72 Hours (A Thriller) (14 page)

The door was answered by a young woman with a thin face, pinched nose and red-rimmed glasses.
 
She looked down her birdlike nose at him and frowned like he might be infectious.
 

Monroe was already sparkling.
 
Dressed in a suit that cost more than the first car Kline drove after college.
 
Monroe was talking on his cell and pacing the magnificent suite with a cup of espresso.
 
He spotted Kline and gestured that he’d be just another minute or two.
 
There was a private terrace and Kline stepped out into the cool morning air.
 
The spectacular view spread out before him.
 
San Francisco Bay.
 
The Golden Gate Bridge.
 
The Oakland Bay Bridge.
 
The Transamerica building looming like a monolith.
 
A breeze tossed Kline’s tie as he turned from the view and looked back inside through the glass.
 
Monroe’s people shuffled in and out of the rooms, busy making money, defending the worst the world had to offer.
 
Kline had managed an hour’s sleep at a desk in LA and was now running on fumes.

Monroe came out onto the private terrace, overflowing with brio and goodwill.

“Good morning.
 
Can I offer you coffee?
 
Espresso?”
 

“I’ll pass,” Kline said without humor.
 

Monroe crossed to a patio chair.
 
He sat, gracefully folding one leg over the other.
 

“Tell your people to get lost,” Kline said.

Monroe raised the small cup and was mid-sip.
 
He turned his nose up at Kline’s words.
 
“Excuse me?”

“Send them out.
 
This conversation is private.”

Monroe set the cup down on the patio table.
 
“Very well.”
 
He stepped into the open room of the suite to address his entourage.

Kline was in no mood for the lawyer or his games.

Monroe’s legal staff gathered their cell phones, notepads, and laptops, and filed out the door.
 
Monroe stopped at a mirror to tweak the knot in his tie.

“Satisfied, Special Agent Kline?”

“Tell me what Dunbar meant when he told the world to contact his lawyer about the money.”

Monroe paused.
 
Pursed his lips.
 
“That was disturbing, wasn’t it?
 
You can imagine my dismay.”

“Did you have any prior knowledge of what he intended to say?”

“Absolutely not.
 
Those were the words of a desperate man exploiting his final moment in the limelight.
 
I can assure you of that.”

“Where is his money?
 
The five hundred million.”

“I have no idea.”

“Okay, how does he pay you?”

“The money is deposited into an account at a bank here in the city.
 
The same as with any of my clients.”

“Where are the funds wired from?”

“Again, I have no firsthand knowledge of those details.
 
Our accounting department handles all of that.
 
I’d be more than willing to make a call and provide you with whatever information we have access to.
 
Our firm has nothing to hide.”

“Who controls Dunbar’s fortune?”

Monroe dropped a hand into a pocket of his slacks, and with the other lifted the cup of espresso to his lips.
 
Then he said, feigning mild exasperation, “Again, Special Agent Kline, you’re posing your question to the wrong person.
 
I am only his lawyer, not his accountant.
 
As long as I’m promptly paid for my services, the rest is immaterial to me.”

Kline frowned.
 
He glanced out across the skyline of San Francisco.
 
Traffic was beginning to move through the streets in fits and starts.
 
A thousand dollars a night bought an incredible view.

“Have you looked at a television lately?” Kline said with an edge.

Monroe pursed his lips.
 
He simply shrugged.
 
“I know what you’re asking.
 
I’ve heard the news.
 
Los Angeles is a shooting gallery, and you are proposing that it is my client’s fault.”
       

“You stated specifically that he was going to confess and that we would be given the location of the bodies.”

“Those were Gaston Dunbar’s words to me, Special Agent Kline.
 
Those words exactly.
 
Obviously he lied.
 
The best I can offer is an apology for allowing myself to be duped by a condemned man.”

“Why is he doing this?”

“He is a complicated man.”

“He’s a monster.”

“You are certainly entitled to your opinion.”

Monroe glanced at his watch, directed the federal agent toward the door.
 
“Mmm, if you’ll please excuse me now, I have a previous commitment across town.”
 

“I want the bodies of Sidney and Robin.
 
Tell Dunbar he failed.
 
Tell him that Lindsay Hammond is safe.
 
And tell him that all the money in the world won’t keep that needle out of his arm.
 
You’re his lawyer, by God.
 
Talk some sense into him.”

The elevator spat Kline back into the hotel lobby.
 
The car was waiting.
 
He tried bumming a cigarette off the driver but the driver didn’t smoke.
 
So he dialed the cell he’d given Archer in the helicopter the previous night, but Archer didn’t answer.
 

CHAPTER 39

Archer’s plan was to disappear amid the anonymity of the morning rush hour, and become just one of the millions of commuters clogging the city’s arteries.
 
The Hummer pulled out of Zero’s shop and turned into the morning sunshine.
 
A big black monster of a machine with mirrored windows.
 
No one outside could see in, but Archer still felt terribly exposed.

The Hummer was headed out of the city, moving against the grain, against the flow of most of the traffic.
 
The influx of commuters into the city brought the freeways to a standstill while the lanes running the opposite direction flowed mostly without interruption.
 
Archer notched the needle of the speedometer at seventy and set the cruise.

The Hammonds were again hidden out of sight in a space in the rear.

Archer put on his Ray-Bans to compensate for the glare coming through the windshield.
 
He watched the landscape of glass and steel and concrete roll by.
 
The monstrous urban sprawl of LA.
 
The cell phone Kline had given him was turned off.
 
It was no longer needed, and he’d had Lindsay and Ramey turn off their cells as well.

The Hammonds were silent in the rear.

Archer glanced at the odometer, estimating the drive ahead of them.
 
He watched the mirrors, memorizing details, studying the road ahead and behind.

All was quiet.
 
But that would change.

*
   
*
   
*

Soji had tailed the Volvo through the fog and over the mountains.
 
Tailed it to the bike shop in the city and waited a block away with his telephoto lens all night.
 
He saw the same man from the woods again at first light leave on foot, then return with coffee.
 
Soji watched him through the long lens.
 
Soji knew the Hammonds had to be hiding out somewhere inside the shop.

Then the Hummer came and went, and Soji had to make a decision.
 
He decided the Hummer had to be the next link in the chain.
 
So he jumped on the freeway and followed the big SUV toward the desert.

CHAPTER 40

The private jet landed at an airfield in the foothills outside Burbank.
 
A car was waiting to take Mr. Jupiter to his appointment.
 
They drove up a long and winding private drive in the hills to a massive security gate that opened automatically as they approached.

Mr. Jupiter was greeted by his business associate.
 
They went inside the mansion to talk, and Mr. Jupiter received a very encouraging update.
 
He was told that Lindsay Hammond was indeed still alive.
 
And he was also told that attorney Leonard Monroe had been contacted and had confirmed that the five hundred million dollars was still available.

CHAPTER 41

The producer tapped on the glass partition to get Johnny Smackdown’s attention. Smackdown cut to commercial.
 
Wes opened his door and stuck his head through.

“What gives?” Smackdown asked.

Wes was grinning.
 
He was a short, balding British import, and a dead-ringer for Phil Collins with a five o’clock shadow.
 
Wes formed a gun with his index finger and thumb and aimed it at Smackdown.

“Your amigo Soji is on Line Four.”

The gleam returned to Smackdown’s eyes.
 
Soji had been mostly quiet all night.
 
They had waited for his call.
 
The meltdown in Malibu had been a thing of beauty to watch.
 
Smackdown couldn’t have asked for it to go any better.
 
He wanted more of the same.
 
Soji was his new hero.

Smackdown swiveled in his chair.
 
He decided to put the call on the air.

“Soji, baby!”

“Yo, Smackdown!”

“Where are you, my man?”

“On the road.”

“Sweet.
 
I think my listeners owe you a big round of applause.”

(Sound effect of standing ovation)

Soji said sheepishly, “Am I on the radio?”

“You got it.
 
You’re the man of the hour.
 
People, I’m talking to my right hand man Soji.
 
He planted the big red flag right on Lindsay Hammond’s forehead last night.
 
So tell us, are you still hot on the trail?”

“Absolutely.
 
I’m like glue, Smackdown.
 
Can’t shake me.”

“Rock on!
 
I love it!
 
So, you have visual contact right now?”

“Bingo.”

(Sound effect of the Bill Murray character from Caddyshack saying, “So I got that going for me, which is nice…”)

“Awesome.
 
Paint a picture for us.
 
Set the scene.
 
What’s she wearing?”

“That might be a problem, bro.”

“Say what?”

“She’s in a Hummer about a quarter mile ahead of me, doing seventy on the freeway.”

“Whoa!
 
So it looks like Little Miss Lindsay has found herself some serious horsepower!”

“No doubt.”

“What direction are you headed?
 
Give us a landmark, or a street name.
 
Anything, man.
 
We need to know where you’re at.”

Soji was clearly distracted by traffic.
 
“Listen, I’ll call back.
 
I keep losing them.
 
Let me catch up, and I’ll give a better report when I can.”

“Don’t to this to me, bro!
 
Can’t leave me hang’n!”

“Sorry, dude.
 
Later.”

And Soji was gone.

CHAPTER 42

The city skyline faded in the rearview mirror.
 
Archer was pleased to see it go.
 
Too many people back there.
 
Too many eyes.
 
Too many variables to try to control amid the sprawl of buildings and cars, streets and humanity.
 
He needed to wrangle the Hammonds into an environment he could better manage.

An hour outside of LA there was activity in the back of the Hummer.
 
Archer glanced in the mirror and saw Lindsay coming over the backseat.
 
She crouched behind him.

“Do you think it’s safe for me to sit up there with you?”

Archer couldn’t see the harm.
 
They were shielded from the eyes of the outside world by the mirrored glass.

“Come on up,” he said.

She squeezed between the seats and settled into the leather of the passenger side.

The highway unfurled straight and true.
 
The sky was almost entirely cloudless.
 
The sun was already bright and harsh in the morning sky.
 
Lindsay swung her visor over to block some of the glare out of her face.