by Wen Spencer
Agent Zheng had a room on the first floor of the hotel in the back. They found ready parking and dashed to the covered entrance; she opened the door with her card key. Ten steps and they were in her room, totally unseen by any other guest. He couldn't have picked a better room himself.
The hotel was maid-neat but still tainted with Zheng's scent. She hung up her black trench coat, asking, "Coffee? Root beer?"
"You have root beer?" Atticus found it surprising. Not many people stocked root beer, much less thought to offer it.
"I've been here a couple of days." Zheng ripped open a package of gourmet coffee and poured it into the filter of a coffeemaker. "I like this hotel chain, since it will do food shopping for you. No matter what time you get back to your room, there's decent food. No candy bar or pizza dinners."
"There are advantages to working with a team," Atticus said.
Zheng tilted her head, acknowledging this. "Do you want that root beer or not?"
"Yes, thank you."
The root beer was even IBC in the dark glass bottles. She had the refrigerator stocked well enough to feed a small army. How long did she expect to stay? She unloaded carrots, dip, blocks of cheese, a deli bag of sliced roast beef, buns, lettuce, brown mustard, and a massive bag of seedless grapes.
"I've got more than enough. Help yourself," Zheng said.
Out of habit, Ru dallied while Atticus sampled the fare, although it was unlikely that an FBI agent would drug the food. Finding it innocent, Atticus considered the woman herself. She gazed at him levelly over her cup of freshly brewed coffee, eyes a gunmetal gray. Judging by their vaguely Asian shape, she was at least partially Chinese. Her composed gaze went beyond normal law-officer stoic to something nearly Buddhist in its level of calm.
He had a million questions he wanted to ask her, starting with, "How do you know all this?" But in the world of drug dealing, admitting to ignorance rarely got you information and always put you in a weaker position. How much could he trust this woman—and perhaps as important, how much did she trust him? He was, according to her, the child of the enemy. Did she hold that against him? When his team invited someone into their hotel room, they always had the place bugged. Was this a trap? Had she offered them food to throw them off balance and admit to hidden cameras exactly what he was?
"You're completely right about the advantages of working with a team," Agent Zheng said. "That's why I propose we combine forces."
"Work together?"
"I'm not a fool; it would be suicide for me to continue searching for the cult in an unfamiliar area by myself. But my options are limited."
"And we look like handy fodder."
Agent Zheng gave a slight exhale that could have been a sigh. "I would rather you didn't confirm my opinion that all male federal agents are egotistical jerks. I would be far more disappointed than you could imagine."
And what the hell did that mean? Judging by the darkening of Ru's face, it could be taken as a pass.
"I have to consider the welfare of my team first," Atticus said. "I know nothing about you." Yet. "Far as I know, you're a maverick who rushes into dangerous positions without an ounce of precaution." He stepped close to stress that he was a nearly a foot taller than her. "Some would say you're a fool to bring two strangers to her hotel room."
"You're Atticus Steele. No middle name. You were found abandoned as an infant in 1973. You joined the military in 1988 with what must have been a forged birth certificate and served for six years. In 1994, you were given an honorable discharge, and you applied to the University of Maryland . . ."
"Okay, so you did your homework, but that doesn't make us—"
". . . where you met your current lover, Hikaru Takahashi." Zheng played her hole card. "You two have been together for ten years and own a T Street row house in Washington that you've been renovating over the last five years. I'm told that you just refinished the floors and they're beautiful."
Atticus's opinion of her went from annoying to terrifying.
"Did you do a full background check on us?" Ru snapped.
"I was discreet," Zheng said. "But yes. You originally came on my radar screen as drug dealers. It wasn't until this morning that I learned you were actually undercover agents."
Atticus relaxed slightly. "I'm impressed. The agency provides us with fairly fireproof backgrounds so perps can run their own checks and we still come up clean."
"I have my resources," Zheng said.
Atticus glanced to Ru, who didn't look happy but nodded his agreement. "Okay. So you're good, and you're way ahead of us on this." And most likely the only way she'd catch them up to speed would be by their agreeing to work with her. Of course, agreeing wasn't the same as trusting. In some ways, it would be just another undercover assignment. "We're in."
Zheng accepted the announcement with a serene nod. Putting down her coffee cup, she took a folder out of her briefcase. "We have an ex-cultist working with us in Pittsburgh. Her cult name was Socket. She's a Boston-area heiress whom the cult recruited specifically to gain access to her fortune. Her total worth is ten million dollars, which is in a trust she can't touch—but it gives her a yearly income of a hundred thousand dollars. As one of their cash cows, the cult didn't subject Socket to the most brutal of their brainwashing techniques, but that also means she wasn't part of their inner circle."
"So, unlike Ascii, who will tell the FBI nothing, Socket spilled her guts, but there's not much there?"
"Exactly," Zheng said. "This is the only photo we have of Ice, current leader of the cult." It seemed to have been taken from a bank surveillance camera. In the grainy black-and-white photo, the tall, lean blond male was partially obscured by a potted plant. "Socket worked with us to create composite sketches of him and the other known surviving cultists."
Twenty laser printouts of pencil drawings followed. The cult favored military-short haircuts, and accepted a wide range of ethnic groups. Of the twenty, five were women and the rest men. All were identified only by single computer terms: Ice, Firewall, Mouse, Ether, Diskette, Ram.
"What do we know about this Ice?" Atticus asked.
Zheng consulted her PDA. "He's approximately six-one, a hundred and eighty pounds, blond with blue eyes, in his early twenties, and has black tribal tattoos on his back. He's skilled in martial arts and served as the cult's weapons trainer. While they didn't discuss it openly with Socket, she got the impression that he also taught the cult how to forge driver's licenses, pick locks, and steal cars. He was the cult's tactician for ambushes on the Ontongard Gets. The founder, William Harris, was the one with the vision—Ice was the one who made it happen."
"We don't have any real names for these people?" Atticus asked.
Zheng produced another artist sketch with a Polaroid attached. Atticus recognized him as the driver of the Honda. The photograph was of the man's dead body on the coroner's table. "We've identified him as John Pender, originally of New Hampshire. He joined the cult two years ago, breaking ties with his parents."
"I would think," Ru said, "that he's a total dead end."
Zheng's full mouth curved into her Mona Lisa smile and her eyes softened—there was warmth under that cool exterior. When not hard as steel, her gray eyes were surprisingly beautiful. "Perhaps. Perhaps not."
Atticus realized his paranoia was slipping and hugged it a little closer. Until he knew more about Zheng, he had to keep in mind that they weren't necessarily on the same side. "So far, you've not given us much to go on."
"Socket also gave us this list." Zheng shuffled through papers in her briefcase. What wasn't she showing them? Atticus controlled the urge to snatch up her briefcase and dump it out. "Through dummy corporations, the cult bought a good deal of property in New England. The only one they openly owned was a farm in New Hampshire, and they used it as a front for anyone investigating them." Zheng found the paper she was looking for and laid it on the table between them. "The top addresses were the ones that Socket knew about. I had the records pulled on thes
e sites, and then found other property bought from the same bank accounts."
There were two dozen addresses listed scattered throughout New England. The first had notes after them: Farm—sold? Warehouse. Safe house. Offices. Burn site. Atticus compared the last with his photographic memory of the police report Kyle had found on the crime scenes of cremated bodies. Same place.
"So you think they might be at one of these locations?"
"One can hope," Zheng said. "The turnpike basically splits the state in half. Your team can take north or south, and I'll cover the other."
"By yourself?" Atticus said as Ru said, "Without backup?"
"I have backup." Zheng didn't explain further. "Because you look like your brother, Atticus, you're going to have to approach the cult with caution. They hunt Ontongard—they have gotten ambushing someone with your talents down to an art."
Atticus considered the list. Ascii had said that she and the other three cultists were taking Ukiah to Salem, which was north of Boston. None of the addresses were in the town famous for witch-hunts, not that that signified much. While the train station might have been a convenient meeting site, Ascii could have been lying about their destination, or the cult had a place that Zheng hadn't found, or Zheng herself was lying. Still, it was someplace to start. "We'll take north."
"Then I'll take south." Zheng glanced over what that left her. "It will take the rest of the day to do these. We should meet tomorrow and compare what we find." Zheng consulted her PDA. "I've arranged to meet with the NSA to discuss the cult at nine-thirty. What about eight?"
Mark up one basic difference between DEA and FBI: Atticus's team mostly worked evening and night hours. Drug dealers tended to be night owls.
Ru made a noise of disgust at the early hour. "Then it should involve coffee."
"And real food," Atticus added.
"Fine. Breakfast. Where?"
The trouble with two out-of-town teams: Neither knew of the good, cheap places to eat. At least it could be expensed.
"Our base—Boston Harbor Hotel."
"Fine." She made note of it in her PDA.
The rain had passed, leaving behind a gray sky filled with ominous clouds and bitter cold wind. They walked out together and paused beside Zheng's rental.
"Call me if you find anything." Zheng handed Atticus her business card, lightly perfumed with her scent.
Atticus glanced at it and handed it to Ru. "The Pack killed my phone last night."
"That sounds like them," Zheng said as Ru offered up one of his own carefully worded cards that they used while they were undercover. She tucked it away without glancing at it.
They watched her drive away.
"Indigo Zheng," Ru read off her card. "I wouldn't have guessed Indigo, but I don't know; it suits her."
"She still creeps you out?"
"Oh, yeah."
A sound like baying hounds made Atticus look up; Canada geese went overhead, flying in a ragged V formation, honking loudly. He wondered if they were the same ones they had seen earlier, resting on the prison's pond.
When he looked down, Ru was grinning at him from the other side of the Jaguar.
"What?"
"Gabble Ratchet."
"What's that?"
"The sound of wild geese supposedly heralds the arrival of the archangel Gabriel."
"I am not an angel—nor is my brother."
"If you say so."
He got in, started up the Jaguar, and dialed Kyle. "What did you find out about Agent Zheng?"
"Nothing," Kyle said with disgust. "Sumpter pulled me off it to"—he paused to make a noise of irritation and tap something into his computer—"look into something else. Someone did a deep sweep on you and Ru. Credit history. Priors. The works."
"We know." Atticus growled. "Agent Zheng did."
"Oooh, sexy woman," Kyle said. "The first hit was on Ru's phone about nine o'clock last night, and went from there. I'm getting trip-wire reports off everything here. She probably knows how deep his belly-button lint is at this point."
"I feel vaguely violated here," Ru complained.
"Your Agent Zheng is versatile. She hammered on Ru until well past midnight, and this morning she chewed into Atticus. No hits on me, though."
"You originally came on my radar screen as drug dealers. It wasn't until this morning that I learned you were actually undercover agents."
"Kyle, check Ru's call log," Atticus said.
"What am I looking for?"
"My brother had Ru's phone last night." And most likely still had it.
"A couple unanswered calls in, and one outgoing call," Kyle said, and then read out the number. It matched the cell phone number listed on Agent Zheng's business card.
"The bitch." Atticus searched back through his memories and found Zheng's scent tainting the basement's air. "She was at the beach house with the Dog Warriors before we arrived. She's working with them."
"She's dirty?" Kyle asked.
Unsure, Atticus glanced to Ru, who shrugged. "I don't know if it's that straight-forward. See what you can find on her, and anything you can dig up on a group called the Ontongard."
"How do you spell that?"
"I have not a clue."
"Ooooooookay. Do you have a first name yet for Miss Sexy Agent?"
Atticus found himself thinking of her Mona Lisa smile, her compact body, and the tantalizing flashes of camisole under the sheer white of her silk blouse. He shifted uneasily, slightly aroused by the memories. Where the hell did that come from?
"Indigo, like the color blue," Ru reported.
"And what do I tell Sumpter?" Kyle asked.
"Tell him that the FBI tripped over us." Atticus saw no reason not to stick to the truth.
Chapter Eight
Cape Cod Campground
Massachusetts
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Ukiah woke, naked and bundled against the cold. He lay under a lean-to, deep in rain-soaked woods of stunted oaks and maples, night cloaked tight around him. Beside the sturdily built shelter a small fire burned, hissing when water dripped from leaves overhead. The ocean was somewhere nearby, pounding on the earth, filling the air with salt and the faint aftertaste of fish. Harley motorcycles growled counter to the ocean's rumble, and headlights swept through trees. While Ukiah was alone by a small fire, he felt the Dog Warriors scattered in the darkness. He found Rennie's familiar presence, just beyond the shifting light thrown by the flames. "Is it the Iron Horses?"
"Seems to be."
Instead of tracking down the wanna-bes scattered to their mundane lives, Rennie had sent out word where the Dog Warriors would be camping instead. Judging by the weave of headlights, every member of the local chapter plus some had arrived.
Lambs to a slaughter.
"We won't hurt them if they tell us what we want to know." Rennie slipped through the shadows, staying hidden until the visitors' identity was fully known.
Ukiah sat up stiffly. All the bones of his left arm were once again knitted whole but not yet sound. The massive scabs covering the bullet wounds on his chest and back were hot and itchy; his body was still healing at its furious rate. His stomach knotted up, emptied during his long sleep. Surrounded by the Pack in a womb of safety, he had most likely been awakened by hunger.
Tucked beside him where it would be safe from the rain was a stack of clean clothes. By her scent and the selection—his black T-shirt, his favorite blue jeans, and his "Property of FBI" boxers—it was obvious that Indigo had been the one who raided his closet at Max's. Sitting in the lean-to, Ukiah pulled on his boxers and pants as the bikers settled around him, drawn by the fire.
Daggit had been in the lead, and he eyed Ukiah suspiciously as he killed his engine. "You here alone, puppy?"
"No," Rennie answered, drifting out of the darkness, his eyes gleaming from the reflected headlights. "He's not."
"Shaw." Daggit grunted. "So he is yours."
"Yes." Rennie paused beside Ukiah as he sat tying
his boots and lightly touched the top of Ukiah's head. "This is our Cub."
"Does he have another name?"
"Not for you."
"What, you think we're going to cause trouble for him?"
"I think you're smarter than that."
Daggit understood the implied threat with a flash of fear that he shrugged away. "Whatever. Cub it is."
The bikers wandered into the campsite, loud and careless. They carried bottles of alcohol and offerings of food—they seemed to be expecting a party. Ukiah wondered what Rennie told his contact. Animal came into the light, carrying a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and a bottle of expensive scotch.
While the Pack rarely drank, it made an exception for fine liquor, and the scotch qualified.
"Hey, Shaw, where have you been?" Animal shouted out with alcohol-tainted breath. "You haven't been in this area for a coon's age."
Rennie took the bucket of chicken, and flicked the lid into the fire. "We had Pack business."
"Which means we'll never know," Animal complained.
Rennie grunted at the truth of this and tilted the bucket to Ukiah. "Don't touch the sides of the bucket." A few stray flecks of Invisible Red glittered on the red-and-white container. "Eat."
Ukiah grabbed out a deep fried thigh and bit deep into the juicy dark meat.
"More," Rennie commanded. After Ukiah took a breast, Rennie selected a drumstick and passed the bucket to Bear.
Animal gazed at Ukiah with an odd look on his face. "Where did he come from? I've never seen him at a Gathering."
"Who he is," Rennie growled, "and where he came from is Pack business."
"You know, some of us have been loyal for years, waiting for our turn to be made . . ." Animal's complaint trailed off to slack-jawed drooling in a display of sexual desire that would have been cartoonish if Ukiah didn't know the strength of Invisible Red.
Ukiah glanced over his shoulder to follow Animal's gaze.
Hellena had stalked out of the woods, black leather pants clinging like a second skin, black silk camisole highlighting the shape of her breasts, long black hair spilling down over her shoulders in loose curls. She was lean, strong, and sexy.
