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  “Were they worried about you?”

  “I don’t know. There are too many unknowns.” I studied Blake. “I spoke to the paramedic.”

  “What did she say?”

  I told him how Kay had nearly broken the medic’s hand during the trip to the hospital. I also told him about Kay’s injures and how the police officer had left that out of his report.

  “Do you think the police officer is dirty or that someone altered his report?” Blake asked.

  “Someone altered the hospital records. It could be that the same someone altered the police report. Then again, according to you, Jagiello spoke to the police captain.”

  “Are the Shop and Polarity Magnetics working together?” Blake asked.

  “That would be bad,” I said. “Yes. It’s a possibility, one we can’t discount, but I consider it unlikely.”

  “I could go back to the police department and hunt around,” Blake said.

  I saw the fear in his eyes. A Shop assassin had directly threatened him. That was enough to worry anyone. Now Blake had found he didn’t like being pushed around.

  “You don’t need to go yet,” I said. “We know the report was altered in some fashion.” I drummed my fingers on the hood of the Ford. “I want to tap new sources of information, not rake over old ground. I’m going to check Kay’s apartment.”

  “Won’t the others already have gone over it?”

  “You have to keep collecting the evidence,” I said. “You have to find the mistake someone overlooked.”

  “Altering the police officer’s report or causing him to lie would be one of those mistakes, wouldn’t it?”

  Blake was right, but I didn’t want him going back there. I would do that. Let the assassin threaten me.

  “I’ll check her apartment,” I said. “Then I’m going to wait for twilight and see if the razor wire around Polarity Magnetics can keep me out.”

  “Their security will have more than that,” Blake said. “Likely, they’ll be waiting for you.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I want to see what they’ve done to Dave, and I want a look at Kay’s corpse. Then I’ll poke around until I find something to show me what the cube is.”

  “I’m going back to the Alamo,” Blake said. “I forgot my suitcase.”

  I wanted to tell him to go home. Instead, we spoke a few moments longer, and then we parted company, each going our separate way.

  ***

  Kay had lived in a richer area of Long Beach, with gated communities and several large apartment complexes of higher quality. Hers was a fancy glass place, built in the late Nineties along Donald Trump lines.

  I stepped out of the car near a park with swings, shouting children and a man throwing a Frisbee to his Collie. Then I made my way to the apartment building.

  It had a statue in front, a tall thing of wires that perhaps the artist had meant to resemble a man or a woman. It told me what most modern art did: that something critical was missing.

  I kept alert, noticed a plainclothes security woman brushing her shoe. Soon, I took an elevator to the third floor. The halls were varnished wood and spic and span.

  I came to Kay’s door, took out a small device picked off a Shop operative several years ago and let it run through its sequence. I heard a pop as the electronic skeleton key did its trick.

  I eased the door open and was surprised to see an empty apartment. Was this the right one? Had the newspaper gotten it wrong or had Blake?

  No. Someone has decided on the heavy-handed approach.

  Shutting the door behind me, I stepped into the living room. It was barren except for empty shelves and several nails in the wall. I moved slowly, making wooden floorboards creak. If there had been rugs, somebody had pulled those out too. There was a faint perfume odor. I recognized it as Kay’s and knew then this was the right apartment. I spied bare cupboards in the kitchen. Someone had left several open. There was a fridge, a microwave and a stove.

  On impulse, I opened the freezer part of the fridge. It had already been defrosted. Whoever had done this had been thorough—too thorough.

  I took out a miniature bug detector, a flat device. I tapped it on and reentered the living room. The detector made a soft tone near one of the nails in the wall. I pulled out the nail and discovered a tiny implant embedded there in the wall.

  I left it there and kept checking. There was another implant in a bedroom, hidden in the landline phone jack.

  Thoughtfully, I tapped off the detector. Someone was listening. The question was, who? It seemed likely that whoever had cleaned out the apartment had planted the devices.

  Why do that if they had already cleaned out the apartment? The answer, it seemed, is that the cleaners expected someone to come here and check as I was doing. Did that mean there was something here to find?

  I walked through the rooms, listening to the echoes of my footfalls. It was like Kay’s corpse now: empty of soul.

  Standing in the middle of the living room, I turned slowly, very aware that someone might be listening intently through the implant behind the nail. They had cleaned out the apartment, taking everything. No. They had left the fridge, stove and microwave, although they had defrosted the fridge. Should I tear them apart? What would I be looking for?

  I glanced at the lights then, the clear light bulbs. Walking to the switch, I flipped on the lights. They worked.

  I went into the kitchen and glanced at those light bulbs. They also worked. I shrugged. Why would that matter?

  Then it struck me, an old memory. It had been during one of our outings: Dave, Kay and me. We’d been driving a tiny European car up and down winding Swiss roads. Dave had been talking, giving us a lecture on the perfect hiding spots in a house. He said if a thing was small enough, hide it in a light bulb. No one would ever think to look there.

  Sometimes our subconscious knows a thing before our conscious, logical mind would never dream of realizing it.

  In the bedroom, the light bulb was cloudy instead of clear. I flipped the switch. The light came on. I used my ability then, dimming the light, dimming…when I saw a speck in the bulb.

  I turned off the light and wondered how I was going to reach high enough to unscrew it. There was nothing to stand on. Ah. I went back into the kitchen and unplugged the microwave. I brought it back here, set it down, stood on it and unscrewed the light bulb. In the kitchen, I took out my gun and tapped the glass until it shattered. A silvery thing, a chip of some kind about the size of my thumbnail and with as much thickness, appeared among the glass shards.

  I examined it on the counter. I took out the bug detector, tapped it on and ran it over the chip. Neither did anything.

  I tapped off the detector, pocketing it. Then I picked up the chip, and I shoved it into my front pants pocket.

  Kay must have hidden this, and I had no idea what it was. I was sure that whoever listened to me wanted this chip.

  Should I leave now?

  First, I’d check the bathroom. Maybe Kay had hidden more than one object. I hurried there, noticing the bathroom had a small open window. I heard a pigeon cooing outside. Nice, but why leave the window open?

  All the light bulbs were clear, so nothing was hidden in them. I lifted the toilet seat, checked the tank and opened the medicine cabinet—stopping in shock. All her pills, tweezers, toothpaste, fungus creams and other accessories were here. Whoever had swept everything had forgotten to open the medicine cabinet. No. That didn’t make sense. If they had defrosted the freezer, they would have taken these items. If they planted bugs, they would have—

  This is a setup.

  To confirm my suspicion, I leaned closer and looked under the glass shelves. There were tiny wires under each thing, with miniature pressure pads. That would imply—

  IED!

  I thought I heard something then: a click. It came from behind the medicine cabinet. Even as I heard the noise and before my mind processed what it meant, I was throwing myself backward. Old habits from Afghanistan were
still hardwired into me, and it saved my life, or at least saved me from serious injury. The medicine cabinet exploded—or more accurately stated, an improvised explosive device in the wall exploded. I struck my head on the bathtub, and that would have knocked me out if I’d been normal. Instead, the back of my head cracked the tub. The hot blast blew over me, as the sink deflected much of the blast and glass shrapnel, and thus saved my eyes, if nothing else.

  I groaned in pain and the back of my head throbbed. The bathroom had smoking holes in the walls. The open window had helped, as much of the blast had escaped through it. I noticed the window glass had shattered out of the frame. Was the pigeon dead? I didn’t hear any cooing now.

  It was hard to think and my head throbbed. My ears rang and a fire alarm shrieked loudly. I had to get out of here.

  I staggered through the apartment to the outside corridor. Several frightened people stood at their doors, staring at me. I didn’t have time to explain and didn’t want them to stare at me too long so they could identify me later. So I took out my Browning and chambered a round. The doors slammed and bolts were thrown.

  I hurried down the hall, gaining speed. There was a siren in the distance, then I heard two of them. I thought about Juan Ortega and his calls to 9-1-1. Had I been knocked out for a few seconds or for even a little longer?

  Another door opened and Mike Stone stood there. He wore a flak-vest and gripped his .44 Magnum, holding it down by his leg. He looked as surprised as I felt.

  “What the—?” he said.

  I’d already been raising my Browning as the door opened, and I beat him on the draw. In rapid succession, I pulled the trigger five times. The booms were loud, and they made me mentally wince each time. Each bullet struck his Kevlar vest and propelled him back into his room. As the fifth bullet struck, he fired his .44. The boom was terrific, and the slug smashed a hole in the floor. Then he was flat on his back, and I had no doubt he would have painful bruises tomorrow.

  With the adrenalin pumping, I burst into the nearest apartment and kicked the door shut behind me. A cat on a sofa scrambled in fright and leaped behind the furniture. As I holstered my gun, I moved into another room, rolled open a sliding glass door and stepped onto a balcony. I was on the third floor and the ground looked a long way down. The sirens were louder now.

  Deciding I didn’t have time to think about it, I climbed over the balcony and worked my way down. Soon I was hanging from it. A woman screamed. I let go so the ground rushed up to greet me. Landing hurt like a S.O.B, and I shattered cement. I climbed up, stunned, but quickly recovered and staggered to some trees. I don’t know how much force it would take to break one of my bones these days. The acceleration had strengthened them, too.

  I hurried into a grove of trees and thick bushes, only then looking back. I saw Stone staring at me. He stood on the third-story balcony. That took guts coming after me like that. Maybe I should have killed him. Or at least shot him in the leg.

  On the street leading to the front of the apartment complex, two police cars with their lights flashing began skidding as they braked. They were the reason for my dropping stunt. I was at the back of the complex. There were more sirens coming, and Stone now moved back into the apartment. If I’d killed him, he’d be lying on the floor, and a new murder investigation would have soon begun, with me as the target. I also wanted him to flee, not hobble around with a shot leg so the police would question him.

  I used the screen of trees to head for my car. I was glad I’d parked away from the apartments. This was definitely not what I’d expected to find.

  -18-

  I did some deep thinking as I drove away from the growing excitement. Maybe I should have followed Stone into his apartment. Would I have found listening devices there? He must have detonated the medicine cabinet IED.

  Upon opening the door, Stone had been surprised. Had he been surprised it was me or that I’d survived the blast?

  I was surprised I hadn’t shot him in the face. I hadn’t hesitated the other night with the Shop sniper. Why had I let Stone live and only shot to knock him down? There was no good reason I could think of, which was an ugly thing to believe. Cold-stone killers thought like that. I wasn’t cold-blooded, but I was a killer.

  I gripped the steering wheel harder. What did my subconscious know now that it wasn’t telling me? I had the chip that had been hidden in a light bulb, and there was a ninety-nine percent certainty that it had belonged to Kay. Why should I have given Mike Stone a second chance?

  I didn’t know why, and it bothered me. This was a bad time to start getting squeamish. The Shop, Polarity Magnetics and Harris’s biker outlaws all played dirty. To survive among sharks one had to be a bigger shark, or preferably, a killer whale.

  Suppose Mike Stone had been surprised because it had been Gavin Kiel that he saw and not the other person he might have expected. What would that tell me? One: Stone was willing to kill that other person. Two: Stone or Cheng believed the other person would go to Kay’s apartment looking for the chip. Why would they want the chip? What did it do? Maybe that was the wrong question. What did everyone want? The cube—it always went back to the cube. More than ever, I wondered what it did that made it so important.

  I knew the Shop’s position—correction—the Chief’s position on Polarity Magnetics. He didn’t like them and probably wanted them shut down. What was Harris’s position concerning Polarity Magnetics? I knew how the Shop felt about Harris.

  Doctor Harris, what did I know about him? He had sent men after me in San Francisco. One of those men had stabbed me with a needle, or he had tried. Two of them had boarded my boat, and they had carried weaponry designed for use against me. Doctor Harris had told Kay where I lived. That implied she’d had communication with him.

  The Shop had taken their gloves off, and now so had Polarity Magnetics. Harris with his needle man—I would be at a disadvantage if I continued to pull my punches. Either it was play hardball or go home. I nodded. I needed more money. That was something I’d learned in Afghanistan. You could often get more done with cash than with bullets or threats. Especially in the early years of the Afghan War, cold cash and airpower had built a conquering coalition.

  I needed cash, and I needed it now. I took a turn so sharp my tires squealed. Then I headed for the bad part of Long Beach.

  In less than a half hour, I cruised past rundown tenement buildings with teenagers outside. Some of them shot hoops behind a chain-link fence. Others slunk along the street, with their baggy pants just below their asses. Everyone gave me hard stares.

  Then a jiving young brute sauntered to me. He had a backward Raiders cap angled on his head, ear-buds in his ears and listened to his gangsta rap.

  “Whatacha needing, man?” he asked, coming to my window.

  “Smack,” I whispered, with my head down.

  “Don’t be nervous, man. It’s cool.” He leaned closer, his grin like a hyena’s.

  I reached out the window and grabbed his collar, yanking his head through the open window.

  “Hey, mother—”

  He didn’t get any further, as I used my other hand to grab his face, mushing his mouth together as I used to do to my five-year-old nephew, but in play back then. I squeezed as he tried to jerk back, and I saw the fear in his eyes. He understood I had strength he’d never dealt with before.

  “Listen real close, man. You listening?” I asked.

  He tried to nod.

  “Give me a wad of cash, a nice fat wad if you want to live. But do it cool, man, or I’ll break your face.”

  In a second, a healthy wad of cash lay in my lap.

  “Keep your hands on the car door.” Then I reached with my free hand and fished out his gun. “You listen real close,” I said, squeezing a little harder. “If you make a scene when I leave, I’m coming back to finish it with you. Got it?”

  He tried to speak through his mushed lips. Then I felt him try to nod.

  I shoved him, not too hard, but hard enough so he
staggered into the street. Then I drove off. There were hostile stares from the teenagers. Through the rearview mirror, I watched the dealer I’d just robbed watch me as he rubbed his face. Maybe he thought about giving me the bird. Maybe he wanted to yell. He just kept rubbing his face, watching me drive away.

  ***

  I made it to the marina without incident. A quick glance showed me it was free of Long Beach PD or plainclothes detectives. Then something odd caught my eye.

  Five piers over from the Alamo was a huge yacht, a brown monstrosity with a Scottish flag flying. A man slid down the ladder from the top deck to a lower one. He wore a black leather vest without a shirt, and he sported a beard and tattoos. It was the Viking-like biker that had tried to stop me from speaking with Doctor Harris last night. There was another biker, a smaller man, busy unmooring the yacht.

  I spotted Harris then. He wore his Savile Row suit and bowler hat, and he clutched his closed umbrella. He might have seen me as he ducked into a cabin, although he didn’t pop back out to hail a greeting. It was obvious they were about to leave. All the hoses to the pier looked to be disconnected, and the smaller biker hurried to untie another line.

  I thought about Harris’s discovery of calling, and that he had found me in San Francisco. What had he been doing here in a yacht?

  I strode toward the boat. The bigger biker, the one with the Viking-like beard, scowled as I approached.

  “The doctor is busy,” he said. The man had a deep voice and scars on his face. He was a bruiser, likely one of the biker leaders, a man no doubt used to enforcing his wishes.

  I didn’t feel like asking why they were here. All I’d get from him was lies.

  I strode across the gangplank and headed for where Harris had ducked inside.

  The bearded biker scowled more fiercely, and he moved toward me. A revolver was tucked in his leather-studded belt. He put a ham-like hand on it, and began to draw.

  I didn’t let him finish, but turned fast, closing the distance between us. I grabbed his gun-hand, and I slammed it hard against a cabin so wood splintered as I punched his hand through. His features twisted with pain. I know I’d broken bones. I wrenched the revolver from him and tossed it into the water. It splashed, and he tore away from me, staggering backward.