Erased (19 page)

What threw Sara off was the remarkable coordination and execution of it all. They’d gotten her separated from her family and put her into some sort of hypnotic trance -that was the only way to explain her screwed up memory- then, when they were ready, they’d somehow managed to get Sara on that roof. Who would have the resources or ability to do all that? Who would even dream up such a scheme?

Sara racked her brain for a connection. Was Jim a member of an extremist group? It was possible, she supposed, but it didn’t seem likely. The Jim she knew was mostly interested in partying. He wasn’t the type to care about politics, or anything else as long as it didn’t affect his good time. And Steve… Sara didn’t even know if there was a connection with Steve, other than the fact he was friends with Jim. It might not be a bad idea to talk to Steve, though. If there was anyone left who might have some insight into the situation, it was Steve. And if Steve was involved… well, Sara still had a gun…

“Sara!”

She froze at the sound of her name. Sara turned in the direction of the voice, and saw a young black woman standing next to the stage. She was behind the fence, a dozen yards away. Sara knew instantly that she was a cop. Sara took a step back.

“Wait, Sara! I need to talk to you!”

Sara turned and ran.

She tore down the sidewalk and went barreling into the busy morning traffic on Powell Street. She made it halfway across the street before the blare of a particularly loud horn caught her attention. It was a delivery truck. The driver laid on the horn and slammed on the brakes, but there was no way he could stop in time. Sara was standing directly between the truck and an old blue sedan that had stopped when she ran into traffic.

She turned and leapt into the air, landing sideways on the trunk of the sedan. The instant she landed, the grill of the truck plowed into the car. The impact sent the smaller vehicle rolling forward, and at the same time, threw Sara into the air. There was a bounce as the sedan and truck both recoiled from the crash. Sara dropped between them and landed hard on the asphalt. Then, as the sedan bounced between the truck and the vehicle in front of it, the gap closed over Sara’s head. The bumpers of the two vehicles engaged and a dark shadow passed over her. Sara’s instincts took over. If she stayed there, she was going to die.

She rolled sideways onto her belly. She was under the engine of the truck, and as it shook, the hot exhaust pipes came down and smacked her across the back. Her leather jacket hissed and Sara let out a scream as the hot material scorched her skin. She frantically crawled forward under the belly of the truck, and then popped out on the passenger side.

“Hey, what’r you doin’?” somebody shouted. “You okay, lady?”

Sara leaped across the hood of a tiny red Cooper with racing stripes and then dodged through the pedestrians on the sidewalk. She turned left onto Sutter Street and ran. Behind her, Sara heard the female cop screaming her name.

Sara ran to the far corner and paused there to get her bearings. Sutter stretched out ahead of her, almost directly west, and Mason dropped away to the south and climbed up the hill to the north. What was her best chance of losing the cop? If she climbed the hill, the cop would probably gain on her faster. If she could get lost in the crowd though, Sara might duck into an alley and backtrack.

Sara’s thoughts were interrupted by the squeal of tires. A small Volvo station wagon screeched to a halt next to her, and the passenger door flew in. “Get in!” the driver shouted.

Sara bent down and saw a familiar face. She blinked, scanning her memory. “I know you,” she muttered. Then it came to her. He was the conspiracy nut, the guy who’d given her the flyer about the rally the previous day. Sara glanced back down the street. The cop was getting closer.

“Hurry up, get in! You gonna trust me or them?”

Sara spared the woman one last glance and climbed into the car. The man shoved the old Volvo into gear and jumped into traffic. Sara craned her neck, watching the woman disappear behind them.

“I’m Brian,” the man said, offering his hand. Sara shook it.

“Sara Murphy.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ve been looking for you.”

Chapter 32

When Sara crawled into Brian’s old Volvo wagon Saturday morning, the first thing she noticed was the overwhelming smell of French fries. She took a deep, mystified breath. “WVO,” Brian said with a proud smile. “Waste veggie oil. My car runs off it. It’s a modified diesel. Costs me a buck-fifty a gallon. Plus it smells like French fries, which ain’t a bad thing!” He patted the dash in a display of affection.

Sara smiled weakly. She’d never had to worry about the price of gas, and she certainly wouldn’t have been proud of a car that smelled like fast food. “Where are we going?”

“My place. Don’t worry, it’s safe.” Brian was interrupted by the chirping of a police scanner. Sara glanced down and saw the receiver attached to the bottom of the dash. Brian adjusted the volume down. “You’ve sure been giving the police a run for their money.”

“Who are you?” she said. “You said you had been looking for me?”

“Yes. I was hoping I’d get to you before they did. I know who’s after you. I knew the truth would never get out unless I found you first.”

“Who’s after me?” Sara said.

“You ever heard of the OSS?”

“Sounds familiar,” Sara said with a shrug. “Aren’t they a branch of the British Army or something?”

“No, you’re thinking of the SAS. The OSS is the older version of the CIA, the Office of Strategic Services. They were America’s first intelligence agency. They trained resistance fighters in Germany and Austria during World War II; they infiltrated enemy governments, stole secret codes, stuff like that. They provided arms to resistance fighters and even did a few assassinations… the OSS was the original CIA.”

“And that’s who’s after me?” Sara said skeptically. It sounded like some wild conspiracy theory. That would make sense. Brian was the type.

“Sort of. See, the OSS was dismantled back in the forties by Truman. Officially, anyway. He broke it apart and then set up the CIA. But the OSS didn’t entirely disappear. It became a black ops project. That way, while everybody was watching the CIA, the OSS could continue doing the real nasty stuff.”

“So you think the CIA is just a front?” she said. She tried to hide the amused grin that was creeping across her lips.

“Not exactly. The CIA is a true intelligence agency. They just don’t get their hands too dirty. And whenever something smells fishy, everyone looks at the CIA and they find nothing. The good ol’ USA comes up smelling like roses. Meanwhile, the OSS is doing it all: smuggling drugs, arming third world revolutionaries…”

“And assassinating people?” Sara finished.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”

“That’s nuts. I don’t believe it.”

“You better believe it,” Brian said.

“I can’t. The government wouldn’t do that.
Our
government wouldn’t kill its own citizens.”

“Really?” Brian said. “What’s your theory then? Who do you think has been trying to kill you for the last twenty-four hours? What’s the connection between you and Fortress? Are you a psycho, like they said on the news?”

Sara leaned forward and ran her fingers through her ratty hair. “I don’t know.”

“Lady, you are in trouble. Do you know how much trouble you’re in?”

“Yes,” Sara said flatly. She felt a tremor in her chest, and her voice cracked as he spoke. “They have my family.”

Brian gave her a long look and then he let out a low whistle. “All right,” he said at last. “We’re going to think this through. We’ll be safe at my place.”

He pulled into a parking garage just a few blocks west of Union Square and drove down to the basement. “I was listening to the scanner last night,” he said as he pulled into a dark, secluded parking spot. “They said you shot somebody.”

Sara reached back, and pulled out the pistol. “I didn’t mean to,” she said. “Jim turned on me… he tried to attack me.”

“It’s okay. Here, give it to me. I’ll get rid of it.”

Sara thought about it a moment. She hesitated, and then shook her head. “No. I might need it again,” she said. “Believe me, I don’t want to shoot anybody else but I will if I have to.”

“Okay. Put it away then. Follow me.”

Brian’s place was a tiny t-shirt shop two blocks away. There were iron bars on the windows and the door was secured by a heavy iron grating that slid back when Brian unlocked it. “This is it,” he said as they entered. “My humble abode.”

The t-shirt shop was a long, narrow room. Brian had plastered the walls with t-shirts, and they dangled from strings all over the store. Some of them had custom graphics, others displayed political slogans or crude jokes. An old electric cash register sat on a narrow counter against the inside wall. “It’s not much but it pays the bills,” he said.

There was a wall at the back of the shop with a doorway that opened into another small room. Brian led the way past a small collection of aging silkscreen and printing machines, and into a stairwell so steep and narrow it couldn’t possibly have been legal.

Upstairs, Brian had an apartment. It was a studio, one big room with a stove and refrigerator at one end, and a bathroom at the other. Brian had a pullout couch and an old TV sitting in the middle of the room. He closed the couch and gestured for Sara to have a seat. “You want some coffee or something?”

“Coffee would be good,” Sara said. Brian started a pot and then settled down on a chair across from her.

“Ok, tell me everything you can remember,” he said.

Sara related the entire story as well as she could remember, and as much as she could make sense of it. Brian listened intently, saving his questions for later. When Sara was done, they had finished off the first pot of coffee and started a second.

“So you really don’t remember anything about the assassination?” Brian said.

“Nothing. I woke up on the roof. I heard the gun shot.” She leaned forward caressing her forehead. “It just doesn’t make sense. I don’t know why they would have picked me. I don’t know what they wanted from me.” Sara started to cry and she took a deep breath to calm herself. “How could they tear my whole life apart? They took everything.”

“Maybe there’s something else you don’t remember,” Brian offered. “Maybe you blacked out or something.”

“Maybe. Maybe I’ve been blacked out for three months.”

Brian set his cup on the end table next to the couch. “That’s not the first time you said that. What’s the ‘three months’? Why are you so specific about that time period?”

“It’s something that Jim said. He said Scott had left me three months ago. And then I had this dream. I remember…” Sara’s jaw dropped.

“What is it?”

“I remember now. It’s the day, the day I’ve been reliving.” Brian looked at her askance, and Sara shook her head as if to shake out the cobwebs. “Bree’s first day of school was in August. She started first grade. I think that’s the day that I’ve been reliving over and over. Something must have happened that day…” she trailed off.

“Do you think that what Jim said could be true? Could Scott have left you for some reason?”

Sara leaned back and closed her eyes. Guilt and shame surged up inside of her. She could barely bring himself to tell the story. “I cheated on Scott,” she said quietly. “I had a business meeting about a year ago. I had too much to drink, and then Jim started hitting on me… I didn’t go home that night. The next day, Scott and I fought. It wasn’t much of a fight, though. More like him yelling and me crying.”

“But you worked it out?” said Brian.

“I don’t know. I thought we did. But after yesterday, after talking to Jim… I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

“Have you talked to anyone else, besides me and Jim?”

“No.” She stared at Brian for a minute. “Steve…” she muttered.

“Steve?”

“Yeah. My boss.” Sara felt a surge of hope and something of a plan began to form in the back of her mind. “He would know. He could tell me the truth.”

Brian looked doubtful. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to bring anybody else into this…”

“No, you don’t get it.
Steve would know
! He would know if Jim was telling the truth or not.”

“How would he know?” Brian said. “What if he’s in on it? Steve could be one of them, just like Jim.”

Sara stared at him. “I have to take that risk,” she said. “If Steve’s lying to me, I’ll know. What time is it?”

Brian glanced at his watch. “Ten-thirty.”

“Perfect. Let’s go!” Sara jumped up and headed for the door.

“Wait! Wait a minute. Do you really think this is a good idea? You want to go out in broad daylight? You want to go talk to your boss and drag him into this thing, too? There’s got to be a better way.”

“No, this is the only way,” Sara said firmly. “It’s the only way I’ll know for sure.”

“It’s too risky. And what about the killers? I thought you wanted to get these guys. I thought you wanted to find your family.”

“I will,” Sara said. “Let’s go.”

Brian sighed and grabbed his jacket.

Chapter 33

Stryker had become a creature of habit. He had become lazy and complacent. Konrad knew this because he’d been watching Stryker for a long time. Konrad knew that Stryker took the same route from the hotel to the Warehouse every day. He drove north on Van Ness all the way across town, and then turned right on North Point. He could practically time it. Konrad waited there, on Van Ness, where he’d have a clear view.

He arrived early, entering the parking garage at seven a.m., and drove to the roof. He walked up to the concrete barrier and stared down at the street below. Traffic crawled by. The stoplights allowed five or six cars through at a time before they changed. Drivers merged back and forth in the futile hope of getting through the light a bit more quickly.

For half an hour, Konrad watched and waited. Leery drivers parked nearby, eyeing him suspiciously as they locked their cars and headed to work. Konrad ignored them. He kept his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket, not because it was a cold and foggy morning but because he didn’t want to take his finger off the wireless trigger that would activate the bomb in Stryker’s car.