He worked quickly, easing the shovel’s blade into the small space between the double doors. The wood was termite-ridden and had plenty of give; the hasp didn’t feel very secure in its moorings. Hy worked the blade back and forth until one side of the hasp pulled loose. Pushed through the doors, shovel extended in front of him. Didn’t see anybody and started running.
Halfway to the line of pines, he heard the engine of his Range Rover coming up the hill and into the driveway. He raced for the woods, but he wasn’t quick enough to avoid being seen in the moonlight. The Rover jerked to a stop and the man jumped out, shouting, and ran after him.
Hy glanced over his shoulder and saw the guy was armed with a short-barreled rifle. The shovel was slowing him down, so he jettisoned it; a shovel was no match for a high-powered weapon.
Through the trees, zigging and zagging, his breath searing in his lungs. Looking for a way out or a place to hide. But his pursuer knew the terrain better, was more sure-footed and gaining on him.
Ducking around the tree trunks, slapping at their branches. And still the gap was closing between them. A vine caught at his ankle but he didn’t break stride, felt it trail out behind him until it broke. Seconds later he smacked into a tree trunk, and its rough surface cut his cheek. Blood slicked one side of his mouth as he ran.
Then suddenly he was in a clearing illuminated by murky dawn light. He scanned it swiftly, looking for cover. Ahead was a drop-off; to either side, more trees. The sounds of pursuit were close behind him.
Hy dodged to the right, but not before a bullet whined past his head and he heard the crack of the rifle. He tried to take evasive action too late. He felt a slamming pain in his shoulder an instant before the second report sounded.
The blow spun him around and he went down in a hard sprawl, hurt but not totally disabled. He clawed one-handed at the ground, scrambled forward to the edge of what looked to be a ravine with steeply canted sides.
Get out of his line of fire. Tuck and roll downhill.
He tucked and rolled.
SHARON McCONE
The road was unpaved and rutted from recent rains, leading up into one of those enclaves that their residents term rustic because they have to slog through mud in their expensive vehicles to their multimillion-dollar homes. I’d always speculated their kind were like the nobles of Versailles playing peasants.
And an unpaved road kept the rabble out.
In spite of the rigorous climb, the lack of sleep, and my recent inactivity—I hadn’t been to physical therapy since Adah disappeared—I felt strong and alert. Back all the way, Hy had said. Not quite, but almost. So I had to go slower and my breath turned ragged and occasionally I had to stop to rest—it was a far cry from lying inert and helpless.
Besides, Hy was somewhere up there on the hill. In trouble. I sensed it, in the way I’d always been able to.
No Range Rover parked up here either, and the road was narrowing, the dark shapes of the houses smaller. To the right side was a declivity, and I slid down into it, moving slowly through rocks and mud. Vegetation scratched at my face and hands, and a couple of times I almost fell to my knees. The road beside me kept climbing. I was breathing really hard now, sweating inside my microfiber jacket. The Magnum weighed heavily at my side. I stopped, shifted it from the pocket to inside the belt of my jeans, rested a bit, then went on.
Hy had described the house to which he’d followed the man he suspected of having taken Adah as the last one on the right, little better than a shack. Must be isolated, because I hadn’t encountered a driveway in many yards. Now I came to a narrow wooden bridge—the bridge Hy had said led to the place. I touched one of its supports, and my hand stung from splinters. Above I saw missing boards, a sagging railing. I stopped and listened.
The sky had become lighter and birds were stirring in the trees above. A jay made a racket; he was awake and so should be the rest of the avian population. No human sounds yet, but I’d better make my move soon.
I scrambled up the side of the declivity and into a grove of pines, catching my foot on a protruding root and steadying myself on one of the trunks. My hand came away sticky and acrid with sap. The house—a small, boxy, one-story shape—was faintly visible through the trees. Lights on, but no activity.
I approached slowly, taking care not to snap twigs or crunch fallen cones. Stopped at the first row of trees.
Hy’s Range Rover was parked near a shed to the side, and Adah’s Prius stood beside it.
Wrong, very wrong.
I closed my eyes, replayed the conversation we’d had earlier. Absolutely no indication in his voice that he was under duress. He’d been talking intensely but quietly. Had had time to give me detailed directions. Someone other than he had parked the vehicle here.
And Hy…?
No time to speculate. The Rover was only fifty yards away, and I had a key—
Right. In my purse, back at the car.
So maybe the Rover wasn’t locked. I could run over there, take refuge, look for evidence of what had happened to Hy.
I studied the house and surrounding terrain, then ran for the Rover.
A flat, cracking sound came from somewhere far beyond the house. Oh, God—rifle shot! Another.
Instinctively I dropped to the ground, scrabbled toward the car on my hands and knees. When I reached the Rover, I rolled under it.
A second shot reverberated faintly through the tall trees. Then silence.
CRAIG MORLAND
Again he was looking at the Andersen Associates appeal file, this time searching for a dimly remembered name. He had a growing feeling that there was information in it that would shed light on the current case. Maybe not a direct link, but a similarity…
Intuition worked in unknowable ways. You either had it or you didn’t, and nobody who did knew exactly how to make it work for them. You tried certain tacks: at the Bureau, Craig had seen agents playing solitaire to loosen up their minds; others worked out, ran, watched crap TV to the point of numbness. A fair number drank, and if they came up with solutions to their cases, no questions were asked. His method, when there was nothing left to do in the field, was to immerse himself in files—related, nonrelated, it didn’t matter. There were gems lying around everywhere; all you had to do was find them and pick them up.
Halfway into the much-read file he found one: the transcript of Shar’s interview with Josh Ramsey, the Seattle blogger who would be testifying for Andersen in the appeal.
“This guy from a government agency called TRIAD came to see me. Handed me the information about Andersen and paid me to publish it… No, he didn’t give me his full name, just said to call him J.T.”
Craig flipped through the pages. No additional mention of TRIAD or J.T., just more interviews with Ramsey, now claiming it was Stanley Hurd—the chief witness for the prosecution and former Andersen employee—who had given him the story. Hurd maintained his innocence.
TRIAD had probably bought Ramsey’s silence.
Superclandestine or rogue CIA department concerned with maintaining the positions of the rich and powerful. Ruining Andersen Associates for reasons of their own. Agency still in operation, but no longer sanctioned by the government.
An interesting example: what if some person or group had gathered information against another contractor TRIAD supported? Or TRIAD itself? Was going to go public with the information? If TRIAD found out, they would take immediate steps to stop the person, suppress the information.
And how would they do that? Bait a hook and reel in the big-mouthed fish.
Craig picked up his phone and placed a call to Josh Ramsey.
TED SMALLEY
He’d sat in his car at the side of the road above Inverness for almost half an hour. At first he’d stared anxiously at the place where Shar had disappeared into the shadows. Then he’d tried to distract himself by thinking silk. Suddenly the whole subject of fashion statements bored him.
Next he thought about the folks at the agency. Craig, who
was going through hell. Thelia, doggedly running her searches. Mick, similarly driven. Patrick, plugging information into his flow charts and connecting facts and figures.
Ted didn’t know how Patrick managed to be a single father and put in long hours at the agency as well. He himself was adept at multitasking, but he couldn’t imagine raising two children on his own. But Patrick loved those kids and was committed to them for the long haul.
As for himself, he was glad he didn’t have offspring. He had enough young people to advise—or maybe lead astray. Habiba Hamid, adopted daughter of his old friends Anne-Marie Altman and Hank Zahn. Julia Rafael’s son, Tonio. Thelia Chen’s girls and Patrick’s boys. And the younger Little Savages.
He was up to his ass in children.
And up to his ass in worry.
Hours had turned into days and Adah was still missing. Everybody was doing what they could, but with so little result. And that friend of Shar’s—Piper Quinn—he couldn’t imagine what had happened to her. Truthfully, he didn’t care. He hadn’t known Piper, and she was the reason for Adah’s disappearance.
His resentment of Piper was coupled with guilt, but if he could have miraculously transported Adah back to them, he would have relinquished Piper in a heartbeat.
He wondered how Shar would feel about that.
The sky was lightening now, and he could see the road Shar had gone up more clearly. Unpaved, rutted, foliage deep to either side. Anxiety overwhelmed him again. She and Hy should have come down by now.
Unless…
He put down the window on his side. Chill morning, mist still hovering. Birdsong from the trees. And then—
Sharp, cracking sound from up there on the hill.
A gunshot! Jesus!
After a frozen moment he reached for his phone in slow motion. Called the agency. Craig picked up.
Ted tried to explain the situation, but his words sounded garbled, even to himself.
“Slow down,” Craig said. “Take a deep breath and tell me exactly what happened.”
He sucked in air, then gave a rambling but coherent recitation.
“How long to get to Inverness?” Craig asked him.
“This time of day, going against traffic, maybe an hour and a half.”
“We don’t have that much time. RI has a chopper, don’t they?”
“One, over in Oakland at general aviation.”
“And a pilot?”
“There’s a pilot on call. But I don’t know his name—”
“Find out—RI is a twenty-four-seven operation. Get hold of him and tell him to meet me at the airfield.” Craig hung up.
Ted went into his efficient mode and made the arrangements.
One request of Shar’s that he wouldn’t honor: he wasn’t going back to the pier till he knew what had happened up there.
ADAH JOSLYN
Her fingers ached and she felt a nasty little pinch in her neck, but she kept working on the new potential weapon she’d thought of. Fashioning the underwire from her bra into a garrote. It wasn’t as easy as she’d thought because the flexible wire was coated with a slippery plastic, but it was coming along nicely.
Of course, when her captor came she’d have to be alert and in a position to get the thing around his neck. She’d figure out the logistics later, and being on guard was no problem. Not now, with rage fueling her.
Got it! Manageable and lethal.
She set the garrote down, then stood and began stretching exercises to keep her muscles toned and her body limber. Followed those with more serious calisthenics that raised her heartbeat and invigorated her. All the time she listened for any sound, trying to sense any change in the atmosphere that would tell her someone had arrived here. Wherever here was…
Her self-protective mode operated separately from her emotions, however. Soon she was exercising in cadence to a single word: Craig.
Craig, Craig, Craig…
If she got out of this situation alive—and she damn well would—she’d agree to set a date for their marriage. The hell with her reservations about joining his Waspy East Coast clan; maybe they’d do her a favor and disown him. But that wasn’t fair: she’d never met the Morlands, only heard about them from Craig’s biased viewpoint, and weren’t children always critical of their parents?
Lord knew she’d repeatedly informed Barbara and Rupert about how much embarrassment they’d caused her over the years with their commie-pinko-liberal antics. The time they’d chained themselves to a flagpole to support a longshoremen’s strike. The day Barbara—no longer young or firm—had joined a nude-in at the beach with Women for Peace and been photographed from a low-flying airplane. Rupert standing, clothed—thank God—entirely in red, on the city hall steps with a banner that said that the defeat of a rent-control measure was fascism.
They’d both made the evening news. Most of the neighborhood kids on Red Hill had eccentric parents, but none so publicly weird as hers. Most of the kids on Red Hill didn’t have ambitions to be cops.
But now, released from the conformity of the very young, she was as proud of her folks as a daughter could be. Maybe they hadn’t changed the world, maybe they’d been publicly viewed as ridiculous characters but, by God, they’d cared and tried to do something about society’s ills.
Craig’s parents would probably find them quaint and foolish and out of touch with the times, but so what? Maybe they’d learn something from the Joslyns.
And maybe if Craig’s parents accepted their union, it would heal the rancor between them and their son.
Adah began cooling-down exercises, but his name continued to reverberate.
Craig, Craig, Craig…
SHARON McCONE
As soon as the echoes from the shots had subsided, I drew the Magnum, scrabbled out from under Hy’s Rover, and again took shelter in the pines. My heart was pounding, my right shoulder hurt where I’d gone down on it. And I was suddenly wickedly thirsty.
Scanning the surrounding terrain I saw no one. Heard nothing. Even the cries of the birds were still. No breeze, no motion. Stationary gray mist. A chill in the air, and the acrid smell of blue gum eucalyptus in my nostrils.
This might have been a place where no one existed except for me. Where Hy didn’t exist anymore…
No. Our connection was still there, alive and humming. I gave myself over to it, letting it guide me like an airport’s flashing green-and-white beacon.
Out from under the pines, creeping low and across to the house.
Up to peer quickly through a window. Living room, disordered, two dirty glasses and three wine bottles on the coffee table. Television on but muted, one of those early-morning shows. No sign of anybody. Although the room was disordered, it didn’t seem as if anything more violent had gone on in there but a bout of drinking.
I slipped around the house, cloaked by the misty dawn shadows, and went up on a sagging deck that extended the width of the rear wall. The yard around it was weedy and gopher-holed, surrounded by some kind of bushes choked with dead blackberry vines. Behind it rose pine-covered hills whose tops were tinged with pink from the rising sun.
A crookedly hung screen door leading into the house stood open.
I steadied my weapon and moved toward it, skirting an old rusted barbecue and shabby folding chairs. Stopped just outside and listened.
Silence. The silence of an empty place.
The door opened into an old-style kitchen: olive-green Formica counters, chipped porcelain double sink, ancient fridge and range. A long table with benches to either side took up much of the space. And on the far wall, next to a hallway, was a gun cabinet. Its door stood ajar, and the space for one rifle was empty.
The birdsongs had gradually resumed. A crow soared over the pines, and its sudden caw made me jerk. I gathered myself and stepped into the house. Made my way silently through the kitchen.
Two front rooms, the one I’d glimpsed through its window and a bedroom, sparsely furnished, with a mattress on the floor. The bedclothes
were disordered and looked unclean. An odor rose from them: rank, fetid.
Back outside. I then saw that the double doors to the shed Hy’s Rover was parked in front of were pushed out, boards broken. I went over, found a padlocked hasp had been broken loose. In the shadowy interior I saw jumbled tools.
Someone had been imprisoned here and broken out.
Hy.
Behind me twigs snapped. I caught a glimpse of motion at the edge of the pines. I ducked behind the shed and waited.
A man’s figure emerged from the trees. A man cradling a rifle. He moved unhurriedly, as if he’d completed a job and had nothing else to do.
HY RIPINSKY
He lay at the bottom of the ravine, ferns and vines and scrub trees sheltering him. No sound came from above. The shooter must’ve been sure of his aim, not to have come over here to make sure his target was dead. Either that, or he was incredibly stupid. Probably the latter. Confining a prisoner in a toolshed with easy means of escape was a dumb-ass thing to do.
His shoulder hurt like hell. He lay still a while longer, mentally beating himself up for having gotten caught and then shot. Then he sat up, and after his vision cleared and his head stopped swimming, gingerly probed the wound. Not too much blood, and he could move his arm—the bullet had passed straight through without severing an artery or clipping a bone.
He put a finger into the hole where his shirt was torn, ripped off a strip, and fashioned a makeshift bandage.
He’d been hit before, a flesh wound in Mexico that he quickly recovered from, and another time when a hostage taker he’d been negotiating with had gotten nervous and fired a round. That had been bad: a slug that cracked a rib and narrowly missed his vital organs. Two of his backup negotiators had shot the guy and saved the hostage, and there’d been a medevac chopper on site in minutes. Once aboard, the EMTs had administered meds, and the pain had subsided, and within days he’d forgotten its intensity. Until now.
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