Майкл Коннелли - Fair Warning

I quickly hit the button on the dash that killed the sound system. The buzzing returned to only my phone and my ear.

But Rachel didn’t answer. She was probably still with Metz and thought I was calling for some kind of maudlin let’s-get-back-together conversation. It went to her voice mail and I disconnected.

I called again and while I waited I reached over to my laptop on the seat next to me and opened it. I knew I had Metz’s cell number in a file on the desktop.

But this time Rachel answered.

“Jack, this is not a good time.”

I slapped the laptop closed and spoke in a low voice.

“Are you with Metz?”

“Jack, I’m not going to talk about who I—”

“I don’t mean that way. Are you still driving with Metz?”

I checked the rearview again and realized I had to stop talking out loud.

“Yes,” Rachel said. “He’s just taking me back to my office.”

“Check your messages,” I said.

I disconnected.

Traffic slowed again as I came to the intersection with Vineland. I used the moment to type out a text to Rachel.

I’m in my car. Strike is hiding in the back.

I realized after I sent it that autocorrect had changed Shrike to Strike. I figured, though, that she would understand.

She did and I got an almost immediate response.

Are you sure? Where are you?

I was coming up to my apartment building but drove by it. And typed in a reply.

Vineland

My phone buzzed and Rachel’s name was on the screen. I connected but didn’t say hello.

“Jack?”

I coughed and hoped she understood I did not want to reveal I was on the phone to the person hiding in the back.

“Okay, I get it,” Rachel said. “You can’t talk. So, listen, you have two choices. You get to a populated area, pull into a parking lot where there are people, and just get out and get away from the car. Give me the location and we will try to get the police there and hopefully catch him.”

She waited a moment for any sort of response before going to choice two. She must have registered my continuing silence as interest in the alternate plan.

“Okay, the other thing is we make damn sure we get him. You drive to a destination and we set up a horseshoe like we did before and we finally get this guy. This choice is more risky to you, of course, but I think if you keep the car moving he’s not going to make a move. He’s going to wait.”

She waited. I said nothing.

“So, Jack, do this. Cough once if you want the first choice. Don’t cough, don’t do anything if you want to go with the second.”

I realized that if I took any time to consider my options, my silence would confirm that I was going with the riskier second option. But that was okay. In that moment, I flashed on a vision of Gwyneth Rice in her hospital bed surrounded by tubes and machines, and her electronic plea that we not take the Shrike alive.

I wanted the second option.

“Okay, Jack, option two,” Rachel said. “Cough now if I have it wrong.”

I was silent and Rachel accepted the confirmation.

“You need to get to the 101 and head south,” she said. “We were just on it and it’s wide open. You’ll be able to get to Hollywood and by then we’ll have a plan. We’re turning around and we’ll be there.”

I was coming up to a southbound entrance to the 170 freeway. I knew it merged with the 101 less than a mile south. Rachel continued.

“I’m going to keep the line open while Matt sets things up — he’s talking to LAPD. They’ll be able to mobilize quicker. You just have to stay in motion. He won’t try anything while the car is moving.”

I nodded even though I knew she couldn’t see me.

“But if something happens and you have to stop, just get out of the car and get clear. Get safe, Jack... I need you... to be safe.”

I registered the quiet, more intimate tone in her voice and wanted to respond. I hoped my silence communicated something. But just as quickly, doubt started to move into my mind. Had I left something in the storage compartment? Had the thud I felt simply come from a pothole in the road? I was mobilizing the FBI and LAPD on what amounted to a hunch. I was beginning to wish I had just coughed once and pointed the car toward the North Hollywood Police Division.

“Okay, Jack,” Rachel said, her voice modulated back to a command tone. “I’ll get back to you when we have it set up.”

I got lucky and saw up ahead that I had a green light to turn into the freeway entrance.

Doubt aside, I made the turn. The freeway entrance looped around and then I was heading south on the 170. I took one of the 101 merge lanes and got the car up to sixty. Rachel had been right. The freeway was moderately crowded but the traffic was moving. It was pre-rush hour and most of the traffic was going northbound out of downtown to the suburbs in the Valley and beyond.

Once I merged onto the 101 I worked my way over to the fast lane and stayed in the flow, now moving at fifty miles per hour. I checked the rearview every few seconds and kept the phone to my left ear. I could hear Metz’s voice as he talked on another phone in the car with Rachel. It was muffled and I couldn’t make out everything he said. But I could definitely read the urgency in his tone.

Soon I was into the Cahuenga Pass and could see the Capitol Records building ahead. I was putting the picture together as I waited for Rachel to come back on the line and tell me the plan. I realized that the Shrike was a listener of the podcast after all and I had given him everything he needed. At the end of each episode I had plugged the recording studio when I thanked Ray Stallings. I had then repeatedly promoted the time and date of the live roundtable discussion that would be the final episode.

The Shrike then only had to surveil the building where Sun Ray Studios were located to figure out how he could use the parking-garage situation to his advantage. The attendant left the keys of the cars he moved around on each vehicle’s front right tire. The Shrike could have snuck in while Rodrigo was shuffling cars, used the key to unlock my Range Rover, and then secreted himself in the back.

I suddenly realized there was another possibility. I had broadcast the podcast’s time and location to everybody. It was possible that if someone was concealed in the back, it wasn’t the Shrike. It could be another crazy incel like Robinson Felder. I took the phone from my ear to try to text this possibility to Rachel when I heard her voice again.

“Jack?”

I waited.

“We have a plan. We want you to get to Sunset Boulevard and take the exit. It dumps you out on Van Ness at an intersection with Harold Way. Take the immediate right onto Harold Way and we’ll be set up for you. LAPD has got two units there right now and more are on the way. Matt and I are two minutes out. Clear your throat if you understand and we are good to go.”

I waited a beat and then cleared my throat loudly. I was good to go.

“Okay, Jack, now what I want you to do is try to text me a description of what you’re driving. I know you mentioned in a recent email that you got a new car. Give me make, model, and color. Color is important, Jack. We want to know what we’ve got coming. Also put in what exit you last passed so we’ll have a sense of timing. Go ahead, but be careful. Don’t wreck while texting.”

I pulled the phone away and typed the needed information into a text to her, cycling my focus repeatedly from the phone to the rearview to the road ahead.

I had just sent off the text, including the fact that I was about to pass the Highland exit, when my eyes went to the road ahead and I saw brake lights flaring across all lanes.

Traffic was stopping.