Disturbance

FORTY-ONE

In the end, they had taken two vehicles, knowing that it might be necessary to split up for a while, and now, about an hour before dawn, their caravan had reached their destination-or near it, parked about fifty yards from the partially open front gate of what appeared to be a private camp. Signs posted at regular intervals along a tall iron fence warned that this was private property, “Keep Out.” A large wooden sign at the gate carried more specific warnings about prosecution. “An unlocked gate and a no trespassing sign,” Jack said. “I hardly know what to do with myself.”

“Could have saved the time it took me to get the lock picks from Rachel.”

“Never know-still might need them.”

They got out of the Jeep Cherokee and walked back to where Ben and Ethan and the dogs-Bingle and Bool-waited in Ben’s SUV.

Jack had made arrangements with Travis to be waiting with one of their Sikorskys at a nearby location. If Irene was here and needed medical attention, they’d be able to fly her to a hospital faster than they could ever make the trip down mountain roads. Travis had already called to say he had landed the helicopter at the field and was ready to help in any way he could.

This address, in an unincorporated area of the San Bernardino Mountains, was the only recent out-of-town destination Frank had found on the GPS in the Ford Escape.

Frank asked the others to wait in Ben’s SUV, with instructions on whom to call at the first sign of trouble. At first all three refused to be left behind, but after a brief but intense argument, it was agreed that Jack would go with Frank while Ben and Ethan stayed back. At Ben’s insistence, Frank called Ben’s phone from his own and stayed connected to that call, using his wireless headset.

“You understand I’m not going to narrate every step I take?” Frank said.

“Yes, and I’m not going to distract you by constantly talking to you,” Ben replied. “But we’re not going to be able to see you and Jack out there in the dark, and if you’re in trouble, I want to know right away.”

Despite his sense of urgency, Frank waited and watched for several minutes before moving closer to the gate and the small house just inside it. The house was clearly a gatekeeper’s or caretaker’s lodge, painted in the dark hunter green color that must be sold by the tanker truckload to mountain camps.

He gave more than a moment’s thought to a set of names engraved on a granite memorial in front of the Las Piernas Police Department, all murdered on the same date, all slain by a trap set by Parrish. Good friends, some of them.

He told himself this had all the earmarks of a similar trap. He didn’t know who had sent the text messages. Parrish could have sent them himself. He considered, not for the first time, calling in the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department. It would be the smart thing to do. The right thing. But he knew the result would be calls made to Las Piernas and questions raised there and, in all likelihood, his own detention. He had friends in the San Berdoo office, but even if they responded immediately, it would take time for them to contact their bomb squad and get it up here.

He told himself this was foolishness that might end up getting him killed-and Jack, Ethan, and Ben along with him.

Then he thought of his wife spending even another ten minutes under Parrish’s control.

He looked at Jack. His friend’s facial features were barely visible in the darkness, but Frank felt as if Jack had read his thoughts. His eyes held a look of determination-and a hint of impatience.

Frank smiled. “You sure you don’t want to wait here, Jack?” he said quietly. “If something happens to you, the whole economy of Las Piernas is going to be fucked.”

“Then fuck Las Piernas,” Jack said. “Let’s go.”

Frank turned his flashlight on and played it over the house and fence. He noted several cameras and a motion sensor for an alarm system. The cameras, although of a design that allowed them to move, were motionless. The motion sensor appeared to be disabled, but that, he knew, could be deceiving-an entirely different alarm system could be operating.

He took a deep breath and eased the gate farther open. It moved nearly silently. He listened for any sounds of approach, then slipped inside. Jack followed him through.

They waited.

There was a rustling in a nearby bush. Jack turned his own flashlight toward it, and they caught a glimpse of a rabbit fleeing through the undergrowth.

The gatehouse was empty, but a check of its garage revealed a van and a Lexus. Frank knew both plate numbers-everyone in the Las Piernas Police Department had been hoping to find Kai Loudon’s van. And he had talked about the Lexus with Quinn Moore very recently.

He touched the hoods of both cars. Both were cold.

“Cabins or main lodge?” Jack whispered.

“Lodge, then cabins, but keep an eye out for an ambush.”

They reached the lodge without incident and crossed its wide, covered porch. Jack tried the front door before Frank could stop him-it was unlocked. They stood together just outside the open doorway, playing their flashlights around the large room.

“Hang on a sec,” Jack said in a low voice. He moved to the side of the porch and stacked a couple of metal outdoor chairs together, then told Frank to stand back.

“What are you doing?”

“Maybe step off the porch a few feet.”

“What are you doing?” Frank asked again, more warily.

“Just a little test.”

Frank stepped off the porch and watched as Jack picked up the chairs and threw them over the threshold. They landed with a loud clatter.

“Are you okay?” Ben asked over the headset.

“Fine,” Frank said. “That was just the sound of Jack improvising.”

Jack looked back at him with a grin.

“So much for sneaking in,” Frank said to him.

Jack shrugged. “Two things. We can step in that far without getting blown up, and we can stop whispering.”

“Shit yes, we certainly can, because you might as well have set off a fucking fire alarm.” Frank shoved the tangle of chairs aside and stepped into the room.

Jack gave him a look of mock dismay. “You brought me along to provide subtlety?”

“Hilarious. Jesus, Jack. If you don’t mind, I’d like the Cirque du Soleil SWAT team to let me take it from here.”

“Don’t mock-I have my uses.”

They searched the lower floor of the lodge, turning on lights as they went quickly from room to room. It was a task Frank would not usually have attempted without backup. Despite the quiet following their grand entrance, Frank could not shake the sensation that they were not alone in the building.

However differently he would have approached entering the building, he trusted Jack and knew him to be a good man to have at his side in a fight. Jack had gained his fighting experience the hard way. In his adventurous-some would say misspent-youth, he had survived any number of down and dirty street fights. So he wasn’t going to pass out or run off at the first sign of trouble. They were both armed, and although Jack favored knives-he could throw a knife with deadly accuracy-he was also an excellent shot. He kept in practice, had steady aim, and best of all, could keep a cool head.

The lodge was designed so that it could have operated as a small inn even without the cabins. Several of the rooms were connected by shared bathrooms, which meant that someone could easily move unseen into a room they had already searched and wait for an opportunity to ambush them. Because of that, despite Jack’s “test,” once they were past the front entrance, they seldom spoke.

The floors were wooden, although there was carpet in the hallways. Once they were off the carpet, it was hard to move quietly. Inevitably, boards in older buildings squeaked.

Frank’s flashlight had a strobe setting on it, and as they entered each room, he used that feature, which would make it harder for any attacker to see them.

One of the first rooms they came across was a small office. Paperwork lying atop a desk was addressed to Quinn Moore.

“So it’s his place?” Jack asked.

“Looks like it.”

“Could you be in trouble for breaking and entering here?”

“Not as much trouble as I think he’s going to be in.”

They entered a commercial-sized kitchen, where they discovered a set of concrete stairs leading to what appeared to be a cellar, and as they hurried down them, Frank found himself wondering if he would find Irene held captive there. The heavy door was unlocked. As he cautiously pushed it open, he thought of Kai Loudon’s basement and felt a stab of fear about what an unlocked door might mean.

Frank recognized a familiar scent-gun oil. His hand located a wall switch, and the room flooded with light. Even recognizing that scent, he was unprepared for what met his eyes.

“Holy shit,” Jack said.

“Everything okay?” Ben asked.

“We’ve found an arsenal,” Frank said.

The room, which had probably once served as storage for food, wine, or kitchen supplies, was now lined with cases holding neat rows of weapons-mostly knives but also handguns, rifles, and assault weapons. A closer look showed additional stores of ammunition and explosives.

“Why leave weapons behind?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know,” Frank said. “Maybe they wanted flexibility, and these guns and explosives just didn’t suit their plans. Maybe these all belong to Quinn Moore and he didn’t want to share.” He took a closer look at the explosives and shook his head. “They’re lucky they didn’t blast themselves into the middle of next week.”

Ben’s voice came over the headset. “Maybe those are supplies for his army of Moths.”

“Maybe,” Frank said, relaying Ben’s guess to Jack.

“Possible,” Jack said.

“Let’s do a quick barricade of the stairway and then get on upstairs.”

Jack worked with him to block the door into the armory with some heavy sacks of flour and a table and chairs.

At the top of the stairs leading to the second floor, Frank saw bloodstains on the hallway carpet. He closed his eyes and tried to slow his breathing, to stay focused. Don’t assume it’s her blood. Approach it like any other scene. Try to figure out what happened here.

He wanted to search the other rooms as soon as possible, so it was going to be a quick study in any case. He could see bullet holes in the walls and clear signs of bullet damage to a small wooden table. He did no more than glance at them-he knew that touching the bullet holes would completely screw things up for the San Bernardino evidence team-but it appeared that weapons of differing calibers had been used. And the patterns of stains and damage seemed to indicate that two individuals had been hit. The stains were just outside two rooms, a bathroom at the other end of the hall and a bedroom.

Quinn Moore’s injuries came to mind. It wouldn’t be hard to compare DNA here to the DNA found on his bloodstained clothing. Frank made a mental note to mention Celox to the SBSD lab.

Three of the rooms nearest the gunfight had recently been slept in-unlike in other rooms they checked, there was bedding on the mattresses in these rooms. One of the pillowcases had bloodstains on it.

Next they came across the room that housed the security system’s monitors. All the cameras and alarms were off.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Jack said.

“It does if you’re expecting company. Company you want to give access to or company you want to trap.”

They opened room after room with no sign of Irene, their search speeding up until they came to a set of rooms with dead-bolt locks and exchanged a glance as they tried the first one. It opened easily and the room was empty, but it was clear someone had slept in the bed.

Frank leaned close to the pillow, saw a strand of long black hair on it. Took a deep breath. Drew in her scent.

“Ben,” he said into his headset, in a voice that was not quite his own, “bring the dogs in, will you?”

“Sure. Are you all right?”

Before he could reply, Jack signaled for quiet, laying a finger along his lips and nodding his head toward an adjoining room.

Frank looked a question.

Jack drew closer to him and said, in barely more than a whisper, “Thought I heard footsteps.”

“Ben, wait, stay put for now,” Frank murmured into the headset.

He listened and heard a faint noise. He motioned to Jack to stay back, drew his gun, and opened the door. It was a bathroom. He checked the shower, which was empty, then stood as still as possible and listened at the connecting door.

He heard it again, an odd sound. But not footsteps.

He turned out the bathroom light and waited in the darkness for a long moment. He had the strobing flashlight ready to go, held out to his left. He had checked the door, noting that the hinges were on the other side, and positioned himself to take advantage of what cover the door itself could offer him, weapon ready. He took a breath, let it out, and then opened the door quickly, strobe light on, moving fast to avoid making a target of himself. But there was plenty of light in the room, coming from an open door to the hallway. Enough light to allow him to see that no one was standing anywhere in the room, although it was not empty.

A hospital bed held a frail woman. Her mouth and neck and chest were covered in blood, but her eyes were wide open. She was staring at him.

“Frank?” Jack said softly from behind him.

Frank hurried over to the bed. “Violet Loudon?” he asked, and she blinked at him.

It took only seconds for him to register that she was blinking in Morse code.

Hurry. He escapes. I am not hurt. Bit his nose.

“You heard footsteps!” Frank said to Jack. “She sure as hell didn’t make them or open that door!”

They ran into the hallway, but in the next moment they heard a door slam downstairs.

“Ben,” Frank said, “watch out-he may be coming your way.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know yet. A male with damage to his nose. He just ran out of here.”

The man never ran past Ben and Ethan. Jack stayed behind to guard Violet while Frank followed a trail of blood drops leading from a back door toward the trees. The sky was lightening, but he could see no sign of the man. He was just about to call Ben to bring the dogs when he heard a motorcycle starting up. He ran toward the sound but had to move carefully through the trees and over the uneven ground.

He soon reached a narrow dirt maintenance road and heard the bike retreating over it but didn’t catch so much as a glimpse of the rider.