72 Hours (A Thriller) (2 page)

“Two bodies zipped inside plastic bags?
 
That’s your definition of a happy ending?”

She shrugged.
 
“It will have to do.
 
We’re down to the wire.
 
We’ve got to move while Dunbar still has a pulse.”

There was commotion at the door.
 
Kline turned to see a man in an expensive suit and a leather attaché case stride into the room.
 
This was Leonard Monroe.
 

Kline stiffened, chest tightening.
 
“Excuse me a moment,” he said.

Schaehart nodded.

Monroe was tall and deeply tanned, with bright eyes and the whitest, brightest smile money could buy.
 
His fingernails were manicured to absolute perfection and he sported a carefully sculptured pompadour of dark hair.
 

Monroe extended a hand.
 
“Good afternoon, Special Agent Kline.”

“No more games, Monroe,” Kline said, squaring his shoulders to the lawyer.

The smile was still big and bright.
 
“I couldn’t agree more.”

Kline glared at him.
 
“Tell Dunbar to produce Sydney and Robin.
 
Then if he still wants to make his little speech, I’ll give him his own HBO special.”

“I’ve had a couple of long heart-to-heart conversations with my client, and I believe he wants to do this in honor of his wife and daughter.”

Kline tasted bile rising at the back of his throat.
 
Both this guy and his client were trash.
 
Kline swallowed his rage and disgust.
 

Sperry hovered at Monroe’s shoulder.
 
“You’re a real piece of work,” he said.

Monroe wasn’t interested in Special Agent Sperry.

Kline did a slow burn.
 
His gut was telling him they’d made a deal with the devil.

CHAPTER 4

Dunbar sat motionless.
 

A shrill buzzer sounded at one end of the tier, and a door jolted open.
 
The warden and the guards were coming.
 
The shouts and shrieks of inmates intensified as the procession of uniformed guards neared Dunbar’s cell.
 

The warden was a short, barrel-chested man, with a bald scalp that gleamed with a fine sheen of perspiration.
 
The procession halted at Dunbar’s cell and the warden glared at him through a narrow vertical Plexiglas window set into the thick metal door.
 
The guards collected in a knot of green uniforms behind their boss.
 

“You know the drill,” the warden said to Dunbar.

Dunbar exhaled a deep breath, unfolded his legs, and stood at his bed.
 
He approached the door and turned his back to them, slowly thrusting both his hands through an open slot in the door.
 
A guard snapped handcuffs onto his wrists.
 
Then the door was unlocked and opened.

“This is a waste of my time,” the warden growled.
 
“I don’t approve of this stunt, and I fought to keep it from happening, but I got overruled.
 
Lucky you.”

Dunbar stared at him without blinking.

The warden’s scalp reddened.
 
He gestured at the guards.
 
“Let’s get this over with.”

CHAPTER 5

A long folding table had been erected at the front of a crowded room where the media had set up their lights and cameras and microphones.
 
They would bring Dunbar in through a door behind the table.
 
He’d make his brief statement and would then be immediately ushered out into a corridor, where he had agreed to reveal the location of the bodies to Kline, the warden, and the lieutenant governor.
 
Then he’d be returned to his cell.
 
Four minutes total, in and out.
 

Kline and Sperry slipped in and stood against the wall at the back of the room, watching and waiting, scoping out the controlled anxiety and excitement of the chaos.
 
The heat of the overcrowded space was stifling.
 

The warden materialized, shouldering through a huddle of guards.
 
Kline spotted his bald head among the green uniforms.
 
The warden drifted over to where the lieutenant governor was speaking to a very humorless-looking female prison official.
 
Kline drifted a few paces toward the table at the front of the room, hypnotized by the sight of the microphones and television lights.
 
He stared at the empty chair, and for a moment the hum of humanity faded and the lights seemed to dim.
 
There was no doubt in his mind they were making a huge mistake.

The head of the prison’s PR office quieted everyone down.
 
The volume in the room fell to a nearly complete hush.
 
She announced that there would be no questions permitted.
 
Then she stuck her head out the door near a corner behind the folding table, said something imperceptible to someone standing out of sight and closed the door and took up position along the wall, standing clear of the television cameras.

The spectators scrambled into place, attentive and anxious, heads ducking and bobbing.

A minute passed.
 
The room was as silent as a crypt.

Then the door opened and a guard wearing Kevlar, with a Glock on his hip, entered, stepped aside, and held the door.

Gaston Dunbar appeared in the doorway.
 
He shuffled into the room in handcuffs; head hung low, eyes downcast, followed by several more ominous-looking guards.
 
The guards crowded in behind him and then seated him in the metal chair at the table.

No one outside the prison walls had seen him for a long time, and the onlookers stood in awed silence, gawking wide-eyed, totally captivated at the murderer seated before them.

Dunbar sat for a moment, soaking up the lights and the attention.
 
He composed himself, looking out across the featureless room filled with eager spectators.
 
He spotted Special Agent Kline, remembering him well.
 
He saw the warden, as well as a few prominent reporters who had begged for interviews over the years.
 
His lawyer, Monroe, was nearby and clearly enjoying the spectacle they had created together.
 
Dunbar glanced at the jumble of microphones, nodded as if to himself, and then faced the attentive glass eyes of the television cameras.

This was his moment.
 
The culmination of years of planning and mental choreography.
 
These people had gathered to hang on his every word, to transmit his voice to millions of homes, to be seen and heard by tens of millions of viewers.
 
By nightfall nearly every soul in North America, and millions more around the globe, would have been exposed to the power and gravity of his message.
 
He had not come to apologize for a crime.
 
He had come to open the floodgates.

“My name is Gaston Dunbar, and in exactly seventy-two hours I will be executed by the State of California.
 
During my lifetime I’ve amassed a personal fortune of over five hundred million dollars, and now I intend to give my money away.
 
A woman named Lindsay Hammond lives in Brentwood in Los Angeles.
 
My final wish in this life is to see her waiting for me in hell when they throw the switch.
 
And so I’m here to extend an invitation to the entire criminal world: find her, kill her, remove her head, and the money is yours.
 
All five hundred million dollars.
 
But she must die before I’m executed or all the money goes away.
 
My attorney is Leonard Monroe.
 
Payment will be made through him.
 
Don’t hesitate.
 
The clock is ticking.
 
Go now.
 
Kill her.”

CHAPTER 6

When he was finished, he casually pushed away from the table and stood at the chair.

There was at first only stunned silence, and then a collective gasp rippled through the room like a wave.
 

Kline felt the muscles of his neck and back twist into knots.
 
A spasm rippled through his stomach.
 
They’d been set up.
 
They had played right into Dunbar’s hands.
 
There would be no confession.
 
Not today, not ever.
 
Dunbar had never intended to apologize for anything.
 
His only intention was to go on live TV and put a bounty on Lindsay Hammond’s head.
 
Kline might have expected him to say any of a thousand different things, the ranting of a condemned and desperate man, the propaganda of a psychopath maybe, but not this.
 
This was beyond anything he could have imagined.
 

The entire criminal world.
 
Kline felt a chill.
 

Sperry turned slowly to him.
 
“What was that?”

Kline didn’t respond.
 

The warden stormed to the front of the room, barking orders, screaming at the detail of guards to get Dunbar out the door.
 
They took the inmate by the arms, nearly lifting him off his feet as they propelled him out of the room.
 

Kline shoved his way through the crowd and flashed his badge at the guard at the door.
 
The warden turned and saw Kline angling for Dunbar.
 
He stomped forward to intercept him.

“I warned you, didn’t I?” the warden said, hitching his hands on his hips.
 
“You make a deal with the devil, this is what you get!”

Kline stepped around him, the color rising in his face and neck.
 
“Let me through!”
 

The phalanx of guards parted for him.
 
Dunbar stood with his eyes closed, his hands cuffed behind him.
 
He was taller than Kline remembered, and had lost weight.
 
Kline rushed up to him and twisted his fists into the fabric of Dunbar’s orange prison uniform.
 

“Where are the bodies?”

Dunbar did not respond.
 
His eyes remained closed.

“Where are they?
 
Tell me, you lying sack of crap!
 
That was the deal!”

Then Dunbar spoke.
 
He parted his lips and whispered something.
 

Kline couldn’t make out a word of it.
 
He frowned.
 
“What’d you say?”
 

Again, Dunbar spoke in an inaudible whisper.

Kline could feel the rage inside building to the boiling point.
 
“Say it again or you won’t have to wait for the needle, I’ll kill you right here and now!”
 

Dunbar whispered very clearly, “I could tell you, but what would be the fun in that?”

CHAPTER 7

Lindsay Hammond was sitting at a red light in her Cadillac Escalade thinking about sex.
 
She hadn’t had any in months and her prospects seemed slim.
 
She had to pick up Wyatt, her twelve-year-old, from soccer practice in ninety minutes.
 
He’d ridden to the practice field with a carpool mother.
 
Tomorrow was her turn in the rotation.
 
Her fifteen-year-old daughter, Ramey, was riding home with a friend.
 
But her mind was distracted from the kids at the moment by thoughts of her pathetic sex life.
 
Now that Lindsay was single again, she’d started taking cooking classes as a way to meet men.
 
That was one of several routes she was exploring.
 
There was a cute guy named Craig who was circling and seemed interested, but Lindsay had played it coy so far.
 
She didn’t want to appear overly eager.
 
It was tough putting herself back on the market after so many years of marriage.
 
She was rusty but having fun.
 
Her ex, the children’s father, was already engaged and he planned to wed in Maui and wanted the kids there.
 
Lindsay was fighting him on it but the kids were absolutely dying to spend a week in Hawaii.
 
It was just another battle she’d lose.
 

When her cell phone chirped she frowned.
 
It was her ex.
 
She sighed.
 
She silenced the ringer and turned through an intersection.
 
As she drove, she sped past dozens of chic fashion boutiques filled with deliciously overpriced skirts and skimpy tops.
 
She was tempted to dash inside and grab a new outfit, something a little sexy and flirty to wear to her cooking class, maybe speed up progress a little, just a touch of encouragement for Craig.
 
He was certainly taking his time.