridge.

  The port was massive. It was a metropolis of cargo containers, trucks, railroad sidings, and ships—cruise ships, container vessels, a naval frigate. Gantry cranes lined the docks, metal beasts that reared higher than the deck of the bridge. Beyond them I saw the immense expanse of the freight terminals: a savanna of cargo containers, each the size of a railroad boxcar, stacked two, three, five high, spreading out literally for miles. There was only one reason Rio could be coming here, and it gave me emotional vertigo.

  “Don’t lose her, Lily. If she gets away from us in there, we’ll never find him in time.”

  “We’re tailing her with two vehicles. And don’t worry; I can contact the port authorities and get them to examine outgoing containers.”

  All of them? I gazed over miles of blue and red and green boxes. Tens, maybe hundreds of thousands.

  “No chance,” I said.

  “The fact that she’s hauling buns down here means he’s still around.”

  “Right.” I rubbed my hands over my legs. “But if we lose her and she gets to him before we can find her . . . if she finds out we scammed her, she could kill him.”

  We rolled down the far side of the bridge. The pickup swept into view. Jesse glanced at us; Lily nodded him ahead and he accelerated to take the tail. Drew Farelli put his phone to his ear and gestured for me to do likewise.

  He sounded chastened. “I take it back, Evan. Looks like this is for real.”

  “When we get there we can’t lose Rio.”

  “Not planning on it. Has Detective Rodriguez alerted the port police?”

  I turned to Lily. “The port police?”

  In my ear, Farelli said, “Let me handle it. I’m not a cop, but this is my jurisdiction, not hers.”

  I passed that along, and Lily said, “Give us a bit of time. If they show up too soon it might spook Rio off.”

  “Get that, Drew?”

  “Got it.”

  The pickup sped down the bridge and curved away after Rio’s Mercedes. Compulsively, like a sick reflex, I checked my watch again. Whatever was supposed to happen after seventy-two hours, we were down to fifty-six minutes and counting.

  Past the bridge we soon reached an entrance to the port, where freight trains clacked along toward container terminals and big rigs came and went. At the exit, an eighteen-wheeler slowed to pass between bright yellow bollards. Lily saw me eyeing it.

  “Radiation sensors,” she said.

  The road veered toward the lowering clouds, and the vista opened to a colossal asphalt expanse. My throat went tight. Containers were stacked seven high in places and packed side by side like bricks. Cranes, trucks, trains, ships, and forklifts created a serious racket. Even if Dad had been hollering his lungs out night and day, nobody would have heard him.

  Ahead, the pickup was stopped outside a gate in a chain-link fence, beside a security guard’s wooden hut with a sign that read, PACIFIC GATEWAY FREIGHT COMPANY. Farelli hopped out and jogged inside to speak to the guard. We pulled up.

  Jesse pointed through the fence at a block of containers stacked about two hundred yards ahead. “Rio stopped here and talked to the guard, then laid rubber toward that stack. There’s a corridor between the rows. She drove in.”

  “What’s Drew doing?”

  “Telling the guard where to send the port police.”

  Lily put the car in gear. “We’re on it.”

  She accelerated through the gate and across the tarmac. The sun reflected orange from puddles on the ground. Sea-gulls wheeled overhead. Through the open window I smelled salt water and diesel exhaust.

  The stack was about four hundred yards wide and half a mile long, rising fifty feet over our heads. Unmanned cranes rolled along tracks that cut through it. Though the containers were forty feet long and probably weighed twenty tons, the cranes dropped their hooks, grabbed hold, and hoisted them sixty feet in the air as if they were snacks. It looked as if they were grazing on trailer homes. They carried the containers over the top of the stack and across a wide stretch of empty asphalt to a loading area where they set them down. Immense forklifts then carried them across a final width of tarmac to the dockside.

  “Rio has to have a tracking number for the container,” I said.

  “Yeah. I bet she uses Pacific Gateway as her regular shipping company.”

  “Want to bet she stashed Dad in a container she uses for bringing trafficked women to the U.S.?”

  “And she pays somebody off to keep them from taking an interest in the cargo she imports.”

  We found the corridor Jesse had mentioned. Lily drove into it a hundred yards, stopped, and turned off the engine. I took my backpack, opened the door, and she put a hand on my arm.

  “Farelli’s calling for backup,” she said. “We wait.”

  “We don’t have time. Dad could be dehydrated or injured and if Rio—” My voice caught. I pulled free. “You’re armed, right? Come on.”

  I jumped out and ran along the corridor. Behind me Lily muttered and hurried to catch up. We were alone, as if in a dim back alley in the center of a bustling city. As I reached a corner, she grabbed my arm and put a finger to her lips. Her jacket was unzipped. She had hooked her badge to her belt and popped the snap on her holster. She glanced back toward her car. There was no sign of Jesse’s truck or the port police.

  “Farelli’s not coming,” I said. “What are you waiting for?”

  “I’m out of my jurisdiction. I don’t have arrest authority outside of Santa Barbara County.”

  “You arrested me.”

  “I mean arrest without a warrant and the locals’ okay.”

  “Getting a warrant on Rio won’t work, unless you can get a judge on the phone in the next four seconds.”

  “Don’t mention my mother.” She pressed her lips together. “You’re a pain in the ass.”

  “ ’Cause we’re shit out of time.” I ran a hand through my hair. “Extenuating circumstances. Come on, Rodriguez. Hot pursuit. Dangerous felon. Something, or give me your damned Smith and Wesson and deputize me to do this myself.”

  She glowered. “You’re still my prisoner, you know.”

  “Kidnapping, false imprisonment, if you stand here dithering Rio will escape.”

  For a second longer she glared. “Fine. I have probable cause to believe a public offense has been committed in my presence and there’s immediate danger to a citizen’s life.”

  “Good. Totally legal. Come on.”

  She drew her weapon. “Stay behind me.”

  Gripping the gun with both hands, aimed at the ground, she edged toward the corner. She pressed her back flat against the s
ide of a container, leaned around, and pulled back.

  “Mercedes is about fifty yards down that aisle, driver’s door open. No sign of Rio.”

  I moved and she put a hand against my chest.

  “This stack is a maze. Rio obviously knows where she’s going, but we don’t. We could get lost or trapped down a dead end.”

  She glanced back one last time past her own car. Still no sign of the port police. Her face tightened. She could look so young and at the same time so worn with care and duty and the burden of witness.

  “I know this is your pop,” she said, “but watch yourself. Stay safe. I don’t want you getting into worse trouble.”

  “As if that’s possible.”

  Giving me a black look, she nodded one, two, three. She spun around the corner and ran down the alley. I ran behind her, heart in my mouth. The driver’s door to the Mercedes was open. On the stereo, opera was playing.

  Lily ran to the door and swung her weapon at the interior. Her eyes looked diamond bright. The car was boiling with music, a soprano flinging her voice through the roof in a fit of emotion. Lily swung forward, walked past the car, and stalked toward the next container. Again she peered around the corner and ducked into the maze. I followed. The containers were packed end to end, but some had already been grabbed and taken away, leaving neat rectangular spaces in their absence. The farther we went, the lower the stack became and the more gaps we saw. The cranes were loading from this end. Dad was almost out of time.

  We reached another corner. Lily stopped and put a finger to her lips. We heard the sound of shoes clattering against metal.

  She peered around the corner and pulled back, whispering, “She’s climbing on top of a container.”

  We heard sounds of effort, then heels jumping onto a metal surface and running into the distance. We dashed around the corner.

  The container was about eight feet high by eight wide, and had plenty of handholds—locks, latches, and rods that bolted the doors. It was quick work to boost Lily up. She grabbed the top, peeped over, and climbed up. I grabbed a locking rod, stepped on a latch, and hoisted myself up after her, trying to ignore the stiffness and aches in my ribs and leg.

  Lily pointed. “She climbed down again two containers ahead.”

  Gingerly we ran, stepping softly on the metal. The racket of machines was constant, but we took no chances. We hopped to the next container and kept going. From this vantage we could see that the stack was sparse ahead, only one or two containers high in most spots. A crane clacked past us overhead, its latching mechanism swinging on massive cables. It stopped, grabbed a blue container from ground level, and swung it into the sky.

  We approached the end of the container and laid ourselves flat. Inching forward, we heard the sound of a key turning in a heavy lock below us. Lily crept to the edge, looked down, and pulled back.

  “Ground level, five yards to the right. She’s unlocking the doors.”

  I nodded.

  “When she goes in, I’ll climb down. There’s enough of an angle that once she steps inside, she won’t be able to see me. You wait here.” She raised a finger. “I mean it.”

  “Fine.”

  I kept my head low, listening. The key rattled, and with a sharp creak the container doors hinged open. Boots stepped onto metal.

  Rio said, “Oh, my.”

  34

  Quicker than a cat Lily scrambled over the edge of the container and slid down the locking bar to the ground. I crawled forward and looked down.

  To my right, across an alley about ten feet wide, the door to a rusting red container stood open. I couldn’t see the interior. Keeping herself out of Rio’s sight, Lily drew her gun and crept forward. She rounded the door, turned, and raised her weapon.

  “Sheriff’s department. Don’t move.”

  Noise erupted inside the container. Lily held still, gun rigid in both hands, eyes pinned on the interior.

  “Do not move. Facedown. Hands out flat.”

  I didn’t breathe, didn’t blink, wanted to scream. Weapon poised, face grim, Lily inched forward into the container. The quiet stretched.

  “Evan,” she said.

  I swung myself over the edge, kicked out, and dropped to the tarmac. I ran to the container door. In the murky depths inside, Lily knelt with one knee planted in Rio’s back, cuffing her. Rio had a leather belt twisted tight around her neck. My father held the ends wrapped around his forearms and was strangling her for all he was worth. Rio’s face was bloodred. He was two inches from lynching her.

  Lily slammed the handcuffs and stood up. “Done.”

  He let go of the belt and Rio’s head dropped to the floor. She screeched in a breath.

  “Dad.” I ran into the container, tears lashing my voice.

  He struggled to stand, pressing one hand against the corrugated metal wall and grimacing to his feet. “Kit.”

  His voice sounded like sand. I grabbed hold of him. His arms went around me, solid and trembling, and I felt his chest rise, felt the heat of my own tears as they soaked into his shirt. I couldn’t speak.

  He swayed, working to stay standing. I held him tighter. His face was bruised and haggard, lips scabbed, eyes sunken. He breathed deep, despite the smell of rust and urine. He was blinking as though the sunlight pained him after so long in the dark. But through the pain I saw fire in his eyes, and amazement, pride, and gratitude.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he said.

  “You shouldn’t either.”

  Joy and astonishment spun in circles within my chest. My heart pounded in my ears. Behind it I heard Rio spitting at Lily, “Hands off, filthy pig.” And Lily reciting the deputy’s litany, “You have the right to remain silent.” Dad shifted his weight, wincing.

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  “Bum knee.”

  He reached for a thick broomstick that was leaning against the wall. Using it as a cane, he let me get under his shoulder and take part of his weight.

  “Same damn injury I got rushing the defensive line in high school,” he said.

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  “You betcha.” He took a faltering step, then had to stop. “Sorry, Kit. I’m slam wore out.”

  He looked down at Rio. She was gleamingly groomed, as though buffed with a floor waxer. Everything was too big, too much: the manicured nails, the raven hair, the makeup. She had red ligature marks around her neck.

  Lily turned to him. “How’d you do that with the belt?”

  “Kenpo move,” he said.

  Shaking her head in admiration, she frisked Rio from boots to chignon. Rio twisted on the floor.

  “I want my lawyer,” she said.

  “Fine,” Lily said.

  “Sit me up. You cannot treat me this way.”

  “Stay put.”

  “This is offensive. I am a businesswoman. This is harassment. How dare you?” Rio arched her back to get a good look at me. “Bitch. Hole.”

  Her face was overpolished, and the makeup gave her a road-worn look, but her skin was remarkably youthful, smooth and supple all the way down into her cleavage.

  “What did you do to Christian?” I said. “Hormones? Drugs? Was that what’s made him so sick, or was it the needles?”

  “Do not speak of my son. Dirty slut.” She looked at Lily. “I will sue the sheriff’s department into the ground. You cannot hold me, you Mexican trash.”

  Lily made a sour face. “Shut up, old bag.” Grabbing a crate from the corner of the container, she walked out the doorway into the alley. “Something stinks in there. Come on.”

  I wedged myself under Dad’s arm and helped him out into the alley. He slumped down onto the crate. Lily glanced around, perhaps looking for the port police, and went back inside. Taking Dad’s belt, she cinched it around Rio’s ankles. Then she got out her phone and dialed 911.

  “Officer needs assistance. Det. Lilia Rodriguez, Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department.” She gave the dispatcher her badge number and r
equested backup from the nearest available officers. “I’ve made a felony arrest and need support.”

  I took off my backpack and pulled out the bottled water, rehydration kit, and an armload of candy bars I had bought at the airport. Dad was going to need intravenous rehydration, but for now this would have to do.

  “You came prepared,” he said.

  “From the first-aid kit Jesse keeps in his truck. Once with county rescue, always with.”

  Lily listened to the dispatcher. “I’ll meet the officers and lead them to the scene.” She hung up. “I’ll be back.”

  Sticking her phone in her back pocket, she scrambled up the side of a container and took off across the top, running back toward her car.

  I shook the rehydration mixture and handed it to Dad. He got it halfway to his mouth and returned his hand to his lap. I took the bottle and tipped it to his lips. He struggled, swallowing with a mixture of agony and deliverance.

  Rio squirmed on the floor of the container. “Phil Delaney. Get AIDS and die.”

  I didn’t want to look at her anymore, and didn’t want to hear the verbal acid she was disgorging. Handing Dad the bottle, I shut one door of the container and stretched to close the second one.

  She rolled on her side. “I have everything I want. It does not matter that your dyke pig put me under arrest. You are going to let me go.”

  “Fat chance.” I shut the second door and flipped the latch.

  She shouted, “We have the video showing Phil shooting Hank. Let me go or I give it to the U.S. Attorney. Then Phil gets sent to Thailand to stand trial for murder.”

  “You have it wrong,” I said.

  “If you think you will leave me in here, you are a more stupid hole than I thought. Look at your father. After three days in this container he needs the paramedics. Imagine how he will look after five years in a Thai prison.”

  Dad shook his head, willing me to step away from the container. The sun lit his face to stark angles. He looked so bad I wanted to faint. I didn’t intentionally lower my voice, but my words came out as whispers anyway.

  “I know you didn’t kill Hank Sanger.”

  He squinted, feigning light in his eyes. “Appreciate the vote of confidence.”