Fear

by Jeff Abbott

Then he saw a black Lincoln Navigator, powering up fast behind the motorcycle. Groote at the wheel.

  The cyclist fired again and Miles heard the bullet thwock into the back of the passenger seat. And then in the rearview – he saw Groote nudge the Navigator into the motorcycle, hard. The cyclist fought to steady himself, swiveled his aim back toward Groote, and blasted at the Navigator. Missed. Groote didn’t retreat.

  As Miles hit the next curve, Groote rammed the Navigator hard into the bike, the cyclist getting airborne and landing on Miles’s trunk. He scrabbled for a one-handed grip, sliding toward the frame of the back windshield.

  The cycle smashed into a guardrail, somersaulted, and soared out into empty air. Groote’s Navigator kissed the railing, sparks flying, as he fought for control.

  Miles wrenched the car hard to the left, screeching into the oncoming lane, veering back just in time to avoid a honking pickup truck, trying to throw the cyclist clear. He glanced in the rearview. The cyclist had managed to get a hold with his gloved hand on the lip of the shattered back window. Nathan pounded his fist down on the man’s grip and Miles saw the cyclist’s gun swerve and take aim.

  Not at Nathan or Celeste. Him. Kill him and the chase is over.

  Groote thundered up fast behind them.

  The cyclist fired, Miles’s window shattered, and in the rearview he saw Nathan fighting with the cyclist, struggling for control of the gun. Celeste looped her blanket over the shooter’s head, tried to pull him off-balance.

  Then two shots boomed, in fast succession, and the cyclist screamed. A tire blew and Miles fought the wheel to keep the car from sliding into the opposite lane or into the railing and the sky beyond.

  Suddenly Miles saw a sign: service area to the left. He swung hard into oncoming traffic, driving on a rim, and into a flat parking area; Groote’s Navigator followed.

  Nathan dragged the cyclist into the car, started pummeling him with his fists.

  Celeste tumbled out of the car, falling on her back onto the pavement. Groote’s car screeched up close to her. Miles got his gun, leveled it at Groote.

  ‘Truce!’ Groote yelled. ‘I saved your life, man! Truce! Don’t shoot me!’ And Groote dropped his gun to the pavement.

  Nathan dragged the cyclist out of the car, sitting on him, and Miles could see the two shots Groote had made – neat bullet holes in the cyclist’s right hip and leg.

  ‘I saved you,’ Groote repeated.

  ‘After you’ve tried to kill us.’

  ‘I thought you had Frost. My job is to get it back. But I didn’t kill Allison, you know Sorenson did, and Dodd – he has my daughter. I don’t know how to find her without him – without people who know him, know his operation. Please. Please, Miles. I’ve got to find Sorenson. Please tell me what you know. Please. My kid. I have nothing without my kid…’ And Groote stopped. Beneath the razor slashes, the broken nose, the bruised face, Miles saw the real pain in the man’s eyes. ‘I have information you need to stop Sorenson. I’ll share if Nathan or this bastard’ – he gestured at the cyclist – ‘can tell me where my kid is.’

  Miles kept the gun on him, went to the cyclist. Celeste steered Nathan back against the car. ‘Let him talk to us, Nathan!’

  ‘Nathan,’ Miles said. ‘Total honesty. Do you know where Dodd put Groote’s daughter?’

  Nathan shook his head. ‘No. I don’t.’

  ‘You can’t trust Groote,’ Celeste said.

  Miles knelt by the cyclist, pulled the helmet free. ‘You. Where’s Sorenson?’

  The cyclist closed his eyes.

  ‘Where do we find Sorenson? Where do we find the rest of Dodd’s people?’

  ‘Dodd doesn’t – have any more – people. Not in the – field.’ The cyclist coughed blood. ‘Why he didn’t have… protection.’

  ‘You can’t help Sorenson now. Where’s he at?’ Groote said. He picked up his gun and put it squarely on the man’s forehead. He started counting down: ‘Five. Four.’

  ‘Austin. He’s in Austin, Texas.’

  ‘Where in Austin?’

  ‘I don’t know… I just know Austin.’

  ‘Is this where the auction is?’ Groote asked.

  ‘Auction?’ Miles said. ‘What auction?’

  The cyclist ignored Miles and nodded at Groote.

  ‘Do you know where my daughter is?’ Groote asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Three,’ Groote started the count again.

  ‘I don’t know… I don’t. But Sorenson, he’d know… he worked for Dodd.’

  ‘That we knew.’

  ‘Is my daughter with him?’ Groote said. The man blinked and Groote said, ‘Two.’

  ‘I don’t know… Sorenson didn’t tell me about her.’ The cyclist spoke in a rush. ‘I’ll call Sorenson, tell him I did the hit on you all, he’ll back off for a few days if you hide…’

  ‘Bull,’ Nathan said.

  ‘Miles, we have to go,’ Celeste said.

  ‘You’re right,’ Groote said. ‘One.’ And he shot the cyclist between the eyes.

  ‘Goddamn it!’ Miles screamed. ‘He could have told us plenty more.’ He shoved Celeste and Nathan back toward the car.

  Groote knelt, took a cell phone and a wallet from the cyclist’s leather jacket. ‘He couldn’t tell us more, because we can’t stay. The Forest Service will be all over this side of the park in a few minutes. We have to go.’

  ‘What’s this we shit?’

  ‘Truce,’ Groote said. ‘We both need Sorenson. The only reason I was after you all is because Quantrill thought you had Frost. You don’t. Sorenson does. Sorenson stole Frost to sell it, in a new auction. He either knows where my little girl is or I can threaten his auction to get him to give me information on how I can find her. I’m going to Austin. I don’t want you getting arrested and telling the police about me. I can either kill the three of you or we can help each other, and I don’t kill people on whims or for fun.’

  ‘We can’t trust you,’ Miles said.

  ‘I’m just a hired hand. You know what that’s like, don’t you, Miles?’ Groote said.

  Miles nodded.

  ‘We have a common enemy. Sorenson. I just saved you, Miles, and you saved my life back in the hospital when you beat up Sorenson. He would have killed me after he killed Nathan. You didn’t let me burn to death at that house. Your car’s undrivable. We can take the Navigator. But you have to decide, right now.’

  ‘Miles, no way,’ Nathan said. Celeste took Miles’s arm, squeezed tight.

  ‘Miles. We get Frost, we part ways, not as friends, I’m sure, but we all have what we want and Sorenson goes down. He’s just tried to kill all of us; he’ll try again. But I couldn’t let his dink call him and report in that we survived.’

  Miles decided. ‘Get in Groote’s car.’

  ‘No way!’ Nathan yelled. ‘No way, man, no, he hurt me, hurt me bad-’

  ‘Nathan,’ Groote said, ‘I never tried to kill you. Sorenson did.’

  ‘You’re a sick bastard. I won’t go with him, Miles.’

  Miles caught Celeste’s hand; shock and confusion played across her face. ‘If we stay, we’re going to be questioned and probably go to jail. You’ve just gotten out of one prison, Celeste, I don’t want you in another one.’

  ‘He tried to kill me…’

  ‘You tried to slice my face open,’ Groote said in an even tone. ‘But we all know the truth now, and we can either argue until the police come or we can help each other. I assure you my kid matters far more to me than hurting you.’

  ‘Get in the car,’ Miles said. Celeste took a deep breath and did. Nathan jerked back from Miles.

  ‘Nathan, I won’t let him hurt you.’

  ‘Kid,’ Groote said, ‘I could have killed you. I could have done much worse to you. I’m sorry. Nothing personal.’

  ‘I won’t let him hurt you,’ Miles repeated.

  Nathan, his jaw trembling with rage, got into the backseat with Celeste.

  ‘You hurt them,�
�� Miles said, ‘and I’ll kill you.’

  ‘I know you will,’ Groote said. They got back into the Navigator, Groote driving, easing back into the traffic. Virtually no traffic appeared to be coming from the direction of Bridalveil; Miles wondered if the road had been closed in the chaos after the shooting. Groote gunned the Navigator south, toward the park exit.

  Silence as they drove.

  ‘All that’s happened,’ Groote said, ‘- my actions were nothing personal. I just wanted Frost. For my daughter. She needs it really bad.’ He told them an abbreviated story of the attack on his family, Amanda’s survival, her fight against PTSD. He left out murdering most of the Duartes.

  They were silent for several moments. ‘The cutting,’ Celeste said. ‘Frost… made my urges to cut nearly go away. So it might help her not hurt herself.’

  ‘That’s why you had the razor.’ Groote touched at the dried blood on the shallow cuts on his face.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It really helped you. Please don’t lie to me. Please.’

  ‘It really helped me,’ Celeste said. ‘But I don’t give a rat’s ass about you feeling better. This is a truce. Not friendship. No one is forgetting what you’ve done or what you are.’

  ‘I’m a shitload of things, same as you,’ Groote said, ‘but first I’m a father.’

  Celeste didn’t answer him.

  ‘Find the registration,’ Groote said to Miles. ‘We may have to talk our way out if the cops have thrown up blocks.’

  He was right. A roadblock had been laid near the Wawona resort, close to the southern entrance of Yosemite. The park police were stopping cars heading out of the park, checking IDs, talking to people.

  ‘Oh, God,’ Nathan said. ‘What do we do?’

  ‘Stay calm,’ Miles said.

  The cars fed through the line and after ten minutes, Groote pulled up to the officer.

  ‘Good morning,’ Groote said.

  ‘Sir, driver’s license and registration, please.’

  ‘Sure.’ Groote handed him the registration – not in Dodd’s name, but in the name of a company called Horizon Investments, based in California, and his own driver’s license. Miles supposed Horizon was a front for Dodd’s operations. The officer took all this in without comment, writing down the license number and checking the registration carefully. So much depended, Miles thought, on how good a description anyone gave of us, if they know we’re in this SUV yet.

  ‘What happened to your face, sir?’ the officer said.

  ‘Fell climbing yesterday. Made a mess of myself, didn’t I?’ Groote said. ‘Was there a problem at Bridalveil? We were coming up from Yosemite Village and a lot of cars were driving out of there like maniacs, in a damn hurry to get out, and one of them banged into me good and roared off.’

  ‘A shooting,’ the officer said.

  ‘Holy shit,’ Groote said. ‘In the park?’

  ‘Yes, sir. You folks see anything?’

  ‘No,’ Miles said. ‘But that’s why we need incredibly strict gun-control laws, I believe, because violence is just starting to creep into every aspect of our lives, don’t you think, Officer, and if we’re not safe in our national parks then we’re certainly not safe in our cities and-’

  The officer waved them through. ‘Thanks, folks.’

  Groote drove forward with a friendly wave.

  ‘Now what?’ Nathan said.

  ‘I’ve got to get out of the valley, get into cell-phone range,’ Groote said. He tested his phone one-handed. ‘No signal. I’ve got to call my daughter’s hospital, see if she’s really gone.’ Panic tinged his voice.

  ‘If Dodd said he took her,’ Nathan said quietly from the backseat, ‘then it’s true.’

  Groote exited the park, accelerating onto the snake’s back of Highway 41.

  ‘Head for Fish Camp,’ Miles said.

  ‘We shouldn’t stop at your motel-’

  ‘We’re not. We’ll see if there’s a copy of Frost hidden at Wallace’s house, but I don’t think we’ll find it. He would have destroyed it rather than let Dodd get it. He was taking his orders from Sorenson,’ Miles said. ‘But I’d rather search than pass up the chance.’

  ‘But Sorenson killed Allison – why would Wallace help him?’

  Miles thought for a moment. The pieces were slowly, roughly, fitting together. He said, ‘I think Sorenson and Allison talked Wallace into analyzing the research for them. They don’t want Dodd to know what they’re doing, so she doesn’t use her office computer to send the files, because she knows Dodd’s monitoring her system and her phone. But after she’s sent the files and Wallace has given them his analysis that Frost is indeed good medicine, Allison’s not useful to Sorenson anymore.’

  ‘He killed her,’ Celeste said. ‘He’d always planned to, if he killed with a bomb. It’s not done on impulse.’

  ‘Without a doubt.’ Miles nodded. ‘And he must have wanted to keep Wallace in his pocket, so he tells Wallace that Quantrill or Dodd killed her. This is far more than Wallace bargained for. Sorenson drops off Dodd’s radar. Wallace is scared, he can’t let Dodd know he helped Sorenson. If Wallace runs, Dodd’ll know he’s guilty. Wallace can’t have any evidence on his server that the Frost files were ever there. So he lied to me about Sorenson wiping the server; Wallace obliterated the files to cover his own ass.

  ‘But he doesn’t know that we’ve discovered the file transfer. When Nathan called Dodd, and Dodd in turn called Wallace, Wallace must have freaked. He called Sorenson and Sorenson told him to stay put. Because now, Wallace is bait. Everyone who’s after Frost is rushing to Fish Camp; it’s a golden opportunity for Sorenson to eliminate everyone who’s a threat to him, all at once.’

  Nathan paled and shook his head. ‘I didn’t know it was a trap. I didn’t rat.’

  ‘I believe you,’ Groote said. ‘You don’t give info up easily. I should know.’

  ‘Shut the hell up,’ Nathan said.

  ‘I’m still furious with you, Nathan,’ Miles said. ‘You weren’t honest with us, you nearly got us killed.’

  ‘Dodd said he would protect us,’ Nathan said.

  ‘Miles.’ Celeste put her hand on his arm, he shrugged it off. ‘Nathan thought he was doing the right thing. Dodd did save my life at the hotel. Let it go.’

  ‘Miles, Dodd came to me, offered me a chance to make what happened in Iraq right. I couldn’t say no,’ Nathan said.

  ‘If the bombing was an accident, what did you have to make right, Nathan?’ Miles said. ‘What on earth would you have to fix?’

  Nathan stared out the window.

  ‘Nathan. You could have told us from the beginning Dodd put you in the clinic,’ Miles said. He told Groote to turn – they’d reached the road to Wallace’s house.

  For a normally quiet corner, traffic was heavy onto the road that led to Wallace’s house. Smoke painted the sky. ‘Bad sign,’ Groote said.

  ‘I promised… to say nothing.’ Nathan put the flat of his palms on the side of his head.

  ‘How were you supposed to report to Dodd? Through Allison?’

  ‘I had no idea Allison and Sorenson were working for Dodd, none. I was supposed to go through the treatment and then report back to Dodd about the testing. That’s all. When you got me out of the hospital – I decided to keep my mouth shut. You didn’t want to deal with authority and I knew Dodd would help us, but I would have to bring you to him. I thought I was protecting the two of you.’

  They reached a bend in the road. In the distance they could see fire trucks parked along the curb. Flames spouted from the shrunken wreck that was the Wallace house.

  ‘Oh, hell,’ Miles said.

  ‘Sorenson didn’t want to risk a trace connecting any of today back to him,’ Groote said. ‘Goddamn it.’ He powered the car back toward Highway 41.

  ‘We don’t have anyplace to go,’ Nathan said.

  ‘Yes, we do,’ Celeste said. ‘Head for Orange County.’

  ‘What?’ Groote asked in surprise. Or
ange County was where Amanda had been; how would she know?

  ‘I know a place we can go. Just drive.’

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Groote started calling as soon as his cell phone got a signal.

  He first called Amanda’s hospital in Orange, considering carefully what he would say if Amanda was truly gone, sweating, thinking, Please let her be there, for all my sins, God, don’t punish her, let her be there.

  The conversation took five minutes. Doctor Warner was not available, but the kind-voiced woman in administration told him the transfer had gone without a hitch, and she hoped Amanda enjoyed the new hospital in Phoenix.

  ‘Gosh, I left the hospital’s number at my hotel. Do you have it?’ Groote said.

  Of course she did.

  ‘Phoenix,’ Nathan said when Groote told them what the woman had said. ‘Dodd found me at a hospital in Phoenix.’

  It lifted Groote’s hopes, and his hand shook as he dialed. Miles took the phone from him, dialed the number, handed the phone back to him.

  Man, Groote thought, don’t be nice to me, it’s gonna make it harder if I have to kill you. He thought he had been clever in pulling them in with him, but now – the shock of battle fading – he knew they outnumbered him and he didn’t like the idea that he could lose control of the group.

  The Phoenix hospital had no record of an Amanda Groote, or of any new juvenile patient being transferred to them in the last two weeks.

  ‘Please check again. Please.’ Groote waited and the woman checked again.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir.’

  He clicked the phone off. ‘She’s not there. Dodd lied to her hospital, falsified the records.’

  ‘You could call every psychiatric hospital in the country,’ Celeste said. ‘We can download a list, work the phones.’

  ‘You’d help me, Mrs. Brent?’ Groote said.

  ‘Not you. I’d help your kid.’

  ‘If Dodd normally lurks in a back corner of the Pentagon,’ Miles said, ‘he doesn’t have to rely on public hospitals. He could have a secret clinic or a safe house to hide Amanda. She’s not even necessarily in a hospital.’

  ‘She’s not,’ Nathan said. ‘Dodd couldn’t risk putting her in a hospital where she might give incriminating details to another patient.’