Spiral (50 page)

"I'm not quite that sure," Haydon said. "But it seems they would be running a tremendous risk to go ahead with it after those pictures hit the news tonight."

"You'll get me something in writing on Bias's background?" Dystal reminded him.

"In the morning."

"Along with Miss Moreno's stuff," Dystal said.

Haydon, already walking out the door, nodded, waved, and kept going.

On the way to her house with Haydon and Mitchell, Renata Islas assured Haydon that she was not in the least afraid to go back to her bungalow in the little compound off Canal Street. She was in a good humor, saying that she felt better than she had in years because she felt she had made some real progress in striking a blow at the
tecos.
Haydon assured her he would keep her apprised of what was happening, and thanked her for making the hurried and tiresome round-trip flight to Guadalajara. He went into her house with her and insisted on waiting in her living room while she checked the rest of the house. She laughed at him, saying that she had been going into her house alone for five years, and that tonight was no different. But when she came back into the living room from checking the rest of the house, her smile seemed somehow sad. Haydon did not think it was the dim lighting that made her eyes sparkle as she thanked him and said that it was good to have a man care in that way again.

Haydon walked back to the Vanden Plas, got in, and started the motor. "All right," he said, turning on the headlights and pulling away from the curb. "You've been incredibly patient, Mitchell. What's the matter?"

Garner turned to him and said, "How many people knew we were going to Guadalajara, Stuart?"

Haydon felt immediately uneasy. "Just us, and Dystal. I had to let him know. Why?"

"We picked up tails at the Guadalajara airport," Garner said. "You know I'm no expert on this sort of thing, but I spotted these two guys on a fluke. When we got to the airport there were no flights coming in or leaving. The place was relatively deserted. In fact, I probably wouldn't have spotted them if Renata and her friend hadn't decided to go to the rest room as soon as we got there. I let them walk off, wanting to stretch my legs a little, and then I immediately thought better of letting them go off alone, so I started after them. They were just on the other side of the concourse, and I saw which corridor they were heading for. I was so far behind them there were several people in between us.

"It just so happened that everyone turned off before the women got to the rest rooms except this one guy who thought, I'm sure, that they were heading for the exit at the far end of the corridor. He was closing the gap behind them when they suddenly turned into the rest room. He walked on by, then made a U-turn and stopped. I realized he'd been following them, and was a little flustered that he had seen me make him. I stopped too, and looked behind me in time to see a second man stop and turn back to a water fountain a few steps away. There were only the three of us in the corridor. The man who had been following the women simply looked at me, and the one at the water fountain finished his drink and then headed back to the concourse. The other guy and I stayed where we were until Renata and Consuela came out. They were so busy talking they didn't even notice him, and the three of us walked back to the concourse. The man in the corridor didn't follow us directly, but let the second one pick us up as we entered the larger part of the airport. It was an accident that I made them, but I'm sure of what I saw."

"They were Mexicans?"

"One was. The other was Anglo."

"How old was the Anglo?"

Garner hesitated, thinking. "I don't know. I guess . . ."

"Young enough to have been Elkin?"

"No," Garner said quickly. "No. He was early forties. He couldn't have been."

"That's all that happened, just what you've told me?"

"That's it."

Haydon drove in silence a little way. "I don't know what to think," he said. "But as soon as we get home I'm going to have a stakeout put on Islas's house. I don't know how to figure this. I have a feeling we're just on the edges of this thing. And I think that's where we're going to stay."

Chapter 51

B
LAS
drove. It was the only thing he knew he could do and still feel as if he were in control. If he sat still, he would have the tendency to think they knew precisely where he was. He knew that, because it had happened to him before. More than once. So he drove, his swollen wrist throbbing in his lap.

He was sweating profusely, but it had nothing to do with the temperature. The new rental car had a superb air conditioner, which he turned on high. But it wasn't the heat. It was a cold sweat and it began as he stood by the palms at Latouche's, listening to Rubio screaming Negrete! Negrete! Negrete! and then the car crash, and the scream of the radio. He felt as if he were being lowered into the Pacific, into the green waters off Cabo Corrientes, down, down to thirty-three feet, where the pressure was twice what it was on the surface, down to sixty-six feet, where the pressure was three times what it was on the surface, down, down .. .

He was not sure that it wouldn't actually kill him someday. It wasn't the confrontation he feared, for he had never panicked in a firefight, or even when it had been worse than that, as in the gritty back streets of Cartagena or the jungles beyond Monkey River Town. The great fear was the squeezing pressure of waiting. When he had heard Rubio screaming he had not felt afraid for Rubio, nor for himself. He had begun to sweat because the scream had announced the beginning of the waiting.The waiting was a fearful thing because Death hid behind it, and Death hiding was a fearful thing. He had seen Death
mano a mano,
and it no longer horrified him. Horror, up close, loses its meaning, because you believe yourself to be, at that point, lost, and your mind provides you a state of grace. He had gone that far before, twice, but he had come back. Death had not taken him, and once he had regained his distance, his mind took away the grace and reinstated the horror. So he did not fear Death itself, but he feared the lurking approach of Death, where the horror lay in the waiting.

The waiting was a fearful thing because Death hid behind it, and Death hiding was a fearful thing. He had seen Death
mano a mano,
and it no longer horrified him. Horror, up close, loses its meaning, because you believe yourself to be, at that point, lost, and your mind provides you a state of grace. He had gone that far before, twice, but he had come back. Death had not taken him, and once he had regained his distance, his mind took away the grace and reinstated the horror. So he did not fear Death itself, but he feared the lurking approach of Death, where the horror lay in the waiting.

With darkness came anonymity. The headlights of his car were identical to the headlights of the cars in front and back of him. He became lost in the night streets.

Fixing his eyes on the taillights of the car in front of him, he tried to assess his chances of still succeeding. To be honest with himself, he had to admit it appeared impossible. What were the odds now that of all the square feet in the city, Gamboa would cross the nine square feet where Bias had buried the explosives? Could he surveil Gamboa's house closely enough to anticipate his use of San Felipe, and still remain unknown to the police who, he had assured himself, were watching the Gamboa residence? Only by chance. How long would he have before Rubio talked? Yes, Rubio would talk. If the technician is knowledgeable, and Negrete certainly was, it is almost impossible for the subject not to talk. Hadn't Ireno talked, Rubio's fellow Indian, his fellow coyote? Only once in his life had Bias seen someone actually refuse to be broken. A woman, no, a girl really, and she would not speak in spite of the vast and ingenious cruelty that took hold of her body. He had watched them break and tear and burst her, turn her wrong side out, and disassemble her. The beautiful girl would not talk. She had not been beautiful to the eye, not really. But when it was over, Bias knew she was beautiful to the heart.

Although her death had not occurred in an operation for which he was responsible, it was the last torture Bias had ever seen. He would not allow them under his command, nor would he witness them in the command of another. He would execute, but he would not torture.

Rubio would talk. Negrete already knew about the RDX; all he needed from Rubio was where and when. Where and when. How long could Rubio hold on to where and when? Maybe a better question would be, what would Negrete do when he found out? He would not risk digging it up himself. He wouldn't call the police. Bias assumed from today's actions by the police that Negrete was just as much a fugitive as he was. No, Negrete would simply alert Gamboa in the hope that by doing so Gamboa would consider that he had saved his life, and Negrete would have ingratiated himself enough to be rewarded for it sometime in the future. Then he would disappear into Mexico. That is all that was left in it for him, hope of ingratiation. It was typical of Negrete that he would kill, and risk his own life, for so base a reason.

Bias made a decision, quickly and firmly. At the next traffic light he turned right, continued around the block, and headed back to the Loop. He would commit himself through noon the next day, although he believed it would happen before then, because he expected Gamboa to use the cover of darkness to leave the city. The next six hours, he thought, would be the crucial ones.

Logistically, the Remington Hotel would have been the ideal place, but he did not want to go through the process and hassle of checking in, or to draw attention to himself in a place less than three hundred yards from where he hoped to detonate the explosives within the next several hours. That would be cutting it too close, especially since the explosion would cause a tremendous sensation within the hotel, and anyone leaving the hotel immediately afterward might be remembered later.

During the past days' planning, he had not made a detailed reconnaisance of the buildings along the Loop near the San Felipe intersection, but he had taken note of the several buildings that would have a clear view of the railroad crossing from the west side of the expressway. The difficulty, in fact, was not getting a clear view, for there were a number of those. The greatest problem would be to find a building that would allow him not only a good view but also access to a balcony. Commercial architects planning workplace buildings for Houston's equatorial heat and humidity were pretty well locked into fixed-window designs. Unfortunately, Bias could not trust the Futaba transmitter to work correctly from the inside of the building.

Still driving with one hand, he approached the Post Oak area from the south, looking at the buildings to his left for alignment with San Felipe as he dropped down on the exit. The custodial crews had been in the buildings since before dusk and would work on into the early-morning hours. As he turned under the expressway, he decided there were three possibilities: a long, wide building with silver bands that seemed to be about twenty stories high, on the north; a white rectangular building just south of the first and approximately the same height with its narrow end presenting row upon row of square windows to the expressway; and a third building with black trim and a slightly faceted three-part front with gold louvers running perpendicular in each facet from the ground to the roof.

Bias followed San Felipe toward Post Oak Boulevard, and al the last moment turned into the same Steak 'N Egg diner he had already been in twice before. Though he had considered his last visit a risk he should have avoided, now the diner was the only place he saw open in the vicinity where he could easily walk in and have his thermos filled with coffee. In the interest of time, he would go in once more. He took the thermos from the seat and went in. The woman who had waited on him earlier was busy making hamburgers for a couple of lime-haired punkers, the only other people there. Bias paid and left. He had now been seen in the diner by three different waitresses. He didn't like that, but it was better than being seen by one of them three different times.

He pulled out onto San Felipe again and turned left through the corridor of buildings composing the West Loop District. When he came to Ambassador Way he turned left again and approached the rear of the three buildings he had seen from the expressway. What he had not seen from the other side was that each building had adjoining parking garages, the tallest of which was that of the last building on the south, Tri-Corp Plaza. Not only was it the tallest garage, but il did not totally conform with the lines of the building itself, protruding on both sides in two setback sections.

He negotiated the lanes and driveways, his headlights raking hedges and landscaping shrubs, until he came to the garage's entrance. A wooden arm operated by a magnetic card blocked the drive. Bias pulled the car over to the right, jumping the curb and squeezing next to the building, and eased forward until the arm touched the windshield. Carefully cradling his throbbing left wrist, he stretched across with his right arm and pushed on the wooden arm, finding a little play in the mechanism, enough to catch the end of the arm on the roof as he let the car inch forward. Then he let go, and drove through with the arm scraping along the roof of the car until il dropped off the rear window.

Wanting to avoid being seen from the offices above, Bias did not go to the top floor but to the one just beneath it, and drove to its northwest corner. He pulled the car right up to the low wall and stopped. He had a clear view of the San Felipe railroad crossing. He killed the motor, reached under the front seat, and took out a pair ol powerful night-vision binoculars. He focused on the crossing and the street beyond it. There wasn't going to be a lot of lead time. While the crossing itself was in the clear, the street approaching it was obscured by trees to within a couple of hundred yards of the crossing. Bias could see headlights flickering through the trees, but could not identify the vehicles until they emerged. It would be close.