Fear

FIFTY-FOUR

Miles picked the kitchen door lock with a special attachment on Groote’s Mr. Screwdriver, not wanting to think about its being the weapon that had brutalized Nathan. The tumblers clicked into clear and Miles gave the door the barest push. Groote stood behind him, gun at the ready, and they listened for the hum of the alarm. None.

Quantrill hadn’t activated the system yet; he hadn’t gone to bed. Probably he was upstairs in his office, trying to persuade the buyers not to attend Sorenson’s auction, assure them that all was well, that he alone had the one and true Frost.

Miles slipped the screwdriver/pick into his back pocket and followed Groote into the house. They heard the distant roar of gunfire, then a billowing blast of artillery, the scream of a jet. Then the rising pulse of an orchestra, music thundering along with the battle, all coming from a half-open doorway off the living room.

Guards, Groote mouthed to Miles. He gestured Miles toward the upstairs, mouthed, Office, gestured Miles to go up.

Miles went up the stairs. Groote waited, gun at the ready. If the guards stayed put in front of their blockbuster, no worries, no need to kill them.

Quantrill sat in the chair, at his empty desk, head back, a red-and-black smear on his forehead, eyes half shut.

Miles touched the dead man’s throat. Still warm.

The man’s computer was gone from the desk. Miles went into the bathroom next to the office, grabbed a hand towel, used it to slide open drawers, search the closet that doubled as a supply cabinet. No handheld computers that might have carried a backup of Frost or the buyers’ list, no CDs or DVDs, no disks – all cleared out.

Sorenson was cleaning house, eliminating every possible interference, and they had just missed him or his hired killers.

He eased the dead man out of the chair and searched his pockets. Wallet, full of cash, untouched. He found a cell phone, folded shut. He tucked the cell phone into his pocket.

Miles came down the stairs; Groote was still in position, the movie still playing. Miles walked past him and into the media room. The two bodyguards were sprawled on the couch, a bowl of buttered popcorn between them, three bullet holes marring both faces.

‘Well,’ Groote said, ‘I guess Quantrill won’t be writing me a paycheck.’

‘We just missed him. This happened about fifteen minutes ago. Sorenson just ended the buyers’ option of sticking with Quantrill. Now he’s the only game in town.’

Groote leaned down and took a handful of popcorn. Miles tried not to puke as the man munched. ‘Assume he made efforts to contact buyers, warn them away from the auction, plead with them not to buy from a thief, or even threaten them with exposure if they didn’t boycott the auction.’

Miles held up the cell phone. ‘We might find a buyer he called. I get a cell number, I can find nearly anybody.’

‘All we need,’ Groote said around the mouthful of popcorn, ‘is one.’

They found an all-night coffee shop near the Santa Monica Pier that offered Internet access, and Miles started working. After finding that Quantrill had spent his final hours on earth calling a Chinese restaurant, his landscape crew, and two numbers that Groote believed to be those of the dead popcorn-eaters, Miles hit pay dirt on the fifth number. He found it belonged to a Greg Bradley. A Google search of the man’s name, combined with pharmaceutical, showed that Bradley owned a consulting firm based in Boston that advised Aldis-Tate, one of the largest U.S.-based drug companies.

‘That’s our boy,’ Groote said. ‘Sorenson pretended to be from Aldis-Tate when he came to the hospital.’

The call log indicated the conversation between Quantrill and Bradley had been lengthy – well over thirty minutes.

‘Long conversations,’ Miles said, ‘suggest a detailed discussion, and that means Quantrill might have been persuasive about bucking the second auction.’

Groote frowned. ‘So you think Bradley chickened out?’

‘Let’s see if he did. Give me a second.’ He dialed Bradley’s cell phone, waited.

‘Don’t screw this up,’ Groote said in a low voice.

‘Hello?’

‘Mr. Bradley?’

‘Yes?’

‘Hi, sir, this is Corey with the credit-card security firm Ironlock. I’m checking on a charge cancellation that raised a red flag in our systems. Have you canceled an airline flight recently, sir?’

‘Uh, yeah. Today.’

‘A flight to Austin, sir?’

‘Well, yeah…’ Then a long, awkward pause. ‘Who are you again?’

Miles spoke with hyperbrisk efficiency: ‘Sir, we check any cancellation that raises a red flag as we insure the credit-card companies and we pay their charge cancellation insurance. We’re investigating a couple of airlines that charge falsely, then cancel immediately so we have to pay up. But if it’s a genuine cancellation, that’s no problem, and I thank you for your time.’ He hung up. ‘I think he canceled. He got frosty when I mentioned Austin.’

‘You’re a good liar. Is there such a thing as that insurance?’

‘I have no idea.’ Miles started trying the next numbers in the call log.

He got lucky three numbers later. Quantrill had called the same number, three times in a row, the first conversation lasting forty seconds, the next two barely lasting ten seconds.

‘If it’s not a girlfriend,’ Groote said, ‘it’s someone who doesn’t want to talk to Quantrill.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re good at this.’

The man’s name was David Singhal and he was a former VP of research at a Swiss pharmaceutical, now running a research consulting firm based in Los Angeles. Miles searched his name using Google’s Images option and found a photo of Singhal from his interview in a European business journal. Fiftyish, cultured, intelligent eyes, a graying goatee. Miles tried the number.

‘Hello, Mr. Singhal?’

‘Yes?’ He had a clipped British accent.

Miles said with shotgun delivery, ‘Hi, this is James with Excelsior Credit Card Security, we work with VISA and with AmEx, and there’s a question about your account, did you recently cancel a flight reservation to Austin?’

Singhal was more cautious than Bradley: ‘I’m sorry, who are you with?’

Miles repeated, adding, ‘We’re assisting the credit-card companies with a database corruption. The discrepancy is that one version of the credit database has you making a charge for an LAX-Austin flight, the other rebuilt database has canceled that charge.’

‘It sounds like I should call my airline,’ Singhal said. ‘I’m not going to give you my credit-card number over the phone.’

‘Uh, yes, sir, very wise, you should never do that.’ He made a stab. ‘I can do the database fix so there’s no confusion about your ticket status. Was your flight on Southwest?’

Singhal hung up.

‘Great,’ Miles said. ‘He’ll be calling the airline directly and they’ll tell him all’s well.’

‘Give me the phone.’ Groote took the phone, dialed, spoke quietly, dialed another number, gave a clearance code. He hung up, got them both refills on their coffee, sat down. His phone rang and he listened, clicked the phone off. ‘David Singhal is on the GlobeWest flight tomorrow morning to Austin. I’ll get a call back if he changes his reservation.’

‘How’d you find that out?’

‘A contact at the Bureau.’

‘The government’s monitoring airline passenger lists.’

‘Not a surprise, surely.’

‘Okay,’ Miles said. ‘Now what?’

‘Sleep,’ Groote said.

They stopped at a twenty-four-hour megastore and bought clothes and necessities. Groote gathered cash from an ATM. They checked into a hotel near LAX, same room, twin beds.

Groote said good night and switched off the lamp. Miles couldn’t sleep; he was afraid if he closed his eyes, fell toward rest, Andy would come back.

‘Groote?’

‘Yeah?’

‘When we were driving down today… you never said exactly who attacked your wife and daughter.’

The silence was longer this time. ‘Punks who were threatened by Bureau attention to their ring, thought I was involved in helping decapitate their operations. Misplaced revenge.’

He wanted to ask, What ring? If it had been someone the Barradas aimed him at… but the only southern California ring he’d targeted were the Duartes… and they were all dead now. ‘Who were the punks? Drug dealers?’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

‘So why’d you leave the Bureau?’

‘I could no longer reach my career goals.’

‘What goals?’

‘Well-placed revenge,’ Groote said. ‘I don’t want to talk anymore, Miles. Good night.’