by A. J. Thomas
St. Clair’s eyes bulged. “The professor who reported her missing?”
“That’s right.”
“Get the address to Technical, see if it matches the data uploads. Belkamp, you came in, so I’m putting you to work. You’ll just have to pull double duty and babysit Delgado tonight.”
Three hours and three cups of regular coffee later, Elliot felt like he’d come closer to finding Sophie Munoz but was cursing himself for not taking Dr. Holland into custody when he had the chance. He stood fuming, supervising officers as they hauled boxes of computer equipment from Dr. Holland’s two-story Rancho Bernardo home.
The search had turned up two suitcases still packed with women’s clothing, a small makeup bag, and a suspicious lack of other toiletries in any of the bathrooms. The soap scum rings on the edge of the tub were still wet, the heater had been turned down, but the house was still warm, and the fridge was filled with fresh, perishable food. Sophie Munoz had been there, alive and well, but something must have tipped her and Holland off that morning. There was no sign of either of them. A leased BMW that showed up on Holland’s DMV record was also nowhere to be found.
“You can see the road coming into the subdivision from the master bedroom.” St. Claire joined him by the front door. “They had to be watching for anyone coming after them. Odds are we missed them by a few minutes.”
“That figures.” Elliot shoved his hands into his pockets, trying not to get pissed. At least the tech guys were thrilled. Before they began dismantling things, a preliminary scan of the computer hard drives turned up the series of encryption keys they needed to decipher where the money Sophie Munoz’s ever-evolving computer program had stolen was being deposited. They’d been working around the clock to shut the program down, tracking the funds in both directions in hopes of freezing the cartel accounts the money originated in, as well as whatever accounts the money was heading toward, but every time they froze an account or stopped a transaction, the program initiated another series of fund transfers. The most thoroughly encrypted parts of the code eluded them, because the encryption algorithms seemed to change every time a new transaction was initiated while the code executed. Sometimes the code changed for no apparent reason whatsoever.
Elliot had listened to them rant about it for a whole ten minutes before he’d gone to Sophie’s backpack. He dropped a textbook entitled Artificial Intelligence and Evolutionary Programming into one man’s lap, then went to help catalogue the seized equipment. St. Claire put in a call for help from the Rancho Bernardo police and assigned teams to watch Holland’s house and office, then sent agents back to the city to watch Sophie’s dorm room in case she went back there.
St. Claire patted him on the back as they left the scene. “You did good, Belkamp. Finding them and the money is just a matter of time now.”
“If we find them before Alejandro Munoz does.”
“You’ve got access to our best informant on that front,” she reminded him.
Elliot thought about Ray again, about the way he seemed ready to panic that morning. He nodded slowly. “I’ll see what he has to say.”
“You should go get some food,” she said, without looking at him. “I can hear your stomach growling from here.”
“Sorry. Hard class last night.”
“Yes, I heard you brought Detective Delgado again. He did get settled into the hotel, didn’t he, Belkamp?”
Elliot kept his face perfectly still. St. Claire’s husband owned the dojo where he trained. He knew them both from tournaments over the years and counted them both as friends outside of work. But that didn’t mean gossip she heard from her husband would stay out of the office, even if she was tactful enough to wait until after the status meeting to bring it up. “Well… I passed the hotel information on to him and he left. He said thank you, promised he’d lay low, and left.”
“Who left?” Hathaway waddled out of the house with two sealed cardboard boxes.
“Detective Delgado. I don’t actually know if he went to the hotel we arranged for him or not. Like I said, he’s a handful.”
Hathaway grunted and shifted his grip on the boxes. “We can ask a few of the city’s officers to go by and check on him.” He shifted his grip again and then smirked at Elliot. “Take these for me, Belkamp? My arm hurts like a bitch after last night.”
Elliot braced himself. Hathaway shoved the boxes into his arms before he could answer, but Elliot caught the weight, shifted it slightly, and grinned. “It’s always a risk when you jump into something you’re not prepared for. You should ice it.”
“Having the PD check on Delgado is a good idea. Maybe he’ll be more polite to them.” St. Claire scribbled the information on a sticky note and handed it to Hathaway. If she knew what had happened during class last night, she didn’t let on. “Call and see if they have a unit that can swing by.”
Hathaway took the note and stretched his arms over his head. “If they don’t have anybody, I’ll go check on him. Belkamp’s been stuck with him for almost a week, so it’s probably my turn.”
“Think you can behave yourself this time?” St. Claire smiled up at him.
Hathaway flushed brightly. “Yes, I can behave myself.”
“See if the city can do it, first. I have complete faith in you, but let’s not make things worse,” St. Claire ordered.
“Will do.” Hathaway nodded at each of them and hurried out.
Elliot shook his head slowly, wishing he could have seen the mess between Hathaway and Ray first hand.
As if reading his mind, St. Claire swiped the screen on her iPhone a few times. She held it up for him to see.
She’d managed to get a fairly discreet photo of Special Agent Hathaway, scraping salsa off his dress shirt and out of his hair. Elliot let himself smile, but didn’t say anything, and she returned the phone to her jacket pocket.
“Sometimes,” St. Claire said, as she grabbed the top box from Elliot’s stack, “I wish I’d been assigned here while Detective Delgado was still working with us. Apparently he kept things interesting.”
“Huh?”
“Detective Delgado. When we were still trying to keep up with the interagency assignments, he worked with the task force for two years. Back in 2008, when things across the border were getting bloody. The SDPD has their own gang enforcement unit, and he was one of their senior officers.”
“I had heard something like that, but I didn’t actually think about it. Maybe we should see if the PD will let us borrow him.”
“So tempting….”
They loaded the boxes in the back of a cargo van, and she nodded toward Elliot’s car. “Don’t worry about Delgado tonight. Whatever happened—and I’m totally happy with the ignorant delusion that nothing happened at all—you’ve looked miserable all day. Go eat, if nothing else.”
He sighed and relaxed a little. St. Claire had been a friend for years, and she was a good friend, but she was also one of the few people he thought might be worthy of a World’s Greatest Boss coffee mug. “Thank you.”
Elliot tried not to think about Ray on the drive home. He kept telling himself that he should have been the one to go check on him, even if Ray didn’t particularly want to see him after last night. He kept his gaze relaxed, driving up the hill in Tierrasanta on autopilot. Even after eight years away from the desert and the army, the lessons learned driving around the streets of Kabul were etched into his mind forever, and he found himself pulling over half a block from his own house, staring at the glowing front porch light and the dark windows. He knew he left the living room lights on, and he intentionally left the front light off. He was particular about that. The light over the front door was on, but from what he could see of the living room windows, there were no lights on inside. Aside from the porch light, the entire house was dark.
He turned off his headlights and scanned the cars on the block, looking more for movement than for anything in particular.
He took a deep breath and reminded himself that Ray had been
messing with the electricity the night before. He might have screwed something up. But Elliot knew Ray well enough to know better. Not only was Ray not the type to make mistakes, Elliot had watched him flip the breaker back on, and, of course, without power the porch light couldn’t be on.
Elliot kept his eyes unfocused, taking in details of the cars parked on the street and comparing them to the cars he’d seen parked there since he moved in. When he caught sight of a familiar-looking silver SUV, he leaned forward and tried to make out the plate number. “Fuck. Whoever that is, they’re persistent.” Elliot kept his eyes on the silver Lexus and called the field office quickly. After he was transferred to the police department’s dispatch office and gave the operator his badge number, he read the license plate back to her twice and thrummed his fingers on the steering wheel while he waited to find out who the car was registered to.
“Special Agent Belkamp, the plate is registered to a 1998 green Ford Taurus, owner is listed as a Jennifer Yung, age nineteen, no current warrants, outstanding tickets, or alerts. The address listed is in Salinas, in Monterey County.”
“A Ford Taurus?” Elliot asked, just to make sure. Salinas was almost eight hours north of San Diego.
“A 1998 green Ford Taurus,” the operator confirmed. “Do you need anything else, Agent Belkamp?”
Elliot considered asking for a car to respond, but he didn’t want to overreact. “No, but thanks.” He hung up the phone and stared at the empty SUV again. It was just a strange car parked across the street. A car that might have followed him from a subject’s residence immediately after he searched the house. A car that had a set of clean plates matched to a different car, so he couldn’t run an ID check. Still, if he called in a full tactical response only to find Ray sitting on his couch playing with his phone, everyone on the gang task force would be making jokes about it for the next year. It was a bit too much of a coincidence to imagine he’d left the lights out, but there was a slim chance Ray might have come back after all.
He dialed Ray’s cell phone and listened to it ring five times before the call went to voice mail. He tried Hathaway’s number next, but he didn’t answer either. Frustrated, he dialed the hotel Ray was supposed to be staying in, figuring the desk clerk could transfer his call to Ray’s room.
“Why the fuck isn’t the hotel answering?” he whispered.
Out of options, he called the dispatch office back. Once he got through all of the formalities, with a different operator this time, he asked for a list of vehicles registered in Ray’s name. When the dispatcher informed him that Ray only owned the little black Nissan he’d picked up from the tow yard, Elliot took a deep breath. He asked for a patrol car to respond to his address.
It would inevitably lead to paperwork, and teasing, from the other agents he worked with, especially if it turned out he was just being a paranoid idiot.
“I’m sorry, Special Agent Belkamp, all available officers are responding to another incident at the moment. I’ll send a car to your location as quickly as possible, but it could take up to half an hour.”
A request to investigate a suspicious person or vehicle was not a high-priority call anywhere. He sighed and hung up the phone.
He checked his sidearm, rubbed his hands over his shirt to drive home the reminder that he was wearing a vest, and reached for the door. It was his house. He knew the layout. He knew all of the points of entry. And he could easily go around to the back porch and look through the windows without being spotted.
If someone was inside his house, he had no chance of getting inside without them knowing. Ray had been kind enough to fix all of the magnetic switches on his doors and windows, so anything he opened would make the alarm system chime. So the most he could do was hope to get a decent view through the windows and decide on a course of action from there.
“I am never leaving him alone without a fully charged cell phone again,” said Elliot.
Elliot made sure the street was empty, turned off the dome light above him so it wouldn’t turn on when he opened the door, then climbed out of his car. He jogged down the street to a small opening between residential fences where there was access to the canyon-trail system that bordered his property. The canyon was usually filled with hikers, joggers, and kids, but with the sun setting early and the weather getting chilly, the canyon was empty at this time of night. He followed the trail up until he was next to his neighbor’s fence, listening for dogs or other people more than looking for them. The canyon smelled like juniper, sage, and sand—it was so different from the scent of the redwoods he’d grown up in outside of San Francisco, and different still from the vast evergreen forests in his last duty station in Montana. He’d spent enough time sitting on his back patio in the darkness that the smell already felt like home.
He dropped from a jog into an easy stroll, giving his eyes a chance to adjust to the darkness. He walked along the perimeter of his neighbor’s six-foot privacy fence, then along the five-foot chain-link fence that separated Elliot’s property from the canyon beyond. He studied his empty yard, which was just as wild as the canyon, and the wood patio that ran along the entire length of his house. No one was in sight and nothing moved. He took a few more quick steps, then hooked his elbow over the fence and let his momentum swing his legs over the top. He hurried into a shadow and stared out at the yard again. There was still no movement.
Sticking close to the fence, and then to the side of the house, he crept up the back steps to the patio, where his living room windows offered an unobstructed view of three bulky shapes. For a moment, he remembered similar moments before storming into dark buildings, when he could make out the shape of assault rifles through night vision goggles. The details weren’t as clear, and he was in a different desert, but the shapes were similar enough to recognize the short angles of rifles held up and ready.
Elliot ducked beneath the patio and dialed 911, hoping the glow from his phone wouldn’t attract any attention. He gave the dispatcher his badge number and the address for what felt like the hundredth time, informed them of his previous call and reported the presence of the intruders, then asked that officers responding be made aware that a plain-clothed FBI agent was already on the scene. He covered his phone as three loud cracks echoed above him. His heart nearly stopped as he scanned the darkness, looking for whoever had spotted him. He wasn’t hit, though, and the only sounds to be heard were muffled thuds from inside the house. There was no breaking glass, no running footsteps.
Elliot peered up over the edge of the patio, then ducked back down. Someone was still moving inside. He inched back up the stairs and stopped when a soft glow illuminated the living room and kitchen. The light in his laundry room, between the kitchen and the garage, had been turned on. In the kitchen, Elliot saw the familiar profile that left him frozen. Ray, holding a very big revolver, was standing in his kitchen in a sleek gray suit. Where the three hulking figures with assault rifles had stood, now there were three bodies on the floor, all dressed in dark clothing, all very dead.
“Fuck!” Elliot sprinted to the side door. He raced into the garage, trying to keep to the shadows but desperate to find Ray and stop him. As he spun on the concrete, he stopped. A triangle of light cascaded out the laundry room door, spilling onto the concrete. A man in a black hooded sweatshirt was standing behind the door, a small assault rifle tucked into his hands. He was leaning into the laundry room, aiming the rifle into the kitchen.
Elliot moved fast. He ducked low and sprinted forward, then surged to his feet when he was close enough to disarm the man. The intruder had no clue he was there, and Elliot managed to pop the rifle out of his hands quickly. He had no hope of turning the gun or keeping control of it, so he settled for flinging it toward the wall. He swept the man’s feet out from under him and brought him to the ground in a smooth, easy motion. As usual, the moment the fight went to the ground, the other man flailed, and Elliot took control.
Elliot slipped his arm around the man’s neck, locked the intruder�
�s right arm up against his ear so it was useless, and squeezed. In less than thirty seconds, the choke hold cut off the blood flow through his carotid artery, and he slumped into unconsciousness. The entire mess had taken less than forty seconds. Elliot gently lowered him to the concrete and checked to make sure his pulse was steady.
He heard a pistol cock and glanced up into the barrel of a gun and eyes that looked very much like Ray Delgado’s. “That was impressive.”
“You’re not Ray.” Elliot said, glancing between the barrel of the gun and the man in the gray suit.
“Neither are you,” the man laughed. “Poor Raymond never lets himself have any fun. Alejandro Munoz.” The man introduced himself but stayed still, keeping his gun raised.
“Put the gun down.”
“Are you a friend of Raymond’s, perhaps? A bodyguard?” Alejandro smirked and shifted his feet. “A boyfriend?”
“I am FBI. Special Agent Elliot Belkamp. This is my house. Put the gun down.”
“Hmm. No. If you’re a friend of Raymond’s, I expect you’ll just try to kill me, even if I put the gun down. He would. Where is he?”
“I’ve got no idea.”
“Really?” Alejandro clicked his tongue. “I hope you’re telling the truth. I went to all this trouble thinking I was keeping him alive. What a waste.”
“If you’re here to keep him alive, isn’t the gun a bit counterproductive?” Elliot asked, holding both of his hands up, fingers wide.
“Hardly. I think that little shit at your feet is the last of them. Stand aside.” Alejandro flicked his pistol to the right. “I’ll deal with him.”
“You won’t touch him,” Elliot growled, holding his ground.
“Are you kidding me?” Alejandro rolled his eyes. “He was here to kill you, moron. Him and three other motherfuckers Garcia hired.”
“Don’t care,” said Elliot. “I disarmed him, I knocked him out. That makes him my prisoner. My prisoner, in my custody. Put the gun down and put your hands on your head.”