Moments later my confidence evaporated when the truck’s starter cranked over ineffectually as well.
What the hell? It had been running fine yesterday. Surely that dipshit Ratboy hadn’t managed to undo all my good work.
I burrowed under the hood.
Like the car, its ignition wire was also secure. So Skidmark hadn’t been messing with it this time.
Suspicion oozed into my mind.
Or had he?
Scowling, I traced the distributor wire to the first spark plug. The boot fell away in my hand, revealing an empty hole in the block. A hurried inspection revealed that all the spark plugs were missing, the boots simply resting in their cavities.
“Skidmark, if I don’t get my cheeseburger and beer today, you are a fucking dead man,” I muttered, and stomped over to the car.
Apparently originality wasn’t his forte. Its spark plugs were missing, too.
I straightened and bellowed, “SKIDMARK!”
No reply.
A few more increasingly irritated shouts brought no answer, and I found myself feeling a moment of empathy for Ratboy. Maybe he’d needed a cheeseburger, too.
Well, fuck this. Skidmark probably wasn’t walking around with sixteen spark plugs jingling in his pockets. If nothing else, it would screw up the gaps and he’d have to re-gap them all before he reinstalled them. Somehow I couldn’t see him expending that kind of effort.
The garage door was locked.
“Asshole,” I growled. “It’s a fucking commune. Public property.”
I examined the lock, but it was a sturdy deadbolt. The overhead door didn’t budge when I tugged on it, either.
Whipped into junk-food-deprived indignation, I stalked around the building, studying it.
The windows were definitely the weak points. I couldn’t justify breaking one, but…
A wolfish grin stretched my mouth as I examined the nearest one. Single sliding panes in a simple track system. Ha.
Carefully levering with the tip of my survival knife, I lifted the end of the pane out of the lower track. A moment later I got my fingertips wrapped around it and lifted it out. The window was only waist height, and I shed my backpack and climbed through the opening, my grin widening at the sight of sixteen blackened spark plugs lined up on the workbench with the ratchet drive and deep socket lying beside them.
You lose, old man.
I hesitated over the plugs for only a moment. The engines were both big V-8s so their gap specs were probably pretty similar. If I happened to choose the wrong set the car might run a little rough, but it would still get me to town and back with no harm to the engine. I tucked eight spark plugs carefully into my pocket, stowed the ratchet in another pocket, and climbed out again, replacing the window pane behind me.
A few minutes of work restored the plugs to their proper homes, and I gave silent thanks that sheer habit had made me lay out the wires in order when I’d removed them.
I paused, the first wire in hand.
Surely Skidmark wouldn’t be devious enough to mix up the wires when he took out the plugs.
The old bastard wouldn’t.
Would he?
I ground my teeth. Goddammit, if I was sabotaging an engine, I sure as hell would. With the wrong firing order the engine likely wouldn’t run at all. Or if my luck was really bad, it could backfire, break a valve, and crater a piston and cylinder when the pieces fell in.
Muttering imprecations, I pushed the boots onto the plugs anyway. Only one way to find out.
When I slid into the driver’s seat, I drew a deep breath, my fingers hesitating over the ignition. I’d hate to blow this poor old engine.
Cringing, I turned the key.
The starter caught immediately and the engine roared to life, idling as smoothly as a decades-old car was likely to run.
“HA!” I pumped my fist and hopped out to slam the hood and grab my backpack before returning to my triumphal throne behind the wheel. A black-smeared rag balled up on the floor of the passenger side indicated I wasn’t the first person to undertake last-minute repairs, and I rubbed as much grease off my hands as possible before dropping the car into gear with a grin.
“Fuck you, old man!” I yelled out the open window, and stomped on the gas, flinging gravel across the clearing before rumbling off in a cloud of malodorous blue exhaust.
Chapter 13
Rattling along the gravel road with the window down, my hair swirled wildly around my head while I bellowed an off-key version of Jimmy Buffett’s ‘Cheeseburger In Paradise’ over the roar of the rotted-out muffler.
My grin widened at the thought of Skidmark returning to the scene of the crime to find his carefully-sabotaged car gone. Ha. Let the old goat roll that up in his cigarette paper and smoke it.
Sudden realization halted my singing in mid-verse.
Shit.
Skidmark was deliberately sabotaging the vehicles.
Shit, shit, shit! What if he was working with Orion? What if he had disabled both vehicles so nobody could go for help when Orion attacked Moonbeam and Karma? What if something terrible was happening right this minute?
Had I just traded two wonderful human beings for a cheeseburger?
I slammed on the brakes, steering into the skid on the treacherous gravel. The car rocked to a stop at the side of the road in a shower of stones and I stared blindly through the windshield.
Stop panicking. Think.
I had covered nearly half of the twelve miles to town. It would take ten or fifteen minutes to get back to the commune. I had last seen Moonbeam around nine-thirty. I threw a worried scowl at my watch. Two and a half hours ago.
I swallowed hard, fear clutching my throat. What if Orion and Ratboy had been talking about attacking Moonbeam and Karma? Ratboy had said ‘soon’…
Shut up. Think.
Okay, if they were making their move today, there was no reason to believe I’d get back there in time to stop them. And as Stemp had pointed out, they likely weren’t planning simple murders. That meant they’d probably capture Moonbeam and Karma and hold them somewhere. Even with a trained team, eighty acres of dense forest would take a long time to search. Alone, with no thermal imaging or night-vision goggles, I didn’t have a chance in hell of finding them before it was too late.
But the courier drop was still four hours away.
Four hours for Orion to do his worst…
The memory of torture-ravaged bodies rose and choked me. Fingers clenched on the wheel, I stared straight ahead and forced my shallow panting to slow.
Stay calm. Maybe Skidmark was just being a pain as usual. Maybe today wasn’t the day for Orion to attack. Maybe Orion wasn’t even planning to attack. Maybe he had some good reason for carrying those hand restraints…
Bullshit.
I abandoned that train of thought and tried again.
Rushing back to the commune only to find everybody fine was a waste of gasoline and nervous energy. And without the surveillance equipment, I was practically useless. I had to go to town no matter what.
I drew a deep shaky breath and peeled my fingers loose from the steering wheel. Okay. Simple solution. Call the commune and ask for Moonbeam or Karma. If they answered, there was nothing to worry about. And I wasn’t technically on the commune anymore, so nobody could object to me using a cell phone.
Heart hammering, I dug into my backpack and fumbled a phone out with cold stiff fingers.
And if nobody could find them, well, I’d just have a heart attack right here on the spot.
The sound of ringing on the other end of the line froze my fingers around the phone, its plastic case protesting my grip with a faint creak. When an unidentifiable male voice answered, it took two tries for me to force a voice from my constricted throat.
“May I speak to Moonbeam or Karma, please?”
“Hang on, I’ll see if I can find them.” A clunk signalled that the receiver was dangling from its cord in its low-tech version of ‘on hold’ while he wen
t to search.
Long minutes ticked by. The thud-swish of my heartbeat in my ears accelerated, and I began to wonder about the state of my blood pressure.
Well, if something had happened to Moonbeam or Karma, it wouldn’t matter. Stemp wouldn’t let me live long enough to have a stroke.
“Hello?” Moonbeam’s voice on the other end of the line released a small sob of relief from my throat.
“H-Hi…” I had to stop and swallow. “It’s Ayd… Um, Storm.”
Her voice went sharp with concern. “What’s wrong? Where are you?”
I drew a breath and managed a normal tone. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m in town but I realized I’d forgotten to ask if you needed me to pick up anything while I’m here.”
“Oh.” I thought I heard a breath of relief on the line before she spoke again. “Thank you, dear, but no. We got the mail yesterday, and we had a load of groceries last week. We really need very little. Have a nice time, and we’ll see you later.”
“Okay. Thanks.” I hung up and toppled sideways onto the seat, panting and clutching my chest.
Jeez, I had to stop doing that. Getting myself all worked up over nothing. Dr. Rawling would call it catastrophic thinking.
I hauled myself upright again, trembling. But Dr. Rawling had never rushed into a butcher shop to find the man he loved hanging from a meat hook.
I shook my head and gave my cheeks a couple of not-too-vigorous slaps. So much wrong with that thought.
In the first place, it was inaccurate syntax or gender or something. I was pretty sure Dr. Rawling was heterosexual.
In the second place, I had no reason to believe Orion would torture Moonbeam and Karma. Hell, I didn’t even know if he posed any kind of threat to them. Maybe those hand restraints were for somebody else entirely. Like me, for instance.
There was a cheerful thought. Not.
And anyway, Kane wasn’t the man I loved. Well, okay, he was a man I loved. But not loved-loved. Not the get-married kind of love. And anyway, even if I wanted that, I didn’t know if he was dead or alive right now…
“Shut up,” I said aloud, and put the car in gear again.
My cheeseburger and beer were delicious, but they had lost some of their appeal. Even a thick chocolate milkshake failed to salve my nagging anxiety. At the internet café I plugged in my laptop and cell phone and pretended to work, watching the clock’s hands crawl around the remaining couple of hours with agonizing slowness.
At last they approached four o’clock and I abandoned any pretense of productivity, staring blankly out the window at the parking lot. A fresh-faced young man wearing a bright scarf strode briskly from car to car, delving into his bulky shoulder bag for flyers and tucking one under each windshield wiper, but there was no sign of anybody carrying a box.
Four o’clock on the dot.
I frowned at the driveway, but no new vehicles drove up. Where the hell was the courier? Shit, I hoped the flyer guy didn’t notice him when he arrived. Maybe the courier was delaying until the parking lot was completely devoid of people.
The flyer guy sauntered toward the station wagon, brochures in hand. He tucked one under the wiper of the SUV beside it, then casually swung open the rear door of the station wagon and deposited his bag inside. Pulling another handful of flyers from the bag, he strolled off, leaving the door open while he finished his advertising blitz and returned a couple of times for more flyers.
Then he closed my car door leaving the bag inside and strode away without a backward glance.
I sank my aching head into my hands.
I couldn’t believe Stemp had entrusted me with his parents’ safety. What a pathetic excuse for an agent. Hell, I hadn’t even spotted the courier until he made the drop right in front of my nose. What obvious clues was I missing at the commune?
Trying to redeem at least some measure of professionalism, I dawdled over the fictitious document on my laptop for another twenty minutes to make sure nobody connected me with the flyer kid.
My lips twisted into a sour smile. Even if they did connect us, they’d probably think I was his mother helping him with his delivery job. If only I had one-tenth the deviousness in Stemp’s twisty brain. He was the consummate spy; always calculating his moves three steps ahead of everybody else.
I sighed and packed up my laptop and phone. Maybe you just had to be born that way.
On the way out of town I made a discreet stop at the recycling depot and ditched the burner phones I’d used to contact Stemp. Moving over to the paper-recycling bin, I scanned one of the flyers before dumping them, too. They advertised a work-from-home internet marketing opportunity; exactly the kind of nuisance brochure people would glance at and promptly throw away. But no doubt it would be a valid website, at least for a few days.
Behind the concealment of the bin I examined the remaining contents of the courier’s bag. My new gear was tucked neatly into a rugged-looking black plastic box in the bottom of the bag, and a quick survey of its contents made me breathe a sigh of relief at the sight of a typed sheet with ‘Hi from Spider! Miss you!’ scribbled at the bottom along with a smiley face.
Thank God, Spider had sent me a cheat-sheet with instructions for the night-vision webcam and headset. I made a mental note to do something nice for my favourite techno-geek when I got home.
There were binoculars in the box, too, along with a bird book. Built-in cover story. Thank you, Stemp. Some more burner phones were packed at the bottom, along with a spare laptop battery, the tranquilizer pistol, and a couple of magazines loaded with trank darts.
Giving quiet thanks that the rest of my team was more competent than I was, I took my spare phones, ammo, and holsters out of my backpack and tucked them into the waterproof box with the other gear before hitting the road.
About five miles out of town I pulled over and pressed the speed dial on a secured phone. When Stemp answered I said, “It’s Aydan. I got the drop. Thanks, and please tell Spider thanks for the instructions, too. I just wanted to tell you I’m pretty sure Skidmark is sabotaging the commune vehicles. I know you said he’s harmless, but it could be dangerous if anybody ever had to leave in an emergency.”
“Are you sure it’s intentional?” Stemp inquired. “Skidmark isn’t exactly known for his intellectual prowess. And those vehicles were old and unreliable when I was a teenager.”
“True, but yesterday I caught him purposely disconnecting the ignition wire on the truck, and today all the spark plugs were taken out and locked up in the garage. I don’t know; it just seems suspicious to me.”
“Very well.” If Stemp had actually been human, I might have suspected that he’d sighed before continuing, “I likely have blind spots where the commune is concerned, so I’ll defer to you. Shall I put Skidmark on the suspect list?”
“N-… well, maybe…” I trailed off, thinking. “He’s been there an awfully long time. You’d think if he was going to harm your mom and dad he’d have done it a long time ago… but…”
“But people change. And we both know better than to trust blindly.” Stemp sounded weary. “I’ll consider him a suspect.”
“Should I tell your mom and dad what he’s doing?”
It was his turn to hesitate. “Perhaps…” he said slowly. “If you can phrase it in a non-confrontational way. After all, Skidmark isn’t a young man anymore. Decades of recreational drugs… It might be some drug-induced mental issue, or even dementia. Feel them out; see if they think he’s changed in any way.”
“Okay. I guess that’s it, then.”
“Very well. I’ll wait for your next report.”
About a quarter-mile outside the gates of the commune, I pulled the car over beside the road where I knew it would be invisible from Skidmark’s bench. Extracting the waterproof box, I stuffed the empty courier’s bag into my backpack and then stood studying my surroundings for a few moments.
A large rock jutting up beside the road made a helpful marker, and I struck out from it at right angles to the
road, twenty long paces into the forest. There I halted and took stock. My hiding place didn’t have to be perfect. The chances of somebody walking by it in the next few hours were slim to none, and I’d collect the box under cover of darkness.
I hefted it irritably. Another trip out into the damn woods in the middle of the night. But I didn’t dare try to smuggle anything into my tent in broad daylight.
I sighed and selected a likely-looking fallen log. Digging my fingers into the moss at its base, I lifted the moist green blanket and stowed the box in the hollow it created. Then I draped the moss over top again and stepped back to survey my handiwork.
Good enough to pass casual inspection. I retraced my steps to the station wagon and slid behind the wheel.
A few minutes later I rumbled into Skidmark’s clearing braced for a confrontation, but it was deserted as before. A quick inspection revealed that the garage was still locked, and I stood weighing the ratchet in my hand for a moment.
Then I turned back to the car, grinning.
If Skidmark liked playing with spark plugs that much, who was I to deprive him? I’d just put everything back in the garage exactly the way I’d found it.
The first spark plug turned reluctantly and I almost abandoned the idea. Normally I wouldn’t take spark plugs out of a hot block. If I broke one off, it’d be a hell of a job to get it out.
But there was so much old oil on these ones, they came out slowly but surely. I transferred them one by one out of the socket’s rubber insert and into the greasy rag, using it to keep from burning my fingers.
A few minutes of work gleaned all eight plugs, and I returned each empty boot to its allotted cavity and closed the hood. I was crossing the clearing with my rag full of spark plugs when the crunch of gravel under booted feet announced Ratboy’s arrival.
When he caught sight of me a flush suffused his neck and his brows snapped together.
I took a rapid mental inventory.
Ratchet in my hand. Not an ideal weapon, but he’d notice if I nailed him in the head with it.
Spy High Page 11
