Джеймс Паттерсон - The 19th Christmas

Lambert had used these skills in football and in life, and they had never failed him.

For this job, he would work with Loman’s playbook and carefully script out his plays. He had a nose for the goal line—in this case, the money. And he’d know how to make it to the end zone.

Right now Lambert was seeing himself at a nice restaurant at a table with a view, having a three-course lunch, Loman telling him what he expected from him in the upcoming heist of the century.

Russell made a turn onto the Great Highway, followed the signs toward Lands End. There was a good restaurant out there, the Cliff House, where on a clear day you could see 180 degrees of ocean beyond the rocky bluff.

“What we’re going to do,” Russell said, “is stop at the Lands End Lookout off El Camino del Mar. Loman is going to meet us there, and you’ll go in his car with him. I’ll drive around for a little while, make sure I wasn’t followed, and then I’ll meet you at the restaurant. There’s our turnoff.”

Russell turned left and drove toward a paved parking area flanked by trees and, ahead, the USS San Francisco Memorial. On the left was a breathtaking view of the Pacific, to the right, the Golden Gate Bridge.

“I need a little help,” Russell said. He angled the car and backed it up so that the rear was against the parking barrier and the front was pointed toward the road. Lambert noticed that the weather had kept the tourists inside. The parking lot, usually busy, was empty.

“Sure, Dick. What do you need?” Lambert asked.

And now he noticed that Russell seemed edgy.

“Everything okay?” Lambert asked.

“I’ve got a ton of weapons in the trunk. They’re in duffel bags, so no worries. We’ll transfer them to Loman’s car, but let’s get them out now.”

Russell pulled up on the trunk release and got out. Lambert climbed out of the passenger seat and, walking straight into the wind, reached the back of the car before the older man. He pulled up on the latch. The trunk lid sprang up.

The cargo space was carpeted in black. Lambert saw a duffel bag, but it was flat; it didn’t seem like it held “a ton of weapons.” He leaned in and patted it.

The bag was empty. Was he missing the obvious, or had Russell exaggerated?

Lambert was straightening up to ask when he felt a jolt of fear.

It was animal instinct, a realization that he’d read this game all wrong.

Chapter 25

The man who had said that his name was Dick Russell fired a round into the back of Lambert’s neck.

Lambert was dead when Russell pushed him into the open trunk. The gunman didn’t look it, but he was strong enough to easily fold Lambert’s body into the rear compartment without getting any blood on himself.

He frisked the dead man for his wallet, took it from his back pocket, closed the trunk, then went through Lambert’s backpack, still in the front seat. Finding no other ID, he left the backpack and locked up the car. By now it would have been reported stolen, but it would be days before a car left here would be called in or even noticed.

Standing at the rear of the Ford, the man in the old-geezer clothes tossed the car keys, the wallet, and the unregistered gun over the cliff, one after the other, and watched each one bounce down over the sharp rocks and land.

Then he made a call with his burner phone.

“Dick, where are you?…Good. I’m leaving the parking area now. I hope you brought my clothes. All right. See you soon.”

The phone followed the wallet, gun, and keys over the edge almost two hundred feet down to the rocks above the crashing waves. After double-checking that no one was around the parking area, Loman started walking along the verge of El Camino del Mar.

Only a few minutes had passed before a horn blew behind him and his black Escalade stopped. Russell reached across the front seat and opened the door for him.

Loman got in.

“Man, I’m wet. And hungry,” Loman said to his number two.

“Clothes are in the back seat and I’ve got reservations,” Russell said. “Table with a hazy view.”

“How’s it going from your end?” Loman asked.

“Like clockwork,” said Russell.

“That’s what I like to hear,” said Loman.

He grinned at Russell, who grinned back and stepped on the gas.

Chapter 26

Cindy was already hard at work in her home office at dawn, polishing the article about Christmas in San Francisco’s barrios.

Her interviews with undocumented immigrants had left her feeling sad. There was nothing uplifting about people celebrating Christmas in the darkness, wondering if a slipup or a traffic stop could turn into a deportation. Was it even possible to keep cultural tradition alive when living in shadows that could stretch for decades?

She attached a photo to her file, an image of a Christmas tree with a handmade papier-mâché manger underneath. She titled the piece “Feliz Navidad” and sent it to publisher and editor in chief Henry Tyler.

Cindy drained her third mug of coffee and texted Yuki. Are we still on?

Yuki responded, I’ll be at the office at eight. C u soon.

Cindy closed her laptop and dressed, then nudged Richie and told him she was his requested wake-up call.

He kissed her, tried to roll her into bed.

“Can’t. Rain check. Love you.” She kissed his ear and fled.

She drove through the misty morning toward the Hall of Justice along streets lined with lights and houses adorned with twinkling Christmas characters. They didn’t lift her mood at all, wired as she was about her meeting with Yuki.

Twenty minutes after leaving home, Cindy tossed her keys to Brad, the parking attendant in the All-Day lot on Bryant. She shouted to him over her shoulder, “I’ll be back in an hour.”

She raced for the crosswalk, but as she reached the corner, she heard Brad calling her.

“Ciiiiiiiindyyyy. You dropped this.”

He held up her scarf. She trotted back, said, “Damn. Thanks, Brad,” and headed off again. Even after turning her ankle, she still made the green light.

She jogged up the granite steps, cleared security, crossed the lobby, and got into the elevator, her mind still fixed on Eduardo Varela and his lovable wife, Maria. After Tyler had green-lighted the jailed-undocumented-immigrant story, Cindy had spent enough time with Maria that she was totally convinced of Eduardo’s innocence.

But believing in someone’s innocence didn’t make a publishable story, and it wouldn’t spring him from jail, either.

Yuki had offered to help even though, as a prosecutor, she couldn’t work the case herself. Yet in a couple of hours, Yuki would be visiting Eduardo in the jail where he had been detained for the past two years.

Cindy couldn’t go with her, but Yuki would not be alone. She was bringing her old boss Zac Jordan, who worked at the not-for-profit Defense League. Zac was a do-gooding superstar with a Harvard law degree. He would decide if he wanted to take Eduardo’s case and defend him at trial.

Cindy jerked her thoughts back to the present, exited the elevator, and opened the door to the DA’s suite. Although the office was officially closed for the holiday, the reception area was lit by a gooseneck lamp at the front desk and the blue-and-gold twinkling of the tree in the corner.

She was about to phone Yuki when a man in a mail-room shirt entered reception through the side door and held it open for her to come through.

Cindy headed along the main corridor and knocked on the frame of Yuki’s open door. Her friend looked up and said, “Come in, come in, Girl Reporter. Sit yourself down. We have to work pretty fast. Want coffee?”

Cindy said, “No, thanks.” She was maximally caffeinated already.