Lethal People: A Donovan Creed Crime Novel Page 14

  “Until we have proof to the contrary,” Courtney said, “we have every reason to believe Monica Childers is alive and being held captive. So we’re asking for your help. We want you to be our eyes and ears on this one. If you see anything, if you hear anything, please, call our hotline. There is no clue too small when it comes to saving an innocent life.”

  Almost brought a tear to my eye, she did.

  Then she talked about the white van and showed her national audience a picture of it. She said police around the country were working on that lead but they could use the public’s help on this, also. Finally, on behalf of FBI agents and law enforcement officers everywhere, Courtney promised to hunt the kidnappers down and bring them to justice. She ended by issuing a special alert: “If anyone has any information regarding these two former Soviet agents, please call the FBI hotline at …”

  The phone vibrated again, and I answered it.

  “Creed, you son of a jailhouse bitch! What did you do with the body?” The man I knew only as Darwin had only just begun yelling at me. He told me how much trouble they had to go to in order to doctor the photographs and plant the phony Russian suspects. Darwin called me stupid, careless, and a bunch of other names that would have hurt my feelings had I not been keenly aware of his indelicate nature. So he unloaded, and I sipped my bourbon and took my lumps and waited for him to get on topic, which he eventually managed to do.

  “I want to know who hired you, because whoever it was, he managed to throw a monkey wrench into our national defense system. And don’t tell me Sal Bonadello, a guy who thinks software means sweaters.”

  Darwin fell silent, but only for a moment. Then he said, “I’m waiting.”

  “I can’t give you a name,” I said.

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Can’t. But on the bright side, I know how to get it”

  “Creed, listen to me. You’ve done a lot of stupid things over the years, things I’ve turned a blind eye to because up to now, you’ve been more valuable than the shit storms you’ve created. But this is too much. We can’t let someone hack into our national defense systems, and we can’t let the government find out that you and your people are running around taking contracts from criminals to kill people,” he said. “They’re funny about shit like that. How the fuck did you let this happen? No, don’t bother telling me. Just tell me this: what are you going to do about it?”

  “I’m going to talk to an angry midget,” I said.

  “What? Are you insane? You trying to tell me some midget hired you to kill the doctor’s wife?”

  “Little person,” I said. “They prefer the term little people.”

  “I prefer Viagra and a nice set of tits, but right now you and Callie are the only boobs in my life.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Yes what?”

  “Yes, I’m saying a midget hired me to kill Monica Childers, but I’m not sure she’s dead.”

  “I know how to tell: did you kill her or not?”

  “We killed her, but we left her body. Now it’s gone.”

  “Wait,” Darwin said. “Maybe I should get some Roman soldiers to move the stone away from the tomb.”

  “Look, I gave her a syringe full of BT. I think someone got to her in time to administer an antidote. I think that’s why Victor monitored the satellite, so he could get a chase team to pick her up as soon as we left.”

  “Victor? Who’s Victor? The midget?”

  “Little person.”

  “Let me get this straight.” Darwin paused on the other end of the line. “You took a contract from an angry midget to kill a prominent surgeon’s wife, but she was rescued and then kidnapped by other people working for the very same midget. That what you’re telling me?”

  “It sounds stupid when you say it out loud like that.”

  Then, in a tight voice, he said, “Kill her again, Creed.”

  “Okay.”

  “Because otherwise she’ll be able to identify you.”

  “Okay.”

  “And kill the midget, too.”

  “That I can’t do.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “First, I don’t know for certain he’s the hacker. Second, if he isn’t the hacker and I kill him, I’ll never be able to find the real hacker. Third, I’ve entered into an agreement with him.”

  “You’ll be entering a pine box if you don’t put a stop to this hacking business.”

  “I will.”

  “And don’t forget to kill Monica Childers.”

  “Assuming she’s still alive.”

  “Don’t assume anything. Just kill her.”

  “Will do.”

  “Keep me in the loop. I don’t want to have to keep calling you after the fact.”

  “Got it.”

  “Oh, shut up.” He hung up on me.

  CHAPTER 25

  I’m a Time Saver.

  Time Savers are people who commit special moments to memory. A skilled Time Saver can freeze all the components of an event—the date, mood, time, temperature, lighting, sights, sounds, scents, the breeze—everything. Then we park this information in a corner of our brains and relive it whenever we wish. It’s like opening a time capsule years after an event and having all the wonderful memories spill out.

  Some guys like baseball, some ballet. Maybe they’re content to grow old with memories of sweeping the Yankees or reliving the Dance of the Cygnets from Swan Lake. But me, I’d rather Time Save the memory of trysts with beautiful young ladies like Jenine.

  Fully dressed now, sitting on the balcony again, I closed my eyes and began experiencing all the facets of our encounter, committing them to a permanent file in my mind. Just as I’d indoctrinated my body to survive torture and function at a high level by testing weapons and sleeping in a prison cell, I’d structured my mind to compartmentalize the significant experiences of my life. These I can relive as if they’re happening in the moment—a wonderful skill to be able to call upon the next time I’m stuck in a real prison for any length of time.

  Some people plan for their retirement. I plan for my imprisonment, for I am certain to end up dead or in prison, and if it’s to be the latter, I want my body and mind to be prepared.

  I began by concentrating on her voice. Then I relived the heightened awareness, the anticipation—the entire range of feelings and emotions that raced through my mental synapses and physical receptors just after she called from the lobby phone. I marked these things in my mind until I knew I could call upon them at will.

  Then I re-experienced Jenine’s arrival in the doorway, my first view of her, and the immediate impressions I formed, and how I felt the moment I encountered her beauty, newness, and youth. I smiled, thinking how none of this mattered in the least to Jenine and the other beauties I’d met in my life, although I’m sure they have fond memories of the money I spent.

  I focused on the way she entered the room while listening to music, just as you’d expect a college kid to do, with the ear buds, the oversized MP3 player, and …

  And suddenly I realized she didn’t have the MP3 player with her when she left the room!

  A cold chill rushed through me. Could Jenine have put the MP3 player in her purse while I was on the balcony, signaling Quinn? I didn’t think so. If she ever kept it in her purse, she’d have done so before meeting me. I had to assume the worst. As a trained assassin for many years, I survived the deadliest ambushes, the most terrifying physical encounters imaginable, by always assuming the worst.

  I jumped to my feet and dialed the operator. A young lady answered. “Front desk. This is Jodie; how may I help you?”

  “Jody,” I said in my most commanding voice, “this is Donovan Creed in room 214. I’m a federal agent. I need you to listen very carefully.”

  “Is this a joke?” she asked. “If it is, it’s not funny.”

  Maybe I should have told her that after spending twelve years as the CIA’s top international assassin, I ought to know a bomb threat
when I saw one. Then again, the word assassin conjures up such diverse feelings. I decided to stick with the federal agent story and gave her another go.

  “Jody, I repeat, I’m a federal agent and there’s a bomb in my room. I want you to activate the fire alarm, contact hotel security, and immediately begin evacuating the building.”

  “Sir,” she said, “bomb threats are taken very seriously. If I report you, it could mean prison time.”

  “Jodie,” I said, “I wrote the manual on bomb threats, okay? Now sound the fire alarm and make an evacuation announcement before I come down there and rip your face off !”

  I slammed the phone down and ran to the door, flipped the lock latch outward so the door would stay propped open, and tore down the hall, banging doors, yelling at the top of my lungs, “Emergency! Evacuate the building immediately! Leave your things behind! Get out of the building now!”

  By the time I got to the fifth door, the fire alarm started blaring, so I raced back to my room and started a frantic search. The bathroom seemed the likeliest place, so I started there. I checked behind the shower curtain, lifted the toilet bowl tank cover, looked up to see if any ceiling tiles had been dislodged, and checked the floor for debris in case I’d missed something. Then I realized this wasn’t going to work. I simply didn’t have the time to conduct a proper search. Jenine, on the other hand, had the entire length of our visit to decide where to hide it.

  If she hid it.

  If it was a bomb.

  I ran to the balcony, felt my legs climb over the railing, felt myself hurtling through the air. I realized I’d just jumped off the second floor balcony! My legs had made the calculation without me, had hurled me as far out as possible in an effort to clear the sidewalk below.

  Now, in midair, with my mind back on the job, I tucked and rolled as I hit and tried to ignore the searing pain that suddenly knifed through my shoulder. I scrambled to my feet, sprinted twenty yards, and dove behind the thick base of a giant palm, scattering twelve-inch sand tsunamis in my wake. I tucked my chin, protected my vital organs as well as possible, and waited for the explosion.

  CHAPTER 26

  And nothing happened.

  A handful of hotel guests began filing out the side and back entrances. There weren’t many, but I supposed that during a fire drill, the vast majority would have gone out the front.

  A minute passed, and the fi re alarm droned on. The speakers must have pointed to the front and sides of the hotel because the alarm was fairly muted from my position.

  Some more guests joined the first group. I considered running over to warn them, but no, a discussion was bound to follow, and we’d probably all get killed while they questioned my credentials and the conclusions I’d drawn.

  In the end, it didn’t matter, because someone in the group made the decision to walk toward the front of the hotel and the others followed.

  More time passed, seconds I’m sure, but it always seems longer while waiting for a bomb to explode. The muffled drone of the alarm gave way to other sounds you’d expect to hear from behind a palm tree fifty yards from the Pacific Ocean: breaking surf behind me and, somewhere, hidden from view, the musical clang of steel drums rising above the traffic noise. A quarter mile to my left, I could hear the distant rumble of the roller coaster on the Santa Monica Pier.

  I didn’t know how long I had before the bomb detonated, but if I had any time at all I figured I should use it to find better cover. I slowly uncoiled my body and chanced a high-speed dash to a small concrete wall fifteen yards to my right. I dove behind it face first, like Pete Rose sliding into third base, and waited. I looked up. Twenty yards to my right, on the concrete walkway behind the neighboring hotel, a young man in a bright orange windbreaker had stopped holding his girlfriend’s hand long enough to point at me and laugh.

  I looked at the young couple. At what point, I wondered, had I evolved into an object of ridicule? When had I become some sort of cartoon character, a delusional mental case deserving the scorn of teenagers? Was it possible I’d imagined the bomb threat? Was I witnessing a glimpse into my future, where every sudden sound or random thought might cause me to frighten people or threaten to send me jumping out of windows or ducking for cover?

  From this angle, I could see a few hotel guests glancing toward the rooftop, probably searching for signs of smoke. I followed their gaze and came to the same conclusion: there was nothing to worry about.

  I smiled at the young couple and shrugged, then stood and dusted myself off. The girl smiled back and held her position a moment, as if trying to decide if I’d be safe left to my own devices. Her boyfriend, showing far less concern, gently tugged at her wrist. With her free hand, she tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. He tugged again, and she turned her eyes away—reluctantly, it seemed to me—and they resumed their leisurely stroll along the sidewalk.

  Eventually, the alarm stopped. It was quiet now, and things were starting to resume their normal order. I guessed I’d have some explaining to do to hotel security and possibly the local police and bomb squad. Darwin would probably have to get involved again, which he’d hate.

  The roller coaster on the Santa Monica Pier must have stopped to reload passengers because its rumble had been temporarily replaced by calliope music and the mechanical sounds of the other amusement rides. A couple of security guys came out the hotel’s back entrance, followed by a bald guy in a gray suit with black lapels—probably the hotel manager. Behind me to my left, two coeds on roller blades glided along the beach walk in my direction. Their arms glistened with sweat, and their matching turquoise spandex leggings were stretched tight over well-defined legs. As they whooshed by, I gave them a nod of approval. One of them frowned. The other one flipped me the finger.

  I moved closer and glanced up at the balcony from which I’d jumped. The MP3 player had been bulky. Could it have been a bomb?

  Of course.

  So why, I asked myself, was I standing out here in harm’s way? The answer was simple: because it didn’t add up. If the MP3 player housed a bomb, why wait so long? I mean, why didn’t Jenine detonate it as soon as she’d gotten out of range? Or wire it with an internal timer and set it to go off five minutes after she left? I wondered if something had gone wrong. Maybe a wire got crossed or disconnected. Maybe the remote didn’t get the proper signal due to interference from the hotel wiring system.

  No. In my line of work, you have to assume that everything that can hurt you will always work perfectly. Yet this seemed the rare exception because I could think of no reason for her to wait this long to detonate it.

  Unless …

  Something nagged at my brain, just beyond my awareness. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Something about the timing of the detonation was itching at me, trying to make sense. If I had a few minutes to work it out …

  But I didn’t. I’d have to put that thought on hold and come back to it later. At the moment, I had to either wait for the bomb squad or try to disarm the bomb myself. I thought about it and decided it made sense for me to do it since the explosion was well overdue. I was sure the hotel clerk had called the bomb squad, but by the time the call got routed to the right people, by the time the right people got here, it could all be over.

  I headed for the back entrance at a fast clip. As I pulled the door open, a childhood memory popped into my mind, a perfect example of how this Time Saver thing works.

  I’d been twelve the summer my best friend Eddie tied a dozen cherry bombs together with a single fuse and lit it. We howled with excited laughter and dashed for cover. We waited forever but nothing happened. Eddie finally went back to investigate and when he did, the bombs exploded. Eddie lost several fingers, a section of ear, and most of the skin on the left side of his face.

  I can’t explain how, but standing in the hotel doorway just then I could feel the bomb trying to explode. In my mind I pictured an old-time detonator, the kind with the big handle you push down to make contact. In my mind that
handle was already in motion. I screamed for the benefit of anyone within the sound of my voice. “There’s a bomb in the hotel! Run for cover!”