“I didn’t study the car, but I remember now thinking it was a diplomat’s limo or some other big shot.”
“Are there many limos around here like that?”
Ortega stared at me. “You joking, man? Look around you. You see many Mexicans driving bulletproof limos?”
“Who do you think it was?”
Ortega stared longer, nodding slowly. “I’ll tell you what I think. It’s that Polarity Magnetics man. He would drive a limo like that, I bet. But what would he have been doing here, before your woman was killed?”
I gripped his forearm. “Thanks for telling me that.”
“You think he killed her?”
“Someone did.”
Ortega swore, shaking his head. “I wish I could think of more.”
So did I. But he’d given me a lead. Now I had to find out who owned that limo.
-10-
I drove Ortega back to his shop and called Blake. He hadn’t gone to the airport yet, having first scoped out Polarity Magnetics. Neither of us had eaten lunch and it was nearly two o’clock.
We met in a Safeway parking lot and walked to a taco truck on the corner. Smelling Ortega’s burrito and later the lunch of the men renovating the buildings on Center Street had given me an appetite for authentic Mexican food.
Taco trucks were a true mark of any Californian city. They were the size of a big laundry truck and had the kitchen behind the cab. One or two workers were usually inside. One man took the order and the other cooked the tacos, burritos and enchiladas. Most trucks had a dingy quality and the menu was often painted on the outside of the vehicle. Ours was blue and white, and the man taking the order couldn’t speak a word of English. He had a huge mustache and a shiny forehead.
“Two burritos,” I said, loudly, speaking up to him through a square opening.
The man rapidly fired several words at me. I didn’t catch any of it. I glanced at Blake.
“Everything!” Blake shouted up. “And give us two Cokes.” He put up two fingers.
We waited and my belly rumbled at the smells and frying sounds.
Soon enough I gave the man a twenty and took the change, and I pulled down two big burritos wrapped in tinfoil, lying on oil-soaked paper plates. There were other tinfoil-wrapped entrees: pickled carrot slices, radishes, hot peppers and slices of lemon.
We sat at a plastic picnic table with an awning overhead as traffic sped by.
I unwrapped my burrito and took a bite. It was good, with beef juices trickling over my tongue. I sprinkled on salt, squeezed the lemon and popped a carrot piece into my mouth.
“You eat like the Galloping Gourmet,” Blake said.
“Come again.”
“I used to watch the show as a kid in Canada,” he said.
“When did you live there?”
“I was born a Canadian.”
“Yeah?” I said.
“The Galloping Gourmet would spend the entire show preparing a meal. He’d talk as he chopped onions or made a mix. I’d come home after school, throw down my books and just listen to his friendly patter. The end was always the best. He’d pull his special meal out of the oven and set it on a nice dining room table. Then he’d leap into the audience and drag someone to the guest chair. He’d watch them take their first bite, with a half-smile on his lips, waiting for their complimentary nod. But it was nothing like watching him taking his first bite. The man was good. He’d lift his fork as if it was the greatest prize on Earth. And he’d pop it into his mouth, close his eyes and ooh and ah. He’d make you want to taste his meal more than anything in the world.”
I filed Blade’s revelation away, then I told him what I’d learned, about the armored limo and how Ortega thought it had belonged to someone from Polarity Magnetics.
“I didn’t notice anything like that there,” Blake said.
He told me how most of the industrial park belonged to Polarity Magnetics. Twice, security people had asked him what he was doing loitering around the area.
Blake took another bite of his burrito, chewing thoughtfully. “I told them, ‘I’m just sightseeing.’ They gave me hard looks, but went away each time. The last time they brought along Doberman Pinchers. Now there’s an alien-looking dog. There’re too nervous and high-strung, and they watched me with hungry shark’s eyes. I got the message and left.”
“I still want you to check the airport,” I said. “Afterward, see what you can find on the internet about armored cars, Mercedes Benzes in particular and dig deeper into Polarity Magnetics.”
“What are you going to do?” Blake asked.
I rattled the ice cubes in my Styrofoam cup. “I think it’s time to pay Doctor Cheng a visit.”
“Think she’ll talk with you?”
“Definitely,” I said.
“Something you want to tell me?” Blake asked with a grin.
“It’s not what you think.”
“With you, it never is. Good luck.”
We parted company, each of us heading for his car. I wrinkled my nose as I climbed into the Ford. Then I started it up and headed for Polarity Magnetics.
***
I didn’t sense anything wrong when I stopped by the guard shack. A tall, chain-link privacy fence guarded the industrial park. Barbed tape in menacing curls sat on top of the fence. It was also known as razor wire, although it wasn’t razor sharp. Barbed tape was better than barbed wire, as the tape was designed to inflict serious cuts on anyone attempting to climb over. It was difficult to climb through or over without special tools. I knew, as I’d tried to do that on more than one occasion.
A hundred yards beyond the shack was a large parking area with plenty of BMWs, Cadillacs and organic-looking electric cars that pretended to be the wave of the future. There were no pickups, however, large or small, which I found odd. Beyond the parking area were large, perfectly kept lawns and a massive, glass-fronted office building.
Two guards were in the shack, one watching a monitor inside and the other standing by the half door, staring down at me. She was whipcord lean, with sucked-in cheeks and intense brown eyes: a femme fatale who was probably a black belt in some hard-to-pronounce mixed martial arts. She wore a tight blue uniform with a patch on her left front pocket. It showed a circular magnet with a sword stuck to it. She had small breasts, which seemed appropriate to her manner.
“What is your name?” she asked in a clipped tone. She had an accent, although it wasn’t Lithuanian, maybe somewhere from South America.
“Gavin Kiel,” I said. “But it’s not on any of your lists. The reason—”
I stopped because she darted into the shack. I shifted just enough in my car to peer through the half-door. She picked a tablet computer off her desk.
She reappeared with the tablet tucked under her arm. “Could you please step out of the car, Mr. Kiel?”
“I know Ms. Cheng, the company president, I believe.”
The guard glanced at her tablet, clicked a button on the side and shook her head. “Step out of the car, Mr. Kiel.”
“Why not phone your security chief—”
“We already have,” she said, sharply. “Now if you would step out of the car, I can pass a scanner over you to make sure you aren’t carrying any weapons.”
There was something strange in her eyes. It was a Doberman’s eagerness, I decided. Then a light went off in my mind.
“Am I on your computer?” I asked.
“Does that surprise you?” she asked with a faint sneer.
Here we go
, I thought to myself.
“Step out of the car, Mr. Kiel.”
Okay, they knew about me. Correction, Tina Cheng knew about me, and Kay had known. Ah, hadn’t Kay said that Doctor Harris had learned about my whereabouts in San Francisco? How would Harris have learned? Maybe that didn’t matter now. The key was that it would be a mistake to underestimate Polarity Magnetics’ security arrangements. This guard looked like a model, but there was something strange—sinister—about her. Had she been enhanced in some way? It was time to find out.
“Right,” I said, switching off the ignition and pocketing the keys.
I opened the door and stepped outside as she came out of the shack. Her partner followed, with his hand on the butt of his gun. He had a flap for his holster and he’d already clicked it open.
“Expecting trouble?” I asked.
“It is why they pay me,” she said.
Then she surprised me by drawing a strange device from a long holster at her side. It had double prongs like a tuning fork. With her thumb, she flicked a switch in the handle and the device hummed evilly.
My neck prickled. I remembered devices like that on the Reservation. What was hers supposed to do? There were subtle signs, but it seemed then that this woman had been Shop-trained, or by someone almost as good.
Was Polarity Magnetics a front for the Shop? The idea made me cold. The Shop used top-rate psychiatrists. Had the Chief lured me here by telling me to stay away? If that was true, why hadn’t he tried to take me in San Francisco? I should have kept running and gone back into hiding. Too many things weren’t adding up.
“What is that?” I asked.
Her partner drew his gun, aiming it at me. “Take your weapon out slowly,” he said, “and put it on the cement.”
There wasn’t any hesitation in him. A regular person working as a guard wouldn’t have drawn so quickly. His eyes were fixed on me, and his gun-hand was steady.
“Are you going to shoot me?” I asked.
A tight smile curved onto his lips. His body language—this man had killed before and he wouldn’t mind doing it again.
I pulled out my Browning and set it on the cement.
“Now kick it over here,” he said.
I shook my head.
He tightened his grip of the gun, and he glanced at the woman.
“Kick it,” she told me.
“You kick it,” I said.
“Back away then,” she said.
I shook my head.
She studied me. Then she told her partner, “Give me your gun and get his. If he tries anything, I’ll shoot him.”
By his face, the partner didn’t like the idea. What had they heard about me? After several seconds of hesitation, however, he handed her his gun.
I’d been waiting for that, and I moved, coming at them fast. She tore the gun out of his hand and backpedalled, giving herself range. She was a smart girl. He handled the surprise well, getting a determined look. Then he shouted as he took a boxing stance, twisting his hips smoothly as he threw a right cross at my face. I shifted my head, but he still clipped me on the check. It stung. I had kept moving, however, and now I was in close and I threw an uppercut. His teeth clicked together and I heard bone crunch, likely his jawbone. The sting to my check—I’d hit him harder than I’d planned. He flew backward and crumpled onto the cement, out cold.
I faced the woman, expecting to see her in a classic shooter’s stance, screaming at me to get on the ground.
Instead, she smiled. It was an arrogant thing that would have put her at home on the Reservation. She pitched the gun aside so it clattered over the cement. I’d guessed right. She’d been modified or enhanced and she believed that she was tough enough to take me. I decided to play dumb, pretending she’d pitched the gun because she was scared of me.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said. “I just want to speak with Ms. Cheng. Why don’t you take me to her?”
Instead of doing anything so sensible, she shouted some martial arts yell and lunged at me with the humming device. She might have caught me by surprise if I hadn’t been ready for her. Even so, the device almost touched me. I dodged, and I chopped her wrist with mine. If she was normal I had just shattered wrist bones, but somehow I didn’t think I’d done that to her.
Her arm with the device swung away. Then she hit me in the side with her other hand, and it hurt more than it should have.
“You don’t know when to quit, lady,” I said.
She grinned at me, a mocking thing.
I backhanded her, or I tried. She weaved her head out of the way faster than I would have thought possible. Then she moved, and she was like a striking viper. She slapped the device against my side. I heard a loud
zap,
and I felt a jolt sizzle through me. Then I felt nothing at all as the cement came rushing up.
-11-
“He’s coming around,” someone said.
They must have meant me. My mouth tasted as if mice had used it for a nest. My teeth were bone dry so my tongue stuck to them. There was a dull throb behind my forehead. It grew as I opened my eyes. At first, everything was blurry. I didn’t want to concentrate. Ms. Mixed Martial Arts had zapped me with something nastier than the shock baton Jagiello had used on me at the Reservation.
I had been on her list. That wasn’t good. I groaned because I tried to chuckle. Also not good was the shock device, and her willingness to use it. Bad was the fact they’d dragged me somewhere.
I squeezed my eyelids shut and breathed deeply, holding it. Sometimes, that’s the best thing to do. It helped calm my nerves as my sluggish mind tried to realign with reality.
I tried looking again. Blurry shapes hovered nearby. I had the feeling Ms. Shock Artist was here. The voice before had been masculine, however. Ortega had said a man from Polarity Magnetics had made threats.
“You’re in a lot of trouble,” I heard someone say, and then I realized I’d said it. “This is kidnapping.”
“You’re a trespasser, Mr. Kiel.”
“So call the cops,” I said.
I tried my eye-squeezing, breath-holding trick again. Now faces began to focus. The model with sucked-in cheeks and Doberman eyes stared at me triumphantly, check.
The lights in the room dimmed. I saw him then. He was behind her and he held a TV remote in his hand. At least, it looked like a remote. She held the pronged device as if she wanted to try it on me again.
He looked like a Redneck cage-fighter, the kind that charged his opponents as he threw devastating blows. He was tall and lean, with straw-colored hair and freckles across the bridge of his nose. If he went to type, he would be tough, stronger than he looked and with a fierce desire to win. His pale blue eyes held something menacing—the backcountry look of a man who distilled too much moonshine, who would do more than kiss his pretty cousin. I didn’t want to call it crazy. It was feral.
He wore the blue uniform with the circular magnet and sword logo, had a .44 Magnum strapped to his leg and fiddled with a sap dangling from his heavy black belt. He had everything there, walkie-talkie, handcuffs, flashlight and other security paraphernalia. When he moved, the belt creaked.
He aimed the remote at the ceiling and the lights dimmed a bit more.
“Better?” he asked me.
I shifted in my chair and tried to rub my itchy nose. That’s when I discovered my wrists were manacled to the table. My forearms rested on solid oak. The steel manacles were part of the furniture, like a bad spy movie. My surroundings came into sharper focus then. This was an interrogation room, very sterile with steel walls, a heavy door and with one-way glass. A hint of fear lingered in the room. It was a combination smell of piss, sweat and pain, mixed with harsh disinfectant. I remembered it too well from the Reservation. What went on here at Polarity Magnetics?
I squeezed my fingers into fists, wondering what it would take to rip out of these shackles.
“If you break free, Mr. Kiel, Rita will give you another stroke of the gentler.”
“You won’t call it that when I stroke you with it,” I said.
He grinned in a good old boy way.
“This is kidnapping,” I said.
“Technically, it’s detention. You were out of control and my security team had to subdue you. Now you’re in a holding cell until the police arrive.”
“The police are coming?” I asked.
“Not yet,” he admitted.
“My ‘out-of-control’ is on tape?”
“I could easily do that if I wanted. But there were two witnesses.”
“Your thugs?”
“I’m Mike Stone, head of Security. I used to be in the Rangers. I know you were Green Beret, and just like me, you must have realized third-rate bunglers and socialist dupes ran our government. They couldn’t win a war even though they’d been spotted the enemy capital.” He shrugged. “I was one of the best. So were you, I hear. You joined CERN Security. I joined Polarity Magnetics.”
Stone leaned toward me. “You broke two teeth and the jaw of one of my men. I don’t like intruders hurting my people.”
I swallowed a sharp retort, reminding myself they’d shackled me to a table.
Stone sneered. “They tell me there was an accident in Geneva. It altered some of you. We’ve been studying that, and have developed some interesting weaponry based on the experience. You tasted the gentler.”
I tried to wrench my wrists free.
“The shackles are a precaution,” he said. “This,” he lifted the remote, “is what will happen if you can break out of those.”
He pressed a button and the room exploded into brightness.
I groaned and thumped my head onto the table. My aching eyes couldn’t take the brilliance. It put sparkling spots before my corneas and stroked my brain with beating throbs that increasingly spiked pain.
“It’s dim again, Mr. Kiel.”
I cracked an eyelid and slowly raised my head. It was beginning to dawn on me that I was in trouble. A psychopath had me trapped in a room specially designed to keep me inside. Were they planning to use me as a new test subject? I pushed the thought aside as I concentrated on my reason for coming. Besides, I hated being on the defensive. It was time to start probing, to start attacking, even if only verbally.
“Why did you kill Kay Durant?” I asked.
Stone’s face went blank. He glanced at Rita. Then he began to chuckle and shake his head.
“There was an armored Mercedes Benz at the scene of the crime,” I said.
The chuckles quit as he waved a hand in dismissal. “I’m well aware of distraction tactics. It won’t help you. Just for the record, Kay died because she was greedy.”
“So you admit to killing her?”
“I had the means and desire and more than my share of ability,” Stone said. “But I had no cause to kill her.”
“You just said you had desire.”
“You kill flies when they annoy you. I want to kill a lot of annoying people. It doesn’t mean I do it. Half our country’s politicians would be six feet under if I followed my impulses. For me to kill, I need cause
and
benefit. My people followed her, but that was to find…” Stone grinned. “You know what I want.”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
Stone set the remote on the table and rested his knuckles on either side of it. He had large hands, good for catching a football or handling an M-16. He had a gold wedding ring and I wondered if he was the kind that slapped the little wife around.
“Kay went to see you,” he said.
“We were old friends.”
Stone shook his head. “She hated you, because Dave succumbed to the accident while you walked free. But she needed friends because she had run out of them here. Don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m a dumb jock just because I’m athletic. I run Security because I’m the best and I don’t care whom I have to stomp to make sure I do my job.”
“A popular attitude,” I said.
“You’re a tough guy, but Polarity Magnetics Security is tougher and smarter. I knew you’d come here after Kay died. That’s why I put you on the list and armed Rita.” Stone rapped a knuckle against the table. “If you want to leave this room walking, you’d better answer the next few questions. Let’s start with: what did Kay bring to you on the twelfth of June?”
I stopped myself from testing the manacles again. Was Stone angry because Kay had successfully stolen the cube? Was his butt on the line because of that?
“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “Give me an answer for an answer. Why do you think she saw me on that date?”
His eyes flashed, but he nodded. “My people followed her to San Francisco.”
Had those been his men on my boat? It would make sense. That meant the needle man had been his, too. Yeah, I remembered one other person trailing me as I ran after Kay. Polarity Magnetics had been there in strength. How had Kay even managed to make it onto my boat?
“You had people watching her,” I said. “So why don’t you tell me what she brought.”
Stone grabbed the remote. “Kay worked here in—”
“Don’t say it,” Rita warned.
Stone froze and then slowly swiveled his face toward Rita. She glared defiance, but finally wilted under his steady gaze.
“When I want advice,” Stone said, “I’ll tell you when I want it.”
She said nothing to that, just kept staring down.
“Go get something to eat,” he told her.
Rita looked up then, and she seemed worried. It was the first time I’d seem a soft expression on her. It changed her looks. The woman could be beautiful.
“Go on,” he said. “But leave me the gentler. I’m going to need it.”
The worry faded away as she unclipped the hostler and handed it to him. Stone grinned and nodded in a jock-to-jock manner. Rita hesitated and then gave him the briefest nod back before she turned and opened the door.
I unobtrusively tried to study the corridor. All I saw was an overhead light and tan paint before she shut the heavy thing.
Stone grinned. “I run Security.”
“And you’ll beat down any woman who says otherwise.”
He laughed. “Mr. Green Beret thinks he’s smart. Rita is more than a woman, but you already know that. Kay probably told you everything we’re doing.”
“True,” I said.
“Kay wanted to be accelerated. Given a few more injections, she’d have been altered enough to pass as accelerated.”
“Just like Rita?” I asked.
Stone grew thoughtful as he picked up the remote. “I’d like to press a switch that forces you to tell the truth. Pain isn’t always reliable, especially against an elite soldier. Pain could never make me talk.”
“Why don’t we trade places then and you can show me how tough you are.”
“What did Kay bring you?”
“On June 12?” I asked.
He watched me closely, waiting.
“What did your people find?” I asked.
“You’re a fool to boast about what you did to them. You have to know I want payback.”
My eyes narrowed. Stone had as good as admitted to sending the needle man and the thugs onto my boat. Polarity Magnetics played rough and dirty. That meant…that meant I was in trouble.
“If you want to do this the hard way,” Stone said, “that’s fine with me.”
“I want to know who killed Kay.”
Stone clicked the remote and blinding brilliance slammed against my squeezed-shut eyelids.
I heard him hovering over me, asking questions. Mike Stone obviously liked the feeling of power, maybe needed it. His belt creaked as he leaned close enough to whisper in my ear.
I whipped my head up fast and caught him under the chin. He staggered as I opened my eyes. There was blood on his lip.
This could be the only chance I’d get. I roared and heaved up to my feet. I strained against the steel manacles, trying to lift the table high enough to smash it. Unfortunately, they had bolted it to the floor. Metal screamed in protest, however. I told myself I could do this. Then the gentler hummed into life.
“Now I’m going to have fun,” Stone said, as he increased the room’s brightness.
Before he could do anything more, the door opened. It was too bright for me to see who stood there. In seconds, however, the gentler powered down.
Then I heard Tina Cheng say, “He is not the one. You will release him and await me in East Wing.”