Deadlock (Ryan Lock 2) (24 page)

The SUV was up to seventy now. They couldn’t see Holmes, so unless he had ducked into the woods to take a leak, he was just ahead of them over the hill.

‘OK,’ Cowboy said to Trooper, ‘keep that speed.’

‘Dude, you’re worse than my ex-wife. Shut the hell up and let me do this.’

Junius glanced round and saw an SUV behind him. Life didn’t go into slow motion. Instead, he froze like a rabbit for a second as the big rig which had climbed the hill shifted up a gear.

Cowboy could see Junius Holmes, but he could also see the driver of the big rig, who was shifting the path of his vehicle to avoid the pedestrian.

‘Do it then, man!’ he shouted at Trooper. ‘Do it now!’

53

They left Roach in the desert, naked and bleeding. A less than fitting punishment for him, thought Lock, but it would have to suffice. Ty had argued the merits of throwing him into a cactus bush, but Lock had countered by pointing out that most of the cacti out here were endangered species which didn’t deserve having a low-life such as Roach thrown at them.

They had thought about taking Roach up to San Francisco themselves (where Lock wanted to talk to Coburn) and handing him over to the Feds there, but they wanted away from this part of the state as fast as they could. No, Lock decided, once they had some distance they would put a call in to the authorities. If they got lucky with the timing, by the time Roach found his way back home he would have someone from federal law enforcement there to take him in for questioning about his role in the death of the Pragers. But at least Roach had been useful, Lock thought: he’d established the identity and parentage of the woman who was almost certainly Ken’s killer.

They pulled in to an off-site lot next to LAX, parked the Lincoln at the back and caught a shuttle bus to the terminal, where Lock used his credit card to get them two seats on the next flight up to San Francisco. Because they would have to check their firearms at the check-in desk, Lock made sure to wipe off any residue of the SIG’s contact with Roach’s head before he stowed it in its lockable carry case.

Inside the terminal, they headed to the Virgin America counter, filled in the appropriate paperwork and checked their bags. Then, boarding passes in hand, they made for security, both, thankfully, passing through the detector without incident. A swipe might well have showed positive for cordite, and that wasn’t a conversation they wanted to have with a member of the Transport Security Administration, whom Lock regarded with an informed contempt.

Instead, they watched as a ninety-year-old woman in a wheelchair was led into the Perspex search box and asked repeatedly to stand so that they could wand her. Lock, who was gathering his wallet and belt from the end of the conveyor, quickly lost his patience. The door leading out of the Perspex box was ajar, so he turned in the direction of the female TSA officer as she said for a third time, ‘Ma’am, do you think you could stand up, just for a few seconds?’ and said, ‘Miss?’, taking a leaf from the TSA officer’s book and being an asshole, politely, with a smile on his face.

Ty nudged Lock. ‘What about the grey man?’ he said, referring to Lock’s belief that a good close protection operative had a duty not to call attention to himself.

Lock ignored him.

The TSA officer looked over. ‘Can I help you, sir?’

‘Does she look like she can stand?’ Lock asked, still polite.

‘Are you traveling with her?’

The elderly woman opened her mouth.

‘She’s my aunt,’ he said firmly. ‘Now, we have several hours until our plane actually departs, so I’d like to see your supervisor and register a formal complaint regarding your behaviour towards an elderly, not to mention disabled, passenger.’

The TSA officer flushed under the two inches of make-up she’d plastered over her face. ‘There’s really no need—’

‘I’d say asking someone in a wheelchair to stand three times means there’s every need. Now, will you call your supervisor, or shall I?’

Lock kept his tone even and low, like a parent explaining to a toddler why they shouldn’t run with scissors.

‘I’ll just run the wand and then you can both be on your way,’ the officer said, hurriedly.

Lock sighed. The TSA had caught a lot of flak since their formation. They had some good people – ex-law enforcement and military – but they also had more than their fair share of people who couldn’t read a leaflet without moving their lips and who confused brusqueness with thoroughness.

The officer waved her wand vaguely in the elderly woman’s direction. ‘Thank you, ma’am.’

Lock stepped forward, took the woman’s wheelchair by its handles and pushed it out of the box as the female officer went to look for someone else to give a hard time to. Maybe a nun, he thought, or a boy scout. Someone who fitted the profile of crazed terrorist bent on bringing the western world to its knees.

Once they were well clear of the security area, the elderly woman craned her neck back to get a view of her rescuer. ‘Thank you, young man,’ she said, sweetly. ‘Those people are such assholes.’

At their gate, a knot of passengers and ground crew were standing in front of a plasma screen tuned to a twenty-four-hour news station. Lock and Ty shuffled to a halt, hoping that they weren’t the main feature, but no one gave them a second glance. Instead everyone stared intently at the screen as a news update rolled along the bottom: ‘Supreme Court Justice Junius Holmes Killed In Multiple Vehicle Auto Smash’.

Lock edged closer to a middle-aged cleaning woman holding a mop.

‘When’d this happen?’ he asked her.

She shrugged, grabbed her mop and bucket and shuffled away.

Lock was reaching for his cell as it rang. Carrie.

‘You see the news?’ she asked him.

‘Just now.’

‘Well, we’re getting early word that it wasn’t an accident.’

This didn’t make sense to Lock. These kind of incidents usually took days of piecing together. For law enforcement to be hinting at foul play so early in an auto smash was almost unheard of. Even if it did involve someone like Junius Holmes, who despite his WASPy name had made his reputation getting down and dirty in the trenches as a prosecutor in the Department of Justice before being appointed by the new President to serve on the Supreme Court.

‘Why do they think that?’ he asked.

‘Because of reports from the scene. A truck driver who got tangled up in it said there was an SUV containing two white males who’d aimed straight for Holmes.’

‘Maybe the driver lost control of the car?’

‘Oh, he lost control OK.’

‘So why do the authorities think it was deliberate?’ Lock asked, taking a few more steps away from the throng staring up at the screen.

Ty edged away with him. ‘Carrie says they don’t think it was an accident,’ Lock said to him.

‘Ryan, you still there?’

‘Yeah, I’m here.’

‘The two white guys in the SUV. One died at the scene. The other fled. The one who died was sporting a swastika tattoo.’

‘Neither of them female?’

‘No. Why?’

‘Well, it turns out that the woman who pulled the trigger on Prager was almost certainly Reaper’s daughter.’

Carrie made a low whistling noise down the phone. ‘That would explain a few things. But how did she persuade everyone else to get involved in taking that kind of risk to spring him?’

‘I’d guess, judging from something else I’ve found out about Ken, that she had her methods.’

‘What?’

‘Well, there’s no way of knowing for sure, but we think she was sleeping with Ken even though we think she knew who he was right from the get go.’

Carrie was quiet for a moment as she digested this. ‘Poor Janet,’ she said at last.

‘Yeah,’ Lock agreed. ‘Can you see what you can get on Reaper’s daughter for us?’

‘I’m on it. Anything else?’

‘Do we know if Junius Holmes ever went after any of the white supremacist groups?’

‘Better than that. He helped put away Reaper in the first place.’

Lock could hear someone speaking to Carrie.

‘Ryan, hang on.’

Lock’s eyes tracked back to the TV screen and the carnage at the scene of the accident, then Carrie came back on the line.

‘Got one more thing for you. When Jalicia was coming up through the ranks at the DOJ, guess who her mentor was.’

Onscreen, a body was being loaded into the back of an ambulance.

‘Junius Holmes,’ said Lock.

54

Glenn Love waved the truck into the rear of the Bureau of Street and Sewer Repair depot on Cesar Chavez Street. The driver climbed down along with two other members of the crew and Glenn slapped them each on the back.

He went into the tiny office and started filling out the paperwork. People called up to report a pothole or some other piece of sidewalk or road that needed to be fixed, it went into the system, someone was sent out to take a look, and within forty-eight hours it had to be repaired. Like the mail, cracks in the asphalt and holes in the road kept appearing. It was an unending task, like painting the Golden Gate Bridge.

Same shit, different day.

All that said, there were parts of the job Glenn enjoyed. Getting to work outside rather than in an office, at least when the weather was halfway decent. The camaraderie he had with the rest of the guys. The feeling that, even though no one really ever came up and thanked him for holding up the traffic while they did their work, he did actually do something that improved life for people in the city. Not like some of the assholes in BMWs or Mercedes or Lexi who gave his crew the finger as they drove past, annoyed that they’d lost a full sixty seconds waiting in traffic. No, Glenn felt like he made a difference.

Paperwork done, he left the depot and clambered into his five-year-old car for the thirty-minute commute back home. He drove past the Presidio, then took the Golden Gate Bridge. The bay was clear of fog and the air felt warm. Having grown up in this area, Glenn still got a jolt of excitement from the city, especially on a day like today.

As he cleared the bridge, a couple of Hell’s Angels cut round his car, both riding fat-boy Harleys with ape hanger handlebars. A regular enough sight, they sped off, diving in and out of traffic, then they were gone from sight.

Glenn didn’t notice the vehicle that had followed him all the way from the depot. Nor did he see the occupants. After all, who would possibly want to follow Glenn Love?

But the car kept trailing him, all the way home. As he turned into his driveway, it kept on going. He didn’t notice it then either. He was too busy gathering up his stuff from the front passenger seat.

He took off his boots and put them in the trunk. Then he walked up the driveway and through into his house by the back door. His wife, Amy, had her back to him, washing her hands in the sink. He crept up on her and slid his hands around her waist.

She jumped. ‘Glenn! You frightened the life out of me.’

‘Got your heart racing a little faster, did I?’

‘You are such an ass,’ she said, but with a smile on her face.

His hands slipped down her waist a little. ‘I was thinking maybe we could get away this weekend. Leave the kids with your mother.’

She turned, kissed him on the lips. ‘We have that thing at the Spicers’. Then Patrick has soccer on Saturday. And Rebecca has a play date over at the Myers’ on Sunday. Maybe another weekend?’

‘Sure.’

‘Oh, come here,’ she said, pulling him towards her for another kiss.

Patrick, their eight-year-old, came in, bouncing his soccer ball.

‘Hey, tiger,’ Glenn said, breaking away from his wife and tousling his son’s hair. ‘Now what did Mom say about having the ball in the house?’

Patrick sighed. Eight going on eighteen. ‘I’ll take it outside.’

Glenn made his way to the refrigerator and pulled out a beer.

‘Where’s Becky?’

‘Up in her room.’

Glenn popped open his beer. ‘Now Patrick’s out in the back yard…’

Amy turned round and dried off her hands. ‘What
is
up with you?’

‘Must be the weather.’

Outside, the car circled the block and parked a few houses down from the Loves’ house.

A cell phone rang.

‘I have a date for you,’ said a voice.

‘When?’ Chance asked.

‘The fifth.’

Today was the evening of the first. The fifth was about as fast as they could have hoped for.

‘What’s the venue?’

‘The one you’d expect.’

This was good news. It also meant that they would have to act fast.

Chance ended the call, then dialed another number.

‘We got three days,’ she said, leaning forward and eyeing the house.

The family inside was blissfully unaware of the storm gathering less than a hundred yards away. Unaware of how life could be changed for ever by one single event. Like Chance had been when Reaper went to prison for his beliefs.

‘Tonight?’ Reaper asked her.

‘Yes. Tonight.’

‘Means we’re gonna have to keep ’em for three days and four nights. That’s a long time.’

Chance kept her eyes on the house as a soccer ball rolled down the drive and a little boy chased after it, followed by Glenn Love, who scooped up his son and then the ball.

‘Maybe we won’t keep ’em,’ she said.

55

A sea of blue uniforms greeted Lock and Ty outside San Francisco International Airport. The last time Lock had seen such a show of strength by law enforcement was in the weeks following 9/11. Cars, limos and taxis lingering for more than a few moments at the kerbside were being swiftly dealt with.

Amid the crush of stressed-out passengers, Lock spotted Carrie piloting the mini-van towards them. He and Ty forced their way through the crowd. They clambered inside and Carrie edged out into the traffic. She leaned over and touched Lock’s hand.

‘You want me to drive?’ he offered.

‘Relax, Ryan,’ Carrie said, picking her way past a cab with its trunk open, the driver loading luggage as a burly cop screamed at him to pick up the pace, ‘I got it. How did you get on?’

‘Nothing we can use to find Reaper. But you know how you wanted me not to keep things from you?’