Blood Double

by Neil Mcmahon

  “Of course not,” she said soothingly. “It’s just a fact. A dose this massive needs a bigger muscle.”

  “I’ll give it, if you’d be more comfortable with that,” Monks said.

  Hazeldon looked away, then nodded curtly.

  Martine gave Monks the filled syringe, looking apologetic again, and stepped out of the room, closing the door behind her. Hazeldon turned his back to Monks and pushed his trousers down, revealing thin, tensed buttocks.

  “Why don’t you lean over the cot and put your weight on your elbows,” Monks said. “This will be easier for both of us if that muscle’s relaxed.”

  Hazeldon did as he was told. His breathing was quick and shallow, and his flesh jerked at the needle’s bite. It was an undeniably awkward situation, but one that Monks had faced daily, in some variation, over many years. Unless there was real pain or fear involved, it had all the emotional impact to him of a mechanic changing spark plugs.

  “Okay,” Monks said, withdrawing the needle. “You can zip up. We’ll give you a course of oral Pen Vee for follow-up.”

  Hazeldon turned, buckling his belt, his face still tense. But then it relaxed into an odd pleased grin—the look of a man who had been through an ordeal, with the worst over.

  “Thanks, Doctor,” he said. “I owe you one.”

  Monks opened the door for Martine. “He’s ready to bandage up again.”

  “I’m sure you’d like to get going,” she said. “If you don’t mind, Pete, I’ll just walk Dr. Monks out.”

  They rode the elevator down in silence, conscious of hidden ears that might be listening. This time, walking across the lobby, she whispered, “I’ll get to a pay phone in a few minutes.”

  At the main doors, she offered her hand. Monks shook it.

  “Thanks,” she said. “Don’t forget to send us a bill.”

  “I won’t forget,” Monks said.

  Monks had crossed Market Street and was driving through the quieter blocks of the old industrial district when his cell phone rang.

  “It’s me,” Martine said. Her voice was breathy, as if she had been walking fast. “I’ve left the building.”

  “Were you okay today?”

  “Nobody paid any attention to me,” she said. “They’re all wrapped up with everything else that’s going on.”

  “Any word on Lex?”

  “Not about where he is. Plenty about him not being here. They’ve got security people combing the globe. How about you? Did you find anything?”

  “Not much,” Monks said unhappily. “Can you make it another day?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “You’re going to a hotel tonight, like Stover said?”

  “Yes. I haven’t picked one yet. But I have my cell phone.” She hesitated, then said, “You want to have a drink some time? When this is over?”

  “I want ten drinks, right now,” Monks said. “But, yes.”

  “I’ll stock up. Tell me what.”

  “Vodka,” Monks said. “Finlandia, preferably. Does that work for you?”

  “Are you kidding? With a name like Rostanov?”

  “It’s exotic,” he said. “The name.”

  “Mongrel, more like it. A great-grandfather who was a fur trader from Smolensk. He married a woman who was Scottish, Mexican, and Pomo Indian, as far as she knew, and it went from there. But the vodka stayed.”

  Monks said, “Keep in mind that one of those Aesir people might be a killer.”

  “I know,” she said in a smaller voice. “It’s hard. I’ve worked with them for years.”

  “I’ll call you soon,” he said.

  His phone rang again almost immediately. He said, “Hello,” thinking it was probably Martine, calling back to tell him something she had forgotten.

  But it was a man’s voice, crisp and friendly. “Dr. Monks? My name’s Ed Towry. I’m an independent fire inspector, working for Pacific Insurance. How are you today, sir?”

  Monks’s first thought was that this was a sales pitch, and wondered how the hell they had gotten his cell phone number. Then he remembered that Pacific Insurance was the conglomerate that handled Mercy Hospital’s accounts.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “Doctor, you were present at the incident at Mercy Hospital last night? A fire and some damage?”

  “I was there, yes,” Monks said warily, already sensing that this was going to cost him time and trouble.

  “I’m wondering if there’s any chance you could drop by the hospital and we could go over a few details,” Towry said.

  Monks had been starting to think in terms of dinner. There was a Chinese take-out joint that Larrabee called the Mongol Horde, not far from the office, which offered a bloodcurdling fireworks shrimp.

  “Now?” Monks said.

  “If it’s not too inconvenient, sir, we’d like to get it wrapped up. It should only take a few minutes.” The tone was importunate, almost wheedling.

  Monks exhaled: best to get it over with before he got settled again. “Okay.”

  “Thank you, Doctor. I won’t keep you long.”

  Monks turned the Bronco west toward Mercy Hospital. He did want ten drinks. He tried to imagine what might develop with Martine Rostanov after this was over—whether he could fit in with her seven-figure house and lovely things, her society of the wealthy, influential, scientific world-shakers.

  The answer was easy. He could not. And the momentum of that sparkling torrent would be hard for her to pull away from, even if she wanted to.

  Still, he had to speak sternly to a part of his mind that was phrasing a phone call to her. It began: Tell me where you’re staying tonight. Let’s get together for just one.

  13

  It was full night, foggy and damp, when Monks crossed Nineteenth Avenue into the Sunset. There was almost no traffic on the dozen blocks from there to Vallerga Street, a one-way that led toward Mercy Hospital’s parking lot. He had been driving on automatic pilot, mentally reconstructing the events of the fire, trying to make sure he would not slip and link them with John Smith.

  Then, a parked car without headlights pulled out from the curb to his left just as he came alongside.

  Monks slammed on his brakes and veered right, narrowly avoiding the collision. He glared, waiting for the vehicle to pull out of the way. It was a beater, a lowslung, early 80’s Chrysler or GM sedan, sporting scraped greenish paint and several dents. Clearly there had been more than one wreck already. The windows were smoked, probably with the film you could buy at auto parts stores.

  But the front passenger window was opening. The face inside was turned to him. Monks just had time to register the impression that it was wearing a ski mask.

  A light popped like a flashbulb. The glass beside Monks’s head split open, with pellets spraying his skin.

  He lunged to the right and down, face-first across the passenger seat. Two more shots smashed through glass; then came a metallic whunk as the next one, moving downward to follow him, hit the door. A wasplike buzz of sound passed inches above his head.

  He grabbed the steering wheel with his left hand and stomped on the accelerator, his body still splayed across the seat.

  The Bronco smashed into the side of the sedan, throwing Monks forward, wedging him between the dash and the floor. He fought himself free and stomped the gas again in surges, rocking the other car. He thought he heard more shots, but could not be sure over the sound of his own shrieking breath.

  Monks fumbled the floor shift into reverse and jammed down again on the gas pedal. The Bronco peeled backward and slammed into something. He dropped the shift into low and bucked forward, jerking the steering wheel farther to the right, trying to get clear. His left front fender caught again. But this time the other car yielded, moving with him.

  The Bronco’s windshield burst into a glassy shower.

  Monks jammed down on the gas again and again, rocking forward a few inches at a time, the Bronco’s big 351 and truck drive train dragging the
other vehicle along.

  Then, with a rending scream of metal, he was free.

  He careened down the narrow street, feeling the Bronco sideswiping parked cars. After a few seconds, he pulled himself up and risked a glance back. The sedan’s bumper was locked with a parked vehicle that the Bronco had rammed it into, tires spinning as it bucked to pull free.

  There was cross traffic on Thirty-ninth Avenue but Monks floored it, lunging through veering cars and blaring horns. Halfway down the next block, he looked back again. There was no one following. He could not be certain in the dark, but he thought the sedan was gone.

  He drove on for several more blocks, checkerboarding, watching the streets intently for a sign of the vehicle that had attacked him. Gradually, he slowed, then pulled into an alley and stopped behind a Dumpster. He sat there for two or three minutes, trying to calm his body, while the outrage of what had just happened mushroomed in his mind. What he felt was far beyond anger or shock. He marveled that it was possible, this act of unchallenged savagery in the midst of civilization.

  The floor and seats were covered with beaded glass. Three spiderweb patterns in the windshield radiated out in ragged spokes from quarter-sized holes. Most of the window beside his head was gone, with shards clinging in the frame. The glass on the passenger side was honeycombed with exiting rounds. There was another hole in the door panel to his left, the shot he had heard pass above his head.

  But the real miracle had happened with the very first one, which had come point-blank from a few feet away. He had not escaped by getting out of the way in time. He had seen the muzzle flash. It could only have been deflected, just enough, by the thick original glass.

  Monks spent a moment in something like prayer, thanking this grand old horse of a vehicle for the armor that had protected him, and the power that had freed him.

  The rearview mirror was intact, an almost comic touch. He twisted it and examined his face. He was bloody, but it looked worse than it felt. The Bronco was still idling quietly, with no obvious leaking fluids. The passenger-side headlight still worked. With his breath slowed, Monks thought he heard sirens.

  He drove back toward the scene, this time pausing for the cross traffic on 39th. Vallerga Street was already a kaleidoscope of flashing blue and red lights. Uniformed police had cordoned off the area and were holding back the growing crowd of bystanders. Monks watched, with an eerie, disembodied sense coming over him, a sort of floating. It occurred to him that perhaps he had died after all, that this was like a movie with his ghost trying to carry on, unaware that its bullet-riddled body was cooling and still.

  He got out of the Bronco and started toward the police to identify himself.

  Then he stopped again. There was a green Jaguar convertible parked just outside the cordon—identical to the one driven by Ronald Tygard, that Monks had seen parked in Martine’s driveway last night.

  Monks stepped into shadow and waited.

  Three or four minutes later, a black and white SFPD patrol car pulled up to the scene. A rear door opened and a man got out. He was white-haired, powerfully built, wearing an overcoat and necktie. He was moving fast and looked angry.

  He was the same man Monks had seen last night in Aesir Corporation’s offices, talking to Ronald Tygard, with his shoulder holster exposed.

  The white-haired man glared toward the Jaguar and made a quick, lifting gesture with his chin. Then he strode into the scene with lowered head, his coat flaring around him. The uniforms melted out of his way, a couple touching their caps in salute.

  The Jag pulled away from the curb and left.

  Monks trotted back to the Bronco and crept away with his lights turned off. Several blocks farther, he pulled into another alley. He punched Stephanie’s number on his cell phone and closed his eyes in relief when she answered.

  “Get out of your place, right now,” he said.

  “What—”

  “Grab your purse and go. Now, this second. Call Stover when you get someplace safe.”

  He always carried extra supplies in the Bronco: clothes, tools, camping gear. He changed quickly into jeans, a sweatshirt, and running shoes. Then he took his Beretta pistol from a safety deposit box concealed under the console and slipped it into his pocket. It was a Model 82 light, not much bigger than his wallet. He was not going to be without it again.

  Monks started walking, cleaning his face unobtrusively with a handkerchief and saliva, wary of cruising black-and-whites. When he was a couple of blocks clear, he took out his phone again and punched Larrabee’s number.

  “Somebody tried to take me out,” he said. “Shot up the Bronco.”

  “Christ.”

  “You better come pick me up.”

  “What do you mean, pick you up? Aren’t there cops there?”

  “I don’t think I’ll be talking to them just yet,” Monks said.

  Monks waited at a bus stop on Taraval, hanging in the shadows of a nearby storefront until Larrabee drove up in a gray Taurus, a car he favored for its inconspicuousness.

  Monks gripped the windowsill and said, “Did Stephanie call?”

  “She’s at a restaurant on Irving Street. Get in, somebody’s going to think you’re peddling your ass.”

  Monks swung himself in and described what had happened, while Larrabee drove. A police scanner in the car punctuated his terse words, squawking static-laden commands, codes, and comments.

  “Nice driving,” Larrabee said.

  “Lucky, Stover. Lucky they used a handgun. A shotgun or full auto—”

  “They’ll get it right next time.” Larrabee’s finger tapped the radio. “They’ve been referring to an attempted carjacking in the Sunset.”

  “Carjacking. A twenty-five-year-old beater truck?”

  “Crackheads.” He glanced at Monks’s outraged face and shrugged. “Fuckers are crazy, they’ll steal anything. That’s how it’ll get put down.”

  Monks slumped back in the seat. “Any arrests?”

  “Doesn’t sound like it. You’re sure that cop’s the same guy you saw at Aesir?”

  “Pretty sure. Late fifties, stocky, white hair. Walked in jaw first, like he was getting into a ring.”

  “Could be Mickey Hearne. A captain in the western division. A guy you don’t want to fuck with.”

  “How did they know what we’re trying to do?” Monks said. “For Christ’s sake, I’ve patched together two of their executives in the past twenty-four hours.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. My guess is, Gloria Sharpe. That she called somebody at Aesir and told them you’d been to see her.”

  “I gave her a phony card,” Monks said.

  “Did she see your vehicle? Close enough to get the license number?”

  Monks remembered his last glimpse of her in the rearview mirror, standing behind him, flanked by her dogs.

  “Yeah. But—” he started to say that tracing a plate would take more time.

  Not for somebody inside Aesir.

  The enormity of it was growing swiftly, astounding him with the realization that if a competent organization really wanted you dead, there was almost no way to stop it. The protection you grew up taking for granted, from government and law enforcement, could only go so far. The fact was that an organization like Aesir had unlimited resources: billions of dollars, an incredible information network, and, clearly, not an instant’s hesitation to shoot him down on sight.

  Larrabee said, “You still got that blood sample?”

  Monks nodded. “At home, in my refrigerator.”

  Larrabee grinned unpleasantly. “Sorry. That shouldn’t be funny. I think you better get it. It’s proof that that was Lex Rittenour in your ER. That will add a lot of weight to your story.”

  “We have Martine’s testimony on that.”

  Larrabee turned east on Lincoln, skirting the Golden Gate park panhandle.

  “I don’t thing I’d stake too much there, Carroll,” Larrabee said. “Sorry, but I’ve seen a lot of times when somebo
dy made a noble decision, then got cold feet.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that’s another possibility for why you got nailed. Maybe she went back there to Aesir and started thinking about all she had to lose. Broke down and told somebody about her talk with us.”

  “Jesus, Stover. I can’t believe she’d be that coldblooded. I just saw her.”

  “I don’t mean she did it on purpose, or even realized it. Just maybe opened the door for somebody else.”

  Monks pressed the heels of his hands into his closed eyes, trying to comprehend the turn this had taken.

  “Don’t let that blood sample out of your hands,” Larrabee said. “Not around here, anyway. Too easy for it to get lost or switched. You’re going to take it to FBI headquarters yourself. Fly to D.C. and walk in. Kick up a fuss, insist they take it straight to the lab and you go with it. By then there’ll be a lot of people paying attention.”

  Larrabee pulled over to the curb. “You take this car. I’ll get a cab and find Steffie. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of her.” He got out and Monks slid into the driver’s seat.

  “They might send somebody around your place,” Larrabee said through the window.

  Monks’s address was unlisted and the house was not easy to find, marked only by an unnamed mailbox and hidden in the woods a hundred yards up a dirt drive. But he had seen how fast these people could move.

  “I’ll go in the back way,” he said.

  “You better be ready to shoot, because they will be.”

  Monks nodded.

  “In case it makes you feel better,” Larrabee said. “If we weren’t on to something, they wouldn’t have tried to kill you.”

  Monks drove carefully toward the Golden Gate Bridge, staying at the speed limit. The thought came to him that he was on a pilgrimage, to recover the Precious Blood of Saint Lex: a relic now called upon to perform a true miracle—saving his life.

  14

  Northwest of San Rafael, on the back roads he knew well, Monks stepped harder on the gas. Traffic had dropped off to nothing by the time he got to Tocqueville Road. He pulled into a turnout a half mile short of his driveway and eased the car behind a screen of brush. From here, he knew the terrain well.