Robert Crais - The Two Minute Rule

Holman was in a brushy area ten feet beyond the cage when he found the turned earth.

“Pollard! Agent Pollard!”

It was a small egg-shaped depression about a foot across. The darker, turned earth at its center stood out from the surrounding undisturbed ground.

Pollard appeared at his side, then knelt by the depression. She probed the turned soil with her fingers and tested the surrounding area. She scooped a handful of loose soil from the center, then scooped more. By clearing away the loose soil, she revealed a hard perimeter. She continued clearing loose soil until she finally sat back on her heels. It hadn’t taken long.

Holman said, “What is it?”

She looked at him.

“It’s a hole…Holman. See the hard edge where the shovel bit? Someone dug up something. You saw how it was a depression? Someone removed something, so there wasn’t enough dirt to fill the empty space when they refilled the hole. Hence, the depression.”

“Anyone could have dug this.”

“Yes, anyone could have dug it. But how many people would be up here digging, and what could have been here that someone would want to remove?”

“They had sixteen million dollars. You couldn’t fit sixteen million in a little hole like that.”

Pollard stood, and then both of them stared down at the hole.

“No, but you could hide something that led to the sixteen million-GPS coordinates, an address, keys-”

Holman said, “A treasure map.”

“Yep. Even a pirate’s treasure map.”

Holman glanced up, but Pollard was walking away. He looked down at the hole again as an emptiness grew in his heart. The hole in his heart was larger than this little hole and felt larger than the canyon beneath the Hollywood Sign. It was the emptiness of a father who had failed his only child and cost that child his life.

Richie had not been a good man.

Richie had made a play for the money.

And now Richie had paid the price.

Holman heard Donna’s voice echoing across the cavernous emptiness that filled him, the same four words over and over:

Like father, like son.

POLLARD BRUSHED at the dirt on her hands, wishing she had a Handi Wipe. Dirt was caked under her nails and would be hell to get out, but she didn’t care. Pollard had a high level of confidence the hole was connected with Marchenko and Parsons and the search for their money, but confidence wasn’t proof. She opened her phone. The signal bars showed she had an excellent connection, but she didn’t yet place the call. A man accompanied by a white dog was hiking up the fire road below the summit. She watched them, then considered the cameras perched on their poles, and decided that at least one of the cameras probably included a view of the fire road. The Park Service almost certainly recorded the video feed, but Pollard knew most security videos were stored digitally on a hard drive that recorded over itself as its memory filled. Most security captures in her experience weren’t kept more than forty-eight hours. She doubted that images remained of Fowler and the other officers hiking up the fire road in the middle of the night-if any had ever existed. One or more of the officers had probably made an initial visit during the day. They would have seen the cameras and planned to avoid them, just as they had planned how and where to search.

Pollard studied the surroundings and decided it was possible. She and Holman had followed the fire road as it wrapped around the peak to bring them to the communications facility at the top of the Hollywood Sign. The cameras probably included views of the road as it approached the sign and the antenna, but no one was watching the road on the back side of the mountain. Pollard moved to the edge of the summit and studied the rear-facing slope. It was steep, but Pollard thought it was doable. Scrambling up the slope on a dewy night with poor footing probably even explained the mud on Fowler’s boots.

Pollard opened her phone again and punched up Sanders’ cell number from the memory. Pollard knew Sanders wasn’t in the office because she answered in a normal voice.

“Let me ask you a question, Pollard-what in hell are you and the Hero doing?”

Pollard glanced across the summit at Holman. He was still standing by the hole. She lowered her voice.

“The same thing we were doing yesterday and the day before. Why?”

“Leeds has been getting serious heat from the police is why. Parker Center has been calling and Leeds is going to meetings he won’t tell anyone about and he’s coming apart at the seams.”

“Has he said anything specifically about me?”

“As a matter of fact. He said if any of us were contacted by you we were to report that contact immediately. He also said if any of us were using government time and resources to aide a civilian endeavor-he looked at me when he said it-he would bring disciplinary charges and transfer our asses to Alaska.”

Pollard hesitated, debating how much she should say.

“Where are you?”

“The marina. Some homeless dude pulled a note job, then fell asleep in the park across the street.”

“Are you going to report this call?”

“Are you breaking the law?”

“For God’s sake, no, I am not breaking the law.”

“Then fuck Leeds. I just want to know what’s going on.”

“I’ll tell you, but let me ask first-have you been able to get a copy of the Juarez tape?”

Sanders didn’t immediately answer, but when she did her tone was guarded.

“They told me the tape had been erased. An unfortunate accident, they said.”

“Hang on-Juarez’s alibi tape was destroyed?”

“What they said.”

Pollard took a breath. First Maria Juarez had disappeared, and now her tape had been destroyed, the same tape Maria claimed as her husband’s alibi. Pollard found herself smiling, though without any humor. A hot breeze had picked up, but felt good on her face. She liked being on the summit.

Pollard said, “I’m going to tell you some things. I don’t know everything yet, so do not repeat this.”

“Please.”

“Who’s calling Leeds?”

“I don’t know. The calls come from Parker Center and Leeds doesn’t tell us a goddamned thing. He hasn’t even been in the office for two days.”

“All right. I think we’re looking at a criminal conspiracy among police officers growing out of the Marchenko and Parsons robberies. That conspiracy includes the murder of Holman’s son and the other three officers under the Fourth Street Bridge.”

“Are you shitting me?”

Pollard’s phone beeped with an incoming call.

Sanders said, “What’s that?”

“Incoming call.”

Pollard didn’t recognize the number so she let it go to her voice mail. She resumed her conversation with Sanders.

“We believe the four dead officers plus at least one additional officer were conducting an off-the-books investigation to find the missing sixteen million.”

“Did they find it?”

“I believe they did-or identified its location. My guess now is that once the money was found, at least one member of the conspiracy decided to keep everything for himself. I don’t know that yet, but I’m positive about the conspiracy. I believe this fifth person was connected with Alison Whitt.”

“How does Whitt fit into this?”

“Alison Whitt claimed she was a registered police informant. If that’s true, she might have told what she knew about Marchenko to her contact officer. That officer is potentially a party to the conspiracy.”

Sanders hesitated.

“You want me to identify her contact officer.”

“If she’s registered, she’ll be on an informant list and so will the name of the cop who signed her up.”