Back Track (36 page)

Raymond had found two possibilities: a cardboard box manufacturer and a wholesale supplier of building and construction materials, both on the outskirts of town. Bishop had also found a seemingly vacant building south of them, about a mile away from the Bannings place. And all were surrounded by flat land large enough to serve as a make-do landing field.

It was a start. But Bishop still needed to narrow it down further.

He turned to Raymond and said, ‘When you gather information for Kate, is it always through legitimate sources?’

Raymond smiled and shared a look with Kate. ‘Not always.’

‘So you’re a hacker.’

Raymond looked uncomfortable. ‘Hey, I know my way around a mainframe, but I wouldn’t go that far. I just got plenty of friends who know stuff and don’t mind sharing information.’

‘Okay, so say I wanted to see the monthly electric bills for these three warehouses, how hard would that be?’

‘Well, it’s no walk in the park. You’d need to get into the Arizona Public Service main server and access customers’ private accounts. That’s serious security right there. It can be done remotely, but we’re still talking some major firewalls.’

‘What about through one of those back doors you mentioned?’

Raymond frowned, clicking his teeth together. Looked at Kate. ‘I’d have to call a certain pal of mine, but, yeah, I could probably do it. But I wouldn’t want to be in there for long.’

‘What are you thinking, Bishop?’ Kate asked.

‘We’re searching for a round-the-clock operation, aren’t we? And supplying lighting, heating and electrics to a structure that large on a permanent basis adds up.’

Raymond was nodding. ‘So if one of these places has a monthly utility bill that can feed a small country, we’ve found our scumbags.’

‘Well, it would put them top of the list. How about it, Raymond? Are we go?’

Raymond looked at a point above Bishop’s head as he tapped the pen against his palm. The tapping got faster and faster until he threw the pen on the desk and reached for his cell phone. ‘Let me make a couple of calls,’ he said.

‘Okay,’ Raymond said, tapping keys as computer code filled the screen, ‘I’m in the accounts directory, but let’s keep it short. No telling when the automated sentry starts making its next sweep. Right, hit me with the first address.’

‘114 Radcliffe Avenue,’ Bishop said. He watched Raymond key in the box manufacturer’s address and hit ‘Return’. There was a short wait, and then lines of text filled the screen.

‘Great,’ Raymond said. ‘You have to scroll though the whole goddamn street. Here we go. I might have known, 114’s right at the end. Okay. There. That look normal to you, Bishop?’

Bishop leaned in and looked at the new page onscreen. He saw a month-by-month costing for gas and electric at that address. The highest bill was for January, generally Arizona’s coldest month. $847. February was significantly less, and the rest of the year they were able to keep it under $500.

‘That looks about average,’ Bishop said. ‘Try 93 East Roderick Street next.’

Raymond tapped his fingers against the keyboard and used the trackpad. Finally a new page opened up and Bishop scanned the entries. The building supplies wholesaler forked out over a grand in January and February, but the bills shrank in the following months, closely matching that of the previous business. Not nearly enough to keep a large concern lit and heated around the clock.

‘Try 232 Valencia Avenue,’ Bishop said. That was the one Bishop had found. It had looked vacant from above, but maybe it was supposed to look that way.

Raymond keyed it in. Got the whole street again and scrolled down to 232. Clicked on it. The page opened up.

Damn
, Bishop thought. The building was listed, but there were no bills for this year. Which meant the place really
was
vacant.

‘That’s it,’ Raymond said, ‘I’m outta there.’ He quit out of the system, then disabled and unplugged his router. He sighed and sat back in his seat. ‘Three strikes. But it
had
to be one of them, didn’t it?’

‘Not necessarily,’ Bishop said, staring at the wall. ‘We just played a hunch, that’s all. One that didn’t come off.’

Silence filled the room. Kate looked at the floor as she combed a hand through her hair. Raymond gazed at the ceiling, shaking his head. But Bishop couldn’t afford to feel discouraged. Now now. Besides, something was currently scratching away at the base of his spine. He wasn’t sure what, exactly. Something about the pictures on the wall.

It seemed Raymond was a fan of Raquel Welch back in her prime. The man had good taste. There were four posters of the actress running across the wall, including that one of her in a fur bikini. But in between these were framed photos of friends and family. Bishop focused on two in particular. They were both black and white. One was a studio headshot of a handsome, blond man wearing an air force uniform. He looked confident and ready to take on the world. Bishop glanced at Raymond and noticed a definite family resemblance around the eyes and mouth. The other photo showed the same man standing next to a P-51 Mustang, with a hangar taking up much of the background.

‘Who’s the pilot?’ Bishop asked. ‘Your grandfather?’

Raymond sat up and looked where he was pointing. ‘Great-grandfather. Jack Massingham. My grandpa says he notched up a shitload of Nazis during the war.’

‘And the shot of him next to the Mustang. Where was that taken?’

‘Uh, Luke Field at Luke Airfield Base. Why?’

‘I’m a history buff.’ Which was true. It had always been his favourite subject in school. Military history, especially. Bishop stood up and moved closer to the photo. Part of him was thinking of that old scar on his shoulder and how long it took him to notice its hidden shape. How sometimes the answer’s right there in front of you, but you’re too close to see it. He saw it now. And the itching at the base of his spine had stopped.

Bishop said, ‘I remember reading how the government spent months on feasibility studies before finally choosing Luke Field as a major training base. They’d find a likely spot, build a temporary hangar and fly in all kinds of specialists to check the area thoroughly before making a decision.’

Kate was frowning. ‘So?’

‘So this area could have been one of those locations they studied. Evening before last, when I was driving east along the highway I noticed an ancient-looking aircraft hangar in the distance. About five miles out of Saracen.’

‘That’s a new one on me,’ Raymond said, turning to his monitor, ‘and I’ve lived here most of my life.’

‘I know which one you mean,’ Kate said. ‘It’s on your right. Not all that obvious unless you’re looking for it.’

‘That’s it.’ He turned and said to Raymond, ‘You on Google Earth again?’

‘Yeah. You say it’s located about five miles outside of town?’

‘Give or take a mile.’ Bishop went over and stood behind him. Kate joined them.

Raymond had zoomed out and was slowly scrolling east on Highway 60. When the scale at the bottom of the screen told him he’d progressed five miles, he started to zoom in again.

Bishop noticed a speck that could have been a building and pointed. ‘There.’

‘I see it,’ Raymond said and increased the magnification further.

It was still blurred, but Bishop could make out a few more details. The hangar was set back about a mile from the highway. Situated close to the southern side of the building was a much smaller annex. Other than that it was on its own. No other structures for at least a mile in each direction. And there was a long, barely defined area alongside going from east to west that must have served as a landing strip. And maybe still did.

Raymond zoomed to the maximum setting so the roof took up half the screen. It was in the standard curved shape of the era. Most of the tiling had fallen away over the years, leaving much of the wooden sheathing underneath exposed. From the scale, Bishop quickly calculated the building covered about thirty thousand square feet.

‘That’s one big mother,’ Raymond said.

Bishop nodded. ‘About half the size of a football field. Too big for a temporary hangar. So maybe this once served as a reserve training base instead.’

Raymond started scrolling to the left and then down and to the right. Bishop could now see what had to be fencing going all round the property. And there was also a small structure close to the north fence, possibly a guard hut of some kind, and the faint markings of a dirt track leading from there to the highway.

Bishop pursed his lips. ‘I’d sure love to get a look at that place from the ground.’

‘Maybe we can,’ Kate said. ‘Our photographer, Richard, was planning a book on Saracen’s history three or four years back and he took a whole bunch of shots of the surrounding area.’ She sat at one of the other laptops, opened a browser and typed in an address. ‘I’m sure I saw something on his website that looked like an old hangar.’

Once the site loaded, Kate clicked on the ‘Gallery’ link on the side and was taken to a page of photo thumbnails. She moved in closer and a few seconds later said, ‘Here we go. I was right. Richard’s got two shots of the place.’

She clicked on one of the thumbnails and a photo immediately filled the screen. Bishop could see it had been taken at dusk. It showed a tattered and weather-worn sign affixed to a barbed wire fence. The faded lettering on the sign read
NO ENTRANCE
and underneath,
Government Property
. The hangar in the background was out of focus.

‘Very artsy,’ Raymond said, while Kate clicked on an arrow to the right of the screen.

The next photo was a front shot of the hangar itself, again taken at dusk. It showed a low, wooden building in desperate need of a paint job, with overgrown sagebrush all round. The large hangar doors were closed. Bishop saw smaller doorways and gaps for windows along one side of the building. All were boarded up. Bishop smiled. Assuming the place still looked the same from the outside, he liked what he was seeing.

‘
Government property
,’ he said quietly. ‘I wonder if it still is.’

‘Easy enough to find out,’ Raymond said and went straight to the official website for the County Assessor. He clicked on a link for ‘Real Property’. The resulting page gave them a variety of search options in order to access specific property data: by address, by owner name, by parcel number, by agent name, or by subdivision name.

‘McG,’ he said, ‘see if you can find out an address for the place. It’s gotta have one.’

Kate went to one of the map sites on her computer and quickly navigated her way down Highway 60. A minute later, she said, ‘It’s listed as 67206A, East Highway 60.’

‘Right.’ Raymond typed the address into the appropriate box and pressed ‘Return’.

Immediately a page came up showing the basic property data for No. 67206A. Parcel number, property class, and so on. Next to the owner’s name, it said
Outrun Corporation
.

‘Looks like it
is
privately owned,’ Raymond said.

‘The government must have auctioned off the land at some point,’ Bishop said. ‘This is looking better and better.’

Kate leaned in closer. ‘Click on the name, Raymond.’ Her voice sounded tense.

Raymond did as he was asked and they were taken to another page. It gave Outrun’s address as a box number in Phoenix.

‘Son of a bitch,’ Kate whispered.

Bishop turned to her. ‘You recognize the name?’

‘And the box number. That’s one of Stan Neeson’s companies.’

Bishop watched from the back seat as Kate steered the Subaru into Carter Drive. It was a long cul-de-sac with high concrete walls enclosing the vast, expensive properties lining each side. Kate pulled into the third recessed entrance on the right. There was a keypad and an intercom on the left-hand wall. Bishop looked through the windshield and couldn’t spot any cameras. But that didn’t mean there weren’t any.

Kate had told him Neeson lived alone since his divorce, except for a long-term housekeeper who never worked weekends, while his two grown-up daughters had moved out long ago and now lived locally with their own families. She’d also mentioned that Neeson had held a prominent position on Garrick hospital’s board of directors for a number of years, which explained the ease with which those three hospital rooms were set aside for private use. Finally, all the pieces were coming together.

Kate rolled her window down, reached out and pressed the buzzer. Twenty seconds later, a thin voice came from the speaker: ‘Is that you, Katie?’

Which immediately told Bishop they were being watched right now.

‘Hey, Stan,’ she said in a light voice, ‘got something I want to run by you. It’s about Olander and how to prime the readers for when the story breaks. But I need your okay first.’

‘Not that I don’t enjoy seeing you, Kate, but couldn’t you have just phoned?’

‘It’s kind of sensitive. Best we discuss it in person.’

‘I see. Just you out there, is it?’

‘Just me.’

‘Then come on up.’

Bishop heard a brief hum, then the gates began to open and Kate drove slowly through. He saw perfect lawns on either side, with palm trees all around providing plenty of shade. Up ahead, the gravel drive ended in a circle in front of a single-storey, white stucco house. It was in a similar Spanish style to Tatem’s place, but covered a much larger area, with a lot more wings protruding out from the main body. To Bishop it looked more like a modern scientific research centre than a home.

Through the car’s tinted windows, he spotted Neeson standing outside his front door with a faint smile on his face. Kate circled round and stopped the vehicle a few feet away. She got out and Neeson looked behind her and his eyes grew large.

Knowing he’d been spotted, Bishop reached for the .38 Special under his shirt as he shoved the car door open. But Neeson moved faster than his years. Before Bishop was all the way out, the older man had ducked back through the front door and slammed it shut behind him.

‘Shit,’ Bishop said and turned to Kate. ‘He’ll want to get to a phone and call his people. Where will he go?’