I didn’t have time to think those questions through, so I focused on the email addresses the phone’s owner contacted often. There were a dozen contacts the phone’s owner interacted with on a daily basis. Hopefully, Caligula was one of them.
“I’ve switched my attention to the phone from the manager’s office,” Rosie said, “and the credit card machines from the casino.”
“Any luck with the phone yet?” I asked.
She shook her head. “It uses double authentication. I’m going to have to work on that for a while. The good news is all of the credit card terminals are connected electronically to the same webpage at First National Guaranty Bank of San Francisco. I have the account’s username and password.”
“Woohoo!” It was three a.m., so I couldn’t drop by one of their offices, buy I could pay them a virtual visit. “I’ll check it out.”
She wrote down the username and password and gave them to me.
Chapter 14
I LOGGED ON to the bank’s website, and I found twenty-three different accounts linked to that username. The total assets available were over fourteen million bucks. These demons were rolling in dough.
I found three different credit card accounts, but all of the recent charges were recorded at office supply stores. I concluded they were related to the casino business. That was interesting, but what we really needed to find were Caligula’s personal credit card accounts. Those were much more likely to lead us to him.
In addition, some of the accounts we’d found sent money to other accounts I didn’t have access to. It was possible one of those accounts was being used to pay for Caligula’s expenses. The only way I could find out would be to hack into the bank’s system.
I didn’t have those skills, and I asked Rosie, “How good are you at breaking through bank security?”
She sighed. “That’s really tough. The CIA does have people who can do that, but they’re not members of the legion. Check with Honah to see if he knows someone who can help you.”
I asked him, but he simply told me, “No. You’ll have to find another way.”
That didn’t surprise me. If lots of people had figured out how to break through bank security, the world’s electronic banking system would’ve already collapsed. And I did have one way in. I could visit the bank and get into some senior employee’s head, but not in the middle of the night.
Instead, I continued researching the bank’s accounts online until Honah returned me to my bedroom at the ranch.
-o-o-o-
THE HOUSE REMAINED quiet and dark. I waited in my bedroom until I heard Ellen and her mother-in-law talking in the kitchen. That’s where I found them.
My sister was nursing Clara. Wow! That was a picture, and I whipped out my smartphone to take it.
Ellen beamed, and the baby was beginning to look like a normal newborn instead of all wrinkly.
Jackie was cooking breakfast, and she offered to make me something. I told her I had some snacks in the refrigerator out in the barn. I did, too, just for appearance sake. She told me I didn’t eat enough to keep up my strength but didn’t press the point.
When Clara finished nursing, I held her and burped her. Then it occurred to me that since she was going to grow up on a ranch, she should have a look around.
“How about,” I said, “I take her outside for a few minutes after breakfast.”
Both women looked to me like I’d suggested drowning the baby in a bathtub.
“We’ll be fine,” I said. “I promise not to run with her or toss her in the air. If she starts to cry, we’ll come back.”
Ellen and Jackie glanced at each other but refused to look at me. As the women ate in silence, I sat there, sipping coffee, waiting. I didn’t have to pop into anyone’s head to hear their anxious thoughts. He’s so damned clumsy. What if he doesn’t watch where he’s going? Clara’s so fragile.
Finally, my sister looked me straight in the eyes. “If you swear you’ll be extremely careful where you go.”
I don’t know why, but I took perverse pleasure in how uncomfortable they were. “I swear.”
After five more minutes of warnings and advice, they let me take the baby outside by myself for her first time. Clouds were threatening to the west, but it was clear above us. I was looking forward to a good downpour that would cool off the animals and lessen the chance for more wildfires nearby. If it got dry enough, the local demons would begin setting fires again to scare the hell out of everyone.
But for the moment, everything was peaceful in our little corner of Colorado. Clara wore a sunhat to keep the bright light out of her eyes. She didn’t whine and she looked at the places and critters I pointed her at, but she didn’t have much choice. The little baby could hardly move her head.
As we walked around, I told her what things were and how we used them. It was never too early to begin understanding the ranch life.
Fifteen minutes later, she was back in her mama’s arms. Ellen assured me she hadn’t been the least bit worried, but she smiled with relief when I handed her Clara. I was beginning to understand Honah’s comment about how parents obsessively worried about their kids.
-o-o-o-
WHEN I FINISHED the ranch chores, the ladies were taking a nap. I headed upstairs to the office and checked the national news websites for information about Caligula acting as Avenger. The Chronicle contained an article about how local criminals were hiding, not from the law, but from the vigilante. They’d realized already that Avenger loved murder, and he wouldn’t hesitate to execute any criminals he could get his hands on.
Even the national newspapers were following the story. The Washington Post reported that the governor of California was considering different options to find the vigilante. I wasn’t sure what he could do that the FBI and the local cops weren’t already trying, but politicians often liked to pretend that they had more power to change things than they really did.
When I switched to CNN’s website, a banner across the top said, Breaking news—Avenger strikes again. Road rage leads to murder.
Sure enough, when I clicked on the link, a video started playing. This time, when we saw Caligula in his Avenger form, he had no wings, but he was still all white and wearing a gown as he sat in a car’s driver seat. Someone was videotaping him from the back seat. It was hard to tell where they were, but they were driving down a two-lane highway.
“Would you look at that?” Caligula said as he pointed at his rearview mirror. The cameraman twisted around and showed some Hispanic guy in a big, old, red pickup tailgating the demon’s car.
Caligula quoted the Book of Hosea, “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.”
Then he nodded at the camera.
The pickup’s driver apparently found a place where he could pass because the truck zoomed by. Caligula sped up to keep pace with him and asked, “Should we stand for this?”
Someone offscreen, probably the cameraman, said, “No.”
Caligula suddenly hit the gas, and his car accelerated into the opposite lane until he was alongside the pickup. We got a much better look at the driver, a young Hispanic guy with a mustache. His black hair was tied back in a ponytail, and he yelled something at Caligula in Spanish.
Caligula rolled down the passenger side window and picked up the same .44 Magnum revolver we’d seen earlier from the front passenger seat. He gave the camera a sinister grin.
The camera shifted to the truck. A loud boom rang out, the pickup driver’s head jolted sideways, and the truck veered off the road to the right.
Avenger kept tooling along the road and began to sing The Battle Hymn of the Republic.
A few seconds later, the video ended.
I couldn’t contain my fury. Now people were getting killed for rude but minor traffic violations. And I was no closer to finding him than before. He could seem
ingly keep up this killing spree for months.
I threw an almanac that was sitting on my desk at the wall, but that didn’t do any good. How are we going to find this monster? Our investigation is moving too slowly.
When I tuned back into the computer monitor, CNN had a panel of people ready to explain everything. One former cop began to chew on the FBI, and I turned the sound down and downloaded the video. Then I opened my editing program. While I played the video back in slow motion, I focused on the view inside the car. The scene of the crime should now be easy to find. The Bay Area couldn’t have that many big red pickups sitting in a ditch with a dead driver inside.
After I ran the video all the way through in slow motion, and found no good clues, I watched it again at full speed. Still nothing.
As for Caligula’s apparent motive, he’d given up on the idea of pretending to be a good guy. Lots of drivers in the Bay Area tailgated. If that was a capital offense, tens of millions of folks in this great land were doomed. People had been worried before, but this new development was sure to freak lots more folks out.
I checked other news sites just in case someone would say something useful. And a few minutes later, someone did. A Detroit Free Press reporter had tracked down a car guy, and he was sure Avenger’s vehicle was a three-year-old Chevy Malibu. He couldn’t tell the color from the inside, but at least we knew the make and model.
It wasn’t long before we also knew where the murder had occurred. The pickup was found by a sheriff’s deputy outside of Fremont, California. That was a city southeast of San Francisco across the bay. The driver turned out to be an illegal alien carrying a fake driver’s license.
Just what we don’t need! Another reason for folks to get pissed! Until that point, the vigilante hadn’t triggered any particular political reactions. Within minutes, the Twitter universe went nuts. The pro-immigration and anti-immigration folks had something new to fight about.
I continued to flip back and forth between news sites, and I saw a familiar face on the Chronicle’s website. FBI Special Agent Benjamin Torino. He had been a monumental pain in the butt a few months back in Colorado. Torino was sure I’d started a series of forest fires, the first of which had actually killed me.
When I clicked on the video, I heard his nasal voice, and it made my skin crawl. “…as I was saying,” he blathered on, “the Bureau has determined that the so-called Avenger and whoever is helping him are domestic terrorists subject to serious penalties under federal law. The FBI will be taking over this investigation.”
I couldn’t help but wonder how my buddy Jack Andrews felt about Torino horning in on the story, but the reporter interviewing Torino turned to one side. Jack had been standing a few feet away from his fellow special agent. The reporter said, “The FBI has been working this case since the beginning, haven’t you?”
“That’s correct,” Jack said. “Partnering closely with local and state law enforcement to bring this vigilante to justice. I’m sure we will all continue to work together seamlessly.”
Torino wrinkled his nose but didn’t contradict Jack. The last thing any of us needed was a turf battle between human law enforcement agencies that would distract them from finding Caligula.
-o-o-o-
OUTSIDE OUR RANCH house, the thunderstorms had been building all morning. They finally let loose. Usually, summer storms came and went quickly, but this one stalled over the ranch. On the one hand, I was thrilled because our pastures needed the moisture, but on the other hand, Ellen, Jackie, and Clara had wandered outside. I looked out the window in the office and spotted them peeking out of the barn, fifty yards from the house. The last thing a newborn baby needed was to get soaked, and the thunder had to be terrifying her. I was hoping they’d simply stay in the barn until the storm rolled past, but my sister called, “We ran out of baby wipes, and we need them.”
I turned off my web browsers and ran downstairs to grab the baby wipes and all three umbrellas in the mudroom.
Outside, the rain poured down, and gusting winds blew it sideways. The umbrella I opened, the biggest one, blew apart halfway to the barn. In the span of a few seconds, I was soaked. But I delivered the baby wipes.
After the ladies cleaned up Clara, I held her close to my chest and ran for the house with the sturdiest umbrella. Because I held the umbrella as close to the baby as possible, I got soaked, but that didn’t matter. Clara did great. Ellen and Jackie shared the second umbrella and ran behind us. Within a few seconds, we all made it into the house and collapsed in the living room. After the fact, I realized that worrying about Clara was more nerve wracking than fighting demons.
-o-o-o-
AT THREE-THIRTY IN the afternoon, I made up an excuse to leave the ranch early. I couldn’t wait to get back into the investigation for real. When I contacted Honah, though, he didn’t respond for a few minutes. And when he did, he didn’t send me to the scene of the latest crime.
Instead, he teleported me to Lago di Nemi, Italy, inside the temple of our fighting master, Diana the Huntress. The ceiling was twenty feet high, and the floor was covered with white marble. Most of the plaster walls in the rectangular room were covered with colorful, life-sized frescos of wild animals. It had been built for Diana in her Roman goddess days, and in the alternative dimension, it looked as good as new.
She sat at an ornate table along one side of the room. As usual when she saw me, she wore a frown.
I bowed to her to show all my respect. “It’s wonderful to see you again.”
She nodded and stood. “Likewise, Gabriel, although I am told you failed to distinguish yourself in your latest battle.”
That was putting it diplomatically, and Diana wasn’t known for diplomacy. Honah must’ve said that, but I couldn’t imagine why he would soft-pedal the truth. I’d come within a whisker of losing my latest fight.
Diana took my hand to help her in seeing my thoughts. Her frown deepened. “You should never have been put in that situation. I will make my objections known immediately.”
Given how embarrassing the fight had been for me, I cringed at her comment. Why couldn’t everybody just go on with our lives instead of rehashing what turned out to be a messy victory? Most victories tended to be messy.
After pausing a few seconds, she said, “Your chief agrees with my assessment completely. Heads should roll. To make the best of the experience, you and I will go through the battle in detail. I’m sure we can find many ways to improve your fighting ability.”
I groaned internally. Every one of my screwups was going to become painfully obvious.
The fight had only lasted for about five minutes, but Diana dissected it in such detail, it took us over an hour to step through it again. When we finished, I was both humiliated and exhausted. Anybody could’ve fought better than I had.
When we finished with the not-so-instant replay, I hoped that was it for this training session. Instead, she walked over to a small table and picked up a dagger. “I always carry two swords, but it took me centuries to learn how to handle both simultaneously. For beginning angels, a single sword is usually all they can manage. But when you are forced to fight multiple demons at once, or to fight in tight quarters, a dagger can be remarkably effective.”
She took out her sword and slowly, painstakingly, showed me how I could use the dagger to fend off the bigger blade. I was awkward at first, that was a given, but eventually I began to get the hang of it. In a pinch, I could throw the dagger much easier than I could sling my sword.
Finally, she said, “That is enough for one session. You should practice using both weapons at the same time. Whenever a dark immortal is close, your dagger will materialize on your belt in front. Good luck, Gabriel.”
I was so tired I could barely lift my arms. Part of that was because I hadn’t connected with the infinite recently, but part was the strain of trying to meet her expectations. The poor woman probably cursed the day Milton had decided to make me an angel. She’d told me
once that she was committed to keeping me alive, and I wasn’t making it easy.
I thanked her repeatedly for helping someone as clumsy as me. She merely shook her head as though she doubted I’d be long for this immortal world. That was no doubt what lots of angels thought. I needed to prove them wrong. It was the only way I could hang around long enough to help Ellen raise Clara.
Chapter 15
WHEN HONAH PULLED me back to San Francisco headquarters, I found myself in front of Milton, the head angel on Earth. I hadn’t seen him for months, not since he’d formally designated me as an angel first class, and I hadn’t expected to see him again for a long, long time. The poor guy had to manage over eleven thousand members in the legion, and as best I could tell, lots of us screwed up regularly.
Honah, Jack, and Kiko stood next to Milton with their heads bowed. Behind them, it looked like all one hundred members of the San Francisco office stood erect.
The biggest boss acknowledged me with a nod. “I am deeply disappointed by the lack of effort expended by the members of this office to support one another. In particular, it has come to my attention that the newest member of our host has not been shown the respect and fellowship that is his due.”
He glared at the assembled multitude and paused for a moment to let his disappointment sink in.
Then he lowered his voice several octaves until it rumbled like an earthquake. “Let me be rightly understood. We are all members of the same angelic, and we all have the same goals to further the purposes of the Almighty. If you are not prepared to help your teammates to the utmost in this challenge, speak now, and I will return you to the mortal plane.”
Sweet Lord! He was obviously pissed. Nobody in the group had treated me that badly, and I was, for all intents and purposes, still an outsider. It probably didn’t help I'd spent half of my time living my prior life.
I gazed at the group, and everyone had bowed their heads. I didn’t know whether Milton’s little speech would make things better or worse for me once he left, but I’d have to deal with it.
Infernal Justice (Angels at the Edge Book 2) Page 14
