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“Yes.”

“If you try to screw me over again I’m going to kill everyone you love, and then I’m going to kill you. Understand?”

“Yes, I understand. I’ll get the money. Where do you want me to take it?”

“I’ll be calling you back shortly. Until then, I recommend you stay off the phone.”

The line went dead. Wendy dialed Konrad’s number. He didn’t answer. She dialed again, and listened to it ringing.

She’d been stupid to think she could have had Stryker killed so easily. Stupid to trust Konrad. The man was too arrogant for his own good. Wendy had believed Konrad was as good as he said he was. That was a fatal mistake. Apparently, it had already proven fatal for Konrad.

Still, that didn’t mean the situation couldn’t be salvaged. Stryker just wanted his money. She’d give it to him and get the briefcase. He would try to disappear of course, but that didn’t matter. Once Wendy had that briefcase, she’d be holding the cards again. She’d send more assassins after him. By the time she was done with Stryker, he’d wish Konrad
had
killed him.

Wendy threw her phone on the seat and gripped the steering wheel.
It was only half a million dollars
, she thought. Why hadn’t she just given it to him in the first place? He could have asked for a lot more.

Flashing red and blue lights in the rear view mirror yanked her from her thoughts. It was the highway patrol. Wendy eased off the road. She rolled down the window and waited.

“Can I see your license and registration, ma’am?” the cop said as he stood next to the car.

“Of course. Just a moment. Do you know who I am?”

“No, ma’am. Do you know it’s against the law in California to drive while talking on a cell phone?”

Wendy grimaced and clenched her jaw.

Chapter 49

Brandy drove north on Highway 1, following the coastline. The entire trip took about an hour and a half, which wasn’t bad. She tried to call Lee several times, but she couldn’t get through because of the spotty cell coverage. The one time she succeeded, he didn’t answer. She left a message. The call was dropped at some point, but she was fairly sure most of it had gotten recorded.

There wasn’t much traffic on the narrow winding highway, but Brandy noted that the parking lots were full at the restaurants and touristy motels along the route. That wasn’t surprising. The weather was nice and the city dwellers were trying to stretch their summer out as long as they could. It was October, so the rainy season would be starting in a few more weeks.

Brandy finally pulled into the tiny, isolated coastal town of Bodega Bay at eight p.m. She followed the highway through town and turned sharply down the narrow crawling road that led to the bay. She passed a dozen boutique galleries, coffee shops, and kite stores on the way.

At the base of the hill, Brandy turned onto Bay Flat Road. It swooped around in a long arc, following the curve of the bay until it hit the fishing marina. Then the road straightened out and the water all but disappeared between the densely packed fishing boats tethered to the docks at the water’s edge, and the cluster of old warehouses and cottages that lay scattered between the ocean and the steep hills to the west. The old fish factory where Stryker had said to meet her was there, at the western edge of the bay, just south of the docks.

Brandy frowned as she drove up and saw squad cars and fire trucks lining the street. Uniformed deputies and firefighters scurried back and forth along the road. A Coast Guard boat sat anchored in the rippling waters beyond the docks. The Honda that Stryker had stolen was in the parking lot. Brandy parked and sighed deeply as she stared at the pandemonium. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

A tall, heavyset sheriff approached her and she stepped out of the car. “I’m going to have to ask you to move along, ma’am,” he said sternly.

Brandy flashed her ID and fixed him with a hard stare. “Are you in charge?”

“Um, yeah,” he said sheepishly. “I’m Sheriff Curtiss.”

“Who ordered all of this? Did you do this?”

“We uh, I got a call…” He stammered. He was flustered, unaccustomed to answering to anyone, much less a diminutive woman in civilian clothing. Unfortunately for Sheriff Curtiss, Brandy was running out of patience.

“You got a call from
who
?”

“9-1-1. We got an emergency call that there was a hostage situation.”

Brandy whipped out her cell phone, intending to call Inspector Lee and give him an earful. No signal. “Did the call come from San Francisco PD?” she said. If Lee was responsible for this, she was going to strangle him.

“No. The call was made from inside this building.” Sheriff Curtiss glanced down at her phone. “If you drive up on the ridge you might pick up a signal. You got a nice phone but that carrier sucks.”

“I’ve noticed. Can I use your radio?”

“Sure.”

Brandy was in the process of trying to connect with Inspector Lee when a black van pulled up and he crawled out with five other investigators. He greeted her with a wave. “I see you got my message,” he said.

Brandy looked baffled. “Message?”

“Yeah. About Murphy, that Stryker was bringing her here…”

“Wait a minute,” said Brandy. “How did you know Stryker and Murphy were here?”

“He called me. Said they were coming here and we better bring his money.”

Brandy leaned up against the patrol car, stroking her chin. “He called me too,” she said absently. “Your cell phone wasn’t connecting so I left you a message at your office. Did you bring the money?”

“No, I contacted the mayor’s office but she wouldn’t have anything to do with this. I tried to get hold of Paolini, but she wasn’t at home and wasn’t answering her cell phone. What does she have to do with all this, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Brandy said. “Apparently she owes money to Stryker. He claims that he used to work for her, and that the explosion downtown was her trying to have him killed.”

“Interesting,” Lee said. “That’s quite an accusation. Of course, it’s coming from a mercenary. You don’t believe him do you?”

“I’ll be looking into it first thing Monday morning.”

Just then, the Sonoma County bomb squad showed up, followed closely by a SWAT truck. Brandy, Lee, and Sheriff Curtiss exchanged glances. The bomb squad leader, a short bald guy who introduced himself as Mike, approached them.

“Who called you?” Brandy asked with a raised eyebrow.

“There was a 9-1-1 call about a bomb,” he said with a shrug. “We called the Sheriff’s Department for confirmation, but they were already en route. Figured we better get here before anybody tried anything stupid.” Sheriff Curtiss gave him a sharp look but Mike didn’t seem to notice.

Brandy was flabbergasted. “You’re telling me somebody in this building has been calling 911 all night long?” They all stared at each other and shrugged. “Nobody makes a move until they clear it with me,” Brandy said.

Mike and Sheriff Curtiss nodded. Brandy pulled Lee aside, out of earshot of the others. “I’m new at this. I’ve never seen something like this.”

Lee scratched the back of his head. “I’ve been a cop thirty years and never seen something like this,” he said.

Brandy glanced at the parade of uniforms and flashing lights on the street, and then at the darkened windows of the fish factory. “Okay, the way I see it, Stryker wanted us all here. Why?”

“I don’t know. To blow us all up maybe? He is a terrorist.”

She considered that. “What would be his motive? Why would he want to take out a bunch of completely unrelated LEO’s? He couldn’t possibly have a grudge against all these different agencies.”

“True,” Lee said. “Doesn’t seem very smart, either. If he killed that many cops there wouldn’t be a place in the world he could hide.”

“But he wanted us here,” Brandy said thoughtfully. “Why did he want us here?” Then the answer came to her. “Shit.”

Lee gave her a perplexed look. “What?”

“He’s not here. I don’t think Stryker’s here.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Think about it. Look at how much trouble he went to, in order to get us all here. Why would he do that? Why would he create a situation where it was almost impossible not to get caught?”

Lee nodded. “You’ve got a point.”

“Get everybody ready. We’re going in.”

“What if there’s a bomb or something?”

“There’s not. He’s just buying time. He’s probably on his way to kill Paolini right now.”

“Christ,” said Lee. “You think Sara Murphy’s in there?”

“I almost hope she’s not,” Brandy muttered.

“Yeah, I see what you mean. If she’s in there, odds are she’s already dead. Stryker wouldn’t leave her here alive.”

Brandy nodded. She stood back and watched the flurry of activity as the cops made ready for their assault. She hoped she was making the right decision. Was there something she had overlooked? Was Stryker still one step ahead of her?

The SWAT team commander got two snipers in place while the rest of the team geared up with TAC jackets, tazers, and checked their firearms. He approached her a moment later.
“We’re ready,” he said.

Brandy nodded. “Do it.”

Chapter 50

Sara saw the police coming from all the way across the bay. She watched them, and waited for what seemed like a lifetime. There were no sirens, just an eerie slow-moving stream of red and blue flashing lights that rose and fell in the darkness, winking in and out of sight as they floated along Highway 1. The lights passed through Bodega Bay and disappeared down a steep incline, and then reappeared on the road at the edge of the bay. Then they drifted out of the redwood grove beyond the docks and began the long steady arc around the western end of the bay.

Sara sat in an office at the back of the old Blue Star fish factory. It was a rarely used room with a desk, a phone, and a notepad. That was all she’d needed. Stryker had left her there incredibly, alone and completely free. And then Sara had held up her end of the agreement.

She contemplated her situation as she waited. Had she done the right thing? Had she really even had a choice? To hell with the rest of them. To hell with Paolini and the cops that had been chasing her and even Stryker. All Sara wanted was her life back. If this was what it took, so be it.

It wasn’t long before the squad cars and fire trucks began crowding into the parking lot and lining the street. Sara half-expected them to come charging in, though the rational part of her mind knew that it wouldn’t happen. As far as the police knew, they still had a hostage situation, and possibly a bomb. They had no way of knowing that Sara was alone, sitting there in the dark, watching them.

After about fifteen minutes, they started calling. Sara didn’t pick up the phone. She couldn’t bring herself to lie to them directly. Thankfully, Stryker hadn’t required her to do that. Sara watched the phone ring for about a minute and then it went silent. They waited five minutes and tried again. After that, they seemed to get the message. They gave up calling.

Time stretched out interminably. Twenty minutes. Thirty. Forty. It was then that Brandy showed up. Sara recognized her immediately. She watched with a smile as Brandy put the bullying Sheriff Curtiss in his place. Sara admired the young FBI agent. She was tough, smart. She was the one who’d been chasing Sara all this time, trying to get to the truth. Somehow, Sara knew that things could have turned out much differently without Brandy in the picture.

Eventually, Sara began to wonder if she should just go ahead and walk out. She wanted to. It would have been the right thing to do. She’d already taken the charade too far. Sara knew that if Stryker succeeded in his plans, it would haunt her forever. But what else could she do? What options had she had? When Stryker gave Sara a shot at getting her life back, he knew she’d do anything. And then, ultimately, it was such a little thing. Make a few phone calls, keep the cops busy, distracted. No problem.

Yes, there was a problem. The problem was that while the police were all distracted, Stryker was going to kill Senator Paolini. And Sara was helping him to do it.

It was eating away at her conscience, and Sara had to remind herself that she’d had little choice in the matter. She’d done what she had to in order to guarantee her family’s safety. Not to mention the fact that, should Stryker fail, he’d come back and kill them all. Stryker had made that threat before he left, and Sara knew he’d make good on it. Stryker had to succeed. It was the only way Sara and her family could ever be safe. Paolini had to die. But could Sara live with that trade?

More than an hour passed from the time Sara first saw the lights until they fired the first smoke grenade through the window. Three more came immediately after, covering the building from one end to the other. Of course, once the cops had busted all the windows out, the ocean breeze came drifting through and pulled the smoke with it. The smoke didn’t do them much good. It stank like sulfur and blinded the cops on their way into the building. It was lucky they didn’t accidentally shoot each other.

Sara sat perfectly still in the back office, anxiously watching the dark shapes pouring into the building. Green and red laser beams flashed through the haze.

They found her quickly, and verified that the room was clear of explosives. Then Brandy showed up. She stepped into the room and took in everything in a glance. She saw Sara, saw the fresh dressing on the wound on her shoulder, and saw the phone on the desk next to her.

“I’m sorry,” Sara said. His voice was full of resignation. Her shoulders sagged.

“How long ago did he leave?”

“A while,” Sara said. “More than an hour.”

“Why did you run? You know I could have helped you.”

“Ha, that’s funny. You’re not the first person to say that. Everybody wanted to help me, but nobody really wanted to help
me
.”

Brandy nodded. “I’m going to have to cuff you,” she said. “I’m taking you back to San Francisco.”

Sara rose and offered out her wrists. Lee appeared at Brandy’s side as she put the cuffs on. “You got her!”