Trigger City (15 page)

I
made a pot of coffee
and a box of macaroni and cheese. There was a package of Vienna hot dogs in the fridge and I cut a couple into the macaroni. I didn't make a point of the food or the switch to coffee and Gravedigger didn't say anything, either. But he ate. And he screwed the cap back on the bourbon.

We talked about the last couple of months. The relapse into Mark Tindall was a onetime thing, sparked by Walter Jackson's death and two young knuckleheads who thought they could take on a guy in his late thirties who stood five-six. Of course, they didn't know about Gravedigger's past. Or about the rage. He didn't want to talk specifics and I wasn't sure I wanted to hear them, so we didn't go into the details of what had happened. I knew enough to understand how it was affecting him, and that's all I wanted to know.

We focused instead on the aftermath. The relapse had shaken his belief in the existence of Gravedigger Peace, but it had not broken that belief. Gravedigger was still Gravedigger, but he'd had to kill Mark Tindall a second time and it was painful work. He was
self-medicating with booze, but he insisted that he never drank before his work was done for the day and I believed him.

He'd get through this. He might not ever be quite the same, but he'd get through.

We put our dishes in the sink and I refilled our mugs and we moved back into the living area.

Gravedigger smiled—a real smile—and said, “I think we've talked this thing to death.” He sipped some coffee. “And it helped. Thanks for being a nosy bastard.”

“It's what I do best.”

“Now let's talk about your problems.”

“Who said I had any?”

“When everything's fine, you call and say ‘let's get together for a drink next week.' When you call and say ‘can I come over now?' I know there's trouble.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “But I think we'd better leave it for another time.”

“That's a negative,” said Gravedigger.

“I think it might be bad for you.”

“You come here with trouble, and we
don't
talk about it because you decide I can't handle it, and then you get killed. Now
that
would be bad for me. I appreciate the concern but I'm okay. You can stop treating me like a mental patient.”

“It has to do with your previous occupation. You're sure you want to hear it?”

Gravedigger let out a big laugh. “Perfect! Just perfect. You gotta love the absurdity. I mean, the timing! It's like the universe is poking us both in the eye with a stick.” He unscrewed the cap from the bourbon and poured a little into our coffee, still chuckling. “Ah, what the hell? Why not? What do you want to know about the mercenary business?”

So I told Gravedigger about Steven Zhang and Joan Richmond and their history at Hawk River. I told him about closed-door congressional hearings and scrubbed police files and the malignant threats coming my way, about DHS bullies and Amy Zhang's fear and the guy
in the Malibu. He listened intently as I talked, elbows on his knees, leaning forward.

Then I told him about the attack in the parking garage.

“Jesus, Ray. You could've mentioned that a little sooner. Isn't that what you reporter types call
burying the lead
?” I hadn't been a reporter in over nine years, but I let that slide.

“I'm trying to keep it in context of the overall problem.”

“The overall problem? They tried to kill you today.” Gravedigger lit a new cigarette. “You ignore that problem, you won't be around to worry about the overall problem.”

“If I let myself obsess about that,” I said, “it'll paralyze me. Compartmentalize to survive, that's my motto.” But there was a sick feeling in my gut and compartmentalizing was a struggle and I wished he hadn't focused on that particular part of the story. “Anyway, I have a reluctant ally at the FBI. After what happened today I think I can convince him to get involved.”

Gravedigger rolled his eyes. “The FBI doesn't stand a chance.”

“Let's not go overboard here,” I said. “I know these guys are powerful, but—”

“Powerful? You ever see Eisenhower's
military industrial complex
speech? Ike wasn't messing around. He tried to warn us but we were too stupid to pay attention. And now it's too late. There's just too much money at stake. How'd you like Hawk River's head office?”

“It was very nice,” I said.

“Bet it was. Check out the board of directors at any of the defense companies, and their lobbyists, too. What do you see? Retired pentagon brass, senators, congressmen. It's a revolving door between the federal government and the gravy train. Powerful? They run the fucking country.”

“I don't buy into those shadow government conspiracies,” I said. “Too paranoid.”

“I'm not talking about that,” said Gravedigger. “There's nothing shadow about it, it's right there in front of us, just like Eisenhower said. All you gotta do is follow the money. The defense establish
ment, the oil companies. They run the joint. I know. I used to work for them.”

“Okay, if they run the joint and the politicians are just hired hands, then why is Congress investigating? Just putting on a good show for the voters? I don't buy that. Nothing personal, but you're not the
least
paranoid guy I've ever met.”

Gravedigger sipped his coffee and his voice was a bit calmer. “Look, I'm not saying they own
every
politician. I'm saying they own enough of them. And if a handful of do-gooder congressmen start investigating, look what happens. Some crazy-acting guy kills this Richmond woman, then conveniently offs himself. Hell, if she'd been famous, the papers would've called him a lone nut assassin. Since she was a nobody, they just called him crazy. Mark my words, the congressional hearings will amount to nothing. And you can take that—”

“Okay, whatever.” The sharpness of my tone surprised me. “They run the world, they don't run the world…that's a distraction I really don't need right now.” I felt a little queasy.
Keep a lid on the fear
. I took a deep breath, reached for the pack and lit a cigarette.

Gravedigger nodded an apology my way. “The guy who came after you today, you said you didn't think he was a Hawk River guy.”

“He didn't seem
military
enough to me, for what that's worth. Not much more than a hunch really.”

“But I think you could be right. That detail about the sterile watch—”

“And knife. And clothing. Not a label on the guy.”

“Right. See, most of the mercs I've known are label obsessed. Rolex, Strider, Larry Vickers, SureFire…these guys are constantly showing off their brand names.”

“Still not much to go on,” I said.

“Yeah, but let's just play that out. If he wasn't working for Hawk River, then logic says he's with the DHS guys who fucked with you in the bar.”

“If they are DHS, which I doubt.”

“Right. But they gotta be government. Like you said, the G is the
only other party who stands to benefit.” He finished his coffee, put the mug down hard, went to the fridge, and brought back a couple bottles of beer. He looked across the room at nothing for a minute before speaking again.

“Once upon a time, I had a gig in Somalia. The outfit I worked for was a British company. But our client on this gig was CIA. They couldn't send their own paramilitary guys—it was too politically sensitive and they needed to maintain
total
deniability, not just
plausible
deniability. We were supposed to take out some asshole warlord posing as a man-of-the-people politician.” Gravedigger shrugged, “We took him out, all right. And his family.”

“And what does this tell us?”

Gravedigger shook off the memory. “My point is, these operations happen all the time. CIA, DIA, DEA, you name it; if it's got three letters, it probably hires contractors to do shit it needs to be able to deny. I'm telling you, there are a
lot
of black ops that get contracted out whenever and wherever the government needs deniability. You can bet Hawk River gets its share of these gigs, no matter what bullshit Joseph Grant fed you. And let's say your Joan Richmond was gonna talk about it. It's Hawk River's mess, so it's their job to clean it up. But the government guys get nervous, maybe they think your Blake Sten is fucking up. So they send a guy to take you out.”

It actually made sense, despite Gravedigger's paranoia. But I still didn't want to believe it. “I don't know…”

“Then paint me a more logical scenario.”

I couldn't.

“Fine,” I said, “let's run with that, see where it leads: Amy said that she thought Steven Zhang learned something bad while working on Hawk River's computers. Blake Sten fires Zhang, ostensibly for trying to sell company records to China. Joan Richmond quits less than a month later. Zhang and Joan maintain regular contact for over six months before she has a job to offer him. Congress starts holding hearings to investigate billing practices of various defense contractors, including Hawk River. And Joan is scheduled to testify. If Zhang shared
what he learned with Joan, it may have been the motivation for her to quit, for them to stay in contact, and for her to testify. With me?”

“Sure.”

“But. They're both dead. So what would make Joseph Grant's government friends nervous enough to take me out? Amy could talk, but she doesn't really know anything of substance. She can't even admit to herself that Steven was faking his mental illness. And Blake Sten showed me a photograph of Steven Zhang meeting with a Chinese MSS agent. Even if it was a frame-up, Sten has the photo to back up his version. So if Amy did kick up a fuss, they could just spin it as a delusional grieving widow. Killing me does nothing but invite unwanted attention. Unless…”

“Unless Joan Richmond or Steven Zhang had some physical evidence that Sten was unable to recover,” said Gravedigger, “and everybody's afraid you'll find it.”

So I would be searching Joan Richmond's place tonight, after all.

I
sat on the floor of Joan Richmond's living room,
surrounded by books. A pot of coffee in my gut and angry music on the stereo to keep me awake. I'd started searching at 2:30. It was now coming up on 5:00
A.M
. I was exhausted.

The soundtrack for my search included The Stranglers, The Who, The Stooges, and now The Clash. All bands starting with
The,
and all rebelling against authority. It wasn't a conscious choice—I'd just reached for the next disc at hand, so long as the music was energetic enough to keep me from drifting.

It had been twelve hours since I'd taken any Percocet and my shoulder was screaming but I couldn't risk falling asleep. There were plenty more rebellious bands in Joan's collection that started with
The,
but I was running out of places to search.

And running out of time.

The CD-ROM backups of her computer system were exactly what they seemed and held no secrets. I'd unzipped the cushions on her couch, kneaded all her throw pillows, examined the seams of her mattress and box spring, detached the headboard from the wall, felt
through the lining of her clothes, pulled all the pictures off the walls and looked behind the frames, peeled back her rugs, looked under lamps and shelves and drawers and anything else that could be looked under. And now I'd flipped through all her books.

Nothing.

The prospect that I would never find what I was looking for loomed large. Whatever Steven Zhang may have found on Hawk River's computers was nothing more than data—he could've saved that data onto a USB flash drive smaller than my thumb. Hell, he could've saved it on a Micro SD card smaller than my thumb
nail.

I reshelved the books while Joe Strummer sang about police and thieves fighting in the street. I poured another cup of coffee and sat at Joan's kitchen table with my notepad and reviewed the notes I'd made at Gravedigger's house.

Gravedigger and I had talked through various other scenarios, but the only one that made sense was that Joan Richmond had been in possession of some evidence and Blake Sten had been unable to recover it. If that scenario was right and if I could find Joan's evidence and get it to Special Agent Holborn, it would be Game Over. At that point killing either Amy Zhang or me would be suicide for Hawk River and would serve no purpose for their government friends.

The only problem was, I couldn't find it, either.

But that doesn't mean you can't make them believe you've found it.

The idea hit with blunt force. It seemed so obvious. I could run a bluff. Risky as hell, and normally I wouldn't even consider it. But after what happened the previous day, nothing was more risky than inaction and I was out of options. I had to do
something
to shake things up.

So I would run a bluff. First step: plant a story in Delwood Crawley's “Chicago After Dark” column at the
Chronicle
. Crawley was the top gossipmonger in town, a man with many contacts and few scruples. I didn't like him and he didn't like me, either, but we'd developed a kind of barter system. Occasionally he'd call on me to do some investigative legwork—following up on some scandalous rumor
or another. And in return, I could plant items in his rancid column when I needed to.

I flipped to a blank page in my notebook and tried to emulate Crawley's hack prose style. My third attempt yielded this:

It was terrible stuff but it sounded just like Crawley.

The second step was to feed Crawley the story. If I could get it to him today, it would run in tomorrow's paper.

Step three: I'd courier a clipping to Joseph Grant, just to be sure, and he'd have it by the end of the day.

I knew it wouldn't save me, but it might buy a little time until I could think of something better.

 

When I stopped at my apartment for a change of clothes, the light on my answering machine was flashing “1.” The message was a hang-up. I dialed
^*
69. I recognized the number recited back to me by the phone company Fembot. The call had come from Jill's apartment. So it was a reasonable assumption that she'd learned about my latest demonstration of why she shouldn't worry about my chosen profession.

Still, she'd called. Even if she hadn't left a message, she'd called.

I thought back to January, a few weeks after she'd ended our relationship. The Outfit scandal had exploded all over the news and my name was everywhere, along with the names of some dead guys and a bunch of public servants under arrest.

She'd left a message that time. I was on my way down to convalesce
at my grandfather's house in Georgia and I checked messages from a pay phone in Kentucky. Jill's message said she just wanted me to know that she was glad I was okay. That was all she said. But that should've been enough. I should have called her back. I didn't.

There were plenty of reasons. I was badly injured and my mind was a mess and I didn't know what to say to her. I thought I should wait. Thought I should take some time to get my head together and figure out what I was going to do next. Figure out what I had to offer her. A change of career? A normal life? Kids? I didn't know.

So I waited. And the longer I waited, the harder it was to pick up the phone. By the time I did call, months had passed and she had moved on. She was dating the man who would eventually go shopping for an engagement ring while Vince watched from the shadows.

And now she'd called again. Didn't leave a message this time, but she'd called. I thought about calling her back.
Hey, honey, I'd love to get together right now but I'm a little busy with people trying to kill me. I'll call you later if I'm still alive. In the meantime, please don't marry the other guy…

Maybe not.

On the way to University Village, I drove around in circles to be sure I hadn't grown a tail. It was not yet 7:00
A.M
. and I knew Delwood Crawley wouldn't be in but I called and left a message on his voice mail, asking if we could meet later. Then I left a message for Special Agent Holborn, told him that I was available on my cell.

Again I thought about calling Jill. Again, I didn't. I drove a circuit of the blocks surrounding Amy's town house and found no bad guys parked nearby. I pulled to a stop behind Vince's blue Escort.

Vince's
empty
blue Escort.

Shit.