Split Second (5 page)

8

Aaron Blake drummed the fingers
of his left hand on his desk while he continued to read Internet primers on his
monitor, instructing him on how to publicize his business, how to use social
media effectively, and ten tips for enhanced search engine optimization, which
would help his name rise to the top when anyone searched for a private investigator
in LA.

He had a keen mind for detective
work, which he had proven repeatedly in his past life in the military. He had always
done very well in school, and was especially proud of his reasoning skills. He
had a knack for asking the right question. For observation. For reconstructing
complex histories from meager clues. His brothers-in-arms could not have been
more complimentary of his skills in this regard.

But skills as a detective
weren’t enough to launch a successful PI practice. Not if no one knew you
existed. And until you built a reputation, no one would. And this required
business and publicity skills, not detective skills.

If you were the best chess player
in the world, you would eventually be recognized as such. You’d have to start
at satellite tournaments, true, but if you kept beating others you’d soon take
your place at the top of the pecking order.

But you could be the best
writer, or the best accountant, or the best PI, and flounder forever if you
didn’t know how to promote yourself. If only the PI world held tournaments,
where practitioners of the art could compete against one another for glory and
bragging rights.

Since this wasn’t possible, Blake
knew it might take a long time for him to build a thriving practice. So he had
begun by setting up office in his apartment, a tiny efficiency, not much bigger
than an actual office would be. And while nothing reeked of small-time, of
failure, more than being forced to work and sleep out of the same tiny
residence, he had to start somewhere. And at least the apartment complex was in
a respectable neighborhood and presented well, with rows of pricey but
magnificent King Palms arrayed around the grounds, several pools, and a large
fountain near the entry gate.

Plus, he was lucky that his
resumé
spoke for itself, so the trappings of success
weren’t as important as they would be in other businesses. He was counting on
his background, and then his results, to keep him in demand until he could move
to a real office.

So far almost all of his clients
had been men and women wanting to catch their spouses in the act of cheating—or
learn if any money was parked in offshore accounts during divorce proceedings.

Cheating
spouse cases were not only boring, routine, and voyeuristic, they were
painfully cliché. A few times he had taken on more interesting cases, but this
was all too rare.

Once a wealthy suburbanite had
been robbed of an heirloom, one of limited economic value but great personal
value. When it became clear the police were going to do nothing about it, he
had paid big money for Blake to investigate and catch the thief, which Blake did,
in a display of detective work that would have impressed Sherlock Holmes.

Blake could only hope that as
his reputation grew the number of interesting cases that came his way would
rise dramatically. And he had finally managed to schedule some appointments
with law firms in the area, which often needed investigatory work done in
conjunction with certain cases. He had high hopes that offering his services
free of charge, on a trial basis, until the lawyers were satisfied that he was
as good as he said he was, would eventually pay big dividends.

But he
desperately needed for this to happen quickly. Not because he cared about the
money, but because there was nothing he hated more than inactivity, than
boredom. He had become an adrenaline junkie in the military. He wasn’t a
sadist. And he despised the necessity to kill. But if killing one man could
save hundreds, Blake was able to make peace with this equation.

And
while he hated killing, hunting for a man, battling a man, matching wits and
skills with another man when their lives were both on the line, provided the
ultimate competition. And thus the ultimate rush.

Every
contest was sudden death, requiring superhuman focus and superhuman effort. It
was reminiscent of the Old West, where no gunslinger could ever be taken
lightly, regardless of appearance, since every gunslinger still alive had never
once been bested, by definition.

Ernest
Hemingway had said, “There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who
have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else
thereafter.”

Blake
realized he was beginning to live this famous quote and took it as a personal
warning. He began to fear the rush was growing too great, becoming too
addictive. He feared he was approaching the point of no return. That he would never
be able to lead a normal life, and that he would take on more and more risk to
get his fix, inevitably resulting in an early death.

But while the fear of spinning out of control was one catalyst
in his decision to leave the military, frustration at politicians, and the lack
of understanding demonstrated by many in the West, was the final straw. At
least indirectly.

The
direct
cause of his decision had been the deaths of his two closest
friends. Deaths he had witnessed. Deaths that had been totally unnecessary.

His team had been ordered on a
raid by the powers that be in Washington DC, one that had been absolutely pointless,
and they had been shackled with rules of engagement so crippling that failure
and loss of life were all but assured. The friends he had lost were his
brothers-in-arms. He was willing to die for them, and they for him. They had
been as close to him as only those who had bonded in war could possibly be.

It wasn’t just their loss, which
had been crushing, that had finally driven him over the edge.

It was the futility of it all.

How many thousands of men had
America lost fighting the advance of barbaric hordes of Islamic extremists,
only to have politicians who had no understanding of the military and little of
world politics give back all gains? How many times had politicians, elected
solely on charisma and domestic policy expertise, made tragic blunders, totally
avoidable
tragic blunders, leaving the
soldiers in the field to twist in the winds of political expediency?

Spilling blood to protect the
homeland was one thing. But spilling blood, only to then vacate hard-won gains on
a whim and leave a vacuum that ended up making the problem far worse, was
another.

It made Blake physically ill.

Hiding one’s head in the sand
and ignoring reality wasn’t going to make the problem go away. And it was
maddening how often the civilized world allowed itself to be duped by barbarians
with no ethics or morals. By savages who would do
anything
for their cause. Literally,
anything
. They placed no value on human life, and no act, no matter
how savage or despicable, was off limits, including genocide.

Many in the West, compassionate
but misguided, were determined to bend over backwards to understand the extremists,
to empathize with them.

But there was no understanding an
ideology this rabid, this diseased. Who could understand a woman who would
strap a bomb on a child and send him or her into a crowded square?

These extremists had been
brainwashed by a sick, close-minded, hateful ideology. Some in the West believed
that poverty was responsible, that America was somehow at fault for hoarding so
much of the world’s resources. But many of the extremists were well-off, as Bin
Laden had been. And hundreds of millions of people around the world lived in
squalor, but had never resorted to sawing off heads and burning men alive.

But while the West often failed
to understand the motivations of these extremists, the
extremists
understood the motivations of the West only too well. They
found the West soft. Gullible. Stupid. Its media easily manipulated.

So their snipers would hide
behind women and children, using them as human shields, picking off soldiers. And
this wasn’t a one-off phenomenon, but a deliberate strategy. Richard Kemp,
commander of British forces in Afghanistan, had written in a formal report
that, “The Taliban’s use of women to shield gunmen as they engage NATO forces
is now so normal it is deemed barely worthy of comment.”

If an American soldier was too
decent to shoot through these helpless human shields he would die. If he did defend
himself and a civilian was killed, this would appear on news programs around
the world as yet another example of the cruelty and overzealous nature of the
American military, of the barbarity of the American soldier, emphasizing the
plight of the poor freedom fighters whose countries they were invading.

This wasn’t to say that some American
soldiers weren’t sadists. Some were. it was inevitable. And this wasn’t to say
that mistakes were never made, that atrocities never occurred, coming from the American
side. Innocent civilians were killed, each and every occurrence a horror.

But to suggest this was systemic,
to suggest the Western forces were no better, and possibly worse, than the ruthless
extremists, or that the West had brought this on themselves, made Blake’s blood
boil. The Americans often went to great lengths, and even risked their own
lives, to limit civilian casualties. While the very
mission
of the extremists was to wipe out as many Western women and
children as possible, billions if they could.

Still, there were those who
continued to believe that one man’s terrorist was another man’s freedom
fighter, even with respect to groups as despicable as the Taliban. The same Taliban
who willfully destroyed sixth-century statues of Buddha carved into the side of
a cliff. The same Taliban the United Nations reported routinely committed
systematic massacres against civilians.

And those who fought with every
ounce of strength for women’s rights in America would somehow overlook the
atrocities the Taliban committed against their own women. Treating them as
possessions, prohibiting them from showing their faces, from walking in public
without a male relative to escort them. And executing female
children
for the unforgivable crime of attending
school.

Yes, nothing was totally
black-and-white. Yes, there were good and bad actors in every large group of
people. But those who suggested an equivalency between the actions of the West
and the extremists made Blake so furious he couldn’t see straight.

So he had left it all behind.
For his sanity. For his life. To come down off his adrenaline addiction. To
find a way to feel alive without need of life-and-death stakes. To never again
have to suffer the death of brothers.

And not to have to take orders
from politicians who couldn’t see Islamic extremism for the despicable ideology
it was, an ideology immune to reason, its adherents showing a level of
barbarity and intolerance
incomprehensible
in the West.

So Blake had decided it was time
for a course correction. And even though spying on unfaithful spouses wasn’t
exactly what he had in mind, it was probably good for him, just as cold turkey,
painful though it was, was necessary for a junkie to cleanse his system.

Aaron Blake breathed a deep sigh
and brushed these thoughts to the side, returning to the task of learning how
to run a business. But just as he did so, Myla, his personal digital assistant,
alerted him in a pleasant, feminine voice that a woman was approaching his door.

He checked the time. It was a
little before eight in the morning.

Interesting.

As he watched the woman approach
on his monitor he realized this wouldn’t be just another cheating spouse
assignment. More like a
beating
spouse assignment. Judging from this young woman’s appearance, her husband had
done quite a number on her.

Sad, and tragic, but he
suspected there was little he could do in such a situation. This was a case
probably best left to cops, although he cautioned himself from jumping to
conclusions.

Perhaps there was more to this
than met the eye.

He watched as the woman on the monitor
took a deep breath and pressed the doorbell.

9

“Thank God you’re here,” said
the visitor when Blake answered the door. “I’m sorry to bother you before
regular hours.”

“Don’t be,” he replied with a
warm smile as he gestured her inside. “I’m an early riser. And in this line of
work regular hours don’t exist. Besides,” he said, making a show of looking her
up and down, “you don’t look to be in any condition to be patient.”

He motioned her to take a chair
before his all-glass desk, chosen because glass tended to make the room look
bigger, which he sorely needed. He had done everything possible to make his
living room office-like, rather than apartment-like, and there were no couches
or other furniture, and no television. The main room led to a kitchen and
bedroom, and this was the extent of it.

“I’m Jenna,” said the woman,
extending her hand. “Jenna Morrison.”

“Nice to meet you,” he said,
shaking her hand. “Aaron Blake.”

She had short brown hair and
matching eyes, and while she was more plain than pretty, she was fit and had a
perfect complexion. He judged her to be in her twenties, and despite wearing
jeans and a T-shirt and looking far worse for wear, there was something
attractive about her. He judged her to be about five foot five, only two inches
shorter than his own underwhelming height.

“What can I do for you, Ms.
Morrison?” he asked.

“Jenna.”

“Jenna,” he amended.

She took a deep breath, and he
could tell she was searching for a place to begin. “I’m in a hurry, but it’s critical
that you believe me and don’t think I’m crazy. So I’m going to take this one
step at a time.”

He nodded. “Go right ahead.”

“I am engaged to, and living
with, one of the most brilliant minds of our time. A physicist at UCSD named
Nathan Wexler, who has already contributed some major work to the field.”

She paused. “Before I go on any
further, I want you to verify what I’ve just said. Look up Nathan. Go on the
UCSD website. Go on his Facebook page, where you can see us together, see that
we’re engaged and living together.”

Blake smiled warmly. “No need.
I’m prepared to take your word for it.”

She shook her head. “No. I need
you to do this. My story is going to sound crazy, and I want to establish my
credentials, so to speak, before I go any further.”

Blake stared into her eyes,
intrigued.

She waited in silence as he
surfed the Web and confirmed her information.

“Okay,” he said after several
minutes had passed. “I accept that you’re Jenna Morrison and the truth of your
relationship with Nathan Wexler. Also, it’s clear that Dr. Wexler is quite the
genius. So why don’t you tell me what this is all about.”

His visitor began, explaining
she had been in Chicago for a week with her sister, during which time her fiancé
had made a major breakthrough, the nature of which she had yet to learn. And
then she proceeded to tell her tale, which he interrupted for questions or
clarifications, but infrequently.

Blake decided Jenna Morrison had
been correct: her tale
did
sound ridiculous.
And yet she spoke with detail and assurance. And her intelligence and reasoning
power were impossible to miss.

But criminal psychopaths could
be brilliant and utterly convincing. Could weave rich tapestries of lies.

On the other hand, this girl’s story
was
too
rich of a tapestry. If she
had murdered Nathan Wexler, why complicate things so much, make up wrinkles that
were so simple to disprove?

“When you first began,” said Blake
when she had finished, “you told me you
are
living with Nathan Wexler. Present tense. If he’s dead, as you say, why weren’t
you using past tense?”

“I didn’t want you to have any
preconceptions. If you knew he was dead from the start, you’d absorb what I
told you in a different light. I didn’t want that.”

Blake nodded. Very shrewd of
her. “And you don’t even have a guess as to what he might have discovered?”

“No. But as I said, there is one
man who knows, at least the gist.”

“Dr. Dan Walsh at UCLA?”

“Correct. And we need to find a
way to warn him he’s in danger. If he’s even still alive.”

Blake studied her face
carefully.

“Look,” she said, impatience
showing for the first time. “Do you believe me? Will you help me?”

His every instinct told him this
Jenna Morrison was something special. Some people melted under pressure and
some reacted to its squeeze by turning into diamond, becoming battle hardened.
He was all but certain this girl fell into the latter camp.

While she occasionally allowed
the severe emotional pain she was feeling to show in her eyes, she didn’t have
the bearing of a beaten wife. She had a fire about her. An easy intelligence. A
self-confidence and competence. For someone who had been through hell, this was
quite impressive.

 
“Your story is definitely out there,” he said.
“But you already knew that. And you haven’t given me any reason to doubt its
veracity.” He rubbed his chin in thought. “You said you confiscated the cell
phones of two men. Can I see them?”

Jenna shook her head. “No. I
tossed them in San Diego. I realized as I began the drive here that they could
be used to track me. I promised the poor guy I stranded on Palomar that I would
call one of his friends and tell them where to find his car, but I decided I
couldn’t. At least not yet.”

“A wise decision,” said Blake in
genuine admiration. Her reasoning from start to finish had been impeccable. Each
individual move she had made, by itself, was unremarkable, even obvious in
hindsight, but it was his experience that very few civilians, when thrust into a
nightmare the way she had been, would have had the presence of mind to unerringly
navigate the precisely correct path.

“What about the weapons you say
you, ah . . . acquired?” he asked. If she had gotten rid of these, also, this
would cast considerable doubt as to the truth of her story. “Can I see them?”

“Absolutely,” she replied
immediately. “They’re in the trunk of my car. Well, you know, the car I drove
here.”

“You really know how to use a
trunk,” said Blake wryly. “Most women just use them to carry groceries or
luggage. It’s the rare women who understands their utility for storing weapons
and trapping dangerous intruders.”

Jenna smiled, the first time
since Nathan’s death, and led Blake to her car, parked in a visitor’s spot near
his apartment. She popped open the trunk.

Blake recognized the SMG inside immediately—an
MP5, favored by US Special Forces. Interesting. Not the sort of weapon a Jenna
Morrison could get her hands on. It would be easier for her to murder Nathan
Wexler than to acquire one of these. The automatic pistol was also one used by
the US military.

He shut the trunk.

“Check the license plate,” she
said. “You can confirm it’s not registered to Jenna Morrison or Nathan Wexler.
And it’s a plate that will definitely be reported stolen before too long.”

Blake nodded. He had planned to
do just that. He took a photo of the plate with his phone and led her back
inside.

“As I said,” he began when they
resumed their positions, one in front and one behind his desk, “you’ve given me
no reason to doubt you. And based on the weapons you showed me, every reason to
believe you. Which means Dr. Walsh may be in trouble, as you’ve said.”

He rubbed his chin once again
for several long seconds. “Myla,” he said finally to his personal digital assistant,
“what are the formal hours of the UCLA physics department today?”

“Eight thirty to five,”
responded the feminine computer voice.

Blake glanced at his watch. It
was eight forty. He turned to Jenna. “I’m going to call him. Make sure he’s . .
. well, that he’s alive.”

 
“Don’t you have to assume he and his phone are
bugged?” said Jenna.

“Yes. But don’t worry, I won’t
give anything away. I’m going to put this on speaker, but don’t say anything.
If anyone is tapping in, I don’t want them to recognize your voice.”

He had Myla place the call,
which was answered on the second ring. “Physics department,” said a cheerful
female voice.

“Dan Walsh please.”

“Whom may I say is calling?”

“Tell him Randi Schatz. And that
it’s
extremely
important.”

After less than a minute delay the
line was picked up. “Dan Walsh,” said a male voice.

Is that him?
mouthed Blake.

Jenna nodded.

“Hi, Dr. Walsh. My name is Randi
Schatz. I’m an inventor, and I’ve come up with some software that can simplify
the analysis of advanced mathematics. I’d love to schedule an appointment and
demonstrate it for you.”

“Thanks, but I’m not
interested,” said Walsh abruptly, hanging up on him.

Blake couldn’t blame him. No one
appreciated being bothered by a solicitor who got him to the phone under false
pretenses, especially this early in the morning. But Blake had no choice. If
the call was being bugged, he needed it to appear as legitimate as possible.
Had he hung up after verifying Walsh was alive and at work, this would have
raised the eyebrows of anyone listening.

“Nicely done,” said Jenna.
“You’re hired,” she added, not that this had ever been in question, but it was
her way of saying she was beginning to appreciate his skills. “It’s a relief to
know Dan is alive. But we have to warn him to make sure he stays that way.”

“I agree. But I don’t think he’s
in much danger at the moment. We’ve been assuming they know Nathan sent an e-mail
to Walsh with a summary of what he’d discovered. But if this were enough to
trigger the kind of all-out response against Walsh that was triggered against
Nathan, it would have happened by now. The groups you described don’t play
around. Which isn’t to say they aren’t monitoring him. But we should have
time.”

“Okay,” said Jenna. “I guess
that makes sense.”

She paused for a moment and then
sighed. “I should tell you that I can’t pay you much upfront. Five hundred is
all I have on me. But I have more than enough in savings. And Nathan had a
million dollar life insurance policy,” she added, her eyes becoming moist again
from this reminder of how he had been snuffed out in his prime, in a single,
unthinkable instant. “His parents told him it was a good idea,” she explained,
her voice barely above a whisper. “At his age and health, it only cost him
twenty-two bucks a month.”

Blake waited silently as Jenna
managed to blink back tears.

“So I don’t even want to know your
rate,” she continued, her voice regaining strength. “Whatever it is, I’ll pay
it.”

“Fair enough,” said Blake, who
knew that if her story panned out he would be willing to pay
her
to be in on it. A case that was
likely to be as immensely important as it was challenging. One that would get
his juices flowing. And one that didn’t require him to film a businessman
screwing his secretary.

“But just so we’re on the same
page, Jenna, what do you see as the goals of this investigation?”

She answered without hesitation.
“Learn who these men are and why Nathan was so important to them. Learn what
Nathan discovered. Make sure the men who did this are
punished
,” she said bitterly, fire gleaming in her eyes. “Make sure
Dan Walsh stays safe. And make sure I stay alive and out of jail for grand
theft auto.”

“Excellent,” said Blake. “You
have a very clear grasp of what we need to accomplish.”

He stared deeply into her brown
eyes and nodded reassuringly. “And you’ve come to the right man. I promise you
I’ll get to the bottom of this. If it’s the last thing I ever do.”