As I sat in the hotel lobby and waited for Tessa, I thought about the man’s death the night before. I’d told Detective Dunn I was going to untangle the circumstances surrounding John Doe’s death.
I intended to keep my promise.
Using my cell phone’s Internet browser, I logged onto the city’s digital video archives and reviewed the videos of the trolley’s departure, but found no images of men with black duffel bags boarding the trolley. So, the two men who climbed into the Ford Mustang were already at the scene when John Doe committed suicide.
I put a call in to the Bureau to run the plates on the Mustang. I also left a text message for the San Diego County medical examiner’s office to see if he’d been able to identify our John Doe from last night, and then I set up a meeting with Lieutenant Graysmith, the head of the SDPD homicide division. I wanted to find out more about Detective Dunn and his interest in John Doe’s death.
I looked around the hotel lobby again.
Still no Tessa.
I grabbed an apple from the bowl at the hotel’s registration counter.
She likes to sleep late, but since we only had a couple of days here in San Diego, she’d agreed to get up by nine, and that was over an hour ago.
After I finished the apple, I checked the time and realized I’d been awake for over five hours. No wonder I was so hungry. I pushed myself out of the leather lounge chair and was halfway to the elevator when I heard heavy footsteps behind me and a harsh, growling voice that I recognized right away. “Morning, Pat.”
“Ralph?” I turned. Special Agent Ralph Hawkins came lumbering toward me. I greeted him with a slap on the shoulder, and it felt like I was hitting a bag of concrete. Ralph had started lifting weights again, and I could tell. “What are you doing here? I didn’t expect to see you until next week. I thought you’d still be testifying at Basque’s retrial in Chicago.”
“It’s a mess up there.” Ralph’s voice sounds just like what you’d expect from a man who can twist a frying pan around a burrito with his bare hands. “A real circus.” Ralph worked his shoulders back and forth, probably trying to make them comfortable in the shirt that he’d obviously bought before he started pumping iron again last year. He’s not quite in the shape he was as an Army Ranger twenty years ago, before he joined the FBI, but he’s close. “Defense found out one of the state’s DNA experts, guy named Hoyt, lied on his resume. Never attended Ohio State at all. Messed up our case even worse. Pushed things back at least a month.”
I felt an echo of the chill I’d known in the slaughterhouse. Even without this kind of delay, trials as complicated as Basque’s typically last several months. This would drag things out even longer, and all the while Richard Basque would be out of maximum-security prison. Not something I wanted to think about.
Ralph tried to hold back a yawn. Failed.
“Long night?”
“Got in late, plus they lost my bags. Can you believe those-”
Then Ralph filled the air between us with a string of inventive and somewhat profound curses, and I was glad Tessa hadn’t arrived yet after all.
“Well, anyway, it’s good to see you. Brineesha doing OK?”
“I’m a happily married man, she’s a very patient woman. We’re good, Tony too-just turned eleven. Tessa?”
“Witty. Sarcastic. Endearing.” “Good to hear.”
My stomach grumbled, reminding me once again how hungry I was. I looked past Ralph to the bank of elevators. Then it struck me. “Wait a minute. You never answered my question. Why are you in San Diego, anyhow?”
“Margaret has a couple meetings out here on the Coast. She’s-”
“Margaret Wellington is coming to San Diego?” At least for the moment, I’d lost my appetite. Margaret and I get along about as well as two piranhas in the same tank.
“Probably in L.A. right now,” Ralph said, “but she’ll be flying here sometime this afternoon. She’s on some kind of defense committee or something. Guess it goes with the territory of being an executive assistant director, and since I’m heading up the NCAVC for now, she wants to brief me on some policy changes.”
Ralph, Lien-hua, and I all work for the FBI’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, and Ralph was currently serving as the division’s interim director while human resources looked for a replacement for Louis Chenault, who’d retired on the first of the year.
“You know how Margaret is,” he continued. “She didn’t want to wait until next week, and since my testimony’s been put off in-definitely, she decided to fly me in.” He picked at his travel-weary, crumpled shirt. “Last night Delta told me my bags were in Minneapolis. Do I look like I’m standing in Minneapolis, Minnesota?”
I sensed that he was winding up for a fresh round of curses, so I said, “I still can’t believe they gave Margaret the position.”
He finished brushing off his shirt. The elevator behind him dinged. “Most power-hungry woman I ever met. But don’t worry; she’s not here to see you. I doubt your paths will even cross.” As the elevator doors began to open, he let a sly smile play across his face.
“Besides, being here in California gives me the chance to keep an eye on you and Lien-hua.” A wink. “Keep you two kids in check.
Know what I mean?” “No,” said one voice from the elevator.
“Why don’t you tell us?” said the other.
First voice: Lien-hua.
Second voice: Tessa.
“Oh.” Ralph’s voice shrank to the size of a mouse. “Good morning, Lien-hua. Hi, Tessa.”
Lien-hua’s arms were folded. “Hello, Ralph. What a surprise.”
An unreadable expression crossed Tessa’s face. “Nice to see you, Uncle Ralph.”
Ralph patted Lien-hua’s shoulder and gave Tessa a quick shoulder hug. “I better go track down those suitcases,” he muttered.
“You boys and girls have fun now.” Then he ambled through the uncomfortable silence and left me alone with the two women and their four raised eyebrows.
I looked from Lien-hua to Tessa. “OK,” I said, “so, who’s hungry? I know I am. Famished. Let’s get in line before they run out of quiche.” Then I hurried off to the hotel’s restaurant, wondering how I’d ever come to the point in my life where I would’ve actually been willing to eat quiche if necessary.
While Creighton watched Cassandra through the video cameras, he thought of spiders crawling across his face and of the videos he’d taken of the women over the years, and he thought of Shade.
Creighton had met some elusive characters over the last ten years, but this guy, Shade, was like a ghost. Every time Creighton thought he might be able to catch a glimpse of him-nothing. Even though Creighton had no idea what it was like to feel fear, he suspected that the growing discomfort he felt whenever he talked to Shade was close to what other humans felt when they were afraid.
A few times over the last two months, Creighton had thought about taking off, just slipping away into the shadows. But two things kept him here: he knew Shade would find him, and Project Rukh really did exist. All the Department of Defense documents that Shade had sent him regarding the project checked out. The device was real. And from everything Creighton had been able to uncover, the prototype really did what Shade said it would.
Building B-14. That was the key to everything.
Freedom or pain?
Pain.
And as Creighton thought of that word, he imagined the meeting he would have with the FBI agent later in the week, and he thought once again of the closure Shade offered.
Everything coming full circle. Yes. Creighton was the perfect one for the job after all.
Shade wanted to keep their communications to a minimum, and Creighton wasn’t expecting to hear from him until three o’clock, so after leaving Cassandra alone again, Creighton pulled out a pair of handcuffs and practiced escaping from them just in case he needed to do so in the next couple days.
Yes. He was the perfect one for the job after all.