Cherry Bomb

by J. A. Konrath

  I couldn’t hold the tears back. I flat-out lost it in the middle of a WaMu, sobbing so hard it burned my tear ducts, crumpling to the floor and burying my face in my hands and hating myself so much that I barely even noticed as some strangers half carried me to a chair.

  I cried until my mouth went dry.

  A foghorn brought me back. I looked around, wondering if it was the bank alarm, hoping some ski-masked robbers had broken in so I could beg one to shoot me.

  The horn blared again. Coming from the street.

  The Crimebago.

  And suddenly, I had a reason to live. I pushed the pain back, deep inside, and vowed not to let it out again. I’d deal with it later.

  Someone offered me a box of tissues. I took a handful, filled them up with liquid self-pity, and tossed them in a can under a desk. Then I cleared my throat, stood up, and held my chin high.

  My voice was steady when I said, “I’ll just take a five-thousand-dollar withdrawal. Cash.”

  Another honk. I fished out my cell and called Harry.

  “If you honk one more time, I’m going to impale you on the steering column.”

  “Sounds fun.”

  “I’ll be out in a minute.”

  “See if they have any extra pens. I don’t have any pens.”

  I hung up and waited at the counter while a teller counted out a never-ending stack of hundreds. First using the automatic bill counter, then by hand.

  “Anything else, Ms. Daniels?”

  The pen on the counter had one of those chains on it, so I sheepishly asked, “Does your bank have any pens?”

  She handed me one with the bank phone number printed on it. I crammed the money into my purse, thanked her, and walked out to greet Harry McGlade.

  The Crimebago was obscenely huge, the size and shape of a bus, white with blue and red stripes. There were six windows on the side facing me. I rapped on the center one attached to the trailer door.

  The door swung out and a grinning, leering McGlade offered me a hand up. I chose to grip the door frame instead.

  “Welcome aboard, Jackie. Did you grab me a fistful of pens?”

  I handed him the pen.

  “Only one? Weren’t they free?”

  Unsurprisingly, the interior smelled like the same aftershave Harry apparently bathed in, so strong it made my nostril hairs curl. Also, for reasons only known to McGlade, the air-conditioning was on, making every pore on my body pucker into gooseflesh.

  “So, you like it?”

  “It’s freezing.”

  “Yeah, I’m having some climate control problems. I’ve got the oven on to offset that. You want a tour?”

  “I need you to clone a cell phone first.”

  “That can wait.”

  “It can’t wait.”

  “It has to. Cloning a phone ain’t easy. I’ve got a reader that can copy the SIM and put it on a new card, but it takes a few hours. What do you need it for?”

  “Alex is going to kill a cop. She gave me a phone, and she sends me clues. I can’t give it up, because it’s my only link to her. But I can’t keep the phone from the police.”

  Harry scratched himself someplace I didn’t want or need or like to see.

  “Cloning won’t work. If a phone gets cloned, only one can work at a time. The cops couldn’t listen in, and they wouldn’t get Alex’s messages. Or you wouldn’t—it depends who is closest to a cell tower.”

  Shit.

  McGlade took my elbow and walked me past a large sofa to the rear of the cabin. The floor was carpeted. The walls were trimmed in dark wood that matched the cabinets.

  “This is the galley. It’s called a galley, not a kitchen. And this is the bathroom, but it’s called the head. I like that name. Head.”

  “Can you trace a cell phone call?”

  He shrugged. “Yes and no. I could get the number she’s calling from, but could only pinpoint it to within a few hundred yards.”

  “What if she spoofed it?” I asked.

  “Then no. This is the bedroom. There’s no bed, because it’s in the wall and comes out when I press the button to activate the sideout. It’s totally James Bond cool. Wanna see?”

  “Not really.”

  McGlade pressed the button anyway. The wall extended outward and a Murphy bed levered down. King size, with red velour sheets.

  “You’re a chick. Does seeing this make you want to get naked?”

  “No.”

  “I’m getting a mirror installed on the ceiling next week. Would that seal the deal?”

  “There’s no way to trace it through the phone company?”

  He pressed the button again. The bed began to rise.

  “You know how cell phones work, right? By radio transmission. So they need antennas. Chicago has a few, and each handles thousands of calls every second. We’d have to contact every cell phone provider in the country, get their rec ords, and go through each billing minute one at a time to find out which one matched Alex’s call to get the ID number. There had to be tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of calls at that time.”

  The small amount of hope I’d brought with me was quickly fading away. Then I remembered what Hajek said.

  “Could you trace it by analyzing the SIM card? If she’s sending text messages?”

  Harry looked thoughtful, then scratched himself again. It was like he had a metal hand and a pair of magnets in his scrotum.

  Actually, he did have a metal hand. But he didn’t use that for scratching, and probably with good reason. I’d seen Harry accidentally crush a doorknob with that hand.

  “That might actually work, sis, because texts are saved on the card. The spoof fools caller ID, but it might not fool the SIM.”

  Harry walked past, into the lounge area opposite the sofa. He flipped a switch on the wall and a cabinet opened, a table coming down. It had a built-in keyboard and a flat-screen monitor, which flipped up. He dug a small white box out of a drawer and attached a cord to one end, plugging the other into a USB slot on the keyboard.

  “Open the back of the phone and gimme the SIM.”

  I pried out the little data card and handed it over, then spent a minute tracking down the vent that was blowing cold air in my face. I closed it, but that only made the other vents blow even harder.

  “You like my screen saver?”

  I glanced at the monitor, expecting to see some naked girl eating a banana. Instead it was a pic of Harry with his arm around my mother. Both were smiling. I felt myself wince.

  “It’s…nice,” I managed.

  “Me and Mom have a lot of catching up to do. Mother and son stuff.”

  “You know, the DNA results haven’t come—”

  “Gotcha, you little bastard! There’s the TAP/CIBER, and now I run the decryption program. This will take a few seconds. You get Mom anything for her birthday? I’m thinking a cat.”

  Speaking of non sequiturs.

  “We’ve already got a cat.”

  “I know. Mr. Friskers, right? Is he still meaner than spit?”

  “He’s currently in a kitty motel. It’s seventy-five bucks a day, plus we have to pay for injuries to the staff.”

  “That could get pricey.”

  “Hopefully that groomer won’t need eye surgery.”

  “Does Mom like dogs? Or maybe a monkey? I’d like to have a monkey. You can teach them to fetch you things, like beer. A beer monkey. That would be cool. We could smoke cigars and watch King Kong together. I love the remake. It’s got the extended footage, which means it’s seventeen hours long. We can watch it later, on Blu-ray, if you want.”

  “Were you ever tested for ADHD?” I asked.

  “Yeah. But the Ritalin makes me hyper. Okay, the decryption is finished, and…there’s the phone number. I’m amazing.”

  Harry pointed at it, and I wanted to punch the screen. It was the same Deer Park number Hajek had given me. My phone wasn’t a direct link to Alex, as I’d hoped. It was part of that call-forwarding daisy chain he had
mentioned. I explained this to Harry.

  “All’s not lost, sis. I can find the phone in Deer Park, get the SIM, and then locate the next phone in the chain. It will lead to Alex eventually.”

  “There could be ten phones in the chain, Harry. You said you can only pinpoint the call within a few hundred yards, and she could have these hidden all over the country.”

  “It’s a start. I’ve got an RF detector. I can find the phones.”

  I closed my eyes, thinking. Normally, when I was chasing a perp, there were witnesses to interview, evidence to examine, clues to follow up on. Alex was effectively invisible, and could be anywhere. How the hell do you find a person who only shows you what she wants you to see?

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you’re our only hope here, Harry. There’s no other way to find her.”

  “I can do it. It’ll just take some time.”

  “Time is something we don’t have.”

  “So I see.”

  Harry brought the picture up on the monitor, of Lance taped to the bed and screaming. I checked my watch.

  “Unless we can find him, he’s dead in just over eleven hours.”

  Harry didn’t say anything, which was out of character. I wondered if the picture brought him back to the time he was Alex’s captive. She was the reason he had a prosthetic hand, and though he never talked about it, I knew a blowtorch played a part.

  “We’ll find him,” Harry eventually said.

  “How, if we can’t trace her calls?”

  “She left us a clue.”

  “What clue?”

  “He’s a cop named Lance. Probably hundreds of those in the U.S. But how many have one of these?”

  Harry pointed to the metal tripod, which held the thing that looked like a microphone over Lance’s head. I leaned in closer, squinting, and couldn’t believe I missed it earlier.

  “It’s a pigstick,” I said.

  “Yeah. Looks like old Lance is on the Bomb Squad. The pigstick is armed with a shotgun shell, attached to a blasting cap. That wire is shock tube, probably leading to a timer. When the time is up, the round fires into poor Lance’s face.”

  If Alex was being honest. For all I knew, Lance might already be dead. Or he might not be named Lance at all. I stared at his face again, his agony forever frozen in time. I wondered if Alex was still burning him.

  “Alex sent me an earlier text, a few weeks ago. Said she was in Milwaukee. I don’t know if she’s telling the truth or not.”

  “She’s a lying crazy psycho bitch. Believing her is a mistake.”

  “She bought this phone in Gurnee, which is on the way to Milwaukee. Maybe we should start heading up there.”

  “If she’s lying, we could be heading in the wrong direction.”

  I chewed my lower lip.

  “You need to bring in the troops on this, Jackie. They can send out a bulletin to other cop shops. Maybe even get his face on TV.”

  Harry must have noticed my reaction, because he shook his head.

  “We don’t have to give them the phone. Or even a clone of the phone. We can forward the pictures and texts to one of their phones. Send it to fatso. He’ll take care of it.”

  “Fine.” I held out my hand. “Give me the card back.”

  “Let me save this first. Resolution is for shit. Maybe I can tweak it, get a serial number on the pigstick. Can’t be that many of those out there.”

  Harry opened up a photo program, but my mind was elsewhere. I’d met a few Explosive Ordnance Disposal cops. Serious, professional guys. A pigstick was a portable arm that held a shell or a high-pressure water jet, used to remotely detonate suspicious devices. Detonation wire, shock tube, and blasting caps were tools of the EOD. But they weren’t the only tools.

  Most bomb squads had bigger, more dangerous devices.

  If Alex had a pigstick, what else could she have?

  CHAPTER 12

  THE JORDAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, located only a mile from the beach, has closed for the day. It’s dark and quiet.

  Alex drives past the empty parking lot, over the grass, and pulls to a stop behind some fir trees. She kills the engine, grabs her army surplus duffel bag, and leaves the Honda, walking back toward the main building. The night has cooled off to the mid-forties. She tucks her hair under the hood and pulls the cords tight around her face. It’s doubtful anyone is watching, but it never hurts to be careful.

  The M4 Sherman tank sits in front of the building on a dais of concrete, just like in the Web site pictures. Alex walks up to it, touches the cold green steel. It’s smaller than she expects, several yards shorter and half the weight of the MI Abrams. The 60mm gun on the turret is pointed east, poised to protect the shoreline from approaching enemy armadas. Metaphorically, of course, because the barrel is filled with concrete.

  Alex rests the duffel bag on the front tread fender and sticks a mini Maglite in her teeth. Pointing downward, she tears the paper off a brick of PENO. The plastic explosive is gray, without odor, heavy for its size. Alex pulls off a fist-sized hunk and rolls it between her palms. It’s stickier, and slightly stiffer, than modeling clay. She forms it into a pyramid shape, then places the base against the frontal hull of the tank, which the Internet says is sixty-one millimeters thick.

  Returning to the duffel bag, she removes a bridgewire detonator and loops the bag’s strap over her shoulder. The blasting cap is pushed into the tip of the pyramid, and Alex attaches a shock tube to that and plays line out of the spool until she’s fifty yards away, behind the side of the building. She crimps the detonation cord into an electric sparker and smiles her half smile.

  “Fire in the hole.”

  The explosion shakes the ground and momentarily deafens her. She remembers to open her mouth like she was taught, which equalizes the pressure on both sides of her ear drums. It still hurts, almost like getting struck in the head. The ringing continues as she approaches the tank, winding the now empty shock tube around her arm as she goes. There’s no fire, and the smoke has almost dissipated. Alex points her flashlight at the hull and sees a jagged twenty-inch hole where armor used to be. It smells like hot coals and melted iron.

  “Perfect,” she says, but can’t hear herself say it. She stuffs the used tubing back into her duffel bag and heads for the car.

  Phase one of the plan is finished. Time to start phase two.

  CHAPTER 13

  “YOU SHOULD TURN THE PHONE IN, Jack.”

  Herb Benedict. We’d been partners for over a de cade, and often played conscience for each other. But right now I needed an enabler.

  “I have to see this through, Herb. Start with Milwaukee PD. See if anyone on their Bomb Squad is named Lance.”

  “How do you expect to find her? Track her cell phone?”

  “It can’t be tracked. Not directly. Long story.”

  “Then how? She could be anywhere. You’re just going to sit around and wait for her to send you clues?”

  “That’s all I can do right now. That and prepare for when I’ll have a shot at her. Does your cell accept pictures and text?”

  “You’ve seen my cell. I think it’s the very first one. It uses rotary.”

  I sat on Harry’s sofa, shivering, and switched the phone to my other ear. The leather under my butt was cold.

  “I want to send you what Alex is sending me. I know you’re off the case too, but I’m hoping you can be my ears while I’m gone.”

  I could picture Herb thinking, probably rubbing his mustache with his thumb and forefinger. “Bernice has one of those new Motorola phones, the kind that does everything except make you a sandwich. Send it to her.”

  He gave me the number.

  “Thanks, Herb. I owe you so many I’ll never pay them all back.”

  “There’s this mail order steak place. Grade-A prime-cut Angus beef. Ships them to you frozen. Their number is 1-800-MEATS4U. The 4 is a number and the U is the letter U.”

  “Consider it done.”

  “I like
rib-eyes. And T-bones. And New York strips. And filets. Basically I like everything. They also sell Turduckinlux. That’s a turkey breast, stuffed with a duck breast, stuffed with a chicken breast, stuffed with bacon-wrapped hamburger patties.”

  “I’ll call them as soon as we get off the phone.” I swallowed, hating to say what came next. “Look, Herb, I know you’re being cautious, but Alex might take a shot at you. Or your wife.”

  “I could have Bernice stay with her mother, come and help you out.”

  “No way.”

  “My leg’s not that bad, Jack. I can move fast if I have to.”

  Herb was loyal, smart, and tough. But he could never be called fast. And with his injury, all he’d be doing was putting himself in danger.

  “Stay with your wife and heal. That’s an order.”

  “What if I had some psycho killer after me? Would you stay out of it?”

  “My psycho killer, my rules. I need you to stay close to the investigation, Herb. Keep me in the loop. Besides, I have some help.”

  “That idiot McGlade? He’s a card-carry ing asshole. I’m serious. He once showed me the card.”

  I eyed Harry, who was squinting at porn on the computer screen.

  “He’s not that bad,” I said.

  “Please don’t tell me you’re with him in that stupid RV.”

  “It has really good air-conditioning.”

  “Want me to turn it up?” Harry asked, never taking his eyes off the screen. A gorilla had joined the party. No—just a guy in a gorilla suit. What ever happened to normal, old-fashioned porn?

  “Jesus, Jack. How am I supposed to sleep knowing that bonehead has your back?”

  “I’m getting more help.”

  “Who? The criminal guy? Phineas something?”

  “Troutt.”

  “What makes you think he’ll help you?”

  I got an image in my mind, of the last time I saw Phin. He had hugged me, holding it longer than our friendship warranted.

  “He’ll help.”

  Herb sighed, loud and dramatic.

  “I want you to call me. Every eve ning at seven. If you don’t call, I’m coming after you.”

  “Thanks, Herb. We’ll talk soon.”