Kill Chain

by Meg Gardiner

  Kani scratched her head with the tip of her pencil and wandered to the window to observe the commotion outside. LAPD cars were bunched in the street below. She got a funny feeling, intuition creeping up on her. It calmed her stomach.

  She’d done the right thing; she felt sure of it now. This wasn’t coincidence.

  Three fifty-seven was a red-key box. That meant there were special instructions on file. When she checked, the protocol was specific: Should the box be accessed, Crescendo was to notify a voice mail number back east. Made her feel like a narc, but now her conscience was eased. She had followed procedure. Something hinky was going on with box 357, but the people who got the message would deal with the problem.

  Bliss scratched her cheek and stared out the window of the Porsche at Century City. The woman had to be nearby. Middle-class, white, gotta be soft and slow to react—the hole who took Boyd’s cell phone was around here someplace.

  She pulled to the curb on Little Santa Monica and watched the red dot on the screen of her handheld. The tracker program was true to within fifty yards. The phone was there in the maze of skyscrapers.

  She played her fingers over the studs in her ear. Things had gone badly with Boyd. She took her gun from the glove compartment and set it on her lap.

  Her cell rang and Christian said, “Give me the location.”

  “You’ll be two hours. I’m here now.”

  “You sure this thing will work?” he said.

  “I programmed the phone to broadcast a beacon, so unless they smash it, we’re good.”

  Boyd never knew she had set up the tracker. After thirty seconds of banging her doggy-style, he had to go take a long piss in the woods, and didn’t notice her slipping the phone from his jacket on the backseat of the car.

  “If she’s got the Riverbend file, get it, Bliss. I’ve waited too long to mess around waiting for her to deliver a ransom. Everything got screwed up with Boyd. I can’t have anything else go wrong.”

  “Lot of cops buzzing around here.”

  “This has to stay off the radar,” he said. “Do it quiet and clean. No gunfire, no blood.”

  “I’ll do what I have to do.”

  His voice rose. “This isn’t you taking off the top of your old man’s head with a farm hoe in the barn back home; this is Century City. Gunfire will bring the LAPD down on you like rain. If they get the file, I’m dead. Hurt her some other way.”

  “You always throw the hoe thing in my face.”

  “Do it right.”

  He hung up. She scratched at the scab on her arm, looking out the window at the skyscrapers and a plaza and a pedestrian bridge that crossed the avenue, linking up with the shopping center. Fine, she’d do it his way. She put on her shades and got out. Show yourself, hole.

  I crossed the plaza and climbed the stairs to the pedestrian bridge that soared across Century Park West, heading for the rendezvous. The hotel was on Avenue of the Stars, beyond a rank of skyscrapers and the chic Century City Shopping Center. Traffic coursed below, a shiny river of noise. Men walked past, bankers with their ties batting in the breeze. The back of my head was itching, but I didn’t dare look back. If I did that, I might as well take out an ad in On the Lam magazine.

  I had to get myself organized. I couldn’t show up at LAX like this. Right now I was a walking checklist of security warning signs. Ticket to Thailand? Bought on the spot? No luggage? I could already hear the snap of the guard’s latex glove as she told me to bend over and enjoy the cavity search. I needed a change of clothes and travel gear, but I had to do it quickly.

  I jogged down the steps on the far side of the bridge and cut between office towers to the shopping center. I dared to look behind me. No cops.

  I found a Starbucks with wi-fi. The down-ticker was running in the corner of the screen: 29:53.41. Aside from that, the computer was now operating normally. I logged on to a travel site, typed in, LAX-Bangkok, and a lump of clay formed in my stomach. The shortest journey time was sixteen hours.

  For a moment I stared at the screen. The ticket price was ghastly, but money didn’t concern me. Because my mother worked for a major international airline, I got the world’s greatest perk: I flew virtually free, worldwide. Money wasn’t the problem. Covering my tracks was.

  I considered phoning Mom, but quelled the thought. A warrant was sooner or later going to be issued for my arrest, and asking her to book me a flight would expose her to charges of aiding my escape. More to the point, if I told her I was doing this for Dad she would likely refuse my request, tell me to haul my keister home, and go after the file herself. My parents’ divorce was as combustible as their marriage had been. She’d probably rescue him, hold it over his head, welcome him passionately, and then strangle him for getting kidnapped in the first place. No, I had to keep Angie Delaney out of this.

  Crossing my fingers, I called the airline’s family reservation number and booked a round-trip ticket on a flight leaving late that evening. I said I’d pay cash at the airport for the ticket tax. I hoped that this would keep me out of the security system at least until takeoff. I wasn’t using a credit card. I wasn’t on a no-fly list. I didn’t know if a warrant had been issued for my arrest, but if I could get aboard the plane I would be okay.

  Another glance at my watch. I had eighteen minutes to get rid of Davies’s phone and make myself look like something besides a fugitive drug runner. I forwarded all the information the phone contained to my laptop: calls dialed and received, calendar, notepad, and phone book. He had perhaps forty numbers listed, none of which sounded terribly official. That gave me a funny feeling.

  I rushed out of Starbucks. My first stop was a courier service. Then I ducked into a clothing store, grabbed the first ten things off the rack with tags saying they were my size, and hustled to the dressing room.

  When I pulled off my grungy shirt I felt instant relief. Specks of glass from the shattered window of the BMW had been nicking me since Santa Barbara, minuscule gremlins telling me my world was wrecked and heading for hell. I brushed my skin clean, shook out my hair, and got a good glimpse of myself in the mirror. Call the pound: I looked like a stray dog.

  Out at the register I threw down a pile of clothes, tossed pairs of socks and underwear onto the stack like grenades, and headed for the accessory section. Nobody flies to Asia with just a small backpack, so I grabbed the biggest carryall they had, a suede bag the size of a warthog. The sales-woman smiled and asked how I was doing today, ringing up my purchases meticulously so as not to chip her long scarlet nails. I checked my watch: four minutes. She asked if I wanted to sign up for a store credit card. I didn’t. Did I have their new catalog? Did I want anything gift-wrapped? She took out tissue paper and prepared to wrap each item separately, moving as though conducting a ritual Japanese tea ceremony. I opened the carryall, told her to shove everything inside, threw down cash, and strode out of the store toward Avenue of the Stars. I wasn’t disguised; I was barely presentable, but this would have to do.

  Still trying not to run, I approached the road. Across the street, parked on the curving drive in front of the Century Plaza Hotel, I saw Porsches and Mercedes but not Tim’s red SUV. Had I missed him? I dodged across the street and jogged past hotel guests who were scented with perfume that probably cost more than my mortgage payment. Then I saw Tim behind the wheel of a blue Volvo wagon. He winced out of the car, face sallow, favoring his left side.

  “You drive,” he said.

  I dumped my things in the back, hopped into the driver’s seat, and started the engine. In the wing mirror I saw Tim inching his way to the passenger door, hand on the car to steady himself.

  People were watching. A blonde walking up the driveway behind him pulled off her shades and stared. She had big eyes and a ripe little mouth. Her blouse was low-cut on a frame so boyish that a heroin addict could only aspire to it. If she bent over, one of her free-range breasts might poke a nipple out for air.

  She was close, too close. Tim opened the door, looking a
t the car. With a single swipe she raised her arm. He turned, elbow swinging up in defense, but she hit him in the back of the neck. He slapped his hand over the spot. A second later, he went down.

  11

  Tim staggered against the car and slid to the ground. Reflexively I reached toward him. The woman’s hand retreated, but not before I glimpsed the shiny object in her palm. She looked at me through the open passenger door. Her eyes were too bright, weirdly oily. My confusion sloughed off to straight-up fear.

  She flew into the car, hands out, going for my neck. I put up my arms but she was on me, a pungent smell of perfume and dried sweat and sex rolling off her. I cocked an arm, but in the close confines of the Volvo I couldn’t get a punch in. Her hands scrabbled for me. Beneath the filmy blouse her arms felt as ropy as beef jerky.

  “Shit.” I clawed behind me for the door handle.

  People were staring, but nobody came to help. I flailed and brought up my knees, still scrabbling for the door handle.

  And behind her in the doorway, Tim clawed to his feet. He grabbed her by the ankle and hauled her out. As she slid backward that oily sheen in her eyes focused on the flash drive. Slicker than an eel, she grabbed it and tore the chain loose from my neck. The medallion bounced onto the console between the seats.

  Tim pulled her out of the car. She turned, lunged, and sank her teeth into his cheek. He roared in pain and fell against the car, hand over the bloody wound.

  She turned and looked at the medallion. Her teeth were filmy with blood. Her gaze jumped to me. “She won’t help you.”

  She ran. I scrambled out of the car, but by the time I got around, Tim had pulled himself into the passenger seat. I grabbed the medallion.

  Finally, somebody said, “You all right? What happened?”

  Tim said, “Drive.”

  I jumped behind the wheel and squealed away from the hotel, swerving as I tried to get a look at him. “What did she stick you with?”

  “Not sure. She didn’t give me a full load.” He grabbed my arm. “Never do that again.”

  “What?”

  “The car, you daft idiot. You had the advantage and abandoned it. You should have driven away before she got inside.”

  I flushed. “And leave you?”

  “Yes.” He fell against the door. “No pity, only the goal.”

  I poured down the avenue, seeing the bloody mess that he had become. I blinked down embarrassment and fear, and tightened my hands on the wheel.

  “In that case, I’m going to the airport. You can ride along or get out.”

  He cut his eyes at me, breathing heavily. “Pull over.”

  I left him at a gas station on Olympic Boulevard, waiting on a stack of used tires for his contact. Before I turned to go, I held out my hand. He took it and said, “Only the goal.”

  I nodded. He pulled my hand to his lips. His kiss was cold.

  “Got it. Bliss, I’ve got the signal. I’m on it.”

  Christian gunned the Viper up the freeway, his pulse beating in time with the engine. He glanced at his handheld. The map displayed a red dot heading up the freeway ahead of him: Boyd’s cell phone.

  Bliss had let the woman get away. He would catch her.

  Her father had taken everything from him. He’d been so young, so helpless, and Phil Delaney had destroyed his world. Left his mother to face whoredom. Set the course for all that followed, to his desperation, to time running out. His heart was going like a chain saw, chuddering in his chest. He caught sight of his face in the mirror. He was pale but no longer transparent. They were going to get the Riverbend file and then the Delaneys would finally pay.

  The computer display refreshed, and the blip moved off the freeway. He screeched into the exit lane and onto the off-ramp, honking at the car in front of him. Come on, cocksucker, out of the way. At the light he roared past and gunned away, resting his thumb on the SIG in his lap.

  He followed the tracking signal along the frontage road. She had to be just up ahead, past a package delivery truck and an overloaded pickup. Traffic slowed while the trucks made a left turn. He sounded his horn, ground his teeth, shifted, and flew down the road again, closing on the car ahead.

  The screen refreshed, and the pinging of the locator changed pitch, dropping lower. He glanced at it—no.

  The signal was now behind him. He’d passed her somehow. He skidded into a U-turn and raced back the other way. Quarter of a mile along, he slowed, checked the signal, and turned onto a side road. He punched it up the hill, around the curve, and hit the brakes.

  The unmitigated bitch. The signal from Davies’s cell phone was coming from the package delivery service truck. It was parked in front of the Santa Barbara sheriff’s department.

  The check-in agent peered at her computer monitor. “Did you pack your bags yourself?”

  “Yes.” Five minutes ago, in the women’s room near the entrance to the terminal, but she didn’t need to know that.

  She ran my passport through the magnetic strip reader on her keyboard.

  Behind me, a long line snaked back from the counter. The flight to Bangkok was nearly full. Foreign words bounced around me, sounding to my ears fast-paced and nasal. The ticket agent kept hold of my passport, staring at her screen.

  Boyd Davies’s phone should be at the sheriff’s department by now. Before I left Century City, I had stuck it in an express envelope at the courier service and sent it urgent, same-day delivery to Detective Lilia Rodriguez.

  The blonde had used Davies’s cell phone to track me somehow, even when it was turned off. The moment the Sangers thought that I possessed what they wanted, they sent somebody to steal it from me. They had no intention of telling me where Dad was. They were going to leave him to die.

  To rescue him, I would have to turn that around on them. Somehow I had to find some leverage against them, something they needed, some means of withholding the information they were after until they led me to my father.

  The ticket agent frowned at her screen for a second longer. Near the terminal doors, two well-armed policemen were scanning the crowd.

  The agent smiled and handed me my passport and boarding pass. “Have a good flight.”

  Beyond security, I found a wireless hot spot. Surrounded by a loud TV sports channel and business travelers hunched over beers, I logged on and set up a new e-mail account. Then I wrote a message to Jesse.

  Check these out.

  I attached the data I’d taken from Boyd Davies’s phone, and told him I’d couriered the phone to Lily.

  What’s weird? Calls received look like L.A. and Santa Barbara numbers. No federal agency numbers.

  No police, no Wash D.C. nos either. The number labeled Office clicks straight to voice mail. Something’s not right.

  I sat for a moment staring at the screen. I knew I’d angered him earlier. And if I told him where I was about to head, he would go ballistic. I couldn’t face that, not yet. That was why I wasn’t phoning him, even though I had just purchased a new cell phone. And I deeply, deeply wished that he were here with me, that we could take this on together.

  And it hit me how truly far off the chart I was going. Here in the cavernous terminal, holding a boarding pass that would send me nine thousand miles away from home, I felt unutterably off balance. Alone.

  Babe, I know where to find the information that I need, and I have to go get it. Please trust that this is the way it has to be. I love you. I wish you could say a prayer for me.

  At the bar, glasses clinked. I sent the message and sat rubbing my temples. On-screen, the ticker read 25:09.17.

  I heard the television go to the news. Glancing up, I saw my fears realized.

  They were reporting Boyd Davies’s death. I sat bone still, seeing footage from the scene, police cars and an ambulance, cops, and Jesse’s old classmate Drew Farelli, the U.S. Attorney’s cocker spaniel.

  Man and woman wanted for questioning.

  Nothing about my name, but that wouldn’t last long. Soon I’d be
on television, wanted posters, and airline computers.

  The bartender was wiping the counter. A few people at the bar were casually eyeing the TV. I gathered my things. Hoisting my pack onto my shoulder, I stood and strolled toward the gate.

  Forty-five minutes later my flight heaved itself skyward, engines at a hard drone. The lights of the coastline swept past below us. In jerks I let out the breath I’d been holding. We climbed over the black ocean and banked northwest on the great circle route toward Asia. But as we rose I felt that I was falling. That the world was dropping out from under me. That I might never see my father again.

  12

  Tuesday

  Salt and iron. Cry of gulls. Smell of rust.

  Phil crossed the boundary to consciousness. Beneath his back lay cold metal. Creaks on the wind, a swaying. He was at sea.

  Dark out. He breathed, eyes open, seeing nothing. Concussion or heavy tranquilizers had put him down; he didn’t know which. He blinked, beginning to discern shapes. The ship was swaying.

  No, he was. His head was spinning. One eye was punch-swollen. Blood had dried on the side of his head, and he ached. Did he ever, balls to bone. Fifty-nine was bitch enough without the beating. He inched his fingers down to his knee.

  One touch and he shouted in pain.

  His voice bounced and disappeared, swallowed by the darkness. He lay still, absorbing the hurt. The metallic creaking resumed. Salt air but no water rushing past. No engine sounds.

  Where was he?

  He pressed his hands to the rough iron beneath him and sat up. It was heavily oxidized, needed painting or it was going to rust right through. This vessel could only barely be seaworthy. Gingerly he turned his head and saw a vertical shaft of light no wider than a filament.

  Was he in a cargo hold? He listened again to the sounds of the ship, and the absences. No water. No engines. He should hear the engines, that deep rumble of diesels. Were they at anchor?