* * *
Hetty sensed his presence more than heard it. She looked up from her desk—even in the modern, high-tech world she inhabited, paperwork remained a burden—and saw him standing in the entrance to her office. “Have you been watching long?”
“Only for a minute,” Granger said. “A little more, maybe.”
“You’re easily entertained.”
“Not really. I’m a demanding critic. But I wasn’t just standing there for the joy of watching you work. I was waiting for an opportune moment to interrupt you. And, honestly, I was taking a moment for myself.”
“A moment of what?” Hetty asked.
“Stillness, maybe? Peace is probably too much to ask for, around this place.”
“It’s what we work for every day.”
“What, peace? Yes, I suppose it is. But working for it doesn’t bring us much, does it? It seems like we’re always at war.”
Hetty closed the file she’d been working on. This was clearly going to be more than a momentary distraction. Owen Granger was usually very buttoned up, so if he felt the need to unburden, she wanted to give him her full attention. “It’s a complicated world, Owen. And while it’s full of people who love us, who love this country, there is no shortage of people who would love to do it harm. So yes, we are, as you say, constantly at war. We take it upon ourselves, so they”—she waved a hand toward the outside world—“are protected from it.”
He nodded, and she read the look in his eyes. “You know all this. Probably better than I do.”
“It’s an age-old story. Timeless. Probably been going on since the first amoeba grew legs and walked out of the sea.”
“You know that’s not exactly how it happened, right?”
“I’m exaggerating for comic effect, Henrietta. Hyperbole. Another old tradition.”
“So if you didn’t come in to ask me for a sociological treatise on all the shades of gray surrounding the intersection between law enforcement and defense…”
“I came in to tell you that I know it’s a bad time, but I have to leave for a few hours.”
“It’s always a bad time. That is, after all, what we were just discussing, is it not?”
Granger sighed and ran a hand across his high forehead. “I think I told you I’m caring for a friend’s horses while she’s away for a couple of weeks. She keeps them up off Coldwater Canyon. I took the liberty of asking Eric and Nell to keep tabs on the wildfire burning up there, and it sounds like it’s getting a little too close for comfort. I’ve arranged boarding for them in the Valley, but I’ve got to load them up and get them out now.”
“She must be a good friend.”
Granger just smiled. A good friend, then. “Go on,” Hetty said. “You’re right, best to take care of it before the fire gets any closer. We’ll hold down the fort.”
“I never had any doubt,” he said.
“Just be careful. Those fires can move fast, and change direction without warning.”
“I know about fire, Hetty.”
“And you know about me, and that occasionally—very occasionally, I must say—I like to give advice to my friends, whether they’ve asked for it or not.”
“I’m glad,” Granger said, “to be included in that company. I’m sure traffic will be a mess, so I expect it to take hours and hours. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Be safe,” she said to his departing figure.
She knew he would. One didn’t rise as high as he had in their profession without learning how to take care of himself.
Still, it was a dangerous world. And when you added nature’s dangers to those wrought by human beings, the danger level rose exponentially.
17
It wasn’t true that the sun always shone at the beach. Sam had seen cloudy days in Santa Monica, in Malibu, and even in Marina Del Rey. Some summer days, June gloom socked in the shoreline and didn’t let up until late in the day, by which time disappointed tourists from points inland had either given up and gone to the mall or persevered, grumpy and bitter about the price of airplane tickets, hotel rooms, and rental cars. But as he steered the Challenger down Venice Boulevard toward the coast, the sky was gloriously cobalt, with only enough puffy white clouds to offer some contrast, and the sun blazed like it had something to prove.
More small boats were permanently berthed in Marina Del Rey than anyplace else in the world, and that sun and sky were big parts of the reason why. The Southern California myth still reigned supreme there. No matter what happened in the economy or in the news, you could find people polishing their boats, sitting on their decks, even sometimes taking those beloved crafts out into the open sea. Close by was a strip of beach fronted by expensive homes, and Sam had no doubt that on this hot summer day, the beach was packed.
He preferred Atlantic beaches, personally. The water was warmer and the locals less turf-conscious. But he was a SEAL, and among the things they shared with their animal namesake was a love of the water. Warm or cold, crystal-clear or dark and soupy, he was almost as at home there as he was on dry land. He cracked the window as they approached, letting ocean-scented air rush in.
“We don’t have time for a swim,” Callen said. “We have a bank robber to visit.”
“Alleged bank robber,” Sam reminded him. “And if it was me and I’d just killed a guy, robbed a bank, and planned a failed ambush, I probably wouldn’t be hanging around my own house. I’m just saying.”
“Chances are slim,” Callen agreed. “But we aren’t getting anywhere with their phones or Kaleidoscope.”
“Guys are pros.”
“Right. Which means old-fashioned shoe leather. Like our cop forefathers.”
“Were your forefathers cops, G?” Sam asked.
“Yeah, I don’t think so.”
Sam turned up a residential street and braked in front of an unpretentious detached home. The street was lined with palms, and quiet early on this weekday afternoon. The ocean was invisible from here, with only a faint tinge of saltwater in the air. The more pronounced the scent, the higher-priced the real estate. Jon Wehling did okay, judging by the neighborhood, but this wasn’t the kind of house a multimillion-dollar score would buy him.
“This is the place,” he said.
“Modest,” Callen said.
“Just what I was thinking.”
There was a little patch of yard in front that had probably had grass once, but the grass had been taken up and gravel put down. A common choice in drought-ridden California—easy maintenance and no tickets or nasty notes from the neighbors when the spray from the sprinkler reached the sidewalk.
“You want the front or back?” Callen asked, opening his door.
“Doesn’t matter to me.”
“Okay, front’s all yours. I’ll go around.”
The two had done this often enough that Sam knew how long it would take Callen to get around back. If the crew was inside and still spoiling for a fight, having one man in front and one behind would be risky, but Sam doubted that they were. There were no vehicles in the driveway or immediately in front of the house. There was a garage he couldn’t see inside, but the house had an empty feel to it. He couldn’t explain it better than that; it was just a sense he had, derived from years of experience. Sometimes he was wrong, but not often.
When he was sure that Callen was in place, he drew his SIG and pounded on the front door, standing off to the side just in case. “Federal agents!” he called. He waited a couple of seconds, and hammered some more. They didn’t have a warrant, so breaking in was legally questionable without exigent circumstances.
No sound emanated from within. He stayed put beside the door for a few more seconds—you never stood directly in front of a door if you thought there might be armed bad guys behind it, unless you were angling for a short life expectancy—then put his head against it. Listening.
Nothing.
“Hey, Sam?”
Callen, from around back. Sam stepped away from the door and went to the side of the house, whe
re he saw his partner coming toward him. “Yeah?”
“Place is empty.”
“Empty like nobody home?”
“Empty like nobody lives here.”
“Really?” Wehling had made phone calls from here three days earlier—before the bank robbery, but after Bobby Sanchez’s murder. Electricity had been used in the last several days, and water. The house’s physical presence gave every sign of having been recently occupied.
Callen tilted his head toward the back. “French doors,” he said. “Take a look.”
Sam walked into the backyard. There was a small brick patio, with a fire pit, a cheap propane grill, and a sliding glass door into the house.
He looked inside. He could see a kitchen and part of a room beyond it, a dining room, he figured. There were no appliances visible, nothing on the counters or walls, and not a stick of furniture. “It’s empty,” he said.
“Do you have to independently confirm everything I tell you?” Callen asked. “If I said, ‘Don’t move, there’s a black widow spider on your neck,’ would you have to see it in a mirror before you believed me?”
“You told me to take a look, G. I was humoring you.”
“Humoring me? I told you to take a look because I knew you would anyway.”
“So I was humoring you while you were humoring me. Sign of a healthy working relationship, or something.”
“Or something,” Callen echoed.
“Also? If you see a black widow spider on my neck, don’t bother telling me not to move. Just brush it off, okay? Just knock it off there before it bites me.”
“Are you afraid of spiders?”
“I wouldn’t say that. I wouldn’t say I like them, either. But poisonous spiders on my neck? That’s a whole other deal, man. I’d knock a poisonous spider off your neck if I saw it.”
“Well, thanks. I appreciate that.”
“Wouldn’t go telling you about it and not doing anything. What kind of friend is that?”
Callen gestured toward the house. “What do you think? Want to go in?”
“I’m pretty sure the crew didn’t take everything out of the rooms we could see just to hide in the bathroom. House looks empty, it’s probably empty. Same way Julianne Mercer’s apartment was empty.”
“These guys definitely have a plan,” Callen said. “Kill the only two people who might possibly get in the way, sell the tablet, and skip town. Don’t leave anything behind that might indicate where you went.”
“They’re pros,” Sam pointed out. “Maybe Special Ops, maybe military intelligence. Before they decided to go for the big bucks in contracting. And then the bigger bucks in murder and theft of national treasures. They come up with a plan, they don’t do things halfway.”
Sam and Callen were heading back to the car when a man came out of the house across the street. He was tanned and fit, with sun-bleached hair and teeth a few shades whiter than was natural. He wore a Hawaiian shirt and board shorts. Sam was surprised he was home, but maybe it was low tide. “You guys looking for Jon?”
“Do you know him?” Callen asked.
“Just to say hi to, you know. We’ve been neighbors for a few years. Not really tight or anything.”
“Know where he is?” Sam asked.
“No idea. It’s just—day before yesterday, a moving crew showed up. Jon wasn’t around, but they must have had a key. They loaded everything up and took off.”
“You know where he was moving to?”
“Last time I saw him was about a week ago. He said something about a job in Virginia. I guess the company he works for is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and he wanted to be close to that. I didn’t get the idea that he was going immediately, but then this truck came, so I guess he was. Sorry I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye.”
“Do you remember what company the truck was from?”
The guy grinned. “How could I forget? The truck had these gorillas painted on it, and the name was Two Gorillas Will Move You. There were just two guys in the crew, and they could have passed for gorillas. Big, strong guys, know what I mean? Like, bigger than you.”
“Two Gorillas, huh?” Sam said.
“That’s right. They worked fast, too. Not that Jon ever had much in there, that I saw. He travels light, I guess. Me, it’d take dynamite to get all my crap out of my house.”
“Well, I guess there’s no point waiting here for Jon,” Callen said. “Thanks for letting us know.”
“Sure thing. If I see him, should I tell him you came around?”
“That’s okay, thanks,” Sam replied. “I have a feeling we’ll see him before you do.”
* * *
Only one of the gorillas was in the office when Callen and Sam got there, but it was easy enough to see where the company name had come from. The guy was a brute, with no neck, huge, sloping shoulders, and long, well-muscled arms. The last time he’d been able to buy clothes off the rack, Callen figured, he’d probably been in seventh grade and shopping in the big and tall department. Adding to the effect was the matting of tightly coiled hairs all down his arms and puffing out the open collar of his blue work shirt. The name embroidered on the shirt was “Timmy,” which seemed like a misprint.
“You moved a guy named Jon Wehling recently,” Callen said. He gave the address.
Timmy nodded. “That sounds right.”
“Can you tell us where his belongings went?”
Timmy looked surprised. “Of course not. What do I look like, the information lady?”
“I don’t know who the information lady is,” Sam said, showing his badge. “Do you know what a federal law enforcement agent is?”
“Why didn’t you say so?”
“I didn’t know we’d need to. You’re not a psychiatrist or a priest.”
“Hey, movers find out lots of intimate secrets about people,” Timmy said. His voice was high for such a big man, and Sam guessed that it even skewed toward girlish when he was excited or laughing. “Some things can’t be hidden, and if we’re packing—well, you’d be amazed at some of the stuff we have to handle. If we went around blabbing about our clients, we’d be out of the business in no time.”
“Excuse our ignorance,” Callen said. “We had no idea. But like my partner said, we are federal agents, and we are in a bit of a hurry. If you could get us a delivery address—”
“You read Chinese?”
“A little,” Callen said. “Why?”
“Because that’s what language it’s written in. We loaded Wehling’s stuff into a container, and delivered the container directly to the docks in Long Beach. It’s on a container ship right now, headed for China.”
“Maybe a photocopy,” Sam suggested.
“Sure thing, hang on.”
He stepped into a back office. Callen took advantage of the opportunity to look around, but there wasn’t much to it: a chest-high counter with a couple of messy desks behind it, photographs of moving trucks on the walls, a cardboard cutout of two real gorillas standing beside a water cooler with paper cups stacked on top. The chances of finding clues to the bank crew’s whereabouts laying around were slim to none, but studying his environs had become as habitual as breathing.
They heard a photocopier humming, and Timmy emerged bearing a sheet of paper with Hanzi—Chinese characters—written in the crucial spots. The agents thanked him and took their leave.
“Slow boat to China,” Sam said as they got back in the car. “I guess we could catch a chopper, find the ship.”
“Waste of time,” Callen said. “If I had shot a cop and killed a SEAL and just sold a priceless treasure to a Russian oil baron, and everything I owned was being shipped to China, it would be because China was the last place I ever planned to go.”
“He thinks he’ll be able to afford new stuff,” Sam said, nodding his agreement.
“He thinks he’ll be able to afford a new life. And he might be right.”
“I guess our job is to make sure he’s wrong.”
“And how do you propose we do that?”
“Well, Grisha Alexandrovich Nikolaev,” Sam said, using Callen’s recently discovered real name. “I guess you’re going undercover. How’s your Russian these days?”
“Xopowo,” Callen said. “That means—”
“I know what it means. It means good. And I know how your Russian is. We were just there, remember? Do you even know what a rhetorical question is?”
“Sure,” Callen said. “It’s—”
“Again, rhetorical! Means it doesn’t need an answer.”
“Doesn’t need one isn’t the same as can’t be answered. Maybe I’m just more polite than you.”
“Maybe,” Sam said. “And maybe you’re such a pathetically lonely man that you have to take every possible opportunity to speak to another human being.”
“I’m not lonely,” Callen argued. “I have friends, I have coworkers—”
“You have coworkers who are friendly toward you. Not the same thing.”
“Are you saying you’re not my friend?”
“I’m saying I might be the best friend you’ve got. Which means when I tell you that you’re lonely, you should listen to me.”
“I’m listening,” Callen said.
“Okay. You’re lonely.”
“I’m still listening. I just know you’re wrong. I’m not lonely.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” Sam said. “Maybe one day we’ll both believe it.”
18
Their next stop was on Orion Avenue in Van Nuys, a peaceful street of single-story ranch homes with a lot of trees, by Southern California standards. Deeks checked the address on his phone, and pointed to a gray house with white trim. A low white fence surrounded the grassy yard, and a driveway curved toward an attached garage. A copper-colored Expedition sat in the drive. “That’s the place,” he said.
Kensi was already braking to a stop at the curb. “I can read street numbers,” she said.
Deeks chose to disregard the inherent sarcasm. “Looks like somebody’s home.” Stating the obvious again, but sometimes there was nothing else to state. At least he hadn’t said, “That house is mostly gray.” Also true, but unnecessary.
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