The Woman (23 page)

The motel Linda had chosen sat on the main road through town, with a residential street on its south side. Charlie’s black Pontiac was not in the motel lot. Testler turned onto the unlit small residential street and immediately saw the Pontiac parked in front of a cottage type house with a wide porch fronted by a river rock pony wall.

Testler knew Charlie liked violence, but he also knew that Charlie kept it in check, only indulging his love for giving pain when ordered to do so. Bobby joined in the cruelty only after Charlie led the way.

Because Testler had a transmitter on Linda’s car he would know when she drove out of the lot, and because Charlie would not move until Linda did, and Bobby would not move until Charlie did, Testler only needed to keep track of Linda’s car to know the location of all three of them. He also knew Charlie was under Webster’s order not to take Linda without Webster’s approval. And, further that Webster did not intend to approve her being taken until after Testler had eliminated Chief McIlhenny in Sea Crest next Tuesday.

Testler took a room at a motel across the street and down a block. Before entering the office he chose a range of room numbers on the second floor from which he could use his binoculars to watch Linda’s room and her car. He requested and got one of those rooms. The desk clerk, between yawns, told him there was no place in town to get anything to eat until five-thirty in the morning when the coffee shop in the next block opened. The owner also said Testler had been fortunate he drove in when he did as the owner had just decided to turn on the no-vacancy sign and go to bed.

Testler set the alarm on his cell phone to wake him at five. He would only get a couple of hours sleep, but he had handled more demanding military assignments with less. Testler and Charlie had been in several joint meetings with Webster and worked together on three assignments. Charlie would recognize Testler in a heartbeat. But the dullard Bobby, whom Testler had met once five years before, would likely not. Ryan planned to get to the diner when it opened in the morning so he’d be fed and back to his motel room before Charlie would approach the diner, if he did at all. Charlie used Bobby as his gopher so if either of them came to the diner for coffee and danish to take back to the room, it would likely be Bobby not Charlie.

A few minutes later, the light behind the curtain over the window in Charlie and Bobby’s motel room went out. Through his binoculars, Testler saw the curtain part ever so slightly. Just enough to let him know the opening was unnatural, as if held by a hand. Linda’s room had been dark for at least twenty minutes. An hour later, the curtain in Charlie’s room fell over the opening that had been there.

Testler eased out of his room wearing black soft-soled shoes, black jeans, and a down jacket with the collar turned up. And a black bucket hat down on his forehead. The office of his motel had been dark since a few minutes after he had checked in. The NO VACANCY sign, the only illumination other than floodlights at each end of the second floor that shone down and away from the rooms.

Testler walked quietly down the stairs, across the lot, and up the main drag. Then he turned onto the side street. When he got beside Charlie’s Pontiac he stooped down as if to tie his shoe, and attached a magnetized small explosive inside the tire well of the front right tire. It was the only such device he had with him. The duffle in his trunk was in need of resupply. In the not too distant future he needed to get to one of his rental storage units to resupply. The modest blow he had placed under Charlie’s car would appear to be an unfortunate malfunction. But it would be enough to disengage the steering control over the right tire and likely enough to remove that tire.

Fifteen minutes later, after having placed a small listening device next to the door to Charlie’s room, Testler was back in his own room. In the chair by the window, the drapes parted, still clothed, with his binoculars in his lap, the listening receiver in his ear, asleep. He had learned long ago to sleep on assignments wherever he could, under whatever conditions existed, never knowing when the next opportunity might come.

Sometime later, he didn’t immediately know how much later, except that instinctively he knew the moon had moved a distance in the sky, he heard Charlie’s motel room door open. He raised the binoculars to his eyes. Charlie was a bulky man with thick thighs and a bull neck above broad shoulders. The man coming out of the room was a thin piece of fibrous tissue, Bobby Vargas.

Bobby moved quietly toward Linda’s car where he used a car-jacking tool inserted along the glass window to snag and disengage the locking mechanism. When Bobby opened the door, the car stayed dark. Linda had apparently switched the dome light off. Testler smiled, Linda had good instincts.

Bobby got inside and pulled the door most of the way closed. A moment later, Testler’s binoculars picked up the glow from a small handheld light. After a few more minutes, Bobby left the car, relocking the door and returned to his room. Testler now took time to look at his watch: three in the morning. He closed his drapes and got into bed, the listening device still in his ear.

* * *

Testler woke before his alarm went off, a backup to his internal clock which had never yet failed him. He parted the drapes and looked down to the next block and across the street. Linda’s car had not moved, neither had Bobby’s which meant that Charlie’s Pontiac would still be on the side street. Right then the low rising sun sliced between two mountain peaks to the east to quickly fill Weed with its light and promise of later warmth. For now the outside temperature was controlled by the cold mist that visits in the early morning just after dawn.

Testler got up immediately, showered, shaved and put on clean clothes. When traveling, he tried to avoid encounters with people. Still, he dressed to present himself as a quiet, clean-cut tourist.

At five-thirty, Testler bought a USA Today out of the vending machine before walking inside the white-painted brick coffee shop. The street-front side and back walls were lined with booths. The counter fronted by swivel chairs occupied by diners rewarded with views of the inner workings of the restaurant. He took a booth at the turn from the side to the back wall from which he could watch the entire establishment. A middle-aged waitress brought a cheese omelette, toast and coffee a few minutes after he ordered it. He immediately put ten dollars on the table in case he needed to leave fast.

Twenty minutes later, through the large glass window at the side of the lobby, Testler watched Bobby Vargas coming toward the diner. Bobby, who had been in the Army but never in a war, looked more accountant than fighting man. He wore blue jeans and a gray sweatshirt in the cool morning mountain air. He scratched his head, without concern for further disrupting his sleep hairdo. His arms went up while he yawned. Then he pulled open the door and entered.

Testler held the newspaper covering most of his face, but Bobby didn’t look around. Something a fighting man, particularly a Special Forces type would never fail to do. Bobby ordered something standing next to the register. Then he sat on the Naugahyde bench until the waitress motioned to him. After paying, Bobby left with a large coffee in one hand, and a big soda cup held atop a bag into which a counter person had deposited two mountain-man sized cinnamon rolls. Testler motioned for his waitress, ordered a cinnamon roll to go, and put a five on top of his ten.

Ryan watched from the lot of his motel while Linda got gas at a station across from the motel. After Linda pulled out of the station, Charlie and Bobby pulled in and gassed up. Then they rushed up the road toward the entrance back onto I-5 South. Finally Ryan filled the tank on his car and went the same way. For a while after leaving the station, Charlie and Bobby would be unable to keep visual contact with Linda. Her options were only north or south on I-5 or stay in Weed. She had come from the north, so south made sense until they got her back in sight. The electronic track Ryan had on Linda’s car let him know she had in fact gone south. He also guessed that Bobby might have seen something in Linda’s car the night before that told him she would be going south.

For the next half hour, Testler followed Bobby’s Impala while mostly looking past the Impala to watch Charlie’s Pontiac, the tail car closest to Linda’s car.

Testler could no longer deny his interest in Linda Darby had become more than what it was in the beginning, an uncomplicated desire not to kill an innocent bystander. She was bright and personable. There were many women with these qualities, but Linda was somehow different. He had never lived with a woman, well, not for more than a few days, never shared a lasting, serious relationship with a woman. Yet he found himself wondering how it would be to live with this particular woman. Live as a normal couple, with her not on the run and him out of the intelligence game. Hell, the truth was he had left the intelligence game when he began taking big gobs of Webster’s money in return for allowing the man to convert him into a blackmailer and assassin.

His study and surveillance of Linda told him that after her divorce and relocation to Sea Crest, she had become a bit of a recluse. But since this ordeal began she had shown some signs of coming out of her malaise, of regaining her self confidence. She was mature enough to have had the experiences that make a full woman, yet still at an age to have the perfections and flawlessness of a younger woman. Her running on the beach had kept her tush and tummy tight and her legs sculpted. He admitted to his growing interest in her, but wondered if that interest was a sufficient reason to put his own life at risk. Not to mention ending the lucrative income he received from Webster. He simply didn’t know that answer, not yet anyway, and time was crowding him. He had to decide, and soon. He needed some time with Linda. And for that he needed to get Charlie and Bobby out of the picture.

As their small caravan climbed higher into the mountains of northern California the road alternated between inside curves hugging the mountain and outside curves with sharp drop offs to the right.

Other than the road itself, the area was very primitive. Large trees, mostly pines dotted the uphill side and jumped the road to pick up again on the downhill side. In some of the side canyons, small streams tumbled down to disappear under the highway to reemerge and continue their race down the canyon wall. At other places, the water was not a stream, or even a trickle, but simply rocks wetted by seepage from some ancient underground river. There were also points where the water accumulated to trail along the side of the road the way that sprinkler runoff followed the curb gutter in suburban neighborhoods.

When the road periodically wandered to the right, Testler could see beyond the next bend and the one after that. The farthest portion ahead appeared promising, perhaps just what he needed, a turn without a guardrail. He moved closer to the Impala. Then, when the center striping and traffic allowed, he held his hand to his face and scratched the stubble on his cheek while passing Bobby in the Impala. The incompetent didn’t even look over. Testler didn’t like being between Charlie and Bobby, but on these winding mountain roads he needed to position the radio-frequency remote closer to Charlie’s Pontiac.

The four cars drove another mile or so before Testler confirmed he had seen the perfect spot, a section of road just beyond Charlie’s Pontiac that eased itself to the right just before a dramatic switchback to the left. With the Pontiac about a hundred yards short of the farthest out point, Testler pressed the remote in his right hand. An instant later, a small explosion blew the right front tire free of the dark Pontiac.

The tire rolled over the edge and Charlie’s Pontiac soared after it. It would not be the soaring that killed Charlie, but the sudden stop at the end.

Chapter 36

In his rearview mirror, Testler watched Bobby jam on his brakes and skid to a stop just past the edge where Charlie’s car had taken flight. Testler pulled to the shoulder beyond Bobby’s Impala and walked back to where Bobby stood on the ledge looking down into the canyon. With his movements covered by the sounds of passing traffic Testler moved right up behind Bobby.

He bunched the thinner man’s windbreaker in his fist. “Don’t turn around, Bobby Vargas, or you’ll be joining Charlie.”

“Who are you? How do you know me?”

“Not important. Stay like you are.” Testler brought his hand to his mouth and spoke as if talking into a cell phone, “When I walk away keep Vargas in your crosshair. If he turns to look at me, shoot. He’ll drop into the canyon. If he behaves, after I’ve driven around the next bend, leave him be. Understood? . . . Good.”

Testler simulated putting the cell phone back in his pocket, then again spoke to Bobby. “Last night late, you went into Linda Darby’s car. You stayed there a few minutes. What were you looking at?”

“How do you know about that?”

“Not important. Answer me. What did you find in her car?”

“A map.”

“Of what?”

“The western states.”

“Go on. I don’t have the time for twenty questions.”

“She had two places circled. Las Vegas and some place in Arizona . . . Sedona. Yeah. Sedona.”

“What else?”

“Nothing else. I mean, an empty coffee cup, a pair of sunglasses. Just shit. That’s it.”

“Did you hear me on the cell phone?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me what you’re going to do.”

“Not move, man. Not move. But how will I know when you’ve rounded the next bend?”

“You can hear the cars going by. Count them. When you get to a hundred, it’ll be okay to turn around.”