Predator One (43 page)

Returning to the yard, he used a decorative rock to break the hasp and remove the lock on the toolshed. Inside, he found a lawn mower, rakes and shovels, bags of
compost, stacks of empty clay pots, weed killer, and a yellow plastic toolbox. Inside the toolbox were beat-up old tools. Screwdrivers and hammers, an odd assortment of screws and nails. Wire cutters, a socket-wrench set for fixing the mower.

He selected the tools he’d need and hugged them to his chest.

Davidovich said, “Thank you.”

He did not, however, know exactly whom he was thanking.

Chapter Ninety-eight

San Diego International Airport

March 31, 8:03
P.M.

I landed in San Diego and was met by Mike Harnick, the head of the motor pool and vehicles design shop at the Pier. He was actually polishing the hood with a rag when we came out of the terminal. Mike has something of an unhealthy relationship with the cars and trucks that he oversees. He kind of hates that he has to
turn them over to guys like me who might, in the course of a day’s work, get them blown up.

Ghost saw him and began wagging his tail. Mike usually has treats in his pocket. Totally outside combat-dog protocols, but I have so far not been able to get that point across to him.

When Mike spotted us, he tucked the rag in his back pocket and came over to shake hands. Mike was one of several key players
from the Warehouse whom I’d coerced into moving to Southern California. Unlike some, who were dedicated East Coasters, Mike had embraced the change. He wore a Hawaiian shirt with a pattern of classic cars and Route 101 signs. He wore shorts and sandals and had a pair of Oliver Peoples sunglasses pushed up on his hair. Ghost went running to him, tail wagging, and I made sure I didn’t see the
Snausages Mike covertly slipped him.

Mike’s smile, though, looked a bit like it was hammered in place with roofing nails.

“Hell of a day,” he said as we shook.

“Hell of a day,” I agreed.

He turned and swept an arm toward the car. “Say hello to Ugly Betty.”

Ugly Betty was a brand-new Escalade with a lot of aftermarket work. I believe Mike prays nightly in a church dedicated to Q from the James
Bond flicks. The car looked like every other black Escalade, but I knew that it was reinforced like a tank, weighed an absurd amount, and had an engine that could push all that weight up to about ninety and hold her there all day. Oversize armored gas tank with battery backup. Wi-Fi with satellite uplink. Machine guns, fore and aft rocket launchers. Everything.

“How’s it take a curve?” I asked
suspiciously. “Black Bess looked pretty and all, but she steered like a damn cow. This one any better?”

Mike grinned. “Depends on whether you know how to drive.”

I showed him a lot of teeth. “I get into a wreck with this ’cause it’s a slow piece of unmaneuverable elephant shit, you and me are going to have a long conversation. Knives may be involved. Warning you ahead of time.”

“Damn, Joe,
you’re getting cranky in your old age.”

“Keep talking, Doctor Truckenstein, but don’t come crying to me if you wake up dead one morning.”

Harnick’s grin never faltered, and he mouthed the word “Truckenstein.” I suspect it was going to be his new nickname.

He handed me a set of keys. “She’s gassed and ready. GPS is programmed with the crime scene and the hospital where they took the bodies.”

I thanked him and climbed in. The vehicle was absurdly comfortable, which felt good on all the parts of me that still hurt from the ballpark disaster. I saw that Mike had gone the extra yard and left a bag of extra-large dog biscuits. Ghost jumped into the back seat and came to point staring at them like he’d just discovered the Holy Grail. I gave him one, and he retreated into the back bay with
his booty.

I wasn’t sure I was up for a lot of driving. The scalpel cut on my forearm was beginning to itch under the bandage, my head hurt, and all of those other little aches and pains were still loitering around. I’d popped a couple of nondrowsy painkillers on the plane, but they were accomplishing exactly nothing. So I winced and cursed and damned Mike and everyone I ever knew to hellfire
as I buckled up and adjusted the mirrors.

Mike stepped back and waved at me while I headed out of the airport. I wasn’t even on Route 5 yet when I got a call from Rudy.

“Hey, Rude,” I said, relieved to hear his voice, “how the hell are you?”

“A borderline mess, Cowboy,” he admitted. “As, I suspect, are you.”

“Not what I meant, Rude. I know who jumped you. How are you?”

“My answer holds.”

“Okay,” I said. “Got it. And … Circe?”

“No change.” There were miles and miles of hurt in his voice. And twice as much fear. If that was Junie lying there, I’d be out of my fucking mind.

“Damn,” I said. “I’m heading over there now and—”

“Listen, Joe,” said Rudy, cutting me off, “Mr. Church doesn’t want you to come here right now. We got word from the doctors at the hospital where the bodies
were taken. Joe, we both need to get over there right now.”

“Why?”

“We don’t have all the details, but the doctor over there—Alur, I think his name is—has implemented a class A biohazard lockdown and wants to evacuate the entire facility.”

“Christ. Any clue what the disease is?”

“No, but Doctor Alur said they should have that answer by the time we arrive.”

“We? You’re supposed to be in bed,
or was that a different one-eyed Mexican psychiatrist friend of mine who got kicked in the damn face?”

“Joe, I don’t want to argue with you,” said Rudy. “I convinced Mr. Church to have me discharged and to let me get back to work. I’m not seriously injured. The burn is minor; the head injury is not worth discussing. You’ve had worse. Many times.”

“But—”

“And quite frankly, if I don’t get involved
in this, if I don’t have the opportunity to participate in this case, to use what skills I have, I’m going to go out of my mind.”

He did not sound like he was making a joke.

That scared me, because Rudy isn’t the type to throw himself into the active side of one of the DMS cases. He was a therapist, a doctor. He counseled the operators between jobs, he kept the spiders locked inside my head,
and he worked with victims afterward. He was not a field man. Wasn’t trained for it and didn’t have the right mental attitude for it. Rudy is the kind of decent human being guys like me try to protect so he doesn’t have to run head-on into the fire.

Except …

Circe was in a coma, and a psychopath pretending to be a priest had brutalized Rudy. And Rudy had been at the ballpark; he’d seen people
blown apart by the drones. He’s friends with Bug and Aunt Sallie and was feeling their hurt.

He has skin in this game. A lot of it.

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay,” he said.

“Brian will drop me off at the hospital. I think you should meet me there.”

Brian Botley was the newest member of Echo Team. A hazardous-materials expert who also knew how to cook up useful things that went boom. Code name: Hotzone,
which really wasn’t much of a stretch.

“Okay, pardner,” I said, “but if you look wobbly, I’m putting you back on the bench.”

It was the same threat Top had used on me. Rudy ignored it, exactly as I had.

Chapter Ninety-nine

Fox Island

Hale Passage, Puget Sound

Pierce County, Washington

March 31, 8:03
P.M.

It took Aaron Davidovich very little time to bypass the security system of the empty house. Then he was inside. The house was cold, but it was the warmest he’d been since he’d waded into the waters off the Seven Kings’ island.

First thing he did was look for a telephone. Found it. Snatched
up the receiver.

Heard nothing. Not even a hiss.

The place was as empty as a dead battery. The furniture was covered in plastic. There was no food in the fridge. The gas and water were turned off. Because of the needs of the security system, the electricity was still on, and the oven was electric. He turned it on and warmed himself by the open oven door. Then he went prowling and found several
useful things.

Clothes, neatly folded in moth-proof plastic tubs. Most of what he found didn’t fit him, and he soon realized that it was a woman and two kids living here. The kids were young. The woman was short but, he discovered, plump. He could stretch a couple of her sweaters around him. He stripped off his own clothes and draped them around the stove to dry. In one of the cabinets, he found
canned tuna, and he opened three cans and devoured the cold fish.

In the attic, he found a trunk with clothes that clearly belonged to an older man. Probably the woman’s father. The man had been very tall—inches taller than Davidovich. That didn’t matter. Nor did it matter that the clothes smelled of cedar chips and old man. There were no shoes, but he found a pair of good slippers. He stuffed
the toes with socks and put them on.

Dressed comfortably in useful layers, he searched in vain for a cell phone. There was no chance he’d find one, but he had to look.

No topcoat, either.

Wearing a dead man’s clothes and bedroom slippers, carrying pocketsful of tools, Davidovich slipped out of the house and went into the garage. He wanted his luck to hold long enough for the car to be functional
and fast.

It was a classic 1965 Mustang.

It had no engine.

“Fuck,” he said.

But he wasted no time mourning the car. Instead, he left the property through the back gate and headed toward the bridge to the mainland. Caution took time, though, and with every minute he used ensuring his anonymity, he felt a minute of his son’s life burning away.

Chapter One Hundred

Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center

Medical Center Court, Chula Vista, California

March 31, 8:54
P.M.

We pulled into the hospital ER roundabout. That whole section of the facility had been evacuated, and someone had brought in a set of police barricades. Two soldiers in hazmat suits stood on the other side. I recognized them through the plastic visors. New guys working
for me at the Pier. A couple of MPs I borrowed from the army. A third man, Brian Botley, came to meet us, but he stopped a dozen paces away and nodded to a stack of folded hazmat suits.

“You’re going to want to suit up,” Brian said. “Believe me.”

We each put one on. Since they don’t make them for dogs, I’d had to leave Ghost in the car. He wasn’t happy about it, and I knew it would be on me
if he peed on Mike Harnick’s new leather seats.

“They redirected ER function to another hospital,” said Brian. “Nobody was happy about it until the staff got a look at what we were bringing in. After that, it was assholes and elbows to clear this place out and button it up.”

Another figure in a hazmat suit appeared and came limping toward us, leaning on his cane, which was wrapped in plastic
and sealed with duct tape. We didn’t shake hands, of course. Didn’t go for the big bromance hug. Best friends in protective clothing have to be content with a manly and stoic nod.

“I just got here myself,” Rudy said. “I was about to go looking for Doctor Alur.”

Brian said, “What do you want me to do?”

“Stay here,” I said. “Make sure nobody else comes in here unless they know today’s secret
password.”

He frowned. “Um … we have a secret password? What is it?”

“Fuck the Seven Kings,” I said.

Brian grinned. “That works.”

He went to take up his station. I gave Rudy an up-and-down appraisal. “You look like shit.”

“Thank you very much. You’re so kind,” he said. “I reciprocate the sentiment.”

“How’s your head?”

“It hurts. How is yours?”

“It hurts.”

“Aren’t we a pair?”

I nodded
to his hands. There were puffy bandages beneath the plastic gauntlets. “I heard something about burns?”

“Yes.” Shadows seemed to drift across his face.

“Rude?”

“Yes, Cowboy?”

“We’re going to get them.”

He said nothing.

“All of them,” I said. “Including that sinister little psychopath.”

He said nothing.

“This may be damage done, brother,” I told him, “but there’s life on the other side.”

“Joe,” he said in a soft but strained voice, “please stop. I don’t need the trash talk. I don’t respond to it the way you do. All it does is make me realize that I am not strong, that I’m not a fighter. Even if you do manage to take down the Kings and Nicodemus, I will carry the memory of that encounter for the rest of my life. And, before you embarrass us both by trying to explain the effects
of trauma, please remember that I do know this. The effects I’m feeling are the very things I treat people for. The parasitic part of my mind is shining light on the irony and looking for the hubris that would be the dramatic root cause of my downfall. I understand that I am going through the victim process in textbook fashion. Nothing you can say will help. Truly. No threats against them. Not even
a successful victory over them will help. This is mine to resolve with myself and for myself.”

I nodded. “You’re my best friend, Rudy. What can I do?”

He smiled. It was faint but genuine. “Just be my friend. That does more than you might think.”

He offered me his hand, and I took it—very gently, mindful of his burns.

Above us, the San Diego sky was a flawless blue. We took a moment and looked
up at it.

Rudy cursed very quietly under his breath. When he wants to, he can conjure the vilest expletives known to the Spanish language.

We went inside.

Chapter One Hundred and One

Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center

Medical Center Court, Chula Vista, California

March 31, 9:06
P.M.

It was and cool inside the hospital. The place seemed deserted, and we were dressed like spacemen.