“Agent Benin is at his hotel. If you give me a message, I’ll have it delivered in the morning.” He chuckled under his breath. “I doubt you have anything that can’t wait until then, and even if it can’t, so what? I doubt he’ll pay it any attention anyway.”
Terry refused to give him the satisfaction of getting angry. Instead, he smiled into the phone, saying in an almost lilting voice, “Deputy, do you know a girl about twenty or so, blonde hair, about a hundred, hundred and five pounds? Looked like she might have been working late?”
Fighting to remember more details, as the deputy still seemed uninterested or unknowing, he remembered one other thing. “She’s got a tat on her wrist. I couldn’t make it out, but it looked red.”
At the mention of the tattoo, Terry could feel the man’s change in attitude even through the phone.
“That sounds like Tina Mays. Lives off Main Street and Brown.” Suspicion crept into his voice as he asked, “Why?”
Terry decided to lie a little. He couldn’t tell them about Charlie, but he had to say something. “I saw her get into a van somewhere near the middle of town. For some reason, it didn’t look right, so I followed him. Maybe I learned a little from hanging around all that FBI expertise, but I managed to stay with him until he pulled off the highway. He just pulled her out the van and went into this old house about thirty miles or so outside of town. And I really don’t think she wanted to go in.”
The deputy nearly exploded. “You let this fucker take her in there? Why didn’t you call earlier?
Terry fired back. “To say what? I saw some guy pick up a chick on a side street in the middle of town? As far as I could see, it didn’t look like she wanted to go, but hell if I told you guys, with all the crap Benin told you about me, would you have listened?”
He gave the deputy a second to think of an answer. Then decided he didn’t care. “Listen, have Benin use some of that FBI super-tech to trace this call. I’m gonna try and get a better look and see if there is anything I can do for this kid. This guy looked like he coulda been Jason Vorhees’s brother.”
He had no idea if this idiot would catch the metaphor, and at that moment, he didn’t care. He had to go. He dropped the phone on the ground and turned to walk down the hill. Then, as an afterthought, turned and shouted into it, “I think you oughta try to get him that message before morning. That’s if he wants to make it here in time to beat the reporters!”
He laughed as he walked way.
Charlie was confused.
“You know, all you are doing is aggravating Benin further. You should be trying to pacify him. He could be a valuable ally if you could get on his good side.”
Terry laughed even harder. “I got a better chance of qualifying for the Indy Five Hundred. The only way he’s gonna get on my side is if there isn’t another one. And trust me, he’ll take the time to look.”
Terry could feel Charlie’s mental headshake. Or he would have if Charlie had a head.
“You humans are a conundrum. You have a reputation for helping him and others like him that he is well aware of, but he still despises you. I am sometimes amazed you have all made it this far.”
Terry continued laughing. “Amazed? Hell, most of the time, I find myself downright astonished.”
* * * *
Less than ten minutes after Abbot’s conversation with Bridger, he had contacted Benin, who was fit to be tied halfway through the conversation.
How the hell does this clown do it?
He wanted to play with the idea that he was somehow involved, but he had been in San Diego when this shit started. And he had friends that would probably take a dim view if he tried to blame this on him.
Alvin Benin hated mysteries. And since Bridger was shrouded in it, he hated him even more.
He didn’t mind help, but something about this guy rubbed him the wrong way. He wanted to order him off the case, but the police chief and the mayor of the town both wanted all the help they could get. Added to the fact that he promised only to charge if he got results and they were sold.
He shook his head as he shoved his legs into his trousers. It wasn’t that it bothered him that the guy wanted to help. He just didn’t trust him. He knew too much and never let on where he found it out. Now, he just happens to be in position to see this guy but not close enough to see enough to call the police. It was like he wanted the guy to—
Benin froze.
It was like he wanted him to get out and away. Why? Was he planning to kill him? Join him? It almost made sense except for the call. In either case, why would he call in and tell us where this guy is? That made no sense. Unless…
Unless that wasn’t where they were. Unless…
He stopped then. He was letting his imagination get away from him. He wanted so bad to find something he could use to discredit this guy that he was grasping at straws.
He just wanted to figure out this guy and whatever tricks he was using. He knew he had a few. This was the third time he’d run across him or heard of him. He had run a check on him and got blocked on a few points. He had pressed, but the familiar run around told him he was dealing with, at the very least, an ex-spook.
He wondered what his story was.
Why had he left the agency?
It wasn’t unheard of, but it wasn’t a common practice. What he could find out was that he had been in the army, two separate police departments and one fairly successful detective agency. Now, he worked as a consultant for anyone with the money to afford him, which oddly enough wasn’t that much. It was like he wasn’t in it for the money, which made him, in his opinion, that much stranger.
If he wanted to serve, why leave the agency? And if he wanted to leave the agency, why not try the FBI?
He realized that made him sound childish but the question stood.
He finished dressing even as the phone rang. He had had the technicians triangulate the still-open signal from Bridger’s phone. He had ordered the location found as soon as his feet had hit the floor.
“Hello?”
“Agent Benin? This is Reid from technical support. We have the location on that phone you requested. It’s being sent to your phone as we speak. However, there’s a problem. This location is not thirty miles from your current location. It’s more like sixty in those mountains. Even if you come off the nearest highway, you are about forty minutes away, with lights and a whole lot of luck.”
Sixty miles? What time did this guy see all this crap? How long had he been driving behind his guy?
Another thing he hated about Bridger. No matter how hard he worked, Bridger was always one-step ahead. And he had an impressive success rate. Way more than he should have had. Benin didn’t like it. He was too good to be on the up and up. Whatever the reason for this discrepancy, it didn’t look good.
After thanking the technician, he dialed another number. The phone was answered on the first ring.
“Have the SUVs ready to go in five minutes. Location will be in the on-board computers. And make sure we got the best drivers you can find in them. We got some mileage to make up fast!”
With that, he checked his gun out of habit as he headed for the parking lot to wait for the driver.
Bridger made his way down to the floor of the canyon. The darkness worked for him now, but when the moon rose high enough, he might as well be on stage at the Biltmore Theater back home. He rushed across the yard with both eyes pinned on the house. He slid up next to a tree and watched for any sign he had been seen. There was no movement visible.
He lowered his head and concentrated like they had taught him in training, concentrating on the quiet night to amplify any sound. He waited in the darkness, breathing slowly and shallowly so as not to interfere with the examination.
Charlie, too, extended outward, searching for signs that their target was inside his range. He could detect the electrical fields humans produced about thirty feet away. He could detect his people’s auras far further. As a result, he could sense that there was one of his people inside, but he was still unable to tell which one was the occupied.
What he could tell was that neither of the two human bodies was outside his range.
Inside the silence of his mind, Terry suddenly heard Charlie speaking softer even than normal in keeping with the external quiet.
“They are barely within my range. But I still can’t tell which of them has an occupant.”
“How close will you have to get to tell?“
“If they separate, I can tell at once. But he does not seem to want to get away from her.”
“Odds are it’s him.
” Terry mused.
“You said you could sense this was a bad one, didn’t you?”
Charlie again seemed confused and even a bit angry.
“Just because the occupant is not one of our better examples doesn’t mean he’s the aggressor here. Unless you would like to blame my people for all the serial killers your people have produced over the years?”
Terry couldn’t think of a comeback for that. In his time with Charlie, he had seen all manner of insanity. They had done quite a bit to stop some of it and to repair what damage they could, regardless of whether human or Chrliti did it, but both of them knew it was like farting against thunder. Added to the fact that their partnership was temporary, they knew that they would one day not be able to do that even. The difference this time was that, thanks to the fact that Charlie couldn’t get out of Terry even if he wanted to, they knew they had tried; it could mean that this was the end of the road for Charlie as well.
All that was for another time though. Right now, all that mattered was the girl inside that farmhouse. Whether or not she was the occupied, she was the one in danger, at least as far as Terry could tell. The Chrliti would be dealt with in either case. Trouble was if it was one of the more powerful and controlling this guy, he could be trouble. They could directly stimulate the adrenal glands to turn a normal guy into a monster for a few minutes. Charlie was able to do it as well, so it made for an even field, but Charlie wasn’t psychotic and didn’t want to escape at any cost, including permanent damage to Terry. A fact that might not matter so much to one that could leave of his own accord anytime he wanted, unlike Charlie.
Returning to the matter of the moment, Terry noted something that gave him real pause. The entire house, as far as he could see, was ringed by a driveway like a moat. Only, instead of being a barrier of water, this was gravel, probably designed to let the house’s occupant know if there was someone trying to sneak in. He could traverse it without any sound, but the process left you a target if the guy already happened to know you were there.
The answer presented itself a minute later as Terry spotted some old planks, the longest of which could easily cross the driveway. Taking it and a pair of shorter pieces, he quickly constructed an impromptu bridge by placing the board across the drive and then setting his end on top of the shorter pieces. Now there was nothing to touch the gravel, hence, no sound.
It was of little note except that it made both Terry and Charlie wonder how long had this guy been here. And how many more times had he planned to use this place. With no answer forthcoming, both Terry and Charlie came to the conclusion that whatever happened, this ended tonight.
Terry wondered absently how much time he had before Benin came over the hill, sirens wailing and lights blaring. Benin had a love for rules that rivaled an obsession. The book said, he did, no question. When he had told them thirty miles, he hoped it would slow him down by making him think it wouldn’t take as long to get there and therefore spend more time planning. Charlie reminded him that it would be a minimal difference as they would more than likely be able to track down their precise location in minutes. Terry figured any little bit helped, and the dumber he looked to Benin, the better.
Sidling up to a window, he tried to see inside. The window was dirty but still translucent enough to see shadows inside the house. None of them moved as he watched. He tried the window. Locked of course. A quick examination showed there was no way to jimmy it, as it was nailed shut. There was a lock, but time had claimed it long ago. Whoever had decided the window should be kept closed had chosen an old-fashioned method.
It was the third window he tried before he found one that still had a lock. A little further examination found that not only was it intact, it was wired into what appeared to be a burglar-alarm system. He wondered how it was supposed to work, because the house had no sign of power.
There was a chance it might be a remnant from when the house was a home to someone, other than a psychotic killer and/or a homicidal alien. A chance he decided he couldn’t afford to take. He continued his search until he found the front door. He wanted to reach for the handle, but Charlie stopped him.
“I can sense a field around that doorknob. I would surmise he has connected it to whatever power source he has available as a last-ditch defense.”
“Great, he’s crazy, paranoid and clever. That’s always a bad thing. Any ideas?”
Terry knew they were short on time from both ends.
Charlie, meanwhile, had spread his senses out and tried to find the source of the energy field. No luck.
“He must have it below ground.”
Charlie said finally.
“Probably in the cellar. If we can find its exhaust, we can block it and…”
But, Terry was already moving back down the side of the house, thinking to Charlie,
“No time! By the time we find it, Benin will probably be here. And if he isn’t, it won’t leave us much time to deal with our boy in there.”
“So what do you plan to do?”
“Hey, you’re in my head and you don’t know?”
“You know we can’t read your minds like that. I’ve told you that.”
Terry smiled crookedly to himself.
“Yeah, I know; I just don’t believe it. You’ve screwed me up too many times not to be able to.”
A mental shrug and Charlie said,
“I have been lucky on occasion, due more to deduction and reason more than any clairvoyant abilities. We cannot read your minds, Terence. Plain and simple.”