“No. He’s CIA. They’re more interested in finding out which commercial people are trying to get their hands on the aircraft. Remember that when you share information with him. Make another call to Neal and meet with him quick. Take a gun with you; that’s an order. Some people who’ve helped us with information in the past have disappeared, transferred out if we believe what Davis says, and we don’t. Ask Neal about the foreign nationals who came over with the plane. Maybe he can identify one for you. We hear that one of them initially briefed the engineers.”
“I’m calling him again tonight. I’ll get back to you.”
“Anytime. If I don’t answer, expect a return call. Watch your back.”
Gil broke the connection. Eric spent the rest of the day assembling a phony list of international galleries as part of a brochure for interested artists. Leon did not return to the office, so Eric locked up and drove home. The house had not been disturbed, no strange odors in the air. He ran the surveillance tapes fast-forward, and nothing showed up in visible, the IR camera only turned on at night.
Dinner was two potpies and mixed vegetables. He read, and watched television. At exactly midnight he dialed the number Neal had given him.
“Yes?” The voice seemed muffled.
“Eric. I was given this number to call. Nobody answered it last night.”
“Sorry. I left out the date you should call. I was at the lab. I assumed you’d call again tonight. Do you know where the high school is?”
“Yes.”
“I’m parked in the lot in front of the auditorium. In thirty minutes I’ll have to leave. Get here fast, and come alone. I’m not armed.”
“On my way,” said Eric, and hung up.
It was a ten-minute sprint to the high school, no traffic on Dry Creek Road, a few stragglers on 89A heading south towards Cottonwood. The high school was just off the highway, nestled in red rock; Eric turned in to a large parking lot and saw a single car parked in one corner overlooking the football stadium. The area was dimly lit with sodium lights.
Eric pulled in two spaces away, towards the highway from the lone car, turned off his lights, then the engine. And waited. Whoever was in the driver’s seat of the other car did not move to get out, but sat perfectly still.
Eric felt the familiar stirring of hairs on the backs of his hands and neck. His hand moved automatically to the grip of the Colt Modified at his waistband, two extra clips in a pouch hooked next to the weapon. Seconds became minutes, and still there was no movement, yet someone was there behind the wheel; even behind a dirty window, the silhouette was clear in light coming from in front of the high school’s auditorium.
He opened the door and stepped outside, gun in hand. Knees bent, he quick-stepped to the car, coming up on the passenger side. Before he was halfway there, alarms were ringing in his head. The car window was worse than dirty; it was splattered with something dark. He reached the car and looked inside. Neal was sitting rigidly behind the wheel, looking straight ahead, eyes open. The window on the driver’s side had a single, neat hole in it and there was a bloody wound the size of a golf ball in Neal’s right temple.
Eric instinctively ducked, and tried to open the passenger door. It was locked. Back door, too. He risked another look. The locking knob on the driver’s side was up, only the one door unlocked. Something strange about that, but he had to get to Neal’s body. The man might have something on him, even a note, a phone number, anything. At the moment that seemed most important. At the moment he did not think that Neal’s assailant would have dared to remain in the area. Still, he was a moving shadow when he went around the car in a crouch, keeping below window level and jerking the driver’s door open with one hand. As he swung the door open his eyes moved towards the shadowed entrance to the high school auditorium. A bright flash there was nearly simultaneous with a popping sound, then a crunch in the window above his head. Neal’s body toppled out of the car on top of him, pushing him to the ground, as there was another flash from the shadows. Neal’s body jerked.
Eric sucked air, eyes focused on where the flash had come from. He extended his arm and grabbed his gun hand, lining up the fluorescent dots on front and rear sights, and locking his shoulder. He squeezed off five shots rapid-fire, the roar of the Colt shattering a peaceful night.
He pushed Neal to one side, his eyes fixed on his target, and saw a shadow move. A man ran from the auditorium entrance, heading towards the red-rock scree hill on the other side of the stadium. He carried a rifle by a handgrip. An M16. Eric had recognized the sound of it with a silencer. He’d used the same weapon with deadly purpose, and now he was the target.
Eric took careful aim and squeezed off another shot. The man jumped, but didn’t slow.
Eric chased him, but at one mile altitude found breathing at full-sprint more of a challenge than he expected. The man he chased widened the gap as he headed towards the highway, and disappeared over a hillock. Eric got to the brow of the hill just in time to see a small van pulling away from the other side of the highway and heading south. He squeezed off his last shot, and was gratified by a loud clang coming from the van before it drove out of sight.
He reloaded, and waited a while in case the van doubled back, and then he walked back to the car to inspect the body of a man who had probably had important information for him. He searched both the body and the car.
And found nothing.
He had to move fast. Surely there were routine police patrols around the high school. Gil was too far away, too many delays using intermediaries. Davis could be involved in Neal’s murder. That left one man.
Eric called Leon on his cell phone. The man picked up after seven rings, and sounded groggy. Eric told him what had happened, “I have to get the body and his car out of here. We don’t want the police involved.”
“Stay right where you are,” said Leon, fully awake. “I’ll make a call, and be there in ten minutes.”
Eric could only wait and hope the police didn’t arrive first. He used the time to find the seven spent cartridge cases from his Colt, and squirreled pistol and spare clips under the front seat of his car. He tried to rehearse a reason for being there. I was driving home from Cottonwood, officer, and my window was down. I heard loud explosions, and saw flashes of light from the school. I thought there was a fire, but when I drove in I found this. Poor man. No I.D., no wallet. What a terrible thing to happen here.
He heard the roar of the Humvee before it turned into the lot. Leon jumped out and pointed to Eric’s car. “Get out of here. Go to my house through the tunnel, and wait for me. We’ll clean up.”
As he said it, two black vans pulled into the parking lot and drove right up to where Eric was standing. The four men who got out wore butch-cuts, and were dressed in slacks and woolen sweaters. Two of them picked up Neal’s body and dumped it into the back of one van while the other two rummaged in the man’s car.
“I’ve already checked it,” said Eric. “It’s clean.”
The men ignored him. “Go on, Eric,” said Leon. “We’ll handle it.”
Eric got into his car and drove away. Before he even got out of the lot he saw that Neal’s car had been started and was backing up. He was suddenly conscious of possible police patrols, and drove carefully just under the speed limit down 89A and back up Dry Creek Road. He garaged the car and holstered the Colt again under his left arm, went down to his basement and used the tunnel to Leon’s house. It was a twelve-minute walk, and when he tried the door to the house it was locked and he’d stupidly left the key behind. What now? His nerves were edgy. He settled them by jacking a cartridge into the forty-five and holding it loosely in one hand.