Blood List (27 page)

"I'm not negotiating with you, Agent Goldman. Go relieve Agent Palomini of his weapons and place him under arrest."

"I don't think so, Director," Doug said. He flipped the phone closed before the man on the other end could protest. Gene sat on the bed and put his head in his hands.

Carl smirked at Doug. "That could've gone better."

Doug sat next to his boss and clapped him on the back. "I think we're in deep shit, Gene. That wasn't Director Adams."

"I suspected it," Gene said, "but your behavior confirmed it."

"Going dark, are we?" Carl asked. Doug and Gene locked eyes, leaving the agreement unspoken. "Then we've got to keep our phones off. Sam always tracks us with them. If she can, they can. You can bet they already know what cell tower's covering us, and they've got men not too far away. If we move, we're just going to help them pinpoint us."

As if on cue Carl's phone rang. He looked at it, then at Gene. "It's Adams' office." He turned it off and pulled out the batteries.

"Good idea," Gene said. They followed suit. Doug stuffed their phones in the backpack they'd bought the night before. When he looked up from the bag, Gene was looking at him. "Look, guys, you don't have to do this."

Doug rolled his eyes. Carl grinned. "Skip the crap about cutting you loose, Gene. We've got your back. What's the plan?"

Gene smiled back. "You realize we're all getting arrested, if not killed, right?"

Carl spoke. "Get to the point. What's the plan?"

"Okay, here it is. All we need to do is beat Renner to Gabrielle's, find our way off the peninsula through legions of military personnel, get across the country while evading a massive manhunt and million-dollar bounty on my head, find Sam, get her to figure out who this Shelley guy is, arrest him, and get him to confess to the whole thing, leading to the downfall of the bad guys."

Doug put his hands to his head. With eyes closed he asked, "Is that all?" A faint grin betrayed his amusement.

"Nope. We do it without using an ATM or our FBI expense accounts, and without being able to coordinate anything through Sam. And we do it before Renner, who has a head start, gets to Shelley and kills him."

Nobody said anything for a few minutes.

Finally, Carl stood, clapped his hands together, and rubbed them in anticipation. "Well, better get moving then. But first things first." He walked into the bathroom and closed the door.

February 3rd, 7:00 AM PST; Paul Renner's cabin; Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

Paul pulled up to an authentic log cabin nestled deep in the woods below Lake Tahoe on the Nevada side. Towering pines cast the driveway in shadow, but the house basked in early morning sunshine. He got out, slammed the door, and walked up the porch steps. He didn't have a chance to knock.

His dad opened the door, a worried look on his face. "Hey, Steve. You look stressed."

Paul shrugged. "Not really. I've got a lot on my mind, but that's pretty normal." His dad let him in, and he walked straight to the couch and sat. He looked up at the hart mounted on the wall, admiring the structure of the giant antlers.

"You get that one yourself?" his dad asked.

"It came with the cabin," Paul said. "I think it's older than you are. They aren't even indigenous to the United States."

"Oh." His dad sat on the couch next to Paul, his hands in his lap. "You want some coffee?"

Paul shook his head again.

"Okay," his dad said. They sat in silence for a while. Finally, his dad spoke. "Been reading the paper lately?"

Paul nodded. "Yup."

"It's kind of quiet up here. I don't watch much TV. But I do run into town to get the paper now and then. So you've seen the headlines?"

Paul nodded again.

"The pictures?" 

Another nod.

"Care to explain about Harold Trubb?"

Paul gave his father a sad smile. "Harold Trubb is a figment of an overactive imagination, created by the man behind all this." He gestured to the cabin, then to his father. "I'm getting close to the answer, and he doesn't like it."

"So you know who it is?"

"Yes." 

"Who?"

"It's bigger than this, but the man who tried to kill you is a doctor. Lefkowitz. Ring any bells?" 

His father blushed and looked at the floor. "No. Why would a doctor want to kill me?"

"Are you sure, Dad?" Paul asked. "He ran a methadone clinic back in the seventies."

"Why would I know a doctor who ran a methadone clinic, son?"

"Because," Paul said, "you were a junky. Just like Mom."

His face a thundercloud, Kevin Parsons stood and towered over his son. "You take that back." He grabbed Paul's hair and wrenched his head back. Eyes blazing, he repeated himself. "You. Take. That. Back." He let go and stared at his own hand in shock.

Paul leaned his head into his father's stomach and patted him on the leg. "I wish I could, Dad. I wish I could." Paul sat back and looked into his father's eyes. "Mom didn't die in a car accident."

His dad collapsed onto the couch. He put his head in his hands. His shoulders shook, and a keening noise more animal than human erupted from his throat.

Steve looked up, his mouth agape. His father fired out the window, the bark of the pistol louder than anything he'd ever heard. His mother stood over the coffee table, shoving bags full of white powder into a duffel bag. The bullet hit her in the neck. She fell onto the floor, and he leapt on her, pressing his tiny hands against the wound. The blood covered him, spraying through his fingers. She gasped and gurgled and tried to breathe through the blood. Steve pressed as hard as he could, but the bleeding just wouldn't stop. His hands were too small.

After a while he asked a question. "Dad, what really happened?"

His father's voice was tiny, barely audible. "Don't make me go back there. I don't live there anymore." He squeezed his eyes shut. "I can't go back."

Paul grabbed him, pulled him close, and held him. He leaned close to his father's ear. His lips barely moved, and no sound came out.
Dad, I never left.

*   *   *

February 3rd, 7:46 AM PST; Gabrielle's Fine Jewelry; San Francisco, California.

Gene lay in the back seat as the sedan pulled up in front of Gabrielle's Fine Jewelry. He wore a leather jacket with an upturned collar, sunglasses, and a baseball cap.
Like a perp on the lam
, he thought. Doug parallel parked in front of the store.

"There's nobody home," Carl said. Turning to the back seat, he smiled at Gene. "Coast is clear."

Gene sat up, made a quick scan of the street, then looked inside the store. The lights were off and nothing moved. "Wouldn't you expect someone inside?" he asked. "Guarding the store from looters?"

"Yeah, I would," Doug said. "Renner beat us here."

"Let's hope not," Gene said. "We don't know if Renner found out about this place or not." He scanned the street. Nothing. "Let's go. And be careful. These guys have no reason to trust or cooperate with us."

They got out of the car and approached the door, huddled together against the damp, cold wind. Gene rapped on the glass with his knuckles. Doug and Carl covered him, hands in their pockets. There was no response. "It was worth a try," he muttered.

Shielding his eyes with his hands, he peered inside. Everything looked normal for a high-end jewelry store. A series of glass cases filled with sparkling gems, gold jewelry, watches, tie clips, and so forth dominated the main room, all arranged in a jigsaw maze designed to make shoppers slow down and take it in. A marble-topped mahogany cabinet with an old rotary-dial phone and an antique cash register stood in the back. Behind it stood a single door marked
Employees Only
.

Gene stepped back and took a better look at the storefront. The phone number for the store was printed in large letters on the door. He took out the TrakFone Carl had picked up from Wal-Mart an hour earlier and dialed the number. The phone rang ten times, with no answer. He hung up.

Gene sighed. "Doug, hit the store with the Maglite."

The beam of light flared across the inside of the store, scattering and refracting through thousands of gems and reflecting off countless pieces of gold, platinum, and silver. "What am I looking for?" Doug asked.

"Anything out of—there! Right side of the counter!" Gene pointed, and Doug turned the light toward the rug.

"I see it," Carl said. "It" was a red stain on the carpet near the checkout. The back wall was misted with brownish spots. "It looks bad, Gene."

"Yeah," Gene said, surveying the interior. He pointed to a small gray box next to the door, connected to a modern-looking phone. "We need to get in there. How do you feel about bypassing the alarm?"

Carl raised his eyebrows. "This isn't the movies, Gene. That kind of thing takes time and the right equipment. I can't see the box very well. I think it's a GoldShield. The bad news is that they're a pretty reliable retail alarm. The good news is that I've bypassed a bunch of them."

"Can you do it?" Gene asked.

"I can definitely shut it off, but maybe not before it calls the police. Let me get my kit." He walked back to the car.

Doug looked at Gene. "You sure this is a good idea, Gene? If the cops show up…."

"Yeah, I know," Gene said. "I think it's worth the risk. You stay in the car, and the two of you take off if Carl botches the alarm. Assuming I get away, meet me at the diner two blocks that way." Gene indicated the direction with his thumb.

"What, and just leave you to the police? I don't think so, Gene."

Gene smiled. "I appreciate the support, but I'm not asking. Better me than all three of us. If they catch me, it's up to you to find Renner. Do it."

Doug stomped over to the car, cursing under his breath. Carl walked up to the door and set down his bag. "What's his problem?"

"His problem is that he's the getaway driver. If you can't shut off the alarm, run to the car." Carl looked annoyed, so Gene held up a hand to cut off an interruption. "I'll go inside and find out what I can in the few minutes before the local PD gets here. Get to it."

Carl opened his bag and removed something similar to a hand-held multi-meter. He touched the door and the frame of the building with the leads, fiddled with a dial, and did it again. Gene watched up and down the street. A few minutes later Carl put the device away. "There's nothing super-fancy going on. Seems like a pretty standard commercial burglar alarm."

He removed an electric screwdriver, a police-issue flashlight, and two pairs of wire cutters from the bag, one large and one small. He handed the large cutters to Gene and set the other two tools on the ground. "After I break the glass, we've got maybe sixty seconds, tops. You need to cut a hole through that wire mesh, open the door, then get out of the way so I can get to that box. Then we pray that I cut the right wire. Okay?"

Gene nodded and opened the cutter. Carl picked up the screwdriver and small cutters in his left hand, the flashlight in his right. Shielding Gene with his body, he smashed the window with the light. A recurring beep sounded over the tinkle of falling glass.

Gene hacked at the wires, jammed his hand through the hole, and unlocked the door. Carl barreled past him and hustled to the security box. He had it open in eighteen seconds. "Shit! It's custom." Carl spent thirteen seconds studying the wire layout.

"Hurry up," Gene said. Carl cut a wire. The beeping continued. He cut another, with no effect. A third cut and the beeping stopped. Carl inspected the LED display on the front of the box and gave Gene a thumbs-down. "We're toast." Gene yanked the phone off the wall and dropped it into Carl's hands. He pointed toward the door.

"Take that, get in the car, and get out of here. Call the new prepaid in twenty-four hours. Meanwhile, work on pulling info out of that phone." Carl opened his mouth to protest, and Gene shoved him toward the door. "Go!"

Carl stumbled out of the store and ran to the car, shaking his head at Doug. Doug waited for Carl to close the door, then gunned the gas. In seconds they vanished out of sight. Gene turned his attention to the store. He vaulted the first case and stepped around the back counter into a charnel house.

Gene turned off his emotional connection to the former humans on the floor and took in the scene. Two bodies, male, one Caucasian and one Asian, lay hog-tied on their stomachs with their shirts stuffed in their mouths. Their eyes gaped open, vacant, and unseeing. Flesh had been torn in strips from their backs. The Asian man's legs looked broken. The floor was sticky with congealed blood. A pocketknife lay on the floor next to several severed fingers. Gene noted that the register drawer was open, the till empty.

Gene knelt down and put his hand on the larger man's neck. The body was almost cold.
We're at least half a day behind him.
He searched the men for wallets, and the desk for anything that might lead him to Shelley. There were no books, no business records, no receipts. They'd been cleaned out.

A quick survey of the back room revealed a tiny office with an open, empty desk, and a small filing cabinet. A door stood in the middle of the right-hand wall; a trail of blood droplets led straight to it. Gene opened the filing cabinet and found four files. He stuffed them into his duffel bag, then pulled the cabinet away from the wall. There was nothing behind it. A quick search revealed no hidden compartments in the desk.

He looked at his watch. Four minutes since the alarm triggered. He was just about out of time.

He turned his attention to the door. It led to a tiny bathroom with traces of bloody water in the sink. A business suit, splattered with blood, lay on the floor next to the toilet. Whatever Renner had found here, he'd taken with him. Snarling, Gene left the office and shut the door.

He looked up into the waiting barrel of an SFPD service pistol. The uniformed officer behind the weapon looked like he was just out of high school, and he shook visibly.
Oh, great. A nervous rookie.
Outside, another officer took cover behind the door of a black-and-white, his pistol pointed into the store.