John Hawks - The GoldenCity

“Get out of there and help our friend find his brother. I’ll call you when I get more information.”

When she switched off the phone, Boone glanced over his shoulder. “What did Hollis Wilson say?”

“There were three bodies in the hotel room.”

“Doyle is clever. It’s not going to be easy to kill him.”

“Keep driving,” Maya said. “I’ll think up a plan when we get there.”

They turned onto State Highway 14, a four-lane road that climbed a range of eroded hills covered with dry vegetation. Every ten miles or so, a commuter town appeared with the same chain restaurants placed between a Starbucks and a McDonalds. Maya studied each new road sign, but her eyes always returned to the man driving the car. The best moment will be when we reach the entrance to the mining site .

“You killed my father.”

“That is correct. I tried to get his cooperation, but it didn’t work. Thorn was a very stubborn man.”

“You would have killed him anyway.”

“Correct. There was no logical reason to keep him locked up somewhere.”

Boone glanced in the rearview view and changed lanes. His calm voice, his lack of emotion, reminded her of one particular person-her father.

“I am planning to kill you,” she said. “But in some ways you’re already dead. You’re a cardboard box with nothing inside. You don’t care about anyone, and no one cares about you.”

“I cared about my daughter.” For the first time, Boone’s voice was hesitant and filled with pain. “I would have died for her that day, but I lived. I don’t know why I lived.”

They came over the hills and saw the shops and street lights of the two adjacent communities of Palmdale and Lancaster. This was the farthest extension of the suburban sprawl-a daily commute from downtown Los Angeles to single family house with a hungry mortgage. But the moment they passed through this area, the Mojave Desert surrounded them. The only bright features in this region were illuminated billboards for Indian casinos and plastic surgeons. Change Your Looks! Change Your Life! shouted one of the signs, and a photograph of a surgeon named Dr. Patmore grinned like a smooth-skinned idol of perfection.

Rosemond was a desert community for the pilots and military personnel who worked at Edwards Air Force Base. The population was so mobile, so impermanent, that they passed a lot where pre-built houses had been placed on trailers. They turned off the freeway, glided past a shopping center, and took a right turn near the local high school. Twisted Joshua trees lined the road and a mountain with three peaks was visible in the distance. The mountain was separate from everything else, so deliberate that it looked as if the earth had rejected something malignant and thrust it upward toward the sky.

Boone turned off the paved road and stopped at a cattle gate with a large sign. Private Property! Trespassers will be prosecuted .

“This road goes up the mountain to the mining site.”

“How far away is it?”

“Three or four miles.”

“Switch off the headlights and go slowly.”

Boone opened the gate, got back in the car, and drove up a dirt road that led to the mountain. Light came from the stars and moon, but the road was overgrown with weeds; it would be easy to get lost. After the first half mile, Maya rolled down a side window. She could hear cicadas and the crunch of their tires on patches of gravel.

Boone stopped at the entrance to the abandoned gold mine halfway up the mountain. A cyclone fence topped with strands of razor wire surrounded the mining claim and no “trespassing signs” were everywhere. Someone else had arrived earlier; a red sedan was parked in front of gates held together with a lock and chain.

They both got out of the car. Now that Boone had guided her to the gold mine, there was no longer any need for his existence. The shotgun was a noisy weapon. She should draw one of her knives and slit his throat.

“He’s here,” Boone said. “This is one of the rental cars driven by my employees. Doyle took the car after he killed the men at the hotel.”

Maya stepped away from the gate and looked up the slope. Outdoor lights marked a winding pathway to the top of the mountain.

“Who’s guarding the children?”

“I left two employees here. They’ll be suspicious if Doyle shows up alone.”

Boone returned to the red sedan, opened the door and inspected the garbage Doyle had left on the passenger seat. Maya touched the outline of the stiletto hidden beneath her jacket, but she hesitated and left the knife in its sheath.

Let fate decide, she thought, and pulled out the random number calculator hanging from her neck. An even number would cause his death; an odd number would postpone the decision. She pushed the button. 3224 flashed on the screen. The random number indicated death, but it caused a counter-reaction that was immediate and certain. This isn’t what I want, she thought. This isn’t who I am. She concealed the device before Boone emerged from the car. “I found some sterile bandages and gauze.”

“Do you think one of your men wounded him?”

“I doubt it. Doyle probably bought a knife and cut out the tracer beads inserted beneath his skin.”

Maya reached into her waistband and pulled out Boone’s automatic. He stood calmly-as if he expected to be executed-but she reversed the weapon and handed it to him. “Don’t make any noise as we walk up the hill. We’ll become an easy target the moment we step into the light.”

Priest had supplied her with a sawed-off shotgun that had a leather carrying strap. It reminded her of the lupara that men carried in Sicily. She slipped the strap over her shoulder, jumped onto the chain, and slipped through the gap between the two gates. Boone followed, and they headed up the hill to the mine. The air was cold and clear and smelled like sage. The only noise came from the mine’s power generator; it sounded like a puttering lawn mower that some confused citizen had left in the middle of the desert.

The first building was a clapboard house with a sheet metal roof. Light glowed through the old newspapers taped to the windows. “What’s inside?” Maya asked.

“This where the two guards sleep and cook their meals.” A wooden plank creaked when they stepped onto the porch. Maya tried to peer through the windows, but the newspapers completely covered the glass. She raised the shotgun and whispered to Boone. “Open the door and step away.”

He turned the knob slowly, then pushed the door open. Maya charged inside. The house was one long room filled with a refrigerator, a propane stove and a kitchen table. A dead man lay on the floor next to an overturned chair. A blotch of dark blood was the middle of his white T-shirt and there was a second wound below his belt buckle.

“You know him?”

“He’s a former Austrian policeman named Voss.”

“Where are the children?”

“We put some cots in the building where they refined the ore.”

They returned to the darkness and continued up the hill past the stamping machinery used to crush the rocks. After the ore was reduced to gravel, it was sent through filtering screens and metal troughs, then loaded into handcarts and pushed over to the refinery shed.

Lights burned inside the shed, and Maya could hear cheerful music coming from a television. She pressed the shotgun stock against her shoulder, then yanked open the door. Folding cots were in the middle of the room. A television placed on a table played a video of dancing animals. Another dead man lay a few feet away from the television with his mouth and eyes open.

“Only two people worked here?”

Boone nodded. “Maybe Doyle took the kids out to the desert.”