‘Go on.’
‘All of our guys have been given a BOLO for Saskia Vane and this Makepeace character, so they asked the owner to tell them what this party of twelve looked like. He said they were traveling in three separate vehicles: an old Chevy Suburban; as well as some kind of pickup; maybe blue or green; and a bronze Eldorado convertible, with two women in it, apart from the driver. One of the women had short black hair.’
Joseph Wrack continued to stare at the map. ‘Shit,’ he said, with his teeth clenched together. ‘Shit! That’s them all right. Big Bear City, shit! So where did they go from there?’
Jim Broader followed Route 247 with his finger. ‘East a ways, and then due north is my guess. Barstow, then Vegas, then who knows where? Denver? They might even try for Canada.’
Joseph Wrack was biting the edge of one of his thumbnails. ‘If they carried on driving overnight last night, they could be in Salt Lake City by now, goddamnit. Get in touch with Bill McNaughton at SLC Security – ask him to put out a BOLO, too, and be sure to let us know the second any one of his people catches sight of them. But I also want three choppers out looking for them nearer to home, and three road patrols. They have kids with them, remember. They could have stopped someplace to rest, so they may not have gone all that far.’ He still didn’t take his eyes away from the map, as if he expected to see three tiny vehicles crawling across it. ‘Most likely you’re right, and they’re headed north. On the other hand, that Saskia woman is very far from stupid and Makepeace is an ex-Marine … one of life’s survivors. Maybe that’s what they want us to think. They could be making east for Phoenix, or even south for Mexico.’
‘OK,’ said Jim Broader. ‘I’m on it.’
‘I want Makepeace, Jim,’ said Joseph Wrack. ‘Nobody screws around with me, the way he did. Nobody wrecks my property or hurts my people. I want that Saskia Vane, too. She tipped him off, after all. And not only that, Governor Smiley wants her, and I want to know why.’
‘Boss?’
‘Smiley says that she owes him, and I want to know what she owes him, because he’s scared of her, too.’
‘I’ll tell you who might have an idea – Abelina King. She handles all the publicity for Gold Crescent Pictures.’
‘Yes, I know Abelina King. She used to live here in San Bernardino before she went to LA. She did some promotion for us but I haven’t seen her in years. Why would she know anything?’
‘She used to be very good friends with Saskia Vane and with Governor Smiley. I’ll see if I can get in touch with her, anyhow. And there’s a few other people in LA who might have an inkling.’
Joseph Wrack reached out and drummed his fingertips on the San Bernardino Mountains. ‘Where are you, Martin Makepeace? Where are you, Saskia Vane? Let me tell you something, you two … I’m going to find you, wherever you are. I’m going to find you, and when I do, you’re going to wish that you were never born.’
His phone shrilled. He let it ring six or seven times and then he picked it up. ‘What?’ he demanded.
‘Mr Wrack? This is Nurse Petersen at the Odyssey. Your mother is conscious now. Would you like to speak to her?’
Joseph Wrack kept on drumming his fingertips on the map. ‘Tell her I’m busy, would you? No, don’t tell her that. Tell her you couldn’t get hold of me. I’ll call back later.’
‘She’s heavily sedated, Mr Wrack, because of the pain. She may not be conscious later.’
‘I see. I’ll just have to take my chances, then, won’t I?’
When Halford Smiley arrived back at his office in the State Capitol in Sacramento, he found Lisa Esposito from the Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water waiting for him.
‘Lisa, come along in,’ he said, crossing over to his desk and dropping the file that he had been reading on the way back from San Bernardino.
Lisa Esposito was a very tall woman, over six feet, and she could have been a model if she hadn’t been so large and intimidating. Her hair was a wild torrent of dark brown waves that cascaded right down over her shoulders. Her eyes had heavy green-shadowed lids and her dark red lips seemed to be permanently stretched back to show off her large white teeth. She was wearing a pale lavender suit and although she was quite small-breasted it was carefully tailored to minimize the generous width of her hips.
‘Coffee? Lemon tea?’ asked Halford. ‘I seem to remember that you like your lemon tea. Got to keep your tongue sharp somehow.’
‘I’m good, thank you,’ said Lisa. Her accent was hard and tensile and she barely moved those stretched-back lips when she talked, like a ventriloquist. ‘The EPA will be sending you an email about this, but Douglas thought it would be a good idea if I came to brief you in person.’
‘Oh, yes?’ said Halford. His personal assistant appeared in the doorway and he waved his hand to her and said, ‘Coffee, Nann, would you? And some of those ginger cookies, if you have them. And if you don’t, then why the hell not? Ha! Ha! Only kidding!’
He took off his salmon pink coat and draped it over the back of his chair. ‘OK, then, Lisa, to what do I owe the pleasure? Please – have a seat. I do like to talk to my women on the same level.’
Lisa remained standing, so that Halford had to continue to look up at her. He went over to his desk and sat down himself.
‘So what’s this all about?’ he asked her, tilting his chair back.
Lisa opened her large purple tote bag and took out a folder. ‘You need to know that the President has given the Environmental Protection Agency the power to take overall control of the water supply in every state critically affected by the drought. That, as you know, means every state except for Washington, Oregon, New Hampshire and Maine.’
‘What the hell is that all about?’ Halford demanded. ‘What can the EPA do that I haven’t done already? I’ve cut agricultural irrigation by twenty-two percent. I know that irrigation is still going to use up most of our groundwater, but if I cut it any more we’re going to go hungry as well as thirsty.
‘I’ve also brought in a special water rotation system in every major population center, to share out what groundwater we do have as fairly as possible.
He picked up the folder from his desk and said, ‘You want to see the latest figures, as of Tuesday? So far I’ve managed to reduce California’s total daily consumption from forty-six thousand million gallons to thirty-one thousand million gallons. I’d like to see the EPA get even close.’
Lisa said, ‘It’s not so much the quantity of water that the President is concerned about, Governor. It’s the extreme negative reaction that you’ve been getting from the public. There’s an election next year, and the last thing he wants to do is alienate ethnic minorities and blue-collar workers and women.’
‘Oh,’ said Halford. ‘I thought that he might be more interested in saving as many lives as possible.’
‘Of course he is. And that’s why he’s given the EPA the authority to take over. You’ve had riots in Oakland, and Modesto, and Fresno, and Bakersfield. You’ve had even worse riots in San Bernardino, even though you went there yourself to keep the population calm.’
Halford shook his head dismissively. ‘You call them “riots”, Lisa, but they’re nothing more than minor public disturbances. You’ll always have your lawless element who are ready to take advantage of any natural disaster. Look at all that looting after Hurricane Katrina. I can tell you now that we have all of those disturbances totally under control.’
‘All the same, Halford, the EPA will be sending in officials from the Office of Enforcement and Compliance, and they’ll be handling the drought crisis from now on. You’ll be able to read all the details in the email, but Douglas thought we owed you the courtesy of informing you in person, and so did I.’
Halford said nothing for a very long time, but sat with his eyes cast down and his lower lip protruding just a little, like a child who has been told that he can no longer have his own way. Eventually, though, he stood up and went to the window and looked out over Capitol Park. Th
e lawns were scorched yellow for want of watering, and the leaves of the trees had turned brown, but right from the very beginning of the drought Halford had insisted that the state legislature should be seen to be setting an example.
‘Is there any message you want me to take back to the EPA?’ asked Lisa.
‘Message? Yes, I have a message. You can tell the EPA to go fuck themselves.’
‘Halford, that isn’t going to help.’
‘It’s not intended to help. I am the elected Governor of the state of California and I am in charge of handling this drought crisis, not the EPA or the OECP or the OW or the OGWBW, or any other goddamned stupid acronym you care to mention. Not the President, either. Especially not the President. He can go fuck himself too, him and his ethnic minorities and his blue-collar workers and his women.’
‘Halford—’
Halford went over and looked her straight in the face, even though he had to tilt his head back to do so. ‘You can tell the EPA that if any of their officials attempt to exert any authority over the management of water anywhere in the state, they risk being treated the same as anybody who riots – in other words, a threat to public safety. Under the current emergency laws, we can use deadly force to deal with them.’
Lisa looked down at him and started to smile. ‘You’re not serious.’
‘Oh, I’m serious, Lisa. Never more so.’
The smile faded. ‘It’s true what they say about you, isn’t it, Halford?’
‘They say a lot of things about me, Lisa, some of them derogatory, but most of them complimentary. I get things done, that’s all, and I don’t particularly care how I do it.’
‘They say you were going to be twins, but you strangled your brother before you were even born.’
Halford couldn’t help grinning at her. ‘That’s good. I haven’t heard that one. I like it.’
Lisa left just as Nann was bringing in Halford’s coffee and a plate of cookies. Halford picked up one of the cookies and sniffed it. ‘This is orange,’ he said, ‘not ginger.’
‘I’m so sorry, Governor, that’s all we have at the moment.’
Halford said, ‘Hold out your hand.’
‘What?’
‘Hold out your hand.’
Nann did as she was told, holding out her right hand, palm upward. Halford laid the cookie on it, and then folded her fingers back until the cookie was completely crushed.
‘How long have you been working for me?’ he asked her.
‘Seven months,’ she said, although her lip was trembling and there were tears springing up in her eyes.
‘After seven months, Nann, you should have learned that if I can’t get exactly what I want, then I don’t want anything at all. No substitutes, that’s my motto in life. No fucking alternatives. The right thing, or nothing.’
Nann nodded, and swallowed, still holding the crushed cookie in her hand.
Halford said, ‘Have I ever told you that you have very sexy ears?’
SIX
By mid-afternoon they were driving up a narrow trail that led them through the Big Morongo Canyon Preserve. The gray sunbaked mountains all around them gave them no sense of scale, so they might just as well have been three tiny vehicles crawling their way across Joseph Wrack’s map.
The heat was overwhelming. By three p.m. it had grown so fierce that Martin and Saskia and Ella could hardly breathe, and so Martin closed the top of his Eldorado and switched the air conditioning on full. Even though the interior of the car quickly became cooler, it now felt dark and claustrophobic, especially since it was so dazzlingly bright outside.
They reached the crest of a promontory, overlooking a deep, dry valley, and Santos stopped his Suburban and climbed out. Peta and Martin stopped, too.
‘Everything OK?’ Martin called out.
‘It’s the kids,’ said Santos. ‘My air con needs re-gassing and this heat is killing them. Mina most of all.’
Martin looked inside the truck and saw that all the children were lolling on their seats limp and exhausted. Mina was cuddled up against Susan, sucking her thumb; but even Susan was looking waxy, with her hair stuck wetly to her forehead.
Saskia reached over and lifted Mina out. Mina’s eyes were half-closed and she gave a little shudder as Saskia held her in her arms, as if a goose had walked over her grave.
‘This kid’s sick,’ said Saskia. She pressed her hand against Mina’s forehead to check her temperature. ‘I don’t know what she’s suffering from, maybe some kind of virus, but she needs to see a doctor.’
‘She’s been sick on and off for a couple of weeks,’ said Susan. ‘Sometimes she’s been OK but other times she’s been throwing up and then falling asleep for hours and hours and you can’t wake her up.’
‘Didn’t you take her to the ER?’
‘Mom said she would get better on her own. Besides, if she needed treatment we couldn’t pay for it.’
‘I see. She could afford booze for herself but no medication for her daughter.’
‘Rita has passed now,’ said Santos, without looking around. ‘There is no honor in speaking ill of those who cannot defend themselves.’
‘Let me keep Mina with me,’ Saskia suggested. ‘I have some ibuprofen which should keep her fever down, and if I give her regular drinks and keep her cool she should start feeling better.’
‘You sound like you’ve done this before,’ said Martin.
Saskia took a handkerchief out of her pocket and patted Mina’s forehead with it and wiped her runny nose. ‘Yes,’ she said, without looking at Martin. ‘Maybe.’
Peta came up and linked arms with Martin. ‘Poor little thing,’ she said. ‘At least Ella’s feeling better. If she keeps on getting cramps, though, the doctor may recommend that she goes on the pill.’
‘She’s fourteen years old, for Christ’s sake.’
‘Just because she’s on the pill that doesn’t mean she’s going to go around and sleep with every boy in her class. She’s very choosy when it comes to boys.’
‘She’d better be, otherwise I’ll be going around to their houses and breaking their legs.’
He was suddenly aware that Saskia was staring at him over Mina’s shoulder, unblinking, in the same way she had stared at him when he had first met her in Arlene’s office. It was almost as if he were invisible, and she could see right through him, to the heat-distorted mountains behind him.
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘I’ll take her. Let’s get you settled in the car.’
He took Mina and carried her back to his Eldorado. She was hot and damp and floppy and she smelled of stale urine and unwashed hair. Saskia sat in the passenger seat and held out her hands and Martin carefully laid Mina on her lap.
‘You and your ex seem to be getting along better and better,’ said Saskia.
Martin glanced across at Ella, who was lying across the rear seats with her feet up, prodding at her cellphone. She couldn’t make a call or send texts to any of her friends, because there was still no signal, but at least she could play Bejewel. Fortunately, she didn’t give any indication that she had heard what Saskia had said.
‘It’s called parenthood,’ said Martin. ‘Just because you separate, that doesn’t mean that you abandon your children.’
‘All right,’ Saskia smiled. ‘No need to get saintly about it. I believe you.’
Martin closed the door as gently as he could and walked around the front of the car to the driver’s side. He was opening his own door when his ears picked up the distant throbbing of a helicopter. He stopped and listened, and after a while he could hear that it was coming nearer. It was probably only a highway patrol helicopter, or an air ambulance, and most likely it was following the Twentynine Palms Highway. All the same, they were parked high up on this exposed, treeless promontory, where anybody in a helicopter could easily spot them from five miles away.
‘Santos!’ he shouted out. ‘Peta! Do you hear that? Chopper coming! Let’s get the hell out of here!’
Santos
waved and then pointed left and downward. ‘Follow me into the canyon! It will be harder for anybody to see us down there!’
Before he closed his door, Martin heard a second helicopter approaching from the west. This one sounded as if it were flying very fast, and much lower than the first helicopter, because the roaring of its engine kept fading, and then growing louder, and then fading again, which meant that it was following the contour of the mountains.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Saskia.
‘I’m not too sure. Two choppers, and I think they might be headed our way. It could just be a coincidence.’
Santos started up his Suburban. He drove along the promontory for another fifty yards and then tilted abruptly off to the left and down a track that was even narrower and steeper than the one they had followed to climb to the crest of the mountain. It was barely a track at all: more like a ridge, knobbly with rock, and Martin thought that it felt like trying to drive down the spine of a genuflecting dinosaur.
The muffler of his Eldorado took more punishment, banging loudly against the rock with almost every bump. Even though the track was so jagged, however, and even though it sloped downward at an increasingly precipitous angle, it was dead straight all the way to the floor of the canyon below, so it would take them only a few minutes to reach the comparative shelter of the canyon’s overhanging walls and the twisted pine trees that grew up its sides. Not only that, the deeper recesses of the canyon were thickly filled with spiky chaparral. The rest of the Cadillac’s paintwork would probably be ruined, but at least nobody would be able to see where they had gone.
‘I feel sick again,’ said Ella, clinging on to Martin’s headrest to stop herself being thrown from side to side. Saskia was gripping the doorhandle tightly in one hand and Mina in the other, but she kept her lips tightly pursed and said nothing.
‘Nearly there,’ said Martin. He couldn’t hear the helicopters at all now, even though his window was open. He had probably been right, and they had been only police helicopters or flying eyes from one of the TV stations. He could see Santos up ahead of him, just about to drive his truck into the entrance to the canyon, and he thought, that’s it, we’ve made it.
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