Shell Games (26 page)

From below, it was easier to see what had happened. It looked like the right rear tire had dropped off the side and when the truck started to slide off it had bottomed out. With enough time she would have freed it and he took that as another sign that someone was right on her. She didn’t have time to get the truck free and had gotten out. She must have been outnumbered or wouldn’t have run.

He kept working his way down. Berry bushes grew in damp ground at the base of the outcropping and there was low brush in front of the trees. Then the slope dropped away and he searched in the trees and brush until he heard engines grinding above him.

By mid-afternoon, close to forty people and bloodhounds from Santa Rosa searched the surrounding terrain. Her car was dusted inside and out for prints and a cast taken of the other vehicle print. Marquez watched the dogs work the scent back up the hill, then went up to talk with the big-bellied man who was working them.

“This is as far as she went,” he said. Marquez laid a hand on the head of one of the dogs. “My money says she got in the other vehicle,” the tracker said. “Or let me put it this way, that’s what my dogs think.”

“Your dogs think she walked up here and no further.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“Got in a vehicle?”

“More than likely. She didn’t walk any farther than where we’re standing.” He pointed at one his hounds. “They don’t come any better than him and he picked up her trail immediately and this is where it stopped.” Marquez had watched the dogs work. He’d seen the same thing. The houndsman picked at a tooth and turned toward him. “You ask me, they brought her up here at gunpoint and carried her away.”

The search continued on the slope
until well after dark and the decision had already been made to go out to the public. They put out a photo of Petersen and her truck and were already getting some response. A couple who’d been picnicking on a cliff above the ocean remembered seeing a white van turning up Teague Ranch Road, its tires squealing. But they didn’t remember the 4Runner and couldn’t say what time in the afternoon the van had gone up the road.

Marquez gathered the team together near midnight at the cold house and they walked through the search plan for tomorrow. Ten wardens would arrive in the early morning to help and he wanted to widen the search in the area where her truck had been found. They’d walk the whole slope, every inch. Pieces of broken taillights and samples of both paint colors had been taken from the dry creek bed and from the trees the vehicles had scraped, but he
wanted to walk everything again. They’d find something they’d missed. He polled everyone for other ideas and then broke up the meeting.

Before sunrise the next morning he drove to the Harbor Motel where Petersen’s husband, Stuart, was staying. Stuart had asked to go with them this morning and his motel door opened now as Marquez pulled in. He watched Stuart walk over.

“Just tell me she’s alive,” Stuart said, after they’d started driving.

“We don’t know anything.”

“Then tell me why anyone would abduct her. What do they want?”

He couldn’t answer Stuart’s fear or his own. As they drove through town Marquez’s phone rang. He started into a U-turn before Keeler had finished talking.

“That was my deputy-chief, Stuart. A ransom note has been e-mailed to headquarters.”

“What do they want?”

“My chief forwarded a copy to me. I’ll plug in my computer in your room. We can read—”

“Oh, God, oh, God, she’s alive.”

“They’re asking for two million to be delivered tomorrow to a location they’ll provide in the next e-mail.”

Stuart seemed stunned a moment, then talked as if he was alone, repeating over and over, “I can do it.” His head turned abruptly. “Where does it go?”

“You won’t have to come up with the money, Stuart.”

Marquez raced back through town, phoning Alvarez on the way, asking him to let the rest of the team know. He pulled into the motel lot alongside Stuart’s car. In the motel room he plugged into a phone jack and powered up the laptop. He clicked through the passwords into his e-mail with his heart pounding. Stuart stood over his shoulder and read.

She is alive for now. John Marquez delivers $2,000,000
tomorrow. Instructions to follow. Respond via Marquez at 12:00 noon 22 September.

Stuart adjusted his wire rims and folded his arms across his chest, then sat down on a chair. “You deliver,” Stuart said, and unfolded his arms again. “They can trace this. The FBI can locate where this was sent from. They have that Carnivore technology and all kinds of stuff now.”

Marquez glanced at him, doubted he knew a whole lot about that. He reread the e-mail. It had been addressed to [email protected]. and had arrived in the middle of the night. It was lucky anyone had found it this early in the morning, but maybe the FBI had tipped headquarters to watch for an e-mail ransom demand. He knew Douglas had already read it and would be working on a response and wanted to talk with him about it, but wasn’t sure he wanted to do that with Stuart in the room.

“How do they know your name if the unit is supposed to be covert?” Stuart asked.

“It may be someone I’ve come up against before.”

“I wanted her to quit last week. I should have made her. Oh, God, this can’t be happening.”

Marquez tried to keep his voice calm, the tension out of his inflection. He laid out a scenario where they paid the ransom and got her back. When he’d finished, Stuart shook his head vigor-ously, his imagination already forming another conclusion.

“I think they got your name from Sue. You see, two million is the exact amount I got from a lawsuit settlement. I won a big case against a railroad and they know what I got and they’re asking for it. It’s somebody up where we live who knows what she does for a living and followed her here. The amount is too coincidental. It has to be that.”

Or she’d found a way to keep Kline from killing her, Marquez thought. She had an idea and begged and argued that she had this net worth via her husband. Gave them facts they could check. He
looked at Stuart, his dark hair receding to mid-skull, a delicate almost feminine quality to his features. According to Petersen they’d known within minutes of meeting that they were meant for each other.

“I don’t care about the money,” Stuart said. “Let’s respond, right now. I know the FBI will be involved, but I want to give them a signal that I’ll pay. Let’s try to move the hand-over time forward. Let’s suggest this afternoon. I have to make calls though. I need to go to my car and get a phone number, and I’ll call my banker.”

“Hang on a minute, Stuart.”

Marquez’s phone was ringing and when he saw it was Keeler’s number he excused himself and walked out to his truck, sat there looking at a line of beige motel doors as Keeler explained what was evolving.

“How long will it take you to get here, John?”

“Three hours.”

“We’re going to schedule a meeting around that.”

“You’ve spoken to Douglas?”

“Yes, and they want a response made from here, but they want to talk to you first.”

“I’m on my way.” He hung up and went inside to get the lap-top and let Stuart know they’d call him from Sacramento. But looking at Stuart he didn’t see why he shouldn’t sit in. “I may have to talk you into the room, but why don’t you follow me.”

Stuart’s white Camry sat uncomfortably close behind him all the way to Sacramento. He led him into the meeting and Stuart must have thought it out on the ride because he conducted his own defense for being there, arguing that they needed him to verify authenticity and for his knowledge of her habits, the things no one else could know about his wife. For words she might use to pass a message in the communication. Then, succinctly and without drama, he presented his theory about how the idea might have been hatched by someone who’d read the newspaper
in Redding or learned of the dollar amount of the award by word of mouth.

Chief Baird deferred to the FBI and they made the decision to let Stuart remain in the room, on the condition that he left during parts of the discussion, which turned out to include questioning about whether Petersen’s pregnancy could be via another man and the possibility she’d staged the event and run off with her lover. And they were interested in Stuart’s money, that the amount he’d made on this last award was nearly the same as the demand. But Marquez caught Douglas’s eyes and knew this part was an exercise. Douglas knew, they all knew.

Now, as they took a coffee and bathroom break, Douglas slid into a chair next to Marquez. He touched him on the arm, leaned over and said quietly, “You know what’s coming.”

“And we’ll say yes.”

“I don’t know how yet, but we’ll be there with you.”

The door closed and the meeting started again. It was 11:20 now, forty minutes from the deadline. Douglas turned to Marquez after Stuart had been asked to leave the room.

“Okay, John, what’s your guess? Where’s this ransom going to deliver?”

“Someplace where he controls the access, someplace not too easy to get to.” Marquez recalled how Kline had used an old mining area in Mexico. He’d bought off the local Federales, and the mines were in dry mountain country honeycombed with dirt roads, con-necting shafts, and scattered entry points with rock overlooks. He went on, “Kline used to prefer the night, but I don’t know how he operates anymore. You’d have to tell me.”

“He still likes the dark.”

“He’ll ask for a hand delivery and take that person or persons hostage until he’s sure he’s away safely. We had a case where he snapped one of those neck rings the Colombians were making for a while around the neck of the wife who delivered a ransom.”

“For those of you who don’t know,” Douglas said, “that was an explosive device that could be detonated remotely and blow the victim’s head off at the shoulders.”

“He won’t relinquish control until he’s sure. That’s the bottom line,” Marquez said. He could feel their eyes on him. The room quieted and everyone waited on his answer.

“Then why don’t we insist on a wire transfer or something of that nature?” Chief Baird asked.

Douglas answered, “It’s like John said, he won’t give us the option.” Douglas turned back to Marquez and asked the question he already knew the answer to. “Are you willing to deliver the money?” Marquez nodded. Douglas glanced at his watch. “Okay, I’ve got five minutes to noon. Anything else? Anybody, any last comments? John, anything?”

“Send it.”

The e-mail was short, said they agreed to the terms but needed to verify she was alive. At one minute to noon Douglas talked to the FBI tech, confirming they were ready to go. He hit “send” and Marquez watched the antivirus icon appear and then disappear as the e-mail went. For minutes no one moved, until Baird pushed his chair back, stood up and then rested a hand on Marquez’s shoulder. Marquez sat with the FBI agents for another hour, met briefly with Keeler and Baird, then drove home. They wanted him to wait there to be easily available.

Once home he checked e-mail every ten minutes. The house felt too small and the waiting inadequate. Then, shortly after 4:00 the response came to Marquez’s mailbox, to an address he used outside the department, mostly for private e-mail. Petersen knew that address and he had to assume they’d gotten it from her. He read the new message then forwarded it before opening the Web site it gave. The message read:
$2,000,000 cash to be loaded in waterproofs and Marquez will deliver via Zodiac. Must have a
range of 100 miles. Confirm Web site, confirm delivery terms agreed. www.officerinview.net

Marquez clicked onto the Web site as the phone rang. Douglas. The FBI was already looking at her. Petersen was naked and seated in a chair. Her face carried plum-colored bruises, her arms and legs were taped to the chair. The backdrop was black and he couldn’t read anything in it and realized she was trying to smile. They must have told her she had to smile, and he couldn’t distance himself, couldn’t separate himself as he listened to Douglas’s analysis. He’d brought this on her. Take anything and everything that he’d ever done with Petersen, any of the busts, the surveillances, anything positive they’d ever done together and she would’ve been better off never having met him. He’d brought this to her.

“It’s intended to shock us into compliance and confirm that she’s alive,” Douglas said, “but it doesn’t confirm she is. The signal is bouncing but the Web site is transmitting real time. However, this may be a digital tape they made yesterday. It doesn’t tell us she’s alive.”

Marquez heard the front door open and he came to his feet, startling Katherine as she came in.

“What do you make of the Zodiac?” Douglas asked.

“It allows him a lot of flexibility. I can run up on a beach or out to sea and a hundred miles is a long swing.”

“He knows we’ll track you every which way, so what’s he thinking?”

“I don’t know.”

Katherine gripped his hand hard as she looked at the screen.

“I don’t have to tell you she may already be dead,” Douglas said.

No you don’t have to tell me, Marquez thought.

“And there’s no guarantee he’s going to let you deliver and go,” Douglas continued.

“You sound like the guy I buy boat insurance from. After we do a deal he makes sure I know what’s not covered.”

“You’ve got a family and we can make up an excuse. We’ll get a volunteer, someone that shoots very straight and swims well.”

“She’s one of my team.”

“He used this format three times last year and all of the victims were already dead.” Marquez didn’t answer. “I’m going to come see you and we’ll write the response,” Douglas said.

When he hung up, Katherine said, “John, you already know it’s a trap. I understand wanting to save her, but you can’t do this.”

“I don’t know any other way.”

Katherine stayed through a meeting
at the house with Douglas. She grilled cheese sandwiches and made coffee. Douglas told him the FBI would get a Zodiac outfitted, but Marquez shook his head, said Fish and Game had a boat. It was already on a trailer and had twin Honda engines, was reinforced, and most of all, it was familiar to Marquez. But how much cash would he carry and how would they get it in time? And how quickly could they close on his position if he needed them? Who was the officer in charge at the Coast Guard? He’d carry his Glock .40, a second gun would be on board, stun grenades, night vision equipment, a short laundry list of defensive weaponry. He watched Douglas’s sidelong glance to the kitchen where Katherine cleaned quietly and was listening.

“This stuff will be useful if you have to abort,” Douglas said, pick-ing crumbs off his plate, wiping his hands, his eyes on Marquez’s face. “But you’ll be at their mercy at some point when you deliver.”

“That’s where you come in.”

When Douglas left, Marquez told Katherine another Kline story he never had told her before, about Mexican military planes used to ferry cocaine and dope, and the death of a DEA agent named Brian Hidalgo, a sunrise, a haze at horizon and the sun’s blood light and Hidalgo’s body in the burned-out car. Spanish phrases, forgotten Indian dialect, words he’d lost returned to him.

“Kline tortured Hidalgo and inside twenty-four hours had started working his way back through our team. I shot the man who was supposed to kill me and the word we heard after was that Kline swore he’d get me. When I quit the DEA and decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, I think he did send someone for me. I’d crossed a junction near Kearsarge Pass in the southern Sierra and had camped at a place called Charlotte Lake, planning to hike down the trail at Kearsarge and resupply in Bishop early the next morning, but I met a man on the trail who said there were two men who’d camped for a while near Kearsarge who were looking for me. They’d showed him a photo and he’d recognized me. They’d told him they were there because my mother had died of a heart attack, but she died when I was a teenager so I knew it was bad. I stayed off-trail and I waited.”

“You saw them?”

“Yeah, and I’m pretty sure they were Kline’s people. I hiked during the night the next two days. I didn’t get home until late that fall.” She already knew the rest, but he said it anyway. “I hiked north to the end of the trail in Washington and you and I didn’t meet for another two years. By then, I was trying to put it behind me.”

“You should have talked more to me, John.”

“If I could do it over again, I would.”

“And now he’s asking for you by name. You can’t go, John. You just can’t do it. Think about Maria and me. Ask yourself what you’re doing. You’re carrying the same guilt you had when I met you and now you’re going to risk sacrificing yourself. This is crazy, really crazy.”

“The Feds will be close by.”

“How do you know?” He didn’t and Douglas didn’t either. “Maybe you want to die, John. Maybe then everything is even and you’re with your dead friends. It’s all even and fair again.” Her face flushed and tears flooded her eyes as she shook her head. She stood and moved away from him. “You’re going to go even though Douglas said he’d get an FBI volunteer.”

“I think her only chance is if I show.”

“I can’t wait here and I can’t be a part of this.”

She stood and shook her head. Then she walked out the front door and he heard her car start, gravel kicking up on the driveway as she drove away. He watched her headlights hit the road.

Near midnight he checked his e-mail, found nothing, and opened the Web site again. Petersen’s face had changed, the bruis-ing had darkened. Some sort of necklace hung from her neck and he focused there, saw the iridescent green, the cut triangular shape and he was sure it was similar to the abalone piece he’d taken from Bailey’s boat. He fought the terrible heaviness inside and reached for the phone to call Douglas.

“I recognize what’s around her neck,” Marquez said. “I pulled something similar off Bailey’s boat.”

“What’s it mean?”

“Maybe nothing. It’s abalone shell, so maybe it’s a statement.”

“Do you have it still?”

“No, it went back to Bailey. His lawyer got everything released before we had probable cause on Bailey.”

“Is it the same shell?”

“It could be.”

“Incoming,” Douglas said, and Marquez saw the mail icon flash. He clicked to the e-mail as Douglas cleared his throat. “Are you reading?”

“Got it,” Marquez said. “I’m reading now.”

John Marquez, you’ll be in Humboldt Bay at 7:00 a.m. tomor-row. You’ll need fuel for a 400 mile range. Money in waterproof bags. Any surveillance and she’ll be executed.

“The bags you carry will transmit position,” Douglas said. “We’ve got two fishing boats we’ll get there before you arrive, but why Eureka, Marquez?”

“It’s been fogged in for two days and it’s big enough to where you wouldn’t pick his people out as easily. The four-hundred-mile range could mean he’s going to burn a lot of time determining who’s following.”

Marquez gave Douglas Katherine’s numbers and then called her as he drove down the mountain. He stayed on the phone with her until he was almost to the boat. In San Rafael he hooked the trailer up to the Explorer with the help of an FBI agent, then started north with the FBI following and the SOU leading. Cairo and Roberts would get into Eureka by dawn. Shauf and Alvarez were heading to Shelter Cove with another Zodiac. The
Marlin
had left the Berkeley marina and was already five miles north of the Gate. He drove slowly up 101, towing the boat, taking the occasional phone call from the team and Douglas. He talked to Kath again and Keeler, then to Baird as he came into Eureka. It was cold and the light flat this morning, the pavement wet, fog rolling in from the bay. Foghorns sounded and a nervous energy burned in him as he put the boat in the water and called the number they’d given him, what the FBI had confirmed was a cell phone activated yester-day morning in San Francisco.

“I’m in the harbor. Where do I go?”

“All business, are you?” An Irish accent, he thought. “Leave the bay and go south. Give me your phone number.”

Marquez read it off as the boat bounced in the first swells. “How far south?” The Irishman didn’t answer and after the line went dead Marquez positioned the phone where he could keep it dry and still reach it. It was a satellite unit and he had backup in
case this one went down. The bags of money were near his feet and cabled to the boat. When he left the harbor he skirted the coast, passing the mouth of the Eel River and moving out to sea a little farther before Douglas called.

“We’re with you, but keep your speed as steady as you can. How are you doing?”

“It’s going to get a little choppy ahead, but I’m good.”

“When you made the call they were in a car probably on High-way 101 near Santa Rosa. They didn’t stay on long enough to deter-mine their direction. In case you were wondering, he recruited out of the IRA, got a handful of ex-IRA working for him.”

“Kline did?”

“Yeah, in the ‘90s.”

“I heard the one I just talked to as Irish.”

“So did we.”

When he hung up with Douglas he wiped water from his face and sealed the Velcro at his wrists after putting on gloves. With the lack of sleep the cold reached him a little faster and there was more wind out here. He went south now for two hours and hit a patch near Cape Mendocino where the wind was cross and fog shredded through the rocks that the wind was trying to drive him toward. Waves pitched the Zodiac and it slapped hard on the water. At half-hour intervals, Douglas called.

“You’re doing all right?”

“What are you, my mother?”

But he had a tightness in his chest and the cold seemed to come from inside out. Katherine’s voice echoed in his head.

“Your chief is here with me now. We’ve got a copter inland, moving with you. You’ve got another thirty miles of fog and you’ll hit blue.”

Unless he turns me around, Marquez thought, or heads me out to sea. The reassurances were nice but meant nothing. He cut his speed and got off the phone with Douglas, called Shauf. Her
father had been a fisherman up here. She’d gotten into resource management because she’d heard her father talk all the time about how the fisheries were collapsing. He’d railed against the bottom-raking industrial trawlers that took everything, and he’d had names for them, would point to a trawler and tell her that one is named the
Antichrist.
She’d gone through her childhood thinking there was a boat out there named that.

“I’m coming onto Punta Gorda,” he said. “What’s your guess?”

“Somewhere along the Lost Coast and we’re already here. We’re in the King Range on that main dirt road.”

The Lost Coast was his guess, too, because it was empty, because you could follow one of the creeks to the water and pack the money back out through the mountains on foot, and because Kline had trafficked drugs out of Humboldt for years. Along an empty stretch of the Lost Coast, a quick execution after the money was handed over, but better not to think that way. Better to think it’s going to work out. He swept past Punta Gorda, continued south, reached Shelter Cove and the phone rang.

The Irish voice said, “Where are you?”

“Still going south.”

“Where the fuck are you?”

“Shelter Cove.”

“Circle.”

“How long? I’m burning through my fuel.”

He circled an hour, half of it talking to Douglas, ate a dry roll and a Payday bar, drank hot tea from a thermos. He’d heard an edge in the Irishman’s voice that said killing came easy to him. Another call came and they moved him farther south, then back north five miles before turning again. The thrum of the engines vibrated in his bones now. The cold ran deeper and he was close to Fort Bragg. More phone calls and the
Marlin
had him on radar, so did an FBI copter and a spotter plane and a fishing boat carrying FBI agents, so he knew it wouldn’t be anywhere near here. He was through half his
fuel now and ran on one engine only, conserving out of habit, crouching in the boat to loosen his muscles as the fog began to sweep back in the late afternoon. Two hours now since he’d heard from the Irishman, so maybe they’d called it off. Then the call came.

“Are you ready?” the Irishman asked.

“You’re going to have to show her to me before I put to shore anywhere.”

“Turn south, again.”

“I’m burning fuel fast. I don’t have much more range.”

“It was Belfast in ‘85 when the lad carrying the ransom ran out of petrol and got his man killed, the stupid arsehole.”

The line went dead, and the next call didn’t come until after dark. Marquez was south of Fort Bragg about twenty miles, run-ning with lights and GPS, but it would be much harder after dark to put in anywhere, dangerous with the rocks. The Irishman had him continue south another hour, then reverse and turn north. By then the sea had calmed and he rode half a mile offshore in a light wind. Douglas checked in.

“There’s a boat three miles off your port side we’re looking at. Nothing else close to you.” Static and a bad connection, then, “We’ve got agents all along the highway.” The SOU was there too, but Kline would know that the shore was lined with police. “They may run you all the way back north.”

“Are you just chatting me up?”

“How are you doing?”

“I’m ready to get it done.”

Near the coast at Van Damme State Park he got the call to turn shoreward and run hard toward the surf.

“You want me to run aground with the money and lose it in the ocean?”

“No, you arsehole, I’ll bring you home.” The Irishman barked at him about some kidnapping that had gone bad along the border in Peru, then cut back in, “North again, you fuckin’ copper.”

So he has me in sight, Marquez thought. Reading a heat signal if nothing else. Close in as he was the Sony Palm IR would work at this range. He was close to the surf, too close to rocks. He flicked on the boat lights and the Irishman said nothing. “You’ll see a flash of blue light.”

Several minutes passed, the Irishman still on the phone. “I see it,” Marquez said, and turned toward the caves of Van Damme. “We’re going to run you through the caves and she’ll be waiting for you. You don’t want to fuck up now and lose one of your own. She’ll be wearing a hood and two men will be with her. You’ll take a boat ride together.”

Marquez saw the blue light flash again and moved closer, glad that he knew these caves, maneuvering the boat constantly to stay off the rocks. Hit the rocks and it’s over. He eased inside the cave, the Zodiac engine an amplified roar. He swept his light along the rock and in a cleft saw what looked like a woman sitting with a hood over her head. A man yelled for him to bring it in close, yelling “faster, faster, come on, you fuckhead, in here and kill the engines,” and now Marquez saw light in the water below, a diver surfacing near him, the man onshore still yelling instructions, holding an assault rifle on him as the diver boarded and Marquez fought the impulse to go for his gun.

“Don’t move,” the order came again, and then to the hooded woman sitting on rocks, “Raise your arm. Let him know you’re okay,” and when the arm came up he wasn’t sure if it was Petersen’s, but a second diver had the bow rope and was towing him over to the rock, the Zodiac rising with every swell, the sound drowning the man’s voice.

Now it was the diver behind him speaking, telling him to put his hands out, patting him down as the other diver boarded. “Where’s the money, lad?” And before he could answer a knife cut into one of the cabled bags and the diver yelled to the Irishman.

“It’s here.”

“Let’s see her face,” Marquez demanded. He didn’t see the blow coming, but it was the diver behind him and he tried to rake an arm back to defend himself as his knees buckled. His hand caught teeth and he snapped a head back before sinking down. He didn’t feel the second blow but felt his arms pulled back, hand-cuffs clicked on his wrists, then his ankles, and he heard faraway laughter as he rolled into the cold water and felt himself pulled forward, dragged along the sand, then a knife cutting off his shirt, and he was shoved and propped against a rock. The Irishman squatted near him on the sand, his voice low, a light on Marquez’s face, the breath of the man on him.