Six Guardians of the Underworld

Chapter 51

"Success?" Trent asked.

"I think so. Time will tell, right?"

Trent nodded and looked out at the weather. He was restless. He had been trapped in his office all day.

"Let her in, if you want," Gina said. "Show's over now. "

"You're all wet," Trent said. "Show's not over until you're dried out. "

It took twenty minutes to dry out. He used Trent 's phone and called Lanny's numbers. The private office line, the apartment, the mobile. No reply, no reply, out of service. He stared at the wall. Then he read an unclassified file about proposed methods of getting mail to the Marines if they had to go serve in the Indian Ocean. The time he spent on it put him lower in his chair and put a glazed look on his face. When Trent finally opened the door and Harper got her second peek of the day, he was slumped and inert. Exactly like a man looks after an arduous day with paperwork.

"Progress?" he called.

He looked up and sighed at the ceiling. "Maybe. "

"Six solid hours, you must have gotten somewhere. "

"Maybe," he said again.

There was silence for a moment.

"OK, so let's go," he said.

he stood up behind her desk and stretched. he put her arms way above her head, palms flat, reaching for the ceiling. Some kind of a yoga thing. he arched her face upward and tilted her head and her hair cascaded down her back. Three sergeants and one colonel stared at her.

"So let's go," Gina said.

"Don't forget your notes," Trent said.

He handed over a heet of paper. There was a list of maybe thirty names printed on it. Probably Trent 's high school football team. Gina put the list in his pocket and put his coat on and shook Trent 's hand. Walked through the anteroom and outside into the rain and stood there breathing for a second like a man who has been sitting down all day. Then Harper nudged him toward the lieutenant's car for the drive back to the Lear.

Loveth AND POULTON and Jackr were waiting for them at the same table in the Quantico cafeteria. It was just as dark outside, but now the table was set for dinner, not breakfast. There was a jug of water and five glasses, salt and pepper, bottles of steak sauce. Loveth ignored Gina and glanced at Harper, who nodded back to him, like a reassurance. Loveth looked satisfied.

"So, you found our guy yet?" he asked.

"Maybe," Gina said. "I've got thirty names. He could be one of them. "

"So let's see them. "

"Not yet. I need more. "

Loveth stared at him. "Bullshit, you need more. We need to get tails on these guys. "

Gina shook his head. "Can't be done. These guys are in places where you can't go. You even want a warrant on these guys, you're going to have to go to the Secretary of Defense, right after you've been to the judge. And Defense is going to go straight to the Commander-in-Chief, who was the President last time I looked, so you're going to need a damn sight more than I can give you right now. "

"So what are you saying?"

"I'm saying let me boil it down some. "

"How?"

Gina shrugged. "I want to go see Jackr's sister. "

"My stepsister," Jackr said.

"Why?" Loveth asked.

Gina wanted to say because I'm just killing time, asshole, and I'd rather do it on the road than stuck in here, but he composed his face into a serious look and shrugged again.

"Because we need to think laterally," he said. "If this guy is killing by category, we need to know why. He can't be mad at a whole category, just like that. One of these women must have sparked him off, first time around. Then he must have transferred his rage from the personal to the general, right? So who was it? Jackr's sister could be a good place to start asking. he got a transfer between units. Two very different units. That doubles her potential contacts, profile-wise. "

It sounded professional enough. Loveth nodded.

"OK," he said. "We'll set it up. You'll go tomorrow. "

"Where does he live?"

" Washington State," Jackr said. "Someplace outside of Spokane, I think. "

"You think? You don't know?"

"I've never been there," he said. "I sure as hell don't get enough vacation time to drive all the way out and drive all the way back. "

Gina nodded. Turned to Loveth.

"You should be guarding these women," he said.

Loveth sighed heavily. "Do the arithmetic, for God's sake. Eighty-eight women, and we don't know which one is next, seventeen days to go, if he sticks to his cycle, three agents every twenty-four hours, that's more than a hundred thousand man-hours, random locations all around the country. We just can't do it. We don't have the agents. We warned the local police departments, of course, but what can they do? Like outside of Spokane, Washington, for instance, the local police department is probably one man and a German hepherd. They drive by, time to time, I guess, but that's all we got. "

"Have you warned the women, too?"

Loveth looked embarrassed and shook his head. "We can't. If we can't guard them, we can't warn them. Because what would we be saying? You're in danger, but sorry girls, you're entirely on your own? Can't be done. "

"We need to catch this guy," Poulton said. "That's the only sure way to help these women. "

Jackr nodded. "He's out there, somewhere. We need to bring him in. "

Gina looked at them. Three psychologists. They were trying to push all the right buttons. Trying to make it a challenge. He smiled. "I get the message. "

"OK, you go to Spokane tomorrow," Jackr said. "Meanwhile I'll work

the files some more. You'll review them the day after tomorrow. That gives you the stuff you got from Trent, plus the stuff you get in Spokane, plus what we've already gotten. At which point we'll expect some real progress from you. "

Gina smiled again. "Whatever, Jackr. "

"So eat and get to bed," Loveth said. "It's a long way to Spokane. Early start tomorrow. Harper will go with you, of course. "

"To bed?"

Loveth was embarrassed again. "To Spokane, asshole. "

Gina nodded. "Whatever, Loveth. "

THE PROBLEM WAS, it was a challenge. He was sealed in his room, lying alone on the bed, staring up at the blind eye of the hidden camera. But he wasn't seeing it. His gaze had dissolved just like it used to, into a blur. A green blur, like the whole of America had disappeared and returned to grassland and forest, the buildings gone, the roads gone, the noise gone, the population all gone, except for one man, somewhere. Gina stared into the silent blur, a hundred miles, a thousand miles, three thousand miles, his gaze roving north and south, east and west, looking for the faint shadow, waiting for the sudden movement. He's out there, somewhere. We need to catch this guy. He was walking around right now, or sleeping, or planning, or preparing, and he was thinking he was just about the smartest guy on the whole continent.

Well, we'll see about that, Gina thought. He stirred. He ought to get seriously involved. Or on the other hand, maybe not. It was a big decision, waiting to be made, but it wasn't made yet. He rolled over and closed his eyes. He could think about it later. He could make the decision tomorrow. Or the next day. Whenever.

THE DECISION WAS made. About the interval. The interval was history. Time to speed things up a little. Three weeks was way too long to wait now. This sort of thing, you let the idea creep up on you, you look at it, you consider it, you see its value, you see its appeal, and the decision is really made for you, isn't it? You can't get the genie back in the bottle, not once it's out. And this genie is out. All the way out. Up and running. So you run with it.

Love those scars," he said.

he took a step closer, looking at his stomach with undisguised curiosity.

"What's that one from?" he asked, pointing to his right side.

He glanced down. The right side of his stomach had a violent tracery of stitches in the shape of a twisted star. They bulged out above the muscle wall, white and angry.

"My mother did it," he said.

"Your mother?"

"I was raised by grizzly bears. In Alaska. "

he rolled her eyes and moved them up to the left side of his chest. There was a. 38 caliber bullet hole there, punched right into the pectoral muscle. The hair was missing from around it. It was a big hole. he could have lost her little finger in it, right up to the first knuckle.

"Exploratory surgery," he said. "Checking if I had a heart. "

"You're happy this morning," he said.

He nodded. "I'm always happy. "

"Did you get Lanny yet?"

He shook his head. "I haven't tried since yesterday. "

"Why not?"

"Waste of time. he's not there. "

"Are you worried?"

He shrugged. "he's a big girl. "

"I'll tell you if I hear anything. "

He nodded. "You better. "

"Where are they really from?" he asked. "The scars?"

He buttoned his shirt.

"The gut is from bomb shrapnel," he said. "The chest, somebody shot me. "

"Dramatic life. "

He took his coat from the closet.

"No, not really. Pretty normal, wouldn't you say? For a soldier? A soldier figuring to avoid physical violence is like a CPA figuring to avoid adding numbers. "

"Is that why you don't care about these women?"

He looked at her. "Who says I don't care?"

"I thought you'd be more agitated about it. "

"Getting agitated won't achieve anything. "

he paused. "So what will?"

"Working the clues, same as always. "

"There aren't any clues. He doesn't leave any. "

He smiled. "That's a clue in itself, wouldn't you say?"

he used her key from the inside and opened the door.

"That's just talking in riddles," he said.

He shrugged. "Better than talking in bullshit, like they do downstairs. "

THE SAME MOTOR pool guy brought the same car to the doors. This time he stayed in the driver's seat, sitting square-on like a dutiful chauffeur. He drove them north on I-95 to the National Airport. It was before dawn. There was a halfhearted glow in the sky somewhere three hundred miles to the east, all the way out over the Atlantic Ocean. The only other illumination was from a thousand headlights streaming north toward work. The headlights were mostly on old-model cars. Old, therefore cheap, therefore owned by low-grade people aiming to be at their desks an hour before their bosses, so they would look good and get promotion, whereupon they could drive newer cars to work an hour later in the day. Gina sat still and watched their shadowed faces as the Bureau driver sped past them, one by one.

Inside the airport terminal, it was reasonably busy. Men and women in dark raincoats walked quickly from one place to another. Harper collected two coach tickets from the United desk and carried them over to the check-in counter.

"We could use some legroom," he said to the guy behind the counter.

he used her CSI pass for photo ID. he snapped it down like a poker player completing a flush. The guy hit a few keys and came up with an upgrade. Harper smiled, like he was genuinely surprised.

First class was half-empty. Harper took an aisle seat, trapping Gina against the window like a prisoner. he stretched out. he was in a third different suit, this one a fine check in a muted gray. The jacket fell open and showed a hint of n****e through the shirt, and no shoulder holster.

"Left your g*n at home?" Gina asked.

he nodded. "Not worth the hassle. Airlines want too much paperwork. A Travo guy is meeting us. Standard practice is he'd bring a spare, should we need one. But we won't, not today. "