Night Talk (28 page)

He also had a fascination for virtual Internet gambling, but only for the slot machines. He played them on the Internet at every opportunity, even if it was just pausing for a few minutes in his van. The simplicity and mindlessness of the slots with their colorful displays, sound effects and loud payoffs held his attention.

He didn't question the reasons behind the commands he was given because the Voice satisfied all his needs without raising his ire. He got rewards when he did well, extra time playing computer games, slot machines and watching action movies. There had been a time when violent porn had been on his cravings list, but no more because he no longer had sexual urges.

Years earlier he would have had sexual cravings for both sexes that were violent and impossible for him to control. Those uncontrollable urges were dulled after he was chemically castrated in the mental hospital. He had agreed to the process because it got him out of his cell and a look at his surroundings and thoughts about ways to escape.

He was still being chemically castrated as part of his management by the Voice. The drug was part of the cocktail of antipsychotic drugs that kept his violent sexual urges under control. It wasn't a once-and-then-done treatment, but had to be periodically administered to keep the drive from returning.

The castration drug reduced Leon's sex drive, the compulsive, violent sexual fantasies he used to suffer and his capacity to achieve arousal and erection. The rest of the cocktail kept his other murderous impulses in check, at least until they were needed to complete missions.

The purpose was not to protect society from a violent, sexually deviant psychopath, but for his controllers to keep him on a choke chain and direct his aggressions for their own use.

A side effect of the castration drug would be apparent to anyone who saw Leon's naked chest before he had been given the drug—his breasts were larger now. Gynecomastia, the development of larger than normal breasts in men, was a side effect of the drug. So was an increase in body fat. The physical side effects were similar to what eunuchs suffered.

The Honda left the fast food parking lot and he followed behind it as it headed in the direction of the foothills that began just a few miles from the freeway.

The car made a left turn into a residential development but he didn't follow behind it because he was concerned he would be spotted. Instead, he drove farther up the road and made a U-turn, coming back and turning into the development. He already knew the address.

The Voice said,
Park at least a block away from the house, Leon. And wait until I tell you it is time to go.

“What will I be doing?”

God's work, Leon, as you always do, as Saint Leon did before you.

“I'm hungry.”

Later, after your work is done. You haven't heard the man you are following speak, have you, Leon?

“No. Not yet.”

When you hear the man's voice, it will be familiar to you. He sounds like your father.

 

52

Novak hated telling Mond things he didn't like hearing.

“The woman using the name Alyssa Neal has not been identified as a member of any governmental or private intelligence agency. Or anywhere else, for that matter. Ditto for any other documentation about her.”

“She's been erased,” Mond said. “It's difficult but not impossible to do. We've done it many times.”

She started to ask why the agency had erased people but a look from him stopped her: she was certain he regretted making the statement. A signal coming through on her control panel saved her from getting snapped at for his mistake.

Novak said, “Sir—Nowell and the woman have been spotted.”

“Put it on the screen.”

The scene that came up on the war board was of Greg Nowell and the woman calling herself Alyssa Neal standing by a garishly lit store selling tourist items.

“Where are they?”

“CityWalk. The outdoor mall at the Universal Studios tour.”

“When was this shot?”

“Twenty-nine minutes ago. It's the mall's CCTV put online.”

“Twenty-nine minutes. We might be able to catch up with them. First let's see if they're still there. Go directly to the parking exits, starting with the one closest to where they're standing.”

Novak entered a search command on all the mall's cameras for images of the two suspects and brought up images of them in the parking lot getting into a silver Honda Civic to leave CityWalk. They followed the car out of the parking lot and down the steep incline to a right turn on Lankershim.

“You familiar with the area?” Mond asked her.

“Yes, sir. I live in North Hollywood.”

“Where would you guess they're heading?”

“They could be going anywhere, but if they stay headed in the same direction they would be able to get onto the Ventura Freeway.”

“Which goes to?”

“It goes east and west and connects to other freeways that also go north and south. I'll pull up the east and west freeway on-ramps to see which one they take.”

Mond got up and paced. She had not seen him so excited till now, but they had a chance to close in on the suspects.

“East, sir, they're heading in the direction of Pasadena, but the freeway connects to the 10 that goes all the way to Florida.”

“Scan the exit cameras for the car starting with the closest one to where they got on the freeway.”

The agency's superfast computers flew through each exit camera in seconds. Novak jumped in her seat when she got a hit.

“Got 'em, sir. They got off the freeway just a moment ago. A place called Azusa. It's not a heavily populated area.”

“Get our field people headed there in copters, direct drones for immediate aerial surveillance, get satellite coverage and notify the local police to immediately detain them but they're not to question—”

“Wait!”

“What? Don't interrupt me.”

“Sir, there's a priority-five message for your eyes only.”

Novak passed the link to the message to Mond's cell phone. She tried not to look but it was obvious that the message did not sit well with Mond. At first he seemed surprised, a slap-in-the-face surprised. And puzzled. Now he appeared petrified. She cringed, wondering if she had done something to generate the message of the highest priority.

When he spoke, he didn't look at her. “We have been ordered off the surveillance. Shut down all programs being used. Get the word out to our field agents to return to—”

“That can't be!” Novak gasped. “We've found them in real time. We just need to get the local police to grab them.”

Mond's face had turned pale when he read the message. Now it went red. “Don't ever question an order. I should have you reprimanded.”

“I—I'm sorry, sir, I just—”

“You don't understand, you're not seeing the big picture.”

Mond got up and paced, getting control of his anger. He waved up at the image of the car on a street in Azusa.

“The decision's made. They will deal with Nowell and the woman in another manner.”

 

53

“What's the matter?” Ali asked.

Greg had been peering in the side and rearview mirrors since they got off the freeway in Azusa and ate fast food. They had stopped at an In-N-Out Burger before heading out of the business district, going north, toward the foothills.

He kept checking the car's mirrors as they headed for the neighborhood of Bob, Franklin's under-the-radar friend. It was dark and all Greg saw in the mirrors were headlights.

“I don't know. Paranoia. I noticed a van behind us as we got off the freeway. I can't tell if it's still back there.”

“What kind of van?”

“I'm not sure, a company van, white, maybe a plumber or something.”

“You really are paranoid if you think we're being followed by plumbers.”

“Yeah, but a van almost turned me into roadkill on my way to the funicular the night you passed me that cryptic message. Don't forget Rohan was paranoid, too, but he might have opened the door to a guy in a work uniform. I'm trying to remember if I saw a company van on Rohan's street when I got there, but nothing pops up.”

Azusa was one of the hundreds of unmemorable bedroom towns and districts for the nearly 20 million people of the L.A. combined area that spread out from the coast to the desert for about fifty miles in every direction. The main part of the town hugged the area between the 210 Freeway and the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains.

Not far from the freeway the foothills began, rising to nearly nine thousand feet, not particularly high peaks when compared to the Sierras. Narrow roads, not all paved, led up the foothills from the flatlands, with most of the roads ending in dead ends, often at lakes or reservoirs.

The trees and bushes were the typically moisture-stunted variety found in Southern California. The farther east one went, greenery stopped and the sparse, sandy Mojave and Sonoran deserts unfolded. The basin turned into an oasis only where water stolen from the north of the state and other western states was used.

“I'm wondering what comes after Bob,” Ali said.

He knew she was not happy about the way things had gone with the Aaron. She thought Greg hadn't been tolerant enough with the jerk.

“We need them,” she told him earlier as they headed for Azusa. “How else are we going to get help?”

He didn't see the secret organization of hackers as rescuers. They had their own agenda and he doubted it amounted to much more than what the CityWalk Aaron had said—
give me the secret file or we'll turn you in to the cops.
Once they had the file and their fifteen minutes of fame, Greg and Ali could rot in prison.

No one was going to protect them from the authorities. No one could for long, anyway. Once he ran out of friendly, safe places to stay, and Bob might be the last one, and ran out of places to search for the file, which he already had, he wondered what else was left except to wave down the nearest cop and tell him he'd made his day by helping him capture a desperate criminal.

He sensed the darkness closing in on him, smothering, as if he had disturbed some primeval, preternatural underworld that dark things escaped from. He felt claustrophobic. He needed to get out of the car and walk but that wasn't in the cards at night in a strange town. He would just attract the attention of the police.

He gripped the wheel tighter and told himself to deal with it, to walk away from where his fear and imagination were taking him. He needed to focus on the next step, the one beyond Bob.

Going to a newspaper or TV news station sounded plausible but that would work only if he had something to prove his innocence with or could provide evidence of wrongdoing by the government. Even at that it wouldn't keep the two of them from being arrested, although it might keep them from being buried alive in some remote place, a “black hotel” where you check in but never check out because it's a secret prison of a U.S. intelligence agency.

He relayed his thoughts to her.

“Black hotel?” she said. “That's an interesting take on vacations. Enjoy waterboarding, taking freezing-cold baths, losing weight on a bread and water diet, getting a massage on an inquisitor's rack. Frankly, I'd rather get into bed with the Aarons.”

“I don't trust one-one-one or any other number.”

“The number thing sounds kind of dumb, but what do you expect from computer geeks? Boys and girls with their toys. How does any port in a storm sound?”

“Like a shipwreck.”

“We can't go to the news media without proof and we don't have the proof. Shipwreck, train wreck, plane crash, going down for the third time—no matter how you cut it, we need help finding the file.”

“Why do you think one-one-one and his pals will help us? You know that I have to give them something I don't have or they'll turn us in.”

She glanced at him and looked away, hesitating.

“Spit it out,” he said, “tell me something you and everyone else knows but that I'm completely in the dark about.”

“They'll help us out because they believe you still have it.”

“I don't—”

“Wait, I know, you say you don't have it and I believe you. But remember, Ethan told them he gave it to you.”

“He didn't.”

“Not that you're aware of.”

“This thing keeps going around in circles with you, Mond, Aaron and everyone else who knew Ethan. Get it straight for the umpteenth time—
I don't have it
. And I checked my e-mails and text messages after Ethan was killed. The only other way he could have gotten it to me was from the spirit world after he hit the sidewalk. But that's a possibility. He did call me postmortem.”

“What do you mean?”

“My phone rang when I was walking home. The caller ID said Ethan Shaw.”

“Maybe that's it.”

“Ethan was on his way to the morgue when the call came through.”

“He might have sent you a message with a built-in delay.”

“There was no message, period. I thought it was someone with the police trying to track down Ethan's family through Ethan's phone's contact list. But if it was a secret message it is now floating in the L.A. sewer system. So that's my story. You and everyone else can go hunting for the file in sewers.”

She put her hand on his arm. “I can't explain the phone call; you might be right, someone might have been looking for Ethan's next of kin. I know you don't believe you have the file, but I also know that as crazy as Ethan was, he was also a mad genius. We're talking about a twenty-something kid who managed to crack what is probably the holy of holies of the secret world of spy organizations.”

“You think I have the file and just don't know it.”