Blackout (19 page)

Marshall picked up the phone after a couple of rings. 'Kate with you?' he said as soon as Josh said hello.

'Yup, she's fine,' said Josh.

'Kessler helping you?'

'Reluctantly' said Josh. 'What do you have on him?'

'Doesn't matter,' said Marshall. 'He helped, didn't he? That's all that counts.'

True enough, Josh reckoned. 'Any leads on the man in the picture?'

Josh felt certain that if Marshall could identify the man in the picture that he'd given him, then that would be another lead.

Something in the drawn-out silence that followed his question suggested to Josh that he was going to be told

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something, but not everything. With Marshall, he never felt he was getting more than half the story.

'I reckon it's a guy called Jim Flatner,' said Marshall eventually.

'Who's he?'

Another pause, while Marshall seemed to weigh up how much to say. 'He's a biker.'

'I figured that from his clothes,' said Josh. 'Either that or he's some old queen who likes to dress up in leather.'

Marshall chuckled. 'He hangs out in the empty country, about twenty miles east of Scottsdale. There's about thirty of them living out in the mountains. Mostly men, but there are a few girls there as well. A few kids, too. It's kind of an alternative community'

'What do they do?'

'Anything that pays,' said Marshall. 'Some drug dealing. Fencing stolen goods. That kind of thing. They try not to bother the local community, and the locals stay out of their way'

'They were looking for me,' said Josh. 'I'm sure of it.'

'I think you can be twice as sure now.'

Josh gripped the phone tighter in his hands. He looked out across the forecourt of the station. Kate had climbed out of the car, and was walking up and down impatiently. A truck had pulled up, filling up its tank with diesel. 'Why?'

'Your friend Madge,' said Marshall. 'She's dead.'

Josh paused. An image of the girl lying in his arms was playing out in his mind: the way^he was just a few days ago, when she was full of passion and life. 'What the hell happened?'

'There was a story on the local news,' said Marshall. 'Said she killed herself. Threw herself off a bridge in Boisdale.'

'That's a lie.'

Marshall chuckled again. 'Probably the oldest lie the police ever heard.'

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'I was with her just couple of days ago,' continued Josh, glancing at Kate. 'She wasn't the kind of girl who kills herself. She had no reason to, and even if she had she wouldn't do it. She just wasn't the type.' Josh paused. 'Somebody killed her. And if they killed her, they'll want to kill me as well.'

Josh started walking back towards the car. Why the hell would anyone want to kill Madge? he wondered to himself. Christ, it must have been because she was in touch with me. I told her that if she found out anything more, then she should get in touch with me at Marshall's house.

He could feel his stomach churning with guilt. Just that tiny sliver of information cost the girl her life.

Could those bikers be working for the Feds? No, that doesn't make any sense. Then who? Who the hell are they and what do they want? What can I possibly have known that was worth all this?

Josh made a decision. He didn't want to just hang around and wait for Kessler to come up with something. Find those bikers -- and find-out who they are working for, he told himself.

A fire was burning down in the camp. Josh held the binoculars to his eyes, scanning the tiny community. From his vantage point high up in the hills, he could count about fifteen homes. They were made from wood, canvas and corrugated iron: rough, shanty-town shelters that could be taken down as quickly as_ they had been thrown up.

He turned towards Kate. 'You reckon he's down there somewhere?'

She nodded. 'This is his territory,' she said. 'It's only a few square miles of desert, but Marshall says Flatner rules it like some medieval warlord.'

After hearing of Madge's death, they had driven straight into the mountains where Marshall said the bikers had their

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camp, stopping only once at a gas station to grab a pair of microwaved burgers. Josh sensed that there was little time for delay. The conspiracy was closing in on them fast. If they'd found Madge, soon they would find both him and Kate. And it might be sooner than they knew.

Take the fight to the enemy. I don't know where the hell I remember that from, but it was good advice.

They'd parked the Mustang three miles away, and had covered the rest of the distance on foot. It was too dangerous to approach the camp in a car. There was only one dirt track leading up through the mountains, and Josh had to assume that it was watched. The bikers could have posted lookouts. Or they could have rigged it up with electronic sensors. It didn't matter which. Either way, Josh had to assume that it was under surveillance. They would certainly detect a car.

The trek had been a long and hard one. The first mile was fine, but after that the country had started to rise sharply upwards, and Josh had found the ground heavy going. They had stopped on the way to pick up some supplies from a gas station: four litres of water, some tinned beans, bacon and biscuits, and some matches, plus a couple of cheap plastic rucksacks to sling their kit over their backs. The weight of the gear was making the going tougher. Josh could tell that his leg was still far from healed: there was nothing he could do about the damage inflicted on his muscles, however. Recuperation will have to wait, he told himself. Right now, the best I can^hope for is to stay alive.

Josh folded away his binoculars and put them back in his pocket. He'd seen a fire at the centre of the camp, and he could see some men sitting around, smoking joints and drinking beer. But at this distance, and in this darkness, it was impossible to get a clear line on any of their faces. 'We won't see anything tonight,' he said. 'Too late and too dark.'

'And what are you hoping to find exactly, Josh?' said Kate.

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He turned to face her. Not for the first time in the few days that they had spent together, he found himself wondering what was driving her on. At times she was considerate, at others angry, sometimes helpful, and sometimes just difficult. Maybe I've forgotten what women are like, he wondered to himself. Maybe I never knew.

'The key,' he said. 'My memory is there somewhere, I know it. I get glimpses. All I need is something to unlock it all.'

'And you think that it might be here?'

Josh shook his head. 'I won't know it until I find it,' he replied.

Kate had started unfurling the cloth that they had picked up along with the rest of their supplies. It looked like a picnic rug, with a plastic sheet on one side. The mountainside was rising above them, with the valley and the camp stretched out down below. They were about halfway up on a steep incline, with a set of boulders shielding their position from anyone looking up from the camp. Josh broke out some biscuits-and a bottle of water, and went to he next to Kate on the rug.

'I'm frightened, Josh.'

He put his arm around her, grateful for the warmth of her skin next to his. The exhaustion of the day had seeped into every bruised limb: the wound on his leg was weeping with pain and his brain was spinning as he tried to make sense of everything that had happened in the past few days.

The same question played itself, over and over, like a tape stuck in a loop. What can I have done that this many people want me dead?

Kate was running her lips down the side of his neck. He pulled her tighter against him, aware of her breath on his skin. He started to roll her over onto her back, but she pushed him away playfully, pinning his arms down and slowly unbuttoning his shirt with her teeth. He reached

At;

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out, glancing towards the stars, then at the magnificent mane of red hair streaming above him. Taking each button of her blouse in turn, he undressed her with the same care and attention with which he would field-strip a treasured gun. As he did so, he listened to her whimpers and moans of pleasure as they disturbed the silence of the desert night.

Josh closed his eyes. Suddenly, he was startled to find another image playing in front of his eyes. Another woman was making love to him. A brunette. With long dark hair and deep brown eyes, she had skin that was smooth, supple and tanned to perfection. There was a metal stud in her belly button. And her face was sculpted as if from marble, with delicate eyes, a straight nose, high, narrow cheekbones, and a wicked, mischievous mouth.

Who is she? Josh wondered. A girlfriend. A wife?

'You okay, baby?' Kate whispered in his ear, as she rode him towards her own climax.

Josh shuddered, then nodded. Memory can be a dark and dangerous place, he thought. There is so little I know about myself.

Kate rolled away from him, her passion exhausted, and for a few minutes they lay still and silent, their bodies bathed by the starlight shining down on the mountains. Kate reached down for her shirt, pulling it back up over her breasts. Then she squeezed herself tight against Josh, as if looking for shelter from the cold of the night.

'You don't have to be with me,' said Josh. 'This is my fight. I can handle it on my own^

Kate swung her head from side to side, her lips reaching up to peck at Josh's mouth.'Now that I've found you, I'm not letting you out of my sight.'

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TWELVE

Wednesday, June 10th. Dawn.

Josh struggled to shake the sleep from his eyes. He could tell that it was set to be another baking-hot day, but the night had been cold and there was still a chill in the air. His bones felt stiff from the rough ground on which Kate and he had slept, and the wound in his leg was teasing his nerves: a vicious tingling sensation was running down the main artery, shooting into his knee. It feels like a cheese grater rubbing against my skin, he reflected. From the inside.

'Any memories, Josh?' said Kate.

She opened a bottle of Coke and passed a plastic cup across to Josh, and he took it between his hands, letting the cola drink's caffeine sink slowly into his veins. A coffee would have been good, but it was too dangerous to light a fire up here: the smoke would reveal their position. Down below, the camp was starting to stir to life. He could see some men walking through the rows of tin and canvas shacks: big, bearlike creatures, with beards, and tattoos on their bulging forearms. Afew yards from the shacks, a group of children were playing on some old tyres attached by ropes between a pair of up ended cars to make a simple swing. In the centre, he could see some women starting a fire. At least they're probably women, thought Josh. They had longer hair, bleached blonde, and not so many tattoos.

'Nothing,' he replied. 'It's going to be a long hard slog to get them back.'

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He sat down on a boulder, using the binoculars to continue his search. 'There,' said Josh. 'That's him.'

He passed the binoculars across to Kate. Whilst she peered down at the camp, he tracked the man walking across the rough scrubland. It was Flatner, Josh felt certain of it. He was flipping open a mobile phone, and pacing around while he talked.

'Yeah, definitely,' said Kate.

'What the hell are they all doing down there?' asked Josh.

She shrugged. 'Bikers -- who knows what the hell they do?' she answered. 'Most of them aren't as weird as they look. Lots of them have jobs and families and houses and stuff. They come up here for a few days, mess around with their Hondas andYamahas, do some drugs, and trade some stolen goods.'

'Bloody funny place to do it.'

'Look to your left.'

Josh glanced to the left of the camp. He could just about see some long rows of cacti, their ground-hugging green compact bulbs broken up by strings of light purple flowers. There were different kinds of cacti growing all over the wilderness, but these looked fresher. They were arranged in straight lines. Someone was cultivating them.

'Peyote,' continued Kate. 'It grows wild along this valley. It's one of the oldest and most effective psychedelic drugs known. The desert tribes of the South-West used it. So did the Aztecs. And now the bikers as well. You get good prices for that stuff in California.' A

Josh looked across at Kate. 'Do think there might be a good electronics shop anywhere nearby?'

Now that he'd seen that they were carrying mobiles, he knew what he needed: an interceptor that would allow him to eavesdrop on their calls.

'There's a mall outside Scottsdale,' she replied. 'They've probably got one there. Why?'

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*m

'Flatner's conversations. I want to listen to them,' replied Josh. 'I want to know who he is and what he's doing.'

The journey was a long and arduous one. From Kate and Josh's base in the mountains, it was a three-mile walk back down to the car. At least no one had nicked the Mustang, thought Josh as he put the keys into the ignition. Next, there was a twenty-mile drive to The Village, a mall just outside Scottsdale. Josh had been wary on the road, keeping a close eye out for police patrols, and now he watched the security guards closely as they stepped inside. As soon as they arrived, he picked up some cheap plain-glass spectacles from a drugstore: they would change the shape of his face and make him harder to recognise. Then he found a public toilet and gave himself a wash. Next he made for a barber's shop to get the beard that he had been growing trimmed and his hair cut, telling the girl to give it a left parting -- so that it would help him look different to any picture of him that might exist. A man who stinks of the desert, and who looks like he hasn't washed or shaved in a week stands out, he figured. Just the smell would be enough to mark you out.

'I don't know about cleanliness being next to godliness, but I do know that it helps you stay in the shadows,' he pointed out to Kate as he directed her towards the hairdresser to get her own hair shampooed and blow-dried.

The electronics shop was a huge barn, filled with sockets, connections, wires and plugs. When Josh explained that he wanted an LAN receiver, the clerk sitting at the information desk had looked puzzled. 'Check your stocklist,'Josh told him sharply. Sure enough, they had a Yellowjacket in the storeroom. Eight hundred dollars, explained the clerk. Josh whistled, then started counting out the cash. The three thousand dollars in cash that he'd had on him when he was shot had already been whittled down to just a thousand bucks.