David Rosenfelt - Airtight

We’re coming, Brother.

“I have no easy way to tell you this, Jules.”

Julie Somers braced herself for what was going to come next. It was going to be bad; Lou Rodriguez was not prone to the dramatic.

“Tell me,” she said into the phone, but not really wanting him to.

“Gallagher is dead.”

The news hit her in the chest, and pushed her back against the wall. “How?”

“Someone blew up his car in a parking lot in Brayton … where the protesters are camping out.”

“You’re sure it was him?” she asked, knowing the question was a stupid one.

“I’m sure. I’m sorry, Jules.”

“Any idea who did it?”

“No, I was watching him while someone must have rigged the car. If it helps, he had gone to Carlton’s house, and was in there about twenty minutes. Based on the yelling I heard, it wasn’t a fun visit for Carlton. I looked in the window when Gallagher left, and Carlton was holding his arm at a weird angle and still moaning to some other guy who had been there.

“I left to follow Gallagher, and he went to the place he died from there.”

“What was he doing there, do you know?” She was trying to get as much information as she could for Lucas; he might have a view of the big picture in a way that whatever Lou saw could be helpful. She doubted it, but had nothing else to hold on to.

“Just walking around, looking at some of the drilling equipment, checking out the dirt, or something. I couldn’t tell, really. He spent some time talking to a woman there, the one who was on TV. Then he went to his car and that was it. The explosion took out a bunch of cars around him.”

Julie pumped Lou for additional information, but he didn’t have anything more of value to offer, and in fact wasn’t yet aware that Rhodes was also murdered nearby. And the truth was, she doubted that what he did say could help Bryan in any way.

Gallagher’s only value to her was his knowledge of where Bryan was. At the moment, she couldn’t care less if he had solved the Brennan murder, or the violence in Brayton, or the Lindbergh kidnapping. He was the only one who had known where Bryan was, and that knowledge had died with him.

And now she had to tell Luke.

We had two chances to find Bryan, and then suddenly we had one.

What Julie had to tell me was even more devastating than that simple math makes it appear, because Gallagher represented by far the greater of the two opportunities. What we were doing in searching for shelters was a long shot at best.

Weird as it may sound, hearing about Gallagher’s death made me realize for the first time that Bryan might die as well. Of course I had known that intellectually for quite a while, but I was so wrapped up in the “hunt” that I kept the truth about Bryan’s situation tucked in the back of my mind.

Now it was front and center, and it made me so scared that I felt nauseous.

“How bad is it?” Julie asked.

I wasn’t going to lie to her. “It’s very bad,” I said. “And it’s my fault.”

“How is that?”

“I should have started this search days ago. Instead I focused too much on Brayton, and on convincing Gallagher to let Bryan go. I thought that was our only real shot, so that’s where I spent my time.”

“It was the logical thing to do,” she said.

“No, the logical thing when you have a kidnapping is to look for the victim. I was too intent on convincing Gallagher, and not spooking him.”

“Are you going to tell Bryan?”

“I don’t know,” I said, because I didn’t. “I’ve been getting his hopes up, because mine were up, and because I don’t want him taking those pills. I’m afraid if I tell him what happened he might panic and take them. What do you think?”

“I think we need to keep him alive until we can’t keep him alive any longer,” she said. “Hold off on telling him.”

“OK. For now.”

“You want to hear the rest of what Lou said, about Gallagher going to see Carlton, and then going to the site of the drilling?”

“Will it help us for me to hear it?” I asked.

“Probably not, but you never know.”

She told me the rest of it, and I filed it away to use after Bryan’s rescue.

“I’m coming out there,” she said. “I want to help search.”

“OK. I don’t blame you.”

I told her where I was staying, and that I’d book a room for her. Unfortunately, I only would need to book it for one night, because that’s all we had left.

The media was not yet reporting that Chris Gallagher was the person killed in the blast. Based on what Julie had said, it was unlikely that the body had been ID’d yet or, for that matter, even recovered remotely intact.

If there was enough left of the car they could probably trace it to Gallagher in that way, especially if it was owned or rented by him. If it was borrowed, it would take that much longer. Trying to recover and test DNA would take longer still.

I couldn’t stop myself from wondering what the hell Gallagher was doing at Carlton’s house, or the disputed land after that. But that was for another day.

Soon Julie would be here, and together we would find Bryan.

Or we wouldn’t, and then nothing would ever be the same.

Lucas … it’s great that you seem so optimistic. I trust that you’re telling me the truth.

This afternoon there was no news on, so I watched a movie. It was called The King’s Speech ; I doubt that you saw it because it had no explosions or nudity. It was a true story about a relationship between two men, a Royal Prince and the therapist who helped him cure his lifelong stammer.

The Prince had a brother, who became King and then left the throne for a woman, making the stammering Prince the new King. Though they were brothers, they had no relationship at all, or at least not one worth having.

Maybe facing death is making me sentimental, but it told me that family is not enough, friendship is more important. So if I get out of this, I want to be friends, not just brothers.

And if I don’t make it, I want you to know that I forgive you for what you have done, and I forgive Julie as well.

But get me the hell out of here.

Julie arrived ninety minutes later.

She met us in the hotel restaurant, where Emmit and I took her through the progress we had made, and where things stood. As updates go, it wasn’t a pleasant one, because we were not getting anywhere.

Of course, in the kind of operation we were conducting you’re always getting nowhere, unless and until you have one hundred percent success. We’d certainly eliminated possibilities; officers had filed reports indicating that they had already checked out seventy-one confirmed bomb shelters.

In four of those instances, they were refused admittance until they threatened to bring the owners to the station and make their lives miserable. Failing that, the officers would have gotten search warrants, but it was unnecessary, because in each case there was ultimate compliance.

It was getting late, and we all decided to get four hours’ sleep and meet very early in the morning. There was nothing we could do anymore that night, and we needed to be refreshed for the next day. Left unspoken was what we all knew: it was Bryan’s last day.

Emmit went upstairs first, leaving Julie and me. We ordered a drink, just one because of that need to be completely alert the next day. It also might help us sleep, although at that point I didn’t think a sledgehammer to the head could put me out.

“Have you told Bryan about what happened to Gallagher?” she asked.

“No. Not yet.”

She nodded. “Good. Please give it a little time. We’re going to get it done tomorrow.”