by Greg Iles
My pulse races just remembering that rush.
“The market was different then too. Especially the S amp;P index. You could leverage your position to an unbelievable point. It was like showing up at the Indy 500 with a Ford Pinto, handing them your keys, and them saying, ‘Son, these Pinto keys qualify you to drive a Maserati for the duration of the race. Of course, if you wreck the car, you’ll have to pay for it, but we’ll worry about that when it happens. Please try not to kill yourself.’ And then they let you drive out onto the track.”
“And you won the race?”
“I kicked ass, Doctor. After five months, I resigned from the firm, and a twelve-hour train ride later I was back in the Delta. I went straight to the bank and asked to see Crump. I must have looked like shit on a stick after that train ride, but he didn’t bat an eye. He was past seventy by then.
“I told him I wanted to buy back our farm. Crump said the land wasn’t for sale. I told him I’d give him a good price. He told me not to let the door hit my ass on the way out. I knew what fair market value was, so I named a figure double that-four times what he’d paid for it. Crump said no sale. I was starting to lose my temper, but I didn’t show it. I told him he ought to be sensible, that everything had a price. He told me that wasn’t always the case.
“That stumped me. I’d been relying on his greed, and he’d made a statement that indicated I might have misjudged him. He was staring at me the way a hunter looks at a treed coon, and I decided then that my only chance was to go for broke. I told that son of a bitch I’d pay him four times market value for the farm-an eight hundred percent profit — but that the offer was good for only sixty minutes. I said I’d be back in one hour and if he wanted the money he’d better have the papers ready. I walked out to a cafe, had three slow cups of coffee, took a leak, and walked back to the bank.”
“And?”
“And Crump had his lawyer and two witnesses and the contract sitting there waiting for my signature. After I signed the papers, he told me I was the dumbest egg sucker that ever walked through his door. I said maybe I was, but that I had ten thousand bucks left and I’d have given him that and the shirt off my back for that land, and I hoped he died a damned lonely death.”
Lenz has turned his head to me. He is staring with new eyes. “Is that story true? It sounds like something from It’s a Wonderful Life.”
“An R-rated version, maybe. It’s true all right. Life doesn’t give you many chances like that.”
He nods. “Life didn’t give you that, Cole. You took it.”
“A barber drove me out to the farmhouse. Mom was in the kitchen, smoking a cigarette and drinking a cold cup of coffee. When I laid that deed down on the table in front of her, she stared at it for nearly a minute. Then she looked up and asked me if it was real. If it was real. When I told her it was, she broke into pieces. She just… it was too much. She was shaking and crying and trying to hug me, and right then… goddamn it, I knew what it felt like to be a man. You know? I finally understood that being a man means taking care of the people you love, no matter how you do it. Even if you have to die to do it.”
“How did your father take the news?”
“I guess relief was the main thing. For four years he’d lived knowing he’d failed my mother and would never be able to make it right. My getting back the land changed things for the better, but a lot of damage had already been done. Dad had spent four years thinking he was worth more dead than alive to the people he loved. Business-wise, his life insurance policy was about the only thing he’d done right. He figured dying was the only way he could take care of his own. He’d started drinking heavily. It wasn’t a perfect happy ending or anything.”
Lenz raises a finger and points to a turn in the road at the limit of his high beams. “But the best ending possible under the circumstances, in my view. You have my respect, Cole.”
The Mercedes takes the curve with the grace of a racing hound and glides toward a lighted gatehouse in the distance. “A lot of men go through life the way your father did.”
“Silent desperation, right?”
“Thoreau knew a thing or two.”
“Actually that’s James Taylor. Thoreau said quiet desperation.”
Lenz snorts. “My mistake.”
The Mercedes stops at the gate long enough for a uniformed marine to come to the window, check Lenz’s pass, and wave us through. Before we’ve driven fifty yards the rattle of gunfire rolls out of the darkness. I feel as though we’re moving through a ghostly skirmish in these historic Virginia woods, but it must be marines on night maneuvers. After we pass a second gate, a complex of lighted buildings much like a college campus appears. Lenz picks up his cellular and hits a speed-dial code, mutters into the phone, then hangs up and makes a sharp turn off the main drive.
“Hostage Rescue touches down in Dallas in twenty minutes,” he says. “They’ll be at the apartment in thirty-five, maximum. Strobekker’s still on-line.”
I shudder with the sudden exhilaration of impending action. “This is unbelievable.”
Lenz nods. “And we’re going to have a front-row seat.”
“What do you mean?”
“Wait.” He stops the Mercedes near the rear of a parked semitruck and looks at me. I hear a heavy metallic ching, then watch in amazement as the rear panel of the semitrailer rises into the roof and dim red light bleeds out around the silhouette of a man. I have only seen him once in my life, but every fiber of my instinct tells me that black shadow belongs to Daniel Baxter, chief of the Investigative Support Unit.
“We drove all this way to get to a truck?”
Lenz chuckles softly. “Don’t say that word anywhere near the people you’re about to meet. They call this vehicle Doctor Cop. For MDCP-Mobile Digital Command Post. You’re about to see interactive media like you never imagined, Cole. As close as the FBI ever gets to Hollywood.”
CHAPTER 18
The silhouette at the back of the truck does belong to Daniel Baxter. After shaking hands with me, he leads us into the strangest environment I have ever entered. The interior of Dr. Cop-the Mobile Digital Command Post-feels like a mobile home from some world’s fair exhibition fifty years in the future. It is long and narrow and stuffed to the ceiling with rack-mounted shock-cushioned computers, CRTs, satellite receivers, surveillance gear, and pale technicians with bona fide nerd packs in the pockets of their short-sleeve poly-cotton shirts.
A constant thrumming vibrates the floor of the command post. Soft radio chatter emanates from several sets of speakers, none of it in sync. I assume the nerds are somehow following all of this. Baxter leads us along a cramped walk space to a curved bank of video screens. Most are blank, but two show black-and-white views of what appears to be a detached apartment building much like the ones I lived in during college.
“Is that it?” Lenz asks.
Baxter nods. “Two apartments per unit. Strobekker is six seventy-two. Six seventy-three is empty, thank God.”
“Is that a live feed?” I ask.
He nods.
“The resolution’s unbelievable.”
“Digital video. We’re getting it encrypted over a secure channel.” Baxter points at a screen. “Notice the windows of the apartment? Covered with aluminum foil on the inside.”
“Bad sign,” says Lenz. “How long until HRT gets there?”
“Touchdown in five minutes at Love Field. Another ten, give or take, to get on site. The complex is about halfway between Love and Dallas-Fort Worth International, just one in a sea of complexes. Anonymous as you can get.”
“Anything I can do before Hostage Rescue goes in?”
Baxter shakes his head. “He’s using the only phone, so we can’t call and ask him to come out. I don’t think I would anyway. He might do the hostage.”
Lenz nods. “Mr. Cole and I need to speak privately. Any chance?”
I can’t believe Lenz is this persistent. Baxter motions for us to follow him through a narrow door at the end of t
he aisle. Beyond it is a dim room with six bunks shelved up the walls in groups of three and a microwave kitchenette between.
“I want you with me when they go in, Arthur,” Baxter says. “If our UNSUB is as smart as he’s been so far, he may catch on and barricade himself.”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” says Lenz.
When the door closes after Baxter, the psychiatrist takes a seat on one of the bottom bunks, pulls a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lights one, which must be breaking about a dozen rules in this high-tech government vehicle. No alarm goes off. He blows smoke away from us and says, “You talked your way in. Let’s finish up.”
“Doctor, nothing I could tell you has anything to do with the EROS murders.”
“Then the sooner you tell me, the sooner you’ll be in the clear.”
My eyes remain on his face, but my mind is far away.
He takes another drag in silence, then gets up from the bed and squats before a small refrigerator. The opening door fills the room with sickly fluorescent light. “Eureka,” he says in a deadpan voice. “It seems that Daniel’s boys share your taste for orally administered carcinogens.”
Lenz holds a pink Tab can covered with icy condensation over his shoulder. I take it, pop the top, and suck down half its contents in four quick swallows. The peppery sting of caffeine-spiked carbonation burns my gums and throat and makes my eyes water. I feel twice as good as I did ten seconds ago. I want to tell Lenz that there is no secret, that I’ve never done anything to really be ashamed of, but of course that would be absurd. He knows there’s something there. He knows there’s always something.
“You still don’t understand what’s happening, do you?” he says, sitting back on the bed with a bottle of Evian.
“I know a woman’s life is at stake.”
His face is a gray outline behind gray smoke. “That’s not what I mean. Something’s eating you up inside, Cole. I’d say it’s been eating at you for a long time. You need to tell me this thing. Don’t you feel that?”
The maddening thing is that Lenz is right. I don’t especially want to tell him, but lately some part of me has been bursting to rid itself of this psychic weight.
“Relax,” he says. “I carry more secrets around in my head than any ten priests. There’s hardly room in there for sins like yours, between the rapes and the child abuse and the murders.”
“None of those give you leverage over me,” I point out, my voice brittle.
He smiles a little at that. “You think I don’t have leverage now?”
I shrug.
In that moment Lenz’s eyes look older than any I’ve ever seen. Older than the eyes of crooked black women in the Delta, older than the eyes of men who’ve survived combat. “It’s your wife’s sister,” he says softly. “Isn’t it.”
No feigned reaction will deceive those eyes. Fury at Miles boils like acid up into my chest.
“Don’t blame Turner,” Lenz says gently. “He doesn’t even know he knows. I think he’s half in love with the girl himself.”
I say nothing.
Lenz takes a drag from his cigarette. “I know you’re no murderer.” He laughs. “Your sense of guilt is far too well developed for that. What do you think? I’m fishing for information to ruin your marriage? To force you to work for me? Like the threat of arrest or ten years of tax audits wouldn’t be enough?”
He stands suddenly and pats me on the shoulder. “Take it easy, Cole. Let’s go watch some TV. One way or another, everything’s going to look a lot different in a few minutes.”
With that he opens the door and leads me back into the main room. A small crowd has gathered around the video bank, but it parts like the Red Sea for Lenz. I slipstream behind him.
One of the nerds has taken up station in a chair before the monitor bank, a headset over his ears, both hands on control knobs. I hear a burst of static, then a Southern-accented voice saying, “This is Deke Smith, Dallas SWAT, advising Hostage Rescue has arrived.”
The acknowledgment is lost beneath Daniel Baxter’s “Okay, let’s do it.” He nods anxiously at the screens. “Did they lock and load in the van?”
The nerd in the chair repeats the question like a submarine officer relaying the orders of his captain. He listens to his headset, then replies, “Locked and loaded. Approaching the local command post.”
“Damn it, I want to hear everything,” snaps Baxter. “Put it all on the squawk box.”
The nerd flips a couple of switches, and suddenly the trailer is alive with the voices of the Dallas FBI SWAT team, the Dallas police, an FBI command post, and the wireless communications of the FBI Hostage Rescue Team.
“Bravo Leader, checking in. Testes, testes, one, two.”
Someone behind me emits a truncated laugh.
“That’s Joe Payne, Hostage Rescue commander,” Baxter says, either for my benefit or Lenz’s. “They’re Bravo Team.”
The remainder of Payne’s unit checks in, which sounds like between eight and twelve men. It’s hard to tell because they all talk at once.
“We live to Alpha?” someone asks over the radio. Payne, I think.
Baxter hits the nerd on the shoulder. The nerd mutters into his headset mike. Someone on-site tells Payne he is live to Alpha.
“Are we Alpha?” I ask.
A tech opposite me rolls his eyes.
“Is the target still on the phone?” asks Payne.
Someone farther along the trailer yells, “Affirmative. An EROS tech in New York confirms UNSUB interacting with a female subscriber.”
“Prospective victim number eight,” says Baxter.
“No point in waiting,” crackles Payne’s voice. “Can’t see anything through the windows. Let’s mount up.”
“What about video?” asks Baxter. “You got a camera going in?”
The nerd relays the question, and Payne says, “Camera goes in right after the guns.”
Unable to bear the delay, Baxter yanks the headset off the nerd’s head and puts it on. “Joe, this is Dan Baxter. You don’t want to slip a pinhole camera under the door and check the layout?”
“Not this time. Dallas P.D. did a good job staying out of sight. I don’t think this guy knows the cavalry’s here. I don’t want anyone approaching that door until we go up with the sledgehammers.”
“The manager wouldn’t give up a key?”
“Sledgehammers are faster,” says Payne. “We’re busting off the hinges in case he has hardened dead bolts. I’m holding a floor plan now. Last-minute advice?”
Baxter turns to Lenz. “Arthur?”
“Whoever’s in there,” says Lenz, “I’d like to see them get out alive. We could learn a lot.”
“I heard that,” says Payne. “You tell your shrink no guarantees. This guy throws down on us, we take him out.”
“Can they go for a disabling wound?” asks Lenz.
Baxter starts to explain something about body armor, but Payne’s reply drowns him out. “If my men shoot, they shoot for the head.”
“Good luck, Joe,” says Baxter.
“I’ll watch the reruns with you tonight,” says Payne. “You bring the beer.”
“You’re on.”
Suddenly the camaraderie is gone. Now the radio exchanges sound like snippets from a World War II combat movie. Curt questions, clipped replies. I hear several sighs of satisfaction around me as a third video screen lights up. On it is a black-and-white image that looks like it’s being shot by a five-year-old. Nothing but black boots. Then the frame rises and focuses on the back of a black UPS-style truck. On the spare wheel housing, stenciled in gold, are six words that make it clear that this truck does not belong to a shipping company:
BAD COMPANY
ANY TIME, ANY PLACE
“Jesus,” mutters Baxter, but when he turns to Lenz he is smiling. “The Dallas FBI SWAT motto.”
The short ugly snout of a submachine gun passes into the frame, wiggles, and disappears.
“Cameraman’s carrying,” s
ays a tech.
“Good for him,” says Baxter. “He’s probably seen those Civil War movies where the flag bearer charges with nothing but a flag. At least he learned something.”
The new video image suddenly begins to jerk. A flash of sidewalk, then I’m moving along it the way you do when you’re watching a horror film. The camera rises, showing us the back and shoulders of a man walking ahead of it. Then others in file ahead of him. Moving quickly now. They’re clad from boots to balaclava helmets in bulky black jumpsuits with ripstop nylon and Kevlar and guns strapped all over them. They look like paratroopers.
“Go, ninjas,” whispers someone near the video monitors.
The entire team suddenly appears on one of the static screens. They’re standing behind the wall of the apartment building nearest Strobekker’s, their backs to the camera. Over their shoulders, Strobekker’s front door is clearly visible. It looks no more than twenty feet away, but then I remember how camera angles can distort distance. It’s like watching a baseball pitcher from a camera placed behind the catcher; you think you could reach out and touch him, but he’s over sixty feet away.
“This is Bravo Leader,” says Payne. “Ten seconds.”
On the static view the Hostage Rescue Team lines up in a formation not unlike a football team. In front stand two men with black-painted sledgehammers in their hands.
“Five seconds,” says Payne.
“Rock and roll,” murmurs Baxter.
“GO!”
Payne’s barked command seems to propel the two point men across the open ground by volume alone. They move quickly, but anyone who has ever lifted a sledgehammer knows that a full-speed sprint while carrying one is out of the question.
