“It was 7:55 A.M. when Pearl Harbor was attacked. That’s when they came in. Not many people remember that,” Davies said. “That’s what time I made the first call to you from Guyanno.”
“Where are you now?”
“Not far from you.”
“Yeah, why is that?”
“I’ve done some things lately that are going to send me to hell, Lieutenant. But I had to prove myself to him to get inside. He puts you right to the test.”
“Is she alive?”
“She was when I saw her, but it’s not a good situation. She lost that baby and I tried to help her, but he had me deal with something else. That’s his way of putting it to you. He knows how to do that like no man I’ve ever known. He doesn’t leave you a way back, Lieutenant.”
Marquez moved off the couch and across the cold floor to the kitchen. He found his shoes.
“What have you done for him?”
“He wants me to kill your wife and the girl and bring you in. I went by your wife’s coffee place today. I saw your daughter there.”
“Stay away from her.”
“He’s got a power about him, doesn’t he?”
“We tried to pay the ransom. What do we have to do to get our warden back?”
“She was in a warehouse but I hear she’s on a boat now. What I hear is you’ll know the boat by the moon.”
“Where is this boat supposed to be?”
“They’re getting ready for something. I can tell. When he sent me out he said if I can’t bring you to him, he wants me to bring back your thumbs and he’s got people who’ll run your fingerprint.”
“Bring me where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
The line went dead and Marquez called Katherine, then Douglas.
“Marquez,” Douglas said, his voice flat, and Marquez could hear sirens and vehicle traffic. Douglas was on a street somewhere.
“I just got a call from Davies.”
“Yeah?”
Marquez heard more sirens. “What’s happened?” he asked.
“We missed him, Marquez. The hit was a Florida judge out here vacationing from Dade County. He was shot leaving a restau-rant in San Francisco tonight. We didn’t know. We didn’t have any way of knowing. We thought it was a local they were after. We’d narrowed it to a couple of possible drug cases here, but this was it. This was the cartel hit. They’re trying one of the Cardoza family in Miami next month. I don’t know how we could have known. Christ, if we’d only known the judge was here we could have put it together. Kline will leave now. Jesus Christ, he came here and made the hit. I’m sorry, Marquez, what about Davies?”
After Marquez related the phone call, Douglas said, “I’ll get agents to your wife’s house and yours. Give me ten minutes. But I think he’s just a crackpot, Marquez. I think he just likes making the calls. I wouldn’t worry about it, but we’re on our way.”
39
Marquez called Katherine back and turned on the porch lights. He laid a gun next to his laptop and then clicked on the computer, which seemed to boot up too slowly. As he’d feared, the Web site was up again but had changed. A scene that maybe only he would recognize showed on the screen. It took him a moment to be sure what he was seeing, a yellowed photograph of a human skull on a stone altar ringed by candles, and at the center the DEA badges. There were wedding bands and photo IDs, driver’s licenses, and the other proof Kline had laid out and photographed eleven years ago. It still reached across the years and shocked him.
He clicked out and checked for e-mail, found nothing, backed out, and his cell phone rang.
“There are three agents on their way to you,” Douglas said. “Four agents are in Bernal Heights with your ex. Anything more from Davies?”
“No.”
“Keep trying to call him.”
A few minutes later headlights showed up on Ridge Road, dis-appeared in the dip in the driveway, then reflected through his windows. He saw two men in a white Suburban in the driveway. He opened the door and told them they were welcome to stay if they hoped Davies would show, but that he was taking off, which didn’t make any sense to them. They tried to get him to wait while they called Douglas.
“Douglas has my cell number,” Marquez said. “Tell him to call me.”
When he got in the Explorer he threw his coat on the passen-ger seat and glanced behind him, making sure he’d transferred everything from the Nissan. A little more than a half moon was well into the western sky when he dropped off the mountain. He couldn’t look at it without wondering what the clue about the moon and the boat was supposed to mean. He spoke the names of boats he knew as if hearing Blue Moon, Full Moon, or Moondance would bring the connection.
Marquez was near the base of the mountain, ready to turn past the bar on the corner when he heard a rustling behind him. He knew immediately someone was under the tarp covering the equipment, someone who must have gotten in when he’d left the truck unlocked earlier, when he’d been transferring what he’d planned to take. Marquez started pulling and Davies’s voice was hard.
“Bring your hand back to the wheel or I’ll shoot you. Drive to where you dock your boat.”
“What’s there?”
Davies climbed from the rear compartment and Marquez glanced at the rearview mirror. Good chance the FBI would pick him up or already had. Douglas would call, no question about that, and now he felt a cold gun muzzle press against his neck.
“Stakes are high, Lieutenant.” They crossed lower Marin on the freeway and then drove through San Rafael and came up alongside a cop at a stoplight. Davies slouched back behind the passenger seat, his profile hidden by the tinted windows. “If you do the wrong thing, you’ll get the cop killed,” he said. “Take your hands off the wheel and you’ll make your wife a widow.”
“My hands are on the wheel, but I thought we were on the same side.” They drove to Loch Lomond Marina, turned in, and were alone. “I need to turn around and line up the boat hitch. I’ve got to get out.”
Marquez had a way he angled the Explorer, a way he liked to line up on the fence and another boat that had never been moved in the time he’d rented here. He purposefully missed this time, knew the trailer ball and boat hitch wouldn’t be near enough to hook the boat trailer up.
“It’s a life or death situation, Lieutenant, and I’ve got to bring you to him and we need your boat for that.”
“I’m always missing with the hitch,” Marquez said.
Davies’s voice was low and very quiet. His face had been darkened with camouflage paint and he pointed the gun at Mar-quez’s chest.
“There isn’t enough time for this shit. Hook it up.”
Marquez backed up, got out and attached the trailer hitch, then backed the boat trailer down until the Fountain floated. He did it all slowly and knew the FBI had his position from the tele-locator. He got on board with Davies now, though the Explorer still idled, its muffler coughing as it caught water.
“Back up slowly,” Davies said, and got on the boat behind him. “Keep the speed at twenty-five as we clear the channel. You can figure his people are watching.”
Marquez went with it, hoping Davies was taking him straight to the boat. He looked at the Explorer sitting on the ramp with the driver’s door open, headlights on and the engine running, and backed the boat around. They came under the San Rafael Bridge and out into the open bay, veering right of Angel Island through Raccoon Strait, and above the engines he asked, “Out the Gate?”
“No, and cut your speed. Go under the Bay Bridge.”