Gina Cresse - Devonie Lace 02 - A Deadly Bargain, Plan C (18 page)

Jason
did
as I asked.

I swiveled around in the seat and peered at the closed iron gates.  “Think there’s another way in?”

Jason pressed the automatic door locks.  “We don’t want to go in there.  The FBI has enough firepower here to handle things.  They don’t need Wonder Woman and her sidekick getting caught in the crossfire.”

I unbuckled my seatbelt.  “So, what, we’re just
gonna
sit here and watch the show?” I grumbled.  He knew me better than to expect any such thing.

“No.  We’re
g
onna
deliver the message to Dan
—if he doesn’t kill us first for leaving the hotel.”

Before I could get the rebuttal out of my mouth, a tall lanky figure dashed out from behind a box-hedge next to the gardener’s shack and raced across the lawn.  I cranked my head around.  “That’s Spencer!”  I unlocked the door and started to jump out of the truck. 

Jason reached across the bench seat and grabbed my belt loop.  “Oh, no you don’t.  Look.”  He pointed toward the eight-foot-tall
iron gate
.  A black Mercedes pulled to the entrance and waited for the automatic gate to swing open.  We watched as the sleek car passed the barrier and pulled to the front doors.  The gate closed behind it.

Spencer disappeared behind the main house.  I climbed back in
the truck and kneeled backward
in the seat to watch Dan Cooper.  He and Willis weren’t moving.  “They’re just sitting there.  Aren’t they g
oing to do something?
”  My heart was pounding in my chest.

“What should they do?” Jason asked.

“I don’t know.  Spencer’s in there
.  T
hey must know that.  They should go in.”  A trillion thoughts raced through
my head—
none of them looked good for Spencer.

Jason bumped my shoulder.  “Look.”  He pointed at the Mercedes.  Two men got out of the
car.  One ran inside the house.  T
he other loitered around the car, lit a cigar, and checked his watch.

I checked out Dan’
s car
again.  There was no action.  “What the heck are they waiting for? 
A formal invitation?”
  As the seconds passed, my frustration escalated until my blood was ready to boil.

I watched, helplessly, as the man with the cigar wandered along the walkway
toward the back of the house—
and Spencer.  A moment later, he reappeared, tossed his cigar on the ground, and dashed to the front door.  He banged on it until someone let him in.  That was all I could stand.  “That’s it.  I’ve
gotta
go light a fire under Dan.  He can punish me all he wants.  Spencer’s in trouble.”

Jason grabbed my arm.  “Are you
gonna
tell him I brought you here?”

“No.  I’ll tell him I flew
—
you big chicken.”

Jason frowned.  “
Dan’ll
kill me when he finds out I drove you here.  This was a terrible idea.”

“Dan won’t kill either of us, but someone may kill Spencer if you don’t let go of me,” I snapped.  I yanked my arm away from Jason.

I slipped out of the truck and started for Dan’s car.  Before I could t
ake three steps, the government-
issue sedan pulled away from the curb and sped off.  “What the heck?”  I watched as Dan and Tom disappeared around the corner.  I shrugged my shoulders and exchanged a glance with Jason, who was equally as puzzled.  “What now?” I wondered, studying my surroundings.

I gazed down the length of the iron fence, then up at the sharp points, about eight feet high.  I turned on my heels, blasted past the hood of the truck, and sprinted toward the back side of the caretaker’s house. 
One of the City worker’s
pruning ladder
s
was propped against a huge oak tree, just outside the fence.  I heard Jason cursing me as I leaned it against the wrought iron and climbed over.

Once inside the grounds, I darted from hedge to bush until I reached the house. 
Following
the path I thought I saw Spencer take
,
I crept amongst the ornamental plants growing in the flowerbeds close to the building.

An unusual but strangely familiar sound caught my attention.  Click, click,
click
on the cement.  I turned to see where it came from. 
Oh, God. 
Dogs.
 
Rottweilers
—
two of them.
  I spotted the lattice attached to the framework of a second-story deck.  My instincts told me to climb.  I was halfway up before they reached me, snarling and spitting slobber with each bark.  I struggled to hang on and climb over the railing to the deck.

The sliding glass door to the bedroom was halfway open.  I slipped through the opening and peered at the lavish surroundings.  The decor was early jungle.  A king-size
d
four
-
poster bed sat diagonally in one corner, surrounded by a curtain of sheer mosquito netting.  A live palm and two smaller rubber-tree plants stood in the corner between the headboard and the walls.  A Casablanca-styled ceiling fan turned, slowly, in the center of the room.  Framed posters of zebras, mother giraffes with babies, herds of elephants, and various big cats decorated the walls.  A leopard-skin rug hung over a blanket rack in the opposite corner.

I tiptoed across the room
toward the closed door, then
turned the knob and peeked
into the hallway.  It was empty,
so I slipped out of the room.  I passed a half-dozen closed doors as I snuck down the long corridor
, placing
my ear against each one
to listen for Spencer.

I froze like a deer-in-the-headlights
when the sound of footsteps came barreling up the stairs.  My heart skipped a beat.  I was paralyzed for a moment,
then
I turned and reached for the nearest doorknob.  I let myself into the room and
quietly shut the door, then
held my hand on the knob, rested my forehead against the panel of the door, and breathed deeply.  I tried to slow the pace my heart.  The footsteps pounded down the hall, then stopped.  So did my breathing.

I didn’t hear him come up behind me, but I felt his breath on my neck just before his hand reached around my face and covered my mouth.  His other arm wrapped around my waist and pulled me away from the door.  He
dragged me backward
, through the room into the master bath.  I struggled to get free until I spotted the sight of the two of us in the full-length mirror.  Spencer stood behind me, his reflection smiling like the Cheshire cat.  He released his grip on me.

I started to speak, but he put his finger to his lips to shush me. 

“What are you doing here?” I whispered.

He took me by the hand and led me out of the bathroom.

“Come on.  We don’t have much time,” he whispered back.

I followed Spencer to the door.  He opened it, just a crack, and peeked through.  We heard the muffled voices of two men downstairs.  One shouted in a language I couldn’t understand, but from the tone of his voice, it was clear he was barking orders.

We slipped through the door and eased our way along the wall toward the staircase.  Spencer signaled for me to stay put while he checked to see that the coast was clear.  He got down on his hands and knees and crawled to the opposite end of the hall.  He stood up and motioned for me to join him.  I dropped to my knees and began crawling.  When I reached the staircase, a voice at the bottom of the steps boomed.  I couldn’t understand the words, but when I saw nothing but hair, teeth, and eyeballs bounding up the stairs toward me, I didn’t need a translator.

I got to my feet and leaped for Spencer.  He opened
a door,
then
we dove inside and slammed it shut.  I turned the lock on the solid-oak door and collapsed against it.  A loud thud from the other side made me jump away.  We stared at the solid panel door as our pursuer repeatedly crashed against it.  “Thank God for oak,” I whispered.

Two more failed attempts to bust down the door, and he gave up.  Spencer and I glanced around our surroundings.  We were in another bedroom.  This one also had a balcony.  I ran to the French doors and shoved them open.  “Come on,” I called.

Spencer and I stood on the deck and looked out over the rail.  We had a full view of the front of the house and the street.  Jason’s pickup cruised slowly up the driveway, toward the closed gates. 

Suddenly, the front doors burst open below us and the two men ran out, dragging a third man, obviously against his will.  I recognized Mohammed Aziz from his photo in the
Bates Corporation Newsletter
.  The other captor was unfamiliar to me, and the struggling man never turned his face
in
our direction.

Shaking his fist, Spencer leaned over the rail and yelled at the men. 
“Stop!
  Let him go!”

I strained to recognize the man.  “Who is it?”

Spencer was halfway to the bedroom door before I got the sentence out.  The abductors grappled with their captive, but soon overpowered him and threw him into the back of the Mercedes. 

I started back into the bedroom to follow Spencer when
a loud bang startled me
.  Jason’s truck crashed through the front gates as the Mercedes squealed
away from the house.  Jason swerved to miss it and accelerated through the flowers onto the lawn.

“Oh my God!”
  I ran down the stairs on Spencer’s heels.  We blasted out the front doors.  Jason stuck his foot in the accelerator and spun his big tires in the grass.  Clumps of sod and dirt flew as Jason left a pair of bare-earth tracks in the once-perfect turf.  Jason’s truck skidded to a stop in front of us.  The Mercedes was halfway down the street, almost out of sight. 

Spencer and I piled into the pickup.  “Follow him!” Spencer ordered.  Jason jammed the truck into gear and shoved his foot to the floor. 

I fumbled with the seatbelt as the truck swayed around the corner of the driveway.  Spencer helped me get it buckled, then snapped his own around his waist.

The Mercedes disappeared around a corner and Jason sped up to catch it. 
“Looks like he’s headed for Silver Strand.
  Probably doesn’t want to get caught in the bridge traffic,” Jason said.

“Where the heck is Dan?” I
said
.

Spencer put one hand on the dash and pointed through the windshield with hi
s other.  “They’re turning!
”

“I see,” Jason
said
as he pressed a little harder on the gas pedal.

I caught a glimpse of a street sign.  “This is Silver Strand.  If we don’t catch him here, we’re
gonna
lose him.”

Jason shot me a glance.  “I know.  I’ll do my best.”

Spencer raised his pointing finger again.  “Look!  What’s that?”

Flashing red and blue lights formed a solid line across the boulevard about a half mile in front of us.  The Mercedes swerved in and out of traffic.  Jason did the same.  We managed to get within ten car lengths of it before it slammed on its brakes.  There were at least twenty police cars blocking the road at Silver Strand State Beach.  There’d be no way for the Mercedes to get through. 

It spun around and aimed straig
ht for us.  Jason put his foot on the brakes and sl
id the truck sideways, blocking most of the roadway.  The Mercedes took to the beach.  Jason hit the gas and paralleled the German car from the paved road.  When we got in front of it, we swerved over, forcing it toward the water.  Jason kept the pressure on until the axles were submerged in saltwater.  I couldn’t believe Jason’s daring moves.  He was like a stunt driver in an action movie.  Flashing lights and sirens headed our direction.  By the time they reached us, the Mercedes was nearly floating in the surf.  The chase was over.

Dan Cooper’s car skidded to a halt on the pavement.  He and Tom Willis jumped out and ran toward the Mercedes with their guns drawn.  I gawked as I watched Stan Parker emerge from the back of Dan’s car and race after them.  Officers pulled Aziz and his counterpart out of the front seat of the Mercedes and
dragged
them through the surf to the beach.  I
gasped
when I saw the man in the back seat escape from the floating vehicle.  It was Gerald Bates.

Chapter Twenty-two

I
stood on the beach and watched a tow truck haul the Mercedes out of the surf.  Aziz and his terrorist counterpart were loaded into the back of a police car and taken away.  Dan Cooper strolled up behind me. 
“Back to the pokey for you, young lady.”

I spun around.  “But
—“

“Just kidding.
  I ought to lock you up, though, for your blatant disregard for my authority.”  He winked at me. 
“You hungry?
  I’m buying.”

I smiled.  “You mean the taxpayers, don’t you?”

“No.  This time, it’s on me. 
Really.
 
Your friends, too.”

I tried to remember my last meal.  Oh yes, the hotdog.  I was starving. 
“Sounds great.
  I’ll tell Jason and Spencer.”

Dan Cooper, Tom Willis, Gerald Bates, Stan Parker, Spencer, Jason, and I sat around a big private table at
JoDee’s
Steak House.  My eyes scanned down the menu at the list of entrees.  “Don’t they have salads here?”

Jason peered over his menu at me.  “Sala
ds are for sissies. 
Now steak
—that’s a real man’s meal.”

Tom Willis took a swig from his mug of beer.  “You got that right. 
Nothing like a big
ol
’ slab of red meat to get the heart
pumpin
’.”

The men seated around me echoed his sentiments.  I smirked at them.  “You mean, get your heart plugged up, don’t you?”

Dan slapped his menu down on the ta
ble.  “Let’s change the subject.
”

I closed my menu and laid it on the table.  “Goo
d idea.  What I want to know is
,
how did you know where to find Mr. Bates, Spencer?”

Spencer peeked out from behind his menu
.

“
When I got your message on my answering machine, I thought you were the one in trouble, but it was Bates they were planning to kill.  How’d you know he was being held in Coronado?” I
asked
.

“That backup tape I
stol
…
borrowed from Bates Corporation contained Stan’s e-mail box.  I’d already figured out that the NSA forced Mr. Bates to help them get agents into Iraq to spy.  They found out the Iraqis were producing billions of doses of toxins,” Spencer explained.

“Toxins?”

Gerald Bates offered a more detailed description.  “Yes.  The agents found a lab where they were producing
botulinum
toxin and
ricin
. 
Botulinum
toxin is the most poisonous substance known to man.  The whole body, including the respiratory system, becomes paralyzed, which leads to death by suffocation in just a few days.”

I shuddered.

“And
ricin
…well…you heard about the umbrella murder in London, back in seventy-eight?” Bates continued.

I shook my head.

“A Bulgarian defector was jabbed in the leg with an umbrella.  A tiny pellet containing a minute amount of
ricin
was implanted just under the skin.  He was dead within a day,” Bates said.

“That’s incredible.  But what does it have to do with Spencer?” I asked.

Spencer jumped back in.  “I was getting to that.  See, Mr. Bates e-mailed Stan that the agents discovered the lab and planned to take all the toxins and send them back to the States on his private jet.  Stan is really the head of security for Bates Corporation, not the network administrator.”

“We sort of guessed that, didn’t we?”  I grinned at Stan Parker, who sat across from me at the table.  “Better not try to pass yourself off as a techno-geek, especially to the king of geeks.”

Stan smiled, mildly embarrassed.

Spencer finished chewing a mouth full of sourdough bread and continued his story.  “Anyhow, the e-mail said that Mr. Bates felt uneasy about the whole thing.  He thought Aziz might be suspicious of him.”

Bates spoke up.  “That’s putting it mildly.  When the Iraqis discovered their chemical weapons had been stolen, they locked me up in my hotel room and put armed guards at the door.  My jet got out of Iraq, but without me.”

Stan proudly redeemed himself as a heroic figure.  “So I gathered up a recovery team, trained them for six months
,
then we flew into Iraq.  Pulled off the sweetest rescue mission you’ve ever seen.”

Bates smiled with appreciation at
Stan and nodded.  “In the mean
time, the NSA offloaded the toxins onto my yacht and sunk it to keep it out
of the hands of the terrorists
—and anyone else who might get any crazy ideas about how to use it.  The guy in charge of that operation was Morrison.  Kent Morrison.  He was supposed to
record the location of the ship
so the toxins could be recovered at a
later time.  Anyhow, the NSA came up with the story that I drowned to cover any connection they might have with me.  They had no idea I was still alive.”

I exchanged a glance with Spencer.  “Morrison?  We found his prints on the scuba tank.
  Is he the one who poisoned it?
”

“
Probably—if he thought the guy who found the
Gigabyte
was a spy
.  No one’s seen him since the
ship
went down.  That’s wh
y the NSA lost track of it
.  They panicked.  Billions of doses of lethal chemical weapons were sitting on the ocean floor, not far off the coast of
California,
and no one knew where it was.”

I shuddered at the thought.  “And then I came along and found it.  And Clancy!  What about Clancy and Olive?”  I pointed an accusing finger at Stan Parker.  “You had Clancy and Olive!”

Stan held his hands up in self defense.  “Clancy was determined to salvage that wreck.  The NSA was prepared to make him disappear if he didn’t stay away.  They’d threatened him and a friend of his.”

“That would be Morgan
Johnson.  He was with me when we
found the
Gigabyte
,” I
said
.

Stan pointed his finger at me. 
“Right.
  Morgan cooperated with the NSA, but Clan
cy—
he’s the most hardheaded man I’ve ever met.  Anyhow, I found out about the plans for Clancy and decided to hide him and his wife until this whole thing got resolved.”

I chuckled. 
“Yeah.
  Clancy is a cantankerous old coot.  But, you’ve
gotta
like him.  There’s just something about him.”  I squeezed a fresh lemon slice into my water.  “What about Carissa West and her father, Harlan?  How do they tie in?”

Dan decided to join in on the conversation.  “Harlan West was Kent Morrison’s partner
—
two peas in a pod.  Both would stop at nothing to achieve an end, no matter what the means.  He used his daughter’s position with the Justice Department to hunt you down.  They invented all those phony charges against you so they could haul you in.  They knew you had information about the
Gigabyte
, and they wanted it.”

“What’s going to happen to him?” I asked as I picked the steamed broccoli off of Jason’s plate since I knew he wasn’t going to eat it.

“What do you mean?” Dan asked, slicing his steak with a knife.

“
I
s he going to jail?” I
asked
.

“For what?
  His tactics may be a bit unsavory, but the rules most of us live by don’t apply to everyone,” Dan replied, then dipped his
steak
in a puddle of horseradish sauce and bit it off his fork.

“That’s comforting.  That still doesn’t explain how Spencer found Mr. Bates,” I replied, still a bit confused.

“If you’ll just let me talk, I’ll tell you,” Spencer piped up.

“Go ahead, then,” I prompted.

Spencer smiled.  “Thank you.  Anyhow, I read Stan’s e-mails from the backup tape and figured out that Mr. Bates was still alive.  I was finally able to hack into the Bates system and retrieved some encrypted files about t
he rescue mission.  I found out
—“

Gerald Bates pointed his finger at Spencer.  “I’ve been meaning to speak to you about that.  You hacked into my system?  I’ve got the best firewall
in the world
and you hacked it?  I want to know how.”

Spencer slipped three inches in his chair.  “Well, it was for a good cause.  I swear, I wouldn’t have done it, if it weren
’t for
—“

Bates put his hands up to stop Spencer’s self-defense speech.  “You want a job with Bates Corporation? 
Vice President of Information Technologies?”
Bates offered.

“You’re kidding, right?” Spencer coughed.

“Absolutely not.
  I’d rather have someone with your genius working for me instead of against me,” Bates continued.

“Funny.  That’s what the State of California said when they caught me hacking into their network,” Spencer confessed.

“I imagine I can put you in a slightly better tax bracket than the State can.  What kind of car you drive?” Bates asked.

“Dodge Dart.
  Not quite a classic, yet,” Spencer
said
.

“How do
es a company car sound?” 

Spencer scratched his head. 
“
Pantera
?”

“Whatever floats your boat,” Bates replied.

A huge smile spread on Spencer’s face.  “Cool.”

I munched on a slice of cucumber from my salad.  “Are you
gonna
finish telling me your story, Mr. Vice President?”

Spencer placed his fork on his plate.  “Okay.  So, there I am, at the United Express shack in San Francisco, waiting to get on the shuttle bus
to take me to the main terminal
—the day I was supposed to meet you.”

“Yeah.
  And you never showed up,” I reminded him.

“I know.  I had a good reason.  I’m standing on the tarmac and I see a Bates Corporation jet land.  Now, being the curious soul that I am, I watch, and who should get out of the plane but Gerald Bates himself,” Spencer said.

“That’s incredible.  I bet you were giddy,” I said, picturing a star-struck Spencer chasing after his hero.

Spencer nodded his head.  “I was.  Anyhow, he got into one of those little airport golf carts and drove off.  I decided to see if I could follow him.”

“You’re kidding.  You chased after him?” I asked.

Spencer shook his head.  “No.  I figured he’d either go to his office or home.  I went back to my car and drove to his office.  I knew where that was.  When I got
there, these two Arab-looking guys were hanging around the parking lot.  One of them was puffing on a cigar.  I recognized the other one as Mohammed Aziz, from that newsletter you picked up.  Anyhow, when Mr. Bates showed up in his car, these two guys grabbed him and took off.  I tried to follow them in my car, but it overheated going over the Altamont.”

“So, how’d you find him?” I asked.

“Easy.  I started hacking into county records and found out Mohammed Aziz owns only one p
iece of property in California—
the house in Coronado.  I caught a flight to San Diego and checked it out myself.  I ought to be a detective, don’t you think?” Spencer boasted.

“I think you’ll have enough fun being the newest
Pantera
-driving employee of Bates Corporation.”  I was suddenly reminded about my vehicle predicament.  I caught Dan’s attention.  “Oh, by the way, my Jeep was stolen.  I couldn’t report it because the entire police force was after me.”

Dan peered at me over his glasses.  “You need a ride somewhere?”

“I need my Jeep back.  That’s what I need,” I informed him.

“And what do you want me to do about it?” Dan asked.

I rolled my eyes.  “Well, shoot.  You’re the FBI, aren’t you?  Doesn’t the ‘I’ stand for investigation?”

“Yeah, but not for old Jeeps,” Dan answered.

“Old!  That Jeep was
as
clean as the day it rolled off the show-room floor,” I argued.

Dan patted me on the head like a little girl who has lost her doll.  “Give it up, Dev.  You just better hope you had insurance.  Chances are you’ll never see it again.”

“Great.”  I started thinking about all the things I might not ever see again, besides my Jeep.  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laid eyes on the
Plan C
, but I didn’t really care.  It w
as just a thing. 
All my stuff—
just things.
  I shoved my chair out from the table.  “I need to make a call.  Anyone have change for the phone?”