Back-Tracker

by Bob Blink

  “That was the first time I met Carlson. When it was all over there were some nasty repercussions. I’d learned a lot about what I could do and realized I could go back, tell Carlson what she needed to resolve the matter, and never be actively involved myself. That would save my real name from getting out, I was using Stan Mathews with her, and prevent a whole lot of people from realizing I even existed.”

  “How did we work together?” Laney asked, now interested.

  “Better as time went on. It was a tricky operation and you got killed during it.”

  Laney almost spilled the coffee he was sipping when Jake revealed this.

  “I was killed? What are you talking about?”

  “We were trying to track down some of the terrorists. They set a trap, and we walked into it. You got a couple of them, but were shot for your efforts. It made sense to back out of that situation and use the knowledge to approach their trap differently.”

  “So it never happened?”

  “You’re still here,” Jake pointed out.

  “I’m not sure I need to hear this,” Laney admitted somewhat shaken.

  “You got pretty badly shot up in the Washington matter as well,” Jake said.

  “You’re kidding?” Laney asked looking hard at Jake.

  “No, really.”

  “Being with you is dangerous, but it seems you have a unique solution to any problem,” Laney said softly, his eyes distant as he considered what he was learning.

  Jake was silent for a long time as he considered what he was going to say. He’d always wondered how Laney would react, and given that he expected to have to back-track soon anyway, he decided it might be interesting to see.

  “I had to shoot you once myself,” Jake said.

  Laney’s eyes widened and he looked straight at Jake again. “You shot me? When was this?”

  “Just before Atlanta. I was in a Federal facility in Los Angeles for murder. You and Carlson wanted to talk to me because you had linked me to a number of the killings you’d been tracking for years.”

  “Murder. You were innocent, I suppose?”

  “No, I killed the son of a bitch. Unfortunately there were complications, I got arrested, and because I couldn’t back-track due to a thump on the head, I was trapped. The Atlanta bomb went off while I was being detained, and when I got my ability back I talked Carlson into helping me escape so I could undo the event. You tried to stop my escape. I had no choice but to shoot you if I wanted to get away, but as soon as I back-tracked it no longer mattered.”

  Laney was silent for a long time. Finally he said, “Why are you telling me this?”

  “You asked. I’ve thought I should tell you for a long time. I guess I was curious how you’d react.”

  “I’m not sure how to respond. You tell me you’ve saved my life a couple of times and shot me at least once. That’s not something that one is used to dealing with.”

  “Just pretend it never happened,” Jake said. “For all intents and purposes, it never did.”

  They had crossed the Bay and were now exiting onto surface streets. A short time later they passed in front of Ray’s house.

  “Not very impressive, is it?” Laney asked.

  “Goes well with his car,” Jake said off handedly. “It’s something that should have raised more alarms early on. With this house and the wreck he drives, where did he get the money to finance everything he was supposedly doing. I considered that he might have money stashed away, but in truth didn’t dwell on the issue long enough. I’d have saved some effort if I’d dug into that from the beginning.”

  Not wanting to disturb anything or alert anyone that Ray was being watched, they drove past and headed to the second of the newspaper offices. Jake pointed out the car that Ray drove sitting in the parking lot, and where his office was located in relation to the entrance. After that they returned to the City. Laney wanted to see where the killing would take place. Jake decided they might as well have lunch there. While they were there, they could make reservations for Friday night when Ray and his party would be present.

  “This is really something,” Laney said as he gazed out the window of the restaurant at the San Francisco Bay. “Clarissa would really enjoy this place.”

  “Clarissa?” Jake asked. He’d never heard the name before. Laney was very tight-lipped about his personal life, and had never made reference to someone close to him. “Someone special?”

  Laney smiled wryly. Jake was certain only the agent’s dark skin prevented him from displaying a blush of embarrassment.

  “Yeah, I guess you could say that. We’ve been dating for over a year now.”

  “Is it getting serious?” Jake asked, intrigued by the openness the normally reserved agent was showing. From everything he’d said in the past one would have come to the conclusion he didn’t have a personal life. Jake was intrigued to see this side of the man.

  “It is for me,” Laney finally said. “Maybe when this is over I can bring her here.”

  That Friday night, Jake and Laney were in place when the foursome was escorted to their table, not far from where Jake and Laney had had lunch the other day. They had been offered the choice of several booths, and Jake had chosen one with a better view of the table where Ray and companions were sitting than he and Nate had had the other time he’d lived through this situation. It also offered a clear view of the entrance to the bathroom where the killing would take place.

  “That’s Jon Mallory with him?” Laney asked as he took a sip of his wine.

  “I knew him mostly as Fred Hickam, reporter and associate of Ray’s at the San Francisco paper,” Jake agreed. “He’ll shave the beard in the next couple of weeks, maybe even this weekend before the fake Ray shows up to work. That might make sense since it changes his appearance drastically and would help distance him from the events tonight.”

  “We’ll want to talk with him afterwards,” Laney said.

  “He’ll play dumb,” Jake replied. “I’m sure of it. He is in a reasonable position to do so. I’m not sure exactly what his story will be, since a fake Ray ended up the evening with him, but he was nowhere near the murder itself. He could pretend that Ray himself set this up for reasons unknown. We’d have a hard time proving otherwise.”

  “We’ll also have a team pick up Watson,” Laney said. “They can get him at the house before he leaves for the airport. He won’t be able to explain away his part so easily.”

  Jake would have liked to be there for the arrest, but the timing was such that they couldn’t be in position to apprehend the two thugs as well as be at the house in Oakland at the same time.

  Through the meal, which was excellent, they had little to do but watch the events at the other table. While they had observed the foursome, they had a chance to talk. A number of topics came and went. Somehow the topic of conversation had drifted to a topic that Jake really wasn’t entirely comfortable with.

  “It’s not your fault that the girl got herself killed,” Laney said, his dark eyes serious and focused directly on Jake. “The blasts that caught her attention happened even without your interference. The first one took out the hotel windows from what you told us. The timing couldn’t have differed more than a few seconds.”

  Jake wasn’t as convinced that it would work out the same and said so. He had thought about it a great deal since learning of the circumstances around her death. “If they were driving at thirty miles an hour, that’s forty-four feet per second,” Jake pointed out. “Do the math. As little as five seconds difference and the car would have been more than two hundred feet away from the spot where they were when the blast was triggered. Two hundred feet! She might have still been distracted, might have still had an accident, but it was the unfortunate proximity to the truck loaded with steel rebar that had killed her. A difference of two hundred feet could have changed all that.”

  “The whole thing with the woman was just something whoever is behind this was trying to use to manipulate you,” Laney pointed
out. “It isn’t what this is about. You aren’t responsible for every death.”

  Jake knew that Pati Ray’s death was something that had been a useful tool to direct him. But he had also talked to Henry Ray, the real one he was certain, and Ray had made it clear that the blast had been key in causing her lack of attention to the road in front of her. A blast triggered when Jake had shot the drone. His actions had changed the timing, and as a result Pati Ray had probably died. It was his responsibility to ensure his actions didn’t cause that very thing.

  “Besides,” Laney was saying, “saving the Senator and LoBue had a major impact on the syndicate, and most likely saved many lives. It’s a reasonable trade.”

  Jake disagreed. If he was to manipulate the flow of history, he had an obligation. An obligation he suspected he’d failed this time. Granted, he’d known nothing about the incident until he’d received the note a few months from now, but that didn’t absolve him of responsibility in any way.

  “It looks like the ladies are going to the restroom,” Laney said softly, forcing the matter out of their minds for the moment. Jake knew he would have to think more about it at some point.

  “After they return it’ll be about five minutes before Ray makes his own run,” Jake informed the FBI agent.

  They watched both the table and the area around the restrooms. This time Jake was aware of the other men in the vicinity and realized the two thugs were sitting in a booth close to the restrooms with a view of the foursome. They had recently joined the lone diner who sat there, the fake Ray who would soon be joining the group replacing the real reporter. There was no doubt they knew one another and were working together. The thugs could move quickly from the booth and be inside the restroom ahead of Ray if he made a move that way. They must have had a backup plan since Ray’s movements were beyond their control. He might not have felt the need to go at all, or he might have chosen a time when too many others were inside. Jake had noticed the group was consuming a lot of alcohol with their meal, something obviously planned to ensure Ray made a trip.

  When Ray stood to make his run, Laney and Jake watched the three men stand and make their own way into the restroom. One of the thugs held the door as someone who had been inside stepped out into the dining room. Jake felt uncomfortable knowing he was allowing Ray to walk to his death, and could sense the tenseness in Laney as well. Five minutes later the fake Ray walked out of the restroom and started for the table. Jake wasn’t certain if it was the vantage point or the awareness that Ray had been replaced, but this time he could tell it wasn’t the same person. No one else noticed, however, and those at the table greeted his return without the slightest indication he wasn’t the same man who had left moments before. Laney nudged Jake when the two men stepped out of the restroom, left some money on the table where they’d been sitting with Watson, and then left the restaurant. After several minutes Laney stood and made his way to the men’s room.

  “No sign of Ray,” he said. “He must be stashed in that small cabinet where they keep supplies where you found him. I didn’t try to open the door.”

  They waited, now somewhat subdued, until the foursome finished up and left. They wouldn’t follow them tonight. Jake knew what they were going to do and there was nothing to be gained by spending hours in a noisy dance bar. Once they were gone, Jake and Laney paid their own bill and left the restaurant. They exited out into the courtyard of Ghirardelli Square, busy with tourists and locals alike. A short distance from the entrance, less than fifty feet in fact, were the elevators that would take one down to the underground parking area. The public elevators bypassed the service level, also below, that was used by Ghirardelli Square businesses to bring in supplies and stock, as well as for trash and garbage removal. The service area could be accessed from the side street on the Polk Street side of the Square via the large drive in entrance, or from special lifts within the various establishments such as the restaurant they had just left. Carlson had provided detailed plans of the facility, and they knew that the inside lift used to bring food deliveries to the restaurant and take out the trash was inside off the kitchen area.

  The internal lift, the front door, and an alarmed and never used fire exit, were the only ways out of the place. The fire exit was unlikely because of the alarm and the fact it exited into a narrow set of stairs that would be awkward. The front door was a possibility. The door’s proximity to the elevators and the lack of people in the early morning hours meant it might serve, but the internal lift to the unseen service level was the better bet.

  Jake and Laney had decided that was how the men would dispose of the body. The restaurant was open from noon to ten on weeknights, and until two AM on Fridays and Saturdays. A cleaning crew came in mornings to haul out the trash from the previous evening and get everything ready for the new day. The two thugs would probably put the body in one of the large plastic trashcans, haul the trashcan back to the internal lift, and take it down below where no one was likely to observe what they were doing. Jake didn’t think they would be so bold as to park on the service level. Anything other than a delivery truck would be noticed, and the trash normally wouldn’t be picked up until Monday. Of course, the two thugs might have access to a delivery vehicle, so the possibility couldn’t be discounted entirely. It was more likely, however, that once in the underground level, the two men would use the service stairs that would allow them to walk down a level to the normal parking garage where they could have a car waiting. The garage was open to the public, and like the rest of the square would be sparsely populated during the early morning hours. The two men were strong enough to be able to maneuver the trashcan down the stairs and into a waiting car, probably a van of some kind. Simple, quick, and out of view.

  * * * *

  “I see them,” Jake said into his cell phone the next morning as he watched the two thugs step out of the elevator and make their way toward the entrance of the restaurant. Jake was on the upper level while Laney waited below in the service area. With the many terraced stairways and multiple offset levels of Ghirardelli’s courtyard, Jake had many places to hide and watch unobserved among the red brick of the randomly spaced shops. Jake and Laney had been in place for over an hour, and the cleaning crew had gone to work just a short time before. The two men Jake recognized as Ray’s killers were no longer dressed in casual dinner attire, but now wore rougher clothes with a blue service apron over the top. They looked just like members of the work crew. They reached the glass doors of the restaurant, checked to be certain they were unlocked, and then looked inside before moving stealthily. Jake and Laney waited to see how things developed. Ten minutes later it was Laney’s turn to report a sighting.

  “They just came down the lift,” Laney alerted Jake. “There are no vehicles nearby, so they are probably going to take the body down the stairs as we guessed.”

  That was consistent with their arrival via the public elevator. They would have been able to access the elevator from the service level, suggesting they had come up from the garage.

  “Yeah, that’s their plan,” Laney reported a few minutes later. “They rolled the trashcan over to the stairway. They have an access card and were able to open the doorway, and have taken Ray inside. They’re going down to the garage.”

  “That’s what we needed to know,” Jake said, as he terminated the call. He slipped the phone in his pocket and back-tracked to the time he and Laney had separated earlier.

  “Let’s go into the garage,” Jake said. “They’ll be bringing the body down the stairwell just as we suspected.”

  Laney knew Jake’s comments were based on having witnessed the events play out. They had obviously completed the surveillance as planned, and now they would position themselves based on what they had learned.

  “Did I get killed again this time?” Laney asked, as he followed Jake toward the stainless steel doors of the public elevator that would take them below. They had parked Laney’s rental car there earlier in anticipation of having to wait in t
he parking levels.

  Startled by the comment, Jake looked back at Laney to discover the grinning face. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I assume we watched them and know what they have planned.”

  Jake and Laney stepped off the elevator in the dim light of the surprisingly cold parking area below Ghirardelli Square. The area was narrow and crowded, but fortunately not busy at this hour of the morning. That would make it a reasonably safe place to approach the men with their illicit load. Any shooting would be contained. Even the sound of any shots would be unnoticeable to anyone above. That would be later, however. Now they had time to kill until the two men arrived.

  Later they heard the van as it made its way into the garage. It had to be the killers. Jake had noted the time the two men had come up the elevator, and it was now six minutes before that would occur. They watched as a small white van came into view and found a parking spot close to the stairs coming down from the service level. Moments later, the two men climbed out and joking with one another, walked across the concrete lanes toward the public elevator. They didn’t notice Jake and Laney behind the tinted windows of the rental car on the far side of the garage.

  Jake and Laney found a spot that offered concealment and cover close to the stairwell that the men would use to bring the body down. Some minutes later their steps could be heard struggling down the stairs as they maneuvered the heavy trashcan down to the garage level. Jake and Laney waited with guns drawn and watched as the two thugs muscled the heavy trashcan out of the stairwell, then lifted it and carried it over to the small van. They set it down behind the double doors at the rear, and as one was fishing for his keys, Laney stepped out and spoke.

  “FBI. Raise your hands and don’t move.”

  Jake had always thought the approach a little silly, but in this case they wanted the men alive and there wasn’t too much choice. As it was, the one with the keys stiffened and didn’t move, but the other who had been waiting, nervously resting his hand on his hip, attempted to pull a handgun from his belt. The tritium sights on Jake’s Sig showed up nicely in this light, and he’d been watching the man against just such a move.