Loose Ends (16 page)

His brake lights flared and I felt us slow at the next corner. Without knowing which way he would turn, flooring it might cause me to shoot wide, even smash Molly against the confining line of parked vehicles, so I braked hard and backed off a car length until he committed to the right.

The Audi stuck to the road like yesterday’s spilled honey. I followed conservatively and almost lost it as Molly’s tires slid over a manhole cover in the hard turn, the slick metal slinging us to the left and into the opposite lane. An oncoming truck slammed on its brakes and I was forced to do the same, squeezing around it as the driver gave me a one-fingered salute.

Half a block behind the Audi, I worked hard to catch up again, desperately hoping for another chance to put him into the wall, but now he’d found a straight downhill stretch that favored his heavier vehicle.

My opponent hit a hundred as the driver rushed the onramp onto I-80. Once on the freeway he wove from lane to lane, gaining distance. I was ready for him to dive off one of the next two exits before crossing the Bay Bridge, but he kept going. I followed onto the eastbound lower level, Molly’s tires humming on metal mesh and bumping over joints.

With a good clear left lane for half a minute and the Audi blocked by traffic, I floored it and pulled to within a hundred yards, then settled in through the Yerba Buena Island tunnel. The tiny spot of land in the middle of the Bay formed an anchor for the two sections of the crossing.

Nothing I could do over the water with nowhere to go.

Once past, the Bay Bridge split again from its under-over configuration to a side-by-side concrete causeway just a score of feet above the shoreline. Half a mile ahead I could see ships at anchor in Oakland’s outer harbor.

Bastard. I’d chased the van once, and later done laps with this guy around Richmond before he lost me. I wondered where he was leading me this time? An ambush maybe, and I might be risking the girl, but at this point I felt out of options.

In this situation the mind often races, working in overdrive as the body and nervous system automatically handle the physical tasks. I thought of Mira again and things about her that still felt wrong. Hidden elements, incidents and accidents and things left unsaid…but I remained convinced there really was a child in danger. Mira hadn’t been faking that, even if some of her responses seemed off, and sometimes…sometimes the best thing to do is go for the throat, get a bulldog grip and hang on, just choke the life out of the problem.

It had worked before.

Sometimes.

So here I was, with my foot to the floor one more time like a modern remake of
Bullitt
.

Exiting the Bay Bridge, the Audi took the freeway northbound and accelerated to over a hundred again. I matched him easily, Molly’s tires humming and the wind rushing. I kept it in fourth, the engine revving high, an eager machine song of freedom and power.

When the speedometer crossed one hundred thirty I shifted into fifth and started to worry. Even on dry pavement, any error at this speed could be instantly fatal with the freeway rough and ill maintained in spots, jouncing me hard against the restraints.

Molly took it all with perfect equanimity until I had to slam on the brakes, ABS pulsing beneath my foot to avoid a damn fool who had pulled into the passing lane without clearing his rear. Instead of laying on the horn I swerved, blazing past him on the right at ninety.

The straight stretch along the waterside lasted only four miles and two minutes as we screamed up to autobahn speeds again. The Audi suddenly slowed to eighty, threading between cars and trucks as the freeway split.

Ignoring the freeway toward Sacramento, my rabbit took the familiar route that would lead him across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge and back into Marin County. If he did, I would have completed another vast loop around the North Bay.

I leaned on the horn and shot a narrowing gap as another idiot tried to cut me off.

This whole thing is crazy, I thought. I ought to have Mickey call the cops and, oh by the way, where’s the damned CHP when you need them? Then I wondered where this sudden attack of sanity had come from and pushed it out of my mind.

Around the wide curve into Richmond we blazed, Molly’s wipers working furiously to keep the windshield clear. A mile later, just before the bridge, the Audi took the last Richmond exit, dumping straight into the industrial district next to the railroad terminus. Two hundred yards behind, I decelerated smoothly to seventy before fishtailing onto the surface streets in hot pursuit.

Horns blared as I ran the red light crossing Richmond Parkway. No way I was going to let this son of a bitch get away this time.

Weaving deeper into the warehouse park, the Audi led me past petroleum tanks and cracking towers of the refinery complex that filled most of the peninsula. Chemical smells sucked into Molly’s interior made my eyes water.

Rounding one final corner, the Audi slewed through the open gate into the parking lot of a run-down warehouse.

Got you, you bastard.

Chapter 13

The large metal building the Audi had entered backed up to a dozen huge oil tanks. I could see them looming like fat cylindrical high-rises through the back fence. Between the petroleum containers, tall uncut grass provided ground cover for the sandy coastal soil.

I was about to follow the Audi through the gate when I finally came to my senses. Pulling over at the gap in the barrier, I watched my target roll up a ramp and into the warehouse itself.

While there might be a rear vehicle exit, as far as I could tell from here the big building was ringed by a ten-foot fence. If this was his destination, now was the time to be smart, to think about Talia and what might happen if I drove straight in and got myself ambushed.

So I wouldn’t drive. I’d do a lot better on foot.

But first, I’d get some insurance.

 Calming my breathing, I dialed Mickey. “Mickey, you got me on GPS?”

“Yeah, Boss, I got you.” Molly updated her location in Mickey’s computer once a minute. It was a very cool system that he had built himself. He’d said someday everyone would be findable on GPS, day or night, but I didn’t really believe that either. Where would the electronics go? It’s not like you can cram it into a cell phone, after all. Maybe cars, sure, but…that was for the year 2050, not 2005.

“Get the cops out here right now,” I told him. “Warehouse fifty yards north of me. Anonymous tip, kidnapped child, perps armed and dangerous. Give them the Audi, too. Tell them female officer on scene.”

“But you’re not an officer anymore, Boss.”

“So lie. It’s better than getting shot on sight.”

“Righto. You going in?” Mickey sounded eager, like this whole thing was a video game. Maybe to him it was. Cal Corwin, avatar…only real life had no respawns.

“I shouldn’t…but I am.” Just like with the bomb and falling for Cole and a dozen other things I could name in my life, I was pushing all in and hoping the right card fell.

“You
crazy
, girl. Stay low.”

“Doubtless.” I hung up.

Mickey was right. I was crazy, but the thought of the girl kept me in that zone where it seemed like I could do anything, like in a perfect rally, like a hot streak at the tables, like that one sweet break in a case.

Riding the tiger.

PD would take from three to ten minutes to respond with a couple of cruisers and they would be alerting the tactical team in case they were needed. With plenty of crazies calling 911 every day they had to confirm the tip before committing resources. That left me just enough time.

Dropping Molly into first, I accelerated smoothly along the outside of the fence line. It met another barrier at the corner, one more warehouse, but that was fine. It gave me a chance to get out of sight. I swung wide around the second building and passed behind it along the old access road that dead-ended at the oil tanks in the back. Nothing barred me from driving straight into the deep grass between the painted white cylinders, though I slowed to under twenty. It wouldn’t do to blow a tire slamming into some hidden chunk of concrete.

With her rally clearance and four-wheel drive, Molly powered through the scrub. Gonna be hell to pay on the undercarriage, I thought as something banged up into a wheel well and a hidden pothole made Molly bounce hard. Not at all what I figured I’d be doing when this whole thing started.

I drove deeper into the forest of cylinders and parked behind one of the tanks, out of sight of the back of the warehouse the Audi had entered. Once hidden, I hopped out, hurriedly stripped off the blazer and opened the hatchback. Shrugging on a Kevlar vest, the one with SECURITY in big white letters on the back – technically I wasn’t impersonating a law enforcement official – and a ball cap with the same, I grabbed a 12-gauge shotgun and a set of bolt cutters.

Crouch-running in the high grass, I reached the back fence to the warehouse and began cutting. The cyclone wire popped with metallic pings as I worked the cutters as fast as I could from the bottom up. As soon as I had a little door of fencing material I bent it out of the way, dropped the tool and wormed through, and then ran for the building.

A loading dock ran along this side of the warehouse, the big doors all closed. At each end a personnel entrance beckoned. I made for the left one, the closer of the two.

Sirens wailed in the distance. I hoped it was the response to Mickey’s call coming in hot. If so, they would provide a distraction. If not…well, I’d do the best I could.

At the door I paused and racked a beanbag round into the shotgun. Useful for taking down wanted criminals without killing them, I used it for my bounty hunting sideline. The attached sling held slugs and buck in case things turned ugly, and then there were my handguns. I was as ready as I could be.

Reaching out, I tested the rusty round knob. It turned, so I tried pulling. It resisted, but only because it was stuck, not locked. Slowly, trying to avoid too much noise, I dragged the barrier open by half inches.

Eye to the crack, I could see nothing. The wan daylight outside made the dim interior even darker.

Taking a deep breath I crouched, and then reached my fingers around the edge of the door and gave a steady pull. It ground against the concrete floor for a moment before coming free. Quickly I slipped inside and pulled it shut again with some difficulty, but left it not-quite-closed in case I had to get out fast.

I found myself behind tall cylinders, visible by looking upward to see light reflected off the steel-strutted roof’s underside. Reaching over to touch one, I found it was composed of enormous rolls of paper stacked on their ends like coins, resulting in towers six feet wide by at least twenty high. As my eyes adjusted I was able to see down the row to a gap.

I stood there a moment more, ears straining to hear anything above the faint background hum of the city outside, the breeze catching the edges of the metal building, and the spinning rattle of the ventilator balls on the roof. Voices, maybe; the burbling tones of conversation.

The sirens came closer.

A low thud came to my ears then, and I turned the left to listen, because my right eardrum had been burst by the bomb blast and had never completely recovered. Not hearing anything yet, I moved stealthily forward toward the gap. As I drew closer I thought I heard a faint cough, and then two more thuds, as of sacks of dirt being dropped on hard ground.

I raised the shotgun to my shoulder and hurried to the gap, swinging around it to my left and pausing to assess. More rows of paper appeared, braced like gigantic worshippers in a church with me standing in the center aisle. Light from the large open door the Audi had entered poured from the far end.

Gliding forward on soft-soled boots, my heart thudded and I fought the urge to sneeze from the paper dust kicked up by my footsteps. I sped to a run as I heard a car start up, its engine revving once before its tires squealed and the sonic evidence faded.

Must have been the Audi driving out the door again. I wondered why it had done that. Maybe the kidnappers had fled, warned by my pursuit and the approaching sirens.

At the end of the aisle between the giant sentinels of paper I slowed, carefully easing out into the better-lit open space, scanning across my field of vision for threats.

To my left sat pallets stacked with boxes, barrels and cans. To the front, the row of giant access doors, one of them open. To the right, an enclosed office space with windows, portable air conditioner visible on its roof, one door, and a heavy-duty white van parked farther in and surrounded by a spreading puddle.

On the concrete floor in front of it, three bodies.

I took two more deep breaths to calm myself and pushed them all the way out, yoga style. Then I moved forward, keeping the shotgun ready, and approached the scene of death, smelling gasoline from the puddle.

The body nearest the office door was female, and appeared to have been shot twice in the back of the head at close range with a very small caliber, probably a .22.

Reaching down, I turned the dead woman’s head just enough. I could see no exit wounds, which supported my theory about the weapon. Such tiny bullets might penetrate a human skull once, but not twice, especially if, as I suspected, they were unjacketed soft lead, maybe hollowpoints. Those would expand and dump all their energy into the soft matter of the brain and then stop at bone.

The woman looked like Mira, kind of. Except for the being dead part.

The other two bodies were male, mid thirties maybe, each shot twice in the chest and then once through an eye. One was the driver of the van I’d seen last night on the stakeout. It looked like the two had been killed near the cargo doors, and then dragged over to the woman and the puddle of gas. I could see the marks on the floor. Bullets to the face looked to me as if they had been delivered last, from close range. The possibility that any marksman, no matter how expert, would make two head shots, putting rounds precisely through the standing men’s eyes, and then shoot them twice each in their chests
afterward
, strained belief.