Runaway Heart (2003)

by Stephen Cannell

  "I won't," she said, and squeezed his hand.

  "If anybody hurts Jack I'm going to the police," he said defiantly.

  She leaned down and kissed his forehead. "I hope Jack knows what a great friend you are," she said as he smiled at her through cracked lips.

  When Susan arrived at the cafeteria Shane Scully was sitting in a booth one over from where Dr. Lance Shiller had drawn his crude oval heart on the place mat and explained to her about Herman's arrhythmia. It seemed as if that had happened years ago.

  Susan got some coffee and then slipped into the booth across the table from him.

  "He okay?" Shane asked.

  "Yeah, I think so, but, my God, his face is a mess. He lost some teeth ... he took that beating but refused to talk." She paused to sip her coffee as she thought about it, then added, "Sometimes people surprise you, what they do, how strong they are, underneath." She told him what Miro had overheard while under the desk, about the call to Mr. Valdez, and the plan to take them to a place called Black Star in Cleveland. After she finished, they sat there looking at one another, each lost in thought.

  "He's not in Cleveland. That doesn't make any sense at all," Shane finally said.

  "But that's where Miro said ..."

  "I don't care. He must have misunderstood, or they said that because they knew he was listening. Why take Jack two thousand miles away? DARPA is a federal agency with access to offices everywhere. What's in Cleveland that they can't get here? It's nuts."

  "I don't know, maybe that's where Valdez is."

  Shane pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number.

  "Who're you calling?"

  "My wife, Alexa. She's the exec at Detective Services Group downtown and twice the cop I am. Let's get her take." After he got her on the phone and told her what Miro had overheard, he listened.

  Susan watched and waited.

  "Where is that?" he finally asked. "Okay, I'll get a map and look. Thanks, babe." Another pause, then, "Okay, I'll call and let you know." He folded the phone and put it back in his coat pocket.

  "Alexa says she thinks there's a wilderness area east of here, between Orange County and San Bernardino County, called the Cleveland National Forest."

  "A national forest. That would be federal land," Susan said.

  "Makes slightly more sense than Cleveland, Ohio."

  They left the cafeteria and went upstairs to the hospital gift shop where they bought a travel book that included a map of Southern California. They found the Cleveland National Forest and huddled together, staring at it.

  "Some cop I am. It's less than sixty miles away and I never even heard of it," Shane muttered.

  Susan borrowed a pair of magnified reading glasses from a display rack and squinted closely at the page. Little fire roads and trails crisscrossed the wilderness area. She could just barely read the tiny print on the map. She saw areas marked as Blue Jay Camp Ground and Trabuco Canyon Trail on the southern section of the Cleveland forest, then continued searching the tiny roads to the west. Finally, on the northeast section of the map, up around Lake Elsinore, near Riverside County, she found it a little trail that splintered off something called Santiago Road and lead to Black Star Canyon.

  Chapter Forty-Three.

  The room was small, locked, and windowless. The

  air-conditioner cranked freon-cooled air down on him through two large ceiling vents.

  He'd been taken there in the van from the airport in Van Nuys no stops his head sacked up again like a bag of vegetables. Toward the end of the two-hour drive he'd felt the tires bouncing on what seemed like a badly paved road. He thought he smelled pine needles, but that could have been his imagination.

  The van stopped, the door was thrown open, and he was dragged out and roughly pushed across some open ground by commandos who kept the conversation simple and guttural, sticking to phrases like "Shut the fuck up" and "No talking, asshole." Mind-expanding discourse.

  He was shoved into a room where the temperature was around fifty. Only two places Jack knew of kept the thermostat that cold: the Polar Bear exhibit at the Los Angeles zoo and the LAPD Computer Center. Crude as his captors were, he didn't think he was about to be fed to a bear so maybe he was in some kind of computer lab.

  Detective reasoning at its tip-top best.

  Taking it a step further, if this was a computer lab, maybe it was part of Octopus or Echelon.

  After they pushed him into the cold room they uncuffed him and left. A few minutes later he decided, What the hell, go for it, and removed his canvas bag.

  The room was concrete block no windows, no chairs. Minimalist digs.

  The hours ticked by while he grew goose bumps. He paced the room. He put his ear next to the concrete wall and listened. Something was humming faintly in two separate octaves behind the thick concrete. Water pipes? Power lines? Motown singers?

  "Well, Jack, you've really fucked up big this time," he said to the humming wall.

  Later, the same, dark-skinned, snake-cold Hispanic man he'd seen at the airport entered the room and closed the door behind him. "I'm Vincent Valdez."

  Jack thought it probably wasn't a good sign that the man told him his name. Valdez stood close, not ten feet away, as if Jack posed absolutely no physical threat to him.

  Jack stood and growled: "Before ripping your geek head off and shoving it up your ass, I'm required to inform you that I'm a black belt in four martial arts disciplines." Tired old bullshit, but there it was. The guy was pissing him off.

  "Let's see what you got then."

  Jack shrugged and gave him his best police academy hand-to-hand move, the old feint-to-the-left and pivot kick to the right. Before he got halfway through it he was flying backward, spinning wildly in flight, yelping something Three-Stoogish, like woo-woo-woop! He flew against the wall, landing with a thunk like a load of wet laundry, then slid down to the floor. Immediately, his worthless back went into a full spazoid convulsion. He was jerking around on the floor like a power company lineman with a handful of hot ends.

  "I'm a fifth-degree black belt." Valdez was looking down at Jack who was now desperately trying to get his lower lumbar region under control. "This might be a good time for you to tell me what you think you know," he instructed.

  Jack finally stopped spasming and cleared his throat. "Okay . . . here's one thing I heard."

  "I'm listening."

  "Ashly Lynn may be getting out of porno."

  Valdez didn't answer. He just glared and walked out of the room, relocking the door. No "Nice knowing ya," no "Have a nice day." He just froze Jack's balls with a look and left.

  Incompetence pissed off Vincent Valdez more than anything else he encountered in life . . . more than stupidity, more than insanity or moral corruption. Incompetence was usually bred from a combination of careless thinking and bad tactics, both elements within the sphere of control. Failure indicated that you had not adequately foreseen problems inside your command venue. That reflected directly back on Valdez and made him angry with everybody around him, but mostly at himself.

  This whole leak on the Ten-Eyck Chimera Project was totally unacceptable and had been getting worse with each passing hour. General Buzz Turpin had actually yelled at Vincent over the phone yesterday something the whispering general had never done before. God only knew how many people now had information about the existence of the supersecret project, and all because of a silly lawsuit to protect a butterfly. The whole tangled mess had started there and had somehow gotten completely away from him.

  He had no choice but to collateralize Wirta. They were in the middle of the Cleveland National Forest, at the Black Star Octopus Lab, and had good containment of the area. He would just march this wisecracking bozo out to the woods, crank a round into his fuzzy head, and bury him in a sack of lye. End of story.

  He was getting set to give that order when the phone rang in the secure HQ. He snatched it up. It was the DARPA routing officer in D.C.

  "Mr. Valdez?" she asked.r />
  "Yes."

  "I have a call for you. It came into our L.A. office ten minutes ago. I had to find you through Mr. Talbot in D.C."

  "I don't want any calls."

  "Mr. Talbot said you might want this one. It's from somebody named Herman Strockmire Jr."

  "Yes. I do want to talk to him. Have you got an STL?" Referring to the Octopus designation for Satellite Trace and Location.

  "Apparently he's calling from a cell phone and he's on the move right now. Octopus has him on the Hollywood Freeway just passing Sunset."

  "Okay. Vector some units in on that location and put him through."

  "I already have a team rolling on Mr. Talbot's instructions."

  Then Vincent heard some clicks and the hiss of a cell phone.

  "This is Valdez," he said sharply.

  "Mr. Valdez," Herman said. "Are you the one quarterbacking this disaster?" Herman was in the passenger seat of another rental car looking at Susan, who was driving. They had just left Shane Scully at the Hollywood station where he had volunteered to scare up some friends to go out to the Cleveland National Forest and help look for Jack. The lights from the freeway signs strobed across the windshield. Herman pressed the phone tightly to his ear.

  "Let me make you aware of something, Mr. Strockmire," Valdez said softly. "You are committing federal crimes and disrupting your country's national security."

  "You're the one breaking laws and committing crimes," Herman snapped. "Kidnapping happens to be a crime; so is murder. I know you're holding Jack Wirta. I know you're evaluating your options. Before you commit to something you can't undo, I just wanted to tell you to be sure and read the Metro section in the L.A. Times tomorrow morning. There's going to be an article about my restraining order against DARPA and the hybrid chimeras, including a great drawing my friend made of the one who attacked us. It's going to be about Jack Wirta and how he mysteriously disappeared after a federal arrest orchestrated under your command. Jordan Phoenix, a witness to the bust, has already given her sworn affidavit. In view of all this, I know you're going to want to keep Mr. Wirta in good condition."

  "Is that it?" Valdez's voice was cold and menacing.

  "That's it," Herman said. "Hurt him and you're going to have a lot of 'splaining to do, Lucy."

  Valdez hung up without responding.

  "Dad, I think somebody is following us ... a gray sedan." Susan had been watching it suspiciously in her rear view mirror while listening to Herman's side of the conversation.

  "Get off on Melrose and head back to the Hollywood Division," Herman instructed.

  It took five minutes before they finally pulled into the Hollywood station on Wilcox Avenue. Herman asked the lot guard for Shane Scully and gave their names. After the officer made a call inside they were allowed to park behind the chain-link security fence. As they got out the gray sedan cruised past.

  "You know what pisses me off most?" Herman said as the sedan turned the corner at the end of the block and disappeared. "Those fucking guys are doing all this with my tax dollars."

  "Dad, stop it. You're beginning to sound like a Republican."

  They hurried past the parking guard and into the brightly lit lobby.

  Valdez stood in the Black Star HQ with the phone still in his hand, listening to an update from his L.A. field unit. They had followed Herman and his daughter to the Hollywood police station and had just told Valdez that the Strockmires were inside.

  "Okay, wait there," he ordered. "Call me when they move."

  Valdez hung up the phone thinking he had to get rid of Jack Wirta, regardless. The man knew too much. He was troubled by Strockmire's threat of press coverage, so he would have to alter his plan do it in a way that wouldn't produce too many questions. Wirta's medical file was in front of him. It included the blood work they had done on him out at Groom Lake. The file indicated that Wirta had a high level of some kind of powerful painkiller in his blood stream. Apparently the ex-cop was taking a triple-hit narcotic. Percodan or Percocet. If that was the case, there would also be a medical record of the doctors who prescribed it. If he had run out of doctors who would write him, which was often the case with pain-pill addicts, then maybe there was even a trail of street dealers who could be found and convinced to make statements. If he couldn't find one of those, he'd get a volunteer of his own to make the allegation. People with drug histories made believable traffic fatalities.

  He picked up the phone. "Get me Captain Pettis. He's in the lobby, out front."

  "Yes sir," Pettis's voice came over the phone a moment later.

  Valdez told the commando what he wanted: "We'll need to give Wirta a few tabs of Special K. Use the new designer stuff, the Ketamine-twelve, and round up a few unimpeachable witnesses. Get this done quickly. I need it set up in less than an hour."

  "Yes sir."

  Valdez hung up the phone. Anger swirled inside of him, filling him with poison. Valdez, a man who exhibited no emotion, was now seething. He knew that uncontrolled anger was dangerous . . . angry people made mistakes.

  But no matter how hard he tried he was furious. For the first time in his life Vincent Valdez was dangerously out of control.

  Chapter Forty-Four.

  Shane Scully made five calls and got five volunteers, all cops who had worked with Jack Wirta. They started streaming into the Hollywood station an hour later. Most were carrying ordnance-laden gym bags that tented suspiciously. Even Jack's old boss, Lieutenant Matthews, showed up. Shane's wife, Alexa, had arranged for them to use the department's large Bell Jet Air Unit.

  At a little past ten, the gray and black six-passenger chopper landed on the roof of the station house, settling down on the helipad like a giant, nesting insect. The squad of volunteers who were waiting with Shane climbed aboard, leaving Herm and Susan standing on the roof.

  "I'll call once I get my hands on him," Shane

  yelled from the helicopter over the rotor noise. "Alexa's on her way over to give you a lift."

  "Thank you," Susan shouted back.

  Shane nodded and waved, then the helicopter engine roared as the blades picked up rpms. The big chopper lifted off and flew into the night sky.

  Alexa Scully arrived ten minutes later. She pulled up to where Herman and Susan were now waiting by the back station entrance, reached over and unlocked the rear door of her black-and-white D-car, then shoved it open.

  "I'm Alexa. You guys look like you need a ride," the surprisingly beautiful black-haired woman announced.

  Herman and Susan introduced themselves, then got in the back seat of the car. They ducked down out of sight as Shane's wife pulled out of the Hollywood station parking lot and drove past the unmarked government sedan.

  "Four guys in a gray Lexus," Alexa reported as she left the DARPA vehicle behind. "They're doing lot of hand-wringing. Got some confusion going on there."

  After they were a mile away Susan and Herman sat up.

  "You and Shane have been unbelievable," Susan said. "Without you, I don't know what we would have done."

  "Jack's our friend. Of course we'd help."

  Alexa drove them to the Van Nuys Airport and dropped them at the Peterson Executive Jet Terminal. After saying good-bye she waved and drove off.

  Susan sat in the Jet Terminal thinking about Jack, who had somehow managed to slip by her emotional defenses and had been silently rearranging the furniture in the private, ruminative part of her head. Worse still, he was nothing like what she had been looking for. His list of superficial negatives seemed mind-boggling. He was a broken warrior who ignored, or seemed to.

  laugh at, most of her important beliefs. He didn't belong in her temple of dreams, yet there he was dripping sarcasm and disrespect all over her carefully constructed value system. To her amazement, he seemed a perfect fit. Now he had been kidnapped, possibly was in mortal danger, and she couldn't get her mind to stop spinning or her heart to stop pounding. Her father had once told her that when you worry, you define your weakness, and when you dream
you define your goals. She wondered how these feelings defined her.

  Susan had a strange sense of impending disaster. She had been pushed into an unfamiliar role, not knowing if she would be able to hold up her end. She felt tiny and overwhelmed.

  At a little past 10:30 a private jet landed; a green-and-white, forty-million-dollar Global Explorer. The main door hissed down and Donald Trump was standing in the threshold dressed in a perfect New York ensemble a black three-piece suit, yellow silk tie and matching pocket square. His blonde combover flapped slightly in the light L.A. breeze. He came down the steps and across the tarmac toward them, smiling as he approached.

  "Herman! You've gained weight since you stopped suing me. You need better adversaries." Trump was referring to a suit Herman filed against his casino division a year earlier, when they had tried to build a hotel in Tahoe, cutting down trees and adversely impacting the environmental resources of that small community. In the end Herman and Donald had compromised and found to their amazement that they liked one another.

  Herman smiled. "Thanks for coming, Donald. I'm kind of in a crack here. You're the only person I know who can dig me out."

  "Hey, this could be great for me. Are these guys ready to meet?"

  Herman said. "They're gathered and waiting."

  "Then let's go," The Donald said, smiling while his blue eyes danced with excitement.

  When Susan and Herman escorted Donald Trump into Chief Ibanazi's den, the room was at standing-room-only. Thirty members of the tribe were present. It may have been billed as a tribal lodge meeting, but Chief Ibanazi was looking very record-industry chic in Gucci and Rive Gauche. He couldn't believe that Donald Trump was standing in his temple of creativity the very room where he laid down his grooves and slammed on the Yamaha Sound Machine.

  "My God, it's you," he started off, shaking Trump's hand. "It's really you."

  "Yep. Me," Donald said.

  "I mean, you're Donald Trump."

  "Yep, sure am. No doubt in my mind," he chuckled.

  "I mean, 'The Donald' is in my house. Amazing ... I can't believe you're really here."