Joe Gores - Glass Tiger

Four miles north of the valley, he followed a barely-visible abandoned logging trace. A quarter-mile in, he found a single truck tire track in a patch of hardened mud. No more tracks, but a heavy vehicle’s passage was marked by broken twigs and matted-down grass for another quarter-mile.

In the thick underbrush under the pines, where it would be well-hidden from the road and invisible from the air, was a dark green 4-Runner. He pulled away the fragrant fir boughs and checked the license number: California 5 CWD 046. A current registration-month sticker on the license plate, a previous year’s sticker under that. It was Corwin’s car.

The keys were stashed in front of the left rear tire. It had a full tank of gas and fired up immediately. He rifled the glove box. Maps and a flashlight, the manual, paper napkins. Then he remembered that in California, a vehicle’s registration and insurance papers were usually stowed behind the sun visor on the driver’s side. They were there, and they were electrifying.

The truck was registered to a Janet Kestrel, c/o Mrs. Edie Melendez at an address in an LA suburb. A woman could explain the months when Corwin dropped out of sight. A lover, travelling with him? An assassin who helped him plan the Delta murders?

Whoever she was, she was the real, solid lead Thorne had been hoping for. If he could find her. He got back to Highway 93, then drove north toward 1-20 to get out of Idaho as soon as possible. At Spokane, Washington, he would get another interstate that would take him south toward California.

Crandall laid the Hamilton Daily News on Wallberg’s desk in the Oval Office, folded so the pertinent below-the-fold headline was prominent: MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE FROM LOCAL HOTEL

Wallberg read the article as if the newspaper were a poisonous viper writhing toward him across his desk.

‘When did this happen?’

‘Two days ago, Mr. President. It cycled routinely to Shayne O’Hara because of the town’s proximity to the attempted assassination site, then routinely from his office to us.’

‘Set up a meeting with Hatfield, ASAP.’

‘Talk to me,’ snapped the President.

Hatfield was literally on the carpet, standing at attention in front of the President’s massive hardwood desk in the Oval Office. He had not been asked to sit down.

‘Mr. President, as you know, when we dismissed Thorne at Camp David he was to await further orders at the Mayflower Hotel. Instead, he left word that he was going to Fort Benning, Georgia, to spend a couple of days with an old Ranger buddy.’

‘Did he know his return to Kenya was all arranged?’

‘I sent the ticket to the Mayflower myself.’

‘You checked on the Fort Benning angle, of course.’

‘A room had been reserved in the BOQ by his buddy, but Thorne never showed. Victor Blackburn is career Army, he would not jeopardize his pension by covering for Thorne. They haven’t seen each other for ten years. In fact, he’s just pissed off.’

Wallberg frowned. ‘What have we learned in Montana?’

‘Franklin and Greene have taken over the investigation from the locals. Everything of Thorne’s was left behind. Everything. Rental car, keys, his FBI badge, his money clip with cash in it, his wallet, shaving gear, i.d., clothes, luggage. We found his passport hidden behind the lining of his suitcase. The room’s rear window was broken inward, and a great deal of blood was splattered around. Our lab is rushing the DNA testing, but it almost certainly is Thorne’s blood.’

‘Could it have been... Corwin?’ It was a half-whisper.

‘Mr. President, Corwin is dead.’ Hatfield leaned across the desk, ebony features intense. He had practiced this move in the mirror. ‘But Thorne is alive. It was a non-lethal amount of blood spattered around. Non-lethal, Mr. President. And one vital piece of identification was not recovered from that room.’

Wallberg was staring at him. ‘Which is?’

‘His commission card with the FBI seal on it. Don’t you see, sir? He left his badge behind but took the card.’ Hatfield let the tension build, then sat down abruptly, unbidden. Franklin’s quick work had given him time to force his tame psychiatrist, Sharon Dorst, to give him the ammunition he needed. ‘The psychiatrist who did Thorne’s initial fitness evaluation noted a strong identification with Corwin. They are a generation apart, but as you know, their profiles are extremely similar.’

Wallberg was shaken. ‘Meaning that the identification is so strong that Thorne is going to start stalking—’

‘No chance, Mr. President. His aversion to killing is too deep, based on a devastating personal loss for which he feels responsible. But he feels a need to understand Corwin. He couldn’t do that from Kenya, so he went to Montana instead.’

Thorne tunnelling back into Corwin’s life might be almost as dangerous for Wallberg and his ambitions as another sniper stalk. He slapped his hand on the desk in time with his words.

‘Find him. Corral him. Rein him in. Shut him down.’

Hatfield had gambled on there being something real between Corwin and the President, something that Wallberg didn’t want to come out. What could it be? Was there any way he could uncover it? Meanwhile, feeding on it, using it, whatever it was, he had turned what looked like a disastrous setback into a victory!

He could hunt Thorne down and take him out with impunity. The man would just disappear, and the secret of who actually had saved the President’s life would disappear with him. Forever.

‘Full National Security powers, Mr. President?’

‘Whatever it takes, Agent Hatfield.’

It was a warm day of smoggy sunshine in the LA suburb of Carson. Through the open windows of the 4-Runner came the faint stink of petroleum from the world’s largest oil refinery a few miles away, huge as a nuclear disaster site. Grace Avenue, running off Carson Boulevard, was a racial layer cake, black and brown with white frosting. Much of the street was projects, rabbit warrens set back behind narrow strips of lawn.

The address given on the 4-Runner’s registration for Edie Melendez was a small, not-quite-run-down bungalow. The door was opened by a woman of about thirty, obviously not Latina, with the square body and strong face and piercing eyes of an American Indian. But she brought with her to the door the mingled aromas of refried beans, tortillas, tacos, frijoles, salsa, hot peppers.

‘Mrs. Melendez?’ He had decided against using the FBI credentials. He held out his hand. ‘My name is Brendan Thorne.’

‘Glad to meet you.’

‘Um... do you know a Janet Kestrel? She used this—’

‘You are a friend of hers? You know where she is?’

Dead end. Thorne said, regretfully, ‘I’m sorry. I’m trying to get in touch with her myself.’

‘She is my little sister. I hoped...’ She made a flustered gesture. ‘But please, come in, por favor.’

They sat on a sagging sofa in the small living room. All the furnishings were old, worn, but everything was scrupulously clean. She said her sister Janet was muy guapa .

‘Our birth name is Roanhorse, we are of the Hopland Indian clan up by Santa Rosa. When she became a blackjack dealer in Reno, she started calling herself Janet Amore.’

And after Reno, she started calling herself Janet Kestrel. Why, when her birth name was Roanhorse?

‘She just drove up here one day last fall, and said she was gonna live with us while she looked for work. But she was only here two days, then she saw something in the newspaper and got real excited. She said she had something she had to do. My husband, Carlos, he was glad when she left. He didn’t like her because he said she didn’t know her place.’