“Sloppy question. Expect better from you, Ms. Firecracker. Do-over. Near the what?”
Stupid of her, Dance realized, her heart pounding. There were a number of bodies of water and rivers in the area. And don’t ask about the ocean. Technically, Monterey wasn’t on the Pacific. “Will it be within a half mile of Monterey Bay?”
“Good!” he said, enjoying himself. “Yes. That was nine. Almost halfway there.”
And she could see he was telling the truth completely. Every answer was delivered according to his kinesic baseline.
“Do you and Gabe Paulson have a partner helping you in the event?”
One eyebrow rose. “Yes. Number ten. You’re halfway to saving all them poor folks, Kathryn.”
“Is the third person a member of the Brothers of Liberty?”
“Yes. Eleven.”
She was thinking hard, unsure how to finesse the partner’s existence into helpful information. She changed tack. “Do the victims need tickets to get into the venue?”
“Twelve. I want to play fair. I honestly don’t know. But they did have to sign up and pay. That’s more than I should give you, but I’m enjoying this.” And indeed it seemed that Keplar was.
She was beginning to form some ideas.
“Is the venue a tourist attraction?”
“Thirteen. Yes, I’d say so. At least near tourist attractions.”
Now she felt safe using one of her geographical questions. “Is it in the city of Monterey?”
“No. Fourteen.”
“Carmel?”
“No. Fifteen.”
Dance kept her own face neutral. What else should she be asking? If she could narrow it down a bit more, and if Michael O’Neil and his Crime Scene team came up with other details, they might cobble together a clear picture of where the attack would take place then evacuate every building in the area.
“How you doing there, Kathryn? Feeling the excitement of a good game? I sure am.” He looked at the clock. Dance did, too. Hell, time had sped by during this exchange. It was now 2:42.
She didn’t respond to his question, but tried a different tack. “Do your close friends know what you’re doing?”
He frowned. “You want to use question sixteen for that? Well, your choice. Yes.”
“Do they approve?”
“Yes, all of them. Seventeen. Getting all you need here, Kathryn? Seems you’re getting off track.”
But she wasn’t. Dance had another strategy. She was comfortable with the information she had — tourist area, near the water, a paid-for event, Christmas related, a few other facts — and with what O’Neil found, she hoped they could narrow down areas to evacuate. Now she was hoping to convince him to confess by playing up the idea raised earlier. That by averting the attack he’d still score some good publicity but wouldn’t have to go to jail forever or die by lethal injection. Even if she lost the Twenty Questions game, which seemed likely, she was getting him to think about the people he was close to, friends and family he could still spend time with — if he stopped the attack.
“And family — do your siblings approve?”
“Question eighteen. Don’t have any. I’m an only child. You only got two questions left, Kathryn. Spend ’em wisely.”
Dance hardly heard the last sentences. She was stunned.
Oh, no…
His behavior when he’d made the comment about not having siblings — a bald lie — was identical to that of the baseline.
During the entire game he’d been lying.
Their eyes met. “Tripped up there, didn’t I?” He laughed hard. “We’re off the grid so much, didn’t think you knew about my family. Shoulda been more careful.”
“Everything you just told me was a lie.”
“Thin air. Whole cloth. Pick your cliché, Ms. Firecracker. Had to run the clock. There’s nothing on God’s green earth going to save those people.”
She understood now what a waste of time this had been. Wayne Keplar was probably incapable of being kinesically analyzed. The Ten Commandments Principle didn’t apply in his case. Keplar felt no more stress lying than he did telling the truth. Like serial killers and schizophrenics, political extremists often feel they are doing what’s right, even if those acts are criminal or reprehensible to others. They’re convinced of their own moral rectitude.
“Look at it from my perspective. Sure, we would’ve gotten some press if I’d confessed. But you know reporters — they’d get tired of the story after a couple days. Two hundred dead folk? Hell, we’ll be on CNN for weeks. You can’t buy publicity like that.”
Dance pushed back from the table and, without a word, stepped outside.
Michael O’Neil sprinted past ghosts.
The Monterey area is a place where apparitions from the past are ever present.
The Ohlone Native Americans, the Spanish, the railroad barons, the commercial fishermen…all gone.
And the soldiers, too, who’d inhabited Fort Ord and the other military facilities that once dotted the Monterey Peninsula and defined the economy and the culture.
Gasping and sweating despite the chill and mist, O’Neil jogged past the remnants of barracks and classrooms and training facilities, some intact, some sagging, some collapsed.
Past vehicle pool parking lots, supply huts, rifle ranges, parade grounds.
Past signs that featured faded skulls and crossed bones and pink explosions.
UXO…
The suspect wove through the area desperately and the chase was exhausting. The land had been bulldozed flat in the 1930s and ’40s for the construction of the base but the dunes had reclaimed much of the landscape, rippled mounds of blond sand, some of them four stories high.
The perp made his way through these valleys in a panicked run, falling often, as did O’Neil because of the dicey traction — and the fast turns and stop-and-go sprinting when what looked like a potential explosives stash loomed.
O’Neil debated about parking a slug in the man’s leg, though that’s technically a no-no. Besides, O’Neil couldn’t afford to miss and kill him.
The suspect chugged along, gasping, red-faced, the deadly backpack over his shoulder bouncing.
Finally, O’Neil heard the thud thud thud of rotors moving in.
He reflected that a chopper was the only smart way to pursue somebody through an area like this, even if it wasn’t technically a minefield. The birds wouldn’t trip the explosives, as long as they hovered.
And what were the odds that he himself would detonate some ordnance, mangling his legs?
What about the kids then?
What about his possible life with Kathryn Dance?
He decided that those questions were pointless. This was military ordnance. He’d end up not an amputee but a mass of red jelly.
The chopper moved closer. God, they were loud. He’d forgotten that.
The suspect stopped, glanced back and then turned right, disappearing fast behind a dune.
Was it a trap? O’Neil started forward slowly. But he couldn’t see clearly. The chopper was raising a turbulent cloud of dust and sand. O’Neil waved it back. He pointed his weapon ahead of him and began to approach the valley down which the perp had disappeared.
The helicopter hovered closer yet. The pilot apparently hadn’t seen O’Neil’s hand gestures. The sandstorm grew fiercer. Some completely indiscernible words rattled from a loudspeaker.
“Back, back!” O’Neil called, uselessly.
Then, in front of him, he noticed what seemed to be a person’s form, indistinct in the miasma of dust and sand. The figure was moving in.
Blinking, trying to clear his eyes, he aimed his pistol. “Freeze!”
Putting some pressure on the trigger. The gun was double-action now and it would take a bit of poundage to fire the first round.
Shoot, he told himself.