“PAB?” Chris asked, thinking he’d heard the term before, but not where.
“The new police administration building on Spring.”
Now Chris remembered David talking about it. All three men traded glances.
“He’s going to knock out the lights?” Brad asked, looking a lot less shocked at the prospect than Martinez. “What? Street lights? Building lights? He’s going to shut the power down? But most of these places have generators—”
“Which are also controlled by computers. I think he’s planning a lot more than that,” Chris said. He gestured at Adnan’s server.
“Have you combed the slack space for deleted fi les?”
“I’m running some scans right now, but it’s a bit level process, so it’s going to be slow.”
282 P.A. Brown
Brad meant that the software he was using was examining what appeared to be empty space on Adnan’s server. Empty space was deceptive; in fact it often contained the remnants of deleted fi les. Files that, with the right software recovery tools, could be retrieved. Chris explained that to Martinez.
“So we’ll be able to read those fi les?” Martinez asked hopefully.
“Probably. Of course it’s a lot to assume they’ll actually hold anything important. I’m not really sure we can count on this guy being careless enough to leave incriminating data behind.”
“He might have if we surprised him,” Martinez said. “I don’t think he had time to do anything on his way out the window.”
“Can you print those maps?” Chris asked.
Minutes later Brad handed them both hard copies of three maps.
Chris studied his. The Cartifact map was the most informative.
It showed the Civic Center between Cesar Chavez Avenue on the north, and Temple to the south, and labeled nearly all the buildings. Chris had spent his entire life in Los Angeles, but didn’t go downtown often. A lot of Angelenos didn’t. He hadn’t realized there were that many government buildings concentrated in such a small area.
He looked over the MSN map. On it a single address had been highlighted: 300 N. Los Angeles Street. A quick look back at the other map confi rmed it. The Federal Courthouse.
“That’s his target.” Chris stabbed a fi nger at the spot. “That’s where he’s going to hit.”
Wednesday, 10:25 am, Northeast Community Police Station, San Fernando
Road, Los Angeles
“The Federal Court?” Martinez glared at the map. “You really think he’s going to be able to get anywhere near that place with a bomb?”
“Bomb?” Brad paled. “Who said anything about a bomb? I thought this guy was a hacker.”
Chris returned Martinez’s glare. “I have no idea how he intends to get the stuff there, I only know he’s going to try.”
Martinez rubbed the back of his neck. “I better let Bentzen know what we found. He’ll want to put out the word.”
“Which means we go into a red alert,” Chris said.
“Yeah,” Martinez said, and Chris could hear the unspoken
“duh” in the single word. “That’s how we’re going to stop him.”
“And what does he do to David?” Chris knew the instant the implications of what he had said sank in. “You know this guy’s going to kill him.”
“Chris—”
“You going to tell me you think he’s going to say ‘oops, my bad, you’re free to go’?” Chris’s voice broke. “He’s going to
kill
him.”
“We’ll keep looking for David,” Martinez said. “So will the feds. They’re not going to want a dead cop on their watch.”
“But it won’t be a priority, will it? He’s collateral damage. The safety of the city outweighs the life of one man.”
Martinez had no answer. Chris hadn’t expected one. He fell into a chair and dropped his head back against the headrest, staring blindly up at the acoustical tiles on the ceiling.
284 P.A. Brown
“He’s down there,” Chris whispered. “He won’t go far from his target. And he’s got David somewhere close, too...” He didn’t say what he could see on Martinez’s face.
Unless he’s already dead.
Abruptly he stood up. “You do what you gotta do, but before you turn it into a circus, I’m going down there.”
“I can’t let you do that, Chris—”
“You going to arrest me, Detective?”
For a brief moment Chris thought he was going to do just that. Martinez’s face was mottled with rage.
“Don’t do this, Chris,” he said. “Let the experts handle it.”
“Experts,” Chris almost spat, but bit his tongue and kept silent. Sparing Brad a glance, he headed for the door before Martinez could make a decision they would both regret.
§ § § §
Chris climbed into his Escape and sat unseeing behind the wheel, ignoring the sweat trickling down his face. Finally he put the car in gear and cranked on the AC.
He wasn’t sure how much of what he told Martinez was pure bravado, but he couldn’t—wouldn’t—leave David’s rescue in their not-so-delicate hands. Whether or not they meant well—he knew Martinez did, but Martinez wasn’t running this show. He’d be lucky if he even got invited along for the ride.
David would be seen as nothing more than collateral damage.
No doubt he’d get a hero’s funeral, replete with the fl ag draped coffi n and the touching speech from the Chief of Police.
Just like Jairo.
As David’s registered partner he’d get the full spousal treatment even if the LAPD had never known what to do with David and certainly wouldn’t know what to do with him. Maybe they’d even give him the fl ag off his coffi n.
Well, Chris wasn’t ready to write David off quite so fast.
He took the I5 down to the 110 then headed south toward the Civic Center. The skyline towered over him, traffi c slowed to L.A. BYTES
285
a crawl. He got off at Figueroa, past the Health Center, where he turned left on Temple after sitting through two lights. Temple itself was bumper to bumper with lunchtime traffi c.
He drove past Los Angeles Street, slowing down to examine 300 North. It was a tall, imposing structure, white against the brilliant cloudless sky. A group of sign carriers protesting some war in some part of the world most of them probably couldn’t pick out on a map paraded across the street from the Courthouse. Occasionally one of them would wave a handmade sign in someone’s face. Chris found parking on Temple in front of the twenty-two story Roybal Federal building.
He saw why the protesters weren’t picketing the federal buildings. A single, empty Homeland Security van was parked two cars behind him. No one who looked like a federal agent was in sight. Were they already on alert?
A woman hurried past him. A scruffy-looking mongrel trotted at her side. The woman jabbered non-stop, her words, as far as Chris could tell, nonsensical. What she lacked in coherence she made up in volume. He could hear her long before she came alongside him. She wore a ratty fur coat over gray sweats. The dog wore an equally scruffy sweater. The dog’s eyes met Chris’s.
It looked resigned.
Ahead of her two men argued, though there wasn’t much heat in their words. Their argument must have been an ongoing one. As they drew nearer, Chris heard the name Nixon and “that damned scoundrel, Agnew.” Like the woman, they were both overdressed; the one who had taken issue with Agnew wore what once had probably been an expensive suit. It might have been new when Nixon and his reviled running mate fi rst took offi ce. The other one, like the woman, wore a heavy winter coat over several other layers. No doubt all the clothes he owned. As they passed him the miasma of unwashed fl esh, urine and shit lingered.
Surely if there was a high alert in place, the streets would have been cleared.
Chris picked up his pace, eager to get clear of this area. He almost wished there was more visible security. Did they think
286 P.A. Brown
because so many of these homeless people were mentally ill they posed no threat? They couldn’t be that naive.
For that matter, what better cover could someone use? No one looked twice at the destitute who littered the streets of Los Angeles. They smelled bad, they talked to themselves and everyone knew they were crazy. Chris had seen people cross the street to avoid them even when they weren’t panhandling.
He slowed, no longer trying to fl ee. Instead he started surreptitiously studying the faces of everyone around him. He tried to keep it casual, knowing some of the more belligerent would take offense if they caught him staring. He remembered the woman in Santa Clarita who had mentioned the way the one man had smelled. Did that mean something?
If Adnan was here, did he have David nearby? But he could hardly conceal an unconscious or bound man, so where could he be?
Couple that with the question of how Adnan planned to deliver the explosives. Judging from the amount of equipment Adnan had purchased, he wasn’t going to hand deliver it. That meant a vehicle of some kind.
He wished he could have spent a week combing through Adnan’s computer. Just what might he have found? But time was a luxury he no longer had. A luxury David no longer had.
He dragged out his Blackberry and dialed David’s cell one more time.
Wednesday, 11:15 am, Civic Center, Los Angeles
The vehicle shook; dragging David out of the fi tful half-sleep he had fallen into as the temperature inside the vehicle climbed.
The door rattled open and David struggled onto his back. The air that fl owed into the cargo area was only marginally cooler than what had been there before. David sucked in as much as he could through his nose.
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Even the rich effl uence of car exhaust smelled wonderful. It meant he didn’t have to smell his own stink.
Somebody climbed into the vehicle bed. The stench hit David almost immediately. Sweat and the rank smell of unwashed fl esh and clothes. It brought back a rush of memories. The house in Santa Clarita, following Chris, the man who had attacked him.
The brief glimpse he’d had of his assailant. Adnan.
David heard his soft, even breathing. He knew exactly the moment his abductor stood over him. When Adnan knelt, David tried to pull away, though the gesture was futile.
Rough hands jerked him back and wrenched the tape off his mouth. Along with half his mustache.
“Sorry about that.” Adnan’s familiar voice was gravelly with fatigue and something else—fear? Was what he was doing fi nally sinking in?
Maybe it wasn’t too late to stop this after all.
He strained to hear if Adnan was alone. If his partner was there, Adnan wasn’t going to listen to a stranger’s plea. Especially a cop’s. But all he could hear was Adnan’s harsh breathing and his own. Beyond the door he could make out the swish of nearby highway traffi c.
“Adnan. Listen to me,” David said. “I know what happened to your father. Whatever you’re doing, you can stop, it will be all right—”
“Shut up! You don’t know anything,” Adnan snapped. He pulled David up and shoved something under his nose. “Drink this.”
David sputtered as cool water spilled over his closed lips, dribbling down his chin. He hastily opened his mouth and sucked in the liquid. It poured down his parched throat, bringing a coughing fi t as some of it went down the wrong way. Too late he remembered the poison Adnan used to kill his mother. Then he realized it didn’t matter and he drained the bottle.
“Easy, easy. There’s plenty more where that came from.”
288 P.A. Brown
“Adnan—”
“Shut up, old man. It’s hard enough to do this without you trying to fuck with my head.”
Do what? David tensed when he heard the snick of a switchblade open. He fl inched and tried to pull away, ducking his head down to protect his throat, knowing there were a dozen other places Adnan could stick him that would be just as fatal.
“Hold still!”
David ignored him. He twisted sideways, knocking Adnan’s arm aside. Suddenly his hair was being twisted and the knife blade pressed against his throat.
“Hold still or I
will
cut you,” Adnan whispered.
David froze, his body going cold as he anticipated the knife sliding in, the pain, then the inevitable shock of death. Instead he was hauled onto his side, the knife blade sawing the bonds that held the tape over his eyes.
Adnan was almost in tears. “It wasn’t supposed to go this far,”
he said. “I just wanted to pay back those bastards for what they did to my father. Not this. Never this—”
Savagely he fi nished cutting through the tape, tearing it off.
David blinked away the tears that fl ooded his eyes at the shock of light through the open door of what he now realized was a van.
Then his cell phone rang again.
David could see Adnan’s tension.
“Answer it, Adnan. Let them know I’m okay. Someone will come. They’ll help—”
“Shut up.” Adnan dug through David’s pocket and extracted the phone.
David held his breath and let it out with a fear-tinged gust of relief when Adnan fl ipped the thing open and spoke.
“Yes,” Adnan snapped.
David could hear Chris’s frantic voice on the other end. He shifted on the fl oor of the vehicle and tried to sit up.
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“He is unharmed,” Adnan said. “And will be released soon—”
Adnan thrust the phone into David’s face.
“Tell him.”
“Chris? I’m fi ne—”
“David! Oh, God, David, where are you—”
Adnan climbed to his feet and stepped toward the back of the truck. David could still hear Chris shouting.
“What are you doing here?” Adnan asked, his voice fl at and uneasy. “I thought we agreed—”
David whipped around toward the rear of the van. Through the lingering tears he could make out a dark, broad shouldered silhouette. He didn’t need an introduction from Adnan to know it was his partner, the Frenchman.
The Sig Sauer in his hands was pointed at Adnan’s gut. In a thick French accent he said, “Our agreement has changed—”
“Hey, what the hell are you doing here?” A thick voice, another accent, lighter. Latino. David shouted out a warning as an orange-vested Caltran’s worker appeared behind Adnan’s partner, who spun around, weapon coming around in a narrow arc.