NCIS Los Angeles

by Jerome Preisler

  KB: Why did you stay, then?

  ID: Matous. He told me to finish what I was doing… get the hard drive from the computer. And the look on his face… If you saw it, you’d know.

  KB: Know what?

  ID: He would’ve killed me too. Blown me away.

  KB: So you continued removing the drive.

  ID: Yeah.

  KB: Even though you couldn’t feel your fingers.

  ID: It wasn’t brain surgery. I probably had it out in two, three minutes.

  KB: And you put the drive in your bag with the rest of the memory storage devices?

  ID: Right.

  KB: What then, Isaak?

  ID: Erasmo told me to take a last look around.

  KB: Told you over the RoIP headset.

  ID: Exactly. He said to give a once over to the drawers, the desk… check I didn’t miss anything important.

  KB: And what did you think about that?

  ID: Think? I don’t understand…

  KB: Upset as you were by the gunshots. Wanting to hurry out of there.

  ID: Oh. I get you.

  KB: So what did you think?

  ID: I figured I hadda do it. Because Matous could hear everything I did over the radio.

  KB: And you still felt threatened by him.

  ID: I figured he’d kill me if I tried to leave without doing it.

  KB: And were you able to carry out those instructions?

  ID: I… yeah. Yeah. I was done with it just before… you know.

  KB: I’m not sure I do, Isaak. How about you tell me?

  ID: I had everything in the bag when the car pulled up into the driveway.

  KB: Elias Sutton’s car?

  ID: I didn’t know it was him till afterward.

  KB: But it was Mr. Sutton.

  ID: It was, yeah.

  KB: Did you actually hear his car pull in?

  ID: I heard it pull in. It’s a quiet neighborhood.

  KB: Okay, go on.

  ID: The rest’s kind of a blur in my head. It was so crazy…

  KB: Let’s hear it as best you can remember.

  ID: I remember Matous’s friend—David or whoever—saying on the two-way radio that the old man was home. He wasn’t in a panic, these guys’re cool customers. But his voice… they knew this was gonna be an epic shitshow. I think Matous told him to hide, and then I saw him in the hall…

  KB: Outside the bedroom?

  ID: With Matous, yeah. The two of them stood there whispering… I couldn’t really hear any of it. Then after a minute Matous came back in. He told me to finish checking the drawers for stuff, climb out the window, and bring everything back to Erasmo in the car.

  KB: Everything being the storage media.

  ID: Yeah.

  KB: Was that all he said to you?

  ID: That was it. He was outta the room like lightning afterward.

  KB: And did you follow his orders?

  ID: No. I already knew I didn’t miss anything.

  KB: What did you do instead?

  ID: I took the cylinders outta the glass case and loaded ’em into my bag. As insurance if I needed getaway money. I thought they’d pull in a sweet sum—and they would’ve if that squeaker Daggut, God rest his soul, didn’t squeeze me dry…

  KB: Do you remember anything else, Isaak?

  ID: What do you mean?

  KB: Anything that happened before you left the house.

  ID: I… can I have another drink of water before I answer?

  KB: Go ahead.

  ID: Thanks. That’s better…

  KB: Isaak, did you see or hear anything else before going out the window?

  ID: Well, yeah. I did. I…

  KB: Yes?

  ID: I heard the gun again. Pop-pop-pop.

  KB: That’s how it sounded?

  ID: Yeah.

  KB: Exactly three pops?

  ID: Right. Close together.

  KB: Were these shots inside the house?

  ID: No. I could tell they were coming from out in the yard, like when the dog stopped making its racket. And then I went out into the hall… for a look, y’know. Don’t ask me why, either. I just did it.

  KB: What did you see?

  ID: Everything. I could see everything. That house, it’s real open… look at the diagram. I saw the woman on the dining room floor, and then the old man and the dog through the patio doors. And the blood. There was so much blood…

  LS: Isaak, are you all right?

  ID: I don’t feel so good. My stomach, it’s… I think I gotta hit the bathroom. This always happens when I get nervous…

  LS: Okay, Isaak. Agent Blye, we’re taking another break…

  KB: Not so fast.

  LS: What do you mean “not so fast”?

  KB: Does that statement really need translating?

  LS: Please, Agent. Spare me the sarcasm. My client’s squirming in his chair…

  KB: We’re almost done here, counselor.

  LS: Be that as it may, I don’t think he can wait…

  KB: Then let’s not waste more time arguing. Detective Deeks will ask a few questions. Hopefully Isaak will answer. And then he can go to his heart’s content.

  ID: FYI, it ain’t my heart I’m worried about.

  Deeks thought it did, in fact, look as though Dorani would embarrass himself if he was forced to be seated much longer. But he’d watched the first part of the Q&A in the observation room, and stood quietly alongside the table for the rest, and a quick glance from Kensi had told him this would be a good time to make him a little more uncomfortable.

  To hear Dorani tell it, he was a complete victim of circumstance, who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time with some tremendously wrong people. Putting aside that he’d gone in with the clear and deliberate intent of robbing the place, and was in the middle of doing exactly that when they got their bloodbath underway…

  And that wasn’t all.

  Dorani’s defense attorney would surely propose a sweetheart deal for him when the prosecutors got involved, and Deeks had no problem with the OSP endorsing it in exchange for his testimony. But it did not mean he would let him sit there flashing the victim card.

  “I’ll try and make this quick, Mr. Dorani,” he said.

  “Please, Detective,” Scardella said. “It’s late and he’s having difficulties.”

  “Putting it mildly,” Dorani said, shifting in his chair. “And Isaak’s fine, by the way.”

  “Mr. Dorani, you mentioned setting up the jackrabbit outside Sutton’s door.”

  “Yeah. And like I said, it’s Isaak.”

  Deeks nodded.

  “Then, once it disabled the alarm, you picked the lock.”

  “You’re a good listener…”

  “And then you led Matous through the house into the bedroom.”

  “That’s how it happened, yeah.”

  Deeks looked at him, scratching his head.

  “The itsy bitsy question tickling my brain is why you thought no one was home.”

  “I got no clue what you mean…”

  Deeks shrugged.

  “Let’s press replay,” he said. “You told us you didn’t expect the housekeeper to be there, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And I’m guessing you figured the same thing was true of Sutton, right?”

  “Right. I didn’t want nobody getting hurt…”

  “So what made you and those homicidal doorcrashers think you’d have the place to yourselves?” Deeks said. “I’m also wondering how you knew its interior layout.”

  Dorani frowned, turning to Scardella.

  “The bathroom,” he said. “I’m gonna mess my pants.”

  Scardella sighed. “Detective, if there’s a point to all this, how about sharing it?”

  “Sure,” Deeks said. “I’m a big sharer.”

  “Arguably an oversharer,” Kensi said.

  “And the point I want to share is that Mr. Dorani didn’t just offer out his services
as a random porch climber,” Deeks said. “He was obviously familiar with Sutton’s usual routine, knew the killers wanted his data storage devices, and offered to help steal them.”

  Dorani was shaking his head.

  “That’s an eensie weensie hallucination,” he said.

  “Think so?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How about Ron Valli? Is he for real?”

  Dorani abruptly stopped shaking his head. “Where’d you get that name?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Deeks said, thinking about the call he’d got from Callen about an hour earlier. “All you need to know is he tried taking his own life tonight.”

  Dorani stared at him. “I… I don’t believe you.”

  “He was at his cabin in the mountains,” Deeks said. “Filled it with gas, and was about to strike a match to blow it up.”

  “No way,” Dorani said. “The guy’s too wild about his wife and kid.”

  “He felt responsible for Sutton’s murder,” Deeks said. “And thought he’d be blamed for it.”

  Scardella was looking across the table with displeasure.

  “I think your muskrat butt cologne’s gone to your head, Detective,” she said. “Isaak’s been nothing but cooperative. How dare you spring this on us without warning?”

  Deeks shrugged.

  “Sorry,” he said. “It was just sprung on me a little while ago.”

  She frowned and began folding up her laptop.

  “We’re ending this session right now,” she said. “If you intend to formally arrest my client, I want him brought to the county jail, and not kept here like a hostage. Call me when you can promise not to hold back any more information.”

  Deeks placed his hands on the edge of the table and leaned forward.

  “It’s your client who’s holding back,” he said. “We need the truth from him. The whole truth.”

  “And nothing but?”

  Deeks met her gaze.

  “My dry wit aside, this isn’t a joke,” he said. “We don’t know how many lives might be at risk. But it could be a lot.”

  Scardella looked at him a moment, glanced over at Kensi and Hetty, then looked back at Deeks.

  “We’re done here,” she said angrily, and finished packing away her tablet.

  Beside her, Isaak stared at Deeks, his eyes wide and fearful.

  13

  Tomas opened his eyes to find Alysha gone. He’d awakened suddenly in the thin predawn light, and sensed her absence at once.

  She was an early riser, so it did not surprise him.

  He tossed off his sheets, rose out of bed, and took some fresh clothes out of his knapsack. The public water to the house was disconnected, but there was a working spigot in back. Matous had run a garden hose from the spigot to an outdoor shower stall, equipping it with a small electric water heater.

  Tomas paused to pick up his boots and stepped naked and barefooted into the hallway. The house had three bedrooms—the one he’d shared with Alysha, Matous’s room, and a third being used for the preparation and storage of explosives. The rest of his comrades were in the living room, dead to the world on the couch and chairs, a couple of them in sleeping bags on the bare floorboards.

  Tomas strode quietly to the backdoor and out to the rear of the house. Leaving his clothes on the patio’s sandstone tiles, he pulled the shower curtain open and entered the stall.

  The platform was wet, the interior of the stall beaded with moisture. When he reached up to touch the showerhead, fat droplets of water dribbled over his fingers.

  Alysha must have used it only a short while ago.

  Tomas opened the faucet, raised his face into the stream, and let the fresh water run over him. He dressed out on the dusty patio tiles, looking around, his hair and beard drying in the cool desert air.

  There were abandoned houses to his right and left—row upon row of uninhabited residences standing, silent and ghostly, across the deserted housing complex. Some of the homes were completed, others just partially built. Driving up in the darkness two nights before, Tomas had seen tracts of vacant, trash-strewn lots and sidewalks overgrown with high brown weeds, children’s toys, discarded furniture, and trash cans poking out of them. As he approached the safehouse, a coyote had loped in front of the car and stared boldly at the windshield. He’d needed to tap his horn to frighten it off.

  Now Tomas heard a loud, sharp cry pierce the twilit stillness and flinched a little, his neck tightening. The birds had been there since his arrival, but their screams did nothing to ease his discomfiture.

  He glanced over his left shoulder. A short distance away, a huge, shaggy vulture was perched atop a shattered traffic light. Further off across a wide open field, dawn was a blood-red stripe along the low horizon.

  Tomas strode toward the field. The vulture shrieked at him as he passed, extending its long bare neck from its collar of ragged feathers.

  He took a quick look, then averted his eyes from it.

  As he came to the edge of the field, he saw it was patched with flat concrete slabs—the foundations of unbuilt homes, many concealed by weeds. Pipes and electrical cables snaked through the weeds, connecting to nothing.

  Alysha stood in the middle of the field watching the daybreak. She had always enjoyed doing that in solitude.

  But today she was not alone. A man stood there with her, looking off to the east. Matous.

  Something coiled inside Tomas. He cursed under his breath as he pushed toward them through the desiccated, knee-high weeds.

  They looked around at him as he approached.

  “Tomas,” she said. “I thought you were asleep.”

  “I woke up,” he said. “Forgive me.”

  Her brief, sharp glance made him feel small. He instantly regretted buckling to his jealousy.

  “I heard from Azarian,” Matous said. “We won’t have the information in time for tomorrow’s mission.”

  Tomas stared at him. “Is this certain? After all we’ve done to prepare?”

  Matous nodded.

  “It may be in the hands of federal agents,” he said. “Naval investigators.”

  “They know of us?”

  “It’s doubtful,” Matous said. “Most likely they’re just looking into the death of their old admiral.” He paused. “We’re lucky to have a fallback.”

  Tomas shifted his eyes to Alysha. “So our plans hinge on your wind-up trainman?”

  “Yes, destiny brought him to us for a reason,” she said. “You know it.”

  “And if we’re wrong?”

  “We proceed with things anyway,” Matous said. “Hundreds will still die.”

  Tomas was silent, questions crowding his mind like sudden shadows. Why had Matous chosen to inform Alysha and not him? Had they walked to the field together? Or had he sought her out here?

  How would he know her habits? Where to find her?

  Tomas noticed she had continued to watch the eastern sky, where the dawnlight was a smoldering orange band beneath the ashen remnants of night.

  A vulture shrieked harshly in the distance.

  “The birds stir around us,” Matous said.

  Tomas felt a pulse beating in the hollow of his throat. He could not dispel the questions.

  “They are everywhere,” he said.

  * * *

  Drew Sarver hopped out of bed at 6:00 A.M. feeling refreshed and full of energy after only a few hours’ sleep.

  Tomorrow was finally today. Where to take Milena for lunch? He’d been so focused on Poppo’s map and the yard tunnels that he hadn’t given it the slightest thought.

  As he put his coffee on to brew, he was thinking there were a few excellent spots right near Union Station—and within easy walking distance of the yard. A little café that served great soup and sandwiches, a farm-to-table vegan place with a backyard dining area, and a chic pan-Asian food bar where you could watch the chefs prepare sushi and banchan that melted in your mouth. Between those three restaurants, he didn’t see how they
could miss.

  Drew wondered if he should wait till nine o’clock or so and phone Milena to ask her preference, but quickly found himself leaning against it. He didn’t want to smother her, and doubted they needed reservations for any of those places.

  Besides, they already had enough plans for their date. A little spontaneity in the mix wouldn’t hurt.

  Now he went to the fridge, poured a tall glass of orange juice, and carried it to the breakfast nook by his kitchen window, parting the curtains to let in the bright, warm morning sunshine. Across the room, his coffee maker made its coffee maker noises.

  Yes, he thought, he would leave the great where-to-eat-lunch decision to teamwork. When you were getting to know a person, it was sometimes a good idea to relax and go with the flow.

  Anywhere he and Milena went together would be absolutely fine with him.

  * * *

  “I’m thinking we should make an oyster pizza next time,” said Nell Jones. “I saw a chef make it on television and it looked… what’s a word for something that kills awesome?”

  Eric Beale glanced up from the fifty-four cylinder recordings arranged on the lab counter in front of him.

  “Extra awesome?”

  “How about ‘X-awesome’?” she said. “Or ‘awesome-X’?”

  “Well, technically, neither are words,” Eric said.

  “But strictly speaking ‘extra awesome’ is two words.”

  “But the ‘X’ sounds porny,” he said.

  “But we’re talking about pizza,” she said.

  “So?”

  “Pizza isn’t porny.”

  “But oysters are porny.” Nell smiled. “Oooo,” she said. “They are, aren’t they?”

  Eric cleared his throat. “Nell, why are we discussing food porn at four-thirty in the morning?”

  “Because we’re having one of those moments between sleep-deprived coworkers when inhibitions go flying out the window and anything can happen?”

  He considered that. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not feeling that tired.”

  She locked eyes with him.

  “It’s an explanation,” she said. “Run with it.”

  Eric frowned. His collar felt suddenly tight around his neck, which puzzled him considering he was wearing a collarless, oversized polo shirt. But he reminded himself there was a weightier mystery to solve. Hetty had asked him to process the Edison records, wondering aloud if they might have some importance in the Sutton case. Importance, that was, beyond being valuable objects stolen from Sutton’s home. She’d been a bit cryptic, which was nothing new. Still, Eric was certain there was a lot more than the theft of collectibles behind the murder. Which had led him to suspect there was a lot more to the collectibles than being valuable.