Diana Christie was not prone to hysterics. One did not become an investigator for the NTSB without a large supply of objectivity, not to mention patience and meticulousness. NTSB investigators had access to the finest investigative forces in the world, but they often worked alone, working their way through tiny scraps of evidence, minuscule warps in the fabric of shattered aircraft, minute scars on the wheels of locomotives, and usually under the watchful eye of the media. The pressure was enormous, and only the coolest and calmest were chosen for the job.
Diana was one of them. She’d worked on the go team that investigated TWA 800. She’d headed the investigation of the American flight that went down over Chicago, and the Amtrak derailment in Denver. She was an expert.
Which made her current investigation all the more frustrating. She had no vested interest in this particular disaster, no emotional attachments. She certainly had no agenda beyond the truth, and no reason to bang her head against the brick wall of other people’s incompetence… except that her job was to find the cause of a particular effect. That was her raison d’etre, and she took it seriously.
Diana was investigative by nature, but the mystery she currently attempted to pierce led her into unknown territory. She examined equipment and shards of blasted metal, not people. Her work led her to the conclusion that the blast had originated in seat 29D. The airline manifest told her that the seat had been occupied by one Ali Abdul. Now, Diana wasn’t a police detective, but she could pick up the phone as easily as the next person, so she’d made telephone calls. The address Ali Abdul had listed was out of date. To make things more frustrating, it appeared that every Ali Abdul residing in the city of Los Angeles was alive, which was very inconvenient considering that her theory was Ali Abdul had blown himself up.
There was, undoubtedly, an answer to this mystery. However, to resolve it she needed someone with the right sort of investigative skills. She decided to try the jerks at CTU one more time.
Shoemacher was one of those streets you rarely see on television programs about Los Angeles: a beautiful, well-landscaped street lined with elegant mid-sized houses and set in the heart of the city. The television usually showed the nice houses only on the west side or in the suburbs, but the truth was a vibrant community existed south of Hollywood and east of downtown. There were vibrant communities in south central and east L.A., too, but the television rarely hinted of that.
Don Biehn knew all this. A cop of twenty-two years, of course he did. But he didn’t know why he was thinking of it at that moment. Self-distraction, maybe. Compartmentalization of emotions. Sheer madness, for all he knew.
Whatever it was, it allowed him to get from St. Monica’s to Shoemacher Avenue without eating his own gun. He parked his car at a metered spot near the corner of San Vicente and Olympic, then crossed Olympic and went up Shoemacher, a diagonal street cutting a swath through a mid-Wilshire neighborhood. It was a short walk from there down the darkened sidewalk to the pretty brick house occupied by a monster.
Aaron hadn’t known his name. In his journal, he’d simply called him “the other father.” Father Frank had brought him in for “special visits.” Don now planned to pay a special visit of his own.
The first time down the street, he walked right by the house, taking in as much information as he could without pausing. Lights were on, and the flicker of colors against the thin rice-paper panel blocking the large front window told Don that the priest was watching television. He went halfway up the block, paused and looked around as though lost, then turned back. This time, he favored the shadows, and when he reached the brick house, he glanced around to see if anyone was looking, then turned in a quick and businesslike way up the side lawn to the gate. It was unlocked. He opened it slowly, keeping the creaking to a minimum, then closed it himself so the self-closing spring didn’t slam it shut. He had to negotiate some trash and recycling bins, but in a moment he was around the side of the house and into the backyard. There was a set of French doors between the backyard and the kitchen. It was locked.
Undiscouraged, Don hurried back around to the front of the house. There were several cars parked on the street right in front of the priest’s house. Don wasn’t sure which of them was owned by Collins. It didn’t really matter. Once again glancing around to see if any neighbors were out, and finding no one, the detective slapped first one and then the other car hard.
Car alarms wailed. One of them was the annoying kind that changed its pitch and tempo every few seconds, and both were loud. Don hurried back around the house to the French doors. Even from here, the alarms sounded shrill and loud on the quiet street. Inhaling deeply, Don wrapped his fist in his jacket and wound up to punch out one of the glass squares.
But before he could, something covered his mouth and nose. He inhaled sharp, eye-watering fumes, and everything went black.
Jack’s head shook clear when he hit the ground. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been totally out. He’d been groggy for the last few minutes, lying in the back of Dog’s truck with his hands and feet bound with what felt like duct tape and a tarp thrown over his head. He was going to have a massive headache and a good-sized lump on his head, assuming he survived this.
Jack was vaguely aware that the truck had pulled off the road somewhere and was bumping along the pathless high desert. Eventually, the truck had stopped. The tarp disappeared, and Jack had felt himself lifted and then dropped. That’s when the impact shook his head clear.
It was pitch-black. They were far from Lancaster’s faint glow of lights, somewhere out in the desert off the Pearblossom Highway that ran south and east. There wasn’t enough starlight or moonlight for Jack to make out Dog’s face clearly, but he could see the hulking shape crouched down in front of him.
“So we don’t misunderstand each other,” Dog said out of the gloom, “you wouldn’t be the first cop I killed.”
Jack didn’t say anything. Dog grunted and continued. “It was a good one, the bike thing. I do like Ducati. But I’m not dumb, just country dumb, and don’t nobody start talkin’ about blowing things up in a bar.”
Jack allowed himself some silent absolution. He hadn’t had much time to lay out and execute a longer, slower, less obvious sting. This was still a failure, but the risks had been unavoidable.
“I figure it’s Farrigian sold me out,” Dog said. He grabbed Jack by the throat. “Was it Farrigian? You tell me who it was and I’ll end you quick.”
Jack fought the natural panic of suffocation and stared into the shadows where Dog’s eyes would be. He wasn’t going to give this two-bit scum the satisfaction of seeing him struggle. After a second, the big man let go. Jack willed himself to breathe in slowly, easily. He didn’t gasp.
“Tough sumbitch.” Dog laughed.
“You should just let me go now,” Jack said when his lungs stopped burning.
Dog laughed. “What, you think I’m a moron?”
Jack heard the faint whup-whup of the helicopter first. “Yes,” he said, “I think you’re a moron.”
Spotlights ignited like a half-dozen suns leaping into the sky all around them. A voice blared over an unseen bullhorn. “This is the police! You are under arrest! This is the police!”
Dog whirled, blinded by the light and stunned by the noise. “Get down, get down, get down!” a voice shouted, and footsteps thudded toward them out of the darkness.