“We gotta pull the fuck outta here. There’s no survivors. This place is gonna collapse in about thirty seconds. Now! Now! Now!”
On the screen, the amount of smoke billowing from the widows suddenly tripled. The front façade of the building teetered and then fell in a flaming cascade of bricks and glass. The first of the firefighters emerged from the shattered window and turned to help the others. One by one they made it out and then ran at a crouch away from the building.
Julissa looked down and saw she was squeezing Chris’s hand. He didn’t seem to notice. She tugged on his arm.
“Chris. Let’s go.”
They went straight from the bar to the valet stand, got into Chris’s car and pulled onto Kalakaua Avenue. Julissa sat in the passenger seat. She got out her cell phone, put it on speaker, and dialed Westfield’s number. It went directly to his voicemail and she left a message saying to call her. Then she called Mike Nakamura. His phone rang ten times and no one picked up. The voicemail answered on the eleventh ring.
“Jesus,” Julissa said, after she’d left a message and hung up. “What now?”
“We’ll go to my house. We’ll keep calling them.”
“What about Chevalier?” she said.
“He’s probably dead.”
“I believe in coincidences, but this is too much. It had to be because of us.” Julissa was thinking of the firefighter’s voice on the radio. Everyone at Intelligene had been ripped to pieces.
“I agree.”
“But how could the killer have found out about Chevalier?”
“I don’t know. But if he knows about Chevalier, he knows about us,” Chris said.
Julissa had already thought of that.
“Assuming that was him in Massachusetts an hour ago, we’re safe for now,” she said.
“Yes.”
Chris pulled onto the freeway. They followed it a few miles and then took the exit for the Pali Highway. The mountains ahead of them were capped in clouds. She tried calling Westfield and Mike Nakamura again, with the same results.
“Let me ask you something,” Chris said. “I already know what I think. If Chevalier was murdered because of his work for us, does that mean his email was true?”
Julissa looked out the window. There were waterfalls on some of the high cliff faces. Normally, she would have asked to stop at the lookout they were passing. They rounded a bend and sped into a tunnel.
“Yes. I think so. If the killer tracked him down and murdered him, then he was probably on to something.”
“Shit. That’s what I think too.”
“Unless—okay, here’s a weird theory. What if Dr. Chevalier just ran a genetic sequence and found enough normal information about a human being that we could have traced the killer? The killer finds out somehow—maybe Chevalier actually identified the person through known records and then made the mistake of confronting him. The killer hacks his account and sends us the email from Dr. Chevalier. Then he kills him. Now we’re left with nothing solid to go on.”
“Why bother sending us the email if he could just kill Chevalier and get rid of all the evidence?”
Julissa thought Chris was right. The explanation for the attack on Intelligene which made the most sense also required them to accept that the killer was not human. If they weren’t willing to accept that premise, then the attack would be hard to explain.
“Maybe it was just a coincidence,” Julissa said. “The reporter said something about domestic terrorism.”
“A dozen people dismembered and decapitated at the same lab that was sequencing his DNA? Less than ten hours after he sent his email?”
“It’s hard to swallow,” Julissa admitted. “But so’s the alternative.”
They had come out of the tunnel and were making a sweeping turn as the road curved and clung to the side of the Nuuanu Pali cliffs. She could see the east side of the island, which she remembered from a map she’d studied in Galveston. The map hadn’t shown the turquoise waters off the beaches of Kailua and Lanikai, or the darker water of cloud-covered Kaneohe Bay, but she recognized the towns of Kailua and Kaneohe, and the Marine Corps base that lay on the peninsula between them.
Fifteen minutes later they were at Chris’s driveway. They pulled off the road and drove down a steep hill. Both sides of the driveway were lined with mountain ginger and banana trees, and when they reached the flat lawn, he parked under an awning beneath a giant banyan tree. They walked through the grass to the house along a path of stepping stones. The house was two stories, with decks and balconies to give it views of Kaneohe Bay, Chinaman’s Hat, and the cliffs that towered over the road.
At the front door, Chris punched the code to his security system, waited for a green light, and then put his thumb over a fingerprint scanner next to the door. A second green light came on and the door opened electronically. A computerized voice, vaguely feminine, announced, “Front door. Disarmed. Ready to arm.”
Julissa watched Chris enter. He looked so fit, handsome and sane for someone who’d spent years breeding paranoia and rage and thinking of nothing but revenge. A man like him should have a long beard, live in a rented room, and wear the same overcoat every day. She followed him into his house.
“Let’s go up to my study,” Chris said. “I’ll send an email to Mike and Westfield. If they’re not answering their phones, maybe they can read email.” They went through the living room and up a koa wood staircase. His study had windows on three walls and looked out over the bay. She could see his boat moored in deeper water a few hundred feet from the end of his dock.
Chris woke his desktop computer from hibernation and pulled the chair back from the desk. “You can use this to look for news, and I’ll email the guys from my cell phone.”
Julissa nodded. “It bothers me they’re not answering.”
“Me too.”
Julissa put her purse on the desk and sat behind Chris’s computer. The purse had a laptop computer, a cell phone, two hundred dollars in cash, her ID and credit card, and her Sig Sauer with two extra boxes of .45 ACP rounds.
“It’s summer vacation—Mike could be snorkeling with his kids. Westfield’s probably driving across Texas out of cell phone range.”
“Too many coincidences,” Julissa said.
The doorbell rang and they both looked at each other.
“Mike?” Julissa said.
Chris picked up a remote control and turned on the TV mounted on the only wall of the study not covered with windows. He turned it to channel two and then scrolled through a list of security cameras. He selected a camera labeled Entry. The screen showed an image evidently filmed by a tiny camera mounted in the front door’s peephole. A man wearing an aloha shirt and khaki pants was standing on the doormat.
He was carrying a manila mailing envelope.
“Know him?” Julissa asked.
“No.”
Chris went to the phone on the desk and put it on speaker.
“Morning,” Chris said.
On the screen, the man looked up, then looked around. The intercom speaker must have been well hidden.
“Help you with something?”
“I got a delivery for a Chris Wilcox,” the man said. He had a Russian accent.
“Leave it on the door mat. I’ll pick it up later.”
“You got to sign for it.”
“Who’re you with?”
“City Express.”
“Supervisor over there still Doug Hirayama?” Chris asked. He opened the drawer to the left of Julissa’s leg and took out his Glock. She watched him take the safety off.
“Yeah, that’s him,” the man said.
Chris put the phone on mute.
“I’ve got no idea who the supervisor at City Express is. Neither does he. Doug Hirayama’s an attorney I used to work with.”
Julissa pulled the Sig Sauer from her purse.
The man outside clearly did not know there was a camera as well as a microphone. They saw him take a silenced pistol from behind
the envelope and shift it to his right hand.
“You gonna sign for this thing or what?” the man said.
Chris took the phone off of mute. “Be down in a minute. I gotta get dressed.”
“Okay,” the man said. They saw the right corner of his mouth go up in a half-grin. “I’ll be right here.”
Chris turned off the intercom and then flicked the remote control until the TV screen showed small shots taken by all the exterior cameras around the house. He pointed at the screen.
“I’m going out the back door. You’ll see me here, here and then here,” he said, touching the video feed from each camera he’d pass. He dug into his desk drawer and found an earpiece for his cell phone. He put it on and clipped the phone to his belt.
“Call me now. Talk to me while I’m going around. If he moves, tell me where he’s going. Just say the number of the camera feed.”
Julissa took out her phone and called Chris. She was too focused to feel fear.
“And if you get behind him?”
“I’ll tell him to drop the gun and put his hands in the air.”
“Okay.” She dialed his cell number.
Chris left the room and trotted quietly down the stairs. He answered her call and whispered to her.
“I’m at the back door, going out now,” he said. “See me?”
“Yeah. And the guy’s still on your doorstep.”
She saw Chris from above the back door. He walked along the wall of the house, stepping between the flowers in a bed. He turned the corner, disappeared from the frame, and appeared again on the edge of the next camera’s shot. There were ginger plants growing along that wall of the house, so he moved farther out and walked in the grass. He was at a low crouch and had the gun in front of him, both hands on its grip.
“You’re doing fine,” Julissa said. “He hasn’t moved.”
Chris came to the next corner. Julissa was pretty sure when he turned this corner, he’d be on the same side of the house as the gunman. She saw Chris pause, peering around the corner. Then he ran forward, low to the ground. He disappeared from the shot. She could hear him breathing as he ran.
“You’re off the screens,” Julissa said. “But he hasn’t moved.”
“I’m fifty feet from him. I’ve got some cover behind the banyan tree. You’ll see me when I move in.”
“Be careful,” she said.
“Anything goes wrong, call 9-1-1 and don’t leave the house.”
“Unless I can help you,” Julissa said. She did not intend to cower in the house.
“He still facing the door?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going now.”
She saw Chris running in from behind the banyan tree. There was no cover for him at all. He had the gun out and was twenty-five paces from the man when he stopped. When he spoke to the man, she could hear it through the cell phone.
“I got a gun on your back and I could drop you. Toss the gun and put your hands in the air.”
Julissa watched. The man was still staring at the door. His grin disappeared. She could see Chris over the man’s left shoulder.
“I’m not even going to count to three,” Chris said. “Drop the gun now!”
Julissa had no warning. The man’s face didn’t change at all. He just spun around, raising his gun as he went. She didn’t hear a shot, but the pistol was silenced, so she didn’t expect to. She had no idea how many times he fired. Chris’s gun came through loud and clear. One shot. Julissa threw down her phone, held her gun out in front of her, and ran for the stairs.
Chapter Twenty
You have got to be kidding me, Westfield thought.
He was sitting on his bed, looking at his phone. There was no visible damage, but the goddamned thing wouldn’t turn on. It must have gotten crushed between the floor and his hip when got shot in the knee. On top of that, the bullet that had gone through his knee without hitting any bones had hit his laptop computer, which had been sitting on the floor next to his duffel bag.
Un-fucking-believable, Westfield thought.
The TV was tuned to CNN, which was still showing the Intelligene fire in Foxborough. He’d first turned it on so anyone who overheard the fight in his room would think he’d just been watching a movie. But then he saw the banner headlines on the screen and stopped what he was doing to watch. He’d taken his eyes off the screen only long enough to pull the trash bag out of the waste basket and put it around the dead man’s head. Best to keep as much blood off the carpet as he could. The room was already going to be a disaster. There were two bullet holes in the carpet, blood near the entryway and thick pools of blood under the man’s head. One pillow had a hole all the way through it and was soaked with blood. He had opened the window and turned the air conditioner up full blast to try to clear the room of gun smoke before someone noticed the smell in the hallway.
With his phone and laptop destroyed, he had no immediate way to contact Chris, Julissa, or Mike. He’d only stored their numbers on his phone and he had no idea what they were.
He hopped on his good leg to the nightstand next to the bed and pulled out the drawer. The Galveston yellow pages sat on top of the Gideon bible. He found a taxi company’s number, and picked up the phone on the nightstand.
The first dispatcher listened to his request and told him no way. They didn’t do jobs like that. He hung up, then picked another company. This time he was talking to an independent cab driver. The man repeated Westfield’s request back at him. Could he stop at a drugstore, buy a pair of aluminum crutches, some hydrogen peroxide, some gauze and a couple of ace bandages, and deliver them to a room at the Hotel Galvez for two hundred in cash? Hell yes, he could, and he could do it in thirty minutes. Westfield hung up and hobbled back to the end of the bed. At least he’d solved one problem.
He rested a minute and then set about dragging the dead man into the bathroom. The man probably weighed two hundred and fifty pounds. Westfield’s right knee wasn’t any help. He dragged the man by his ankles while hopping on his left leg. He got him into the bathroom, kicked his arms until the door would close, and then turned to look at the room. It still looked pretty much like a murder scene. He decided for the short term, the easiest way to deal with it would be to just make it messier. He pulled the bedspread off the mattress and dropped it on the floor at the foot of the bed to hide the biggest blood stain and the splattered pillow. He dropped a bath towel over his own blood stains nearer the doorway. Then he opened the door, checked that the hallway was empty, and spent a moment staring at the hall carpet until he found the shell casing from the bullet the man had put through his knee. It was about five feet away from the door. He picked it up and went back into his room. There were four other shell casings to find.
The taxi driver was true to his word and knocked almost exactly thirty minutes after Westfield’s call. By then Westfield had changed into clean pants and a T-shirt. He pulled on a pair of socks to cover the blood that had dripped down his leg onto his foot, and then went to the door. On the way over he tucked the silenced pistol in the waistband of his pants and pulled his shirt over the bulge. He checked through the peep hole. The cab driver was an old man in a John Deere gimme cap and a sweat-stained plaid shirt. He was leaning on the crutches and holding a plastic shopping bag from Walgreens. Westfield opened the door with the cash in his hand.
The cab driver looked at him and saw the folded twenties.
“Guess this is the right door.”
“Thanks, buddy.”
Westfield took the crutches and the bag, then handed over the cash. He looked in the bag and saw that the driver had bought everything he’d asked for.
“Thanks again.”
He shut the door before the driver could ask any questions or get another look at the room behind him. Then he hobbled into the room on his crutches and sat on the bed. Normally he’d have gone to the bathroom to patch up a wound, but the corpse occupied most of the space. He’d feel weird about that. He hadn’t decided how he w
as going to handle that problem. He had until eleven the next morning to figure that out—unless the dead man was supposed to report to someone, which seemed likely enough. As long as the man’s handler wasn’t waiting in the lobby, he’d probably have a few hours to sort this out before he had to worry about reinforcements.
The more immediate problem was to figure out a way to contact Chris, Julissa and Mike. If he were planning an operation like this, he’d take everyone down at the same time. Otherwise the targets would figure it out, and then why bother? But he wouldn’t be able to warn anybody until he could get himself in a condition to leave the hotel room. He took off his pants and spent the next half hour working on his knee. He used the entire bottle of hydrogen peroxide, all the gauze, and two ace bandages. Then he dug into his duffel bag, found his toiletry kit, and dry-swallowed a couple of Excedrin tablets. He dressed again and checked himself in the mirror on the closet door. He didn’t see any blood. He took another look around the room and almost laughed when he realized it had been reserved in Chris Wilcox’s name, with his credit card.
No matter how well he cleaned, Chris was probably going to be paying for a new carpet.
It wasn’t too bad moving on the crutches, at least not at first. He made sure his room’s Do Not Disturb sign was well fixed to the door handle, and then crutched his way to the elevator lobby. He saw a sign for the business center behind the concierge desk, and he went through a set of glass doors to a small room with three desktop PCs set up on tables. He ran his credit card and logged into his webmail.
Julissa, Chris and Mike—
If you get this, get out of your houses or your hotel rooms. Now. Make sure no one’s following you and find someplace safe to hole up. DO NOT USE YOUR CREDIT CARD TO PAY FOR A HOTEL. He can track you that way. That’s how he found me. That’s all I’m going to say about that in writing. My cell phone got broken in the scuffle, but I’m okay. Mostly, I was just lucky. I’ll contact you again in a bit. Right now I’ve got things to take care of.
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