Chan got to his unmarked vehicle just as Ron Franklin pulled up and bailed out of his unit.
“Bobby, get this. That big explosion in El Monte this morning? The Feds are covering something up. Word is there was a big shoot-out and a bunch of Russians got blown to pieces.”
“Well, well. But no word on Bennings?”
“Nothing.” Franklin noticed the evidence bag Chan held. “Find something down there?”
“I remain ever hopeful. The crime scene techs found long blond hairs in the Bennings house. And this is a small glove, maybe for a female. I’ll bet whoever wore this did some sweating. Check the DNA in this against those blond hairs.”
“Sounds like a long shot.”
“At least it’s a shot.” Chan looked over at the traffic-choked Carbon Canyon S turn. “You know, since we’re so close, let’s take one more look at the house.”
Chan and Franklin spotted two men in a sedan on stakeout near the Bennings house. The detectives boxed in the car with their own units and ordered the men out of their car, even though the pair in dark suits had shown their CID ID. All four men stood in the street.
“Where are your two buddies from Quantico—Flood and Bates?”
“Las Vegas,” said the shorter CID agent, without thinking. His partner gave him a “shut up” stare.
“Why’d they go to Vegas?”
Both CID men remained silent. Off Chan’s sly gesture, Franklin began playing the role of the good cop. “Look, we’ve turned up some new intelligence. We’re willing to share, if you’ll give us something in return.”
The CID guys both smirked. “You don’t have anything we need,” said the shorter one with the loose mouth.
Chan got a funny feeling from the remark and their attitude in general. He pulled out his phone like he was going to make a call, then peered through the open driver’s window. A manila folder thick with files sat on the seat. A printed report on top of the folder caught Chan’s eye. He leaned in through the open window and read a few lines of copy… and recognized the words.
They were his words.
Angry, Chan flung open the driver’s door….
“Hey, you can’t go in there!” said the shorter agent as he grabbed Chan’s arm.
It happened so fast, Franklin wasn’t sure he saw it. All 285 pounds of Bobby Chan went into fast motion, and within seconds, both CID men lay sprawled on the pavement.
“Cuff them,” he growled.
Chan retrieved the files from the vehicle. In it were copies of all of the reports Chan had generated on the case. “They have all of our reports, Ronnie. Every last one of them. And some stuff from my computer that I’ve never shown anyone.”
“What?!” exclaimed Franklin as he finished handcuffing the men.
And then Chan saw something else. Transcripts.
“Seems they’ve been listening to all of our phone calls too. Including calls we made to friends and family.” He held out a transcript for Franklin.
Franklin flashed angry. As he took a step toward Chan, he “accidentally” slammed his foot into the face of the shorter CID agent. “Oh, sorry.”
He grabbed the transcript, then “accidentally” slammed his foot into the face of the second CID man. “Wow, sorry. I am so clumsy today.”
The two detectives stood there reading as the CID agents lay bleeding on the street.
“Gambling junket coming,” said Chan as he read a transcript.
The black detective looked at Chan for clarification.
“Staci Bennings is being held prisoner in Las Vegas.”
CHAPTER 26
Cautiously emerging from a crushing housing, jobs, and economic collapse that hit it harder than virtually any other municipality in the United States, Las Vegas was growing again. And the only viable direction left in which to grow was southward. So the number of empty parcels of land on South Las Vegas Boulevard all the way down to South Pointe Hotel and Casino were diminishing rapidly.
Near the Antique Mall of America, sprawling new four-story condo complexes painted in earth tones blended in well with the windswept desert that was never far off.
A corner property near Agate Avenue looked ripe for development. The boarded-up one-story cinder-block motel with a metal A-frame roof sat far back from the street, its asphalt parking lot crumbling and overgrown with weeds. A high chain-link fence with padlocked gates surrounded the U-shaped structure. Surely the old abandoned eyesore would be removed and something modern and attractive and functional would emerge, although there seemed to be no activity at this site.
No visible activity, anyway.
It was still daylight when Dennis Kedrov had finished settling into his room. He entered the chow hall that had been feeding three meals a day to thirty men for the last three months: construction workers, security, IT technical specialists, and Dr. Nikoli Rodchenko and his two assistants. One wing of the motel housed the workers; the other wing comprised Rodchenko’s lab and the tunneling operation.
So, in classic maskirovka fashion, a very old, modest, and seemingly condemned structure fronted for a very sophisticated operation.
Dennis, the leader of Popov’s Special Operations Group, was in Las Vegas for only one night before heading to Albuquerque, but he wanted to have fun, so he toasted the blue-collar workers at dinner with bottles of Russian Standard he’d brought with him. Smiling as always, his already rosy cheeks now bright red from the vodka flush, he joked with the men easily as he toyed with his yellow golf ball. The workers’ tasks were finished, and later tonight a bus would drive them back to Los Angeles and their regular jobs working in Popov-owned construction companies.
Dennis made his way to the table where Dr. Rodchenko and his team sat.
“All is well, Doctor?”
“Yes, yes. The device is operational. There’s nothing left for me to do until you people are ready to act.”
“Good.”
“Please tell the truth: How much longer? We have been held like prisoners here, not even allowed to go outside.”
“Once I certify that everything is ready, the call might come any time. So please be patient and stay rested.”
Dennis smiled, rose from the table, and gestured to the IT specialists to follow him outside, past an armed guard. He looked up into the diffused light of sunset as the group walked across the open area to the other wing of the old motel complex.
Dennis walked through a door that had once led to a motel room but now opened into a large gutted area of the structure. The roof and exterior walls remained, but interior walls from half a dozen motel rooms had been ripped out, and the big space was now filled with generators, tunneling equipment, tools, and dirt. Lots of dirt. Small front loaders had moved out most of the soil from the tunneling operation and spread it out onto the four-acre plot behind the motel. This work had been done only at night, using heavy equipment that had special mufflers installed, thus creating almost no noise.
A thin woman in her forties with dark circles under her eyes showed Dennis the seven-foot-diameter hole that dropped down thirty feet into rock-hard earth. A small steel ladder bolted to the side of the hole led to the bottom. Communications, electrical, and other cables ran from equipment in the complex into the hole and tunnel beyond.
The woman didn’t speak, just gestured for Dennis to descend into the hole. He did so without hesitation.
In moments he was at the bottom and followed the cabling into a small lighted tunnel, crawling on all fours. There was only enough room for one person to move in one direction at a time, and an uneasy feeling of claustrophobia enveloped him as he crawled the eighty-yard length of the passageway.