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No, the gun wasn’t the answer. That was just going to get her killed. What she needed to do was to take control of the situation. She knew how to do that. She knew how to guide people, to control them with a few slick words and meaningless promises. She did it for a living.

Wendy pulled the door open and stepped out, arms raised. “I’ve got your money,” she said. “It’s in a bag in the trunk. Take it and go.”

“You make it sound so easy,” Stryker said. “Just go? Just like that?”

“Of course. We had a deal. You get the money and I get the movies.”

“Right, that
was the deal
, until you tried to have me killed. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a deal breaker. Besides, how far would I get before you sent another Konrad after me? Or two, or three?” He clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth. “No, I think it’s best if I take you out of the game.”

“You don’t have to do that! I won’t come after you, I swear!”

“Somehow I don’t trust you,” Stryker said. “If that were true, you would have let me go without starting all this mess. Remember? I didn’t ask for much. Just half a million. This country owes me a hell of a lot more than that, but I didn’t ask for more. I wasn’t greedy. I just wanted enough to get out, to make a life somewhere. But no, you had to screw me over. You tried to have me killed for a measly half a mil. It don’t think it would be right to let you walk away now. Not after all this. There’s some kind of principle involved, I think.”

He raised the gun and Wendy dropped to her knees. “Please, Stryker. God no, please! I have a family.”

“Stop it,” he said. “You’re pathetic.”

That stung. Wendy was surprised at the surge of pride that welled up inside of her. From somewhere, she found the courage to look him in the eye. “If you kill me they’ll never stop,” she said. “They’ll chase you to the ends of the earth.”

Stryker contemplated that for a moment. “I have a feeling they will anyway, Wendy.” He pointed the gun at her forehead.

“FREEZE, STRYKER!”

Brandy appeared out of the fog, halfway between the car and the docks, with her gun drawn. Wendy almost fainted.

Chapter 54

Shoot. Don’t shoot. Shoot.

Brandy’s mind raced, calculating hundreds of different possibilities, most leading to the same outcome. Could she hit Stryker? Yes. Could he get a shot off? Probably. Would Paolini die? Almost certainly.

Was it worth it? Now that was a tough call.

“Drop your weapon,” Brandy said. She took a step forward. Stryker responded by stepping around Paolini, putting her body between the two of them.

“You found me,” he said. The tone of his voice was one of awed admiration.

Brandy peered down the barrel of her pistol, sights lined up on Stryker’s forehead. It was an impossible shot, but it was the only part of him that was visible. “It wasn’t that hard,” she said. “In fact, you gave yourself away.”

He tilted his head, a wry smile on his face. “How? Did Murphy tell you?”

“No, she stuck to your script. Actually, I figured it out on my way out of town. You went to a lot of trouble to make sure we were all here, and that Wendy was alone in the city. It seemed obvious. Then I thought about the timing of it. You couldn’t have been that far ahead of us. Sara Murphy said you’d left an hour before we got here, but that wouldn’t have been possible. Not unless you flew. There was no way you could have beaten us to Paolini’s hotel. All we had to do was call SFPD and get a security squad on Paolini. It was too easy. I knew you were smarter than that. That’s when I realized she wasn’t even there. Just to make sure, I used the landline at the gas station to call the reservation desk.”

“Not bad,” Stryker said. “But I could have been anywhere. How did you know I’d come back here?”

“I didn’t. I ran a trace on Paolini’s cell phone. She was coming into Bodega just as I was leaving.”

“But my phone was off,” Paolini said. “You couldn’t have traced it.”

Brandy smiled. “You shut it off but you didn’t take the battery out.”

Wendy’s brow crunched up. “You can do that?”

Brandy gave her skeptical look. “You voted for the Patriot Expansion Powers didn’t you, Senator? Did you even bother to read it?”

Stryker laughed aloud and Wendy’s eyes went to the ground shamefully. Brandy didn’t smile. “Put the gun down, Stryker. You know I can shoot you faster than you can shoot her.”

“Maybe,” he said. “Only it’s not that simple. Your problem is the nervous impulses. You shoot me, I involuntarily squeeze the trigger. I wouldn’t even be able to stop it.”

The sound of sirens drifted across the bay. Stryker glanced into the fog. “You called for backup?”

“I’m not an idiot,” Brandy said. “There’s no way out now, Stryker. You only have two choices: you can stay alive and go to prison, or you can die. Don’t make me shoot you.”

Stryker’s eyes gleamed. “I like you,” he said. His face wore an amused grin. “I’m very impressed. I should have killed you but now I’m glad I didn’t. In fact, after this is over, I think I’ll let you live. But you’ve got to understand I’m not going to prison. I’m pretty sure there’s a third option you forgot to mention.”

He moved as he spoke. Stryker rotated himself forward, throwing Paolini to the ground, and dove after her. Brandy reacted instinctively by squeezing the trigger. It was a cautious shot and her aim went wide. It shattered the windshield in Paolini’s car.

Stryker was still in motion. He a fast-moving target, and Paolini was still between them. Brandy couldn’t draw a bead on him.

The senator hit the ground hard and Stryker rolled across her, pushing himself to the side. He leveled his gun and fired. The impact from his .45 almost knocked Brandy off her feet. It hit her in the shoulder and threw her off balance. She twisted sideways. Her Glock slipped from her hand and clattered to the pavement. Brandy stumbled towards it, her arm screaming in pain, her eyes blurred with tears.

Brandy was between Stryker and the docks when she caught up with the gun. Her right arm was useless. She squeezed off a shot with her left hand. It went wildly high and struck the light pole at the edge of the lot. Stryker ran straight at her, launching himself into the air, and came down behind her. He landed catlike on the strip of grass between the parking lot and the docks and broke into a run towards the water. In her muddled state of mind, Brandy couldn’t overcome the sense that Stryker had somehow
flown
over her head.

Then she heard gunshots. Brandy hit the deck and rolled. When she raised her head, she saw Paolini leaning up against the front bumper of her car like a rag doll, firing her tiny .32 just as fast as she could squeeze the trigger. She fired all six rounds and then pulled the trigger a few more times. The senator stopped at last and stared helplessly at her gun, wondering why it wouldn’t fire anymore.

Brandy pushed herself up to her feet. She grimaced as pain shot up and down her body. She pressed her hand to the wound, trying to slow the bleeding. She saw Stryker’s dark form limping away, halfway down the dock. Brandy raised her Glock and stumbled forward.

“Freeze, Stryker! STAY WHERE YOU ARE!”

Stryker kept walking. Brandy struggled internally, unable to bring herself to shoot him in the back. Instead, she holstered her Glock and went racing after him. She made it three steps before the boats on both sides of the dock exploded.

Half a dozen massive fireballs roared up into the sky. For a moment, night became day. Brandy squinted against the brightness. Then the shockwave hit her and she fell back onto the grass partition at the end of the docks.

The rush of air was painfully hot, and Brandy threw her arms up over her head. She closed her eyes and held her breath for a few seconds until it passed.

When she lowered her arms, the flickering light of the fires cast an eerie glow through the fog. Brandy wandered partway down the dock. She found a trail of blood leading to the water. Stryker was nowhere to be seen. The bay waters were black and choppy, mirroring the flashing light of the fires. He was gone.

She slowly made her way back up the hill, and found Wendy still propped up against the grill of her Mercedes.

“Did I get him?” Paolini said.

“Yeah, you shot him all right.”

Wendy began laughing hysterically. “I shot Stryker? I shot him!” Her hand went to her forehead and then slid down to cover her mouth. “Is he dead?”

Brandy watched her, emotionless, somewhat disgusted. “No, he’s not dead. He’s gone.”

Paolini started to scream.

Chapter 55

Brandy took Paolini’s revolver out of her hands and set it on the hood of her car. Three squad cars rolled into the parking lot a moment later. Sheriff Curtiss came rushing up. “We’ve got an officer shot!” he shouted. He called for an EMT.

The next fifteen minutes were a flurry of faces and noise and questions. One of the paramedics explained to Brandy that the bullet had missed her major arteries. It had made a clean pass through her shoulder and had cauterized the wound. Her vitals were stable. He suggested she spend the night at the hospital and get some x-rays just in case, but Brandy shooed him away.

She found the Sheriff interviewing Paolini next to his sedan. He looked flustered. “I don’t understand how you all ended up here,” he said. “Last I heard, everyone was headed back to San Francisco.”

Brandy gave him a quick explanation of what had happened. Then she turned her attention to Paolini. “I still don’t understand what you had to do with this,” Brandy said. “Why was Stryker after you?”

“I don’t know,” Paolini lied. “He wanted money. He said he’d kill me if I didn’t give him half a million dollars.”

“That’s what he said when he called me,” Brandy said. “He said you owed him. Did you know him? Why would Stryker think you owed him money?”

“I don’t know…” her voice trailed off.

“Did you bring the money?” said the Sheriff.

Paolini gestured weakly. “It’s in the trunk. A duffel bag.”

It took a few minutes to sort out the issue with the key. The deputies located it at the edge of the parking area and opened the trunk.

“It’s not here,” the Sheriff announced. He lifted a small hard drive out of the trunk and showed it to Brandy. “Nothing but this.”

Wendy’s eyes widened. She staggered around to the back of the vehicle and stared into the empty space. “It was there,” she said. “Half a million dollars…”

“It’s got to be around here somewhere,” Curtiss said. “He probably hid it in the building, or on one of these boats.”

Brandy glanced towards the bay. “No, it’s not here,” she said. “Your money’s gone, and Stryker’s gone, too.”

“In the water?” said Curtiss. “How could he swim in the water with a half a million dollars? Besides, I thought you said he was injured. How do you know he’s not belly up out there somewhere?”

“I just know,” Brandy said. “Trust me, Stryker’s gone.” She glanced down at the hard drive in the Sheriff’s hands. “Is that yours, Mrs. Paolini?”

“No,” Wendy said. “I’ve never seen it before…” then a frantic look came over her and she said, “Wait! I mean yes, yes it’s mine. Give it to me.”

Brandy raised her eyebrows. “Well is it yours, or isn’t it?”

“Yes, it’s mine. Can I have it please?”

Brandy gave her a sharp look. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to take this into evidence, Senator. You can have it after our investigation’s over.”

Chapter 56

Sara had to spend a few hours in a holding cell, but she was lucky enough to be alone. She was sitting on the hard plastic cot with her head leaned back against the concrete wall when the door swung open with a loud creak, yanking her out of a half-slumber. It was two a.m. Brandy stepped into the room, smiling broadly.

“You had enough?” she said.

Sara gave her a doubtful stare. “Am I under arrest?”

“No, we’re not pressing any charges. I understand why you did what you did.”

Brandy’s right arm was in a sling. Sara didn’t notice it until Brandy turned to face her, because it was covered by her jacket. “Did you get him?” she said. “Did you catch Stryker?”

Brandy bit her lower lip. “Well, not exactly.”

Sara dropped her head into her hands. “It’ll never be over,” she said. “Never.”

Brandy placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Stryker was bleeding badly. He jumped into the bay. Do you know how many sharks are in that water? I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

“But I’ll never know,” Sara said grimly. “I’ve lost everything; my home, my job… I’ll never be able to sleep. Every time I walk into my house or start my car, I’ll wonder if this is it, if this is the time the bomb goes off…”

Brandy gave her an empathetic smile. “I’m sorry,” she said. “For what it’s worth, I really don’t think he’ll be back. Even if he’s alive, I’m pretty sure Stryker got what he wanted.”

Sara lifted her head and looked Brandy in the eyes. “What do you mean?”

Brandy smiled. “Well, he got his money. We searched those docks top to bottom and couldn’t find it. Plus, there’s this…” She reached under her jacket and pulled out a sheet of paper.

“What’s this?”

“It’s an advance press release from the Chronicle. That’ll be front page news tomorrow.”

Sara glanced it over. It was a news article. The headline read:

Documentaries from Beyond the Grave: Movies reveal slavery, abuse at E.L.S., China.

She skimmed the article, hardly believe what she was reading. “That’s what this was all about?” she said incredulously. “A documentary?”

“That’s why Fortress was killed,” Brandy said. “And Michael Turner, also. He’s the producer who made the films.”

“But why? I don’t understand.”

“E.L.S. is the world’s largest manufacturer of entertainment electronics. Everything from video game machines to smart phones. Their stock is worth billions. Turns out, they were keeping prices low by using slave labor. Child slave labor, too. The conditions were appalling: five and ten-year-old kids dying of exhaustion and starvation on the assembly line, their bodies covered with blisters and boils. They get abused, too. They’d get beaten if they stopped working. They got raped. They’re surrounded by toxic waste. It’s the most God-awful thing I’ve ever seen. I cried when I saw the movie. I could only watch fifteen minutes, but the whole documentary is three hours long.”