by Gina Cresse
I smiled and nodded with total understanding.
“Something weird, though. You see anyone messing with my Jeep? Plates are gone,” Matt informed us.
I held my breath for a moment. I’d managed to really make Jason mad at me over the last couple days. He could get even right about now.
“Really? No, man. I didn’t see anything,” Jason lied.
“Huh. Guess I’ll have to make a trip to the DMV—get a new set.”
Jason shook his head in sympathy. “Bummer.”
“Yeah. Well, thanks for feeding Barney.”
“Any time. Catch ya later.”
The puzzled man wandered back to his Jeep and checked underneath it again. He shook his head and drifted back toward his house, glancing one more time at the plateless vehicle parked in his driveway.
Jason disappeared into the house long enough to retrieve his keys. I met him at his truck, parked in the driveway.
I jumped into the passenger seat and he slid in behind the wheel. “Okay. Where to?” he asked, with more eagerness than I expected.
I pulled the address from my pocket. “Coronado.”
I’ve heard it referred to as an island, but technically, it’s not. Coronado is connected to California by a long, narrow strip of land from the south, known as the Silver Strand. Silver Strand Boulevard is one of only two roadways that provide access to Coronado. The other is a bridge linking the “almost island” to Harbor Drive.
Jason merged with the heavy traffic to cross the bridge. I paged through his Thomas Guide until I found the street name printed on my little yellow sticky note. I directed Jason to the house.
House is not the appropriate word to describe the structure. Mansion would do it more justice. Brick of various shades of red, charcoal, and ash-white formed pillars that stood about fifteen feet apart and surrounded the grounds. Black wrought iron formed the fence that protected the estate from the common folks. The perfectly-manicured lawn hadn’t a weed in sight. Pink and white begonias lined the horseshoe shaped driveway that led to the manor. The house was made of the same brick that formed the fence pillars. Arches at the entryway boasted huge hanging pots of fuchsia, and fiery bougainvillea vines crept along the walls around the windows.
Jason pulled to the curb. I spotted Dan Cooper’s car parked across the street. I checked my watch—twenty past two. “Don’t park here. That’s Dan’s car.” I pointed at the dark-blue sedan with the two FBI agents sitting inside.
Jason glanced at the car. “So let’s go tell him about the message from Spencer. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”
“I will. You know he’ll be mad as heck to see us here. I want to check things out first. Park over there,” I said, pointing ahead through the windshield. A city crew was busy pruning trees along the quiet street. “Behind that truck.”
Jason did as I asked.
I swiveled around in the seat and peered at the closed iron gates. “Think there’s another way in?”
Jason pressed the automatic door locks. “We don’t want to go in there. The FBI has enough firepower here to handle things. They don’t need Wonder Woman and her sidekick getting caught in the crossfire.”
I unbuckled my seatbelt. “So, what, we’re just gonna sit here and watch the show?” I grumbled. He knew me better than to expect any such thing.
“No. We’re gonna deliver the message to Dan—if he doesn’t kill us first for leaving the hotel.”
Before I could get the rebuttal out of my mouth, a tall lanky figure dashed out from behind a box-hedge next to the gardener’s shack and raced across the lawn. I cranked my head around. “That’s Spencer!” I unlocked the door and started to jump out of the truck.
Jason reached across the bench seat and grabbed my belt loop. “Oh, no you don’t. Look.” He pointed toward the eight-foot-tall iron gate. A black Mercedes pulled to the entrance and waited for the automatic gate to swing open. We watched as the sleek car passed the barrier and pulled to the front doors. The gate closed behind it.
Spencer disappeared behind the main house. I climbed back in the truck and kneeled backward in the seat to watch Dan Cooper. He and Willis weren’t moving. “They’re just sitting there. Aren’t they going to do something?” My heart was pounding in my chest.
“What should they do?” Jason asked.
“I don’t know. Spencer’s in there. They must know that. They should go in.” A trillion thoughts raced through my head—none of them looked good for Spencer.
Jason bumped my shoulder. “Look.” He pointed at the Mercedes. Two men got out of the car. One ran inside the house. The other loitered around the car, lit a cigar, and checked his watch.
I checked out Dan’s car again. There was no action. “What the heck are they waiting for? A formal invitation?” As the seconds passed, my frustration escalated until my blood was ready to boil.
I watched, helplessly, as the man with the cigar wandered along the walkway toward the back of the house—and Spencer. A moment later, he reappeared, tossed his cigar on the ground, and dashed to the front door. He banged on it until someone let him in. That was all I could stand. “That’s it. I’ve gotta go light a fire under Dan. He can punish me all he wants. Spencer’s in trouble.”
Jason grabbed my arm. “Are you gonna tell him I brought you here?”
“No. I’ll tell him I flew—you big chicken.”
Jason frowned. “Dan’ll kill me when he finds out I drove you here. This was a terrible idea.”
“Dan won’t kill either of us, but someone may kill Spencer if you don’t let go of me,” I snapped. I yanked my arm away from Jason.
I slipped out of the truck and started for Dan’s car. Before I could take three steps, the government-issue sedan pulled away from the curb and sped off. “What the heck?” I watched as Dan and Tom disappeared around the corner. I shrugged my shoulders and exchanged a glance with Jason, who was equally as puzzled. “What now?” I wondered, studying my surroundings.
I gazed down the length of the iron fence, then up at the sharp points, about eight feet high. I turned on my heels, blasted past the hood of the truck, and sprinted toward the back side of the caretaker’s house. One of the City worker’s pruning ladders was propped against a huge oak tree, just outside the fence. I heard Jason cursing me as I leaned it against the wrought iron and climbed over.
Once inside the grounds, I darted from hedge to bush until I reached the house. Following the path I thought I saw Spencer take, I crept amongst the ornamental plants growing in the flowerbeds close to the building.
An unusual but strangely familiar sound caught my attention. Click, click, click on the cement. I turned to see where it came from. Oh, God. Dogs. Rottweilers—two of them. I spotted the lattice attached to the framework of a second-story deck. My instincts told me to climb. I was halfway up before they reached me, snarling and spitting slobber with each bark. I struggled to hang on and climb over the railing to the deck.
The sliding glass door to the bedroom was halfway open. I slipped through the opening and peered at the lavish surroundings. The decor was early jungle. A king-sized four-poster bed sat diagonally in one corner, surrounded by a curtain of sheer mosquito netting. A live palm and two smaller rubber-tree plants stood in the corner between the headboard and the walls. A Casablanca-styled ceiling fan turned, slowly, in the center of the room. Framed posters of zebras, mother giraffes with babies, herds of elephants, and various big cats decorated the walls. A leopard-skin rug hung over a blanket rack in the opposite corner.
I tiptoed across the room toward the closed door, then turned the knob and peeked into the hallway. It was empty, so I slipped out of the room. I passed a half-dozen closed doors as I snuck down the long corridor, placing my ear against each one to listen for Spencer.
I froze like a deer-in-the-headlights when the sound of footsteps came barreling up the stairs. My heart skipped a beat. I was paralyzed for a moment, then I turned and reached for the nearest doorknob. I let myself into the
room and quietly shut the door, then held my hand on the knob, rested my forehead against the panel of the door, and breathed deeply. I tried to slow the pace my heart. The footsteps pounded down the hall, then stopped. So did my breathing.
I didn’t hear him come up behind me, but I felt his breath on my neck just before his hand reached around my face and covered my mouth. His other arm wrapped around my waist and pulled me away from the door. He dragged me backward, through the room into the master bath. I struggled to get free until I spotted the sight of the two of us in the full-length mirror. Spencer stood behind me, his reflection smiling like the Cheshire cat. He released his grip on me.
I started to speak, but he put his finger to his lips to shush me.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered.
He took me by the hand and led me out of the bathroom.
“Come on. We don’t have much time,” he whispered back.
I followed Spencer to the door. He opened it, just a crack, and peeked through. We heard the muffled voices of two men downstairs. One shouted in a language I couldn’t understand, but from the tone of his voice, it was clear he was barking orders.
We slipped through the door and eased our way along the wall toward the staircase. Spencer signaled for me to stay put while he checked to see that the coast was clear. He got down on his hands and knees and crawled to the opposite end of the hall. He stood up and motioned for me to join him. I dropped to my knees and began crawling. When I reached the staircase, a voice at the bottom of the steps boomed. I couldn’t understand the words, but when I saw nothing but hair, teeth, and eyeballs bounding up the stairs toward me, I didn’t need a translator.
I got to my feet and leaped for Spencer. He opened a door, then we dove inside and slammed it shut. I turned the lock on the solid-oak door and collapsed against it. A loud thud from the other side made me jump away. We stared at the solid panel door as our pursuer repeatedly crashed against it. “Thank God for oak,” I whispered.
Two more failed attempts to bust down the door, and he gave up. Spencer and I glanced around our surroundings. We were in another bedroom. This one also had a balcony. I ran to the French doors and shoved them open. “Come on,” I called.
Spencer and I stood on the deck and looked out over the rail. We had a full view of the front of the house and the street. Jason’s pickup cruised slowly up the driveway, toward the closed gates.
Suddenly, the front doors burst open below us and the two men ran out, dragging a third man, obviously against his will. I recognized Mohammed Aziz from his photo in the Bates Corporation Newsletter. The other captor was unfamiliar to me, and the struggling man never turned his face in our direction.
Shaking his fist, Spencer leaned over the rail and yelled at the men. “Stop! Let him go!”
I strained to recognize the man. “Who is it?”
Spencer was halfway to the bedroom door before I got the sentence out. The abductors grappled with their captive, but soon overpowered him and threw him into the back of the Mercedes.
I started back into the bedroom to follow Spencer when a loud bang startled me. Jason’s truck crashed through the front gates as the Mercedes squealed away from the house. Jason swerved to miss it and accelerated through the flowers onto the lawn.
“Oh my God!” I ran down the stairs on Spencer’s heels. We blasted out the front doors. Jason stuck his foot in the accelerator and spun his big tires in the grass. Clumps of sod and dirt flew as Jason left a pair of bare-earth tracks in the once-perfect turf. Jason’s truck skidded to a stop in front of us. The Mercedes was halfway down the street, almost out of sight.
Spencer and I piled into the pickup. “Follow him!” Spencer ordered. Jason jammed the truck into gear and shoved his foot to the floor.
I fumbled with the seatbelt as the truck swayed around the corner of the driveway. Spencer helped me get it buckled, then snapped his own around his waist.
The Mercedes disappeared around a corner and Jason sped up to catch it. “Looks like he’s headed for Silver Strand. Probably doesn’t want to get caught in the bridge traffic,” Jason said.
“Where the heck is Dan?” I said.
Spencer put one hand on the dash and pointed through the windshield with his other. “They’re turning!”
“I see,” Jason said as he pressed a little harder on the gas pedal.
I caught a glimpse of a street sign. “This is Silver Strand. If we don’t catch him here, we’re gonna lose him.”
Jason shot me a glance. “I know. I’ll do my best.”
Spencer raised his pointing finger again. “Look! What’s that?”
Flashing red and blue lights formed a solid line across the boulevard about a half mile in front of us. The Mercedes swerved in and out of traffic. Jason did the same. We managed to get within ten car lengths of it before it slammed on its brakes. There were at least twenty police cars blocking the road at Silver Strand State Beach. There’d be no way for the Mercedes to get through.
It spun around and aimed straight for us. Jason put his foot on the brakes and slid the truck sideways, blocking most of the roadway. The Mercedes took to the beach. Jason hit the gas and paralleled the German car from the paved road. When we got in front of it, we swerved over, forcing it toward the water. Jason kept the pressure on until the axles were submerged in saltwater. I couldn’t believe Jason’s daring moves. He was like a stunt driver in an action movie. Flashing lights and sirens headed our direction. By the time they reached us, the Mercedes was nearly floating in the surf. The chase was over.
Dan Cooper’s car skidded to a halt on the pavement. He and Tom Willis jumped out and ran toward the Mercedes with their guns drawn. I gawked as I watched Stan Parker emerge from the back of Dan’s car and race after them. Officers pulled Aziz and his counterpart out of the front seat of the Mercedes and dragged them through the surf to the beach. I gasped when I saw the man in the back seat escape from the floating vehicle. It was Gerald Bates.
Chapter Twenty-two
I stood on the beach and watched a tow truck haul the Mercedes out of the surf. Aziz and his terrorist counterpart were loaded into the back of a police car and taken away. Dan Cooper strolled up behind me. “Back to the pokey for you, young lady.”
I spun around. “But—“
“Just kidding. I ought to lock you up, though, for your blatant disregard for my authority.” He winked at me. “You hungry? I’m buying.”
I smiled. “You mean the taxpayers, don’t you?”
“No. This time, it’s on me. Really. Your friends, too.”
I tried to remember my last meal. Oh yes, the hotdog. I was starving. “Sounds great. I’ll tell Jason and Spencer.”
Dan Cooper, Tom Willis, Gerald Bates, Stan Parker, Spencer, Jason, and I sat around a big private table at JoDee’s Steak House. My eyes scanned down the menu at the list of entrees. “Don’t they have salads here?”
Jason peered over his menu at me. “Salads are for sissies. Now steak—that’s a real man’s meal.”
Tom Willis took a swig from his mug of beer. “You got that right. Nothing like a big ol’ slab of red meat to get the heart pumpin’.”
The men seated around me echoed his sentiments. I smirked at them. “You mean, get your heart plugged up, don’t you?”
Dan slapped his menu down on the table. “Let’s change the subject.”
I closed my menu and laid it on the table. “Good idea. What I want to know is, how did you know where to find Mr. Bates, Spencer?”
Spencer peeked out from behind his menu.
“When I got your message on my answering machine, I thought you were the one in trouble, but it was Bates they were planning to kill. How’d you know he was being held in Coronado?” I asked.
“That backup tape I stol…borrowed from Bates Corporation contained Stan’s e-mail box. I’d already figured out that the NSA forced Mr. Bates to help them get agents into Iraq to spy. They found out the Iraqis were producing billions of doses of toxin
s,” Spencer explained.
“Toxins?”
Gerald Bates offered a more detailed description. “Yes. The agents found a lab where they were producing botulinum toxin and ricin. Botulinum toxin is the most poisonous substance known to man. The whole body, including the respiratory system, becomes paralyzed, which leads to death by suffocation in just a few days.”
I shuddered.
“And ricin…well…you heard about the umbrella murder in London, back in seventy-eight?” Bates continued.
I shook my head.
“A Bulgarian defector was jabbed in the leg with an umbrella. A tiny pellet containing a minute amount of ricin was implanted just under the skin. He was dead within a day,” Bates said.
“That’s incredible. But what does it have to do with Spencer?” I asked.
Spencer jumped back in. “I was getting to that. See, Mr. Bates e-mailed Stan that the agents discovered the lab and planned to take all the toxins and send them back to the States on his private jet. Stan is really the head of security for Bates Corporation, not the network administrator.”
“We sort of guessed that, didn’t we?” I grinned at Stan Parker, who sat across from me at the table. “Better not try to pass yourself off as a techno-geek, especially to the king of geeks.”
Stan smiled, mildly embarrassed.
Spencer finished chewing a mouth full of sourdough bread and continued his story. “Anyhow, the e-mail said that Mr. Bates felt uneasy about the whole thing. He thought Aziz might be suspicious of him.”
Bates spoke up. “That’s putting it mildly. When the Iraqis discovered their chemical weapons had been stolen, they locked me up in my hotel room and put armed guards at the door. My jet got out of Iraq, but without me.”
Stan proudly redeemed himself as a heroic figure. “So I gathered up a recovery team, trained them for six months, then we flew into Iraq. Pulled off the sweetest rescue mission you’ve ever seen.”
Bates smiled with appreciation at Stan and nodded. “In the meantime, the NSA offloaded the toxins onto my yacht and sunk it to keep it out of the hands of the terrorists—and anyone else who might get any crazy ideas about how to use it. The guy in charge of that operation was Morrison. Kent Morrison. He was supposed to record the location of the ship so the toxins could be recovered at a later time. Anyhow, the NSA came up with the story that I drowned to cover any connection they might have with me. They had no idea I was still alive.”