Authors: Michael Connelly
I shifted to my left and leaned in closer to the window so I could get a wider view of the roof. Courier could be out there.
Just as I did this, I saw a blurred reflection of movement in the glass.
Someone was behind me.
Instinctively, I jumped sideways and turned at the same time. Courier’s arm swung down with a knife and barely missed me as
he crashed into the door.
I planted my feet and then drove my body into his, bringing my arm up and stabbing my own blade into his side.
But my weapon was too short. I scored a direct hit but didn’t do enough damage to bring down the target. Courier yelped and
brought his forearm down on my wrist, knocking my blade to the floor. He then took an enraged, roundhouse swing at me with
his own. I managed to duck underneath it but got a good look at his blade. It was at least four inches long and I knew if
he connected with it, it would be a one-and-done proposition for me.
Courier made another jab and this time I parried to the right and caught his wrist. The only advantage I had was my size.
I was older and slower than Courier, but I had forty pounds on him. While holding his knife hand away, I threw my body into
him again, knocking him back through the forest of stand-up lamps and onto the concrete floor.
He broke free during the fall and then scrabbled to his feet with the knife ready. I grabbed one of the lamps, holding its
round base out and ready to spar at him and deflect the next assault.
For a moment nothing happened. He held the knife at the ready and we seemed to be taking each other’s measure, waiting for
the other to make the next move. I then made a charge with the lamp base but he sidestepped it easily. We then squared off
again. He had a desperate sort of smile on his face and was breathing heavily.
“Where are you going to go, Courier? You hear all those sirens? They’re here, man. There’s going to be cops and FBI all over
this place in two minutes. Where’re you going to go then?”
He didn’t say anything and I took another poke at him with the lamp. He grabbed the base and we momentarily struggled for
control of it, but I pushed him back into a stack of mini-refrigerators and they crashed to the floor.
I had no experience in the area of knife fighting, but my instincts told me to keep talking. If I distracted Courier, then
I would lessen the threat from the knife and possibly get an open shot at him. So I kept throwing the questions at him, waiting
for my moment.
“Where’s your partner? Where’s McGinnis? What did he do, send you to do the dirty work by yourself? Just like Nevada, huh?
You missed your chance again.”
Courier grinned at me but didn’t take the bait.
“Does he just tell you what to do? Like your mentor on murder or something? Man, the master’s not going to be very happy with
you tonight. You’re oh for two, man.”
This time he couldn’t control it.
“McGinnis is dead, you dumb fuck! I buried him in the desert. Just like I was going to bury your bitch after I was through
with her.”
I feigned another jab at him with the lamp and tried to keep him talking.
“I don’t get it, Courier. If he’s dead, why didn’t you just run? Why risk everything to go for her?”
At the same moment he opened his mouth to reply, I faked a jab at his chest with the lamp and then brought the base up into
his face, catching him flush on the jaw. Courier staggered backward momentarily and I quickly moved in, hurling the lamp at
him first and then going for the knife with both hands. We smashed into a television cabinet and fell to the floor, me on
top of him and grappling for control of the knife.
He shifted his weight beneath me and we rolled three times, with him ending up on top. I kept both hands on his wrist and
he pushed his free hand into my face, trying to break my grip by stiff-arming me away. I finally managed to bend his wrist
at a painful angle. He cried out and the knife came free and clattered to the concrete. With an elbow I shoved it toward the
stairwell shaft but it stopped just shy of the mark, balancing on the edge below the blue guardrail. It was six feet away.
I went after him like an animal then, punching and kicking and fueled by a primal rage I had never felt before. I grabbed
an ear and tried to rip it off. I swung an elbow into his teeth. But the energy of youth gradually gave him the upper hand.
I was tiring quickly and he managed to pull back and get distance. He then brought a knee up into my crotch and the air exploded
out of my lungs. Paralyzing pain shot through me and weakened my hold. He broke completely free and got up to go for the knife.
Calling on my last reserve of strength, I half crawled, half lunged after him as I struggled to my feet. I was hurt and spent
but I knew that if he got to the knife, I would be dead.
I threw my weight into him from behind. He lurched forward into the railing, his upper body pivoting over it. Without thinking,
I reached down, grabbed one of his legs and flipped him all the way over the rail. He tried to grab the steel piping but his
grip slipped and he fell.
His scream lasted only two seconds. His head hit either a railing or the concrete siding of the shaft, and after that, he
fell silently, his body caroming from side to side on its way down thirteen floors.
I watched him all the way. Until the final, loud impact echoed all the way back up to me.
I wish I could say I felt guilt or even a sense of remorse. But I felt like cheering every moment of his fall.
T
he next morning I went back to Los Angeles for real, leaning against the plane’s window and sleeping the whole way. I had
spent most of the night in the now familiar surroundings of the FBI. Agent Bantam and I faced off again in the mobile interview
room for several hours, during which I told and retold the story of what I had done the evening before and how Courier came
to fall thirteen floors to his death. I told him what Courier had said about McGinnis and the desert and the plan for Rachel
Walling.
During the interview Bantam never dropped the mask of detached federal agent. He never said thank you for saving the life
of his fellow agent. He just asked questions, sometimes five or six different times and ways. And when it was finally over,
he informed me that the details regarding the death of Marc Courier would be submitted to a state grand jury to determine
if a crime had been committed or if my actions constituted self-defense. It was only then that he broke the mold and spoke
to me like a human being.
“I have mixed feelings about you, McEvoy. You no doubt saved Agent Walling’s life but going up there after Courier was the
wrong move. You should have waited. If you had, he might be alive right now and we might have some of the answers. As it is,
if McGinnis is really dead, most of the secrets went down that shaft with Courier. It’s a big desert out there, if you know
what I mean.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry about that, Agent Bantam. I kind of look at it like if I hadn’t gone after him, he might have gotten
away. And if that had happened, the chances are, you wouldn’t get any answers either. You’d just get more bodies.”
“Maybe. But we’ll never know.”
“So what happens now?”
“Like I said, we’ll present it to the grand jury. I doubt you’ll have any problems. The world’s not exactly going to feel
sorry for Marc Courier.”
“I don’t mean with me. I’m not worried about that. With the investigation, what happens now?”
He paused as if to consider whether he should tell me anything.
“We’ll try to re-create the trail. That’s all we can do. We’re not done at Western Data. We’ll continue there and we’ll try
to put together a picture of what these men did. And we’ll keep looking for McGinnis. Dead or alive. We only have Courier’s
word that he’s dead. Personally, I’m not sure I believe it.”
I shrugged. I had accurately reported what Courier had said. I would leave it to the experts to determine if it was the truth.
If they wanted to put a picture of McGinnis in every post office in the country, that was fine with me.
“Can I go back to L.A. now?”
“You’re free to go. But if anything else comes to mind, you call us. Likewise, we’ll call you.”
“Got it.”
He didn’t shake my hand. He just opened the door. When I stepped out of the bus, Rachel was waiting for me. We were in the
front parking lot of the Mesa Verde Inn. It was close to five in the morning but neither of us seemed very tired. The paramedics
had checked her out. The swelling was already beginning to subside but she had a badly cut and bruised lip and a contusion
below the corner of her left eye. She had refused a transport to a local hospital for further examination. The last thing
she would do at this point would be leave the center of the investigation.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“I’m okay,” she said. “How are you?”
“I’m fine. Bantam said I’m clear to take off. I think I’ll catch the first flight back to L.A.”
“You’re not going to stay for the press conference?”
I shook my head.
“What are they going to say that I don’t already know?”
“Nothing.”
“How long do you think you’ll be here?”
“I don’t know. I guess until they wrap things up. Which won’t happen until we know all there is to know.”
I nodded and checked my watch. The first flight to L.A. probably wouldn’t be for another two hours.
“You want to go get breakfast somewhere?” I asked.
She tried to crinkle her lips to show disdain for the idea but the pain foiled the effort.
“I’m not that hungry. I just wanted to say good-bye. I need to get back to Western Data. They found the mother lode.”
“Which is what?”
“An unaccounted-for server that both McGinnis and Courier had been accessing. It’s got archived videos, Jack. They filmed
their crimes.”
“And both of them are in the videos?”
“I haven’t seen them but I am told they are not readily identifiable. They wear masks and shoot at angles that mostly show
their victims, not them. I was told that in one of the videos, McGinnis is wearing an executioner’s hood—like the one worn
by the Zodiac.”
“You’re kid—Wait a minute, he’d have to be sixty-some years old to be the Zodiac.”
“No, they’re not suggesting that—you can buy the hood in cult stores in San Francisco. It’s just a sign of who they are. It’s
like having your book on the bedside. They know history. And it shows how much fear plays a part in their program. Scaring
their victims was part of the rush.”
I didn’t think you needed to be an FBI profiler to understand that. But it brought to mind how truly horrible the last moments
of their victims’ lives were.
I once again remembered the audiotape of the Bittaker and Norris torture session in the back of the van. I couldn’t listen
then. I almost didn’t want the answer to the question I had now.
“Is Angela on film?”
“No, she was too recent. But there are others.”
“You mean victims?”
Rachel glanced over my shoulder at the door to the FBI bus and then back at me. I guessed that she might be talking out of
turn, no matter the deal I supposedly had.
“Yes. They haven’t looked at everything yet but they have at least six different victims. McGinnis and Courier were doing
this a long time.”
Now I wasn’t so sure I wanted to leave. The bottom line was that the bigger the body count, the bigger the story. Two killers,
at least six victims… If it was possible for the story to get bigger than it already was, then it had just happened.
“What about the braces? Were you right about that?”
She nodded solemnly. It was one of those times that being right wasn’t such a good thing.
“Yeah, they made the victims wear leg braces.”
I shook my head as if to ward off the thought of it. I checked my pockets. I had no pen and my notebook was back up in my
room.
“You have a pen?” I asked Rachel. “I need to write this down.”
“No, Jack, I don’t have a pen to give you. I told you more than I should have. At this point it’s just raw data. Wait till
I have a better handle on everything and then I’ll call you. Your deadline isn’t for another twelve hours, at least.”
She was right. I had a full day to put the story together, and the information would develop through the day. Besides that,
I knew that when I got back to the newsroom, I would face the same issue as the week before. I was part of the story again.
I had killed one of the two men the story was about. Conflict of interest dictated that I wouldn’t be writing it. I was going
to sit with Larry Bernard once again and feed him a front-page story that would echo around the world. It was frustrating
but by now I was getting used to it.
“All right, Rachel. I guess I’ll go up and pack my stuff, then head to the airport.”
“Okay, Jack. I’ll call you. I promise.”
I liked that she promised before I had to ask. I looked at her for a moment, wanting to make a move to touch and hold her.
She seemed to read me. She took the first step and pulled me into a tight embrace.
“You saved my life tonight, Jack. You think you’re getting out of here with just a handshake?”
“I was sort of hoping there would be more than that.”
I kissed her lightly on the cheek, avoiding her bruised lips. If Agent Bantam or anybody else behind the smoked black windows
of the FBI mobile command center was watching, neither one of us cared.
It was almost a minute before Rachel and I separated. She looked into my eyes and nodded.
“Go write your story, Jack.”
“I will… if they let me.”
I turned and walked toward the hotel.
A
ll eyes were on me as I walked through the newsroom. It had spread as quickly as a Santa Ana wind through the newsroom that
I had killed a man the night before. Many probably thought I had avenged Angela Cook. Others may have thought I was some sort
of danger freak who put myself in harm’s way for the thrill of it.
As I approached my cubicle the phone was buzzing and the message light was on. I put my backpack on the floor and decided
I would deal with all the callers and messages later. It was almost eleven o’clock, so I walked over to the raft to see if
Prendo was in yet. I wanted to get this part over with. If I was going to give my information to another reporter, I wanted
to start giving it up now.