Dantes' Inferno (38 page)

Only in her soft arms does he find fleeting peace.

Darkness and pain. His life—all that's left.

Dantes has betrayed him, sending the Feds.

And they have done their bootjack swagger, pissing all over his workshop; they have violated his last sanctuary.

He watches bitterly from his truck, which is parked on the hill a half mile from the derelict factory. He sees the two Feds who are waiting for a stupid bomber to show himself. Well, M isn't stupid—
he knows you can't go home again
.

So he sits, tracking images on the monitor of his laptop.

This visual and spatial representation of the world represents more than two decades of work. True, it bears faint resemblance to its schoolboy inspiration, but nevertheless,
the seeds that grew this creation were planted when he was a gawky love-struck teenager.

With the press of a key, lines overlay images, layers upon layers, worlds upon worlds.

Map of heaven. Map of earth. Map of hell.

A three-dimensional construct.

The blueprint; his master plan.

It's part of the job of charting geographic information systems, mapping miles of conduit, recording a city's infrastructure, both above and below ground. There is a vault where steel pipes—originating from the transformer station—carry enough volts to blow half a city sky high.

Cables, wrapped in oil paper and lead, and sealed in neoprene, are fed through ducts. Each duct bears electricity produced at major generating plants; the plants supply transformers; the transformers lead to underground rooms.

Tap into the power of a cable and you can connect to a power station, an airport, a harbor, a dam. Let the infrastructure work for you. Stage one: the crucial interconnection of neurons from the spine—the simplest of remote dialing systems.
Phone it in—blow it up
.

He is touching nerves that lead directly to the nerve center, the brain . . .

Bottom line. He has a very simple plan to stop the heartbeat of Dantes' greatest lover: Los Angeles.

Time to move the operation along.

The Thief and a hooker have been prepared to meet their maker.

And the woman—she will serve as the bait.

By possessing her, he will initiate a reaction similar to an explosive chain. Molecules expanding, splitting, combusting. All to end in one big bang.

His fingers work the keys; the screen goes blue, then white again.

M begins to type:

it is time for the next tier

we tire of waiting, dont kare if the end

we sacrifice what false prophet values most

the “she” he loves

can be found at the mouth of hell

already wating

No question they will follow her scent, travel down to
his
burrow,
his
territory, where the world is a quiet, insulated place. Even before Dantes, M craved the comfort of dark hidden spaces. After the accident, he found himself slipping below the surface of the world at any opportunity.

The surgeons in Europe made him whole again—at least skin-deep whole. But the sun irritates his scars, ferreting out memories of pain. And then there is the pain of torture always fresh in his mind.

“Goodbye, LA. Farewell, Angel Face.”

He studies the message, finally deciding that it isn't what he wants to say.

Don't give it all away, he thinks with a smile.

He begins again.

She lives in the red world of death . . .

Nope. Torch song with violins.

You fucking bastard you didn't even come to our funeral!

You didn't call, you didn't write.

I want to rip your head off your neck and stuff it up your asshole.

*  *  *

Over the top.

there is a hell for those who ignore the cries of the innocent . . .

That's more like it.

Subtle, yet with a hint of gusto.

There's so little time to spend in the seventh circle.

And yet that is where the violent drown in a river of their own blood and dead men die again and again and again.

George Metesky, the Mad Bomber of New York, had a seventeen-year career, and signed his work
F.P.;
the Unabomber maimed and killed for eighteen years, and marked his bombs
F.C
. John Dantes left poetry. What's with these assholes?

Officer Robert Macias, LAPD bomb squad

4:07
A.M
.
“Jase?”

Molly Redding sat up in bed. Confused by sleep, half blinded by tears, she saw a ghost where white curtains billowed in the fourth-story window; she saw the face of a small boy instead of the calico cat.

She moaned, catching the damp sheet between her teeth, rolling over and folding herself into fetal position. If only she could stay enclosed forever—without moving, without breathing. It didn't ease the pain, it simply allowed a less excruciating numbness to tone her existence.

Please, God, bring Jason back and take me
.

Stop. The bargaining would kill her; she couldn't let the loop begin to play.

Please, God, torture me, but give me back my son
.

Please God, his life is not over—it's just beginning
.

A trade: one life for another; my life for my son
.

The scale won't tip and no one will be the wiser
.

Oh, dear God, please . . 
.

This small corner of night was the time when dying seemed wise. Death was the cool breeze. Death was the woman with the soft, sweet voice. Death was the straight road to Jason. Death was the ticket.

Molly reached out, fingers sliding into the table drawer beside the bed, encountering cool metal. The sharp edge of the razor gave her a taste of what was to come. She withdrew the blade, holding it to the light, while blood beaded on her injured thumb. Molly felt warmth rush through her muscles as she placed the blade across her pale bluish skin. Her weariness ran so deep she knew she had just enough energy left to strike deep with the blade—once across each wrist.

Metal began to bite . . . she heard Jason cry out . . . and then a white butterfly drew her eye.

Molly turned her head to track the small ivory business card fluttering from the bedside table. Unconsciously she released the pressure on the razor blade against her skin.

A face filled her thoughts: Sylvia Strange. She pictured the warm brown eyes, the kind mouth, the face alive with intelligence. An energy flowed from the woman, and it was Sylvia's strength that Molly needed so desperately at this moment.

She rolled over, clutching the blade in her palm, reaching down for the card—

But this dark night was taking on a different shape.

Molly didn't react when she heard the noise. The swollen heart of her pain told her maybe the universe had finally listened. Perhaps Jason would shuffle in from the kitchen, barefoot, tousled, and smelling of sleep and milk. Her baby would snuggle beside her on the bed. She would press the curls away from his forehead. She would kiss his cheek before he could squirm away.

Another sound. A footfall. It did not belong to a child.

The sound came from the real world, not from one of her nightmares. A presence. Someone in the room with her—not the cat. Not her dead child.

An emergency that demanded her response. In real time. She sat up, completing the action in slow motion. But she had no desire, no fight left in her, no reason to live.

Not until Einstein meowed and propelled herself from the ledge. Not until Jason, her ghostly child, took her by the shoulders and shook her hard. He gripped her hand and refused to let go. Not even when Molly saw who was in the room.

“Michael,” she whispered calmly, thinking he'd brought solace, knowing he'd brought evil, all in the same instant.

The pain had not been complete until now. Betrayal cut a heart that Molly had believed was dead. No, there was life there.

Enough to make her want to laugh at her lover. At the hypodermic needle in his hand.

Then she saw that it wasn't Michael—
not her angel
—it wasn't the man she loved. This man had the same blond hair and blue eyes, the same youthful face, the same scar on his arm. But the eyes—one real, one glass—belonged to nobody, to nothing at all.

She lunged from the bed, darting across the room.
Einstein shrieked as Michael caught Molly by the ankle. She fell hard to the floor, bruising bone; Michael huffed, not expecting a fight, and fending off cat claws.

Molly felt a sharp sting in her butt, and she kicked out, arms flailing. Her rage against the world, against a God who had taken everything, finally found a home. A ragged cry tore loose from her throat; she thrust out her legs again and again.

He answered with a hard fist to her face.

As Molly dropped off the ledge of consciousness, falling hard toward a huge, dark hand, she remembered the blade in her fingers. Guided by something much more powerful than self, she mustered her strength and sliced the blade deep across Michael's soft flesh. He cried out, enraged.

Molly felt the fingers of night close around her weary soul; she lay down beside her sleeping son and snuggled close.

When the hour is very late, you have to shock people out of their fear, their inertia. Yes, I believe that. History makes that point painfully obvious.

Professor John Dantes, radio interview, 1990

4:37
A.M
.
It was Sweetheart who roused Sylvia from half sleep.

“I need you
now
.”

“What—”

“
Molly
. Meet me at the car.”

And then he'd disappeared from the doorway.

She stumbled into jeans and T-shirt, didn't even stop to pee, just grabbed her high-tops and baseball cap.

Luke was at her side as she half ran down the hall toward the garage. He shoved a page into her hand, relaying news in a breathless, verbal shorthand: “This e-mail came in four minutes ago. Computer's set to alert us. I tried Molly—no answer, no machine. Fifteen minutes to San Pedro if you burn rubber. On orders, the cops are waiting outside her apartment.”

Luke already had the passenger door open on the newly leased Mercedes, and he shut it firmly when she was inside. “I've got the maps up—ready to plug in any new coordinates. Purcell will meet you there,” he called out, as Sweetheart gunned the engine.

Sylvia didn't read the e-mail until they were pulling out of the iron gates.

hell 4 thse who ignore cry innocents

mke best victims

sweet heart?

yr niece so luvly

read yr map well bet. palace and rivr

we meet agin

M

5:19
A.M
.
If Los Angeles was a dreaming woman, San Pedro was the crook of her elbow, where she rested her head on the Pacific. Molly Redding lived on a hill overlooking the docks and the choppy blue-gray waters of the harbor, where tankers were lined up along the landing piers.

A squad car was parked on the street outside the modest
1950s-style building where Sweetheart had just entered the single glass door. He was beginning the ascent by stair to the fourth floor.

Sylvia followed on his heels.

They discovered a uniformed cop rooted just outside Molly Redding's apartment.

Sweetheart flashed his credentials. “Did you go in?” he asked sharply.

“Yes sir, I did. To eliminate the possibility of a 10–45.” The cop nodded. “There aren't any bombs.”

With a growl, Sweetheart invaded the other man's space. “You did not
locate
an explosive device. Doesn't mean it's not there. You got that?”

“Sir.”

“If you moved one molecule of evidence—”

“No sir.”

They brushed past the officer into the small apartment, treading very carefully, acutely aware of the possibility of booby-trapped IEDs.

Light
was the first thing Sylvia noticed; the small apartment glowed yellow. Dawn's rays turned the painted walls to melted butter.