Ham

by Dustin Stevens

  Saying nothing, Lucas merely sits and stares. His brows brought together, he makes no effort to hide the fact that he is openly assessing Spiers.

  And doesn’t appear to greatly like what he sees.

  “Bad news from Hendricks?”

  “No news from Hendricks,” Spiers replies. Squeezing either side of his phone, he lights up the face to reveal there’s been no missed calls or messages, wagging it for Lucas to see.

  The look of concern grows more pronounced as Lucas glances from his partner to the phone and back. “How long’s it been?”

  “Ten hours,” Spiers replies. “And that was just a text. Twelve since we spoke.”

  Pursing his lips, Lucas manages a slight nod. “And he was—”

  “On his way to the tag,” Spiers finishes. “Said it was out in the woods, so he was going radio silent until after the fact.”

  At the time, Spiers had agreed with the approach. On short time and with limited means, there hadn’t been any way for Hendricks to keep him connected via a live feed. Cell reception up there was spotty at best, the chance of the phone’s glow being spotted too great to risk.

  “Shhhhhit,” Lucas pushes out, the word breathy, extended twice the usual length.

  A sentiment Spiers can’t help but feel the same about, the same word — and many even worse — having run through his mind on loop for the last ten hours.

  “There’s no way he would have just gone off the grid,” Lucas says. “Not after all this time. Even if he’d lost his phone or something, he would have figured out a way to get word back to us by now.”

  Again, Spiers nods. For as young as Hendricks and Stepanovich both are, they were chosen for the unit because they knew how to conduct themselves. They were picked for this particular assignment because they knew about the situation facing them and were more than capable of handling almost anything that could arise.

  Almost.

  “It’s got to be the woman,” Lucas says, once more putting to words what Spiers is thinking. “Right?”

  Without bothering to meet the gaze he knows is aimed his way, Spiers bobs his head. His eyes glaze slightly as he stares at the rail of the hospital bed before him, again running through the possible scenarios in his mind.

  “Best guess is, after the run-in earlier, they took to the woods,” Spiers says. “Amy and Amber and that woman from the hotel.”

  The rest he leaves without stating. Just mentioning the woman that had put him and his partner and likely Stepanovich down was enough to make his pulse race.

  There is no need to point out what has probably befallen Hendricks as well.

  “Let’s just hope he’s in a hospital instead of a morgue right now,” Lucas whispers, his tone a mixture of anger and resignation, indicating none of the hope his words seem to intimate.

  Saying nothing, Spiers merely sits and stares. Things are happening too fast, coming at him in droves. He is barely able to wrap his mind around one thing before another pops up, threatening to pull him in yet a different direction.

  All of it underscored by simmering hostility, threatening to derail every line of thought he has.

  The reason they’ve managed to be so successful over the last months is because they were always out ahead of the situation. Forearmed with Lima’s information, they were able to get on people before they even realized they were being watched.

  Never did they have to play catch-up, an advantage Spiers would love nothing more than to be enjoying right now.

  “I’m missing something,” he whispers, only his eyes moving as he flicks them up to Lucas. “There’s got to be something to help us get things back under control here.”

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  One of the reasons I chose to move down into the Mexico desert was because I was fast growing tired of the surveillance that permeates every aspect of American life these days. Outside of small enclaves like Glenda has set up in Idaho or ones in the Dakotas or Montana, the places are very few in this country where there isn’t somebody watching everything we do.

  Cameras watching us pump gas, or draw money from an ATM, or even just drive down the road.

  Who the hell is watching all that footage or where it is all stored is anybody’s guess, but just the thought was enough to send my ass south of the border.

  Finding Amy and Amber holed up at one of the last remaining motels in Los Angeles that didn’t have every square inch of the grounds monitored by closed-circuit cameras was a stroke of pure luck.

  The shots that were no doubt grabbed by traffic cams after the fact were easy enough to avoid. A quick swap of the plates and a later trip to the body shop, and they were completely useless, pictures taken of a ghost, leaving people searching for something that no longer exists.

  The momentary lack of oversight on the grounds had enabled me to get inside and extract my sister and her daughter without a clear visual of me reaching every news outlet in the state.

  The best anybody can do at this point is look for a woman with hair shaved tight on the sides and a dark tan. The first I can hide easily enough. The second describes most of the population in southern California.

  Right now, I am virtually invisible to everyone outside of Spiers and his partner.

  An advantage I’d like to keep.

  Sitting two rows from the rear in the parking lot outside West Covina General Hospital, I can see the same sedan that was sitting outside The Sundowner parked three rows ahead of me. Wedged in between a dented SUV and a work truck with a metal rack and wood paneling lining the rear bed, there is nothing to indicate how long it has been parked there or when it might move again.

  Flicking my gaze upward, I can also see the cameras affixed to the light stanchions lining the lot. Positioned four to a pole, they aim outward in the standard quad grid, putting the sedan squarely into the viewing field of at least two different cameras.

  Ditto for the vehicle I’m now sitting in, the Idaho plates coming off the moment I’m done here, swapped out for the more benign California ones that the rig started with.

  Reaching into the passenger seat, I take up the small package that Mikey and Ramon brought for me. Using a fingernail, I scrape down one corner of the plastic wrap encasing it. Tearing away the rest, I peel open the top and slide out the interior contents, spreading them across my lap.

  As I work, I can feel the temperature inside the car rising steadily. The combination of midday sun and the engine turned off pulls the temperature back up to something I’m more accustomed to. My fingers move quickly, muscles loosening up.

  On my cheeks and forehead is just the slightest sheen of moisture, a direct result of the task I’m about to undertake.

  For the last several days, Spiers has been tracking our every move. Using some form of new spray-on technology, he managed to tag Amber, following us up into Idaho.

  The fact that he didn’t get to us sooner, didn’t find us holed up at Shag’s, was only because of the physical state I left him and his partner in.

  Right now, I have the advantage in knowing that he’s actively tracking the spray. And I have the skin tag that it is adhered to currently sitting in the mountains north of here, right along the same road Mikey told me to take when first leaving The Sundowner.

  But what I need is a way to keep track of Spiers too. I need to know where he is, follow his movements, so that I can stay ahead of him.

  Just having the tag, sitting and waiting for him to show, forces me to play defense.

  And as Victoria Rosales can attest, that’s never been one of my specialties.

  The tracking device is a slight upgrade on what I’ve used previously, though I have no doubt Mikey was understating when he said there are dozens of easier ways of going about things. This is what I know, though, and in times such as these, it’s better to err on the side of archaic than to try to pick up new skills.

  In total, the package has just two items in it. The first is a silver disk roughly the size and thickness of a nickel. The
top and sides are polished to a mirrored shine, the back covered with a white paper label.

  Every bit as simple as the design would intimate, the paper gets peeled away, revealing an adhesive on the underside. Strong enough to cling to most anything, all I need to do is place it on Spiers’s car and it will stay until removed.

  Careful not to handle the tracker directly, the surface ideal for grabbing prints, I nudge it to the side and take up the second item in the box. Roughly the size and shape of a Zippo lighter, it serves as the router, bouncing the signal from the tracker to my phone.

  Again, not space-age stuff here, but simple and effective.

  Much like me, as Glenda used to say.

  Drawing up my phone from the middle console, I place it on my opposite knee. Holding the router in hand, I flip the switch on the back of it, a series of lights springing to life. Running from green to amber to red, they remind me of the wand still stowed in the bag as they cycle through twice in order before settling on green.

  Pulsating steadily, it draws a signal from the tracker beside it while at the same time synching with my phone.

  A moment later, my exact location pops up on screen, as clear as if I had just asked it where the nearest restaurant was. Showing me an overhead map view, a single red arrow pulsates in the middle of the viewing field, displaying me sitting right outside West Covina General.

  Content that everything works exactly as I need it to, I leave them in place on my lap. Reaching into the passenger seat, I rummage into the sack procured at the Walmart in Victorville. Starting with a long sleeve T-shirt, I tug off the price tags and lift the garment over my head. Leaning forward from the seat back, I wrestle it down into the place, the item big and bulky, meant to be oversized to obscure my true shape.

  Bright and loud, it features a tie-dyed design, neon pink and yellow and green spiraling away from my chest. Splashed across the front is the word CALIFORNIA in basic script, the blue letters standing out against the technicolor background.

  Next out of the sack is a yellow bandana. Featuring a basic paisley inlay of white, I fold it in half diagonally, creating one elongated triangle. Running the long end along the front of my brow, I pull back either end and cinch it into place at the base of my skull, letting the tail flap free.

  Last up is a simple pair of sunglasses, small round lenses tinted red set into wire-rimmed frames. Sliding their arms beneath my hair and the bandana, they sit snugly atop my nose, tinting my view of the world a sanguineous hue.

  The symbolism of which I don’t pretend to even try to decipher.

  Dropping the visor above me, I give one quick look into the mirror, the reflection every bit as ridiculous as I imagined. Looking like something from a psychedelic trip, there is no way anybody could see this and give any sort of description anywhere close to what I actually look like.

  Bright colors. Crazy patterns. Styles last seen in the nineties.

  Which is exactly what I want them to see. Right now, I look like the proverbial California hippie. There is no way for anybody to see my hair shaved tight on the sides. Or the fading black eye. Or the musculature in my arms or the tan on my skin.

  All they will see is a bright menagerie of neon. Just another free spirit stopping by the hospital, hoping to brighten somebody’s day.

  Running my gaze over the trio of items still spread across my lap, I move both my phone and the router to the side. Pulling the thumb and forefinger of my right hand inside the cuff of the enormous T-shirt I’m wearing, I take up the tracking device, pinching it gingerly along the edge.

  Using my opposite hand, I slowly peel away the paper backing before raising my focus to the sedan still sitting silent a few rows away.

  It’s only a matter of time before he checks for Amber’s location and finds the signal coming from the woods just north of town.

  And when he does, I’ll be ready.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  The idea was originally Lucas’s. So obvious, it is still all Jensen Spier’s can do to tamp down the self-loathing he feels for not thinking of it first.

  The spray that his partner tagged Amber with is designed to last for up to a week. Strong enough to be tracked virtually anywhere within the continental United States, it is how they were able to follow the movement of his wife and stepdaughter to Idaho.

  It’s the reason Stepanovich is now confined to a hospital bed and there hasn’t been a word from Hendricks in more than twelve hours.

  And the reason Spiers now knows her to be back in southern California.

  With more than three days left, the signal is coming in strong from the Angeles National Forest just north of the city. Not far from the edge of the burn pattern that tore through the area last winter, the location has held steady most of the morning, indicating that likely they have ceased their movement for the time being.

  What they’re doing back in the area, Spiers can’t be certain, though it makes sense. Most of the money his wife stole was probably used to secure the services of the woman at the motel. A clear professional, such an operation wouldn’t have come cheap, and she damned sure wouldn’t have taken a check.

  Scared, unsure, blind, Amy would have opted for the most obvious choice. She would have run to the mountains, thinking they would be safe in Idaho, hidden from the world while they tried to figure things out.

  Stepanovich and Hendricks showing up likely shattered that illusion, forcing them on the run again.

  An orphan since birth, Amy has nowhere else to go. No family to call, no place she can fall back to for support.

  And in the absence of such things, she would act under basic human nature. She would fall prey to the fallacy that there is security in the familiar.

  The thoughts pull the first hint of a smile in days to Spiers’s face. Staring at the screen, he glances to Lucas, barely able to contain the host of thoughts circling through the front of his mind.

  “Good call,” he says.

  “Yeah?” Lucas replies, his eyebrows rising as he glances to the screen. “Where is she?”

  “Close,” Spiers replies, turning the phone so his partner can see the screen and extending it his way.

  It takes a moment for the visual display to register, Lucas’s gaze scrunched slightly before clearing, dawning setting in. Staring at it, his lower jaw sags slightly. “Damn. That’s really close.”

  “Yeah,” Spiers says. Already he can feel his pulse picking up, tiny spurts of adrenaline seeping into his system. In kind, his body temperature rises, pinpricks of heat traveling the length of his body.

  Pulling the phone back, he rises to his feet. Shifting the device to stare at it again, he looks at the position, knowing that if Amber is there, Amy must be nearby.

  And if she’s close, the end of all this could be as well.

  So concerned with waiting for word back from his men, Spiers had forgotten that he had a secondary method of keeping tabs on things, an alternate form of overseeing the situation.

  For as lamentable as what has befallen his team is, it is likely the work of the woman and nothing more. She had gotten the best of them the same as she did Spiers and Lucas, proving herself to be worth the hefty price tag his wife doled out.

  But all the situational awareness in the world can’t protect her from an advantage like this.

  Giving the screen one last look, Spiers returns the phone to his jacket pocket. Nervous energy pulsates through his body, pulling him in a handful of different directions, causing him to practically bounce in place as he wraps his head around the disparate options.

  None of which contain staying another minute in this damn hospital room.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  My cell phone is balanced on my right knee as I sit with my back against the base of a Ponderosa pine tree. Bark rough and irregular, I can feel it pressing into my rib cage. The scent of sap and pine needles fills my nostrils, pushed around by the thin breeze moving through the trees.

  A modicum of midday sun manages t
o penetrate the thick canopy overhead, filtering through in stray shafts, illuminating the forest floor around me.

  The better part of an hour has passed since I stole away from the West Covina General Hospital. After placing the tracking device on Spiers’s sedan, my first stop was at a small park not far from there where I ditched the hippy threads, leaving the clothes and glasses on a picnic table.

  With luck, they’ve already been snatched up by a vagrant, securing the double benefit of being a new outfit for them and a red herring for anybody that might have spotted me at the hospital.

  Not that such is likely. The work truck Spiers was parked beside provided good coverage as I secured the device to the underside of his rear passenger wheel well.

  From there, it was nothing more than putting on a show with my phone, pretending to have received an incoming call beckoning me elsewhere, before heading right back to the SUV and driving away.

  My second stop was at a trailhead just outside the city. A repeat performance of three days prior, I swapped the Idaho tags out for local ones, leaving the old stowed away in the bottom of a campground Dumpster.

  The final destination was where I am now sitting. I needed to retrieve the skin tag from its hiding place and to ensure that the device I planted is working. Both have now been fulfilled.

  On my opposite knee rests the baggy with the flaps sheared from Amber’s neck. With the top sealed firmly, the epidermis remains moist and pliable, a few stray spots of blood dotting the clear plastic.

  Less than a foot away rests the phone attached to the router, a clear visual on the screen. Moving in real time, I watch as Spiers works his way west from West Covina General. Sitting on the I-10, he moves at a steady pace, heading toward the heart of the city.

  Amy didn’t mention where the man is based out of, but given her mention of a Special Unit Division, I would guess Hollenbeck. One of the larger precincts in the area, it is situated right at the confluence of East LA and downtown, with easy access to the major arteries flowing through the city.