Jeff Abbott - Fear

Ninety-four percent said yes. That was the power, the promise, of Frost.

So if you find Frost, can you find Nathan again? To help him?

Miles watched Celeste sleep, lost in the heaviness of her own dreams. He took the confession from his pocket, left it propped against the lamp. He leaned down and kissed the top of her head.

*

‘Let’s go,’ Miles said. Groote stood from his patio chair. Miles thought it best not to mention Nathan had left; Groote would want to hunt him down. ‘Maybe we can get a late flight to Austin.’

‘Actually,’ Groote said, ‘I have an idea. Allison stole the buyers’ list from Quantrill. That’d be useful information.’

Miles saw where he was going. ‘We get details on the auction from a buyer, we might get real close to Sorenson without him knowing it.’

‘And we can get that list tonight,’ Groote said. ‘You’re not afraid of alarm systems and men with guns, are you, Mr. Spy?’

Nathan had a dollar fifty in quarters he’d stolen from the blind soldier’s room and he fed a few into the pay phone at the gas station. Stealing from a blind guy, God, he was classy. He wiped the tears and snot from his face with his sleeve. He had a wallet with five hundred dollars in cash and a photo ID Dodd had slipped him back in Yosemite, a ticket to reenter society after his mission at Sangre de Cristo. But he had had no change to operate the phone, and five hundred dollars might not be enough money to do what he knew he must do. His legs hurt, his back ached from the beating Groote had given him back in Santa Fe, and he didn’t want to be alone. But he would be, until he finished his duty.

His mother answered on the third ring.

‘Mama? I’m out of the hospital. I’m all fixed.’

‘Sweetheart? Oh, thank God,’ then a torrent of Spanish. He waited for her words to subside and he tried to laugh so she would believe he was happy.

‘I need a favor, Mama. I’m not in Santa Fe. They moved me to a different hospital near Los Angeles to finish the treatments.’

‘I don’t understand…’ and she started in with the questions, rat-a-tat, and he closed his eyes.

‘Mama,’ he interrupted her, ‘I got to have money. To eat, to get home.’ But he wasn’t going home. No. He had to finish being a hero first.

Miles picked the kitchen door lock with a special attachment on Groote’s Mr. Screwdriver, not wanting to think about its being the weapon that had brutalized Nathan. The tumblers clicked into clear and Miles gave the door the barest push. Groote stood behind him, gun at the ready, and they listened for the hum of the alarm. None.

Quantrill hadn’t activated the system yet; he hadn’t gone to bed. Probably he was upstairs in his office, trying to persuade the buyers not to attend Sorenson’s auction, assure them that all was well, that he alone had the one and true Frost.

Miles slipped the screwdriver/pick into his back pocket and followed Groote into the house. They heard the distant roar of gunfire, then a billowing blast of artillery, the scream of a jet. Then the rising pulse of an orchestra, music thundering along with the battle, all coming from a half-open doorway off the living room.

Guards, Groote mouthed to Miles. He gestured Miles toward the upstairs, mouthed, Office, gestured Miles to go up.

Miles went up the stairs. Groote waited, gun at the ready. If the guards stayed put in front of their blockbuster, no worries, no need to kill them.

Quantrill sat in the chair, at his empty desk, head back, a red-and-black smear on his forehead, eyes half shut.

Miles touched the dead man’s throat. Still warm.

The man’s computer was gone from the desk. Miles went into the bathroom next to the office, grabbed a hand towel, used it to slide open drawers, search the closet that doubled as a supply cabinet. No handheld computers that might have carried a backup of Frost or the buyers’ list, no CDs or DVDs, no disks – all cleared out.

Sorenson was cleaning house, eliminating every possible interference, and they had just missed him or his hired killers.

He eased the dead man out of the chair and searched his pockets. Wallet, full of cash, untouched. He found a cell phone, folded shut. He tucked the cell phone into his pocket.

Miles came down the stairs; Groote was still in position, the movie still playing. Miles walked past him and into the media room. The two bodyguards were sprawled on the couch, a bowl of buttered popcorn between them, three bullet holes marring both faces.

‘Well,’ Groote said, ‘I guess Quantrill won’t be writing me a paycheck.’

‘We just missed him. This happened about fifteen minutes ago. Sorenson just ended the buyers’ option of sticking with Quantrill. Now he’s the only game in town.’

Groote leaned down and took a handful of popcorn. Miles tried not to puke as the man munched. ‘Assume he made efforts to contact buyers, warn them away from the auction, plead with them not to buy from a thief, or even threaten them with exposure if they didn’t boycott the auction.’

Miles held up the cell phone. ‘We might find a buyer he called. I get a cell number, I can find nearly anybody.’

‘All we need,’ Groote said around the mouthful of popcorn, ‘is one.’

They found an all-night coffee shop near the Santa Monica Pier that offered Internet access, and Miles started working. After finding that Quantrill had spent his final hours on earth calling a Chinese restaurant, his landscape crew, and two numbers that Groote believed to be those of the dead popcorn-eaters, Miles hit pay dirt on the fifth number. He found it belonged to a Greg Bradley. A Google search of the man’s name, combined with pharmaceutical, showed that Bradley owned a consulting firm based in Boston that advised Aldis-Tate, one of the largest U.S.-based drug companies.

‘That’s our boy,’ Groote said. ‘Sorenson pretended to be from Aldis-Tate when he came to the hospital.’

The call log indicated the conversation between Quantrill and Bradley had been lengthy – well over thirty minutes.

‘Long conversations,’ Miles said, ‘suggest a detailed discussion, and that means Quantrill might have been persuasive about bucking the second auction.’

Groote frowned. ‘So you think Bradley chickened out?’

‘Let’s see if he did. Give me a second.’ He dialed Bradley’s cell phone, waited.

‘Don’t screw this up,’ Groote said in a low voice.

‘Hello?’

‘Mr. Bradley?’

‘Yes?’

‘Hi, sir, this is Corey with the credit-card security firm Ironlock. I’m checking on a charge cancellation that raised a red flag in our systems. Have you canceled an airline flight recently, sir?’

‘Uh, yeah. Today.’

‘A flight to Austin, sir?’

‘Well, yeah…’ Then a long, awkward pause. ‘Who are you again?’

Miles spoke with hyperbrisk efficiency: ‘Sir, we check any cancellation that raises a red flag as we insure the credit-card companies and we pay their charge cancellation insurance. We’re investigating a couple of airlines that charge falsely, then cancel immediately so we have to pay up. But if it’s a genuine cancellation, that’s no problem, and I thank you for your time.’ He hung up. ‘I think he canceled. He got frosty when I mentioned Austin.’

‘You’re a good liar. Is there such a thing as that insurance?’

‘I have no idea.’ Miles started trying the next numbers in the call log.

He got lucky three numbers later. Quantrill had called the same number, three times in a row, the first conversation lasting forty seconds, the next two barely lasting ten seconds.

‘If it’s not a girlfriend,’ Groote said, ‘it’s someone who doesn’t want to talk to Quantrill.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re good at this.’