Gone Dark (A Grale Thriller Book 2)

by Kirk Russell

  Fuentes hung up, and Deb stood in the dusk at the edge of the parking slab looking out as if she was unsure about what came next. It had darkened, but I could still see her silhouette.

  What are you thinking about, Deb? Waiting for dark and feeling unsure about whatever it is you got into? Nothing feels well planned anymore, does it?

  Her headlights came on. She drove slowly down the steep driveway and started south, then reversed. She tracked north of Sylmar up a frontage road and then crossed I-5 north along the west side of the converter station, past Water and Power, then left and back into Sylmar, and left again. She pulled over on a wide street, killed her lights, and sat for a while before driving the whole loop once more.

  The two agents Fuentes sent took over after Inze drove to the Burbank address on her driver’s license. Jo called as I left them and said, “Photos of the farmhouse, pond, crops, and outbuildings were sent to my phone along with a text that said, ‘Super tired. Weeded today. Love you both.’”

  “That was all?” I asked.

  “Yes, and from the same phone as before. It doesn’t sound like she’s in danger, but it’s weird.” After a beat she added, “I don’t hear fear.”

  “But she’s still dodging giving an address and she didn’t call. Or they didn’t let her.”

  “It worries me,” Jo said. “It doesn’t really sound like her.”

  “They know we’ll get the address at some point but they’re slowing it down.”

  Jo didn’t say anything, but one way to read it was that something was about to go down. Not next week, not sometime later, but very soon, and they were trying to keep everything stable. If something was going down, did Julia know? I chose to believe she didn’t. If I didn’t believe that, I didn’t believe in Julia. I kept the faith.

  43

  JULIA

  The door to the farmhouse swung open. Julia was expecting Tom. He’d called Paula earlier in the day and said he’d get in around ten tonight. But it wasn’t Tom who walked in, though. It was Nick.

  Julia froze, then picked up a long knife from the kitchen counter. “Leave.”

  “What happened to the pacifism?”

  “Get out of here, Nick. Fuck off. Go.”

  “We’re going to talk and then I’ll go,” he said. “And you’re not calling the shots here.”

  “I’m going to testify against you. You’re wanted on a hit-and-run, multiple false IDs, credit-card fraud, possession of stolen military-grade ammunition, and I don’t know what else. I can’t remember it all. Plus whatever else you’ve got back there, all the people you’ve screwed.”

  “You know what, Julia? I’ve been thinking the same thing. They really need your testimony, and sooner or later they will find me. That’s exactly what’s been going through my head.”

  Julia took in the changes in him. No more scrabbly-ass beard, no man bun, no quasi-hipster look, just short black hair cut and clean around the edges. He wore fading black jeans and a gray T-shirt. The thin-soled sneakers got traded out for light boots, and he was standing straighter. Way straighter, a totally different look, but another costume well put together for the guy who had nothing inside. He’d just told her he was here because of her. That frightened her.

  Earlier, Paula had acted like she was worried. She said something about calling Jo but then put three suitcases in her car and left.

  She’d said, “I’ll see you in a few days, and I’ll be back with some chicks so we can raise hens and stop buying eggs.”

  She didn’t sound like she believed it, and Julia thought, Don’t bother. I’m gone. Over the gate tonight and out of here after Tom returns and knocks back a few beers, and Danny is out in the tractor barn doing whatever he does at night in there.

  “I’m here to do some banking with you,” Nick said, then smiled like it was funny. Asshole. “You won’t believe this, Julia, but I’m kind of your last best hope.”

  “Then it’s over for me.”

  “Could be.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “What I just said.”

  “We’re not doing any banking.”

  “Yeah, we are, and get the fuck over yourself. You weren’t happy and I was bored.”

  “You drugged me, Joel raped me, you posted a video. You think it’s over?”

  “This is where you’re at, Julia. Think of it as a chess game. You’ve lost Sam. Bad move. Everyone is in deep at this point, and Sam is the one who recruited you, but you never went the distance. You didn’t join in when things started to go down.”

  “Join with what?” she asked.

  “Exactly. You’re making my point for me. You either played stupid or didn’t want any part of it. So that makes you a kind of spy, given your uncle’s occupation. To put it more simply, as things get tense, you look like a liability, which has led to all kinds of other talk. You can imagine. I mean, shit happens.”

  “You’ve got warrants out on you. Shouldn’t you be hiding in a hole somewhere?”

  “Remember those medals I showed you?”

  “You didn’t let me look at them,” she said.

  “Those were all for target shooting. If it comes to it, I can take care of myself.”

  “So you’ll shoot people? Great.”

  He looked at her for the longest time, then walked over and sat down on the table with his feet on a chair. Being around him made her gut churn.

  Nick said, “You’re a liability, Julia. There are five who make the big decisions. I argued with them for a different way than dealing with you as an extreme liability. They’re open to it, but you need to make a significant contribution that proves you’re all in. That’s why I brought my laptop. You log in to your Schwab accounts, and off we go.”

  “You’re here for my inheritance?”

  “It’s a trade.”

  “Like my money or my life,” she said.

  His eyes were flat and unreadable.

  “Okay . . .” she said, trying to get her head around it. She knew there was a fringe offshoot of Witness1, and she did get asked about joining people who were going to make change happen. She’d known it was a more serious thing but had ignored it. She gripped the knife harder.

  “I’m going to walk you to the door,” she said.

  Nick was between her and the front door, but the door off the kitchen was behind her. She could go out the back and stay away from the road. Go over the barbed wire and then down through the grass and hide in the night.

  “If you willingly contribute money, Julia, it might just work out for the pacifist. But otherwise you’re a problem that’s getting worse. Look, I didn’t drive here because I wanted to take the risk. I don’t want to see you die.”

  “You’re here to protect me?”

  “Not really. If you didn’t have the Schwab accounts, I wouldn’t have done anything. If I heard you’d disappeared, I’d think, ‘Kind of cute girl, decent fuck, some goofy ideas, but so what, she’s gone.’”

  It was hard to believe that stung her, but it did, and at the same time what he was saying felt real.

  “It’s you and me and Danny here,” Nick said. “Mother Goose got redeployed and Tom went to plan B after two of your former roommates were brought in separately today to the LA FBI office for questioning. They’re there right now. If they follow their training they won’t say anything. You’re kind of the problem. That’s how I got the inspiration for you to transfer all of your inheritance as a gesture of loyalty.”

  “It sounds just like you,” Julia said.

  “Even if we get right on it, it’s going to take a few days to sell the stocks and bonds and let them settle. That’s not counting your broker’s resistance so, say, five to six days before it’s cash you can transfer. During that time you’ll be staying here with Danny. Oh, and speak of the devil.”

  Julia heard footsteps, turned, and there was Danny at the back door. She started to turn with the knife, but he was fast. He threw his weight into her, forced her arm down on the counter
, and wrenched the knife away.

  “Put her on the couch,” Nick said, then opened his laptop and started talking.

  “The FBI grilled that doofus artist at the Colony after nosey Uncle Grale found your car, and their storm troopers crashed the Long Beach house. But they were coming anyway.”

  Nick said that without looking at her, but turned now.

  “I just logged in for you. I’m sort of proud of remembering your log-in. I only saw you log in once. It looks like everything had been doing well, but the market is starting to roll over, so that’s what you tell your broker. Everybody is selling, Julia. There’ll be nothing weird about it. But it’s your call, what do you think, live or die?”

  She closed her eyes and thought, Good on UG for finding my car. UG doesn’t quit. I’m going to be like him. I’ll never quit.

  “Time to call your broker and leave him a message that you want to sell everything. You say you’ve thought it through. You say you’re out of town and not to call you. You’ll call him during working hours tomorrow. Let him know that you know he needs to confirm. The last thing is you thank him for everything he’s done. You wouldn’t be selling but you need the money for something else.” Nick pulled his phone out. “You ready?”

  “Okay, call him,” Julia said.

  He did, then handed her the phone, saying, “Be cheerful.”

  She left a message that was almost word for word what Nick had said. When she hung up, Nick said, “Good job, and it’s a good trade, right? It’s not like it’s money you earned.”

  Julia got up from the couch and walked into the kitchen. She casually opened a couple cabinet doors with both watching her, wondering what she was doing.

  “So what about food?” she said. “If I’m going to be here with Danny, we need more food. Paula was going to go shopping, but you’re saying Paula isn’t coming back.”

  She squatted and opened a cabinet with Nick’s phone still in her hand. She reached into the cabinet with that hand and typed the number UG had made her memorize when she moved to his house. She heard him answer, then hung up and brought the phone to her side as Nick came around fast and knocked it out of her hand. He checked right away.

  “You little bitch. Danny, take her to her new home.”

  She fought Danny and poked one of his eyes. He pulled her outside, threw her down on the gravel, and kicked her head. She heard Nick but didn’t remember much else until she was inside the tractor barn.

  Now she was standing in the cool damp, her nose running, and gravel ground into her cheek. She smelled ammonia. The smell was strong. In a corner was a little folding cot. They dragged her toward it as she fought them. Danny kicked her legs out and slammed her facedown on the cot. Nick sat on her, and Julia heard a snicking sound like a chain, and something cold and metal clacked shut around her ankle.

  Nick stood and stepped back, saying, “That comes off when the transfer is done.” He waited for Dan to walk away, then said, “I’ll check in every day. Dan has to deliver something, so it’ll just be you and me for the last few days unless something goes wrong. You have to hope it doesn’t.”

  Julia felt along her ankle to the stainless hoop.

  “Stand up, Julia.”

  “Take this off me!”

  “After the transfers settle. Until then you wear it. There’s food in the bag right there and a package of clean rags you can use to wash. Behind the black drums is a sink. In the bag is a bar of soap and a roll of toilet paper. Toilet’s over there. That’s what you’ve got. This is home for now. Better hope your broker doesn’t fuck up. Oh, and Danny says there are rats in here, so be careful where you store your food. Those two gallon jugs are your water. There’s a cup, plate, and plastic utensils in your bag.” He pointed up. “The lights will stay on so you won’t be in darkness.”

  “Take this fucking thing off my leg,” she said. “He can lock me in here. It doesn’t need to be on my leg.”

  “Danny makes the rules. Whatever he says goes, and he doesn’t want you anywhere near his workbench.”

  She turned to Danny. “Why are you doing this? Why are you helping him?”

  Neither answered. They walked away, and the lights went out as the door shut. In the dark it was colder. She reached down and ran her fingers around the steel hoop on her ankle. Her heart pounded as she sat down on the cot. She heard UG’s voice saying, “Assess your situation and think.” An hour later she heard scuttling. She heard one rat, then more. She felt around for the garbage bag with the food, then stood and moved around in the dark, feeling her way along some steel shelves. She found a short piece of pipe under the bottom shelf.

  When she got back to the cot, something was moving inside the bag. In darkness, she swung the pipe down on it. She hit over and over until there was no noise but the wind blowing through holes, and her panting from beating a rat to death. She wished there was at least one light so if more rats came she’d see them. Nick said the lights would be left on, but of course, another lie. Another Nick lie.

  44

  At 2:30 that night, Jo called as she left the hospital.

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  “At a run-down motel close to Sylmar and a surveillance we have underway.”

  “I didn’t hear from Julia tonight,” she said. “I also realized the prior time she and I talked she said she hoped to have a new phone tomorrow, not that she would for sure.”

  “That still doesn’t feel right.”

  “I agree,” she said. “But she hasn’t sounded anxious or scared. What do you think?”

  My phone vibrated with another call coming in. “Jo, I’ve got someone trying to reach me.”

  “Call me tomorrow,” she said. “I’ve got to get some sleep. I’m sure Julia is all right.”

  The agent calling was named Wayne Wu. In the LA office they call him Double W. I’d been around him enough to know he was concise and careful with facts, so I was glad he was one of the two staking out Stuckey.

  “Something is happening, we’re not sure what,” Wu said. “Can you hear the sirens where you are?”

  “I hear sirens.”

  “There’s a big fire that came out of nowhere along a commercial strip near the Sylmar–San Fernando line. It all went up at once, and there’s something happening on I-5 north right now not far from Sylmar.”

  “Where’s Stuckey?” I asked.

  “At home. Lights off.”

  “Hold on, we’re getting more on the freeway deal. There’s a white van that started weaving with someone throwing lighted flares out the windows. Hang on, another call is coming in.”

  “I’m headed for my car,” I said, and walked out of the motel room in time to see a bright flash of light and feel the concussion. Bomb.

  Wu came back on and asked, “Did you feel that? A helicopter pilot is saying the van throwing flares stopped in the middle of the freeway, and two guys got out and ran. Forty-five seconds later it blew up. There’s debris everywhere and blocking the freeway.”

  “Where on the freeway?”

  “Adjacent to the southeast corner of the Van Norman Reservoir.”

  I drove north back to Sylmar and made a hard left toward I-5, thinking there was some chance I might spot the pair who’d been in the van. Then something clicked inside and I slowed but didn’t stop. I didn’t turn around yet. But a large fire in a commercial strip in San Fernando and a van detonating and leaving enough debris to block I-5 happening so close together, what were the odds? I called Hofter as I braked hard and turned around.

  Mark heard my tires squealing and said, “Careful, Grale, where are you? What’s going on?”

  “We’re not sure, but here’s what’s happened so far. Sylmar and San Fernando fire departments are fighting fires in a string of commercial buildings, and a bomb has exploded on I-5 north after two men in the van threw flares to stop traffic, then parked in the middle of the freeway and ran.”

  “Just blew up the van on the freeway?”

  “Yeah.�
��

  “That’s bizarre.”

  “Can you do this while I check out the Sylmar Converter Station? See if you can get a Bureau helicopter in the air over the converter station. If not ours, CHP or anybody available, then call me.”

  I called the number I had for the head security guy at the station. Not our first conversation.

  He said, “Agent Grale, we’re watching, man. We’re nervous. We heard the explosion.”

  “Park something on that paved access on the east side we’ve talked about. Make sure it’s heavy and get it out there right now,” I said.

  “What’s happening? What are you telling me?”

  “That I’m worried,” I said.

  “I’m on it.”

  “Call you back if I learn anything.”

  When I turned onto Telfair a large truck blocked the street up ahead. I called in where I was, parked, got out, and took a follow-up call from Bob Thor, security manager at the converter station.

  “We got a big-ass truck out there, Agent Grale. But there is a big white commercial van that came down A Street, so they must have gotten the gate open and knocked out the concrete barriers.

  “Can the van get around the vehicle your guy parked?” I asked.

  “No way, that van is already tippy. It almost fell on its side trying to go around.”

  “Good job. Now keep everybody a long way away.”

  The steel poles holding the gates were stout, but the gates were chain link and the barriers weren’t enough. A Street was an obvious route in. I called Hofter.

  “Telfair is blocked, the gate to A Street is down, and concrete barriers are pushed out of the way. There’s a large white commercial van in there, but it can’t get around the utility truck blocking the road.”

  “Grale, you’ve got to stay back. Snipers are on their way. They’ll take positions where they can sight through the windshield.”

  “Make sure they talk to me first. I’m going to get closer. I’m moving up through cars in a business lot along the right.”

  “Don’t do that,” Hofter said. “You’re walking into a line of fire, and what if the bomb goes off?”

  Telfair Avenue rose and curved, and I stayed to the right where it was darkest until I felt it was safe to cross the street. Now I was looking down A Street. The van that Bob had described was there but no longer trying to maneuver around the rig they’d parked to block it. I walked down A Street on the left side so the driver of the van could see me approach. There wasn’t a lot of light, but there was enough. As I got within two hundred yards, my heart rate picked up. The LA FBI SWAT team leader checked in with me by phone and let me know the sniper wouldn’t be talking to me directly.