Dynamite Road
Page 28
But it was not a fever. It was something else, something strange. Weiss was afraid. Really afraid and for no apparent reason. The cold, damp fear felt as if it were suddenly eating into his bones, spreading through him, weakening him. Something—something on the periphery of his vision—had brought a presence like death into the room. He shifted his gaze—slowly, reluctantly, as if he were terrified of what he might see.
There, on the corner across the street, in the jaundiced beam of a streetlamp lost in fog, he made out the shape of a man. A man wearing a dark raincoat, standing very still. Looking up at his window. Watching him.
Weiss felt his breath catch. He stared down at the figure, unable to turn away. His mouth went dry. He slowly dabbed his lips with his tongue and swallowed—swallowed what tasted like ashes. He made to set his scotch glass back down on the chair arm, but it tipped, slipped from his fingers. It fell on the rug with a ringing thud, spitting the last of the fine whiskey into a flame-shaped stain.
The man in the fog stared up at him, stared and stared. Weiss stared back helplessly, as if hypnotized. He thought of his gun, the old service revolver he kept in his desk drawer. But he couldn’t bring himself to rise, couldn’t find the strength to take the three steps across the room to retrieve it. He was like a man in a nightmare whose will is screaming to escape but whose muscles have turned to mud. He couldn’t explain it even to himself. He simply sat locked in the dim figure’s gaze and felt the chill pressure of terror rising in him and rising until it seemed it would become unbearable and then…
And then the phone rang. The sudden sharp trill of it jolted Weiss where he sat. It broke the spell—only for a second, but he seized that second and stood quickly from his chair.
He strode to the desk. Grabbed the phone with one hand. Stooped and pulled open the lower drawer with another. He was drawing his gun out even as he spoke.
“Weiss,” he said.
“Hello, Mr. Weiss.” The woman’s voice was low and warm. He had never heard it before.
Weiss looked around him, confused, sweeping the gun over the room uncertainly. The sweat was still cold on the back of his neck, but the fear had receded as quickly and mysteriously as it had come. He felt dazed now, as if he really had been in a nightmare, as if he’d been awakened from a deep sleep. He began to wonder if maybe that was it. Maybe he’d dozed off in his easy chair and had a bad dream.
“Who is this?” he said thickly into the phone.
“I just wanted to say thank you, Mr. Weiss,” the woman answered softly. There was something otherworldly, almost unreal in the way she spoke, a lofty, distant quality. “Maybe one day I’ll be able to thank you in person.”
Weiss shook his head, trying to clear it. “Who…Who are you?”
“I can’t come to see you now. Do you understand that? It’s too dangerous now. And you can’t come to me either. Do you understand? Do you?”
“No, I…I don’t…”
“You would only bring him with you. You see? He’ll be watching you now all the time, every second. And if you come to find me, he’ll follow you and he’ll find me first.”
Weiss was breathing quick, breathing hard. Suddenly the things she was saying seemed to make sense to him. “Maybe I could help you,” he blurted out. His voice was soft, almost plaintive. “Maybe I could…”
“Please,” said the woman. “Please listen. You can’t, you can’t come. Don’t look for me. He’ll follow you. He’ll find me.”
“But…”
“And be careful, all right? Please. Be very, very careful, Mr. Weiss.”
The line went dead. It was over. Another moment and the dial tone started. With an unsteady motion, Weiss set the phone back in its cradle. He looked around him. He must’ve fallen asleep, he thought again. That had to be it. He’d fallen asleep and had a dream, that’s all. He half believed he was dreaming still.
He was about to put the pistol back in the desk drawer but he hesitated. His eyes went to the window again. He held on to the gun. Walked back across the room. He looked out through the glass bay, out and down into the yellow glow of the streetlamp.
There was nobody there now. Nothing. Only the shadows. Only the fog.
Acknowledgments
I have to take a few lines to say thank you to the many people who helped me with this book. Some of their names and titles were lost in a tragic computer disk accident but I reconstructed as many of my notes as I could. My apologies to anyone missing, untitled or misspelled.
Private Investigator Lynn McLaren has been unendingly patient with my questions and generous with her answers. Raymond McGrath of the Institute for International Criminal Investigations sat for a long interview and follow-up calls. Audrey Schutte and all the good people at Hillside Aviation in Redding, California, showed me the ropes of an FBO and Andrea Read of Spitfire Aviation in Santa Barbara was always available with information about planes and flying. Ty Blasingame, a pilot with the Army National Guard, taught me the ins and outs of an attack helicopter. I also received help from Airman First Class Christopher Miller of the Air National Guard and Lieutenant Colonel Robert “Nash” Cooper of the Air Guard’s Office of the Adjutant General. David Brunk gave me an excellent, not to mention frightening, tour of Lompoc Federal Prison—be careful in there, David. Lt. Rawland Swift, administrative assistant to the warden at Pelican Bay State Prison, was also extremely helpful, as was Tom Hansen at the California Department of Corrections and Colonel Dennis Sarkeijian from the Office of the Adjutant General. Fred Gardner from the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office and Sherman Ackerson of the San Francisco Police Department both made themselves available for procedural questions, as did Lieutenant Nick Katzenstein, formerly of the Santa Barbara PD. Dr. Lesley Wallis, Assistant Miami Medical Examiner, walked me through the gorier parts of the Shadowman’s evil plan. And my thanks also to Larry Mousouris for teaching me how to work Bishop’s motorcycle.
On a more personal level, my deep thanks to Robert Gottlieb at Trident Media Group; Brian Lipson at the Endeavor Agency; Tom Doherty, Robert Gleason and Brian Callaghan at Tor/Forge; and my excellent researcher, Wendy Miller, AKA Vendybar. And on an even more personal level, more thanks than words alone can say to Ellen, the best wife a boy ever had.
ALSO BY ANDREW KLAVAN
Hunting Down Amanda
The Uncanny
True Crime
Corruption
The Animal Hour
Don’t Say a Word
Man and Wife
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events potrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
DYNAMITE ROAD
Copyright © 2003 by Andrew Klavan
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor.com
Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Klavan, Andrew.
Dynamite road / Andrew Klavan.
p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”
ISBN: 978-1-4299-3951-5
1. Private investigators—California—San Francisco—Fiction. 2. California, Northern—Fiction. 3. Assassins—Fiction. 4. Airports—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3561.L334D96 2003
813'.54—dc21
2003009213
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