Dan Simmons - Darwin's Blade

On Wednesday Dar did his work at the condo, talked to Syd briefly in late afternoon, took the Remington Model 870 shotgun out from under the bed, loaded it, filled his pocket with some extra shells, and carried his overnight bag to the Land Cruiser. He looked around carefully in the basement parking garage before walking to his vehicle. It would be embarrassing to go through all this preparation and then have a pissed-off Russian shoot him with a .22 pistol in his own parking garage.

None did.

Dar drove out through Wednesday traffic. He wanted to arrive at the cabin well before dark, and he did. Stopping on the long gravel driveway to the cabin, he activated the various video cameras one by one. Nothing on the road ahead. No one in the sniper points high above the cabin. No one immediately visible in the field below the cabin. No one in the cabin.

Dar drove the rest of the way, carried in his bags and some groceries, and made dinner. He thought about calling Syd, but knew that she would be busy at the tactical command center all that evening.

What the hell, he thought. I’ll hear about it on the radio tomorrow and read about it in the evening paper.

He sipped some coffee. I hope.

Somewhere around midnight, he double-checked that the cabin doors were locked and turned off the lights. A fire still burned in his fireplace, filling the warm room with flickering light, and he left a soft light on in the kitchen and another next to the bed.

Instead of going to bed, Dar took the shotgun and the receiver/monitor, moved the strip of carpet slightly, unlocked the trapdoor, and went down into his basement. The lights came on automatically. He left the shotgun propped up against the outer wall, unlocked the steel door, and crossed the storeroom to the ventilator grille. Unlocking the heavy padlock there, he inspected the dusty vent with his flashlight and then crawled on his elbows and knees the 220 feet—breathing much more heavily than he liked—until he came to the second grille. He unlocked it, slipped out into the old gold mine, and found his plastic-wrapped M40 rifle and the heavy rucksack right where he had left them the day before.

He pulled on the Marine-issue flak vest stored in the pack, hefted the heavy rucksack, and slung the rifle comfortably on his right shoulder. Water dripped in the old mine shaft. Puddles were everywhere and often six inches deep. Dar splashed through them, still using the flashlight for illumination. He was wearing waterproof hiking boots and his green slacks and camouflage field shirt loose over the heavy vest. On his web belt was the black-steel K-Bar knife in its scabbard. His cell phone was in his shirt pocket, but it was turned off.

Once he reached the entrance to the mine, he doused the flashlight and stowed it, pulling out the L.L. Bean night goggles. There was no moon and the ravine was filled with shadows, but Dar let his eyes adapt naturally and kept the night-vision goggles raised on his forehead as he found his way up the ravine, up the narrow path on the east face of the gully, and continued climbing toward his preselected spot.

It was a beautiful night—a few clouds, cooler than most summer nights, but perfect for a hike.

The FBI assault team battered down the front door of the Santa Anita ranch house at precisely 5:00 A.M. Agents fired tear-gas projectiles through all of the windows. Other agents at the door tossed flash bangs into the living room and lunged inside, laser beams stabbing for targets through the smoke.

Living room empty. Agents held ladders while other agents threw themselves through the bedroom windows as the FBI snipers covered them. No one in the bedrooms.

Special Agent Warren led the first assault team from room to room on the ground floor, and then up the stairway to the second floor. Two helicopters landed on the lawn while two more hovered overhead, brilliant searchlights shining down through the dissipating smoke and the brightening twilight. FBI men in the choppers fired more tear gas through the second-story windows.

No one on the second floor. No one in the kitchen. No one in the basement.

It was one of the last teams to reach the building who radioed in the report. Dead bodies in the garage.

Warren and a dozen others, everyone bulky in their body armor and helmets, goggles and gas masks dangling, converged there within twenty seconds.

The three dead Hispanic men were stripped to their underwear. Each had been shot once in the head.

“But only three got in the van last night…” began a young special agent.

“The goddamned leaf bags,” said Special Agent Warren.

“Shall we expand the perimeter?” asked a helmeted figure.

Warren sagged back against the doorframe, clicking the safety on his suppressed H&K MP-10. “They could be in Mexico by now,” he said dully.

Nonetheless, Warren was on the radio a second later, alerting headquarters, authorizing helicopter and ground searches for the yard-service van, confirming that the CHP, LAPD, and other agencies had to be briefed immediately, and authorizing a national manhunt.

A message was relayed from the Malibu safe house where Detectives Ventura and Fairchild were being kept. It seemed that Fairchild, who was cooperating with the investigators, had been allowed to go for a brief, escorted walk on the beach the previous afternoon. The FBI agents had not known that there was a pay phone just off the beach, but Fairchild had been allowed out of sight for several seconds to urinate in the bushes, and this morning one of the agents took a walk on the beach and found the phone. He immediately checked to see if there had been any outgoing calls from it.

There had. One of fifteen seconds’ duration had been made at 4:30 P.M. The call was to Detective Fairchild’s brother-in-law, who ran a dry-cleaning establishment in Pasadena.

“Damn,” said one of the agents.

“Damn, heck, and spit,” said another.

“Fuck me,” said Special Agent in Charge Warren, who had no immediate Bureau supervisors on the scene. “I bet Fairchild got more money than Ventura—he just hid it better.”

“Shall we tell Special Agent Faber and Investigator Olson about the Russians?” asked the primary dispatcher.

Warren looked at his watch. It was 5:22 A.M. The Dallas Trace assault was still more than ninety minutes away. “Faber and his people are in position and on radio silence,” he said. “I’ll call Cassio, the agent in charge of the Century City security perimeter covering the assault team’s backs, and tell him that we’re sending another dozen tac-team agents to reinforce him.”

“Do you think the Russians will try to rescue Dallas Trace?” asked a goggly agent next to Warren.

The special agent in charge actually laughed. “Not a chance in hell. These guys know that the balloon has gone up. They’re not going to drive from one ambush into another one. We’ll tell Faber and the rest of the assault team after they do their thing.” Warren’s voice lost all traces of humor then and he said something most un-Bureau-like. “And I want that LAPD cop—Fairchild—castrated.”

Syd received the page eight minutes after the FBI had driven Dallas Trace and his three bodyguards away in separate vehicles. She was standing on the street outside the Century City office tower, busy shaking the sweat out of her hair and ripping the Velcro tabs loose on her bulletproof vest, but she stopped everything when she saw the number on the pager.

Warren explained the situation in two sentences.

“Dar!” said Syd, looking at her watch.

“Investigator Olson,” said Special Agent Warren, “these Russians aren’t amateurs. They have a ten-hour head start on us. They’re not going to waste it on some stupid revenge attempt. They’re probably in Mexico by now.”