Douglas Preston - Impact

He looked around at the mall, rapidly filling with morning shoppers. Good luck finding the door shakers in this place. Instead of wasting fruitless hours searching the entire mall for security, better to have security come to him. The mountain to Mohammed, so to speak. Spying a CD World he strolled in, picked out a mark in the heavy metal section, and began browsing nearby. The mark was perfect: a pimply faced goth with purple hair, smelling like hemp, carrying a shopping bag. Burr edged toward him, plucked up a CD by a group called Spineshank, turned and walked past the goth, bumping him gently as he went by.

"Excuse me."

The goth grunted something unintelligible and went back to flipping through the CDs. Moving toward the cash registers, Burr waited for the goth to finish browsing and then followed him toward the exit. As soon as the goth hit the security gates the alarms began to whoop, and the freak stood there like a deer caught in the headlights, his kohl-rimmed eyes wide with a who me? expression.

And here came the mountain to Mohammad, two mountains in fact, huffing and jingling. They surrounded the goth and searched his bag, finding the Spineshank CD. Overriding his ineffectual and utterly unbelievable protests that the CD must've fallen in the bag by accident, they began to hammer him with questions like the tough guys they were, giving him the third degree.

Harry Burr walked over, flashed a shield he carried--formerly in the possession of a D.C. state police officer who had allowed himself to be pickpocketed during a traffic stop. "Officer Wilson?" he asked the door shaker in charge, reading his name off the badge.

"Yes?"

Burr folded away the shield. "They told me you were the man to ask for."

"They did?"

"It's about the car theft this morning. I'm the D.C.-Virginia liaison officer, Undercover Investigations Division, Motor Vehicles. Name's Lieutenant Moore." Offered his hand. Wilson took it.

"Talk in private, Officer?"

"Certainly." Burr moved Wilson away from the increasingly shrill protests of the kid, who was now being cuffed. Burr pulled out a little notebook, licked his finger, turned the pages. "I won't take up but a minute--just need to get a few details."

"The file's back in the office. We forwarded the information to the state police already."

Burr rolled his eyes in disgust at the bureaucracy. "We're a bit top-heavy these days. Could take a week for the file to rise to the surface--or you could help me out right now." A wink. "What say?"

"Sure thing, Lieutenant. Glad to help."

The office was just what Burr expected, a windowless cell smelling of Mennen. Wilson, the glorified door shaker, sat behind the desk, pulled open a drawer, and took out a file.

"I need the usual," said Burr, "car, license plate, witnesses . . . whatever you got."

"No witnesses, Lieutenant," said Wilson, his face firmly set as befitted the seriousness of the crime. "It was a white Ford F150 king cab pickup, 1985 model, Virginia license . . ." He reeled off the details in full-throated cop-speak, while Burr jotted it down.

"We'll recover the vehicle; we always do," said Wilson. "Some kids on a joyride. No chop shop would be interested in an old-model pickup like that."

"I have no doubt you will attain a successful conclusion, Officer," said Burr, rapping his gold pencil on the notebook and tucking it away. He held out his hand. "Don't bother contacting me, I'll keep in touch with you myself, by phone. When that pickup resurfaces, I'd sure like to know. Got a card?"

Wilson passed him his card.

"Much obliged, Officer." He hesitated. "Might be best--for diplomacy's sake, you understand--not to mention my visit to the D.C. or Virginia state police HQs. They don't like it when someone from UID makes an end run around their wall of bureaucracy." Again he flashed Wilson a knowing wink.

"Sure thing," said Wilson, with a grin.

Burr left the mall and got back into his Beetle. God, it was hot, especially after the frigid air in the mall. Ford and the girl had almost certainly gone to ground. Now he could do nothing except cool his ass waiting for the stolen vehicle to turn up. Slapping the steering wheel in frustration, Harry Burr muttered a low curse. This was one fucked-up situation. Maybe this time he would make an exception--and take pleasure in the kill.

60

A warm summer breeze was blowing off Great Salt Bay as Abbey darted up to the door to an old building in downtown Damariscotta, firescape looming above her, framed against a starry sky. She buzzed Jackie's apartment, giving the button a quatrain of long, insistent pushes. A moment later a muffled voice said, "What the fuck?"

"It's me, Abbey. Let me in."

The buzzer went off and Abbey pushed open the door and mounted the rickety stairs. They had ditched the stolen truck in the parking lot of a depressed mini-mall along Route 1, where it seemed unlikely to be noted, at least for a while, and had hiked two miles through the woods and on back roads to get to Damariscotta.

She arrived at the apartment door. "Jackie?"

She heard a querulous grunt. "Go away."

"Wake up, it's important!"

A groan. The sound of feet hitting the floor. The locks turned and Jackie opened the door. She stood squinting in a nightgown, her hair disheveled. "It's two in the frigging morning."

Abbey pushed her way in and shut the door. "I need your help."

Jackie stared at her. A sigh. "God, you in trouble again?"

"Big time."

"Why am I not surprised?"

Round Pond Harbor lay black under the night sky, the water lapping around the oak pylons. Abbey paused at the top of the pier. She could see Marea II on its mooring about fifty yards off. It was three o'clock, dark as a tomb, Moon obscured by clouds, about half an hour before the lobstermen normally began arriving. Close enough to the normal hour that a boat firing up and heading out would not be noted as anything special.

Jackie Spann and Wyman Ford stood on the dock behind her, Ford with his ubiquitous briefcase in hand. "Wait here. I'll bring the boat around to the floating dock, then you come down and get in fast."

Abbey untied her father's dinghy, unshipped the oars. As she rowed out to the waiting boat, she hoped her father wasn't up yet. She had left a short note, but there was no way of knowing how he would react to her "borrowing" his boat again for some unspecified purpose--and then asking him to lie about it.

She pulled hard. The splashing of the oars and the tapping of rigging against the masts of the sailboats at anchor were the only sounds in the quiet harbor. Even the gulls were sleeping. She arrived at the Marea II , boarded, and started the engine, the sudden rumble shattering the peace of the summer night. She was pretty sure no one would notice. Boat noise, even in the middle of the night, was a way of life in a working harbor.

She eased it into the floating dock, not even bothering to bring it to a full halt as it drifted along. Jackie and Ford tossed in their supplies and hopped in, and she turned the wheel and headed out of the harbor, past the blinking light on the can marking the channel, into the sound.

"So," said Jackie, settling down in a seat in the pilothouse and turning to Ford with a grin. "Who are you and what the hell's going on?"

61

Mabel Fortier left the Wand-o-Matic Laundromat with her laundry in a wire basket, wheeling it across the parking lot toward her car. At the far end of the parking lot she could see the usual group of scruffy kids that hung out there with their souped-up cars, talking on their cell phones, cursing, drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, and throwing the butts on the ground.

Once again Mabel tried to tell herself that these were nice boys letting off steam. She had even taught some of them in the first grade before she retired. They were such nice little kids then. What had happened? She shook her head; all teenagers smoked these days, and swearing today wasn't what it used to be in her time.