Solitude Creek (24 page)

Maggie laughed. Wes gave a thumbs-up.

‘Thanks.’ Dance kissed him.

O’Neil was on the phone now. ‘Really, okay. Good. Can you get a state plane?’

Plane?

He disconnected. ‘Got it.’

‘Where’re we headed?’ Dance wiped some honey from her finger.

‘LA. Well, south. Orange County.’

‘I’ll go pack.’

Antioch March opened his eyes and tried to recall where he was.

Oh. Right.

A motel off the 101.

After getting the Google alert on his phone, he’d tried to make it all the way to his destination last night. But there’d been delays. He’d needed to steal a car – an old black Chevy, it turned out – from the long-term lot at Monterey Regional Airport. He’d thought there was a possibility he’d have to abandon his wheels when he arrived at the destination and he wasn’t prepared to lose the Honda just yet.

There were better ways to get an untraceable car than theft, much better, but this matter was urgent and he’d had no choice but to steal the vehicle. Hotwiring, it turned out, was really quite simple: pull the ignition harness bundle out, gang together everything but the – in this case – blue wire. Rig a toggle, then touch the blue wire to the bound leads (let go right away or you’ll ruin the starter). Then pop the cover off the lock assembly and knock out the steering-wheel pin. Easy.

Still, he hadn’t hit the road until about two a.m.

Several hours later, fatigue had caught up with him there, near Oxnard, and he’d had to stop for some rest. He imagined what would have happened if he’d dipped to snoozing and run off the road. The Highway Patrol, suspecting drinking, would have possibly found the Glock 9mm and a car registration that had someone else’s name on it. And the evening would not have gone well.

So he’d made a stop there, at a dive of a motel, along with truck drivers, Disney-bound tourists and college students, whose energy for copulation was quite astonishing, as well as noisy.

Now, close to eight a.m., March rose slowly to waking, thinking about the dream he’d just had.

Often Serena. Sometimes Jessica.

This one had been about Todd.

Todd at Harrison Gorge. It was in upstate New York, on a busy river, one that led ultimately to the Hudson.

The park and nearby town, Colonial era, was a romantic getaway, four hours from Manhattan. The day he was thinking of, the Day of Todd, was nestled in the midst of leaf season. Officially out of school then, working in sales, he’d been in Ithaca, New York, a call. He’d kept some sentimental ties to academia by working for a company that sold audio-visual equipment to colleges. After a lackluster pitch at Cornell, he’d recognized the symptoms: edgy, depressed. The Get was prodding. He’d cancelled a second meeting and left, driving back to his motel.

He’d seen the park on the way and decided, on a whim, to check it out. March spent an hour hiking along the trails, surrounded by leaves spectacular even in light mellowed by low-hanging clouds. March had his camera and shot some pictures as he walked. The rocks, brown and gray like ancient bone, and stark tree trunks impressed him more than the colors.

Click, click, click …

March had spotted a sign, Harrison Gorge, and followed the arrow.

Although the weather had thinned the visitors, he came upon a cluster of people – mostly young, rugged outdoor people, rock-climbing people. Helmets and ropes and well-used backpacks. One young man had stood off to the side, looking down at the water. Someone had called his name.

Todd …

Blonde, cut and muscled, about March’s age. Lean, handsome face. Eyes that would probably be confident at any other time. But not today. Then his companions were gone. Todd was now alone.

And March had approached.

Listen, Todd, I know it’s a big leap. I know you’re scared. But come on, don’t worry. Everything’ll be fine. If you never try something, you never know, do you?

I see you have a Get of your own to scratch.

Come on … A little closer, closer.

Go for it, Todd. Go for it.

Yes, yes, yes …

Antioch March smiled at the memory. It seemed both from another life and as real as yesterday.

He stretched. Okay. Time to get to work. He showered and dressed. He looked in the mirror and his face grew wry. The blond hair was just plain odd.

He made coffee in the cheap unit on the desk and used the powdered creamer. Breakfast was included but he certainly wouldn’t go to the common room, where others might see him. The description of the man who had ‘allegedly’ caused the Solitude Creek tragedy did not include his face. But he thought it best to be cautious. He sipped the pungent brew and turned on the TV.

March finished packing. He dumped the coffee out, wiped away fingerprints throughout the place using a sanitizer wipe (plain cloth doesn’t work). He stepped outside into the clear, cool air. Gazing around, at the oak and brush, the brown hills, the parking lot for anyone watching him, any threats.

None.

Then he slipped into the car, which was parked in the back. Toggle the power. Blue wire to the bundle.

The car started.

Then he was on the road again, piloting the cigarette-smoke-scented Chevy Malibu, heading south.

Two hours later he was in Orange County, closing in on the apartment of the man who’d posted the bizarre Vidster rant by someone named or nicknamed Ahmed, linking the Solitude Creek incident and several other mass tragedies to fundamentalist Islamist terror.

And putting Antioch March in a spotlight he could not afford to be in.

After the autobot had alerted March last night to the video, he’d called in some favors to find the address of the poster. It was in Tustin, a pleasant, nondescript suburb in the heart of Orange County. He now passed a lot of stores, restaurants, strip malls, modest homes.

March found Ahmed’s apartment in a quiet residential area, and parked the Chevy Malibu four blocks away, in front of an empty storefront. No security cameras to record the tag number, or him, though he was at the moment largely unrecognizable. The workman’s beige jacket was a thick one for this hot Southern California weather and he was sweating under it and the baseball cap. But nothing to do about that. He was used to being physically uncomfortable on the job. The Get always put you through your paces.

Especially irritating were the flesh-colored cotton gloves.

He supposed, too, he was upset that he’d had to make the trip in the first place. He longed to be back in Monterey. He didn’t want Kathryn Dance’s reprieve to last much longer.

But when your profession is death you need to be willing to do what’s necessary to protect yourself. Be patient, he told the Get. We’ll return to our lovely Kathryn in due time.

March clicked the toggle off, climbed out and pulled on black-framed glasses with fake lenses. Looked at his reflection in the window.

Porn star meets
Mad Men …

Then he snagged his gym bag from the back seat. No key, so he had to leave the car unlocked. This didn’t, however, seem like a place where car theft was a big risk. Again, no choice.

Then, head down, he walked an indirect route to the one-story, ranch-style apartment complex.

In the courtyard, he paused. Another glance around. No security videos. No one visible. He stepped up to ground-floor apartment 236, listened. Faint music came from inside. Pop music.

He reached into his pocket with his right hand, gripping the gun, and with his left rapped on the door. ‘Excuse me?’

The music went down. ‘Who’s there?’

‘Your neighbor.’ He stood directly in front of the peephole to prove he was white. And therefore no threat. It seemed like that sort of neighborhood.

The chain, then the latch.

The man inside could be big. Dangerous. And armed.

The door opened. Hm. Ahmed was indeed big, yes, but mostly fat. Pear-shaped. He was also probably not an Ahmed since he was as Anglo as they came. About forty, curly hair. A goatee, shaved head. And a dozen tats, the biggest of which were the American flag and an eagle.

No gun, though one would have looked right at home in his belt.

‘Which unit you from?’ he asked.

March shoved his Glock into the man’s thick chest. Pushed him back into the room.

‘Fuck. No. What is this?’

‘Sssh.’ March frisked him. Then collected the gym bag, closed and latched the door.

Five minutes later the heavyset man, crying, was lying on his back, hands and feet bound with duct tape.

‘Please, don’t hurt me. I don’t— What do you want? Please, no!’

March got down to the fun and soon had his answers. Stan Prescott was not, of course, a terrorist. He was a Christian. A well-thumbed Bible sat beside a well-sat-in armchair. By profession, a bartender. But his avocation was –
he
might have said – patriot.

After being caressed by the muzzle of March’s Glock, he’d admitted he’d posted the images and claimed credit in the name of Allah, or whatever the fine print read, to arouse anti-Islam sentiment in the country. Was he crazy? March reflected. Everyone with half a brain would see through the plan. And those who believed the claims? Well, that was one group that nobody needed to convert.

Stupid on all fronts. Not the least because he’d picked the wrong person to draw attention to.

But, of course, Prescott had his own Get: the need to keep his country safe and free … from anyone who wasn’t American. That is, Christian American. That is, white Christian American. What he hadn’t learned was that you need to treat the Get like an animal that’s only partly domesticated. You can’t be stupid: it’ll kill its owner as fast as anyone else.

‘Give me your passcode. Your computer.’

The man did, instantly.

March was surveying Prescott’s files. Looking at all the man’s pseudonymous diatribes against America. He looked over the dozens of grim photos of beheadings, bombs and other supposedly terrorist attacks that no self-respecting jihadist would have been behind. He had quite the collection of gruesome pictures.

He got the passcodes to Prescott’s Vidster account and blog, and took everything down.

‘What’s this about, man? Come on! Are you working for them? You seem like one of us!’

Them …

It occurred to March that there might be a benefit here: if the authorities had seen the post, the terror angle would lodge in their minds as a motive for what had happened. That would obscure just a bit more the real reason for the attacks in Monterey, which had, of course, to be kept completely secret.

‘I’m sorry. I’ll do whatever you want. Jesus, man. Come on. We’re both … alike, you know.’

White.

March shut down the laptop. He looked around the room, then dragged a pole lamp over, positioned it above the man’s sweating face.

‘What’re you doing?’

March walked to the front door and fetched his gym bag.

‘What’re you doing?’ Prescott repeated, more desperate.

March crouched down and examined the man’s face closely. He patted him on the shoulder, said, ‘Don’t you worry.’

And unzipped the bag.

‘This’s it,’ Michael O’Neil said, pulling the rental car into the parking lot of Stan Prescott’s apartment complex in Tustin, California.

They parked several units down from Prescott’s to wait for an Orange County deputy to join them.

In the time it had taken the state jet to whisk Dance and O’Neil from Monterey Regional Airport to John Wayne, Orange County, O’Neil’s computer people had the identity of the man who’d posted that clip of the Solitude Creek deaths.

Stanley Prescott, aka Ahmed, was a forty-one-year-old bartender. Single. The information gathered also revealed that he had been working in his club’s Long Beach location at the time of the Solitude Creek and Bay View disasters, so he wasn’t the unsub.

His Facebook and blog profile revealed he was essentially a rabid bigot. It was obvious that he was claiming Solitude Creek and the other incidents were the work of Muslims to incite anti-Islamic sentiment.

People could be such idiots.

This news was discouraging, since he’d probably had no connection whatsoever to either of the attacks and had simply pulled violent pictures and videos randomly from the web to repost. Still, as they were there, they would talk to him. Maybe the unsub had emailed or posted something on this man’s blog.

As they waited for the Orange County deputy to arrive, O’Neil took a call. He nodded and Dance noted he lifted an eyebrow. He had a brief conversation, then hung up.

‘Otto Grant. Remember?’

Of course she did. The farmer whose land had been confiscated under eminent domain. The possible suicide.

‘Santa Cruz police found a body in the water by the pier. Male. Same age and build. They’ll run the scene and get me the report.’

How sad, she reflected. ‘Did he have family?’

‘He was a widower. Grown children. Farming must’ve been his whole life, maybe all he had left.’

‘A hard way to go. Drowning.’

‘I don’t know,’ O’Neil mused. ‘In that water? You’d be numb after three, four minutes. Then … nothing. Worse ways to die than going to sleep in the Bay.’

Dance and O’Neil had to wait only a few minutes for the Orange County deputy to arrive. They waved him over. The stocky uniformed man’s name was Rick Martinez.

‘We’ve been following the wire about your perp. The Solitude Creek thing. The other one too. The author signing. Last night. Man, that’s terrible. I’ve never heard anything like this. This terror thing?’ A nod toward the apartment. ‘Is Prescott your doer?’

Dance said, ‘We know he’s not. But we’re hoping there’s a chance of some connection between him and our unsub.’

‘Sure. How do you want to handle it?’ He was speaking to O’Neil.

‘Agent Dance’ll wait here. I’ll go to the front door, you go around back, if you would. If everything’s clear, Agent Dance’ll do the interrogation.’