Tom Clancy's Power Plays 5 - 8

by Tom Clancy

  “Whoever took Julia,” he’d said and left it at that. As if no further explanation were needed. “We’ve got to find out who’d sell those dogs in this area.”

  And by six A.M. a relatively swift Internet search had furnished an abundance of material about the classification in general, and some very specific information on the North Bay Schutzhund Club, of which Gilbert was founder, president, and breed warden.

  Now Glenn held the receiver away from his mouth, ballooned his cheeks, and exhaled to release some of his tension.

  “Sir, you can trust I’ll take your advice,” he said after a moment. “I definitely recognize my mistake . . .”

  “I would hope so.”

  “But since the harm’s been done, and you’re already out of bed, I’m hoping we can turn that mistake . . . inexcusable as it is . . . into something productive—”

  “Anagkazo,” Gilbert said abruptly.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You told me you’d seen an individual walking a black German shepherd from the window of a car.”

  Glenn remembered the hastily improvised line he’d fed him. “Yes, that’s right, a taxicab . . .”

  “Told me it was a longhair.”

  “Right.”

  “Told me you wish to look into acquiring such a dog to guard home and family while you travel on business. Which is commendable.”

  “Right . . . ah, and thanks . . .”

  “I try to recognize positive traits in all species,” Gilbert said with no hint of sarcasm whatsoever. “At any rate, if you’d taken the extra time on your computer, you would have found the Schutzhund USA registry’s online genetic database. It lists DNA-based evaluations of each and every certified dog’s pedigree, physical conformation, and susceptibility to hip dysplasia and other health problems going back five or more generations. It also would have shown you that pure black longhairs are quite scarce. Just a handful of breeders sell them in this country. Virtually all have been imported from Europe or sired by imported breeding stock—”

  Glenn wanted to get back to what Gilbert had said at the outset of his lecture.

  “I don’t meant to interrupt, sir, but that word you used a minute ago . . .”

  “Word?”

  “Started with an ‘A,’ I think . . . ana-something-or-other . . .”

  “Anagkazo.”

  “Right, right . . .”

  “That’s a name,” Gilbert said testily. “John Anagkazo. Good respectful fellow up in the hills. Our homepage has a link to his Web site. If the shepherd is indeed Schutzhund qualified and was purchased in the state of California, you can be guaranteed his farm is where it came from.”

  About eighty miles west of San Jose, the Anagkazo ranch sat on multiple acres of rolling grassy field laid with training tracks, hurdles, agility and obstacle course equipment of various configurations, and a large open pen area for the dogs out back of the main house, a restored wood-frame that might have been a century old.

  Ricci and Glenn found the breeder waiting at his door when they drove up at nine o’clock. As they exited their car, Ricci turned on his cellular and saw a half dozen new voice messages for him. The log showed four with Thibodeau’s office number. The two most recent ones had come from a phone with Caller ID blocking—Breen at Gordian’s house, he would have bet. Ricci wasn’t prepared to return any of them. The Parkville Vet Clinic didn’t open till ten, but he figured the cops outside would have awakened by now. Or if they hadn’t, they’d have been found by their fellow police checking up to see why they hadn’t responded to routine radio checks. Erickson would know the clinic had been broken into, recognize it was a slick job, smell right away it was tied to the kidnapping. But Ricci had left nothing out of place, and that would throw some question marks into his head. Anything Erickson thought couldn’t be more than be a guess. And whoever made Julia disappear would probably top his suspect list. Would UpLink be on it? Not as an organization. Ricci thought he might rate on his own, though. Maybe high enough for Erickson to conduct some inquiries before eliminating him . . . even if that other detective, Brewer, was too afraid of getting jammed to admit he’d given him a peek at that crime scene diagram. Erickson nosing around UpLink could be trouble, and Ricci couldn’t afford to worry about it until later.

  He turned off the phone, snapped it back into his belt clip, and a moment later joined Glenn at the door.

  “Hi, I’m John Anagkazo.” The breeder smiled through a thick beard, putting out his hand for them to shake. “I saw your car from way down the road . . . I’m guessing you must be Misters Ricci and Glenn. With Uplink International, is it?”

  Glenn nodded and showed his Sword ID.

  “Corporate security, Mr. Anagkazo,” he said.

  “Sure, sure. You told me over the phone. I hear super things about you folks.” Anagkazo looked curious. “C’mon in . . . and call me John, please. No need to wrestle with the second name.”

  Ricci was looking past him through the door at the head of an enormous, large-boned German shepherd.

  “Long as your friend won’t mind,” he said, nodding at the dog.

  Anagkazo smiled.

  “Bach’s fine,” he said. “Won’t bother anybody who doesn’t bother me.”

  They followed him into a living room with a strong Southwestern feel—earth-toned geometric patterns on the rugs and upholstery, hand-crafted solid-wood furniture. The shepherd trailed behind them, waited for Anagkazo to lower himself into his chair, and stretched out beside him, nuzzling a leather chew toy on the floor.

  “It must’ve been quite a ride for you out of San Jose,” Anagkazo said. “I can put up some fresh coffee . . .”

  “Thanks, we’re okay,” Ricci said. “I’d kind of like to get right to why we came.”

  Anagkazo shrugged. He waited.

  “We’ve been trying to get some information about black longhaired shepherds,” Ricci said. “From what we hear, you’re the only local person who breeds them. And gives them Schutzhund training.”

  Anagkazo nodded.

  “At every level,” he said, “including specialized training. I’ve been at it a while, and about sixty percent of my business nowadays is with police and fire departments all around the country . . . I’m very proud of that.”

  And the pride looked real. As did his friendly, helpful demeanor. Ricci had studied his face and body language for any changes and seen none indicating he might be on the defensive.

  “So, what sort of questions have you got?” Anagkazo said. “I need to tell you right off there’s a wait on long-coated sables.”

  “They’re that popular?” Glenn said.

  Anagkazo shrugged.

  “It isn’t really about popularity for me.” He reached down over the armrest of his chair and scratched his dog’s neck. “Black-and-reds like Bach here are very well established lines in this country, and we’ve got a wide pool of sires and dams. But I just introduced the sables a few years ago—four generations into it now—and I don’t want to risk overbreeding my stock. That’s how you pass along congenital diseases, temperament problems, a whole bunch of weaknesses you’d rather see go away.” A pause. “A dog has to be at least a year and a half old to qualify for basic Schutzhund classification. There’s a litter of blacks due in January, plus two sixteen-month-olds that are almost ready for placement and have full deposits on them. Which is too bad—”

  Ricci broke in. “You sell any lately?”

  “That’s just what I was about mention,” Anagkazo said. He was still scratching his shepherd. “If you’re interested in blacks I’d have to say this is crummy timing. The deposit on the pair of dogs came a few days ago from a big-time movie director who’s got a South Hampton estate in New York. And I sold my only other three beauties a couple weeks back to a photographer who’s staying right over on the Peninsula . . . well, actually, drove out and delivered them to his cabin, way off the beaten path in Big Sur country. Three dogs. Some guys who work for him had prepaid last mont
h. I guess while he was getting settled into the place.”

  Ricci looked at him.

  “He have a name?”

  “Estes,” Anagkazo said. “Nothing confidential. He’s new in the country, I think . . . from Europe.”

  Ricci kept looking at him.

  “Where in Europe?”

  “Didn’t say. Or I don’t remember him saying, anyway. But I got the sense he’s one of those people who’s lived everywhere. Money to spend, you know. Has an accent you can’t place . . . sort of a worldly mix, reminded me of how Yul Brynner, the actor, used to sound. It’s why he could play the part of a pharaoh, the king of Siam, or a Mexican bandit, and it always seemed believable.”

  Ricci felt something unnameable rear inside him. Felt its teeth.

  “The photographer,” he said. His eyes were on the breeder’s face. “Describe him to me.”

  Anagkazo straightened a little in his chair. The curiosity he’d first shown at the door had become laced with a certain unease.

  “Square chinned. Tall. Strong-looking . . . a real hard-body type.” He moved his hand up from his shepherd’s neck to his armrest. “Has this fella done anything wrong?”

  Ricci’s jaw muscles worked. It was as though, suddenly, his brain had locked around whatever words he might have given in answer, perhaps even his ability to articulate any response at all.

  Glenn glanced his way, saw his fixed expression, and turned toward Anagkazo.

  “John,” he said. “You’d better tell us exactly where we can find him.”

  Thibodeau had spent the morning at his desk answering phone calls, but as each hour passed he had grown increasingly convinced the one call he’d been hoping for wouldn’t come.

  When his latest jump at the receiver proved him wrong, he immediately found himself wondering whether to be glad or sorry.

  “Ricci. Where’re you now—?”

  “Never mind,” Ricci said. “All you need to worry about’s what I tell you.”

  “I been leaving messages on your voice mail, waiting to hear from you for hours,” Thibodeau chafed. “Same goes for Megan—”

  “Save it and listen.”

  Thibodeau reddened. “We got Erickson poking around, trouble piled on top ‘a trouble. And you act like keepin’ in touch be something gonna stunter you—”

  “You want to find Julia Gordian and the murdering scum you like to call the Wildcat, you better shut up and listen.”

  Thibodeau fell silent, breathing hard. After Erickson had phoned him that morning to ask questions about a break-in at the animal clinic, he’d immediately known Ricci was in it up to his neck . . . known and only wanted some sort of accounting before he could hang that miserable neck from a rope. But he’d taken care not to alert the detective. Even in his anger, he’d wondered if Ricci might have found something to go on.

  Julia, he thought. The Wildcat . . . le Chaut Sauvage.

  Thibodeau would not in his wildest stretch of imagination have believed he would hear them mentioned in the same sentence.

  “Go on,” he said. He was almost panting now. “Can’t waste time.”

  “I’m headed to Big Sur. It’ll take me maybe an hour to get up there, and I’ll need support. Ed Seybold from my old team. Newell and Perry if you can get hold of them. Maybe a half a dozen other men, but no more . . . have Seybold pick the rest.”

  Thibodeau swallowed. “Big Sur cover a lot of ground, you gonna narrow it down—?”

  “Just make sure those men are pulled together, I’ll be in touch with you,” Ricci interrupted.

  And then the line went dead in Thibodeau’s hand.

  Siegfried Kuhl was pensive.

  Looking out through his terrace doors into the rain, watching it spill down the precipitous wall of the cliff in windblown whirls and ripples, his mind had returned to his abduction of the robin who was now bound to a chair across the room from him, his mind bringing him back to the moment Lido had been attacked by the greyhound.

  The bite had done little to injure the Schutzhund, its thick coat preventing the other dog’s teeth from sinking too deeply into its flesh. And Kuhl had been quick to finish things with his weapon. Yet he had wondered ever since if the true harm might have been to his plans, occurring the moment the animals made contact.

  The dead flesh and bones of the dog he had shot—might it not hold clues that could eventually lay a path to him? He had been unable to dismiss the thought that there might be blood, fur, or other traceable physical evidence that could identify the shepherd. It was an uncommon creature, after all. And if the evidence were direct enough, and the breeder Anagkazo spoke to those in search of Gordian’s daughter . . .

  If he spoke to them before Kuhl’s men were able to take care of him, the time left until he needed to head out to the fallback might very well be limited to hours, if not minutes. And though the storm would make travel there difficult, he had ordered Anton and Ciras out to fill the Explorer with basic supplies—water, protein bars, first aid—so that he might vacate the cabin as soon as possible.

  After all Kuhl’s preparation, it staggered him to think the success of his task might be threatened by a simple miscalculation of how the greyhound would react to his forced entry of the rescue center.

  Kuhl turned from the terrace to his captured robin. He looked into her eyes over the cloth gag knotted around her mouth. That particular restraint had been unnecessary except as a precaution, he mused. Realizing she was in a place where cries for help would be of no use, she had held a silence Kuhl found admirable. She had showed no frailty, done no pleading save for the lives of the woman and infant at the rescue center, and the dog that attempted to protect her.

  Even now, Kuhl thought, her steady gaze did not present him with any sign of weakness.

  He moved away from her, went to the desk where he had sat long nights at his computer, and looked inside its top drawer. Waiting there was the tool steel combat knife he would use when the moment to dispose of her finally came.

  Her head pulled back from behind without warning, a deep cut across the throat . . .

  In his admiration, Kuhl would give Julia Gordian as sudden and painless a death as his expert hand could render.

  It was, he thought, the very least she deserved.

  The clouds had reasserted themselves throughout the morning to form a massive gray band that stretched along the coastline from Half Moon Bay southward to Point Conception and was widest from the Santa Lucia Mountains on east across the Ventana wilderness and Los Padres National Forest. By midday, rain was falling heavily again, the charcoal gray sky cat-clawed with lightning, thunder rumbling like great millstones in its turbulent lower and middle altitudes.

  Ricci and Glenn watched two men exit the cabin and stride toward a white Ford Explorer parked only a few straight yards from where they were crouched side by side under cover of the trees. One of the men carried a portage pack, his companion a couple of nylon zip duffels.

  Ricci’s eyes briefly went to Glenn.

  “I’m betting that’s survival gear,” he whispered.

  Glenn nodded.

  “Looks to be,” he said.

  Water spilling from the porous roof of leaves above them, they observed the pair in silence. In what had seemed almost a reenactment of their previous night’s work at the animal hospital, they had left their car about a half mile back and then climbed the rest of the way up the hillside on foot. The thick frock of woodland on the slope offered vital concealment and also made for some tough going—steep grades, impassable thickets, streams swollen by the unrelenting rains, and patches of soggy ground with unsafe footing had forced several detours. But they’d pushed forward and were mostly able to stay within eyeshot of the paved road, sticking close whenever possible. After about an hour’s hike, they had finally seen one of the huge limestone gateposts described by Anagkazo off to their left, picked up the dirt route that led to the crest of the bluff, and then stolen alongside it to their present spot.

  N
ow they continued to watch as the two figures from the cabin strode around back of the SUV, keyed open its hatch, raised it, loaded the bags inside, and then pulled the cargo shade over them.

  Ricci unholstered his sound-suppressed Five-Seven from his belt.

  “You set?” he said.

  Glenn took a breath and gave him another nod. He had a leather slapper flat against his palm, preferring its directness to the DMSO spray.

  They shuffled over several feet to put themselves behind the Explorer, then waited a moment. Ricci pointed to the man on the left, pointed to himself, and got a final affirmative nod from Glenn. He held up three fingers and started to sign the count.

  His third finger ticked down and they sprang.

  Though large and muscular, Glenn was clear of the dripping brush and on top of Mr. Right in a flicker. He struck the back of his head with the sap, his blow pounding onto the base of the skull, and the man buckled in a heap.

  Ricci had simultaneously rushed out behind Mr. Left, locked an arm around his throat, and put the bore of his gun against his temple. The guy snapped back his head, trying to butt him hard under the chin despite the choke-hold and pressure of the nine mil—guts, good reflexes. Ricci slipped the move, spun him around by his shoulder, and brought a knee up into his middle below the diaphragm.

  Mr. Left sagged back against the Explorer, the wind knocked out of him.

  This time Ricci got the nine right into his face, pressed its barrel to the side of his nose, right about at the nub of the tear gland. Quickly patting the guy down, he found a Sig .380 in a concealed shoulder holster and a card wallet in the back pocket of his slacks.

  Ricci tucked the Sig under his belt and flipped open the wallet’s ID window.

  “Barry Hughes,” he said, glancing at the driver’s license. “That who you are?”

  As Mr. Right started to nod against the upward pressure of his gun, Ricci tossed the wallet into a puddle and drove a fist into his cheek. Something gave at the hinge of the jaw.

  “Give me your real name,” Ricci said.

  The guy was silent, blood overspilling his lower lip.