Kill Chain

by Meg Gardiner

  He paused at Lavonne’s corner office and rapped on the door. When she called, “It’s open,” he pushed on it. From her desk Lavonne peered at him over her half-glasses.

  “You missed the colloquium. I presume there’s a reason,” she said.

  “We’ve got a cyclone.”

  She caught sight of P.J. and raised an eyebrow.

  Jesse shook his head. “Something else.”

  Her riot of black curls was falling in her face. “I’ll be here.”

  In his office, he closed the door. P.J. walked over and gazed out the window.

  “Sorry, I’m pressed for time. Is something wrong?”

  P.J. laughed humorlessly. “Didn’t occur to you I came by to take you out to lunch, huh?”

  “Did you?”

  Long, nervous glance. “No.” He wandered to the desk and picked up a pencil. “I was, ah . . .”

  Jesse spread his hands. “P.J., what?”

  He poked the pencil into the desktop blotter. “I thought maybe I’d apply for a job.”

  “Oh. Yeah, well, good. Glad to hear it. Where?”

  He poked the blotter again. “Here.”

  Jesse felt his hands go cold.

  “I thought you might put in a word for me.”

  With the firm? Last time he got P.J. a job, it was with one of the firm’s major clients. That ended with the client ruined and P.J. in jail. Was he serious?

  P.J. gave him a sidelong glance. “Evan works here.”

  “Evan does freelance work for us, and . . .”

  Forget it, he thought. Mentioning Evan was politics, a guilt trip, a tomato thrown in his face. A masterstroke.

  “It doesn’t have to be anything big,” P.J. said. “I can make coffee. Deliver the mail. Courier things to the courthouse; I don’t know. But I want to get back on my feet.”

  Jesse pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “Part-time. Anything. Come on, dude, I’m trying here.”

  Couriering things to the courthouse—as if the firm would let him touch, or even see, contracts, confidential attorney-client communications . . .

  P.J. dropped the pencil and headed for the door. “Never mind. I don’t want to put you on the spot.”

  “No, wait.” Jesse caught his arm. “Look, you got me at a bad time.”

  P.J. tensed under his grasp, skittish. Jesse let go.

  “Just . . . let me think about it. I need to check some things out.”

  P.J. gave him a look, hard and wary, that caused Jesse’s breath to catch. Before he went to jail P.J. couldn’t possibly have worn that expression.

  Then he recovered, breaking into a big-kid grin. “Really?”

  “No promises.”

  “Sure. Tomorrow?”

  “No, that’s too soon.”

  “But maybe I could help prep people for trials. You know, you practice grilling a witness and I’d be the jury, telling you how it played.”

  Trial prep. Jesse felt cold sweat forming.

  “Fine; I’ll wait. But I’m ready for anything,” P.J. said.

  With a knock, the door swung open. Lavonne jerked a thumb over her shoulder.

  “My office. Right now.”

  She was gone by the time he turned to his brother. “Sorry.”

  “No, you’re busy. Just let me know. And . . .” He looked at the floor before finding the word. “Thanks.”

  Lavonne was pacing behind the desk, her face brooding. Motioning for him to shut the door, she nodded at her speakerphone and said loudly, “Jesse Blackburn is joining us, Nicholas.”

  He managed not to flinch. Nicholas Gray’s voice echoed from the speaker.

  “This is more than an appalling coincidence. This is an outrage.”

  Jesse kept his voice level. “Nicholas, yes. Evan’s in danger. We need the police to help get her home safely.”

  “Save the ham for the company picnic, Blackburn. A federal agent was executed in the middle of a city street, and your girlfriend’s in on it.”

  Lavonne grabbed a pen and scrawled on a legal pad, holding it up for him to see: Cyclone? No—blindsided.

  Gray said, “Phil Delaney is on the run and now so is his daughter. And Sanchez Marks is in the middle of it.”

  He felt Lavonne’s eyes on him, hot. He took the legal pad and wrote, Phil D—not car crash. Ambush.

  Lavonne stared at the legal pad. “How do you know that?”

  “What?” Gray said.

  “Nothing.” She stabbed a finger at the pad. Jesse scribbled, Can’t tell cops yet.

  “Are you paying attention?” Gray said. “I’m not playing games. You need to give up Phil Delaney.”

  “We can’t,” Jesse said. “We don’t know where he is, and we’re not in contact with him.”

  “Is that so?” Gray said. “We’ve obtained Delaney’s cell phone records. He phoned you last night at nine forty-six p.m.”

  Lavonne’s head came around, slowly.

  The door opened with a knock, and a secretary came in. “Line two. It’s Evan.”

  Jesse’s head swung up. Lavonne dived for the phone.

  Gray’s voice sharpened. “What’s that? What did I hear?”

  Lavonne punched buttons, said into the phone, “Hang on,” and hurried out the door to take the call at the secretary’s desk.

  “I heard that,” Gray said.

  Jesse stared at the door, but Lavonne had closed it. “Nicholas, I’m going to have to get back to you.”

  “Don’t brush me off. I don’t think for a second that she slipped away on her own. You know where she and her father are.”

  “Stuff the conspiracy theories back down the hatch. You’re out of line.”

  “I’m out of line? You were a crime victim. You should be grateful that men like Boyd Davies are out there protecting you.”

  “Stop right there, Nicholas.”

  “But you’re willing to let his killer get away. Screw the cops, huh? Is that because of your brother?”

  Colder now, Jesse said nothing.

  “I see that a plea bargain let him do county time. He slid right out from under what could have been a long prison sentence. Did you help him with that?” His voice went smooth. “I wonder whether federal charges were ever fully investigated. Mail fraud, for instance.”

  He fought to keep his voice even. “Do not even think of leaning on my brother.”

  “I’m doing no such thing. That’s a paranoid accusation.”

  Jesse stared at the phone. “If you go after him I will take you apart.”

  A long, electric silence filled the room. When Gray spoke again, he sounded pleased.

  “Hear that noise, Blackburn? That’s the sound of your career being flushed down the toilet.”

  8

  I kept the cell phone to my ear. “Lavonne, I’m alive, I’m uninjured, and I had nothing to do with that man’s death.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Off the grid.” She wouldn’t like hearing that, but I was beyond letting her intimidate me. “Please put Jesse on the phone.”

  Traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard was loud and flashy. In the distance the Hollywood hills rose green through the smog. Ahead of us, the skyscrapers of Century City reflected the late-afternoon sun. I drove toward them, my stomach knotting, desperate to hear his voice. Finally the phone clattered.

  “Evan? For chrissake—”

  “I’m in one piece. Jesse, listen to me for a minute.”

  “What’s North doing to you?”

  “Thirty seconds, Blackburn. Be quiet and let me talk.”

  He shut up. I talked, phone scrunched between my ear and my shoulder, running him through it while I drove with one hand and fired up Boyd Davies’s cell with the other.

  “I’m sending you a photo.” I forwarded the image of my father.

  “Do you know who the dead man was? You’re in trouble up to your eyeballs.”

  “I know this is—”

  “Your thirty seconds are up. Every law enfor
cement agency in Southern California is going to be gunning for you by the end of the day. You need to come in.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Yes, right now. You . . .” His voice trailed off. “Oh, man.”

  “You got the photo?”

  “Jesus. Evan, I’m sorry.”

  “Jesse, I have one chance to get Dad back. If I’m under arrest, I can’t do that.”

  The sky was blue behind the scrim of smog, the sun reflecting off the windshields of vehicles coming toward us. A police car approached and drove past. I glanced in the wing mirror and saw his brake lights come on.

  “Evan, listen carefully. Your dad called me last night.”

  I nearly hit the car in the next lane. “What?”

  “Right before the kidnappers grabbed him. He left a very specific message saying to keep you clear of this.”

  I clutched the wheel, emotion welling up. Dad had used his final moments of freedom trying to protect me. “If I stay clear, he has no chance.”

  “Do you have Jax and Tim’s dossiers?” Jesse said.

  “Yes.”

  “You have to stop what you’re doing and bring them to me. Asap.”

  “The dossiers?” In the mirror I saw the cop make a U-TURN and fall in four cars behind me. “Dad wants me to give them to you?”

  “He told me to destroy them.”

  “What? Why?”

  The cop was keeping pace with us. Jesse didn’t reply.

  “If Dad was afraid that classified material will be exposed, then . . .” I glanced at Tim. He didn’t plan simply to hand over the information. He planned to kill the kidnappers, if he still had any blood in his veins. “I don’t think that will happen.”

  “That’s not it. Your dad said if I didn’t destroy the dossiers you’d become part of the kill chain. If the Sangers get the information they’ll come after your family.”

  “They’re already coming after us. Dad, now me—what if the next person they go after is Luke?” I didn’t know how far they’d go to put us under duress, but the thought of them hurting my little nephew gave me chest pain. “The only way to prevent that is to get this Riverbend file and use it to free Dad.”

  “Delaney, will you pay attention to me? Phil said I had to get those papers last night or it would be too late.”

  I felt ill. “It is too late. They’ve got him.”

  “That’s not what he was afraid of.”

  “Then what exactly did he mean?” Something wasn’t firing on all cylinders here. “Jesse, if you know something I don’t, you need to tell me.”

  He exhaled but didn’t answer. Was he holding something back, something concrete that could help me?

  “What is it?” I said.

  “Your dad, he . . . Damn.”

  “Things have changed. When Dad told you to stop me, he was still free. He didn’t know what was going to happen next. Now all bets are off.”

  In my ear I heard a beep, the sound of a call coming in. It had to be Tim’s contact. He gestured for the phone.

  “Jesse, I have to go.”

  “Evan, don’t. Don’t. Your dad wanted to protect your family, wanted me to keep you out of this.”

  “Of course Dad wanted to keep me out of this. I wanted to keep me out of this. But now I’m in it, and Dad’s depending on me.”

  “Ev, you’re making a mistake.”

  “I know you’re trying to protect me, but this isn’t about me. It’s about Dad.”

  The call beeped again. Tim grabbed the phone from my fingers.

  “Sorry, mate.” He clicked to his call. “Yeah.”

  Stomach churning, I looked in the rearview mirror. The cop was still there.

  “Damn it. Damn.”

  Jesse slammed down the phone. Out in the hall, two paralegals stopped talking and turned their heads. Lavonne bustled in.

  “Control your volume. The clients think we’ve just lost a big case.”

  “Evan doesn’t know what’s really going on,” he said.

  “But you do, and you’re going to tell me. Now.”

  “Phil’s message. He swore me to confidentiality about what the people who ambushed him are really after.” He shut the door. “It’s not money. It’s worse.”

  The LAPD car cruised along behind me. In the mirror I saw the officer, dark blue shirt tight on his shoulders, hair cropped, sunglasses obscuring his eyes.

  “Did somebody see us switch cars back in Santa Barbara?” I said.

  “Possible.”

  The boulevard clicked by, strip malls and squat apartment buildings. The skyscraper canyon of Century City rose ahead. Dammit, why wouldn’t Jesse listen to me? Didn’t he get it? Arriving at the street I wanted, I signaled and turned onto Century Park East. Again I checked the mirror.

  “He’s following.” The cop had his radio transmitter to his face. “He’s calling in the license plate.”

  Tim watched in the wing mirror. “A plaza runs behind these office towers. Carry on past eighteen twenty-one and go into an underground parking garage. I’ll take over the wheel.”

  “And I’ll double back through the plaza?”

  “We’ll rendezvous in forty-five minutes. Century Plaza Hotel.”

  I cruised past 1821, a black tower soaring thirty stories high, and turned in to the garage beneath another skyscraper. I squealed down the ramp and parked. In the SUV’s spare tire I found the hidden cash. The packet of pristine hundred-dollar bills weighed no more than a flimsy newsmagazine. Cradling his side, Tim edged into the driver’s seat.

  I went to his door. “Forty-five minutes.”

  “If you don’t show, I won’t wait.”

  I took the stairs two at a time and came out into a lobby bouncing with sunshine, marble, and conversation. The cop had parked at the curb outside and was walking toward the entrance. I strode in the opposite direction, out into the plaza behind the building. Eyes front. After a hundred yards I shoved through the door into another gleaming lobby and finally looked back. No cop, but he was looking for me.

  I found a building directory. The list ran to fifty names. I pushed a hand through my hair, repeating the cryptic line from Jax’s letter. I tried to rise, baby, to ride it right to the top.

  Alliance Mortgage. Westside Ventures. Robinson & Niebuhr LLP.

  Crescendo Ltd. Eighteenth floor.

  The elevator doors slid open to a lobby with seductive lighting and a shining parquet floor. I double-checked the floor number: eighteen. Whatever I thought a private bank would look like, this wasn’t it.

  This wasn’t a bank at all. Behind the rosewood desk, there was just a receptionist with a headset mike. She was about fifty, wearing a long linen dress and a turquoise turban, tied African-style. Unlike the women who fronted other Los Angeles foyers, she wasn’t chewing gum or filing her nails. Or handing me her demo recording in hopes that I was a record producer.

  Gospel music was playing. Call-and-response, four-part harmony, with a funk band backing a choir singing heavy-duty, go-down-Moses-type lyrics. This most definitely wasn’t a law firm.

  The receptionist glanced at me with polite interest, and I became aware of my rumpled shirt and worn running shoes. In light of the music, she looked like a church secretary for a serious Baptist congregation, warm and formidable.

  “May I help you?”

  Crossing to the desk, I set the red key in front of her. I could think of nothing else to do. If she asked me to sign in to access the safe-deposit box, I was in trouble. The dossiers had contained a couple of examples of Jax’s spiky autograph, but I doubted I could copy it. Maybe. Perhaps if I pretended that I had a broken hand, or a neurological condition.

  If this redoubtable church lady asked me for identification, or if Jax had set up the account under an alias, I was hosed.

  She took the key, saw the number etched on it, and made a phone call. “There’s a woman here with a key. Three fifty-seven. Will you check?” She glanced up. “Just a moment.”

  Her expressio
n was amiable, and she seemed unperturbed that a gal in grubby duds had walked into this elegant lobby. However, I wondered exactly how good I was going to be at convincing her that I belonged here. This lady was African-American. So was Jax. Gospel music was playing. If there was a trend here, I would have a hell of a time catching up with it.

  Her gaze remained on my face, and I realized that I hadn’t spoken. I didn’t want to be any more memorable than I already was. Yes, Officer, she’s here. Unfashionable white woman, completely mute. Has a suspicious twitch in her writing hand.

  Trying to sound nonchalant, I said, “Great music. What is it?”

  “Sounds of Blackness.”

  “Right.” I smiled, feeling idiotic. What was taking so long?

  Into her mike she said, “Okay, I’ll tell her.” She looked up. “It’s in the vault, not the archive. Kani will escort you there.”

  Vault? On the eighteenth floor of a building? “Thank you.”

  A moment later a young woman opened a frosted-glass door in the far wall. She was no bigger than a leaf, wearing a bandanna tied around her chest as a top and hip-huggers so tight on her frame the size had to be somewhere below zero. Probably at “Barbie.” Spiky hair, horn-rimmed glasses, sparkly flip-flops. East Asian face. She looked like an anime drawing given life.

  She stuck a pencil behind her ear. “Follow me?”

  Thanking the receptionist, I followed her through the door.

  Abruptly we departed Gospel Land and entered the Matrix, sound track by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. We were in a music archive. On metal shelves all around us, floor to ceiling, were reel-to-reel tapes, labeled with the artist’s name, album title, and date of recording. The shelves ran in narrow rows to the windows. Around us scampered other manga characters, pierced and colorfully tattooed, looking eager and purposeful. Some were wearing headphones and handling recording consoles, others working at computers with cinema displays. Doing what, I wasn’t sure.

  “Can I ask you something?” Trying to think of an oblique way to phrase it, I gestured across the room. “About your storage practices.”

  Manga Barbie followed my gaze. “The windows?”

  “For starters.”

  “Tempered polarized glass, absorbs full-spectrum UV, reduces the possibility of degradation. Of course, all these masters are stored here temporarily, until we can transfer them to digital media.”