Tomas was recruiting again, only for a new leader rising in America. His name, he told her, was Azarian…
They would soon leave Syria together, fugitives from both al-Nusra’s mujahideen and their enemies. Using money and other bribes—including ancient temple relics—to make their way through the dangerous smugglers’ routes that led back toward Europe.
Now she carried her ghost gun to the shooting range, where Tomas and Yuri were practicing. Like her, and Matous’s team at the far end of the ravine, they were dressed in desert camos.
A pair of binoculars strapped around his neck, Tomas acknowledged her with a slight, silent nod as she stopped at his side. Then he aimed his own weapon at the target sheet fifty yards in front of him, emptying its magazine with a series of three-round bursts.
The cardboard sheet trembled as his fire passed through its near life-sized human silhouette.
Yuri checked his wristwatch.
“Twenty seconds,” he said.
Tomas examined the results through his binoculars, then handed them over to Alysha.
She raised the goggles to her eyes. His bullets had all struck the target’s chest area.
“So?” he said in a satisfied tone. “What do you think?”
She lowered the glasses.
“You score well,” she said. “Standing still.”
He did not comment.
She gazed off to the right. About thirty feet from the firing range, a plywood mockup of a Metroline train’s locomotive stood near the wall of the ravine. Assembled to its precise specifications, with openings for the windows and doors, it had a ladder climbing up its side to the control cabin. Another human silhouette target at the top of the ladder represented the train operator preparing to enter the cabin door.
“Let’s see how I do,” she said.
She turned, walked back to the spray-painted hundred yard line, and took her position directly behind it.
“Yuri?” she said, nodding her readiness.
He set his stopwatch.
“Now!”
Raising the weapon in a two-handed grip, she dropped to a high crouch and triggered a burst at her target, then bent to a low crouch and discharged another salvo. Without pausing, she sank to her right knee, fired again, went down on both knees, fired, went down to her stomach, fired prone from the ground. Then rolling onto her back, firing with the rifle upside down. Next she maneuvered in reverse: prone, firing, knees, firing, one knee, low crouch, high crouch, firing, firing, firing until she was standing straight up again.
Alysha repeated the entire drill from start to finish, down and up with the gun spitting in her hand. And then, fluidly, she scrambled toward the mockup locomotive, stopping midway between the fifty and hundred foot lines, aiming at the operator’s figure high on the ladder.
Firing.
The figure was knocked off the rungs, a gaping hole in its upper torso.
Seconds passed. A dead hush fell over the ravine.
Alysha lowered the ghost gun to her side, dusted off her clothes, and strode back to the firing line. Tomas was looking at the targets through his binoculars.
“So,” she said. “What do you think?”
He held the glasses out to her. “You do well on the move,” he said. “See for yourself.”
Alysha shook her head.
“No need,” she said flatly. “I’m going back to the safehouse. Would you like to come with me?”
He looked at her as gunfire once again began reverberating inside the gully walls. Yuri was taking his turn at the line.
“My answer hasn’t changed since London an eternity ago,” Tomas said.
He fell in beside her as she turned toward the pass leading up the slopes.
* * *
Erasmo heard the knocks at his front door and jolted up straight on the couch. He never invited anyone to his apartment. No one ever knocked but deliverymen with Chinese takeout or pizza, and he hadn’t called to order any food.
He sat there quietly with his computer on his lap, facing the door across his cramped, cluttered living room. It was probably better not to answer. Chances were somebody was at the wrong apartment. Surely, that was the case. He did not appreciate being disturbed, not at any time. But it was especially unwelcome after the long, draining twenty-four hours he’d been through…
Whoever was out there knocked again. Hard.
Erasmo’s entire body stiffened, his heart racing, his computer nearly falling off his lap.
He checked the time on his watch. It was just after seven. Who could it be?
Frowning, he shifted the computer from his knees to the sofa. Then he rose and wound his way toward the door between stacked cartons of clocks and clock parts.
The third set of knocks was the loudest yet.
“Answer the door, Mr. Greer.”
Erasmo shivered. The voice belonged to Jag Azarian’s assistant. The servile parasite who always answered his phone.
Karik.
He stood perfectly still, not making a sound, hoping his unwanted visitor might think he wasn’t at home, turn around, and leave…
More knocks. Loud, rapid, and hard enough to rattle the door in its frame.
“Open the door,” Karik said. “I won’t ask again.”
Erasmo took a deep breath. Karik clearly wasn’t going anywhere.
This was not a good thing. No, not at all.
He turned the latch and opened the door a crack, leaving the security chain on.
“Yes?” he said, and pushed his face into the opening. “What is it?”
“Enough,” a second voice said. “Let us in. Or we’ll do it ourselves.”
Erasmo felt his heart kick against his ribcage.
The voice belonged to Azarian himself.
He felt utter astonishment. Until now he had only seen Azarian once, in a single video conference soon after their initial hookup over the Darknet.
But they had never met in the flesh. For Azarian to come here…
He reached up, slid back the chain, and opened the door.
The two men pushed past him into the apartment. He stumbled backward off balance, the doorknob tearing free of his hand, the door slamming shut behind them.
Azarian stood between him and the door, Karik stepping slightly to one side. He was well over six feet tall. Taller than Erasmo had imagined. His eyes strikingly dark.
“So,” he said, looking around. “This is your home.”
Erasmo nodded. “Small, but efficient, as they say…”
“It’s a filthy sty,” Azarian said. “My skin crawls having to stand here.”
Erasmo felt indignation claw through his fear. He had worked hard for weeks—worked day and night. Yes, he’d stretched the truth a bit when it came to his progress. But it was only to buy the time to do his job properly.
And he’d succeeded, hadn’t he? He had found the goods. The exact thing Azarian hired him to do.
It struck him that he should not have to stand here cringing in front of his employer. That he might benefit from peppering his entrée with a little self-assertion. He deserved some respect.
“‘If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?’” he said.
Azarian’s dark eyes flashed.
“Einstein,” he said.
Erasmo nodded.
“He was the man,” he said. “Smartest dude ever. Smart is au courant.”
Azarian stared, Karik waiting silently beside him. Something in their expressions made Erasmo decide to step up his pace.
“All right,” he said. “Before the wheels fall off our bicycle-built-for-three, you’ll want to hear me out.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning the last time we spoke, I told you I was close to finding the glow dust.”
“And?”
“And what if I told you I found it?” he said. “Well, basically.”
Azarian kept staring.
“All right,” he said. “Talk.”
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“It goes back to Holloway,” he said. “When he blathered that the vault’s location was on Sutton’s computer—told your people it was deep in the tracks—they misconstrued what he was saying. They assumed he meant the railroad map we’ve been seeking was on the hard drive. But that was wrong. A big, bad logical overextension.”
Azarian waited.
“Sutton owned a large collection of old Edison wax cylinder records,” Erasmo said. “The old man catalogued their titles, artists, release dates, and was meticulous about it.” He took off his glasses, rubbed the lenses on his shirtsleeve. “I turned up the list of records on his hard drive. A document file.” He rubbed his lenses some more. “All along, I’d been searching the disk for information about the map. That’s where data is supposed to be recorded. But it wasn’t there. So I looked in a flash memory chip on its circuit board. Where data isn’t supposed to be recorded… and there it was.”
Azarian edged closer to where he stood amid the packages of clockwork.
“I paid you to find something specific. Explain what all this has to do with it.”
“All right, Gramophones One-Oh-One,” Erasmo said. “The early ones recorded as well as played, and could be used for dictation. When a person recorded, he would crank the cylinder around and talk into the horn. The cylinder turned against a needle, and the needle cut grooves into the wax, vibrating up and down with the sound of his voice, making deeper and shallower cuts as it got softer and louder.” He paused. “On playback, the process was reversed. The needle tracked its way through those cuts in the record’s grooves. That’s how individual songs on an album came to be known as tracks.”
Azarian gave an almost indiscernible nod. “You’re telling me Sutton left the information about the cache in a voice recording,” he said. “That the map is his spoken word.”
Erasmo put his glasses back on, the thick lenses making his eyes look huge.
“A hot, hot track,” he said. “But wouldn’t it be entertaining if he waggishly sang the coordinates?”
Erasmo could see the eagerness on Azarian’s face—and why would he even bother concealing it? He wanted the stockpile. Nothing else could bring him down from his mansion in the hills.
“When did you find all this out?” he said.
“Tonight, not an hour ago,” Erasmo said. “I tried to contact you.”
“And you have the list.”
Erasmo nodded back to where he’d left his computer on the couch.
“Yes,” he said. “Saved to my hard drive.”
“Anywhere else?”
“I didn’t have a chance to copy it, if that’s what you mean.”
Azarian exchanged a quick glance with Karik, then returned his attention to Erasmo.
“The recording,” he said. “How will we know which one it is?”
“Sutton catalogued it as two-three-two on his list. Just the number,” Erasmo said. “That name would match the one on its tube container.”
“And do we know where he kept it?”
“I know it was in his home the day he left this mortal coil,” Erasmo said. “Our mutual associate Isaak Dorani expropriated a box load.”
“Expropriated.”
“Stole, in other words.”
“Tell me about that.”
“Isaak said they were his insurance,” Erasmo explained. “I don’t know what he meant, and I didn’t bother asking him. But he told me he was bringing them to a fence.”
Azarian’s expression altered in the smallest way.
“Do you know where this fence is?”
“Downtown, in Skid Row,” Erasmo said. “He mentioned a name. Dagger. Or Duggat. Something like that.”
A long silence. Erasmo saw Azarian’s hand slip under his sport coat and suddenly grew very uncomfortable again.
“There is a historical figure I’ve always admired… as you do Einstein the scientific genius,” Azarian said at last. “He is Genghis Khan, the world conqueror.”
Erasmo wondered nervously what he was reaching for under his jacket.
“It is ironic that he embraced the Turks, the eventual slaughterers of my people, as allies of convenience,” Azarian said. “But we are, all of us, imperfect beings.”
He took a step closer to Erasmo. His hand moving slightly under the jacket’s lightweight fabric.
“Like your scientist, the Great Khan left many words to be remembered by future generations,” he said. “Would you like to hear my favorites?”
Erasmo was thinking he would be perfectly fine without that. But it didn’t sound as if he had a real choice.
“Do tell,” he said, hating the tightness in his voice. “I—”
A bony hand clamped over his mouth, muffling the words. Reflexively trying to pry it loose, the muscles of his throat bulging with the effort, he realized it was Karik. The wiry little man had stolen up behind him while he was focused on Azarian, and he was stronger than he looked. Erasmo gagged helplessly.
Then Azarian’s fist appeared from under the jacket, something shiny and metallic clenched inside it. Erasmo thought at first it was a knife, but quickly realized it was some kind of rod or baton.
He kept struggling to break free of Karik’s hand, but it remained locked over his face, pressing against his lips and teeth.
Azarian took a large step closer, raising the metal object in his hand.
“‘I am the punishment of God,’” he said in a chest-deep voice. “‘If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.’”
Erasmo gaped up at the object from behind his glasses, then saw it come flashing down at him.
And felt the punishment.
* * *
“Hello, Drew?”
“Milena, hi… I was just thinking about you!”
“Like minds,” she said.
“Guess so,” he said. “How’s it going?”
“Great,” she said. “It’s been a wonderful day.”
“Same here…”
“Starting with you being so kind to me on the train.”
“I was about to say starting with when we met on it.”
She laughed. “Here we go again.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s true, though,” she said. “You made the ride a pleasure. And gave me a fascinating history lesson.”
“Well, I won’t turn down the compliment.” A pause. “We’re still on tomorrow, right?”
“Without fail,” she said. “That’s the reason I called. I can’t talk for more than a minute—there’s a lecture on campus. But I wanted to tell you how much I’m looking forward to it.”
“It’ll be lots of fun,” he said. “There is one thing I have to ask, though, before I take you on that Piggyback Yard tour.”
“Oh…?”
“Right,” he said. “About your allegiance to the cause.”
She froze a moment. “I don’t understand…”
“The question’s whether you’ll be wearing a Dodgers or Angels cap.”
She was quiet a second. Then she laughed.
“You had me there a second, Drew.”
“Sorry, couldn’t resist,” he said, chuckling. “You should know I bleed Dodger blue. But I did want to find out. In case I pick one up for you.”
“I’ll tell you what, being from England, my baseball loyalty is up for grabs.”
“You sure?”
“Positive. I am a Dodgers fan.”
He laughed again.
“You know,” he said. “I don’t want to embarrass myself… but I almost feel we were meant to cross paths today.”
“I was thinking the same, Drew.”
More silence. He cleared his throat.
“Well, then,” he said. “I don’t want to keep you from your lecture.”
“Thank you.”
“See you when I get off work tomorrow?”
“At the station,” she said. “Six on the dot.”
“G’night, Milena.”
&nb
sp; “Until then,” she said, and disconnected.
Tomas came up behind her in the bare living room. Outside the safehouse, the faint sound of semiautomatic fire shivered in the air. They were still drilling at the practice range.
“You’re good,” he said. “If I didn’t know better, I would think I heard your heart pattering away.”
Alysha gave a cold smile.
“It’s only the guns you hear,” she said. “Make no mistake.”
She dropped the burner phone into a trash receptacle.
“What if your windup trainman calls with a change of plans?” he said.
“He won’t,” she said. “You can be sure of that.”
She stood a moment, noticing his eyes on her.
“What are you looking at?”
He shrugged. “Nothing,” he said. “I was remembering.”
The guns continued to rattle in the distance.
“It’s likely we’ll die tomorrow,” she said.
“Yes.”
She stepped closer to him, put a hand lightly on his chest.
“So?” she said. Her eyes on his. “Will you stand there with your old memories for comfort?”
“Or what?”
Her hand slid down the front of his shirt.
“You know what,” she said. “Yes or no?”
He swallowed, his breath suddenly short.
“Yes,” he rasped, and pulled her into his arms.
* * *
Zory Daggut was just getting ready to close out his register when the doorbell rang at a quarter past eight. Frowning, he peered out the storefront window from behind his counter.
The man at the door was short, thin, and neatly dressed in a dark blue sport jacket, with black hair and a pointed goatee that gave his face a sharply triangular, almost devilish appearance. Daggut pegged the guy as the type of hardcore squeaker who had a wallet full of money to spend, but would go poking around the worst sump holes in Los Angeles to save himself a dime. Somebody who’d want to pick up two sets of hocked diamond earrings for the price of one, so he could keep his wife and mistress happy, and maybe even pick up a third shiny little trinket for mom’s birthday in the bargain.
The guy outside hit the bell again.
Daggut was tempted to make believe he hadn’t heard it. He was open from 8:30 A.M. till 8:30 P.M., six days a week, and really didn’t want to be stuck here an extra minute tonight. Customers like this guy could absolutely mean a nice sale despite their miserliness. But they usually took forever making up their minds, asking endless questions, wanting to see every item ten times before making a decision, then asking again right when you put it back in the case… and it had already been a long, aggravating day.
NCIS Los Angeles Page 16
