Jonathan Kellerman - Time Bomb

Graff said, “Seven, section two.”

“Beauty and Balance,” I said.

Burden said, “Very good, Alex.”

Another red light. Riverside. This time he stopped. “Let’s see, freeway or canyon- at this hour, I’d say freeway.”

He headed west.

I said, “Of course I want to know. How’d you do it?”

“Any hypotheses?”

“A few.”

“Let’s hear them.”

“For starts, you tapped my phone. The time you dropped in at my house.”

My very nice home . Asking to use the facilities so he could have time alone in the rear of the house. Crying and spilling his coffee in order to have time alone in the living room. Me adding to his worktime by waiting in the kitchen so that he could compose himself…

“Very good, ” he said. “But actually it went far beyond the phones. I installed listening devices in several locations in and around your house- under furniture and beds. Near the front door. Today’s technology permits incredible ease of installation. I’ve got units no bigger than a grain of rice- though the ones I used for you were larger. Lentil-sized. Self-adhesive. Long-distance, super-high resolution, tunable-”

I said, “Section five. Life and Limb.” Stroking him while realizing all he’d heard. Phone conversations. Pillow talk. The violation…

He was my liberator but I didn’t like him any better for it.

Being saved by him was like finding out God existed but that He had a bad personality.

He said, “Actually, these particular components haven’t been featured in the catalogue yet. So you got a sneak preview. I’d be happy to leave them installed, show you how to use them for your own benefit.”

“No thanks.”

“No doubt you’re feeling intruded upon. But monitoring your input and output was necessary. You were my informational conduit. To the school, the police- all of them. No one would help me. Everyone treated me as if I were a pariah. I needed good data- that was my right. I knew I had to be thorough. I pretuned the units to receivers in my house. Identical receivers were also installed in this van. No one else could possibly receive the transmission, so you needn’t be concerned that anyone else was monitoring you. And the tapes will be destroyed very shortly.”

“I appreciate that.”

Unable to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. But he missed it or ignored it.

We were on the Sherman Oaks/North Hollywood border now, approaching Coldwater. A few cars on the street. Late diners heading home from the restaurants on Ventura. More lights, then the on-ramp to the 134 West.

He said, “The lentils are manufactured in Poland, of all places, though I suppose the actual research and development came out of the Soviet Union. Glasnost and perestroika have been a boon for those of us interested in the free exchange of advanced technology. The distributor in Hong Kong was more than happy to send me a boxful of the little devils at great discount in the hopes that I’d feature them in the next catalogue. It didn’t work out that way, did it, Gregory?”

“No, Mr. B. Too expensive for our target audience.”

“Very expensive- even at discount. But only the best for you, Dr. Delaware. Because I respect you. Your tenacity. I had high expectations of the quality of information you’d be able to shunt to me. And I was right, wasn’t I? So I’d say the lentils paid for themselves. As did the homing tracers I placed in your Seville and in Detective Sturgis’s Matador and Fiat. Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite get to the Ford he traded for the Matador, but by that time I had enough data to be able to trace his abduction.”

“What a guy,” said Milo.

No longer hoarse now. Clear and quiet and enraged.

I knew what he was thinking: Burden had let him endure the interrogation. Waiting. Listening.

I said, “Howard was your conduit too. You dropped in on him and waited in his office so you could install your lentils.”

And hear every hateful word his son had spewed.

“Absolutely,” he said. A little too nonchalantly. “Holly’s behavior had been puzzling- distant, preoccupied. Due to her communication problems, I couldn’t draw it out of her. I knew she’d snuck over to Howard’s, both of them thinking I didn’t know about their little attempt at rapport-building. I thought Howard might be able to shed some light on the change in his sister, now that the two of them were communicating.”

“But you couldn’t simply ask Howard about it, because he also has communication problems.”

“Exactly.”

I remembered the loathing that had filled Howard’s office. How was a father able to deal with that- to defend against it?

I looked over at him. Placid. Blocking it out. Narcissism in service to the soul.

He made a left turn onto the freeway. All six lanes were as empty as Indy the day after the race.

“Howard’s a bright boy,” he said, “but he’s got many, many problems. Blind spots. You saw how obese and nervous he is. How he sweats. He gets eczema too. Gastric discomfort and insomnia. Clear signs of unhappiness. Constitutional weakness made worse by a poor attitude toward life. If he’d allowed me, I could have helped him with all of it. Perhaps one day he will. In the meantime, I couldn’t let his weakness get in the way.”

“That’s why you were so eager for me to meet with him. Hoping he might open up to me and you’d get it all on taper.”

He smiled. “More than hope. Data-based prediction. The conversation between the two of you ended up being a very useful transmission.”

“Wannsee Two,” I said. “Howard described how Holly had babbled about that the day her sister-in-law came over. I set out to learn what it meant. You listened and taped and followed along.”

“No, no,” he said, annoyed. “I didn’t need you for that. I was one step ahead of you. I know enough history to understand exactly what Wannsee was . Vahn-say is the correct pronunciation, of course. Gregory knows about Wannsee too, even though he’s from your generation. Because a good deal of Gregory’s family was eliminated by the Nazis. So when I called and told him we were dealing with Wannsee Two, he was more than eager to get involved in this project. Weren’t you, Gregory?”

“Absolutely, Mr. B.”

“Good ventriloquism,” said Milo. “Where’d you find a dummy this big?”

Graff gave a deep loose laugh.

“Hardly,” said Burden. “Gregory’s got training in electronics and biophysics under his belt, a year of medical school at an Ivy League university, a law degree from that same university, and graduate studies in business.”

Pride. Paternal pride.

His real son .

I said, “Sounds like a real renaissance man.” One part of my brain thinking about Linda and running at Methedrine pace. Another making small talk, trying to get information from the odd, scary man in the driver’s seat.

“Bet he has military training, too,” I said. “Former intelligence officer, same as you. That’s how you found him, isn’t it? Not some modeling agency. When it was time to recruit a partner, you know precisely where to go.”

“I’m not a partner,” said Graff. “Just a figurehead.” More laughter.

Burden laughed too. The exchange to the 405 appeared. He took it going south, and moved into the center lane, maintaining a steady seventy miles per.

I said, “How about going a little faster.”

He didn’t answer, but the speedometer climbed to seventy-five.

Wanting a hundred but knowing that was all I was going to get, I said, “Here’s another hypothesis: Between the two of you, New Frontiers has access to military computers. Ahlward had a military background. You checked him out.”