The Memory Collector

by Meg Gardiner

  Murdock looked at Jo. “That so?”

  She shut her eyes and tried to stop her heart from stammer-stepping. “There’s been an outbreak in the Congo. It’s transmissible to humans. Go online from my phone—the World Veterinary Association will confirm it.”

  Gabe came back on the line. “Just so we understand—Ian brings the lab sample, you bring Jo and the Kanan family.”

  Jo piped in. “And, Gabe—when Ian transports Slick, make sure he handles it with extreme caution. After this much time, it’s likely to be extremely volatile.”

  In the distance, she heard voices. Vance was coming back with Calder and Shepard.

  “Hold on. I need to confer with my associates,” Murdock said.

  “We can’t wait while you hold a tea party. We have to get the stuff and bring it to you within the hour,” Gabe said.

  “Why?” Murdock said.

  “That’s how long I figure Kanan and I can stay ahead of the police. You want the stuff, you meet us. Sixty minutes or nothing.”

  Jo knew Gabe was cool, but she didn’t know he was such a gambler.

  “Public place,” Gabe said. “Open ground. You dig?”

  “Fine,” Murdock said. “You leave the stuff in a locker at—”

  “No. Simultaneous exchange. We see Jo and the Kanans, or you get nothing.”

  Murdock breathed. “Someplace where the cops can’t blend in with the crowd.”

  Gabe paused a beat. “The Stanford campus.”

  The voices approached. Murdock hesitated.

  “Top of the quad,” Gabe said. “It’s neutral ground. Wide open for hundreds of yards in all directions. No way for you to ambush us.”

  Murdock stared at the fog, looking for Vance and Calder.

  “Sixty minutes,” Gabe said. “Jo, hang in there. And, assholes—they’d all better be in tip-top shape. You get it?”

  “Yeah. And so’d the stuff.”

  Jo said, “Get going. I’ll talk to you in an hour.”

  “See you there.” Gabe cut off the call.

  “Shit.” Murdock grabbed the phone, but Gabe was gone. “If he’s lying, you’ll pay.”

  Gabe turned to Ferd. “You did good.”

  “Did I?”

  “Huevos like brass bowling balls.” He called directory assistance and told the operator, “I need the number for the SFPD Northern Station. Connect me.”

  Ferd stood beneath the porch light and scratched roughly at his face. “What do we do now?”

  “We get the police to triangulate Jo’s location from her cell signal.” Gabe glanced at Ferd. “Where’d you learn to talk trash to thugs?”

  Ferd scratched his arms and chest. “Dealing with psycho übergeeks at Compurama.”

  The operator connected Gabe to the police station. He said, “I need to speak to Lieutenant Tang about the Kanan investigation. It’s an emergency.”

  The desk officer said, “Please hold.”

  Ferd took his glasses off. “What are you going to do about Jo?”

  Gabe looked at him. “I’m going after her. That’s what I do. I find people and get them back.”

  30

  Amy Tang and Officer Frank Liu walked up the sidewalk. The fog was twisting its way between buildings. Tang pointed at the cross street where the stolen red Navigator was parked.

  “You take the street. I’ll take the alley,” she said. “Nice and casual. We’ll meet at the other end of the block.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Don’t call me ma’am.”

  “Yes, Lieutenant.”

  Liu headed around the corner. Tang walked to the alley’s entrance. About sixty yards in, light leaked from a window, shining on the water that trickled along the concrete gully in the alley’s center. She unbuttoned her black peacoat and popped the snap on her holster.

  Silently she walked into the darkness. She smelled wet cardboard and garbage. She scanned doorways and unlit windows. Swung her gaze up to the rooftops.

  She heard the hum of a ventilation system coming from a building to her left. The noise of traffic echoed off the walls, dimming with every step she took. She neared the beauty salon. Upstairs, the windows were lit. Shadows crossed the ceiling. She crept along. Forty feet farther on was the window of the sporting goods store. It was frosted glass, crosshatched with reinforcing wire. Beyond it a metal door was painted a peeling red. She walked past.

  Inside, a figure moved around.

  She kept walking. Two feet past the door, she looked back. The figure inside the window was pacing back and forth. With the frosted glass, it was impossible to tell whether the figure was Kanan. She crossed to the far side of the alley and backed into the shadows, watching.

  Her phone vibrated. She grabbed it, backed farther away from the window, and answered in a murmur. “Tang.”

  The desk officer from the station said, “A Gabe Quintana for you. Says it’s an emergency.”

  “Put him through.”

  The phone clicked. Gabe came on. “Lieutenant, we have a critical situation. Jo’s been taken hostage.”

  She stilled almost involuntarily. “Holy Christ.”

  He relayed his conversation with Jo. “At least two men are involved. I set the rendezvous for an hour from now.”

  Across the alley, the figure behind the frosted glass window hoisted something.

  “But they’ll be on the move and you can track Jo’s cell phone signal. They’ll—”

  “Hang on.”

  Tang couldn’t tell for certain, but the object in the figure’s hands seemed to have the long barrel of a rifle.

  “Gabe, I’ll call you back. Text me the details of the rendezvous. I’ll take point on this and coordinate the response.”

  She rattled off her cell number for him and hung up. She pulled back her jacket and took her weapon from the holster. She held it low, came out of the shadows, and crept down the alley.

  Vance ran out of the fog toward Jo and Murdock. Thirty feet behind him came Shepard, bleeding and stumbling. Calder was prodding him along with the gun.

  Out of breath, Vance said, “Got them.”

  Murdock held up Jo’s phone. “Too late.”

  He threw the phone to Vance the way he’d discard a piece of trash. Without hesitating, Vance turned and lobbed it into the lake.

  Murdock shouted, “No—”

  They heard the phone splash in the darkness.

  “Idiot,” Murdock said.

  Vance looked at him with confusion. “I thought you wanted me to dump it.” He pointed at Jo. “I told you, you can’t trust her.”

  Shoving Shepard ahead of her, Calder ran up to them. “You’re damned right you can’t trust her.”

  Shepard looked dazed and ill. His forehead was split where Calder had pistol-whipped him. A dark flow of blood covered his face and spattered his dress shirt.

  He needed help. But one step at a time. Continuing to breathe was a victory. Getting out of the park would be the next.

  Jo turned to Calder. “Kanan’s going to be at the rendezvous in fifty-nine minutes. You really want to hang around here?”

  Jo understood why Gabe had chosen the Stanford campus. He knew it, from the air—the 129th had choppered patients to Stanford Medical Center more than once. He also knew that she could navigate it blindfolded and half-asleep. And, despite what he’d told Murdock, the top of the quad offered at least a dozen places for him to set an ambush.

  But she could think of only one reason why Murdock had agreed to rendezvous so far down the Peninsula, and so soon: Misty and Seth were in that area. Gabe had just narrowed the search radius considerably.

  Murdock nodded at Jo. “She has to come with us. Price of the deal.”

  Calder frowned. “Fine.” She turned to Shepard. “Last chance. You want to hand over the sample?”

  “I can’t.”

  Calder pointed toward the road. “Put Beckett in the Tahoe.”

  Jo’s spirits soared. Murdock locked his hand around her arm an
d began leading her up the grassy slope. Calder put up a hand.

  “Wait. As insurance, to make sure she’s telling the truth, we’ll leave a marker here.”

  “What do you mean?” Murdock said.

  She kicked the spare tire. “Tie it to Alec’s feet. The bridge to the island’s over that way. He should be strong enough to tread water for an hour. If we get Slick, we’ll tell Ian where to find his brother.”

  “No,” Shepard said. “Wait. You can’t—”

  The gun swiveled and stopped between his eyes. “Don’t tell me what I can’t do. You’re not putting anything over on me ever again, cocksucker.”

  She hawked out the word as if it had been festering in her throat for months. Shepard recoiled.

  “Move,” she barked.

  Vance pushed the tire along the shoreline and Calder prodded Shepard in the back with the pistol. They faded into the night.

  Murdock hauled Jo up the lawn toward the Tahoe. From the depths of the fog she heard Shepard’s voice.

  “Don’t. For God’s sake, Riva, please—”

  Then she heard a splash.

  Gabe wrote a text message to Tang as he ran down Jo’s front steps.

  Ferd trundled alongside him, scratching his arms and neck. “Are we going to Stanford?”

  “I am.” Gabe looked him up and down. “You’re going to the urgent care center. You’re covered with hives.”

  “What?” Ferd held his hands out. “God almighty.”

  “It’s not Congolese monkey virus. It’s the aftermath of courage.”

  “I don’t want to leave you to handle this—”

  “I know what Jo looks like. I can recognize Shepard and Kanan, if it comes to it. Somebody needs to point them out to the cops on the scene.” He slapped Ferd on the back. “Get to the doctor. Take it from a paramedic.”

  He sent the text to Tang and sprinted toward his 4Runner.

  Ian Kanan blinked the fatigue from his eyes. He was standing beside a desk in the stockroom of a sporting goods store. A mess of Post-it notes and photos was spread across the desk. So were three pistols, a Kbar knife, an ankle sheath, and several boxes of custom ammunition. He was holding a night-scoped rifle in his hands.

  It was a Remington, tactical model, one of the most popular American bolt-action rifles. It had an adjustable trigger and detachable box magazine. It would do.

  He set it on the desk and saw a photo from his wallet—him with Misty and Seth at the beach, Whiskey with a Frisbee in his mouth. He ran his fingers over the snapshot.

  “Please, understand,” he murmured.

  Outside the frosted glass window, he saw movement in the alley. It was just a shift in the darkness, but he stepped to the door and put his back against it.

  The darkness outside flowed as insubstantially as smoke, but he saw movement. Somebody was there.

  The door was dead-bolted and a note was taped to it. Gone to Wendy’s. Back in 10. STAY HERE.

  Quietly he unlocked the dead bolt and opened the door. He stepped into the mist in the alley.

  Ten feet ahead was a figure in a black peacoat. The light from the frosted window shone on the barrel of the pistol held close to the figure’s leg.

  One of them.

  He wasn’t silent, but with traffic passing by on the street, he didn’t have to be. He took three running steps, bringing his fists up. The figure was tiny, with spiky black hair—turning to look at the window, and turning faster, hearing him approach. He saw an East Asian profile.

  It was a woman. He chopped his fists down. He measured the blow, hitting her on either side of the neck, at the base where it met her shoulders. She went lights-out and collapsed like a ventriloquist’s dummy into his arms.

  He threw her over his shoulder and carried her inside.

  31

  “Wake up.”

  Kanan tapped the woman’s cheek again, harder this time. Her head swerved up and knocked back against the support pole. Her eyes struggled open.

  She focused. Saw him squatting in front of her, balanced on the balls of his feet, forearms resting on his knees. She jerked and found that her hands were bound behind the beam with athletic tape. Her mouth was gagged with a small rubber ball.

  “When I remove the gag you can scream until you turn purple, but nobody can hear you down here,” he said.

  She glared at him, then looked around. The basement of the sporting goods store was cold and bare.

  He pushed on her cheeks and popped the rubber ball out of her mouth. She turned her head and spit at the floor.

  “I’m a police officer, and you’re under arrest,” she said.

  “I found your badge, Lieutenant.” He nodded off to one side. Her badge, weapon, and phone were laid out on the concrete floor. “Apologies for disrupting your evening. But before I let you head back to the station, we need to talk. How did you find me?”

  “Detective work. Ian, we know your family has been taken hostage. We’re working to rescue them.”

  His skin went hot. “You—rescue them?”

  “We know they were taken to force you to obtain nanotech samples from Chira-Sayf. We want to help. Let me go. We don’t have any time.”

  “Where are they?” he said.

  “I don’t know. The kidnappers are going to bring them to a rendezvous. But we have to arrange for law enforcement to get there first. Cut this tape.”

  She looked like a wild hedgehog—tiny, tough, and ready to bite him.

  “Are you alone?” he said.

  She jerked against the athletic tape. “Of course not. Ian, you can’t dick around. Your family is running out of time.”

  He didn’t know whether she was lying. He picked up her phone.

  One new message.

  “What’s this?” he said.

  Exchange: Kanan’s wife and son for Slick. Stanford quad. Top of oval 9 pm.

  He stood up, his heart racing. He read it again.

  “Who sent you this?” he said.

  “Ian, I have to alert the authorities. We don’t have a second to waste.”

  He held out the phone so she could see the display. “Who sent this?”

  Upstairs, somebody pounded on the back door to the store. He glanced up the stairs.

  “Please, Ian. This is your chance to get your family back. You have to—”

  He grabbed her nose, pinched it, and pushed her mouth open. He stuffed the rubber ball back inside to gag her. Hanging on to the phone, he ran up the stairs into a stockroom. She mumbled through the gag, trying to get him to come back. He closed the basement door and the sound disappeared.

  He paused, looking around. He saw sports equipment, plus a scoped rifle and handguns on a desk. Somebody banged on the door again.

  “Boss, let me in.”

  Relief and excitement filled him. He set the phone on the desk, crossed to the door, and flipped the dead bolt. When he opened the door, light fell on the welcome sight of Nico Diaz’s face.

  “Good to see you, Nico.”

  Diaz came in, shivering. “Lock the door.”

  Kanan threw the lock. He nodded at the weapons on the desk. “Yours?”

  “Yours.” He handed Kanan a bulging sack from Wendy’s. “This too. Eat up. You need the fuel.”

  As soon as he opened the sack, voracious hunger overcame Kanan. How long had it been since he’d eaten? He pulled out a cheeseburger and dug into it. He’d never tasted anything so good.

  Diaz caught his eye. “Boss, I’ve been thinking. You may have left the sample at San Francisco General. We should check.”

  “Good. Yeah—Diaz, absolutely.”

  He had no memory of going by San Francisco General Hospital, but if Diaz said so, he believed him.

  He tore into the burger. Dumped out the sack on the desk, grabbed a fistful of fries, and stuffed them in his mouth. He didn’t think he’d ever felt so hungry. He pulled the lid off the large coffee Diaz had brought and drank it down.

  “Thanks, bro,” he said. “Need th
is.”

  Diaz looked at the desk. “Where’d this phone come from?”

  Kanan looked at the phone. “No idea.” He patted his jean jacket. “Pocket, maybe.”

  Diaz picked it up and read the display. “Christ. Boss—look at this.”

  Kanan wiped his hands and took it. His vision sparked white. “Jesus.”

  He and Diaz looked at each other.

  Diaz grabbed the rifle. “My truck’s out back.”

  Kanan strapped on the ankle sheath and slid the Kbar into it. He finished the coffee and jammed two pistols in the small of his back.

  “Let’s go get them,” he said.

  The Chevy Tahoe rolled along Palm Drive, heading toward the center of the Stanford campus. Jo gazed out the window. Palm trees picket-fenced either side of the road. Beyond the palms, the landscape darkened to chaparral and live oaks and towering eucalyptus groves. The huge campus had originally been a farm, and much of it was still undeveloped.

  “Speed limit,” Calder said.

  Vance lifted his foot from the accelerator. He was a restless driver and tended to speed up without provocation. They’d gotten from San Francisco to campus in record time.

  Traffic on Palm Drive was light. It was a Friday night. Most students were elsewhere on campus—studying, partying, losing their virginity, inventing fabulous new tiny technologies that could blow up the world or the inside of your head. Nobody was paying attention to a single blue Chevy Tahoe heading for the quad.

  In the front passenger seat, Calder couldn’t stop sighing and squirming, peering at other vehicles and turning to check on Jo over her shoulder. In the blue light of the phone display, Calder’s fashion-forward face was drawn. Her nerves and eagerness were getting the better of her. She finger-combed her sleek hair and put on fresh lipstick.

  Too bad Ian Kanan would notice the nasty Sta-Prest burn on her forehead, Jo thought.

  Vance stopped at the intersection with Campus Drive. Half a mile ahead, through the palms, was the quad. Its sandstone arches were warmly lit. The mosaic on the façade of Memorial Church glimmered under spotlights.