Carstairs asked, “Should I alert Dr. Shenneck to be expecting a package?”
“Oh, gee. I don’t know. My boss is incommunicado right now. Let me think. Hmmm. You know what? This is quite a special gift for Dr. and Mrs. Shenneck. I know Mr. Overton spent a small fortune on it. I suspect he’d rather surprise them.”
“Then I shall remain mum.”
“Thank you, Mr. Carstairs. You’ve been most helpful.”
After she turned off the phone, Jane took it into the bathroom, put it on the tile floor, and cracked it underfoot.
At 8:20, dead phone in hand, she stepped out into a cool, overcast morning. In the leafy branches of the red-bark arbutuses that softened the architecture of the motel, unseen birds with unpleasant voices sounded angry with the way the day had thus far unfolded.
In front of the diner associated with the motel, she dropped Overton’s phone into a trash can with a domed top and a hinged lid. She went into the restaurant, bought a cruller and a large coffee and a copy of The New York Times. In her room once more, she ate the pastry and drank the coffee and paged through the Times to see how much further the world had descended into chaos since she had last read a newspaper one week earlier.
2
* * *
ANGER WAS A VIOLENT and vindictive emotion. Nathan Silverman’s character was such that he could sustain anger only for a short while. In this case, it quickly settled into righteous indignation and piercing disappointment.
After dressing, he used the hotel-bedroom phone to call the 24/7 cell number of John Harrow, the special agent in charge of the Los Angeles field office.
When Harrow answered, Silverman said, “John, I’m alerting the director, we have a rogue agent from my section, evidently on your turf. It’s Jane Hawk.”
“Sorry to hear it, but I think you’re being prudent. We need to meet, work out how to proceed.”
“We have to move faster than that. She’s my responsibility, so I hope you’ll work with me to jump-start this.”
“Of course, Nathan.”
“Get her Bureau ID photo, when she had long blond hair. Pair it with one from Santa Monica, showing her with shorter, dark hair. Get them to every field office with the proper wanted-person wording.”
“Wanted for what?”
“Illegal use of FBI ID, impersonating an agent, racketeering, destruction of aircraft, assaulting a federal officer, and murder.”
“Holy shit, Nathan, what information did you get between last evening and now?”
“Randolph Kohl called me. He has the goods on her.”
“Kohl from Homeland Security? Tell me those glory seekers won’t be tramping on our heels every step of the way.”
“I’ve been assured they’re giving us the professional courtesy of allowing us to rope our own stray calf.”
“What’s this all about?” Harrow asked. “What’s she up to that involves national security?”
“For now, that’s classified. I’ll…I’ll…” A tremor of doubt and confusion quivered through Silverman, but passed quickly. “I’ll lay it out for you in detail as soon as Booth tells me I can.”
“Booth? Who’s Booth?”
Silverman frowned. “I meant Kohl. As soon as Randolph Kohl tells me I can share it, I will.”
“Usually, we’d handle something like this quietly in family as long as possible.”
“This is an extraordinary matter. Also get her on the NCIC.”
The National Crime Information Center would put her name and face in front of the entire criminal-justice community, from big-city to small-town police agencies.
“You mean on the outstanding-warrants list?” Harrow asked.
“Yes.”
“Do we have a warrant?”
“A judge will be issuing one momentarily.”
3
* * *
DOUGAL TRAHERN WAITED until ten o’clock to phone Jane’s motel room. After seeking her permission, he came to her room to discuss something with her.
“I could die today,” he said.
“We both could.”
“I don’t want to die this way.”
Wondering if he meant to back out after coming this far, she said, “What way?”
He pointed to his mountain-man reflection in the mirrored closet door. “That way.” He handed her a shopping list and his credit card. “Could you get these things for me?”
Reading the list, she said, “Why don’t you come with me?”
“I don’t know. I just woke up feeling…”
“Feeling what?”
He scowled. “Self-conscious. All right, already?”
“Self-conscious about what?”
He pointed at his reflection again. “Do you mind getting those things, or are you gonna grill me like you would a suspect?”
“Relax, Mr. Bigfoot.”
“Damn it, you got that from Charlene.”
“Good woman. Give me an hour. But are you sure about this?”
“Hell, yes. I’m done being this. I’ll wait in my room.”
“Leave the do-not-disturb sign on your door so you don’t terrify the maid.” She returned his credit card. “I’ve got cash.”
He looked distressed. “You shouldn’t have to pay for my stuff.”
“You paid nearly half a million for wheels to get us here.”
When she returned from shopping, they started with his hair. She had bought a painter’s drop cloth, which she spread on the floor of his room. He put a chair on the cloth, sat down, and used two bath towels to form a makeshift barber’s smock over his clothing.
She had also bought a pair of barbering scissors and a steel-toothed comb. “This will be way less than a professional cut.”
“Every pioneer woman cut her family’s hair, and they lived through it. Just start choppin’.”
She began by determining which knots couldn’t be combed out. She ruthlessly scissored them away.
Using the facts about Gee Zee Ranch that Jane squeezed out of William Overton and the satellite photos that Dougal printed, they knew how they planned to get onto the ranch, into the house, and out again alive. But they had not yet discussed other important issues.
As she clipped his hair, he said, “What is it you could pry out of Shenneck that would make this raid a success?”
“We can’t get into his Menlo Park labs directly. But when he’s working from the ranch, he has computer access to his research and other files in Menlo Park. I want him to download the specs for the nano-implants, every iteration of the design from day one to the point when they could be injected and would reliably self-assemble.”
“Will that be enough to bring him down?”
“Maybe. But I want more. Overton said Shenneck captures and converts coyotes on the ranch, like I told you, so he must have vials of the injectable solution at the house. The thousands of infinitesimal parts of a control mechanism are kept floating in a chilled liquid. They’re designed so they can’t self-assemble till they’re in an environment where the temperature is at least ninety-six degrees Fahrenheit, sustained for at least an hour.”
Dougal said, “Inside a living mammal.”
As a greater volume of shorn hair began to fall from Dougal’s head, Jane said, “The nano-parts of the control mechanism are brain-tropic, specifically to concentrations of hormones produced in the hypothalamus. By the time they pass through the capillary walls into the brain tissue, they’ve been in a warm environment long enough to start assembling. I’ll take as many vials as I can find. Preferably some of each kind—those that reduce the girls of Aspasia to a lower level of consciousness, those that program people for suicide and homicide, as many kinds as there are. We need to have them analyzed by authorities…if I ever find an authority I trust.”
“How long will it take to get all this?”
“Not long once he starts cooperating.”
“What if he doesn’t? How do you make him?”
“Scare the shit out of him,” she said.
“If that doesn’t work?”
“Depends on how much pain he can tolerate.”
“Are we talking torture?”