Dantes' Inferno (40 page)

A gray-and-brown car zigzagged through traffic. Special Agent Purcell brought the Lincoln to a stop at the curb. As she exited the vehicle, squinting into the glare of the sun, her sunglasses slid down her chocolate nose.

“We've alerted LAPD and the transit guys; they're prepared to evacuate the station. So far, the search teams haven't turned up a damn thing.” She surveyed their immediate surroundings—parking lots already filled with cars,
commuters coming and going, a train pulling up on track B just beyond the main terminal. And buildings—every-where—a million places for a bomber to hide. “We need more than guesswork—” Her phone emitted a sharp bleat, and the air took on an instant electrical charge.

“This is Purcell. Give us ten seconds, then put him through.” She eyed Sweetheart. “M. He wants you. Keep him talking, we're running the trace.”

At that moment, a gray van pulled up behind the Mercedes, and a man wearing Levi's and a golf shirt stepped out. Purcell—followed closely by Sweetheart, Sylvia, and Leo—sprinted to the open door, motioning them to climb inside. Sylvia went first, then Sweetheart and Leo, and then Purcell joined them, slamming the door. Another agent was already inside; that made five bodies and assorted surveillance equipment encased behind tinted, bullet-proof windows.

The agent was wearing an almost invisible headphone. “The speaker will pick up everything unless I cut off reception,” he told them. “Keep your mouths shut unless you want him to hear you. Ready?” He extended an index finger in Sweetheart's direction; with his other hand, he clicked a switch. He nodded—
go
.

Sweetheart identified himself by name.

For a moment, there was nothing.

Then a voice issued from a speaker: “Uncle Sweetheart?”

“I'm here, Molly. Are you all right?”

“He says the missiles killed his family,” Molly Redding said softly.

“Let me speak to him,” Sweetheart said. “I know he can hear me.”

“He killed Jason, and he's going to kill me, too.”

“M? Why are you always hiding behind women and children?”
Sweetheart asked. “Why do you let them take your bullets for you?”

“Are you talking about me? Or you?” This new voice was male, monotone.

“I'm talking about
you:
Simon Mole—Ben Black—M.”

They waited. Sylvia realized she was holding her breath, and she expelled a soft stream of air reluctantly just as she heard the voice again.

“I believe in retribution.”

“Let Molly go,” Sweetheart said calmly. “You and I can settle our score. I'll meet you anywhere you want—I'll come alone. You have my word.”

“This is
my
show,” he responded softly through the speaker. “If I say
jump
, then be ready to jump.” He was silent for several seconds. “If I say
die
 . . .”

“As long as you keep Molly alive, you have my full attention,” Sweetheart said. “Isn't that what you want?
Attention?
”

Sylvia bit down on the tip of her thumb—
don't push him too far
.

“I want to talk to Strange,” M said impatiently.

All eyes settled on Sylvia—Leo mimed
stretch it out
—she nodded.

“I'm here,” she said. “What do I call you?”

“
Simon
works.”

“Bear with me, Simon. I missed some of the basics. How many hostages do you have? What do you need so we can end this without anybody getting hurt?”

“It's just me and Molly McGee,” Simon said. “Too late for negotiation. I already told you and the Feds what I needed. Nobody pays attention these days.”

“
I'm
paying attention. I want to understand—”

“No, you don't. You're just interested in Dantes.”

Purcell was leaning forward, listening intently to
communication from her tiny earphone. She gestured to Sylvia, then she pointed toward the window, toward Union Station, mouthing,
Almost got him
.

“Simon—,” Sylvia said, nodding at Purcell. The interruption had thrown her, but she didn't have the time or the room to stumble. “
You've
controlled this show from the beginning.”

“Bullshit!” Now he sounded the way she imagined Simon Mole should sound. Whiny, peevish. “Nobody listened! Not you, not Sweetheart, not even Dantes! But I'll
make
you listen.”

“Is this about getting back at Dantes?”

“No . . .” His voice broke. “
Yes
. I'm tired of the games.”

Sylvia froze when she heard Molly Redding's scream in the background.

“I'm going to die,” Molly sobbed. “He's going to blow us up.”

“Molly, where are—”

“Shut up or she's dead,” Simon said. “It's all over anyway. Tell Dantes I left him behind to rot in hell.”

“You can tell him yourself,” Sylvia said, desperate to offer bait.

“I'll trust you to give him the message. And while you're at it, tell Sweetheart—no more genetic future.”

“Talk to me—,” Sweetheart interjected.

“Please—” Through the speaker, Molly Redding's voice cracked with terror. “Don't let him—”

“Molly!”

But the line was dead.

Simultaneously, Agent Purcell made contact with FBI monitors. “We've got him,” she said. “Just northeast of Union Station.”

But Sweetheart was already out of the van. Sylvia followed.

She scanned the surrounding buildings, her gaze lingering on the low arches and soft angles of Union Station.

Sweetheart stood rooted, eyes closed, face tilted upward. He created a still point in the midst of chaos.

She heard him call to her, and a fragment of refracted light drew her eye skyward to the logo
MTA
.

Three o'clock. North by northeast. She shifted her body to stare up at the elegant tower with its angles of white and gray and blue, building and sky working together in visual harmony.

Ishtar's Gate. Not Union Station but its closest neighbor, the Metropolitan Transit Authority; MTA. The gateway to a city.

And then Sweetheart stepped forward, just as the molded tower began to crumple in upon itself like wadded paper, echoing the deep reverberating noise of destruction. People screamed, crouching to the ground, their faces turned skyward, displaying astonishment.

Ishtar's Gate—in the process of meltdown—but standing even as glass skin shattered and half its skeleton was exposed to air. A shimmering aura of fragments forming where solid matter had existed. Positive and negative space shifting in an instant. An atomic bomb, a tornado, a black hole—the clouds rising in mushroom curves.

A large chunk of twisted metal landed on the sidewalk not far from where Sylvia leaned into shelter behind the car. The deafening roar, delayed by physical barriers to sound waves, followed. People were thrown off balance.

For an instant, time stopped. Then sirens split the air.

Through it all, Sweetheart stood staring up at Molly Redding's tomb. A great roar escaped his throat, and the sound was swallowed by the echo of the explosion, and then it was lifted into the sky like a horrible bird.

Each human is progeny of environment, be that island, savanna, rain forest, or mountain. Echoing the great Sierra chain, Los Angeles has thrust itself violently upward and outward, indelibly shifting landscape and vista, psyche and soul—shaping, molding, testing its offspring; seducing generation after generation—man, woman, and child—to the promise of its urban bosom, a dry teat of steel and glass.

John Dantes

Sunday—10:10
A.M
.
Sylvia stared out at the western flank of Los Angeles. Viewed from the fourth floor of the FBI's Los Angeles field office, the city appeared to be functioning as if nothing extraordinary had happened over the past eighteen hours—as if a high-rise in the center of downtown hadn't been ripped in half by a bomb, as if a miracle hadn't kept the casualty rate down to a handful. She touched her fingers to the tempered windowpane; one story below, a man dangled from a harness; while she watched, he scraped a squeegee over glass. Below the window washer, on street level, pedestrians flowed in a light but steady stream to and from the parking area.

The FBI's LA field office (on Wilshire Boulevard) is the third-largest in the nation. With almost six hundred agents, the office handles the work created by an abundance of bank robbers, star stalkers, gangsters—and bombers inspired by the explosive precedent set on October 1, 1910, when activists blew up a corner of the
Los
Angeles Times
building, killing twenty, injuring seventeen.

The same historical crime—unionists versus antiunion forces—motivated the placement of one of John Dantes' bombs almost a century later.

But Sylvia wasn't thinking of Dantes or the questions that remained unanswered. For a few minutes, she was hardly aware of Special Agent Purcell, now carrying on a telephone conversation at her desk. Instead, she thought of Molly Redding and her son, Jason. She pictured the delicate, childlike features of the woman, mirrored in the boy, both dead by the hands of the same bomber.

“We've got the preliminary forensic report,” Purcell said, as she hung up the telephone. Slow to start, the federal agent seemed reluctant to speak at all, but she ran fingers through her cropped hair and said, “The remains of at least two adults—one male, one female—have been identified. No positive DNA match yet for Molly Redding, but we did find some personal items still fairly intact. They've been identified by her uncle. The lab is rushing the PCRDNA, and we should have it within forty-eight hours.” Purcell sighed. “If the building hadn't been closed for quake renovation, we'd have a casualty rate in the hundreds.”

Sylvia didn't turn away from the window; she could feel the warmth emanating through tinted glass. It was only four o'clock, and the sun wasn't giving the city any breaks when it came to heat. “Did you locate any existing samples to match Simon Mole's DNA?”

“Not yet. Not Simon, not Ben Black.” The agent chewed on her lip; fatigue showed around her eyes, evident in the darker shadows above her cheekbones. “But we'll stay on it until we have conclusive evidence—I promise you that.”

Sylvia nodded listlessly. She respected Purcell—was
even beginning to like the woman—but she didn't want to be here listening to promises that the FBI had no power to make. She took two steps back toward the window, touched her fingers to glass, but the exterior view didn't distract from the feeling that she was caged, contained inside a small cubicle. Her mind felt imprisoned—her thoughts kept hitting the wall.

Through the room's sole interior pane—narrow and vertical—she'd gleaned a limited view of a long carpeted hallway; she'd seen Sweetheart pass by earlier—he hadn't reacted to her presence.

Sylvia had a pounding headache, but she kept her focus on Purcell; the agent was weighing how much more information her superiors had authorized her to share with a civilian psychologist against what she
felt
she owed Sylvia out of respect. Respect won out over duty. She offered a photograph.

“A digital cam—an experimental street surveillance project, thanks to LAPD—caught this food service truck, which was packed with ANFO, entering the underground parking lot,” Purcell said at last. “A variation of the Oklahoma City and WTC bombings. You can just see the face of the driver. The camera was mounted on a pole opposite MTA, about a hundred feet away, but our techs enlarged the picture.”

Sylvia stared at the photo. Three quarters of the driver's face was obscured, allowing only a glimpse of profile. “M would hire a driver for delivery. Exposing himself, taking stupid risks, that's not his style.” Sylvia shifted, aware of her own uneasiness. “What about the man living with Molly Redding?”

“We're on it.” Purcell nodded. “But he didn't leave much of a trail. The neighbors hardly saw him—he came and went at all hours. He drove a truck—it looked like some kind of
company truck—but nobody remembers a logo. Everything in the apartment was clean—too
clean
.”

“Just like the workshop.
That
sounds like M. An invisible man with an African gray who quotes Nietzsche.” Sylvia picked up a pencil from Purcell's desk. When she flipped it nervously through her fingers it slipped to the floor. “Do you believe M is dead?”

“Do you?” Purcell asked.

“No. I believe Simon Mole is dead.”

“M and Mole are the same man,” Purcell said warily. “We're not talking twins or split personality . . .” There was the slightest lift of inflection punctuating her statement.

“No multiple personalities,” Sylvia agreed, pressing her fingers to her aching temples. “But, we
can
talk about splitting. It's almost as if Simon Mole died in the Mulholland explosion—but it was a
psychic
death, not a physical one. That's why the profile match only came up with a midrange probability.”