It’s the meeting he objects to.
And he’s probably also a little pissed Cole refused to let several well-armed members of their private security team travel alongside them in the leather-upholstered passenger compartment of this spacious helicopter. But he’d never say so directly. Ed’s nothing if not loyal, one of the only holdovers from his father’s era who’s never treated Cole with anything less than respect.
He’s a giant of a man, a former deputy chief for the LAPD who headed up their counterterrorism and special operations bureaus before entering the far more lucrative world of private security. His shiny bald dome reflects the morning sunlight streaming through the panoramic windows with such intensity Cole’s afraid to remove his sunglasses. Because the man’s mouth rarely changes from a thin, determined line, Cole’s left with no choice but to view the slight grimace Ed’s worn since they took off as a sign the man’s truly afraid of what Dylan might be capable of.
“Are they in place?” Cole asks.
“We’ll have snipers north and south.”
“Not east and west?”
“West of the site’s mostly flat wash with a slight downhill grade until you get to the freeway. Nearest mountains are way too far from the site to have any good perches. Same situation to the east. Also, never a good idea to have snipers staring right into the sun. And given that it’s Arizona, the nearest tree is probably in Flagstaff.”
“Or Sedona. Strike team?”
“Fifteen minutes out. Best we could do given the absence of cover. Which I imagine might be why he picked the place. He’s got a Special Forces background aside from being a mad genius, right? Might explain some of what’s in here.”
He pulls a stack of pages from his canvas briefcase. It’s held together with a giant paper clip, which tells Cole it was printed out just before they took off from downtown San Diego. Whatever’s in it, his security director didn’t want to share it over e-mail.
Good call, he thinks as soon as he starts reading.
It’s confidential information about the biker massacre in the middle of the Arizona desert. There are some initial police reports from the first investigators to arrive on scene; reports pulled off law enforcement servers the public would like to think are a lot more secure than they actually are. They’re followed by a transcript made up of a series of fragmented conversations. The name of the person speaking is provided wherever possible, but in most cases, the hackers made educated guesses, such as Officer 1, Possible ATF Agent, as they dipped in and out of the mobile devices being carried by the investigators on scene, eavesdropping for as long as they could before the cyberdefenses of whatever telecommunications company they’d penetrated got wise to their presence.
This is one of only a few instances in which Cole’s ordered the off-the-books digital services team of their private security contractor to hack into the mobile phones of strangers. He doesn’t even know the company’s name, and Ed insists they keep it that way. Plausible deniability and all that. But in those other instances, he’d been out to disprove rumors that former employees had stolen proprietary science. And he had, sparing the targets a great deal of trouble and jail time and God knows what other ruin the board would have elected to unleash on them. In other words, he’d used evil for good. Now he’s using it because lives have been lost.
Ed’s highlighted chunks of the transcript in green.
Cole holds up a page marked by four different highlights so Ed can see it. “What’s the theme?”
“Officers and agents on scene speculating bikers couldn’t have pulled it off. They used words like mercenary, Special Forces. Special ops. Trained killer. All words that could be associated with Dylan Cody’s background. The explosion knocked most of the guys flat, broke some bones on the others, but only killed a few of them. The rest of the work was close-range gunshots.”
“But there’s no mention of Dylan.”
“Unless you consider rapid-fire, close-range gunshots delivered minutes after a C-4 explosion to be part of his skill set.”
“It is. Any ID on the bikers in the video he sent?”
“One of ’em. The one who got a shotgun blast through his middle did fifteen years for aggravated rape. He has a long-standing relationship to the crystal meth community in the American Southwest.”
“Huge surprise. And the girl?”
“We think it’s an alias.”
“An alias?”
“We matched her image to an Arizona driver’s license photo for a woman named Charlotte Rowe, but Charlotte Rowe only popped into existence about a year ago. I want them to keep looking before I show you anything.”
“I could still use a preliminary report.”
“They do better work when they think you’re waiting. And losing patience.”
“All right, I trust you.”
Ed nods. It’s the closest they’ll ever have to a tender moment.
“I want the strike team rolling in when we land.”
“Cole—”
“I don’t want them to strike, Ed. I just want a show of force.”
“You want them rolling in right as we set down next to the building he’s sheltering in? That could be chaos, Cole.”
“Pageantry, Ed. The word is pageantry.”
“Fine. You’re the one who knows what this guy’s capable of.”
Ed’s baiting him.
He doesn’t bite.
Ed begins tapping instructions into his mobile phone.
“So wherever this place is,” Cole asks, “it’s not exactly the middle of nowhere?”
“It’s close,” Ed answers. “Just a little ways north of Tucson.”
“I imagine Tucson would object to being depicted as the middle of nowhere.”
“I don’t know. I’ve got an aunt there, and she says that’s exactly the appeal. Any idea why he picked this place?”
“Quick escape from this mess he caused with the bikers.”
“Seems like he’d want to get farther away. He’s certainly had enough time. What do you think?”
“About what?” Cole asks.
“I’m just saying, you know him a lot better than I do. What’s your guess?”
More bait. Again he doesn’t bite.
He needs Ed. Badly. And if Ed wants to take this moment to express some disapproval of the tortured path Cole and Dylan have walked together, the man’s allowed. There are only a few of Graydon’s dark secrets Ed doesn’t know, and the ones he doesn’t, Dylan knows all too well. Cole can’t afford to make an enemy out of Ed or anyone else. Not now, not today.
“Symbolism,” he answers.
“Symbolism?”
“The location’s going to have some kind of symbolism. That’s all I can figure.”
“Symbolism related to what?” Ed asks.
“His beliefs.”
“Beliefs? The guy’s a scientist and a soldier, not a preacher.”
“Actually he manages to combine the worst of all three,” he says.
“I see,” Ed says. “Well, you’d know.”
“Ed?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you just ask me what you want to know?”
“Fine. Is there some kind of involvement between you two that might be clouding your judgment here? If that video’s real, a meeting like this . . . We’re talking a week of prep, negotiations. At least. This could be an ambush, Cole, and we’re flying right into it.”
“My involvement with Dylan’s work is exactly why I’m obligated to take this meeting.”
“You know what I’m asking.”
“You want to know if he took me out to the Hotel del Coronado and did things to me that made me forget my own name? Is that it?”
Ed just stares at him. The man’s no homophobe. His reticence probably has more to do with an aversion to discussing his employer’s personal life. If Cole’s mother were in this seat, Ed would be just as demure on the topic. But can Ed hear what he’s really asking? If Cole’s judgment around Dylan is warped by libido now, that means it was warped by libido two years ago. And two years ago, he did a lot worse than rush into an ill-advised, last-minute meeting in the middle of Arizona with a man who might be capable of bending steel with his bare hands.