The Night Cafe (31 page)

San Juan Capistrano
Sunday, April 23

W
hen the witching hour arrived, she found a parking spot easily enough near the old Spanish mission in San Juan Capistrano. At this hour, about the only people around besides the night owls in the diner up the road were homeless people and the drunks beginning to spill out of the Swallows Inn.

The battered portfolio bumped awkwardly against her leg as she crossed the road toward the diner. Looking through its plate-glass window, she did a double take when she recognized one of the prepositioned watchers inside—none other than L.A. Sheriff’s Detective Lindsay Towle. So had Russo convinced the feds to play nice again? Or was it true what they said, that hell hath no fury like a kid sister scorned?

The tiny two-way radio she wore was well hidden by her hair, she knew, but it still felt conspicuous and awkward.

“You reading me?” Agent Towle’s voice murmured in her earpiece.

“Yeah,” she said, lips hardly moving. The mike embedded in the radio unit was so sensitive that Towle could probably hear her heartbeat.

Just as she arrived at the threshold of the all-night diner, a rambunctious group of giggling girls spilled out the door. Hannah held the door as they flounced past, oblivious. “You’re welcome, I’m sure,” she said.

Her cell rang the second she stepped inside. A voice—not Gladding’s—instructed, “Fourth booth on the right.”

Liggett? she wondered.

About half a dozen tables were occupied by people who looked like students or night owls, plus at least one sleepy homeless guy nursing the world’s slowest cup of coffee. Aside from Lindsay, Hannah recognized a couple of other faces, but she had no idea how many might be cops or FBI agents—and how many might be working for Moises Gladding.

She pushed the leather portfolio across the bench of the fourth booth. Sliding in after it, she spotted a manila folder tucked behind the condiments, her name scrawled on the outside.

“Coffee?” the waitress called from behind the counter.

“Not sure. Let me check the menu. By the way,” Hannah added, “who sat here last?”

The waitress grimaced at the door. “The ditzes who just left. Why?”

Hannah shrugged, picked up the sugar dispenser and feigned tightening its top. “I just noticed that the lid’s loose.”

“Great. Comedians.”

In her ear Hannah heard Towle’s voice. “Okay, thanks for the heads-up. We’ll haul them in, see what they know.”

She opened the envelope so Lindsay and the other watchers would see that she’d received further instructions. When she tipped it, a throwaway cell phone and a note spilled out. Blood drained from her face as she read the note.

You did not come alone. If you so much as move your lips, your mother, your sister Nora and the entire Quinn family will die—including Nolan up at Stanford. Then we will move on to your son, Gabriel. Not today, not tomorrow, but soon.

After what had happened at Travis and Ruben’s place, Agent Towle had put watchers on her entire family, including Gabe, plus the house in Studio City where her neighbors were staying until it was safe to go home. It didn’t matter worth a damn, Hannah realized. Gladding could circle back at any time and take them out at his leisure.

Leave your own cell phone in the envelope, along with the wire I’m sure you’re wearing. Order coffee and leave payment on the table. Be ready to walk out with the painting as soon as you get the signal. It will be unmistakable. Head south on the 5 Freeway. There is no doubt a tracking device on your car. If you want your family to survive, you will get rid of it.

“What does it say?” Towle murmured in her ear.

She picked up the menu, glanced at it briefly, then called to the waitress. “You know, I can’t say what I want. Just a coffee, I guess.”

“Okay, can’t talk, right?” Towle said.

The waitress brought over a coffee and set it down. Hannah blew across the top and took a sip. “Uh-huh,” she hummed softly.

Fishing her cell phone out of her bag, she dropped it and the note in the envelope. Removing the earpiece, she added that, then reclosed the envelope and laid it on the bench. After that, she put a couple of dollars on the table to cover the coffee.

Then she waited.

William Teagarden and Agent Towle were in a black Ford Explorer up the road, both men watching Hannah through high-powered binoculars. Towle cursed when they saw her take the receiver out of her ear.

“Something is afoot,” Teagarden said.

“Ya think?” Towle growled, switching the radio over to the frequency his watchers were on. “Keep an eye on that envelope. If she leaves it behind, see if anyone retrieves it. Otherwise, grab the damn thing. I want to know what it says.”

The Bureau Explorer was parked deep in shadow on a side street where they could observe without being easily observed themselves. Towle scanned the area, looking for Gladding or Liggett. He flicked the radio talk button again. “Lindsay, you there?”

His sister radioed back an affirmative.

Towle pressed the talk button again. “See if—”

The blinding flash was the first sign of trouble. They heard the explosion, felt its concussive force a split second later. If the watchers had been undercover until then, the jig was up now. Half a dozen night owls in the diner and drunks by the Swallows Inn cried with pain, yanking out earpieces. Across the road, a car in flames rolled and careened through the window of a souvenir shop.

Towle grabbed the shotgun racked behind him and leapt out of the SUV. “Stay here!” he shouted at Teagarden.

The souvenir store was burning now and two other cars had also caught fire. As Towle approached, the gas tank on one exploded, liquid flame spewing in every direction.

Teagarden, meantime, saw Hannah fly out the door of the diner, racing for her car. Agent Towle had left the keys in the SUV’s ignition. By the time Teagarden had scrambled behind the wheel, Hannah’s Prius had already made a U-turn on a shriek of rubber and was barreling away from the commotion. Teagarden threw the Explorer into gear and tore out after her. As the Prius approached the freeway, he saw her fist emerge from the driver’s side window. She opened her hand, palm up, and held it there for a moment before tossing something away. Teagarden saw a flash of metal bounce on the pavement before coming to land in front of an oncoming car. Teagarden peered at the crushed device as he passed it in the road—the GPS tracker the FBI had planted on her car. Gladding’s instructions had obviously been specific and thorough.

Towle had dropped the portable radio on the floor, and now the Brit heard the agent’s voice bellowing, “Teagarden! Get your ass back here!”

He couldn’t reach the radio to respond. With both hands gripping the wheel, it was all he could do to remember to stay on the right-hand side of the road. The FBI had vehicles aplenty. His best bet was to keep going and hope Hannah realized that at least one set of headlights behind her was friendly.

Liggett beamed. Nothing like a nice explosion to lift a guy’s spirits. He’d been furious when Gladding had ordered him to create a diversion in the midst of a street crawling with feds and undercover cops. If he got his ass arrested here, who was going to set off the device at San Onofre? What about the mission then?

But then he’d found a car parked nearby in a lot by the Swallows Inn, where surrounding cars afforded him some cover, and he’d rigged it to blow. Unfortunately, the car’s driver had come out before Gladding gave the go-ahead, so by the time Liggett hit the detonator, the car had pulled out of the lot. He saw the blast in his rearview mirror. A couple of seconds later he watched the collateral damage as a store and a couple of other cars caught fire. A moment later one of those cars, too, blew up.

Liggett threw his head back and laughed. “Kaboom!”

But the sudden movement shot a spear of pain through his head. He winced and fingered the lump on the back of his skull. It hurt like a bitch. That damn faggot had been surprisingly quick, and the next thing Liggett knew, the bastard had brought a knife block down on him. By the time Liggett had stumbled out of the condo, the guy had been gone. When this was all over, he was going to track the bugger down and cut his throat.

As he took the freeway on-ramp, he saw emergency vehicles streaming in the opposite direction, heading toward the center of town, flashers spinning and sirens wailing. Any other time, Liggett would have loved to stick around and watch the party, but tonight he had bigger fish to fry.

Every time Gladding disconnected after one of his terse calls to the throwaway phone, Hannah was tempted to use it to dial 9-1-1 for help. But then what? Stand by while he took out the people she loved, one by one? Gladding had even anticipated the GPS tracker the feds had put on her car. Who would risk defying a guy that obsessive?

Traffic at the southern edge of Orange County was light at two in the morning. When she glanced in the rearview mirror, the only vehicle that seemed to have been there since the diner was a dark SUV, but it could be the feds, Gladding, Liggett, or nobody.

Gladding’s latest call had directed her toward a service road on the southern edge of San Clemente State Beach park, about twenty minutes south of San Juan Capistrano. When she found the road, deep in the park’s interior, it was dark and utterly deserted.

“There’s a barrier across the access road, but the chain has been cut,” Gladding said. “Push through and drive to the clearing where the road dead-ends.”

When her headlights picked out the service road, she turned in and nudged the gate gently with her bumper. She unsnapped her holster, thankful that Gladding hadn’t thought to order her to come unarmed. Perhaps it was an oversight, but Hannah doubted it. A more likely explanation was Gladding’s confidence in the superior force of whatever awaited her at the end of that dark road. The Kevlar vest Towle had insisted she wear was bulkier than her own custom-fitted one and its bulk limited her maneuverability, but it was the most protection she was going to get out here.

She followed the twisting, narrow, tree-lined road to the end. “When you get there,” Gladding had said, “kill your lights, get out of the car and wait next to it.”

Would he already be there—him or Liggett? Someone else? If she got there first, did she dare risk deviating from his instructions to give herself some small measure of advantage?

Behind her, the SUV sailed past the turnoff.

Teagarden saw her turn, but he deliberately overshot the service road, not wanting to risk being seen following her in. As dark as it was, he could see enough to suspect there wasn’t much depth to the track she’d taken. A couple of hundred yards farther up the road, he pulled the Explorer deep into brush, then killed the lights and got out. He waited for a moment, listening and trying to acclimatize to the darkness of the nearly moonless night. Before setting out, he searched the vehicle for a weapon, but Towle had taken the shotgun, and he apparently didn’t stock spares.

Pity, Teagarden thought.

There was no sound more mournful than the call and response of a coyote pack, Hannah thought. A desolate wail sounded from somewhere across the hills, and then a bleak response that built to a ghostly chorus. Standing in the darkness, the leather portfolio propped against her car, she felt as lonely as ever she had. Had Gladding planned for a night when the moon would be scarcely a sliver in the sky? There was something surreal about being in one of the most densely populated parts of North America and yet feeling lost in utter wilderness.

Minutes passed—five? Ten? Suspended in solitary darkness, she felt herself losing track of time. Suddenly a twig snapped and she started. An animal? Or—

The blow came out of nowhere, vicious. Senses reeling, she felt her knees buckle. As her body slammed into the ground, her consciousness slipped over to the dark side of the moon.

“Hannah?”

She flinched.

“Shhh…it’s Will Teagarden. Wake up, lass. Come on, let me help you.”

She was facedown in the gravel, hard steel digging into her ribs—her Beretta, still clutched beneath her. He pulled her to a sitting position, but she swayed, disoriented, head pounding, brain refusing to function. Finally she remembered where she was and she scrambled to her knees. Tried to, anyway. “The painting…”

“It’s gone,” he whispered. “They took it. There were two of them standing over you when I got here. They were arguing about whether to finish you or revive you. Gladding, I think, wanted to hold off. Before they could work it out, I heard another vehicle coming down the track. It stopped up a way and that’s when they took the painting. I haven’t heard anyone leave, so we need to be quiet.”

“But what are they up to? We should follow…”

He steadied her weaving body. “I’ll see if I can spot them,” he murmured. “You wait here.”

She pressed her gun into his hand. “Take it, Will. And be careful.”

He touched her cheek and she thought she saw him smile. Then, dizzy and sore, she watched him disappear back down the track. She grabbed the car and pulled herself to her feet, waiting for a moment until the world stopped careening around her. Then, step by agonizing step, she started after Teagarden.

Teagarden had never understood the American love affair with guns, but it didn’t mean he didn’t know how to handle them. He was, in fact, a splendid shot.

He’d heard nothing much since Hannah’s attackers had walked away from her. It could be that he had missed hearing them leave. If they were gone, he would retrieve the FBI vehicle and bring it back for Hannah. He suspected she was concussed, at the very least, and the sooner he got her out of this bloody place and to a hospital, the better.

He backtracked the way he’d come in, keeping well to the edge of the dirt road. He could smell the ocean, and though he couldn’t hear surf, he knew they were very close to water. He was almost at the downed chain barrier again when he spotted the glow of lights up a side track he’d missed seeing on his way in. He ducked into a grove of fragrant eucalyptus trees and followed the lights toward another small clearing, where three vehicles were visible—two cars and a white panel van. The back doors of the van were open, casting a bright rectangle onto the gravel roadway, silhouetting two men. Blinded by the lights, they would be unlikely to spot him in the darkness, he calculated.