Oracle

by Douglas E. Richards

  15

  “Report!” said Shanifrey.

  “I’m afraid I have news you’re not going to like,” replied Eldamir, and in this case, the phrase, I’m afraid, wasn’t just a figure of speech.

  “Tell me!” bellowed his boss.

  Eldamir swallowed hard. “Fanimore was watching the parking garage and had them in his sights,” he began. “I then heard extensive gunfire from silenced guns through his comm, along with shattering glass, and then he was silent. I wasn’t able to get him to respond to me afterwards.”

  “What does that mean? Is he dead?”

  “I assume so, but I didn’t have time to check. I had a car parked on the street in front of the hotel. In order to follow them, I needed to rush to it so I could catch them leaving the garage.”

  Shanifrey screamed a guttural curse, harsh even by the standards of his language. “Are you telling me we’ve lost three of our people tonight?” he thundered. “Three! In addition to Paritor!”

  “I can’t be certain,” replied Eldamir, striving to stay as calm as possible, “but this is my best guess, yes.”

  Eldamir could understand the commander’s fury. Things had gotten well out of hand. And in a hurry. Earlier that evening everything had been going their way. Their surveillance was going well, and Shanifrey was on the verge of rendering an irritating detective impotent, nipping a potential future problem in the bud.

  And now this. Hard to imagine how so many things could go this wrong in such a short period.

  “Where is the detective and her friend now?” demanded Shanifrey.

  “Unknown,” replied Eldamir, wishing he could give some other answer—any other answer. “I lost them on the I-15. Anna Abbott was driving. She accelerated to speeds that had to be a hundred or more, and weaved through traffic, which caught me off guard. If I had done the same, it would be obvious I was following. I tried anyway, but she had a significant head start, and I’m new to driving, so she was able to increase the distance between us until she was out of sight. I tried for a few minutes longer, but decided it would be futile to continue. So I exited and called you.”

  “How can you be so incompetent!” screamed Shanifrey. “You can detect them up to twenty miles away. Are you telling me they gained twenty miles on you in just a few minutes?”

  “Our team only had the one detector,” replied Eldamir hurriedly, “and Tiparax had it in the hotel room. I didn’t have time to retrieve it. Hotel security had already gone to the ninth floor to investigate, so I made the decision to follow their car without it.”

  Eldamir braced himself for a flurry of invective, but this never arrived. Apparently, as angry as the commander was, and as poorly as this had turned out, he agreed with his subordinate’s decision.

  “Which direction did they go on the 15?” asked Shanifrey.

  “North.”

  The commander paused in thought. “The reinforcements I mentioned earlier are already on their way to your location,” he said. “A five-man human team. Not elite soldiers, which I’d prefer, but well trained and dangerous in their own right. So they’ll do—at least for now. I was going to have them meet up with you, and place them under your command. But not anymore. I’ll order these men to travel slowly up the 15, assuming the detective remained on this freeway after she lost you. Then I’ll try to locate our targets in other ways. If I’m able to find them again, our human team won’t have as much ground to cover to catch up.”

  “Assuming the detective continues on the 15,” noted Eldamir. “Wouldn’t it be better to send each of the five men in a different direction?”

  “No. I’m beginning to think that just one of Marshall’s men, alone, won’t have a chance against Anna Abbott. I want all five of them taking her on at the same time.”

  “I should join them,” said Eldamir.

  “Yes you should. But you won’t. We can’t risk losing anyone else on our team. Marshall’s men are expendable. We can decide what to do if, and when, they button things down.”

  “Button things down?” said Eldamir. “Won’t they have orders to kill?”

  “I’ve decided I want the targets captured and interrogated after all. The information we can gain is potentially too valuable to pass up. So the team will be ordered to take them alive if they’re certain they can do it—kill them if not. If they do take them alive, they can lock them down until we can get there with an even more impressive force. I’ve been in discussions with a group of highly trained mercenaries, and I’ll activate them now.”

  “When do you think these mercs can get here?” asked Eldamir.

  “Unclear.”

  “And you really think human mercenaries are necessary?”

  “I do now,” said Shanifrey, his voice grim. “I’ve underestimated the dangers here on Earth,” he admitted, “and I won’t risk any further casualties. Not until I’m sure we’re fielding an overwhelming force.”

  “Understood,” said Eldamir.

  “Now it just comes down to finding the car that you lost,” said the commander pointedly. “There’s a hacker I used last year who is extremely good. I’ll get him on the job immediately. We know the license number of the Honda. He can try to hack street and freeway cams, as well as the car itself. There are no guarantees, and I have no idea on the timing, but I’m confident we’ll eventually find them.”

  “They just killed all three of my comrades on this operation,” said Eldamir. “So when we find them, and after they’ve been fully interrogated, I request permission to slit their throats myself.”

  There was a brief pause. “Permission granted,” said Shanifrey.

  16

  Tom Vega turned to the detective the moment she was off the phone, highly agitated. “Before you go to the station to meet with your captain,” he said, “give me the chance to convince you to stay with me, instead.”

  When she didn’t respond immediately he continued. “Please!” he implored her. “Let me protect you. I know it doesn’t seem like it at the moment, but there are more important things going on here than what happened to you at that high school.”

  “More important than a group of men trying to ruin my career and end my life?” she said in dismay.

  “Give me twenty to thirty minutes to explain. Please!”

  Anna digested this unexpected plea, and while she was dying to learn more about the things that had attacked them, and hear Vega out, she couldn’t spare the time. She was taking a big risk with the phone as it was. “I want to hear you out,” she replied rapidly, “I do. But first, you should know that I’m not—necessarily—meeting the captain anywhere.”

  “But you just told him you were.”

  “I know what I told him! But my intuition is smelling something fishy.”

  “What?”

  “I have no idea, but something is wrong. Very wrong. So I need to make another call, and quickly. We need to ditch this phone so no one can use it to track us.”

  “Hurry, then,” said Vega.

  Anna thought for a moment, but the next call was obvious. There was only one other detective she worked with whom she considered a friend, Lieutenant Cole Boyer, Perez’s number two man. The fact that her friends-and-family list only contained a single name was pathetic, and largely her own fault. She thought of herself as kind and loyal, with a good sense of humor to boot, so she believed she could be relatively popular if she made any kind of effort.

  But she never had. She wasn’t entirely sure why. Perhaps she felt she wasn’t deserving of any friends. Or perhaps the loss of her parents when she was seven, and then Isabella, had soured her on forming any real attachments, stripping her of the courage required to leave herself open to emotional devastation yet again.

  Add in departmental jealousies, her interest in keeping her personal life closely guarded, and her relentless focus on the job, and her lack of friends wasn’t a mystery.

  But she never had any regrets. Not really. She was still only twenty-eight, after entering the poli
ce academy at nineteen, becoming a uniform at twenty, and acing her detective exam at twenty-four. She had always assumed she’d have plenty of time for social entanglements, romantic or otherwise, which she had vowed to pursue before she reached thirty.

  But now she wasn’t sure if she’d even live to thirty. Hell, at this point, she wasn’t sure if she’d live out the night.

  She placed the call to Cole Boyer and held her breath. If he failed to answer, she was all out of ideas.

  “Lieutenant Boyer,” he announced.

  “Thank God!” she whispered under her breath, at the same time hearing several voices near the lieutenant, making it clear that he wasn’t alone.

  “Cole, it’s Anna,” she said out loud. “I need your help. I’m in big trouble.”

  “Yeah, no shit,” he replied, almost inaudibly. Then, more loudly, he said, “Hang on a second, Hailey, I’m having trouble hearing you.”

  Anna knew he was rushing off to seek privacy, but the fact that he felt the need to pretend the call had come from his wife, Hailey, was a very bad omen.

  Almost fifteen seconds passed before his voice returned. “Anna, where the hell are you?” he whispered hoarsely. “And what in the hell is going on?”

  “You’re with Perez and others at the station, aren’t you?” she said. “If I come in, it’s a trap, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said the lieutenant. “The captain has me here to help you. Make sure you’re safe.”

  “Okay, now that you’ve issued the party line, you can come clean. Don’t worry, you didn’t do anything to tip me off. I wasn’t coming in even before I called you, despite what I told the captain. So given that Perez’s hook has no chance of reeling me in, I’d appreciate the truth. Neil Marshall and Shane Frey have somehow done something to convince him that I’m guilty already, haven’t they? Despite the fact that I told the captain I was being framed.”

  “Are you guilty, Anna?”

  “Come on, Cole! You know better than that. You know me. I have no life. I solve crimes and go home. I’m as straight as a ruler. As spotless as a fricking clean room. I’m being set up! You have to believe me.”

  “I’d like to,” he replied. “I really would. But it’s looking very bad.”

  “How bad?”

  “A call came into the precinct about a shooting at Salem Hills High. A few uniforms were dispatched. Any idea what they found?”

  “Yes. Because I already told the captain to go there, myself. This high school was where they tried to set me up. It was an ambush. I’m sure they’ve scrubbed the scene, but the uniforms probably found some blood evidence and shell casings. Pretty much what I told Perez they would find.”

  “Guess again,” said Cole grimly. “How about six dead bodies?”

  Anna’s eyes widened in horror.

  “If that’s your idea of a scrubbed crime scene,” continued the lieutenant, “then we have very different definitions of that phrase.”

  Anna suddenly found it very difficult to breathe. “Six bodies?” she repeated numbly.

  “That’s right. Six. But it gets a lot worse. Four of them were hogtied, and had been shot in the forehead at point-blank range. With bullets fired from your gun, Anna. A gun that was also found at the scene. Along with your phone.”

  Bile rose in Anna’s throat. This was all but checkmate. No wonder the captain hadn’t asked why she wasn’t using her phone when she had called. He knew she didn’t have it. Her subconscious had been right to raise alarms.

  “You claim that you walked into an ambush,” continued Cole when she didn’t reply. “But if that were the case, how, exactly, did you walk back out again? Are you suggesting that six men failed to ambush one lone detective? That you were forced to kill four of them gangland style?”

  “Come on, Lieutenant!” snapped Anna. “You know I’m not that stupid. I told Perez to check out the high school, myself. Why would I do that if I had left such an obvious mess behind? The captain should have told me what he found and heard me out before he primed a trap to arrest me. I did incapacitate and hogtie four men at the scene, this much is true. But they were very much alive when I left. And we both know the other two weren’t killed by my gun. Which calls your simple narrative into question. Marshall and Frey slaughtered their own people to make me look as guilty as possible. Too guilty, don’t you think?”

  Cole sighed. “The truth is that I do,” he said. “Impossible to imagine a detective with your skill being so sloppy or obvious. Nothing about this rings true. But there’s more that you don’t know about. Rick Bunson came to me and the captain late this afternoon, just after you left for the day. He said he had overheard several suspicious conversations you’ve had recently. He heard enough to make him think you might be on the take. Wanted to recommend a quiet investigation.”

  Anna’s stomach clenched. “He never heard any suspicious conversations,” she insisted, “because I never had any.”

  “He also said that in one of the conversations,” continued the lieutenant, ignoring Anna’s denial, “you said that if things went south, if something arose that made you look dirty, you had a plan. You would claim that a drug dealer named Neil Marshall was trying to frame you.”

  Anna wanted to reply but the words were stuck in her throat, which felt as if it was constricting. And why not? The brilliantly fashioned noose she was now wearing, made of razor blades, could hardly be pulled any tighter.

  “The captain and I both told Rick that he must have misinterpreted your conversations. We refused to begin an investigation unless he could supply hard evidence. We had your back.”

  “Until now,” whispered Anna.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No. I get it. Who can blame you for changing your mind? The weight of evidence against me is crushing. My gun was involved in multiple killings. And Rick predicted I would try to blame Neil Marshall, which is exactly what I did. They had contingencies for their contingencies. Damn they’re good. I busted up their plan and stayed alive, but they managed to turn my very success into an even more ironclad frame.”

  She paused. “What I don’t understand is how they got to Rick. We were never close, but my gut says there’s no way he would do this. Not for all the money in the world. I get a cop taking money to look the other way. But I can’t imagine Rick would sell out a fellow detective like this.”

  “Look, I still believe that you’re innocent,” said Cole. “I do know you. And all of this is too convenient. You’re right, if not for Rick Bunson, we’d believe every word you’re saying. Despite how it looks. Or maybe because of it. So why don’t you come in? I’ll talk to the captain. Convince him not to arrest you until we’ve had the chance to pull at some threads and clear you.”

  Anna sighed. “Thanks, Cole. You’re a good man. But it won’t work. They’ve done too good a job. Based on everything he knows, the captain will have to arrest me. I would. Anyone would. And what you’ve seen tonight is only phase one. By now, the captain’s obtained a search warrant for my home, hasn’t he?”

  Cole’s lack of response spoke volumes.

  “What he finds there will make me look even worse. Marshall’s people broke in tonight, and planted files on my computer. When these come to light, no one will believe me. I wouldn’t even believe me.”

  “Do you know what’s on the files?”

  “Yes, one of his lieutenants, a guy named Jimmy Jessup, told me during their attempted ambush. They planted records showing that I’m on the take. Other records that indicate I tamper with evidence to get convictions. Two million in a secret bank account. And a copy of my sealed juvie record, when I was a giant mess. Sure to make great reading.”

  “Jesus, Anna, I had no idea you even had a juvie record.”

  “No shit, Cole. That’s what sealed means.”

  “That’s enough evidence to choke a whale,” he replied, ignoring her barb. “I am so sorry, Anna,” he added sincerely. “I still think you’re innocent, like I said. If not for Ri
ck’s allegations, I’d be certain of it. But if you are innocent, this frame of theirs is the tightest, most elaborate one I’ve ever even heard of.”

  “I know it is, Cole. They spent a fortune on this. And not just money. I’m stunned they were willing to sacrifice the four men I hogtied. Especially since I was told that all four were hired from the outside. They really, really want Foria to be treated as just a run-of-the-mill new drug. Which makes me more certain than ever that it is anything but. So I’m begging you, Cole, as a personal favor to me, no matter what happens, don’t let up on this. Redouble the department’s efforts to get to the bottom of Foria and Shane Frey. Find a way to get the FBI in, and soon.”

  “I will,” said the lieutenant solemnly. “And I’ll do everything I can to prove that you were framed.”

  “You’re a good friend, Cole. And I promise you that your belief in me isn’t misguided. Somehow, I’m going to find a way to clear my name, even if you can’t. You can bet on it.”

  “I’d never bet against the great Anna Abbott,” he said wistfully. “If anyone can stay ahead of the coming manhunt long enough to clear her name, it’s you.”

  “Thanks. This is the first time I’ll be rooting for one of the department’s manhunts to fail,” she said wryly.

  The lieutenant sighed. “Good luck, Anna. Hopefully we’ll be on the same side very soon.”

  “Thanks, Cole,” she replied. “From your mouth to God’s ear,” she added, ending the call.

  Several tears came to the corners of Anna’s eyes and slid down her cheek. She wiped them away with the back of her hand and her features hardened once again. No time to go soft now. She needed to be her strongest to have any hope of extricating herself from the mother of all traps. Once this was over, she could show as much emotion as she wanted.

  She blew out a long breath, lowered the window in Vega’s car, and unceremoniously flung the phone as far as she could into the night.

  “That didn’t go well,” said Vega.

  Anna laughed. This was an understatement of epic proportions. Besides, it hurt too much to cry.