Authors: Simon Wood
Vee8 didn’t answer. It was easy to play the tough guy when you were on top. He read Dodge Man. He’d pussy out when his time came. He’d go kicking and screaming. Vee8’s only regret was he wouldn’t be there to see it.
“Don’t clam up now.”
“Fuck you.”
“Look, I have something of yours I’d like to give back.” He pulled out Vee8’s switchblade, snapped out the blade, and rammed it into Vee8’s gut.
Vee8 felt an explosion of pain, but didn’t actually feel the blade’s intrusion until Dodge Man jerked it out and tossed it overboard.
“A little ventilation for bodily gases. I don’t want you floating to the surface.”
Vee8 wasn’t going down without a parting shot. He grinned defiantly. “I suppose you want a fucking refund now.”
“Nah, you’ve earned your money.”
Dodge Man lifted the rims and heaved them over the side. They punched a hole in the water with their steel fist. The chain scurried after them, dragging against the gunnels. It took only a few seconds before Vee8 was jerked overboard. Reflexively, he held his breath as he struck the water. It was a futile act.
“G
illis?” Hayden asked.
“Yeah,” a cautious voice answered.
“Hayden Duke. Your friend Lee told you about me.”
Gillis’s tone eased up a couple of clicks. “Yeah, yeah. You’ve got a nut that needs cracking. Well, I’m your man.”
Beckerman pushed his dinner aside to give this call his full attention. He’d been listening in to all Hayden’s calls for the last few days just as a precaution. He’d caught some chatter over the last couple of days, but nothing significant. A couple of calls between Hayden and his parents, and a couple to Rebecca Fallon. He detected an undercurrent between those two. He’d been a little slow arranging phone taps and he felt he’d missed a significant call between them. He didn’t let it worry him too much. He’d find out eventually. But Hayden and Rebecca weren’t as important as Hayden and Gillis right now. He took a seat in front of the bank of surveillance equipment.
“Don’t play coy,” Beckerman said to the laptop monitoring the call. “Tell me something.”
He sat alone in Lockhart’s San Francisco office. This was his command center and home for the duration of the operation. He’d been living out of the office since Chaudhary went rogue on Lockhart. He looked forward to when he could return to the secluded comfort of his Oregon home. There he could hunt and fish without the interference of the human race. He liked his quiet life, not people and their baggage. “Live clean, live happy” was his motto. He pushed his thoughts away from his home life. He couldn’t do his job with one eye on other things.
“You think you can crack the password protection?” Hayden asked.
“It’s what I do.”
Beckerman didn’t like what he just heard. Was Hayden talking about the file Fallon had sent him? How did he happen to still have a copy? Beckerman thought he’d taken care of it. Lockhart would be pissed when he reported this development.
“Can I bring it over now?” Hayden asked.
“I’m in the middle of something. Make it nine.”
“Where?”
Gillis recited an address in Davis, and Beckerman wrote it down at the same time Hayden did.
“I’ll be there,” Hayden said and hung up.
Beckerman pocketed the address and thanked his good luck. With Hayden in Fairfield and him in San Francisco, Hayden had a fifty-mile head start on him to Davis, but Gillis’s delay put things in Beckerman’s favor. It was 7:10 p.m. That gave him less than two hours to put something together. Tough, but doable if he left now.
He picked up his Dodge from the parking garage. He brought nothing with him. Everything he needed was in the trunk. Tools. Weapons. The lot. Batman had his utility belt. He had his trunk.
Lockhart paid well, but Beckerman wasn’t in it for the money. He was in it for the work. The military had trained him to be a guardian and an assassin, a saver of lives and a taker of lives. He enjoyed the skills necessary to complete his assignments, but he was at a loss when the military rotated him out with full honors. He knew some who resented the military for doing this to them. They felt it was a betrayal of a soldier’s sacrifice. He didn’t. It was just procedure. He reached retirement age and it was his time to go. He understood that. Respected that. A military machine needed fresh parts to operate at its optimum. He knew he still had a lot to offer, and if the military couldn’t use him, someone else could. Of course he could have made the move to law enforcement or private security, but it wasn’t for him. It wouldn’t give him the opportunities Lockhart gave him. He liked being part of a machine again. He lived for it.
He slipped through the city to pick up the Bay Bridge. He hoped he wouldn’t have to kill two nights in a row. Killing was something he did and did well, but not something from which he derived pleasure. Killing Vee8 and his crew the night before in the manner he did was a means to an end. Lockhart had charged him with an objective. He was only meeting it. The next couple of hours would determine if he would kill tonight.
He pulled off the freeway at Davis, drove through the downtown area and across the railroad tracks before parking a block over from Gillis’s home. Gillis lived in a shabby two-story place on a corner lot. The corner location gave Beckerman a choice of entry points. It was dark, making things even easier. Street lighting was poor. The corner streetlight effectively illuminated itself and little else. It wasn’t late, but foot traffic was nonexistent.
He left his vehicle with the only two pieces of equipment he needed—his 9mm pistol and himself. He walked down the long side of the lot. Satisfied no one was watching, he cut across the backyard to the rear door. No fences protected the perimeter and no security light alerted anyone to his movements. Considering what Gillis did for a living, he wouldn’t want anything drawing attention to him.
He snuck up on the back door and peered through the window into the kitchen. The kitchen served as a repository for fast food. From the looks of things, breakfast, lunch, and dinner came out of a box. He hadn’t expected much of a problem subduing the guy, but a constant diet of this shit would make him a pushover.
Music played at a neighborly level from the connecting room to the kitchen. The house was small in comparison to the lot. He guessed the neighboring room would be the living room and most likely the only other room on the ground floor.
He tried the back door. It wasn’t locked. Not a surprise. Gillis probably kept it unlocked for a fast getaway. He twisted the doorknob and eased the door back. The door creaked, but not enough to penetrate the music. He stepped inside the kitchen and eased the door shut. The house smelled musty, which wasn’t helped by the odor of old food in the kitchen.
He removed his pistol, screwed on the silencer, and crossed to the doorway. A lone male, skinny despite the fast-food diet, sat with his back to Beckerman while he flitted between typing on a PC and a laptop. The living room had been converted into an IT heaven. A bank of peripherals filled the space where a sofa should have sat. Some of it looked state of the art and some looked improvised. Manuals and CDs filled a steel cabinet against a wall. Beckerman had found his hacker.
He aimed his pistol at the twentysomething with his back to him. “Gillis?”
Gillis spun around in his chair. His eyes widened at the sight of the gun and he stuck his hands in the air.
Beckerman loved complicity. It was going to make this very easy.
“You Gillis?”
Gillis nodded.
“Follow my instructions and nothing will happen to you. Understood?”
Gillis nodded again.
“This is very important. I require a verbal contract.”
Confusion crept into Gillis’s expression. Beckerman snapped off the safety on his pistol to underline the seriousness of his request.
“Yes. Understood. Whatever you want, you’ve got it.”
“That’s the right attitude.” Beckerman reinforced his intimidation by invading Gillis’s personal space, putting the silenced pistol inches from his face. “You’re meeting with Hayden Duke in a few minutes, yes?”
“Yes. He wants me to hack a password-protected file.”
“You’re going to tell him that it’ll take some time and he’ll have to come back. Then you’re going to tell him you can’t do it. And this is the important part, you’re not going to let him leave with the file he brings you.”
The color drained from Gillis’s face in increments with each successive demand. “How the hell am I going to do that?”
“I don’t care how. Try bullshitting.” Beckerman waggled his gun. “Let this be a little incentive.”
“I’ll try.”
“You’ll do more than try. Fail and you’ll die.”
Gillis eyed Beckerman’s automatic with understandable trepidation.
Beckerman checked his watch. He guessed Hayden would arrive in the next five minutes. He retreated into the kitchen and switched the lights off.
“I can see and hear you from here. You make one wrong move and it’ll be your last. Is that understood?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now forget that I’m here. Think about how you’re going to handle Hayden. You’re the one in charge now. Success rests with you.”
Judging from Gillis’s expression, the pep talk had failed to inspire him.
Beckerman found himself a blind spot from where he maintained a clear view of Gillis and his operations but couldn’t be seen from the living room.
He watched Gillis chew at his fingernails while he pulled a plan out of his ass. He didn’t have high hopes, but Gillis surprised him when Hayden knocked at the door a little after ten. Gillis was like a boxer coming out of his corner. He had a job and he knew how to do it.
Gillis let Hayden in. He bullshitted with Hayden for a couple of minutes as they played a “who knows who” game before taking seats at a PC.
“You got something for me?” Gillis asked.
“Yeah,” Hayden said, pulling out a flash drive. “There’s a password-protected file on there. I need you to crack it for me.”
Gillis took the flash drive and plugged it into the side of the flat screen in front of him. “A hundred?”
Hayden handed Gillis the cash.
Gillis tapped away at the keyboard, launched software, and pulled up screens. After a couple of minutes, he sighed and pushed himself away from the keyboard.
“What’s wrong?” Hayden asked.
“This is going to take me some time. This file is beaucoup protected.”
“Shit. But you can do it, can’t you?”
Gillis jerked back from Hayden as if he’d been slapped. “Yeah, I can do it. This is what I do.”
“OK, then do it.”
“Come back in an hour.”
“I can wait.”
“Dude, I don’t like being watched over. It fucks with my concentration.”
Hayden took in his surroundings. “Yeah. OK.”
Beckerman held in a laugh. Gillis was on fire. He couldn’t have asked for a better performance.
He emerged from his hiding spot after Hayden left. “You did very well. I’m impressed.”
Gillis frowned and took his seat at the computer.
“Hey, don’t pout. Let’s not spoil this relationship.”
“Yeah. Whatever. Now what?”
“Open the file for me.”
“No way, dude.” Gillis put his hands up in surrender. “I open this file and see what’s on it and it’ll be the last thing I see. If you guys want to kill each other over this file, that’s cool with me. Me, I don’t want to know about it or you. The less I know, the less of a risk I am.”
Beckerman grinned. Gillis wasn’t wrong. For a geek, he was pretty grounded. “You’ve got a point. Can you corrupt the drive?”
“Do bruins defecate in national parks?”
Beckerman tossed Gillis a flash drive. “Copy that file onto there and then corrupt Hayden’s file.”
It took Gillis only a couple of minutes to comply with Beckerman’s request. They sat around waiting for Hayden to return. Not much was said. Beckerman watched Gillis, while Gillis watched Beckerman’s gun. When the time had wound down, Beckerman returned to his hiding spot. He imparted his final instruction from the dark kitchen.
“You’re almost home free, but you have to get him to believe that the file was corrupted.”
Gillis said nothing and waited for Hayden’s return. When Hayden knocked at the door, he didn’t bother letting him back in. He kept him on the stoop and handed the flash drive back.
“I’m sorry, dude. I tried my best, but the file’s toast.”
“What?” Hayden looked as if Gillis had slapped him.
“Someone with some pretty powerful kung fu protected that file. It burned itself the second I cracked its shell. Whatever was on there is gone.”
“Shit.”
“I know, it sucks, man. Here’s your money back.”
“No, keep it. You did your best. Do you know who would have done this?”
“No, and I’m not sure I want to know.”
Hayden thanked him, and Gillis closed the door and leaned against it for a long moment.
Beckerman entered the living room. “Well done.”
“Are we done?”
“Just about. The question is, can I trust you?”
Dread filled Gillis’s expression. “No, man, you don’t have to do it. Haven’t I done everything you asked?”
“Sit.”
Gillis traipsed over to his chair and fell into it. “I don’t know your name. I didn’t see the file. I’m not going to talk, and who am I going to tell?”
Beckerman squeezed the trigger. Gillis clamped a hand to his cheek, but no bullet had struck him. The bullet’s wake had only brushed his face before punching a hole in the flat screen over his right shoulder. He ignored the monitor’s death throes behind him.
“You talk, I’ll know,” Beckerman said. “Do I have to say more?”
“No, man. Your word is golden.”
“Then we have an understanding?”
“Yeah.”
Beckerman let himself out with Gillis’s promise trailing behind him. He’d have someone watch Gillis, but he knew the hacker wouldn’t talk. He smiled on the way back to his vehicle.
H
ayden and the rest of the mourners filed into the church. Its cool interior made for a welcome relief from the late-summer heat outside. Although everyone kept their conversations hushed, the church’s vaulted ceiling caught and amplified their mutterings.
Shane’s open casket sat in front of the altar. The mourners formed a line for the viewing. The last thing Hayden needed to see was his friend’s face again. The memory of Shane throwing himself off the bridge was far too vivid. He’d relived it too many times already. But he couldn’t ignore his friend on this day of all days, so he joined the line.
The line inched forward and his turn came all too quickly. He took a breath and walked up to the casket. He was going to pay his last respects without looking at Shane, but Shane, even in death, drew him in. He looked so peaceful. Any sign of trauma inflicted by the rope had been covered by the mortician’s skill. He looked as Hayden remembered him.
He never should have let Shane reach that bridge. A knot of tension cinched itself tight around his chest. “I didn’t do enough, Shane,” he murmured. “I’m sorry.”
A hand slipped into his. The human contact was exactly what he needed. It took away the pain. He squeezed the hand holding his, not caring to whom it belonged.
The hand belonged to Rebecca. Even though he hadn’t seen her since she was a teenager, he recognized her instantly. She looked so much like her brother. She shared his Nordic looks—tall, slender, and blonde. It was her eyes that reminded Hayden most of him. Their deep-blue coloring lit up her face. Now twenty-four, she’d lost all traces of adolescence. She’d grown into a striking woman.
“It’s good to see you,” he said. “I’m just sorry it has to be under these circumstances.”
She hugged him. “Will you sit with me?” She indicated the section reserved for family. “I know you two were close, so I think Shane would have wanted it that way.”
It brought home to Hayden how much Rebecca had lost. “Sure. Of course.”
She introduced him to a small group of people consisting of uncles, aunts, cousins, and friends. As they sat in the front pew, he searched for familiar faces. He recognized Bellis and the others he’d met at the Giants game among the congregation. Lockhart appeared late and took his seat next to Bellis. Hayden looked for college friends, but saw only strangers.
The minister walked over to the pulpit and began the service. Rebecca kept it together during the eulogy. Hayden admired her. She’d lost her whole family to tragedy, but she remained strong. He reached over and took her hand for the rest of the service.
After the service ended, Hayden rode with Rebecca to the wake, which was held at Shane’s house. As the limo pulled up in the driveway, Hayden felt like a criminal returning to the scene of the crime. He expected to see remains of the earlier devastation, but the house had been made over. Everything damaged or destroyed was gone. A TV from the den replaced the destroyed plasma in the living room. One sofa remained where there’d been two. The coffee table that had separated them was missing.
He went over to a framed print hanging on the wall in the living room that he remembered had previously hung in the hall. He eased the picture to one side and discovered a dent where a chunk of Sheetrock and paint had been gouged out during Shane’s rampage. Not all traces of that night could be easily erased. He slid the picture back.
He glanced toward the stairs and wondered if the makeover extended to Shane’s bedroom. His curiosity didn’t need fulfilling and he touched the healing stomach wound left by Shane’s butcher knife.
He filled a plate with finger food and wandered aimlessly around the house. He felt that if he stopped, someone would engage him in conversation: “Hey, you were there when Shane jumped. How did that happen? How did you let it happen?”
It was a conversation he didn’t want to get into. The only person he felt comfortable talking to was Rebecca. He found her in the kitchen with a middle-aged woman who was giving her condolences. Rebecca thanked the woman and slipped away.
“How are you doing?” he asked her.
“About the same since the last person asked me thirty seconds ago.”
“Dumb question. I’m sorry.”
She laughed and touched his forearm. “It’s OK. I just needed to say it and you’re the only one I feel I can say it to.”
“I’ve found out a few things,” Hayden said. “Want to talk?”
Rebecca surveyed the mourners. They’d settled into groups. “Sure. I don’t think I can handle another person telling me that Shane’s death was untimely.”
Her remark was said without spite. Hayden guessed every heartfelt condolence must have felt like a painful reminder after a while.
She led him into the sunroom and closed the door before sitting next to him on a padded rattan loveseat.
“Did you get anywhere with Shane’s file?” she asked.
He shook his head. “My guy came up dry. It’s more than just password protected. The file self-destructed when he tried to open it.”
“So we’ve lost the file.”
“No. He worked on a copy. I still have a backup. I’m asking around for someone else.”
“I’m not sure you should. Shane either protected that file for himself or for someone else. It should stay closed until someone comes to you with the password.”
“What if that never happens? Don’t you want to know?”
“Right now, I’m not sure I do. Shane is entitled to his secrets.”
Hayden noticed he and Rebecca had switched positions. While he hadn’t been sure he should open the file, the harder it became, the more he felt it was important to find out what was on it. But he understood why Rebecca felt the way she did, having felt that way himself just days before. Shane never gave him permission to open it. His last request was to delete it. Rebecca was his heir and it was her call now.
She reached up and examined the yellowish-green bruise smeared across Hayden’s eyebrow and spreading into his hairline at the temple. “I can’t believe Shane hurt you.”
“He wasn’t himself.”
“I wish I’d been there for him.” Her chin trembled and her face cracked. The cracks became ruptures and she burst into racking sobs as her fragile facade was smashed to pieces. She fell into Hayden’s arms, and he hugged her tightly.
“There wasn’t anything you could do. I was here and I couldn’t stop him. I don’t think anyone could have helped him.”
She seemed so brittle in his arms—her frame so delicate that he could crush her if he wasn’t careful. He pushed her from him and lifted her face. Her tears had reddened her eyes and her face was flushed, but she still looked pretty.
He smiled. “Hey. Enough with the tears. Forget all about the bad and remember the good. OK?”
She managed a smile and nodded. “I must look a sight.”
Hayden cocked his head to one side. “For sore eyes maybe.”
She half laughed and pulled a fresh Kleenex from her pocket. After she’d made herself presentable, they returned to the living room, only to find Santiago blocking their path.
“Detective Ruben Santiago, Marin County Sheriff’s Department. We spoke on the phone, Ms. Fallon. My condolences to you and your family.”
“I am my family now, detective.”
There hadn’t been any barb intended in Rebecca’s remark, but it dealt a blow to Santiago’s bravado. “I’m sorry to hear that. Hello, Mr. Duke. Paying your respects, I see?”
Santiago’s sarcasm was hard to miss, but Hayden ignored him.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to the funeral,” Santiago said, “but a prior engagement got in the way.”
“It’s nice of you to come.”
“As a matter of fact, my delay had to do with your brother, Ms. Fallon. You see, I’m very attached to my work. Many of my cases involve deaths and I never get to meet the victims, but I get to know them through witnesses, family, and friends. Already, I feel that I know your brother and I’m finding it difficult to walk away. I won’t do that until I understand why Shane did what he did. Does that make sense?”
“Yes, it does,” Rebecca said. “Thank you. That means a lot.”
“I’m glad it does,” Santiago said. “Do you both have a few minutes to discuss some things? There have been some developments and I’m hoping you can enlighten me as to their meaning.”
“Of course,” Rebecca said.
Rebecca and Hayden showed Santiago into the sunroom. Santiago closed the door and stood with his back to it, as if blocking their escape. He pointed to the loveseat and indicated for them to sit. He remained standing.
“I’ve received the results from the tox screen and it’s not good. You were right, Hayden. Shane was under the influence of narcotics the night he died.”
So it was official. Shane had been high when he killed himself. The news brought Hayden some comfort. Drugs he could understand. A sudden psychotic break he couldn’t. But this answer gave rise to a new question. What had driven Shane to drugs in the first place?
“What did he take?” Rebecca asked.
“No one’s quite sure. All anyone is willing to say is it’s new and lethal. To paraphrase the toxicology report, it’s the equivalent of LSD drenched in rocket fuel. ”
A flash of Shane tearing his bedroom apart with a butcher knife ripped through Hayden’s mind. He knew how nasty the drug was. It turned an ordinary person into a lunatic.
“Any ideas where Shane would have obtained something like this?”
Santiago eyed Hayden when he asked the question. The cop still saw him as the resident drug expert. He bit his tongue. This wasn’t the occasion for losing his temper.
Both Hayden and Rebecca shook their heads.
“This drug isn’t like anything else on the streets. It’s nasty. Obviously, I’d like to get it off the streets before it kills a third person.”
“A third?” Rebecca said. “Who was the second person to die?”
“Sundip Chaudhary, a coworker of Shane’s. He drowned himself the week before your brother. His tox screen came back positive for the same drug.”
The bond that tied Shane’s and Chaudhary’s deaths had just became unbreakable. Both men worked together. Both men committed suicide a week apart. Both men swore they’d done something unforgivable. Coincidence didn’t work anymore. The drug united them. They killed themselves for the same reason, but what reason?
“Don’t you think this situation is odd?” Rebecca asked.
“Very,” Santiago answered. “And I want answers.”
“I’m sorry, we don’t have any for you,” Hayden said.
Santiago fixed him with a disapproving glare.
A knock came at the door and one of the caterers poked her head through. “Rebecca, do you have a minute?”
Rebecca looked to Santiago and he nodded his approval. She excused herself and left with the caterer. Hayden attempted to follow her out, but Santiago stopped him.
“We still have things to discuss,” he said, closing the door.
Hayden retook his seat and Santiago dragged a chair over to him and sat. When he sat, his jacket splayed out and the gun on his hip showed. It wasn’t subtle, but it had its effect.
“You say you were close friends with Shane, yet you know nothing about his drug problem.”
“In all the time I’ve known Shane, he’s never taken drugs. Could he have hidden the fact from me? Yes, he could have.”
Santiago frowned his disapproval.
“How much is Marin Design Engineering paying you?”
“I don’t see what business that is of yours.”
“Just answer the question.”
“Two hundred dollars an hour.”
“Is that good?”
“Yes. What has this got to do with anything?” Santiago’s cryptic bullshit was pissing him off. Santiago obviously thought something wasn’t on the up and up, so why didn’t he just say it? “My business with MDE has nothing to do with Shane’s death. Shane committed suicide. Tell me what it is you want and let’s end this.”
“Mr. Duke, I think you’re holding out on me and I wish you would come clean. I don’t know what it is you know, but you’re obstructing my investigation, and that is a crime.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” Hayden said, but his gut knew otherwise and turned a couple of times in sympathy. As much he wanted to tell Santiago about Shane’s encrypted file, he couldn’t. Shane obviously hadn’t wanted him to share the file with anyone. He wouldn’t forgive himself if he shared it with Santiago and the rest of the world and it turned out to be some personal secret. Shane had been there for him back in college. Now it was his turn to do the same for his friend. He would keep Shane’s confidence, regardless of the consequences.
“Have it your way, Mr. Duke,” Santiago said. “Did you know Sundip Chaudhary?”
“No.”
“I better not find otherwise.”
“You won’t. Why would you?”
“There’s something else that ties these two men together,” Santiago said.
“And what’s that?”
“You. You were hired slap-bang between their deaths.”
Santiago still wanted to hang the title of drug pusher on him. He felt the detective slipping a noose around his neck. The man was so far off target it wasn’t even funny.
“True, but I had nothing to do with their deaths.”
“I have only your word on that. You can bet I’m going to find the truth.”
Santiago stood and went to leave. Hayden jumped to his feet.
“If you’re looking at me for a drug connection, you’re way off. I have no convictions or history of drugs.”
“I know. I’ve checked you out.” Santiago opened the door. “It’s not very healthy being a Marin Design Engineering employee these days. You should hope no one else falls prey to the same fate as Mr. Fallon and Mr. Chaudhary. Thank you for your time, Mr. Duke. We’ll be talking again.”
Santiago said good-bye to Rebecca on his way out. He pointed to his watch and Rebecca led him through a tangle of people to the front door. Many of the faces were checking out Hayden in curiosity. One of the faces belonged to Trevor Bellis. Hayden crossed the living room toward him. He extracted himself from his colleagues and met Hayden halfway.
“Hayden, I need to talk to you. Circumstances have changed regarding the work you’re doing for us. The timeline has been accelerated.”
“Tell me when you need the work completed and I’ll do it.”