Whack Job (11 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“Time Out”

Wednesday evening and night.

Hornbuckle needed a 4X4. Leaving his four-year-old Corvette in the parking lot he signed out a Jeep Cherokee that had been confiscated from a Chinese restaurant owner who secretly had an enormous indoor-grow operation. It was six p.m. when Hornbuckle left the building and drove to a luxury condominium in Englewood, seized from a man who had been convicted of securities fraud. The high-ceilinged condo’s enormous windows looked across Clarkson St. to a park in Cherry Hills Village.

It was furnished as the thief had left it, with eight foot speaker towers, hardwood floors, and pictures of babes on bikes. A mirror clung to the ceiling over the bed in the master bedroom. Hornbuckle slept in another room. The place was cleaner than an operating theater. Hornbuckle had brought nothing but his gun, clothes and personal electronics.

Hornbuckle carefully hung his gray silk Calvin Klein sports jacket on a wooden hanger. He went into the kitchen, opened the large vertical freezer, dug around behind the frozen entrees and retrieved his Ocelot. Tucking it under his arm, absorbing the cold the way a sponge absorbs water, he walked into the living room and sprawled in one of the Danish-designed teak chairs that skidded backwards an inch on the oak parquet floor.

Hornbuckle put his feet up on an ottoman, enabled the encryption device and entered an eleven digit code. His call pinged a Raytheon comsat in synchronous orbit over the equator. The satellite redirected the call to an unoccupied safehouse in Stuttgart from whence it bounced to the basement of the Ministry of Justice in San Pedro, San Salvador. From San Salvador the message once again leapt into the heavens to the French-owned, Surinam-launched Pericles Commercial Network, from whence it sprang to its final destination, a rural Virginia farm.

As Hornbuckle waited for his party to pick up he plucked several dog hairs distastefully from his sharply creased Dockers. Filthy animal. He took out the folded slip of paper he had carried every day since Libya. He looked at the numbers. Control had run those numbers a thousand times and they still didn’t know what they meant.

The numbers were the key.

The Ocelot rang.

A dry male voice answered on the second ring. “Yes, Hornbuckle.”

“Sir, Otto White’s out here in charge of the Darling investigation.”

“This complicates things, but it offers us an opportunity as well. What was his reaction upon seeing you?”

“I think he was surprised. He’s hard to read. I’ll let you know as soon as I learn something.”

“Do what you gotta do.”

“Yes sir.”

“Our friends in Moscow are also interested.”

“I’ll keep an eye out.”

The voice on the other end hung up. Outside an emergency vehicle wailed by siren screaming reminding Hornbuckle of his stint in the Green Zone where the sirens never stopped. He had slept with ear plugs and a white noise maker running at top volume. Once the power went out but the thrum of explosives more than compensated and Hornbuckle slept right through.

Hornbuckle stood, went into his bedroom and changed into sweats. Barefoot, he went back into the living room, moved aside a coffee table and a Persian rug, and went down in nearly complete side splits. Bouncing up he did some more stretching. He went to the wall-mounted Samsung and cued up some Anthrax and Deep Purple. Hornbuckle inhaled deeply, sank into horse stance and began the first of fourteen Tae Kwon Do forms as interpreted by Jhoon Rhee.

Forty-five minutes later, drenched with sweat, Hornbuckle stripped, showered, and dressed in blue jeans and a Navy blue cotton pullover. Dropping a .25 Baretta in his pocket, he left the condo, took the stairs to the basement-parking garage, and drove to the Landau Gentlemen’s Club and Turkish Bath on West Colfax. Hornbuckle parked the Jeep in shadow across the street and down a half block as a hooker languidly detached herself from the open front seat of a ‘69 Buick low-rider with tiger-striped upholster and wheels the size of bottle caps.

She aged fast as she approached until she was in her mid-thirties by the time she reached Hornbuckle. She was Mexican. She leaned on Hornbuckle’s open window and blew the scent of jasmine and cigarettes.

“You lookin’ to party baby?”

“I am, darlin’, and no offense, but you got any white meat?”

The hooker rolled her eyes and gave Hornbuckle the finger. “Wait here.”

Hornbuckle watched her sashay back to the Buick booty swinging. She leaned in the open passenger window. Seconds later the door opened and a thin girl with straight white hair got out. She wore a baby doll dress and pink, heart-shaped glasses. This one got younger as she approached so that by the time she reached the car she was seventeen.

Hornbuckle had a seventeen-year-old daughter he hadn’t seen in nine years.

His fucking bitch of an ex-wife had turned his own daughter against him. Painted him as some kind of monster.

“You want to party?” the girl said trailing off into that self-satisfied glottal purr all girls seemed to do these days.

“Sure do, Darling. Why don’t you get in the car.”

“Are you a cop?”

“Nope.”

“So what are we talking’ here? You want to go to a nice hotel? I got a room nearby.”

“What I have in mind wouldn’t take that long. We can even do it right here with your manager watching.”

“Okay, so what do you have in mind?”

“You know. A blow job.”

“That’ll be a hundred bucks, cash in advance.”

“A hundred bucks for a blow job?! Jesus! I can get one in Lodo for twenty.”

“You ain’t in Lodo, honey. Come on, baby. Look at these luscious lips of mine.” She pouted and minced.

Hornbuckle dug in his wallet and pulled out a hundred dollar bill. The girl quickly ran around the front and got in the passenger seat. They were parked in front of a single-family dwelling that looked like something you’d find in a migrant camp, gray wood, sagging porch, dim light way in back. Pedestrian traffic was light.

The girl vanished the bill down the front of her dress. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Didn’t need one. “My name’s Kimberly,” she said.

“Pleased to meet you,” Hornbuckle said unbuckling his pants. Kimberly helped him and by the time he got them down Hornbuckle Jr. was standing at attention. With one hand on the back of Kimberly’s head Hornbuckle scanned the street, eyes gradually becoming unfocused.

Kimberly sat up and wiped her mouth with a paper towel she had picked up off the Jeep’s floor. She opened the door. Hornbuckle’s big hand closed around her bicep. She looked back with a flash of fright that quickly turned to anger.

“If I scream Carlos is going to come back here. You don’t want that.”

With his free hand Hornbuckle flipped open his badge showing only the badge itself and not the ID. “Give me the hundred or you and me are going to take a little ride.”

Sullenly the girl reached down the front of her dress and withdrew the c-note. She threw it on the floor as Hornbuckle released her and she sprang out the door.

“I hope you rot in hell, you motherfuckin’ pig!” Kimberly screamed. The valley girl drawl was gone. “I hope you get fucking cancer and die screaming!”

The low-rider’s driver door opened and a pair of Tony Llamas hit the street.

“Move along, darling, before we take that ride.”

Kimberly slammed the door hard and stalked back toward her pimp. Hornbuckle started the car, pulled out past the glaring pimp, returned to Englewood and went to bed.

Tomorrow he had a lot of driving to do.

***

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“A Vow”

Wednesday night.

Otto and Steve returned to the motel at eight fifteen. Otto took Steve for a short walk and let himself into his room off the pool area. A couple of teenagers were splashing around in the blue-lit pool.

In his room, Otto checked his phone. Stella had called. He called her back.

“Otto,” she said. “What’s going on?”

“What do you know about Sam’s visit to Pawnee Grove outside Estes?”

“He was a guest two years ago. I just came across the brochure they gave him.”

“Really? Could I see that?”

“Well it’s up at the house. Crystal has it. I’ll phone her and ask her to send it to you at FBI HQ.”

“Have her Fed-ex it,” Otto said. “Use this account number.” He read a number off the back of the card Barnett had given him. “We’ll pay.”

“I’ll do the best I can. You know Crystal.”

“Do you know anybody who can get me in as a guest?”

Stella thought for a minute. “Let me ask Gabe.”

“That would be great. How’s that case you’re working on?”

“It’s in the hands of the shrinks. I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts they’ll find him crazier than a shit house rat.”

Otto barked.

“Good night, Otto. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

The phone beeped as soon as he put it down. Alvarez.

“What’s up, Gus?”

“I’ve obtained satellite photos of Pawnee Grove. I can’t send it to your laptop but it will be here in the morning.”

“Do you have spectrograph readings?”

“Yes. They’re somewhat surprising.”

Otto was tempted to put his shoes back on and head to the building but a wave of exhaustion rolled over him from the toes up.

“Thanks, Gus. See you in the morning.”

Otto spread out on the bed, switched on the television and found CNN. Scenes of firefighters again, this time outside an industrial building on the outskirts of Madrid. The newscaster identified the building as headquarters for Meridian Properties International, the brainchild of Hilario Salvo, playboy industrialist whose Formula One Team won the world championship in ‘10. The newscaster attributed the fire to arson set by a mob of “demonstrators” who had been camping out in the park across the street protesting austerity measures.

Otto went back online. Salvo had been in the U.S. for two months in ‘08 during which he had addressed the Aspen Institute at their Aspen campus. It was quite possible he had visited Pawnee Grove as well although Otto could find no hard evidence.

The conflagrations were increasing. How long before even the supine media began to look into the phenomenon?

Otto turned off the lights and lay in bed tossing and turning. The shrink had prescribed paroxetine and Otto had taken it for a couple of months, but it made him lethargic and he stopped taking it. It was for depression anyway. Otto wasn’t depressed. Sure he thought about killing himself but what intelligent being didn’t? He had never told anyone, not even Stella, because he knew that wasn’t the way to go.

It was a mortal sin.

His secret fear was that he would start taking down others, like Stella’s client. He started making a mental list of all the people he would take out. Hundreds. Thousands. Stop. He would never get to sleep this way.

God, please forgive me for even thinking about killing people. I will go to confession this week
.

Eventually he fell asleep.

***

CHAPTER THIRTY

“Fancy Colors”

Thursday morning.

Otto and Steve rose early and went for a run along the creek that ran through the park across the street. Returning to the motel Otto showered and shaved. He and Steve were at FBI HQ by seven forty-five. Alvarez was already at work at his cubicle in the bull pen. He looked like he’d spent the night there.

They were the only people in the big room. Otto sat in a folding chair. Pictures of Alvarez’s two kids, dogs and wife were tacked to the carpet-surface partitions. Smiling and hugging in the back yard. Decked out in puffy ski duds at Vail.

Alvarez reached into his briefcase and withdrew a white manila envelope with ‘TOP SECRET’ stamped in red, held shut by red string wound around a button. Alvarez had obviously kept the file with him since obtaining. Otto unwrapped the string and shook out five eight and a half by ten glossies shot from a comsat twenty-six klicks above the Earth. The first photograph was black and white, taken in winter, a high-res image of the institute detailed enough that Otto could see the lake, the main lodge and the individual cabins.

“The first image is straight down establishing shot as close in as they could get it. You’re looking at about three square klicks.”

Otto stared at the photo for several seconds before sliding it onto the bottom. The next photo encompassed approximately ten times the area and was in color, from faded brick to black with pale blues and greens. “This was taken with hyper-spectral last November, after the camp had closed. The red regions indicate electro-magnetic activity slightly above normal, which can be attributed to any number of factors including heat, composition, humidity and time of day.”

Otto examined the photo. The three brick-colored dots formed a triangle enclosing the camp and the lake, which was approximately eight klicks around.

“What am I looking at?” Otto said.

“Look at the next picture.”

Otto slipped the top onto the bottom and stared. It was the same perspective but this photo looked like a psychedelic poster from sixties San Francisco, bursting with eye-searing magenta, day-glo greens and purples.

“Wow,” Otto said.

“That was taken on June 22 of last year while camp was in session.”

“Why has nobody noticed this before?”

“The comsats take literally hundreds of thousands of images every day. No one was looking for it. The program wasn’t set up to recognize it. Rockwell’s sending us real time updates from now on. They’ll be in your in-box.”

Otto traced a triangle from one crimson point to the next. “Can you translate this into what’s going on? Like, does this represent a million kilowatts or what?”

“Good question. I’m waiting for the lab report. Hope to have it this week.”

“This week? Why not today?”

Alvarez shrugged. “We’re moving as fast as we can.”

“You see about the Spanish billionaire?”

“No,” Alvarez said. “Enlighten me.”

Otto ran through the conflagrations of the past week. Alvarez pulled an iPad from his cargo pants and made notes.

“I’ll get in touch with local PDs and work with them on the investigations.”

Otto scratched Steve’s head and tapped his foot.

“What?” Alvarez said.

“Suppose they’re doing something to these guys up in the mountains.”

“Like what? You don’t just grab a Senator and subject him to an operation. There hasn’t been a hint of scandal associated with Pawnee Grove since JFK brought a mistress in ‘61.”

“I’m just saying. Some of the victims never visited Pawnee Grove, but at least one that I know of interacted with someone who had.”

“So like it’s contagious? It’s a disease?”

“I don’t know. Can I take these?”

“They’re yours.”

Otto and Steve went to their office. Otto brought up Kleiser’s file. The mug shot showed a defiant skinhead with a hint of a smirk, diamond stud, tribal tat crawling up his arm.

My brother from another mother.

Kleiser was wanted for wire fraud and conspiracy in connection with a Black Widow hack into Bank America’s system. BFD. Hadn’t even made the news. And Kleiser was number one on Hornbuckle’s Shit Parade? It didn’t make sense.

Kleiser had his own Wikipedia entry.

On June 6, 2006, Kleiser’s longtime girlfriend Patty Ivan boarded SW Flight #467 from Denver to Austin, TX. Ivan was subjected to a full body search. Four Muslim clerics in robes were not. The flight exploded upon landing killing all 183 people on board. Al Qaeda later claimed credit for the bombing. This was a dramatic turning point for Kleiser who heretofore had been content with hacking as political theater and anarchist entertainment.

Otto immersed himself in the investigation until Steve licked his pants. It was eleven. He took Steve across the street to the park.

Otto’s phone buzzed. He took it out. Stella.

“Gabe’s going to ask his agent Ralston Goldfarb. He’s pretty sure he can wangle an invite and bring you along as his personal trainer.”

***