Robert Crais - The Two Minute Rule

Pollard stood on her toes, trying to see as far down the slope as possible, then squinted up the road at the communications station. A bristle of cameras sprouted at the station, too. Uphill from the road was a steep slope climbing another twenty or thirty feet to the summit. Pollard glanced uphill, then back to the cameras.

“Who’s on the other end of the cameras?”

“The Park Service. Rangers are watching this thing twenty-four seven.”

Pollard looked uphill again.

“What’s up there?”

“Weeds. It’s just the top of the hill. There’s some old geologic survey gear, but that’s all.”

Pollard set off toward the communications station and Holman followed. She stopped from time to time to peer down at the sign.

She said, “Can we come up from below the sign?”

“That’s why they have the motion detectors. The cameras at the bottom cover the approaching hillsides.”

“Damn, it’s steep. Does it flatten out at the base of the letters?”

“A little, but not much. It’s more like a wide spot in a trail. The sign is pretty much set into the side of the mountain.”

The communications station was surrounded by an even taller fence. The eight-foot fence was topped by barbed wire and concertina wire. The road they were on dead-ended directly into a gate that cut across the road like a wall. They were boxed in by the steep upslope on one side, the fence on the other, and the gate in front of them. Holman thought it felt like being in a chain-link tunnel.

Holman said, “There’s supposed to be a helipad on the other side of the antenna, but I’ve never seen it. That’s how they come up if someone triggers the alarms. They send a chopper.”

Pollard stared up at the surrounding cameras, then gazed back along the road at the way they had come. She looked disappointed.

“You were right, Holman. This place is a fucking compound.”

Holman tried to picture Richie and Fowler and the other two cops coming up here in the middle of the night, but just couldn’t see it. If they suspected Marchenko had hidden the money at or near the sign, where and how would they search? The Hollywood Sign covered a lot of ground and even policemen couldn’t approach the sign without being seen by the Rangers. Holman thought they might have tried telling the Rangers they were conducting an official police investigation, but the chances of that were slim. It would have been a bad move, made even worse by conducting their search at night. The Rangers would have had questions, and stories of the late-night search would have spread beyond the park. If they had tried to bluff their way past the Rangers they would have made their search during the day. Coming out at night meant their search had been a secret.

Pollard said, “You know what I’m thinking about?”

“What?”

“Blow jobs.”

Holman felt himself flush. He glanced away and cleared his throat.

“Yeah?”

Pollard turned in a little circle, spreading her arms at their surroundings.

“So Marchenko brings her up here to have sex, what did he do, just drop trou for his blow job right here in the road? Cameras are everywhere. Other people might come walking up the road. There isn’t any privacy. This is a lousy place for a blow job.”

Holman was uncomfortable with Pollard talking about sex. He glanced at her, but couldn’t bring himself to make eye contact. She suddenly turned and stared up the steep slope rising above them.

“Is there a way up to the top?”

“Yeah, but nothing’s up there.”

“That’s why I want to see it.”

Holman realized her instincts were right. The summit was the only private place on the hill.

They squeezed between the hillside and the corner of the fence by the communication station, then scrambled up a narrow, steep path. It wasn’t easy going like the fire road. Pollard twice fell to her knees, but pretty soon they crested the summit and reached a small clearing at the top of the hill. The only things up here were the survey equipment Holman remembered and brush. Pollard looked around at the 360-degree view that surrounded them and smiled.

“That’s what I’m talking about! If they were doing the nasty, this is where they were doing it.”

Pollard was right. From the clearing, they could see if anyone was approaching on the fire road. The cameras that dotted the fences were below them, and pointed downhill toward the sign. No one was watching the summit.

But Holman still didn’t believe Marchenko and Parsons had buried their money up here. Carrying that much cash would have taken several trips, and each trip would have increased the odds they would be discovered. Even if they were stupid enough to bring the money up here, the hole needed to bury it would have been the size of five or six suitcases. It would have been difficult to dig in the rocky soil, and anyone else who visited the summit would have easily noticed the large area of disturbed soil.

Holman pointed out the heel prints and scuff marks that had been scratched into the clearing.

“Maybe he had the girl up here, but there’s no way they brought the money. You see all these footprints? Hikers come up here all the time.”

Pollard considered the prints, then walked around the edges of the clearing. She seemed to be studying it from different angles.

She said, “This little hill isn’t so big. There’s not a lot of room up here.”

“That’s my point.”

Pollard gazed down at Hollywood.

“But why did he have to come up here to be with the girl? He could’ve pretended to be a pirate anywhere.”

Holman shrugged.

“Why’d he rob thirteen banks dressed like a commando? Freaks happen.”

Holman wasn’t sure she heard him. She was still staring down into Hollywood. Then she shook her head.

“No, Holman, coming up here was important to him. It meant something. That’s one of the things they taught us at Quantico. Even madness has meaning.”

“You think that money was up here?”

She shook her head, but she was still staring down into the canyon.

“No. No, you’re right about that. They didn’t bury sixteen million dollars up here, and Fowler and your boy sure as hell didn’t find it and dig it up. That hole would look like a bomb crater.”

“Okay.”

She pointed down toward the city.

“But he lived right down there in Beachwood Canyon. You see it? Every day when he stepped out of his apartment, he could look up and see this sign. Maybe they didn’t keep the money in their apartment or hide it up here, but something about this place made him feel safe and powerful. That’s why he brought the girl up here.”

“You can see forever. Maybe it made him feel like he was in a crow’s nest, like on one of those old sailing ships.”

Pollard still wasn’t looking at him. She was staring down into Beachwood Canyon like the answers to all of her questions were waiting to be found.

“I don’t think so, Holman. Remember what Alison told Marki? It always had to be here. He couldn’t perform without his fantasies, and the fantasies were about treasure-having sex on the money. Money equals power. Power equals sex. Being here made him feel close to his money, and the money gave him the power to have sex.”

She looked at him.

“Fowler and your son could have picked up dirt and grass in any vacant lot in L.A., but if they knew what Alison knew, they would have come up here. Look around. It isn’t that big. Just look.”

Pollard walked off into the brush, scanning the ground as if she had lost her car keys. Holman thought they were wasting their time, but he turned in the opposite direction.

The only man-made artifact on the summit was a device Holman thought looked like a metal scarecrow. Holman had seen it before. The scarecrow had been set into the ground years ago and bore what appeared to be U.S. Geological Survey markings. Holman guessed it was something for monitoring seismic activity, but he didn’t know.