Actually they evacuated four wounded in two ambulances: me and three of the SVI people, while two lay dead back in the campground: Masters and one of his men. We got out of it so cheaply because our men were shooting at seen targets while Masters' men weren't. In fact, only two of Masters' men fired their AK-47s, a short burst each, one apparently while already hit and falling.
In my case, a .30 caliber slug—technically a 7.62mm from an AK-47—had hit the right side of my head at an angle. It tore its way across the top of my skull beneath the skin, and exited the other side near the top, actually creating a shallow groove in the bone. A weird wound. A doctor told me later it was remarkable I'd remained even semiconscious. I guess he doesn't know Finns, or half-Finns in my case. Another bullet had penetrated both buttocks from the right side, damaging nothing but meat. It seems that the lower half of my body never reached the shelter of the fireplace.
Joe told me about it in the hospital, after I woke up. He was also the one who told me that Masters was dead. Steinhorn had shot him in the back of the head, and Masters' .45 had kicked out one shot that went God knows where. It turned out that apparently none of Masters' guys had been very eager for this mission, and except for Steinhorn's shot that killed him, the men still in the skyvan hadn't shot at all. They'd come to the conclusion, the last few days, that their boss had gone bonkers. They'd stayed with him as long as they had because of old loyalties, and because they were in so deeply themselves.
Steinhorn had shot him hoping to prevent a firefight. For his troubles, he took some buckshot through the open door, in the left arm and leg, and in the guts.
Meanwhile the cube I'd mailed the day before made the KCBS noon news. So did the shoot-out at the Rito Oso Picnic Area, and the apparent LAPD involvement with SVI. Joe posted guards in my hospital room, more than anything else to protect me from possible news cameras. He loves publicity for the firm, but tries to keep his investigators' faces off the tube, for obvious reasons.
The survivors on Masters' team verified just about all our conjectures, mine and Carlos', and explained some things we'd missed. For example, what the SVI was all about, or had been to start with. While in the OSS, Masters had developed a dedicated hostility toward terrorists. Then he'd inherited investments that would enable him to live more than comfortably without working, so he'd taken an early retirement. But not to play golf. He and Reyes, along with a well-to-do veteran of the Mexican Foreign Service, started SVI as an aberrated expression of idealism, to assassinate and otherwise terrorize terrorists. Masters and Reyes had recruited men they'd known from the Rangers, Special Forces, and OSS.
It was about the time they'd contracted to abduct Ray Christman that Masters began to change. We got some insight into that because the PEF raided SVI's offices late on the day of the shoot-out, and arrested Aquilo Reyes. Reyes was an American citizen, originally from Casa Grande, Arizona. According to him—and this was validated by computer records of SVI and Security Pacific Bank—Christman's death was contracted for by Alex DeSmet, a retired OSS official, and one-time mentor and patron of Masters in the agency. That's right; that DeSmet. Fred Hamilton's ex-father-in-law.
According to Reyes, Masters was at first unwilling to even consider the contract, though he pretended to, to avoid offending his old boss. Such a contract was very much at variance with his principles. But it troubled him to refuse the man who'd done so much for him, troubled him enough that he'd talked about it repeatedly to his partner. Masters also said that such a proposal was totally out of character for DeSmet, and wondered if the older man was having psychological problems.
I'd have wondered too. DeSmet's behavior certainly didn't sound like the man who'd dismayed his wife by refusing to be upset when their daughter joined the Gnosties.
Then one day, DeSmet flew back down to Ensenada in his private plane. The two of them had played a round of golf, then eaten supper together, and DeSmet made his pitch again. In the morning, Masters agreed. From that day on, according to Reyes, Masters was a different man. The change was mostly subtle, but on occasion it was glaring: He would do and say things that were very unlike him. The mission to stop Prudential's investigation was an example. Reyes had objected vehemently, but Masters had been the managing partner. After Masters and his team had taken off for L.A., Reyes had called Tischenberg-Hinz, and they'd talked about dissolving the partnership.
I could see Steinhorn's motivation now. His family had been killed by terrorists. He'd been ripe for recruiting. Then things had gone sour, gotten worse and worse, and at the end he'd done what he could toward making it right.
* * *
As far as the LAPD connection was concerned, five second- and third-echelon officials had knowingly and deliberately conspired with the SVI to have the three racketeers murdered. In the project to kill the investigation, they'd operated through several lower-ranking officials who were aware that the orders they were carrying out were illegal, but didn't know the details. A total of eleven officials are in prison on assorted convictions of criminal conspiracy, racketeering, and murder.
Aquilo Reyes, Eustaquio Tischenberg-Hinz, and most of their agents, have been tried and sentenced by the Mexican government on a variety of charges.
Prudential collected the agreed-upon nominal fee from Lane County, and a sizeable fee from the feds, based on a previous court decision. We got substantial payment from the city of Los Angeles for exposing the criminal activities in the department, and settled for goodwill from the Mexican government, which legally owed us nothing. We also collected the completion fee from Butzburger, who came to the hospital and wished me well.
Finally we collected headlines galore. Prudential is now, beyond a doubt, the most famous investigation firm in the world. Joe's having to turn down contracts, while he recruits and reorganizes for a larger scale of operations. He's rented another floor in our building, too. I ended up with a promotion to senior investigator, and mixed emotions. For one thing, terrorism, foreign and domestic, is a curse of our times. And while SVI's activities were themselves a kind of terrorism, they may actually have had the effect of reducing terrorism overall. It's hard to honestly know. At any rate, their original impulse was understandable.
A couple of days after the shoot-out, I had an orderly wheel me in to visit Steinhorn. There was a pair of federal marshals guarding his door. I thanked him for not letting Masters kill me, and he said someone had to do something before things got any worse. After that I apologized for sucker punching him, and he told me to stuff it, that a sucker punch was the least he'd had coming. Then he kind of half grinned, we shook hands, and I left. I couldn't think of anything else to say, and he had stuff on his mind. He's in prison now in Mexico.
Tuuli got to the hospital on the night of shoot-out day. She'd learned about it not by any psychic route, but on the six o'clock news from Phoenix. The only (possibly) psychic element in it was, she'd never watched the six o'clock news in Arizona before. She "just happened to turn it on that day." When I asked if she'd influenced the psychic photographer, she said, "What psychic photographer?," and made me tell her about it.
Oh, and DeSmet suicided the evening after the shoot-out—shot himself through the brain. Sad. He'd been an able man, and apparently a good one, a decent one, most of his life. But that's history now. I've got a new case, not as interesting as that one, but nowhere near as dangerous. So. Are we done? . . . Good. Then if you can give me the antidote, I'll get out of here and go to Gold's for a workout. My damn weight's slid up five pounds again.