“How’s that any different from Johnny Wong protecting a strip joint?”
“They won’t hurt any of us. Anyone with a badge. Including you.”
Of course they would have had a deal with the police, he thought. They were tearing the world to pieces, but they needed it to run smoothly until it was gone. They didn’t care if the outer edges fell apart. People’s urges were pricing them out of life, and that tended to run down everything around them. But Hernandez’s bosses needed lights burning all night in the shopping districts. They needed the neon signs to glow and buzz. The phones had to work, the banks had to stay open, and the trains had to run. And for all that, they needed the police to go out into the night and see the city through until the sun rose again.
“What about Houston and Roper?” he asked. “Did they get the deal?”
Hernandez shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s above your pay grade too?”
“I just don’t know, Carver. It shouldn’t have happened like that.”
She took a right onto Market Street, and they were going northeast toward downtown. Hernandez was using her left hand to clench the makeshift tourniquet on her thigh. He thought about Johnny Wong’s man in the limousine, the story of the blindfold. Hernandez was driving him to meet something even worse than Johnny, was answering all his questions. And she hadn’t offered him a blindfold.
“What about Johnny Wong?” Carver asked. “Why bother setting him up? You could’ve just killed Hadley and made her disappear.”
“Wong’s a gangster,” Hernandez said. “They knew Hadley was meeting with him. They knew she could find him.”
“But she didn’t talk, did she?” Carver asked. “I saw the video. So then you were back to square one. You hit Patrick, and that didn’t help either. Because nobody can find Johnny Wong unless he wants to be found.”
“You could, after you were suspended,” she said. “Then he thought it was safe to reach out. You never would have found him if he hadn’t come to you. We made it so he wanted you to find him.”
“You set us up, from the beginning,” Carver said. “Even the dream Jenner had, about talking to Patrick. You put that there, planted it in him. You started us down the path and then just stood back and watched.”
“You found Johnny, and in the process led us to everyone else we’d been looking for. People we’d needed a long time. It was a successful operation.”
A successful operation. One that had swept up Henry and Mia, and left Hadley Hardgrave in pieces. They had cut out Calvin Tran’s tongue and eyes so he couldn’t tell Carver that he’d never sent the note. He wondered where they put Jenner on their ledger. Was he just an acceptable loss, a fair trade to eradicate a few problematic people?
He raised his gun and pressed it to Hernandez’s temple.
They were at a red light. He wouldn’t even have to worry that she’d crash. He grabbed the parking brake and yanked it up, so that the car wouldn’t roll when she went slack. She closed her eyes and her shoulders sagged, and that was the only thing that saved her. He thought of Mia, the way she’d fallen to her knees in her kitchen. Her hands in the air, begging.
It was for her that he lowered the gun. He had to find her, and he couldn’t do it without Hernandez.
“Drive,” he said.
He released the parking brake. Above the intersection, the light turned green. Hernandez opened her eyes, then set the car rolling. When they passed under a set of working streetlights, he saw how pale her face was. He wondered how much blood she’d lost.
They were going east down Clay Street, and in front of them, the beacon atop the Ønske Pyramid flashed blue-white in the falling rain. Far past that, a wall of fog was swallowing the Bay Bridge. Then they were coming down the hill, walled in by the row houses, and he could see nothing.
Hernandez stopped in front of the electronic gate that guarded the Ønske Pyramid’s underground parking lot. A hidden sensor must have recognized her car, because the red lights in front of them switched to green and the bronze bollards blocking their way began to retract into the pavement. At the top of the ramp, a steel gate was spooling into the concrete lintel above the automobile entrance. The light that shone from beneath its ever-widening crack was as white and sterile as the noonday sun.
When the ramp was clear, Hernandez drove down it and into the garage.
There were only three vehicles on the level where they parked. One of them was Johnny Wong’s black limousine. It was riddled with bullet holes and sat on four flat tires. All the window glass was missing. The chauffeur was slumped against the steering wheel, blood running out of his ear and down his cheek.
Then there was the tow truck, which must have brought the limousine to the garage after the ambush. And in the space next to it was the car he’d almost fired on, the one they’d used to take Mia.
Hernandez parked next to it.
“Stay there,” he said. “Don’t get out.”
He took the keys and stepped out, then looked into the windows of the car in the next space. The white upholstery behind the driver’s seat was smeared with blood, and there was a pool of it in the foot well. They must have shot Mia below the knee before they’d caught her. He looked at the floor and saw the trail of blood leading away from him. It went in drops and dashes across the clean concrete and the newly painted yellow parking lines. It stopped at the elevator bank.
He went back and got Hernandez out of the car. He shut the door and she leaned against it.
“Can you walk?”
“No,” she said. “I really can’t.”
“All right,” he said. “Put your left arm across my shoulders.”
She did, and he held on to her wrist. He pressed the gun at her back, above her right hip. He had seven bullets left, but he doubted they added up to even one chance.
“Let’s go see your bosses.”
32
WHEN THE ELEVATOR doors closed behind him, he stepped away from Hernandez and scanned the room. Floor-to-ceiling glass panels boxed in the area around the elevator. The wall directly across from him was screened with an opaque film that shimmered like the surface of the bay. He looked at the floor and saw where the blood trail picked up at the threshold to the elevator. It turned left and went under one of the glass walls.
Whatever lay beyond the glass box might have been a clean room. Everything that wasn’t blinding white was made of stainless steel. He let go of Hernandez and she leaned against the smooth wall, using it to ease her way to the floor. She sat with one leg bent and the other straight out in front of her.
He followed Mia’s blood to the glass wall. It went straight under it, reappeared on the other side, then curved off to the right. One of the panels had to open, but he couldn’t see any mechanism that would allow it. As for the blood trail, it curved away, and the opaque film covering the main wall kept him from seeing where it ended. He hammered his fist against the glass, but it did nothing. It felt as solid as a brick wall. He touched his finger to the joint between two of the panels, and it was as hard as concrete. He took a step back from the glass wall and raised his gun.
“I wouldn’t try that.”
He looked up. He couldn’t see the intercom speaker. Maybe it was hidden behind one of the recessed lights.
“Why’s that?” he asked.
“It’ll ricochet,” the speaker said. “It could hit you, or your lieutenant. By now I would think you’d know better.”
He recognized the voice and the accent. He’d heard it several times on television, and once in person. He was looking at the ceiling, but turned when he heard a knock on the glass behind him. Sheldon Lassen stood on the other side. He wore a long physician’s coat and had a paper surgical mask pulled down so that it hung around his throat. His hair was whiter than Carver remembered, but it still turned into curls where it fell past his collar.
“It’s always such a pleasure to see you, Inspector Carver.”
“I want to see them,” he
said. “Mia and Jenner.”
“Or what?”
Carver glanced at the gun in his hand, then nodded toward Hernandez where she sat against the wall.
“You won’t do that,” Lassen said. “Don’t waste our time.”
“Why not?” Carver asked. “It’s the first shot that’s the hardest. We’re past that.”
“I’ll grant you, you’ve gone pretty far this time. But you’ve always liked Lieutenant Hernandez. Always worked well with her.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Look around you, Carver,” Lassen said. “This is practically your second apartment.”
He hit a button on his phone, and the glittering film on the main glass wall began to fade until it was transparent. The space beyond wasn’t a clean room. It was an operating theater. There were three stations set up in the middle of the floor. White robotic arms sprouted from the ceiling above each bed. Some of them held imaging devices, or mounted high-powered lights. The rest were bristling with tools and machinery beyond Carver’s capacity to guess.
He focused on Mia.
She was in the middle bed, and Jenner was to her left. She was lying unconscious, an oxygen mask strapped over her face, and multiple intravenous ports in her forearms. Her legs were covered with a blue sheet, and he couldn’t tell whether she was wounded or not.
The same went for Jenner. On his left, two men and a woman in green scrubs studied a bank of monitors. Another man came through a set of sliding doors. He was pushing a crash cart, which he left between Jenner and Mia. No one paid any attention to Carver. Maybe the glass was only transparent in one direction, or maybe they simply didn’t care.
Mia’s vital signs scrolled along the bottom of three monitors behind her bed. He didn’t know what most of the lines meant, but he could see her pulse and it was steady. He’d seen what they’d done to Hadley after strapping her to a bed like that. Maybe they were just waiting for Mia to wake up.
“Nothing?” Lassen said. “Nothing coming through?”
“Where’s Henry Newcomb?”
Lassen stepped closer to the glass.
“We didn’t need him,” he said. “He was useless. Miss Westcott, though—she’s something else. Truly a great find. So many possibilities.”
“What are you doing to her?”
“You know about the house on Filbert Street?” Lassen asked.
Carver didn’t respond. Whatever he had learned about the house was irrelevant now, and they both knew it. And talking to Lassen was as useless as holding a gun on Hernandez. This would end however Lassen chose to end it, and no words from the inside of a glass box were going to make a difference.
“What we did for you, the decontamination truck—that’s just a mobile facility. It’s not equipped like this room. We can go deeper here. We can scrub harder. If we plant something, it always takes root.”
He raised his phone again and scrolled through a menu. Then he hit another button and looked at the ceiling behind Carver.
“They won’t feel a thing,” Lassen said. “And neither will you.”
Carver couldn’t hear the gas, and couldn’t see where it was coming from, but the air was suddenly too sweet. He looked at Lassen and took a step back from the glass.
“Lieutenant Hernandez has the right idea,” Lassen said. “Sitting down, I mean. It’s better to sit, so you don’t fall—of course, she remembers. A luxury, in here.”
“She remembers what?” Carver asked.
“I always enjoy these conversations. Especially with you—you’ve done so much for us. For this city.”
“I’ve never done anything for you.”
“You are the saddest thing—really, you are. A man who deserves accolades but can’t be recognized. Not even by himself. It’s all erased, scrubbed clean,” Lassen said. “And it has to be. There’s no other choice. But if I put stars on a wall to mark my greatest officers, yours would shine the brightest. And never doubt it. You’re not SFPD. You work for Ønske, and you belong to me.”
Carver backed up and leaned against the glass. He was taking shallow breaths now. The gas coated his throat like melted candy. He looked at the lights and saw a glowing halo around each of them. When he turned back to Lassen, the air dazzled with electric-blue sparks. He couldn’t blink them away.
“How many?” he asked. “How many times?”
Lassen looked at his left hand as he thought about it. He tapped his thumb twice against each of his fingertips.
“Eight,” Lassen said. “Eight times, we’ve stood here. Just like this. Always this glass between us, or I’d have shaken your hand. I’d shake your hand now, if I could. What you’ve done for us—my god—the threats you’ve eliminated. The problems you’ve buried. You don’t even remember going to New York and taking care of that doctor—I believe you know him as George. Two behind the ear, and you were sure he deserved it. He did, of course. He was trying to destroy me.”
Carver raised the gun, pointed it at Lassen’s head and started pulling the trigger before the man had a chance to react. He meant to empty the magazine, but the fourth shot was a misfire. All three bullets ricocheted off the glass and whined past his face. He heard them hit the marble wall around the elevator doors.
Lassen hadn’t moved.
Now he put his finger to the other side of the glass and traced it behind a leaden streak. The bullets hadn’t done a thing. Not a chip or a crack. Lassen walked away, bringing his phone to his ear.
By then, Carver’s airways might have turned to sugar crystals. Sweet granules had gathered in his throat, were sifting like dust into his lungs. He dropped the gun and slid down the wall until he was sitting. He was across from Hernandez, and she pulled her head up with some effort and watched him. They were both taking shallow breaths. He tried to think of something to say to her, but found nothing.
If he’d come to the floor facing the other direction, then he would’ve been able to look through the glass and see Mia. But turning himself around was an impossibility. He had only the strength to stay sitting up, to keep his eyes open. He tried to gather his memories, tried to wrap his arms around them and hold them tight to his chest where Lassen couldn’t pull them away. They had taken Mia from him once already tonight, but now they meant to make it permanent. They were going to reach inside of him and pluck her out, and when he opened his eyes again, it would be as though she’d never existed.
His chest was burning.
It hadn’t been dust falling into his lungs, but smoke and blowing embers. Now there was a smoldering fire inside him. He fell into a spasm of coughing. The only way to stop it was by holding his breath and picturing Mia.
There was no way he could tell her now. No way to explain that he understood what she had tried to do for him, that even here, as he fell back into the tumbling nightmare, there was one bright light and it came from her.
She’d known this might happen. She’d done what she could to prepare him.
He closed his eyes and let her take him again, let her lead him down the steps to the stateroom and undress him in the dark. He was with her in the berth, and her hands were on his shoulders. He was moving inside her, moving with her, and then she pulled him close and began whispering into his ear.
Hold on to me, Ross. Hold everything close. Everything we have together. You have to hold tight to everything you see and never let it go. So remember this—this, right now—remember me, doing this—
—Mia, wait—
Don’t you let go of me, Ross Carver—like that—don’t you let go of me.
—Mia—
You can’t forget me. I won’t let you forget me.
—never, Mia, I’ll never—
You can’t. You can’t ever.
—I won’t, Mia, I can’t—
Hold on to me Ross. Hold me now.
—I am—
Touch me—touch me everywhere and breathe me in—it’s coming—it’s coming soon and you have to be ready—so kiss me, taste my skin, put y
our hands in my hair and—
Yesterday, he hadn’t understood at all.
Mia hadn’t been gasping in the dark. She didn’t talk that way every time she made love. She’d been building a defense by placing markers in every corner of his mind. She’d known they were both going back into the darkness, but she thought she could leave him with something that would resonate. A light that would shine with enough brilliance to lead him back. So she was etching herself into the oldest pathways of his memory: the scent of her hair, and the taste of her skin. The rush of her breath across his ear as she guided him. Memories that would awaken at any brush and blossom into longing and need. She wanted him to wake from this with a hole in his heart, something that couldn’t be filled unless he found her. She didn’t want to be taken away—
A rattling, wet cough roused him.
He looked up in time to see Hernandez slump facedown into the pool of blood that had gathered around her.
He turned to the glass, where Lassen had been. No one was watching them.
Now Hernandez began to spasm, her body shuddering against the floor. Her hair was a dark spill around her head. He pulled himself toward her, clawing at the slick marble until he reached her. He turned her on her side, put her head onto his knee. He watched her bubbling breath come back, and he tried to remember what he’d been thinking about a moment ago.
He’d been on the other side of the glass box, had been drifting down into the dark with something very important gripped to his chest. But he’d lost it in the suddenness of his awakening. He’d been startled, and then he’d lost his hold.
When he knew he couldn’t hold himself up much longer, he lay down along the wall. His eyes blurred in and out of focus until they came to rest on an empty shell casing a few feet from his nose.
A glowing tendril rose from the tarnished brass, wavering like a candle flame.
He still couldn’t remember what he’d been thinking, what had been so urgent a moment ago. He looked at his fingers. They were glowing with a light so soft and so cold that he thought of snow. A gray winter’s morning, and the feather-tap of snowflakes against a window pane. He counted along his fingertips, touching each one with the pad of his thumb.
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