I zoomed the computer in on the street.
The man lived only two blocks outside of the hot zone.
And his name was Austin Hunter.
Creighton Melice attached the video of Cassandra Lillo to the email message he’d prepared for Austin Hunter and pressed
“send.”
Overall, Creighton thought he did an amazing job on the piece, but he doubted Hunter would appreciate the time he’d spent to get it right. Creighton opened the door that led to the main section of the warehouse to check on Cassandra. No change. She was secure.
She wasn’t going anywhere.
Then he went back to wait for confirmation that the email had gone through. While he waited, he sharpened the narrow six-inch-long metal shiv. It would need to be sharp-very sharp-in case Shade told him to switch to Plan B.
23
I needed to confirm some of my suspicions before calling Aina.
We tracked down the navy’s human services division and they emailed both Lien-hua and I a copy of Austin Hunter’s personnel files and military service records. We each pulled them up on our own computers so we could examine them at the same time.
“So,” I said. “Served for fourteen years-missions in Ecuador, South Africa, Afghanistan, even two excursions into North Korea.
Diversionary Tactics. Covert surveillance. Spent two years as a SERE instructor: survival, evasion, rescue, and escape. This guy is the real deal. But then, on a training exercise, he fractures his left fibula and-”
“Look at this.” Lien-hua pointed to the screen. “Paragraph 3-ba.
The navy covered the cost of his surgery and physical therapy, but after he recovered, they pulled him out of SEAL Team 3 and gave him administrative duty.”
I shook my head. “The guy was one of the most highly trained, elite fighters in the world, and they stick him in a cubicle to send faxes and transfer phone calls. They must have known he would resign as soon as his commission was up.”
“Which he did.” She was reading right along with me. “I guess the navy doesn’t want to worry about a SEAL’s old leg injury slowing him down on a covert op somewhere. And, of course, after his honorable discharge, he was no longer their problem. Since he didn’t complete twenty years of service-no retirement.”
“And since his leg injury wasn’t a permanent disability-no medical coverage, either,” I said. “So after spending his entire adult life as a SEAL, he leaves the special forces with nothing except for a set of nontransferable skills. I mean, what kind of job do you get after that? Night watchman? Maybe a bodyguard? Private investigator maybe?”
Lien-hua had set her computer to the side and stared introspec-tively out the sliding glass doors of the hotel room. “Not a guy with his service record.”
“Mercenary?” I said. “Or maybe work for a private security firm in the Middle East? At least then you can still blow up buildings and shoot wicked-cool guns without anyone asking a whole lot of irritating questions.”
“Did you just say wicked-cool?”
“I heard Tessa say it one time.” Then I remembered what Tessa had said to me the night before: It feels good. It’s what you do.
It’s what you like. “Or maybe,” I said to Lien-hua, “you just start burning down civilian buildings, because it’s who you are and you can’t turn it off.”
We called Aina and gave her an update on everything we’d discovered. All the evidence so far was circumstantial, but at least it was a place to start. “We’ll send a car over to Hunter’s place,” Aina said. “Have a talk with him. Good work.”
“Great,” I said. “Let us know what you find out.”
After we ended the call, I took a deep breath. “Well, it looks like we can take a little break.”
“Good,” she said. “Because you need a shower. And I need to get out of these smoky clothes.”
“All right. I’m supposed to meet Tessa at ten o’clock downstairs for brunch. Why don’t you join us? Maybe we’ll have heard something about Hunter by then.”
She accepted the invitation, left to change clothes, and I headed to the shower.
But instead of relaxing, I kept wondering what Hunter’s connection might be to the guy who started the fire last night-or if it was really a different arsonist after all.
Creighton checked his watch again.
9:00 a.m.
OK, that should be enough time.
He picked up his phone and dialed Austin Hunter’s mobile number. Shade had found a way to route the call so it would appear to Hunter that it was coming from Cassandra’s cell so he was confident Hunter would answer.
A man picked up. “Cassandra? Where are you? You were supposed to meet-”
“It’s not Cassandra.” Creighton didn’t bother masking his voice.
It wouldn’t matter in the end.
“Who the-?”
“Listen to me carefully-”
“Where’s Cassandra? Tell me-”
“Interrupt me again and I guarantee you’ll be sorry.”
“You work for Drake, don’t you? That’s what this is about?”
“We’re getting to that.” Creighton made note of the name-
Drake. Could that be Shade? Maybe. He could look into all that later, but for now, he needed to stick to the script. “Listen to me, Austin. You were supposed to meet Cassandra Lillo for breakfast three hours ago, but she didn’t show up. You waited thirty-five minutes before leaving Cabrillo’s-”
“Where is she? I swear to G-”
“Don’t blaspheme. I get impatient when people blaspheme. And when I get impatient, bad things happen. Check your email. I’m guessing you have your computer with you?”
Creighton waited as Austin Hunter fumbled around with his laptop. He heard the corny little tune as it booted up, and then the chime announcing that the email had arrived. “Play the video, Austin.” Creighton waited. The video was one minute and fifty-two seconds long. He watched the time tick by on his watch. At about forty seconds he heard a gasp. At one minute, Hunter exclaimed, “Oh, my G-”
“I warned you about blasphemy once. I won’t warn you again.”
Creighton waited until he was sure the video was over, especially the last ten seconds. “Now, listen to me very carefully-”
“You’re messing with the wrong man. As soon as I find you-”
“I said listen. All this interrupting is making me impatient.”
Another pause. “Let me talk to her. I want to know she’s alive.”
Creighton had expected that request. He passed through the door, walked to where he was keeping Cassandra, and held the phone up to the glass. “Austin wants to talk to you,” he called.
“Austin?” Her voice was muffled but audible. She was sob-bing.
“Cassandra, where are you?”
“Please.” She struggled to spit out the words. “Please, Austin.
He’s going to kill me-”
“Cassandra!”
Creighton retraced his steps to the manager’s office of the warehouse while Cassandra continued to cry out, then he closed the door and cut her off. “Actually, I said I was going to kill her slowly. She forgot that last part.”
“Where is she? Tell me where she is, you freakin’-” This time Austin cut himself off in mid-curse. He must have realized he was making the man on the other side of the phone upset.
Good. That meant he was finally ready to hear the conditions.
“Austin, do you know the etymology of the word deadline?
It’s very fascinating. Before it came to mean ‘the time before which something must be completed,’ it meant ‘the line over which you must not pass.’” Creighton would never have phrased things like this. He would have been a lot more blunt. But for now he wanted to stay on Shade’s good side and since he figured somehow he’d be listening, Creighton recited Shade’s script word for word. “In a Civil War prison, the ‘dead line’ was a boundary line that you were not allowed to cross, and if you did, you’d be shot on the spot. No one who passed the dead line would survive. Are you following where this is going?”
“What do you want from me? Why are you doing this? Is it because of last night?” The change in tone told Creighton that Mr.