Breaking Point (32 page)

It's possible that the village of San Jeronimo had never had its heyday, but, if it had, it was decades ago. The streets showed the vague remnants of once being paved. The “downtown” was a gas station, a bar, a city hall, a bar, a grocery store, and a bar. Other than Rojas's truck, the only other vehicles were steel-reinforced jeeps favored by the
narcotraficante
. Plus, a tireless El Dorado on its rims.

It was easily ninety-five degrees at noon. Ray, in a polo shirt and jeans, climbed out of the Grand Cherokee with a mismatched right front quarter panel. Rojas picked a copy of
The New Yorker
off the floor of the cab and said, “I'll be here.”

Ray walked into El Perro Fumando, sat at the empty bar, and ordered a tequila with lime juice.

It was an odd place to find a former Israeli soldier and spy. Then again, this was Daria Gibron. A lot about her was odd.

Ray had just finished the first sip of his drink when two beefy, unshaven men entered and took tables at the far end of the saloon, flanking him. He recognized them as the men who'd been positioned outside the bar when he'd tried to find Daria a week or so ago. Both wore untucked shirts.

Ray nursed his drink.

Thirty seconds later, the saloon-style doors opened and Daria Gibron entered.

Daria, always dark-skinned, had grown more tanned. She wore her black hair cut very short and a bit spiky, making her round face look even more so. She wore a sleeveless tank that revealed sharply muscled arms and shoulders. Her khakis and hiking boots were well worn and dusty. She looked tougher than Ray remembered. Harder.

Ray started to say hello but the word stuck in his throat. He opened his mouth, closed it.

Daria gestured to the bartender, who brought two shot glasses and a bottle of Tequila Uno. She poured, downed hers in a gulp. “Is good to see you, too.”

TWIN PINES

Jack and Hector tried cell phones. They tried MP3 players. Cameras, computer game stations, travel alarm clocks, digital audio recorders, laptops, electric razors. Hector even unearthed a vibrating dildo. He hid it from Jack and tested it.

But it, like all the rest, was inoperable.

Hector said, “You don't think…?”

Jack scratched his head. “I didn't two hours ago.”

*   *   *

In the makeshift morgue, Lakshmi Jain found the same results. But she found something far more disturbing.

She went to the front door and the officer whom Chief McKinney had posted. “Excuse me. Other than myself, who's been in here?”

“Todd from the coroner's office. Him and one of the EMTs loaded up some more bodies this morning. Also, that tall looker you brung yesterday.”

Lakshmi said, “No one else?”

“Not on my watch.”

“Very well.” She adjusted her ear jack. “If you could avoid sexist comments around me, I would appreciate it.”

“Um … okay?”

She stepped back inside.

“This is Kim.”

“Mr. Kim. It's Lakshmi Jain.”

“You're bringing me a working cell phone? One which I can then use to beat Tomzak over the head with?”

“No. They're all dysfunctional. But there's something else. These bodies have been searched. Their pockets are turned out.”

SAN JERONIMO, MEXICO

Daria Gibron looked comfortable in the heat. Her taut skin was dry. Ray's cornflower-blue polo shirt was soggy with sweat.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Last time you showed up, you weren't looking for conversation. No?”

“I'd had you under surveillance for four days. I saw the holes in J. T. Laney's plans that you could drive a tank through. I didn't see a way to talk him down, so…” Ray shrugged.

“I am grateful you were there.”

“You haven't answered my question. What are you doing?”

She smiled, cocked her head. “Finding loads and loads of guns.”

“And selling some, too?”

She shrugged and knocked back a shot of tequila. “We like to call it chumming the waters. They said your friends were
in
a plane crash?”

“Yeah. Tommy's got a mild concussion and Kiki's banged up a little.”

Daria shook her head. “They investigate crashes. How—”

“Will you believe me if I say there's no variation of that conversation I haven't had? They did. Both are okay. Do you remember Isaiah Grey?”

“The pilot in the Mojave.”

“Yeah. He died. And we're not sure it wasn't murder.”

She nodded. “Tell me.”

“I will. But … how are you? Are you good?”

She smiled wryly and nudged Ray's shoulder with her own. She felt densely packed and solid. Ray's heart fluttered and his poker face tried to hold still. She poured more amber booze. “I am alive. Sitting in L.A., in posh clothes, translating for princes and bankers, I was going fucking insane.”

With her Israeli accent, she had always had trouble with that word. It came out
fakking
.

“Down here … you Americans have a saying about being in one's element. Yes?”

Ray said, “Yes,” and sipped his drink.

“What do you need?”

“Kiki and Tommy have a theory that someone brought down their plane and an assassin was waiting in the woods to pick off any survivors who could prove that the cover story—a cockpit malfunction—was a hoax. Whoever did this had the juice to create false black boxes, too. The assassin was a guy, six feet, six-one. Close-cropped silver hair, put together like an athlete. Probably late forties, early fifties. Handsome. Wondering where I'd start looking for a guy like that.”

Daria said, “Thailand. He lives there. His nom de guerre is Calendar.”

Ray wiped sweat off his neck. “No way. You know this guy?”

“There are few people in the world who can do what Calendar does. He's expensive. I was involved in a CIA situation, six months before you and I met. He handled the wet work.”

She sneaked a glimpse at her burly handlers, sitting behind them. Softly, she added, “My new friends occasionally need a woman with—how do you say—a certain skill set. That is me. Once or twice, when they need a man with the same skill set, they hire Calendar. But I charge a lot less, I think.”

Ray's blood pressure spiked. He forced his fingers to relax around the shot glass. “These ATF assholes have you playing assassin?”

“Not
playing
, no.”

Ray downed his drink, hearing a hum inside his ears. “And this Calendar works for them.”

She shook her head. “Calendar works exclusively for American intelligence, military assets, corporations. He considers himself the patriot. He is on no one's personnel rosters. He is what they call … what is the phrase, in English … deniable…”

Ray said, “Plausible deniability.”

“Yes. Thank you. Just like me.”

Ray seethed. “Jesus Christ,” he whispered. “You don't have to do this. You don't have to
be
this! Come home. I have contacts in military intelligence. If it's an adrenaline high you're after, we can find a way to do that and to buy back your soul!”

Daria looked at him. He wanted to punch someone so bad. Anyone. Daria linked her arm around his, rested her forehead against his biceps.

After a moment, she looked up, eyes too bright, smile too wide. She slid off her stool and kissed Ray on the cheek.

“I will see you around, Ray.”

“Where do I find Calendar?”

“If his work is finished, you don't. He is the ghost. If his work isn't, you won't have to look far. He'll be there.” She drained her last shot glass. “Also, has a team.”

Swell,
Ray thought. “Size?”

“Small, two to four at the outside. Experienced.”

“You know or your suspect?”

Daria took the longest time before answering. “He offered me the job.”

Despite the heat, Ray felt his body temperature drop. “And you turned it down because…?”

“Because I was otherwise occupied. Ray? Tread carefully. He is the sociopath but very good at his work.”

She kissed him again, ran a hand through his close-cropped hair.

“Goodbye.”

TWIN PINES

Tommy and Kiki treated themselves to a lunch of burgers and fries at an A&W that hadn't been remodeled since the sixties. It was noon, Monday.

Tommy pounded an upside-down ketchup bottle over Kiki's fries, so that she didn't have to tax her broken rib. “You're a very nice boyfriend.”

“You know, I really am.”

They scarfed down the food, well rid of hospital meals. No burgers had ever tasted better.

“So. That was a neat trick with the crashers' voices and their histories. I thought poor Petey's head was gonna explode.”

“Jerk.”

“Silver Hair: where's he from?”

A french fry was halfway to Kiki's lips when she froze. She stared over Tommy's shoulder, into the middle distance.

“Hon?”

She
ssshhh
ed him, still staring.

She finally turned her gaze to Tommy's eyes. “You know I couldn't tell you.”

“Well, a plane had just fallen on you. Plus, your hunky, gorgeous boyfriend was leaking blood like it was—”

“No. It's not that. I can hear him. He asked me, ‘Hey, are you okay?' and later, ‘What happened to the airplane?' It's just…” She stared into space again.

Tommy pointed to her burger. “You gonna finish that?”

“Yes. It's like I can't tell you where he was from because he wouldn't tell me. There was no regional accent. No dropped sounds, no cultural signposts. There was no
there
there. Like what he presented was so tightly controlled. He gave away nothing.”

Tommy reached out, took her hand in his. “It don't matter. Ray Calabrese's all over this. We find out about the chain of possession on the black boxes, Ray's people ID the … whatever, the pulse weapon. We'll call Delevan Wildman, call Isaiah, get—”

He squeezed his lips together, grimacing at the mistake, averting his eyes.

Kiki gripped his hand tighter. “I do that all the time. When Peter was being a brat, I wanted to ask Isaiah how best to handle him.”

Tears glistened in Tommy's brown eyes. He got out of his side of the booth, sat on hers, and hugged her softly.

“Silver Hair and his friends killed Isaiah. We are going to fuck them over like nobody's been fucked over. Not never.”

She kissed him. “Promise?”

“Promise. Asshole's killin' days are behind him.”

*   *   *

Lakshmi Jain got a call from the coroner's office in Helena. They had checked the bodies that were there waiting to be autopsied for electric devices.

They had found several, but none of them was functional.

*   *   *

Peter Kim met Police Chief Paul McKinney at the morgue. The assigned officer unlocked the door, let them in.

McKinney pulled back the sheets on five bodies. It was obvious that they'd been searched.

“Goddammit.” Peter was livid. “You assured us these bodies would be protected.”

“You saw my guy out there. I have another one posted at the remains of your airplane. I have four men on day-shift duty and you've got two of them. You think I have unlimited personnel?”

“I think someone broke in here and searched these bodies. I think that makes our jobs much, much harder. I also think the hotels of Helena are chock-full of bereaved loved ones, and I'm wondering what to tell them.”

McKinney looked around and shivered in the cold. “Um, any reason they have to know?”

“Chief … Jesus Christ.” Peter was close to unspooling. “Yes, they have to know. I have to assume items were stolen. I have to know how much the passengers took out of their ATMs before the flight. I have to ask about expensive jewelry, watches. I— Fuck it! I want that officer posted inside!”

“It's forty degrees in here!”

“Get him a parka!”

They were toe-to-toe now.

“No. I tell you what. Here's a better idea: get these goddamn bodies out of my town. Do it now.”

Peter stepped closer. “This is a federal investigation!”

“I don't care if it's being conducted by the Detroit Red Wings! The bodies! Out! Now!”

Peter saw red.

McKinney said, “Swing, and I will arrest you, Mr. Investigator in Charge. I kid you not.”

Peter turned and marched out.

Halfway back to the real estate office, he realized he really should have brought Beth Mancini along.

LOS ANGELES

For the second time that month, Ray Calabrese returned to Los Angeles from Mexico. Neither trip had been much fun. He took a cool shower in his own condo, traded worn clothes for new travel clothes. He wolfed down two scrambled eggs with an English muffin, washed his dishes.

He checked his e-mail. His office mates had looked up the address of Stanley Katz, the conspiracy theorist with the
Pentagon or Pentagram?
online magazine Henry had told him about. Ray threw his satchel into his trunk and drove out into the Valley.

TWIN PINES

Calendar drove carefully around the perimeter of the auto-parts-storage yard. A quarter acre surrounded by tall Cyclone fencing topped with barbed wire. Not impossible to break into but tough. He wondered if there were dogs. A lot of chop shops kept dogs to hold off meth addicts looking to steal metal.

The luggage in the fuselage was his last chance to secure Andrew Malatesta's speech and sketch pad. Unfortunately, he saw too many people walking in and out of the shop in their NTSB windbreakers.

He'd have to wait to break in.

ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA

Ray found the address in a shabby neighborhood just off Interstate 5. The houses were one-story, two-bedroom clones of one another, with wire fences around dingy brown yards strewn with children's toys. The cars were a decade old. The starter homes needed new aluminum siding, new roofs.