by Reid, Joseph
Around front, I found a pedestrian gate, but it, too, was secured, this time by an intercom call box not unlike the one that had been mounted on Nancy Irvine’s house. This one didn’t have a guard monitoring it, though; from the keypad, you could look up residents’ names and dial whomever you were visiting so they could buzz you in by pressing a button on their phones.
If I’d had even a pocketknife, I could have defeated the call box easily. Although the circuit inside would respond only to the proper dual-tone multifrequency sound played through the speaker line—preventing someone from simply holding a cell phone up to the microphone and trying different buttons to gain access—I could have spliced the wires over to the burner and fooled it. Without any tools, though, that wasn’t an option, either.
I’d have to go low-tech on this one. Fortunately, a pizza place across the street had its telephone number written in neon.
Sixteen minutes after placing the call, I spotted what I was looking for: a thin guy in a stiff-brimmed trucker’s hat, jogging across the street with a pizza box balanced on his upturned palm.
I’d moved several yards down the sidewalk to wait, but now started back toward the gate. Timing it right, I arrived just as the delivery guy said into the call box, “Hey, 602’s not picking up. Can you buzz me in?”
A loud beep burst from the speaker, followed by an electronic hum at the gate. As the delivery guy pulled the metal door open, I offered to hold it for him.
Civins’s apartment sat around back. Located on the ground floor, a wooden partition shielded its sliding glass door from anyone trying to peer directly inside. Fortunately, it was dark enough that I could creep up to the partition without being seen.
Unlike most of the units—closed up tight, air conditioners humming—Civins’s had the slider open with the screen drawn across it. Lights were on inside, but the place was Spartan: bare walls, just a few pieces of particleboard furniture. No TV, no computer; the stack of textbooks next to the couch seemed to be his most valuable possession.
When a dark shape appeared at the periphery of the room and started toward the door, I retreated around the screen and out to the parking lot, pausing next to a car. A minute later, a man I guessed was Civins emerged from behind the screen dressed only in running shorts and sneakers.
As he stood for a moment, stretching, I got to see what I was up against. Civins’s file said he’d spent eight years in Force Recon, the marines’ answer to the Navy SEALs, and he looked the part: a good inch or two taller than I was, he sported a high-and-tight haircut, several tattoos, and muscles seemingly cut from granite. Even if I were at full strength, there was little doubt he could take me, and I was nowhere near that.
As he jogged off into the darkness, I tried to come up with a plan for exactly where I could hide to ambush him.
“Evening, Brad.”
The words startled Civins, and I couldn’t really blame him. Finding my Sig trained on you as you stepped from the shower must be a nasty surprise.
Whatever sense of alarm he felt quickly disappeared, however, as one corner of his mouth turned up in a slight grin. “Mind if I throw on some pants?” His file said he was born in Mobile, Alabama, and he still had the accent to match.
“Yeah, I kind of do.” After creeping out from the coat closet once I’d heard the water start, I’d deliberately sat on the toilet to disguise my height and obtain a little cover from the sink. “I prefer knowing you’re not armed.”
“May I, uh . . . ?” Civins nodded downward.
“Nope. I like your hands right where they are, holding that towel up there on your head. But don’t worry, I prefer blonds.”
The grin spread across the remainder of Civins’s face as he squared his feet and shoulders toward me. “Buddy, if you’re out to rob somebody, you picked the wrong guy. I don’t have anything worth taking.”
“I’m not here to rob you,” I said. “I need to ask you some questions about one of your former clients.”
“Didn’t wanna make an appointment?”
“Max Magic’s been kidnapped.”
Civins’s smile disappeared. “Maxie—kidnapped? What happened?”
“That’s what I need you to tell me. Let’s start with the drugs—what was she taking?”
“When I left, she was on Oxy. But there might have been other stuff in there, too.”
“C’mon, Brad, I don’t have time for games.”
“That’s all I know—”
“You were her goddamn connection,” I growled. “And let me guess, it was Petén and the Second Guerrillas who put you up to it, right?”
“Whoa,” Civins said, “back up a second. I don’t know what all you’re talking about.”
“Bullshit.” My face flashed white-hot, and I couldn’t tell which was louder, my heartbeat or the clock ticking in my head at how long this was taking. I bounced to my feet. “You stole from Max’s father, you were dealing her drugs, and so help me if you don’t tell me where I can find the Second Guerrillas right fucking now . . .”
My chest heaved and I was acutely aware of the tension in the trigger against my finger. Part of me worried I’d moved too close to Civins—the bathroom was narrow enough, he could get to me if he lunged.
But he didn’t.
After looking at me and looking at my hand on the Sig, he actually took a step backward.
“Take it easy, hoss. I don’t know what exactly you’ve heard, or who you’ve talked to, but absolutely none of what you just said is right.”
My pulse slowed, just a little. “So tell me everything you know,” I said. “And, so help me, it had better all be true.”
Civins nodded slowly. “I started working Max’s security detail right after New Year’s. Couple of months in, the head of her label comes to me and says he thinks she’s doing drugs. Oxy. I’d known some guys who’d gotten hooked on stuff like that in the corps, so I started paying attention, and then I saw the signs, too. Her mood changing on a dime. Superattentive one minute, supertired the next. She’d scratch at her arms, like she couldn’t stop. All stuff I’d just chalked up to her being a teenager, until I really focused on it.”
Apparently I wasn’t the only one stupid enough to miss the signs. “Why’d Garcia bring it up with you? Why not tell her family?”
A shrug. “Charlie and Drew ain’t exactly best buddies. Maybe he figured I’d be more likely to listen.”
“Keep going.”
“I went back to Charlie, told him I agreed about the Oxy. He said he had a plan to get Max clean.”
“And?”
“And I took it to Drew.”
“You told Max’s father she was doing drugs?”
Civins nodded.
Now things were getting interesting. “So what’d he do?”
“Said thanks. Two days later, he fired me.”
“For stealing.”
Civins grunted like he found it funny.
“What?” I asked. “Was he wrong?”
“Not technically.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Rolling his eyes, Civins said, “I took a few little things of Max’s and auctioned them on eBay. A hairbrush, a toothbrush. Stuff like that. Nothing sensitive. Nothing Max couldn’t live without. I’m pretty sure she knew I was doing it.”
“How much did you make selling her stuff?”
“Little bit. Like fifteen grand.”
“What’d you do with the cash? You certainly didn’t spend it on this place.”
“I was going to give it to charity.”
Now it was my turn to laugh. “Charity. Right.”
“I’m serious.” His muscles flexed. “You know how many guys like me have killed themselves since coming back? There’s one unit alone that’s lost fourteen guys. Fourteen. Not to the enemy, here at home. It’s just wrong. That’s what I’m studying for—so guys like me will have someone to talk to who’s been there. Who knows what they’ve seen and done.”
When I’d entere
d the apartment and looked for a hiding place, I’d seen one of those fancy triathlon racing bikes parked just inside the door. Shiny and new. “C’mon, man. I saw the ride you got out there. That must’ve cost a grand, easy.”
He shook his head. “Everything I got here, I paid for myself. I don’t need much to live on, and I banked some pretty good coin doing personal security after getting out.”
“All right, but you said you were going to give the money away. What happened?”
“I—I did give some of it.”
“How much?”
“Three grand. I got the receipts out there.” Civins gestured out the bathroom door with his head, but the thought of walking him out into the darkened bedroom to confirm it didn’t make me particularly comfortable.
“What about the other twelve?”
“I . . . had some setbacks.”
“Like what?”
Civins’s gaze drifted off to the side.
“You want me to believe you, I need to know. What happened to the other twelve grand you made selling Max’s stuff?”
His head snapped back, eyes locked on me. “I lost it, okay?”
“Lost it how? It fell out of your pocket?”
“No! I . . . I wanted to grow the money into something bigger. So I . . . invested it. But things didn’t go exactly like I planned.”
“What’d you invest in?”
Civins kept glaring at me but said nothing.
“Tell me. What did you invest in?”
“In myself.”
I raised my eyebrows and cocked my head.
“It was my bankroll for a poker tournament. Ten thousand bought my seat, and I was going to donate whatever I won.”
“I gather it didn’t go well.”
Wincing, Civins shook his head. “Out the first day.”
“What about the last two thousand? Where’d that go?”
“I spent it trying to make back the ten.”
I sighed. “Anyone ever tell you, you have a gambling problem?”
“Poker isn’t gambling,” he said quickly. “It’s a game of skill—”
“Doesn’t sound like you’re all that skilled, then.”
Civins’s lips pulled back, showing clenched teeth. “I’m good. You just—”
“Back to where we started. When I spoke to Drew, he fingered you as Max’s connection—”
“That lying—”
I raised a hand. “Well, if it wasn’t you, who was it? Because that’s the person who’s got the best chance of leading me to Max.”
“Roosevelt,” Civins said. “It’s gotta be.”
“Who’s that?”
“Max’s doctor. He’s got an office out on MoPac.”
I remembered what Max had said about her pediatrician, and recalled seeing that name on the map. “Did you take her to him?”
“I went along. Usually Marta scheduled the appointments.”
Marta. Of course. “Did you see Marta and this Roosevelt guy together?”
Civins shook his head. “I wouldn’t go inside the exam room, not with Max getting undressed and all. I’d wait outside.”
“But you know the office, know the doctor?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“Good, you can take me over there and introduce me.”
“What? No way. I got a shift to get to—besides, it’s not like they’re open this time of night.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “Clock’s ticking. If Roosevelt’s in with the gang that took Max—and I’m guessing he is, since he apparently got Max back on the Oxy after Charlie got her clean—then he’s our best hope of finding out where they’re holding her.”
“Great. I’ll draw you a map. You can say hi to Maxie for me when you rescue her.”
I shook my head. “I need an extra pair of hands. So you’re gonna come along and help.”
Civins’s expression hardened, and again I felt a pang of concern about what might happen if he decided to try to take the Sig from me.
I brandished the gun again, my eyes wide. Finally, his shoulders slumped.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll go with you. But at least let me call into work so I don’t lose my job.”
“Sure,” I said. “We’ve got one other stop to make, anyway.”
CHAPTER 21
Civins knew a gun store that was still open, despite the hour.
God bless Texas.
From there, we steered down the MoPac Expressway. I made Civins drive while I rode behind him, keeping him covered with the Sig in my bad hand while loading my new purchases into the shotgun with my good one. At this point, he seemed trustworthy enough, but I couldn’t afford any surprises.
After a series of undulating hills, Civins turned into the driveway of a modern-looking office complex. Sunk several feet below the road, a group of identical glass-and-metal buildings sat in a tight huddle around a parking lot landscaped to feature trees and a small pond in the middle. We parked near the woodsy centerpiece, the car hidden in long shadows cast by the trees.
As we got out, I carried the shotgun under my arm. It felt more than a bit like we were going hunting.
Civins pointed silently to a building on our left, then started that way. For such a big guy, he was noticeably light on his feet, making no sound as he walked. I followed a few steps behind.
When we reached the entrance to the building, glass double doors revealed a deserted lobby and one of those magnetic locks up at the top of the door frame, holding them shut. From the outside, you could only beep in using an access card, but on the inside, a motion detector was mounted up at the magnet to release the lock for anyone approaching.
I could see a thin crack of light peeking out through the seam between the doors and feel a slight rush of air against my palm emanating from it. Checking the gap at the bottom, it was wider.
Hopefully wide enough.
I hurried back to the pond, ripped off several long cattail stalks, and returned to hand them to Civins. It took several tries, but eventually he managed to slip the bushy end of one cattail under the bottom lip of the doors and then gradually ease the narrower stem up through the seam between them. Once the stem was about eye level, I motioned for him to wiggle the stalk up and down. Inside, the fuzzy spike of the cattail bounced and waved until it triggered the motion sensor, and a metallic thunk sounded.
The door pulled open.
Civins raised three fingers and pointed toward a bank of elevators, but I steered us to the fire stairs instead. After a quick climb to the third floor, we emerged at one end of a hallway. A door marked with bright colors and big letters stood at the opposite end, while all the additional doors along the sides of the hall had been decorated over with shrink-wrapped pictures of superheroes and Disney princesses.
I had to give it to the Second Guerrillas: if this was their doing, it sure made a nice front. No one would ever suspect a drug dealer worked out of a place like this.
The main entrance bore a much heavier knob and lock than the others. More likely to be alarmed, too, although I guessed it might ring to Roosevelt or the Second Guerrillas rather than the police. So I picked a door halfway down the hall, where Spider-Man was swinging on a web. Pointing the shotgun barrel at the lock from maybe six inches away, I fired.
Shotguns are always tricky to handle one-handed, and this breaching round packed a huge kick. But it did its job: the powdered iron slug popped the lock right out of the door.
I motioned for Civins to go first. He nudged the door open with his foot, then proceeded inside. I followed, and found we were in an examination room, cabinets and sink on one side, paper-covered table on the other. Cartoonish jungle animals were painted on the walls.
A door on the far side of the exam room led into the heart of the office, where a set of central cubicles were surrounded by a ring of doors. Each of the rooms around the circle turned out to be a mirror image of the one through which we’d entered, albeit decorated in a different theme: space, pirates, prince
sses, trains.
I figured Roosevelt wouldn’t keep anything sensitive out in the open. The information I needed ought to be locked up somewhere.
Eventually I found it: a door tucked into a shadowy corner past the X-ray room. Buried at the very end of a hallway, it struck you as unimportant, plus the radiation symbol probably tended to keep people away. But it was the only door in the entire office whose handle bore a numeric keypad lock.
The lock took two breaching rounds to dislodge. As the door swung open, I saw a windowless room smaller than I would have expected from the outside, empty except for a desk and chair, pushed against the far wall. The only light inside came from a computer monitor on the desk, running one of those screen savers of endlessly snaking colors. Next to the monitor stood a desktop computer with a small wireless router box perched on top.
Civins stepped into the room first, which made sense because I’d been forcing him to go ahead of me, but in doing so he blocked my view of the computer, and something told me the setup wasn’t quite right.
I pushed my way in past him, quickly glancing over everything again.
Not the monitor, that was fine.
The desktop was nothing special, just a big metal shell with disk-drive doors on the front and cords streaming out the back.
The wireless router’s antennas pointed to the ceiling while lights blinked across its face, exactly as they should.
What struck me was the wiring.
A bank of electrical outlets stood next to the desk. All three power cords were plugged in. A single Cat5 cable also ran from a jack in the wall to the back of the computer.
But that meant the router wasn’t plugged in to the network.
As I realized it was a fake, another thought occurred to me: this box wasn’t designed to broadcast a wireless signal.
