Six Guardians of the Underworld

Chapter 52

"You hope. "

he nodded. "I hope. "

They taxied on time and took off a minute early. Gina pulled the magazine out and started leafing through. Harper had her tray unfolded, ready for breakfast.

"What did you mean?" he asked. "When you said it's a clue in itself?"

He forced his mind back an hour and tried to remember.

"Just thinking aloud, I guess," he said.

"Thinking about what?"

He shrugged. He had time to kill. "The history of science. Stuff like that. "

"Is that relevant?"

"I was thinking about fingerprinting. How old is that?"

he made a face. "Pretty old, I think. "

"Turn of the century?"

he nodded. "Probably. "

"OK, a hundred years old," he said. "That was the first big forensic test, right? Probably started using microscopes around the same time. And since then, they've invented all kinds of other stuff. DNA, mass spectrometry, fluorescence. Jackr said you've got tests I wouldn't believe. I bet they can find a rug fiber, tell you where and when somebody bought it, what kind of flea sat on it, what kind of dog the flea came off. Probably tell you what the dog's name is and what brand of dog food it ate for breakfast. "

"So?"

"Amazing tests, right?"

he nodded.

"Real science-fiction stuff, right?"

he nodded again.

"OK," he said. "Amazing, science-fiction tests. But this guy killed Amy Callan and beat all of those tests, right?"

"Right. "

"So what do you call that type of a guy?"

"What?"

"A very, very clever guy, is what. "

he made a face. "Among other things. "

"Sure, a lot of other things, but whatever else, a very clever guy. Then he did it again, with Cooke. Now what do we call him?"

"What?"

"A very, very clever guy. Once might have been luck. Twice, he's damn good. "

"So?"

"Then he did it again, with Stanley. Now what do we call him?"

"A very, very, very clever guy?"

Gina nodded. "Exactly. "

"So?"

"So that's the clue. We're looking for a very, very, very clever guy. "

"I think we know that already. "

Gina shook his head. "I don't think you do. You're not factoring it in. "

"In what sense?"

"You think about it. I'm only an errand boy. You Bureau people can do all the hard work. "

The stewardess came out of the galley with the breakfast trolley. It was first class, so the food was reasonable. Gina smelled bacon and egg and sausage. Strong coffee. He flipped his tray open. The cabin was half-empty, so he got the girl to give him two breakfasts. Two airline meals made for a pleasant snack. he caught on quick and kept his coffee cup full.

"How aren't we factoring it in?" Harper asked.

"Figure it out for yourself," Gina said. "I'm not in a helpful mood. "

"Is it that he's not a soldier?"

He turned to stare at her. "That's great. We agree he's a really smart guy, and so you say well, then he's obviously not a soldier. Thanks a bunch, Harper. "

he looked away, embarrassed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I just can't see how we're not factoring it in. "

He said nothing in reply. Just drained his coffee and climbed over her legs to get to the bathroom. When he got back, he was still looking contrite.

"Tell me," he said. r />

"No. "

"You should, Gina. Loveth's going to ask me about your attitude. "

"My attitude? Tell him my attitude is if a hair on Lanny's head gets hurt, I'll tear his legs off and beat him to death with them. "

he nodded. "You really mean that, right?"

He nodded back. "You bet your a*s I do. "

"That's what I don't understand. Why aren't you feeling a little bit of the same way about these women? You liked Amy Callan, right? Not the same way as Lanny, but you liked her. "

"I don't understand you, either. Loveth wanted to use you like a hooker, and you're acting like he's still your best buddy. "

he shrugged. "He was desperate. He gets like that. He's under a lot of stress. He gets a case like this, he's just desperate to c***k it. "

"And you admire that?"

he nodded. "Sure I do. I admire dedication. "

"But you don't share it. Or you wouldn't have said no to him. You'd have seduced me on camera, for the good of the cause. So maybe it's you who doesn't care enough about these women. "

he was quiet for a spell. "It was immoral. It annoyed me. "

He nodded. "And threatening Lanny was immoral, too. It annoyed me. "

"But I'm not letting my annoyance get in the way of justice. "

"Well, I am. And if you don't like that, tough s**t. "

THEY DIDN'T SPEAK again, all the way to Travo. Five hours, without a word. Gina was comfortable enough with that. He was not a compulsively sociable guy. He was happier not talking. He didn't see anything odd about it. There was no strain involved. He just sat there, not talking, like he was making the journey on his own.

Harper was having more trouble with it. He could see he was worried about it. he was like most people. Put her alongside somebody he was acquainted with, he felt he had to be conversing. For her, it was unnatural not to be. But he didn't relent. Five hours, without a single word.

Those five hours were reduced to two by the West Coast clocks. It was still about breakfast time when they landed. The Sea-Tac terminals were filled with people starting out on their day. The arrivals hall had the usual echelon of drivers holding placards up. There was one guy in a dark suit, striped tie, short hair. He had no placard, but he was their guy. He might as well have had CSI tattooed across his forehead.

"Lisa Harper?" he said. "I'm from the Travo Field Office. "

They shook hands.

"This is Gina," he said.

The Travo agent ignored him completely. Gina smiled inside. Touche, he thought. But then the guy might have ignored him anyway even if they were best buddies, because he was pretty much preoccupied with paying a whole lot of attention to what was under Harper's shirt.

"We're flying to Spokane," he said. "Air taxi company owes us a few favors. "

He had a Bureau car parked in the tow lane. He used it to drive a mile around the perimeter road to General Aviation, which was five acres of fenced tarmac filled with parked planes, all of them tiny, one and two engines. There was a cluster of huts with low-budget signs advertising transportation and flying lessons. A guy met them outside one of the huts. He wore a generic pilot's uniform and led them toward a clean white six-seat Cessna. It was a medium-sized walk across the apron. Fall in the Northwest had brighter light than in D. C. , but it was just as cold.

The interior of the plane was about the same size Jackr's Buick had been, and a whole lot more spartan. But it looked clean and well maintained, and the engines started first touch on the button. It taxied out to the runway with the same sensation of tiny size Gina had felt in the Lear at McGuire. It lined up behind a 747 bound for Tokyo the way a mouse lines up behind an elephant. Then it wound itself up and was off the ground in seconds, wheeling due east, settling to a noisy cruise a thousand feet above the ground.

The airspeed indicator showed more than a hundred and twenty knots, and the plane flew on for two whole hours. The seat was cramped and uncomfortable, and Gina started wishing he'd thought of a better way to waste his time. He was going to spend fourteen hours in the air, all in one day. Maybe he should have stayed and worked on the files with Jackr. He imagined a quiet room somewhere, like a library, a stack of papers, a leather chair. Then he pictured Jackr herself and glanced across at Harper and figured he'd maybe taken the right option after all.

The airfield at Spokane was a modest, modern place, larger than he had expected. There was a Bureau car waiting on the tarmac, identifiable even from a thousand feet up, a clean dark sedan with a man in a suit leaning on the fender.

"From the Spokane satellite office," the Travo guy said.

The car rolled over to where the plane parked and they were on the road within twenty seconds of the pilot shutting down. The local guy had the destination address written on a pad fixed to his windshield with a rubber suction cup. He seemed to know where the place was. He drove ten miles east toward the Idaho panhandle and turned north on a narrow road into the hills. The terrain was moderate, but there were giant mountains in the middle distance. Snow gleamed on the peaks. The road had a building every mile or so, separated by thick forest and broad meadow. The population density was not encouraging.

The address itself might have been the main house of an old cattle ranch, sold off long ago and refurbihed by somebody looking for the rural dream but unwilling to forget the aesthetics of the city. It was boxed into a small lot by new ranch fencing. Beyond the fencing was grazing land, and inside the fencing the same grass had been fed and mowed into a fine lawn. There were trees on the perimeter, contorted by the wind. There was a small barn with garage doors punched into the side and a path veering off from the driveway to the front door. The whole structure stood close to the road and close to its own fencing, like a suburban house standing close to its neighbors, but this one stood close to nothing. The nearest man-made object was at least a mile away north or south, maybe twenty miles away east or west.

The local guys stayed in the car, and Harper and Gina got out and stood stretching on the shoulder. Then the engine shut down behind them and the stunning silence of the empty country fell on them like a weight. It hummed and hissed and echoed in their ears.

"I'd feel better if he lived in a city apartment," Gina said.

Harper nodded. "With a doorman. "

There was no gate. The ranch fencing just stopped either side of the mouth of the driveway. They walked together toward the house. The driveway was shale. Reassuringly noisy, at least. There was a slight breeze. Gina could hear it in the power lines. Harper stopped at the front door. There was no bell push. Just a big iron knocker in the shape of a lion's head with a heavy ring held in its teeth. There was a fiheye spyhole above it. The spyhole was new. There were burrs of clean wood where the drill had chipped the paint. Harper grasped the iron ring and knocked twice. The ring thumped on the wood. The sound was loud and dull, and it rolled out over the grassland. Came back seconds later from the hills.

There was no response. Harper knocked again. The sound boomed out. They waited. There was a creak of floorboards inside the house. Footsteps. The sound approached unseen and stopped behind the door.

"Who is it?" a voice called. A woman's voice, apprehensive.

Harper went into her pocket and came out with her badge. It was backed with a slip of leather, the same type of gold-on-gold shield Jackr had clicked against Gina's car window. The eagle at the top, head c****d to the left. he held it up, six inches in front of the spyhole.

"CSI, ma'am," he announced. "We called you yesterday, made an appointment. "