“No. That way. There must be a tank near those towers.” It was a big game of shuffling fuel supplies to safer storage areas until the
yanqui
-inspired coup was crushed. The damned Americans! Thinking they could control anyone who did not fall in line with their imperialist ways!
“Well, how far does this line go the other way? There’s no cutoff valve on this side,” the first crewman complained.
The second crewman walked off the distance to the underground tank, noting where the outlet valve was before returning to his partner. “I estimate forty-five meters.”
“You mean we’re going to backfill forty-five meters of empty pipe? And what do we do with the remainder? Huh? This tree is above flow level, and it is going to act like a trap.” The crewman’s knowledge of chemicals might not be to the level that those who made the devilish substances was, but he knew that you never left a line full of cryogenically cooled nitrogen tetroxide. That liquid had to go into a similarly refrigerated tank. “Is there enough room to drain the leftover back into that other tank?”
“No, the lieutenant said it’s full, remember,” the second crewman said. “That’s why we’re not pumping to it.”
“Well, how are we supposed to do this?” He surveyed the tree. The work was adequate, but no one had thought to install a backflow valve to prevent what he was trying to figure a way around. Forty-five meters of empty line!
Empty?
“Aha!”
“What?”
“Is there a fill pump on the outlet of the full tank?”
“Yes,” the second crewman answered without knowing what his partner was thinking.
“There! We have it. Just prime the line with some of what is in that tank. It’s the same chemical. Then, when we fill the empty, we drain the line back into the full tank.”
“I may be the optimist, but you are the genius.”
The crewman nodded acceptingly. “Of course I am. Now start that pump and prime this line so we can get out of here.” Another explosion thundered through the complex from a distance. Someone must want something around here, he thought, with no knowledge that his “genius” had just altered the value of that desired by an appreciable degree.
* * *
Gennadiy Timofeyevich Konovalenko set the handset easily and slowly into its cradle. It was a forced calm, one with rage behind its tranquil facade, as the foreign minister could readily see.
“The line from Air Defense to Marshal Kurchatov has been severed,” the president said, relaying that which his American counterpart had just informed him of. The rest of the conversation took just seconds to relate.
Yakovlev shared his leader’s stone-like expression and let out a breath, one equal in both relief and dread. “So, it is happening.”
“Georgiy Ivanovich and his cohorts could not let such an opportunity pass,” the president observed. “We knew this would happen eventually.”
The interior minister looked to the clock behind the president. A gift from the American ambassador, it blended perfectly with the Spartan decor that the president preferred. Once owned by the great American Benjamin Franklin, the timepiece, an intricate set of springs and gears inside a polished maple case, now held a place of honor in the office of the president of the Russian Federation. It was a reminder of what was possible when a people were sailing the uncharted waters of history, as the Russian people now were. And of the perils. The making of America had not been without its challenges. Neither would be the making of the new Russia. Anticipation of those challenges was the first step in overcoming them. The rest required only determination...and some luck.
“It will not be long, then, until there is some movement,” Yakovlev said, mentally noting the time. “Either a missile at dawn or rifles before.”
The president picked up the phone. Enough time had passed for the Americans to complete the switching that was required, and which they had offered. “The Americans will handle the missile, Georgiy Ivanovich.” He pressed a single button, making the connection immediately. “And we have a few rifles ourselves... Yes, Mr. President. We are ready.”
* * *
Art left room 106 and walked into the parking lot. Already there were three dozen agents, and half as many officers of the LAPD, milling about the area. The streets were shut down for two blocks in all directions, and the nearest crowd of ghouls was a full football field away up Vermont.
And then there were the bodies. They lay where they had fallen, no attempt yet made to cover them. Those formalities would come after the Bureau photographers arrived to memorialize the crime scene on hundreds of rolls of film. Art walked past the pair of bodies, the foretold “visitors” from wherever, probably Florida, and to where his partner stood a dozen feet away. The two agents who had stayed with her politely drifted away.
“How are you?”
Frankie looked up from her focus point on the cracked black asphalt, but not at her partner. Not at anyone. “I could have killed him, Art.”
“I know.” Something in him wanted to reach out and put a hand on her shoulder, or even to pull her close and hug her, telling her that it was okay, that he understood. But he didn’t understand. And he couldn’t do the other. It wasn’t what she needed at the moment.
“But I didn’t,” she said. It was almost an admission, as though there was something unnatural in
not
blowing the guy’s brains out. “Why? I could have done it. I’ve even dreamed of it, of having the scum in my sights and he doesn’t have a gun and I shoot him over, and over, and over. I was craving the chance, but I...”
“You what?” Art asked obligingly. The thought needed to be completed, but by her.
“I realized it was real. It wasn’t some fantasy that I could play over and over until I got it right, because it never got right.” Frankie finally looked at him. “Doing it wouldn’t have been any more right than dreaming it.”
Art smiled a bit and nodded. “I told you I had faith in you.”
It was Frankie’s turn to smile, her first true one in days. “So, what does he have to say?”
Art glanced back at the room. “He suddenly became mute. You know the type.”
“Won’t rat on his
familia
, huh?” Frankie asked, her gaze traveling down to the bodies of the first two to die.
“His loyalty may be a bit in excess, considering,” Art commented, the idea coming simultaneously. “Hmm. Maybe we should fill him in on just how loyal his employer was to him and his buddy.”
“I think he has a right to know,” Frankie agreed with a bigger smile.
They were back in 106 a few seconds later. Omar Espinosa cleared the room for Art, leaving just the two agents and their suspect.
“Still don’t want to tell us your name, ‘Flavio’?” Art inquired, knowing the chance was unlikely to be seized by the perp.
Jorge rolled a bit and cocked his head to look up. The spade and the broad were there, standing over him. The door leading out was open, and lying in it was... Tomás. “Go fuck yourself, nigger.”
Art just laughed it off softly. He’d been called “nigger” by more dangerous and influential people than this pile of human waste. “Tough. That’s a good thing to be. Tough and loyal. Never rat on your buddies. That’s a good code.” He stepped back and sat on the second bed, staring into the eyes of the man he wanted to break like a matchstick. Beating him mentally, though, would be more satisfying. “It’s a bitch when your buddies don’t think the same way.”
Jorge looked again to Tomás, then to the lady pig. She was the one who had shot him. She had to be the one. So what was this nigger talking about? “Don’t play head games with me, boy. It won’t work.”
Art gave a single, slow nod, then bolted from his sitting position and grabbed the perp by one arm, jerking him off the bed to a standing position. There was a muffled cry of pain, but Art ignored it and dragged him to the door, inches from his partner’s body, and directed his face with a strong hand on the chin to look out the door.
“There is your fucking loyalty, asshole! Look!”
Jorge looked down once more to Tomás, moving only his eyes, then out to the parking lot at the two bodies lying together as one. There were...guns?...on the blacktop near the corpses. Two guns, shiny stainless-steel revolvers.
Revolvers
. The tool of...his trade, and of theirs.
“Quite a well-armed pickup service,” Art said, the perp’s head swiveling to look at him. “Oh, yeah. We know that you were expecting someone to pick up a tape. Only I don’t think they were coming just for that. Do you?”
The motherfuckers!
He had done everything to bring the job off perfectly, just like he had for them before, and they were going to repay him with this?
“You owe
us
your life,
boy
, ’cause these fellas were coming to smoke you.” Art pulled him back to the bed and lowered him against the headboard. “My partner here saved your ass.”
“But she killed Tomás,” Jorge said, his voice wavering as it had when the guns were pointed at him.
Art mentally noted the name. “And he was going to kill her. She was faster. The point is that you are alive
not
because of any of your so-called friends. Your buddy over there would have been dead anyway. And so would you.”
Frankie watched in silence as her partner wore the guy down. His manner was reverting to that which it had been when death was staring at him from the barrel of a gun. He wasn’t able to handle the fear of his own mortality. He was a coward, as most bad guys were when confronted with something they could not seize the initiative on. When killing Portero and Thom, this guy and his partner had been in control. Now the surviving member of the duo was completely without that human need, and he was coming apart.
“What’s your name?” Art asked directly, his clear, steady eyes staring into the tear-filled ones of his prisoner.
“Jorge.”
“Jorge what?” Behind, Frankie had removed her notepad.
“Jorge Alarcon, and it’s...it’s behind the dresser.”
“It?” Art asked, Frankie was already looking for whatever “it” was.
“This, partner,” Frankie said, holding up the cassette. A simple radio/tape player sat on the dresser. She opened the tape deck and dropped the cassette in.
“It’s Portero and some guy,” Jorge said with a sniffle. “That’s not what we came for.”
Well, you had the right to remain silent.
Art didn’t care if the guy hanged himself with his words. “We have that one.”
Jorge’s face showed complete surprise at the revelation. “But how?”
Frankie smiled as the tape rewound. “Wrong pocket, buddy.”
Jorge’s head dropped until his chin rested against his chest. They had blown it. Now he had also. He was broken. Having always seen himself as smarter than the cops who were his de facto enemies, he had learned that the reality was quite the opposite. Whatever lay ahead, he considered his life to be over here and now.
A loud click signaled the end of the rewind. Frankie pressed the Play button and adjusted the volume.
The first sound after the opening static was the ringing of a phone as it would be heard through the receiver. Art knew the sound. “Phone mic.”
Frankie nodded. The sound was a telltale indicator that someone was using a simple microphone, attached by suction cup to the listening end of the receiver, to record a call.
The ringing ceased, and a voice answered with the customary “Hello,” though thickly accented.
“That’s Portero,” Jorge said. He had no reason not to tell them.
“His voice is clear,” Frankie observed. “He’s the one recording this.” Her eyes narrowed as she listened to the other voice, obviously at the opposite end of the line. “But who is that?”
The voice was familiar, but Art couldn’t place it. He had heard it. His mind traced backward for familiar links. It was in a group of people. That was it. A speech. His ears strained to match the sound with a visual image tucked away somewhere among the trillions of neurons.
A speech. Where? When? Who?
The progressing conversation began to steer Art’s mental search on a narrower path. Certain words and the way they were spoken caused brief images to flash in his mind, but he could not seize on any one.
Who are you?
“
Mr. Portero...
”
“
No, please, señor. Francisco. We are speaking as friends. Francisco
.”
“
Yes. As I was saying, Mr. Portero...
”
That was it! What was being said was important, but who was saying it, and to whom, was what mattered most. “The son of a bitch.”
“Who?” Frankie asked. “That’s nothing new. Portero was just telling some guy what he knew. And whoever it was didn’t sound like he believed him.”
“Or didn’t want to believe him,” Art countered. “You don’t know who that was, do you?”
“No.” Frankie pressed Stop and ejected the tape. “Who?”
Art looked over his shoulder at their prisoner. “I’ll have to tell you later. Give me the tape. I’ve got to get this to someone.”
“Art?”
“You give your statements. I’ll fill you in later.”
Her partner was on his way out the door, instructing Omar Espinosa to take charge until Lou got there. Frankie watched him jump into King Six—his own car, King Eight, had a flat from skidding to a stop over the curb—and pull out of the lot with haste. She saw the blue and red rear deck lights come on before he turned and disappeared from view and heard the Chevy’s underhood siren come to life just after that.
“Frankie,” Omar said. “We should start on your statements.”
“Yeah,” she answered, the wail of the siren fading with each second. Her partner was pushing it fast, real fast, which only made her wonder more just what was so important about who he had recognized on the tape. But wonder was all she could do for the moment. There were three bodies scattered across the $22.50 Motel, all brought down by her hand. And she would have to justify each and every shot. Killing within the law, unlike the handiwork done by the whimpering perp they had just busted, was not so easily set aside, professionally or personally. Special Agent Francine Aguirre would answer the questions, write the narrative, dot every
i
and cross every
t
, and then, at some time in the foreseeable future, she would go home to her little girl and try to explain why Mommy had to kill three people. If only that were as instantly easy as the six pulls on the trigger. “Let’s get this done.”