Diabolical (36 page)

“Why?”

“One thing I've learned about the Carnates, they don't like knives.”

Hatcher took it, opened the blade. “
Jesus
. How do they feel about swords?”

“Pretty cool, huh?” Edgard said, chuckling. “It's an Espada. Extra large. Seven-and-a-quarter-inch blade.”

He had to admit, it was a serious piece of cutlery. Stainless-steel upturned blade that looked sharp enough to split a hair, aluminum frame, and a polished pistol grip handle, with a sub-hilt. Someone could definitely inflict some damage with a knife like this.

The blade glinted. He remembered holding another one, also glinting in the night, right before he used it to kill the boy.

“This is more your thing than mine.”

Edgar waved him off. “Don't be stubborn. I've got plenty of blades.”

Hatcher held the edge up to getter a better look. It looked sharp as hell. “And you think they're scared of knives?”

“They seem to get nervous whenever they see one,” he said, shrugging. “And whenever they get mad at each other, they threaten a stab to the heart.”

“Is that so?”

“What, you don't believe me?”

Hatcher unlocked the blade and folded it closed. “Frankly, I don't know who the hell to believe. Bartlett knew you were going to approach me? And didn't mind you painting him as the bad guy?”

“It was the only way I could figure out how to get to you. I didn't have time at the bar, and plus you'd have had no reason to listen to me. So I convinced him to let me try to gain your trust, find out what you were thinking.”

“And he went along with that?”

“I was light on the details until after the fact. Better to ask forgiveness than permission. But it worked.”

“What's he doing with that cave?”

“Stockpiling.”

“I got that much. For what?”

“What do you think?”

“If he's planning on sweating out the end of the world, he'd need a bit more than that.”

Edgar raised his head and looked straight at him. “Would he?”

The expression on Edgar's face told Hatcher he was missing something. He let his mind roll, let it tick through files of thoughts.

“The map,” he said. “All those locations that were marked. Those are other caves. Other stockpiles.”

Edgar leveled a finger. Hatcher was starting to find that annoying.

“Scores of them. Enough to fight a war.”

“So, you're working both sides of this. Yet you still expect me to believe you don't have an agenda.”

“Believe what you want. Do you want to stop them from opening the Path, or not?”

“What if I told you my only concern was getting Susan back her child?”

“I feel you, man. While we're on the subject, you should know I'm the one who convinced Bartlett we had no choice but to let the Carnates have him.”

“Why the hell did you do that?”

“Because otherwise his bargaining position would have been too strong.”

Hatcher studied Edgar's face, scanned his eyes. “How many Carnates have you slept with?”

“What?”

“How many? A dozen? Or are you just hooked on one?”

Edgar wrinkled his mouth, dropping his head and shaking it. “You think I've gone native, huh?”

“Yes.”

“They have no effect on me.”

“Bullshit. Spending time with them is like taking a drug. You'd have to be gay.”

Edgar popped an eyebrow, slanted his head with a shrug. That look said it all.

“Oh. I get it. And they're cool with that?”

“Meh. I've played the pussy-whipped weenie. I went through the motions in bed with one of them a bunch of times. It was even sort of enjoyable. I can go both ways, if I absolutely have to. I'm a great actor. And hey, I've got the equipment and they've got the skills. But I'm not vulnerable to their charms. Why do you think Bartlett let me do it?”

Hatcher wondered how that conversation would have gone, whether Bartlett asked or whether Edgar just told.

“So, you think Bartlett can't be trusted, that he wants to open this Path thing himself.”

“Yes.”

“Okay, you don't want Bartlett to open it. How do you feel about
them
opening it?”

“How do
you
feel about it? I know about the deal they offered.”

“And how do you know that?”

“They've mentioned it. They let their guards down sometimes.”

Hatcher had a hard time imagining that. Carnates were nothing if not aware. Every word always seemed calculated, and the more you knew about what they were up to, the more calculated in hindsight each word appeared to be. Especially the ones that seemed off the cuff at the time they said them.

“Anyway,” Edgar continued. “I just got off the phone with Deborah. She said they want me to go get the boy. Bring him to them.”

“Did they tell you where he is?”

“They didn't have to. I know where he is.”

“Well, let's go get him. Put him somewhere safe.”

Edgar shook his head. “We have to get that tablet. Destroy it. Without the boy, the Carnates will try to cut a deal with Bartlett, and he'll end up letting them do it.”

“You're sure of that.”

“Why the hell do you think he's been stocking weapons and supplies? He's planning for the end of the fucking world. He thinks it's his big chance to remake society.”

Hatcher pictured Bartlett holing up, fighting in some postapocalyptic wasteland. It didn't make sense. The guy may have been whack, but he was a flag-waver. Then again, he could just be nuts.

More important, Hatcher decided he didn't care.

“It's not worth the kid's life.”

“I know you think that. But it's not true. Stopping them from opening the Path is what matters.”

“I'm not willing to sacrifice him. I won't do it.”

“I don't doubt that,” Edgar said, twisting in the driver's seat to face Hatcher more squarely. “If we could just figure out where he keeps the tablet, then maybe we could do both.”

“You don't know?”

Edgar shook his head. “He's very secretive about it. I'm pretty sure he had it in a safe at the house, on Mulholland. But there's no way he left it there.”

“A safe?”

“Yeah. Big one. Cemented into the floor.”

A thought tugged Hatcher's attention, forcing him to look away. He chased it down in his mind, like a piece of paper being blown around a parking lot.

Safe. Floor. House. He did the chronology in his head.

“I think I know where he's keeping it.”

“You do?”

“Yes.”

“Can you get it?”

“Maybe.”

“I won't even bother to ask you where, but if you can get a hold of it, this could work out. There could be a window where, if we time it right, I'll have the boy, you'll have the tablet.”

“You sure you can get the boy?”

“Like I said, they trust me.”

“Maybe they do, but why should I?”

“You don't want the Carnates to open that thing any more than I do, that's why.”

Hatcher peered out the windshield, thinking. Shadows of trees and buildings, bright points of light along the strip beyond. All of it, he knew, would look a lot different in the light of day. Palm trees and sunshine and women in bikini tops and cutoffs, the occasional seagull crying out as it glided high above.

He lost track of how long he sat there, but finally something prompted him to suck in a breath and turn back to face Edgar.

“Tell me how you see this going down,” he said.

 

 

BY THE TIME HATCHER PARKED NEAR THE UTILITY SHACK, IT was almost dawn. He pulled the bag from the trunk, hefting it over the edge and tugging its thick strap over his shoulder, then he hiked the same trail he had before, crossed the same rocky flat to the cave.

A dim glow brightened the eastern horizon like a watermark, but the sky was still dark and the cave darker still. Hatcher followed the spot of his flashlight into the mouth, flashed it around the contents once inside. Same crates. Same gun cabinets. What he was looking for wouldn't be in any of the ones lined up to each side.

He walked the aisle toward the rear, stopped a few feet from the gun cabinet in the middle of the aisle, against the back wall. It was different than the rest, a bit larger. Facing a different direction. The only container in the space that wasn't stored in a uniform manner.

The bag made a heavy clanking sound as he set it on the floor.

The front of the gun safe had a five-prong wheel handle and a digital keypad. Hatcher gave the handle a try, just to be sure, then knelt down and opened the bag. The drill batteries were heavy.

There was definitely one advantage to living in a place like L.A. Only a handful of cities would have twenty-four-hour home improvement centers.

He set out the drill and the bits on the concrete floor. The stuff wasn't cheap. Two bright portable lamps. A DeWalt thirtysix-volt hammer drill with two extra heavy-duty lithium ion batteries. Four tungsten-carbide drill bits. Entire pack set him back almost a grand. Or would have, if he didn't use the debit card Edgar gave him. It had a company name on it, Sunrise Security Services. Edgar said it was for expenses. Bartlett kept track—was quite the stickler, according to Edgar—but by the time the transaction showed up in the records, it wouldn't make a difference.

He turned on the lamps and placed them on top of other gun safes nearby, one on each side. They provided more than enough light to work in.

Expensive safes are designed to thwart crackers. They have steel-hard plate between the dial and the lock, and glass relockers that kick in if someone tries to penetrate the locking mechanism. But while good gun safes incorporate such devices, most aren't designed to make it impossible for anyone to crack, merely to make it too difficult for a thief to gain entry. Not without taking too much time, or making too much noise.

Hatcher wasn't quite as pressed for time as a burglar would be, and didn't care about the noise.

The drill's cubed batteries were dense and heavy. Hatcher slid one into the bottom of the handle and snapped it into place. He triggered the drill and listened to it whine. He fit one of the bits in and tightened the chuck.

The safe's weakness, if it had one, would be in the bolts. The average heavy-duty gun safe would have an interconnected set of bolts extending out from the door, pressing into sockets along each side, making the door impossible to open. But on most models, the bolts acted as simple rods that kept the door from opening when extended. They were not designed to resist pressure from the edges. And due to the scissor-extension mechanism that connected them to the handle, the retraction of one forced the retraction of all.

Figuring out where the bolts lined up was the hardest part. Without the designs or specs, it was simply a matter of guessing.

It took him almost fifteen minutes to drill the first hole. He used the line of the door as a guide, tried to drill just past the depth of the edge. The object was to insert a metal rod of a smaller diameter in the hole and push the bolt back. The first try seemed to have missed, since no matter how hard he pressed the rod into the hole, nothing moved.

He tried an inch lower, drilling another hole. Still no good, so he dropped another inch. It occurred to him the design might be more sophisticated, that the bolts may be connected by a cam mechanism, rather than a simple scissor pattern, and in that case couldn't be moved from the side. But he kept drilling. Third hole, and something felt different. He inserted the narrow metal rod and pushed. A heavy, sliding clunk sounded from within the door. Hatcher stepped to the front and tugged on the wheel handle. The door pulled open. A small interior ceiling light popped on.

The cabinet was empty.

Hatcher stared at it for a few seconds, his eyes eventually settling on the bottom. The floor of the cabinet was covered with felt. Hatcher crouched down and leaned in, running his hands over the surface, digging his fingers along the sides where the soft felt met the metal walls. He was able to find a spot that wasn't glued and ripped the felt back to reveal the steel cabinet floor.

In the middle was a small handle, set flat in a form-fitted groove. He got a finger under it, lifted it, then pulled up.

The panel was dense. Hatcher had to stand and get himself in a stable position to move it. He set it down on the cement floor behind him and leaned back into the safe to look.

Another empty space. A cut-out box shape formed in the cement beneath the safe. About three-by-three square. Solidlooking as could be. Nothing in it.

The phone in his pocket vibrated. He checked the screen. A text from the number Edgar had given him.

Hatcher sat back onto the cement, hooking his arms over his knees and lowering his head. He stayed like that even though it hurt his tailbone, and even though it made his shoulder uncomfortable after holding the drill so long.

Something made him come back here. Something had made him sure.

He replayed the first time in his head. Relived each part, each segment he could recall. Walking up to the mouth, entering, checking the contents of one of the crates, walking the aisle, seeing the gun safes. Noticing one was out of place. Tripping on the bump of rebar.

Noticing the piece of glass.

Hatcher raised his head.

He stared at the gun safe for several beats, letting the thought take root.