Tom Reed Thriller Series

by Rick Mofina

  Silence. The call went dead. The faces of the investigators tensed with concentration.

  “Replay your tape, Tom, the last bit,” Sydowski said. They heard the same garbled exchange as they strained to listen.

  “Again,” Sydowski said. “Adjust the speed, slow it down.”

  “We’re in a silver...450 SL rent...golden--”

  “Again.”

  “We’re in a silver Mercedes 450 SL--”

  “Again.”

  Tom replayed it several times at varying speeds. Until they’d finally determined the last thing Molly had screamed. “We’re in a silver Mercedes 450 SL rental from Golden Pacific Luxury--”

  One of the cops listening was Harry Saguer, a bomb expert with OED working with the tactical unit.

  “A car like that should have Global Positioning Satellite or cellular tracking,” Sauger said. “We can get them to activate the system as if the car were stolen, but don’t shut it down until we’re on them.”

  Turgeon called emergency communications. The 911 operator called Golden Pacific, alerting the company to a life-threatening police emergency, then patched Turgeon through.

  “Who’ve I got?” Turgeon said.

  “Mark Jepson, district supervisor. How can we help?” Turgeon passed the vehicle information to Jepson, hearing him typing on a computer keyboard before reading to her from his screen.

  “We’ve got twenty 450 SLs, Inspector. Eight of them silver. All of them rented. Do you have a name?”

  “Lepp. Simon Lepp.”

  The keys clicked. Then stopped. “Sir, I’m not sure I can do this.”

  “Read off the rental agreements.”

  “We have privacy issues. Maybe a warrant would--”

  “We’ll get one. But if we’re too late, you’ll face a wrongful-death lawsuit. Your call, Jepson.”

  Turgeon heard Jepson gulp over the line before he nervously began reciting customer names. “Wong, Chambers, Klinner, Romaz, Lepp. Here we go.”

  “When was it rented?”

  “This morning.”

  “Have you got location systems in that car?”

  “Yes, GPS coordinated out of the central tracking station near Los Angeles.”

  “Can you get us a trace on that car immediately as if it were stolen?”

  “Well, don’t you need a warrant for that?”

  “This is a life-threatening emergency. We need to track that vehicle now! Just track it. Don’t shut it down.”

  “I’ll call them and get them to call you as soon as I--”

  “Now! Get them now! Damn it!”

  Helicopters thumped above them.

  The Star had a cost-sharing deal with KKGW’s news helicopter, which was hovering overhead with Henry Cain, a Star photographer, aboard. As Tom dialed the Star’s photo desk he got Sydowski and Turgeon to guarantee their help.

  “Swear you’ll give me Molly’s location when you get it!”

  “Tom, you can’t--”

  “Swear! I’ve been helping you and I’ll stay out of the way.” Sydowski agreed just as Tom got through to the photo desk and quickly explained to the editor.

  “Get them to pick me up,” he said. “I think I can take them to Molly.”

  “Hang on, Tom, I’ll get Henry on his radio.” Less than thirty seconds later, the editor came back. “There’s a vacant lot two blocks east of you. They’ll pick you up there now. Run.”

  After Tom left, the California Highway Patrol requested Sydowski accompany their helicopter crew to assist with aerial observation of the vehicle suspected in three San Francisco homicides.

  Turgeon stayed on the ground and on the line with Golden Pacific Luxury and the emergency dispatcher ready to relay the location and direction of travel.

  SEVENTY-SEVEN

  Bleeder seized Molly’s cell phone and studied the number on the call display. Recognizing it as Tom Reed’s, he pressed it to his ear. He listened intensely for a long moment. Hearing nothing, he surmised that she’d probably got his message box.

  He switched it off, smashed it against his door frame, then hurled it out his window along a windswept section of Highway 1, somewhere southbound between Swanton and Davenport.

  Bleeder ran the back of his hand across his mouth as he glared at Molly. She could smell the strawberry farms, saw the hills rushing by as the Mercedes gathered speed along the twisting road near the sea.

  “That was stupid, Molly.”

  “I was scared.”

  “I’m scaring you?”

  “I think you want to hurt me, because I hurt you, the way Amy did.”

  He began shaking his head. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “But I thought--”

  “I told you, Amy was a mistake. You’re smarter than she was. I’d never hurt you, understand?”

  “Yes,” she lied.

  She only understood that he was a deranged murderer and she would die if she didn’t get away from him.

  “I’ve got plans for us. Big plans. All part of my surprise.”

  “Are you going to let me go?”

  “Don’t ask me that. I’ve got something for you. A surprise. It’s in the glove compartment.”

  She didn’t move.

  “Your surprise is in the glove compartment. Open it.” She hesitated, then touched the door but didn’t open it.

  “Go ahead, Molly.”

  She opened it and saw a small box.

  “Open it.”

  Tears filled her eyes. It dawned on her. She knew exactly what was inside before opening it. She knew.

  “Go ahead.”

  It was a small velvet-covered box with a gold hinge. She pressed her thumb on the lid, snapping it open to a diamond engagement ring.

  “Oh God.”

  “It’s for you.”

  She covered her mouth with her hand, swallowing the horror of knowing that this was Sydowski’s missing ring. The one Cliff had bought to give her the night he’d planned to propose. The night he was murdered.

  “See how things have worked out for us, Molly? We belong together.”

  She couldn’t form words. Her heart raced.

  “Give it to me. I’m going to put it on your finger.”

  No. God. No. She snapped it shut, replaced it, and closed the glove compartment. He reached into his jacket and in less than a second a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol was pressed against her head. In feeble defense, Molly held up her hands and leaned away.

  “Please don’t.”

  “Get me the goddamned ring, Molly.”

  “All right. Please put the gun down.”

  The gun went back into his jacket, out of her reach. She passed him the ring box and he worked out the ring.

  “Hold out your hand.”

  Molly’s extended left hand trembled. She turned from him, unable to stop shaking. He snatched her hand and forced the ring on her finger. He slid it on roughly, then sighed as he pulled her hand close, examining his work.

  “I’m so happy, Molly. I worked so hard. I didn’t want to lose you.”

  Tears rolled down her face as she searched the ocean, the smell of the berry farms fading with her hope.

  It was a majestic place to die.

  SEVENTY-EIGHT

  SpaceGuard Systems was headquartered at Long Beach, California, in a ten-story building, where its dark blue windows reflected a palm-framed sky over the ocean. From that site, SpaceGuard monitored a network of satellites orbiting the earth, transmitting data on the cars rented by Golden Pacific Luxury, and forty other companies from San Diego to Seattle.

  Within seconds of the SFPD’s request, Rona Cortez, a dispatcher at SpaceGuard’s control center, entered the code for the Mercedes 450 SL, rented on the credit card of Simon Lepp.

  A red blip began pulsating on Cortez’s computerized map. It displayed longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates. She locked on the California zone, south of San Francisco, adjusted her headset, and sat up.

  “Vehicle no
w on Highway 1, eleven miles north of the Santa Cruz County line, traveling southbound at sixty-two miles per hour,” she said into her mouthpiece. She had the ability to disable the vehicle from her keyboard but she’d been advised to refrain. Law enforcement agencies were scrambling to marshal resources for an arrest involving a hostage situation.

  Cortez’s line was patched to a San Francisco emergency communications operator. He immediately alerted dispatchers at the Santa Cruz County’s Netcom Center at De Laveaga, and the California Highway Patrol’s Golden Gate Communications Center, known as GGCC, which alerted the Monterey Comm Center. Monterey relayed data on the suspect vehicle to all units in the region. Down the coastline, the San Luis Obispo Comm Center made an immediate request for air support.

  The helicopter assigned to the Highway Patrol’s Coastal Division is based at the Paso Robles Municipal Airport, which is situated amid golf courses and sedate rolling farmland. Two flight officers hurried to the tarmac and clicked through their preflight inspection. Less than six minutes after the call, the new Eurocopter AS350 A-Star lifted off, its blue, gold, and white colors of the California Highway Patrol contrasting against the sky as it thundered north to Santa Cruz.

  The alert also was received by the Highway Patrol’s chopper out of San Francisco with Sydowski aboard. And as promised, the information went to Tom Reed, who was in the KKGW’s news helicopter, which banked and pounded south.

  On Highway 17, about twenty-five miles south of San Jose, Floyd Grimshaw, an independent hauler from Illinois, had a world of trouble on his mind. The woman at the other end of his hands-free speakerphone was crying.

  “Tillie, Tillie, listen to me, darlin’.” Grimshaw failed to get a word in edgewise to his wife back in Skokie. It was pissing him off to the point of distraction as he rolled southbound by the golf course.

  “I don’t believe it, Floyd. She knew too much about you.”

  “I’m telling you, Reb Denny put her up to it. You know Reb from Portland, he’s the biggest damned joker. Probably had a big old bet going with Harley and those guys from Texas. He gave her our number, told her to call you and let on like she’s my girlfriend and you’re my ex. It’s pretty funny really--”

  “It’s not funny, Floyd--”

  “Tillie would you just listen--”

  “No, you listen--”

  The six-hundred-horsepower Detroit Diesel of Grimshaw’s Freightliner growled as he shifted gears for his approach to the Fishhook interchange. He was pulling a tanker trailer fully loaded with nine thousand gallons of gasoline to deliver to gas stations in Aptos and Rio Del Mar. Taking the southbound off-ramp to begin the sweeping turn, Grimshaw heard thumping in the sky.

  “I’m serious, Floyd, I found a woman’s T-shirt in your cab when you got back from Knoxville last week. You gonna blame that on Reb Denny?”

  The pounding grew louder. Glancing up, Grimshaw saw the police chopper as he was merging onto Highway 1 southbound near Emeline. What’s going on? At that moment on his blind side, he glimpsed a silver car streaking to beat the gap he was narrowing with his lane change.

  “God Almighty!” Grimshaw jerked the wheel, yelling at the speeding car. “You ain’t going to make it! You ain’t--” The rig swerved, brakes screeched, he braced for the collision as metal sparked against the guard rail. “Son of a--” The truck jackknifed, Grimshaw’s tractor was pinning the car against the guardrail, both of them sliding. The big tires began shredding, the tanker trailer vibrated, began bucking, until it broke free from the hitch, toppled onto the asphalt, and started to roll.

  A short drive south, near Soquel, Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Deputy Mike Fuller, with the patrol division’s B-Team on second watch, was at the top of his shift when his radio crackled with a Code 3.

  A bad wreck at the Fishhook.

  He hit his lights and siren and came upon the scene in minutes. A tanker rollover across Highway 1’s southbound lanes. Arriving at the same time as the first responders, a fire engine and a California Highway Patrol cruiser, Fuller saw the tanker truck’s driver rushing between his overturned trailer and his tractor. It had vise-gripped a silver sedan’s doors between its grill and the guardrail, blocking the passengers’ escape through the car’s doors.

  The highway patrol unit closed the oncoming northbound lanes while Fuller used an emergency turnaround to come up behind the scene and block southbound traffic. He got out and jogged toward the site. The shaken driver hurried from the crash to Fuller and firefighters. His T-shirt was stained with blood webbing from his head, but he appeared to be all right.

  “They just came up on me! I had to swerve! I’m fully loaded with gasoline and I’m leaking, get everyone back!”

  “Wait by my car, sir. We’ll have the paramedics look at you,” Fuller said, glancing at the scene in the distance.

  He could tell from the tail configuration the car was a new Mercedes. The airbags had deployed. Two people were inside. Fuller could see their heads moving. They were trying to free themselves. They had no way out. The woman in the passenger seat was screaming, her cries drowned by more sirens wailing and whooping from every direction. An ambulance and more fire and police vehicles were arriving.

  A couple of helicopters were already putting down now about seventy yards off. Fuller thought he’d heard transmissions over his shoulder mike but was concentrating on the scene. “We got to get them out!” he yelled to firefighter Will Peterson, who was standing next to him, shouting commands into his radio.

  Fuller began moving toward the Mercedes some fifty yards away.

  “Wait!” Peterson yelled over the chaos. “No one can go down there! No one!”

  “We got trapped victims!”

  “One spark, one charge, and the whole area goes. First we need a perimeter to push everybody back! Way the Jesus back! The leak and vapor buildup down there is extreme. We’ve got to ground against a static charge, then foam the whole area.”

  Peterson nodded at the people who were running to the scene from the police and press helicopters, waving at them to stay back.

  “Mike, you’ve got to keep these people back!”

  But the woman’s distant screams ripped into Fuller. His stomach twisted. Seeing that wreck. Seeing those people alive, inside a time bomb. It was more than Fuller could stand.

  The man behind the wheel was trying to kick out the windshield. Fuller took stock. Help was coming fast but it might be too late. Fuller couldn’t bear another moment. He ran to his car for a fire blanket and a rubber baton. As he gathered them, his car radio blared a Netcom repeat of a Code 6 and a network-wide alert for ROPE to look out for and stop a fleeing multiple homicide suspect believed to be on the northern outskirts of Santa Cruz ...

  “... occupants described as white male, Simon Lepp, and white female, Molly Wilson, silver Mercedes 450 SL, rented from Golden Pacific Luxury, California license ...”

  Fuller took in the details, then rushed to the pinned car, ignoring Peterson’s warnings because he believed he could get them out through the rear window.

  One of the men from the helicopters, Tom Reed, was running ahead of the other, Walt Sydowski, as they followed Fuller. Sydowski flashed his star to Peterson as he and Tom ignored the firefighters’ warnings to keep back.

  As they neared the Mercedes, the woman’s screams increased over the sirens and additional choppers. “He’s going to kill me!” The man was kicking hard at the car’s windshield when it all suddenly focused for Fuller.

  This was more than a wreck.

  Fuller knew.

  The Code 6. Silver 450 SL, a Golden Pacific Luxury plate frame around the California license. White male Simon Lepp. White female. “He’s going to kill me!” Molly screamed.

  Fuller heard the windshield pop.

  Lepp scurried out from behind the wheel, over the hood, yanking at Molly, who tried to resist. Finally, he pulled her out of the vehicle.

  “Stop, police!” Fuller shouted over the noise. Dropping the blanket and baton, h
e hopped the guardrail behind the car.

  “Hold it right there, Lepp!” Sydowski came around Fuller from another angle.

  “Simon, it’s over. Let her go!” Tom yelled.

  Lepp ignored them, slid his arm around Molly, who struggled as he hurried her down the road. The air reeked of gas, the fumes were choking, making their eyes tear. As they moved deeper into the “ignition zone,” Molly glanced over her shoulder at Tom, Sydowski, and Fuller, her eyes pleading.

  “Help me! Please help me!”

  Fuller drew his weapon. “Freeze!”

  The couple halted. Pivoted. Lepp was pressing his gun to Molly’s head. His other arm tightened around her neck in a choke hold.

  “Put your gun down and she’ll live.”

  Fuller tightened his grip and steadied his aim at Lepp’s head.

  One spark would incinerate them.

  “Simon, it’s over. Let her go,” Tom shouted as he, Sydowski, and Fuller closed their circle on Lepp. Fumes filled their nostrils. Fuller inched forward. “Sir, place your weapon on the ground now!” They were forcing Lepp to move backward. “Sir, you can smell the gas. Place your weapon on the ground!”

  The gun remained at Molly’s head.

  “Nobody moves or her death will be on your hands!” Lepp shouted.

  Tom saw the terror in Molly’s eyes. “Everything’s going to be all right,” he said.

  “Nobody takes another step!” Lepp shouted.

  “Simon, one spark and we all die.” Fuller moved closer.

  Lepp inched back, not seeing the huge C-shaped tire fragment from the rig. It came alive when he stepped on it, whipped hard around his calves, knocking his feet from under him. As he fell backward, his hold on Molly loosened.

  “Run!” Sydowski shouted.

  Molly bolted toward the emergency crews.

  The impact of Lepp’s hand hitting the ground launched his rubber-gripped Smith & Wesson down the gas-slick asphalt of Highway 1 where it disappeared under the tanker. The others tried to tackle Lepp.

  He was too fast and scrambled to his feet, running headlong to the tanker.