Jan Burke - Nine

Farid Atvar screamed.

Julio heard all of this over the monitor only. Even the shot had been nothing more than a slight popping sound. The cell was virtually soundproof.

Cameron walked calmly over to the Surfer and handed him the gun. “Finish your job.”

The Surfer said, “I thought I couldn’t use a gun.” Julio could barely hear him over the prisoner’s screams.

Cameron looked at him in exasperation. “Finish it, Morgan.”

Morgan-the Surfer-aimed the gun and fired. He hit the prisoner’s shoulder. More screams.

Cameron took the pistol from him, aimed, and fired a shot through Farid’s left eye.

The screaming stopped.

He watched as the one called Cameron holstered the weapon and then pulled out a big black marking pen. He bent over Farid’s skinny, bloody chest.

“Are we going to do all the rest of it?” Morgan asked.

“No time. If Freddy makes as big a mess of his assignment as you did of yours, he’ll be needing my help soon.”

Julio let them out again. He tried not to look at Morgan’s suit pants, which reeked of piss. The smell of gunpowder never bothered Julio, but he couldn’t stand the piss smell.

The Surfer was looking green again and wringing his hands like an old woman.

“Mr. Santos,” Cameron said, “I know he’s shorter than you are, but would you have a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt my associate could change into? I don’t think he’ll want to sit in these clothes in his Maserati.”

“You drove my Bora?” Morgan said in outrage.

“Shut up. Mr. Santos, we need to leave as soon as possible. The body can stay here. I’ll need you to drive the van to Malibu. We’ll pay you there and you can be on your way.”

“Sure,” Santos said, smiling and thinking that it really hadn’t been bad work for five million bucks. He had just started up the stairs toward his apartment when the old instincts kicked in-a moment too late.

He could swear he felt the bullet sting his back, then tear through the front of his chest even before he heard it, but maybe that was his own gun, going off too late. He was losing consciousness, his knees buckling, and he was suddenly struck by the thought that he must look ludicrous. He drew a painful last breath and called out to his laughing God, although he knew it came from his lips as little more than a whisper.

Cameron walked forward and felt for a pulse. There was none.

He turned and tossed the keys to the Bora to Morgan. “You drive the Maserati, I’ll drive the van. Follow me. We’re going to take Mulholland Highway.”

“Mulholland? Why?” He was shaking.

Cameron was distracted for a moment, unlocking a cabinet and removing tapes from the security cameras’ tape decks. But he answered, “We’ve got to meet Freddy there.”

“Don’t tell him about the piss, okay?”

“I won’t.”

“Or-or that I couldn’t do it.”

“You just need practice, that’s all.”

Morgan looked at Santos’s body and said, “Why did you kill him?”

Cameron hesitated, then said, “You said my name when I walked into the room.”

“You said mine.”

“After you spoke mine, it didn’t matter.”

“Oh.”

They began to walk out. Morgan took one last look at Santos. “What was it-at the end-what did he say?”

Cameron smiled. Morgan started shaking again.

But Cameron simply walked past him, saying, “Encore.”

Malibu, California

Wednesday, May 21, 4:32 P.M.

Meghan heard someone step out onto the deck behind her and quickly closed the cover of the photo album. She turned to see Kit.

She saw his gaze go to the album. He flinched and looked at her uncertainly. She felt her face turn warm with embarrassment, but smiled and said, “You’re back safely. I’m so glad. Spooky has been worried about you-we all have been. Moriarty said you were doing something foolhardy, but wouldn’t tell us more.”

“Everything went fine,” he said. He seemed distracted. He walked to the edge of the deck and leaned his forearms on its railing. He stood looking out over the canyon, toward the ocean.

“Spooky will be relieved.”

“I’ve seen her,” he said, still not turning around. “She’s swimming with Moriarty. A way of putting off working on her summer reading assignments, I suppose.”

She set the album aside, stood, and walked over to him, but she kept a distance of a few feet between them. “I apologize,” she said.

“For what?”

“Looking in the album. I-I wasn’t trying to pry.”

She saw him reach into one of his pockets. He pulled out a little soapstone tortoise. He began to turn it over and over in his hand. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

He looked at her then, studying her face in a way that would have embarrassed her and made her step away had anyone else stared at her in the same way. But Kit was unlike anyone she knew, and something in his own face told her that any lack of patience on her part at this moment would cause her to lose a chance-a chance at what, she wasn’t entirely sure, but she didn’t move.

“Did Moriarty give you the album?”

She shook her head. “I found it in the library. I thought I might find pictures of you when you were little.”

That brought a quick, mirthless smile. “Did you?”

“A few. I hadn’t gotten far.” She hesitated. “Your mother was beautiful.”

“Well, then. You really didn’t get far, did you?”

She was taken aback-she had never heard him speak in this bitter, sarcastic tone.

He saw her dismay and instantly said, “I’m sorry…I’m sorry.” He looked out at the sea again and drew a deep, steadying breath.

After a moment he asked, “Do you know why Freddy Whitfield was in Albuquerque?”

“No. I guess I’ve stopped believing it was coincidence. I wanted to ask you about it, but I figured you didn’t want to talk about it in front of Spooky.”

“Thanks for understanding-you’re right, I’d rather she didn’t worry.” He smiled ruefully. “For one thing, she tends to relieve her stress by starting fires.”

“So, was Freddy there because of me?”

“I think so. Indirectly, anyway. I think he was probably looking for Gabe and hoped you’d lead him to your brother.”

She frowned. “Why would Freddy want to find Gabe? Do you think he’s trying to collect the reward on him?”

“That reward would be pocket change to someone like him. Knowing Freddy, he spent more getting to and from New Mexico than the amount of the reward.”

“So why?”

He hesitated, then said, “He’s involved in the killing of the people on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.”

“Freddy?” She started laughing. “Oh, Kit-I’m sorry, but-Freddy?”

He waited.

“But he’s such an idiot!”

“He isn’t as stupid as you’d think. Besides, I didn’t say he was masterminding it. But he’s involved. This morning, on the television news, I saw that the police were looking for someone who had stolen the ID of Eric Grady.”

She looked puzzled for a moment, then said, “One of the driver’s licenses in the wallet.”

“Yes. And for all he might seem to be an idiot, he’s always been sneaky. He loves to spy on people, to try to learn their secrets.”

She studied him for a moment and said, “He learned some of yours?”

He looked out at the sea again. “A few. Not many.”

She saw him rolling the stone tortoise between his thumb and fingers. She set aside her curiosity about him and asked, “Why would Freddy-or whoever it is he’s working with-go after criminals on the FBI’s Most Wanted list?”

“I think he’s working with Everett Corey and Cameron Burgess. Maybe others-I don’t know. Morgan, I suppose. I’m certain of one thing: Everett’s in charge. As for why…If you build a machine, maybe sooner or later you want to see what it can do.” He saw she was puzzled, and added, “Everett feels superior to just about everyone else alive. He enjoys making his closest friends do as he asks-they’re totally under his control. His own secret society.” He frowned. “No, more like a band of mercenaries. He used to do all this drilling and playing at soldiers at Sedgewick-kid’s stuff, I thought. I knew Moriarty, who had been a real soldier, so I thought what Everett was doing was laughable and figured the only good part of it was that it took up a lot of energy and time that he would have been using to push other people around. Now-well, it’s not funny at all.”