October's Ghost (30 page)

“Let’s hope he’s passed out on a barstool, nice and safe-like.”

“I think we can count on that.” Frankie accelerated through a series of greens going east on Olympic. “Hang on.”

*  *  *

The bartender looked at the newcomer and pointed to the clock. “Closing soon, buddy.”

Sullivan looked up, but the numbers were unintelligible. He’d have to take the bartender’s word for it. His second drink was barely touched, which amazed him because he’d been there for more than two hours. For some reason the booze just wasn’t calming him. In fact, it was hard to even swallow. There was no relaxation coming from this round of drinking, and that scared him. Really scared him. “Yeah. Okay.”

He had come in pretty juiced, and he was not one of the regulars, so the bartender immediately had laid a protective eye on him. Two drinks, he’d decided. That was it. No more. It was his liquor license on the line if the guy walked out in front of a truck or something, not even considering if he got behind the wheel. That he had made sure was not a possibility. The guy only had a motel key on him. That was a smart move, though it really wasn’t close. Well, the walk would do him good.

Sullivan had that key in one hand and his still-full drink in the other. He stared down at the large plastic tab attached to the key. It had all he needed, all the police would need. Address, room number. He could call 911 right now, and the guys would be caught. He’d be safe again. No more worrying about his life.

Just the future...
What was he going to do about that? No job. His house was wrecked. His eyes went down to the glass of liquid. Was it just that? Liquid? Was that all it was? Just something to quench his thirst?

Then why can’t I...?
His fingers tightened on the object that safely held his friend. That was it! It was his friend. It was that. When all others were gone he still had his...
booze
.

It was really all he had.

No
. His grip on the glass released, and the hand came up to his mouth, covering it for fear that he would vomit. He felt as though he would, and he wanted to drink the—
What is it? Bourbon? JB?
He couldn’t remember. But he still wanted it desperately. It was just that he couldn’t. Just
couldn’t.

He again looked at the key and just as soon realized what had been presented to him. It was as clear and simple as that. It was a choice.
Prove yourself, George, or drown in the booze.

The glass was still there, still full, still calling him to drink. To just take it in. To just drink.

He turned away. The key was in his hand, and the grip that had held the glass tightly a moment before now squeezed his only hope. It was his only hope. It was the chance to prove himself. He didn’t want to die, not this way. Not now. Not like this.

Give me the strength
, Sullivan asked silently, the request directed nowhere in particular. He doubted that God had any time left for him. He was on his own, determined to do what he had to, despite what he and others had thrown before him in the way of obstacles. He had little left of value in his life, just the memory of what he had been. And what he could be.
What I have to be.

“Hey,” Sullivan said, drawing the bartender’s attention. “Take this away.” He pushed the glass down the bar. “Coffee.”

The bartender smiled at the request, but George didn’t notice. His attention was focused on the key in his hand. More specifically on the tab. In the morning it would be his starting point. His test. His mission. He was a reporter, a finder of facts, a newshound. It was his job, regardless of the lack of an employer. Some men had to do things for themselves, and sometimes without remuneration for their efforts in mind. This just had to be done.

Regardless of the outcome.

*  *  *

Mrs. Carroll had obviously done a good job describing the suspects to the Bureau computer artist, as the driver waiting at Olympic and Alvarado needed only a quick look at the composites to make an I.D.

“Yeah. Those’re the guys.” He handed the folded paper back to Frankie.

“Do you remember where they got off?” Her fingers tapped the tip of the pen on her notebook.
Come on. Please
.

“Sure do. Olympic and Vermont. One of the guys walked funny, like his back was hurt.” He laughed sympathetically. “I popped an L4-L5 disk myself, so I know the way it looks and feels.”

“South side of the street?”

“Yeah. Nearside before Vermont.”

“Did you issue a transfer?”

One eye cocked at that suggestion. “This time of night? No way.”

“Remember which way they went?” Frankie waited while he thought back.

His head shook apologetically. “Nah, I don’t. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Thanks.”

The driver closed the door as soon as the agents were off his empty bus. He was already thirty minutes late getting back to division, but it hadn’t been all a waste. The lady cop was a looker, after all.

“What do you think?” Frankie asked, facing her partner. His eyes were focused to the side of her, his mind in high gear. It was a face she had come to know and respect.

“No car. They take the bus to Olympic and Vermont.” Art’s eyes finally met Frankie’s, his head shaking the barest bit. “Not a great area,” Art commented. “One of them sounds like that collision might have messed him up.”

“I doubt they were walking too far,” Frankie said. “This obviously wasn’t the way they planned this to happen, so they probably were just trying to get back to their hole. Especially if one of ‘em’s injured.”

“A lot of motels along Vermont right there, aren’t there?”

“You mean rent-a-sheets?” Frankie answered cynically. She had been in the City of Angels long enough to learn that its holy moniker was no guarantee of saintly behavior. “Tons.”

“All right, we set up an OP,” Art said, the preliminaries of a plan forming in his mind. An observation post was a necessity to watch for the shooters in the area they’d last been seen in. “I want Rob Deans and Hal Lightman on it. Hal’s an eagle eye.”

“Okay.” Frankie was noting the assignments to be called in.

“I want it set so they can monitor foot traffic up and down Vermont from Olympic. Then I want a listing of every motel or hotel in a twelve-block area.”

She mentally recoiled at the size of that area to cover. “How are we going to keep an eye on that from one OP?”

“One team at the OP,” Art said. “We’ve got plenty others to use as rovers.”

“Yeah, but with that much presence the suspects are sure to know we’re out there?”

Art smiled. “Exactly. I want them seen. I want our shooters to know we’re out there. I want them scared.”

“But if they know there’s a net out there for them, they’ll stay put,” Frankie observed, not seeing the fullness of her partner’s plan.

“That’s what I want.”

“What?”

Art had learned not only the limits of prudence in his line of work, but also the value of it. “We’re taking these guys on our terms, when we want them, and how we want them. They have to be in that area, probably in one of those motels.”

“But we have to find them, and I thought the operative word was ‘fast’.”

“We will,” Art assured her, his surety motivated by determination. “We just have to do it right.”

“How?”

Art turned and headed back to the car, accepting the fact that cautious behavior didn’t always lend itself to easy answers. “I’m working on it.”
No screw-ups this time.

And that meant for his partner either. “I’ll get it set up while you go catch some sleep.”

What?
“But...”

“No buts,” Art said sternly. “If you want in on this, then you need sleep. It’s been a rough past few days, and I know what can happen to someone when they push it too far. Remember me—super Art? You’re not going to end up like me, so consider yourself off duty until seven A.M. Go home, get a few hours shuteye, and kiss Cassie. Once for me, too. Tell your mom I said hi.”

There was no arguing with her partner. He was right, and she hated it. She had a little girl who needed to see her once in a while, something she had worked her life around. Until the past couple of days. And she still hadn’t told her that Uncle Thom was...was... “Drop me back at the garage?”

“Sure will. Then you go get some sleep.”

That she could do with little problem. It was what came after that that scared her.

*  *  *

Greg Drummond cleared his desk and laid the map of the area surrounding Cienfuegos flat on it. Mike Healy weighted the corners with assorted items just removed from the DDI’s work surface. The map was one of the plethora produced by the Defense Mapping Agency, using geological and satellite surveys to create representations of the land and its features that were the most highly detailed available on earth. This one, of startling detail, was not even one of the newer digitally produced maps that the DMA had started to turn out. Everything was going to computers, even the fine old art of cartography.

In addition to topography, the map had been prepared with the notable facilities denoted as blocks of dark gray. A corresponding notebook or computer database gave precise information on any and all of the man-made landmarks. This particular map had been produced for the Agency’s survey of Cuba’s industrial capacity, giving it a heavy emphasis on that type of structure. Cuba had developed quite an industrial base in its heyday as a member of COMECON, the economic bloc headed by the former Soviet Union with the goal of fostering development and trade among its signatories and outside countries. Chief among these industries were sugar production, various light industries, and, as a home-grown necessity, oil refining. The refineries at Cienfuegos and Los Guaos were denoted on the map by small, crisp blocks and dots of gray that signified the various buildings, cracking towers, and holding tanks. That was on the east side of the bay. On the western shore were three small manufacturing plants—all closed—and one of Castro’s follies, the never-completed nuclear-power plant that COMECON had financed. When the subsidies from the now-dead East bloc dried up, the huge complex had simply been abandoned, just two years shy of completion, despite an offer of funding from the People’s Republic of China. It was just one in a string of failed ventures that Castro had attempted over the decades to bring his island nation into the technological twentieth century.

But the symbols on the map also pointed out the daunting task that the two Agency executives had before them. Finding buildings was easy. Finding a missile was not.

“So Vishkov is supposed to be here,” the DDO said, pointing at the southwestemmost tip of the Bay of Cienfuegos from his upside-down vantage point. Drummond slid to the side, motioning for him to come around.

“Castillo de Jagua.” The DDI recalled the few visuals he’d seen of the eighteenth-century fortress that had once guarded the narrow opening to the bay. “It appears that Castro wanted Vishkov isolated as well as incarcerated. Have you ever seen it?”

Healy shook his head.

“I think the word is
imposing
. Lots of stone. Lots and lots of it. It looks like it belongs somewhere along the Thames.”

The thought had occurred to them that Vishkov might be valuable to snatch. He would likely know the precise location of the missile. But any attempt to wrest him from his fortress prison would require a battalion of troops at least, and would blow the secrecy that was vital to finding and securing the weapon. Besides, as Castro had proved through the years, he had little need for those whose usefulness had been exhausted.

“So he’s there.” Healy leaned over the desk, both fists resting on the map. “Now where’s the missile?”

Drummond surveyed the landscape. Hiding places were numerous, but one just didn’t pull a thirty-year-old missile out of a warehouse and fire it. It needed a stable launch surface, just as the Russians had built when first bringing them to the island. Fueling equipment would also be required. A missile did little by itself without support. “Take your pick.”

“Any longstanding structures?” Healy wondered aloud, checking the DFS (Date First Sighted) notation of the facilities in the area.

“Other than dwellings”—Drummond joined in the search—“none.”

“I just thought that if something had been around since the time of the crisis, we could assume it might be a long-term hiding place.”

It was a possibility, but not the best one. None of the older structures could be considered secure, and Castro had demonstrated that he was conscious enough about secrecy that he was willing to employ hit men on U.S. soil. That wasn’t proven, Drummond knew, but it was a bet he’d lay money on.

“It couldn’t be at the Castillo with Vishkov,” the DDI said. “There’s very little open area inside the grounds, and the ceilings wouldn’t be high enough.”

“How high are we looking at?” Healy asked.

“The analysts back then figured a minimum of ten feet for the SS-4 on its TEL. They had to run down all kinds of rumors after the Russians pulled out, that there were still missiles left there hidden in caves and places like that. Problem was, there were no caves with the proper dimensions to hold an SS-4 or the components of it.” Drummond saw that Healy was taken aback at that. “No, there weren’t folks running around peeking in caves. It just turned out that the Agency had access to pretty complete speleological surveys of the island done before the commies took over. As for the other places, nothing panned out.”

“Do you think some of the rumors could have been a product of this missile?” The DDO kept hoping that all this affirmative talk would somehow be negated by the findings in Moscow, but he didn’t really believe it would.

“No. Don’t ask me why, ‘cause it’s just a feeling. I think Castro had this planned out pretty well, including the storage of it.”

Healy had to agree. “Then where?”

The DDI rubbed his eyes and sat down, pulling his chair forward to the desk. “Let’s see. It would need a big area, solid footings. Level, too. Access to roads, yet far enough away that casual observers would notice nothing.”