“Oh.” I mulled over whether I was okay with that. I don’t like owing people any favors.
“Just don’t tell Arthur. He, uh, doesn’t like it when I do things like this.”
The mention of Tresting’s self-righteousness soured me. My conscience deciding to take on his persona was frustrating enough; I didn’t need the real-life version harping at me any more than he already had. “I don’t get it,” I complained. “I’ve seen him break more laws than I can count, and he gets all hung up on the littlest stuff.”
“Hey, he’s good people,” Checker said sharply.
“Inconsistent people,” I muttered.
“Cas Russell, you may impress me with your knowledge of Bayesian probability, but don’t insult Arthur to me, okay? Just don’t.”
Apparently I’d hit a nerve. Oh, brother. “Uh, okay.” When he didn’t say anything, I probed, “You still there?”
“Yeah.” I couldn’t read his tone.
Best get back to business. “Didn’t you need my help with something?” I’d help him with his favor as payment, I thought. Then we’d be even.
He sighed. “Arthur isn’t going to like that I’m asking you this, either.”
“Asking me what?”
“He needs backup.”
Oh, good. Backup I could handle. “Sure,” I said. “On what?” If Checker was inviting me back onto the Pithica case, that wasn’t even a favor—I would jump at the chance. Even if it meant working with Tresting again.
Checker hesitated, then said in a rush, “Polk’s tracker came back on.”
“It did? Where is she?”
“The signal’s here in Los Angeles.”
“Why would she have flown back h…” I trailed off. “You think they figured out we had a GPS on her. You think they found the tracker.”
“It doesn’t make any sense otherwise. Why would it go offline and then pop back up again? Here?”
“But that doesn’t make sense either! If they make it that obvious it’s a setup, why would they think we would be stupid enough to—”
Checker made a strangled sort of noise.
I groaned. “Tresting’s going in, isn’t he.”
“That would be a yes.”
“He thinks they’re waiting for him, and he’s going in anyway.”
“Hence the needing backup.”
“Okay. When and where?”
There was a short beat of silence, as if Checker had expected a different response, but he recovered quickly. “I’m texting you the details now, including the location and the tracker frequency. Satellite imagery was no help, unfortunately; it only shows some buildings in the middle of the desert. As for when…he’s going in tonight.”
I looked up at the stars. “Uh, it’s night already.”
“Yeah.”
“So, I’m in kind of a hurry here, huh.”
“He left a few hours ago,” said Checker. “I tried to stop him.”
His words had become heavy with worry. It made me feel strangely isolated—no one gave a damn if I decided to make a suicide run. I wouldn’t even be missed; I’d disappear into the fabric of the Los Angeles underground as if I’d never existed.
“I’d better get going, then,” I said, starting to walk faster. “Anything else I should know? Is anyone else with him?”
“I swear, I tried to get him to call in help. He got all idiotic nobility complex on me about not wanting to involve anyone else.”
That might have been why Tresting hadn’t phoned his other contacts, but I was pretty sure he’d had a different reason for not calling me. It made me perversely eager to save his bacon again. I wanted to rub it in his face. “Gotcha. Anything else?”
“Is it true?” Checker asked. “What Dawna Polk can do?”
I swallowed. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure it is.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment.
“Are you still there?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Hey, listen,” I said, trying not to let his concern for Arthur irritate me. “Stop worrying about it. I’m on my way.”
“Thank you. Really—thank you. I owe you big time. Anything you need, really, just say the word.”
Well, that might be a useful favor to call in someday. But first I’d have to make it through the night. After walking into a Pithica trap. Goddamn Tresting.
“And watch yourself, okay?” Checker added.
I blinked. I hadn’t expected him to be concerned for me, too. I doubted he would miss me if something happened, but still, it was…nice of him.
“Oh, don’t be stupid,” I said, a little too brusquely. “I’ll be fine.”
Chapter 22
I had to move fast.
The location Checker had sent was out past Edwards Air Force Base, way out in the desert north of Mojave. Not much out there, I thought—nothing but rocks and dunes and endless sky. Good place for an ambush.
The car with my Ruger and grenades under it had probably been driven off by now. I’d grab Checker’s help to track it down later, if I lived that long. I was still near enough to the Chinatown apartment to swing by; all I had left there were the crap guns from the day before and a knife, but that was better than nothing. I armed myself in less than five minutes, grabbed a few protein bars and a light jacket from the meager tangle of clothes I had there, and headed northeast in a stolen sports car.
I called Rio from the road and hit a voicemail box. I gave him all the details, then hesitated, wondering if I should apologize for breaking my word to stay off the case. After all, I had told him I would keep my head down right before doing a spectacular job of exactly the opposite.
“I’ve got to go in,” I finally said to the recording. “I, uh—I hope that doesn’t interfere with any of your plans or anything.” I didn’t have a choice, though. Stupid Arthur Tresting had forced all of our hands.
I went well above the speed limit the whole way, but it was still almost three hours before the GPS in the sports car told me I was nearing the coordinates Checker had sent. The location was off any roads, but I circled around and barely made out the outlines of an unmarked half-paved track leading into the desert. I paused the car, switching off the headlights and letting my eyes adjust to the dimness.
Cell service had dropped out miles before. I was alone out here, driving into what was almost certainly an ambush. Shit. I might pack a whole lot more punch than Pithica was expecting, but if they sprung a trap before I saw it, I’d be just as dead as someone who didn’t know any math.
As long as I had an instant to react, however, I’d have the edge. And Tresting didn’t have a chance without me, I reminded myself. I took a deep breath, every sense alert, and nosed the car forward down the makeshift road.
The GPS said I was still a few miles away. The car crunched over the rocky ground, the empty night rolling by quietly to either side. Before long a handful of buildings rose ahead, a ghost town looming out of the desert: a couple of boarded-up businesses, a graffitied gas station, a string of warehouses that had probably encouraged the town to grow here in the first place. Darkness cloaked all the buildings, and they sat heavy with the stillness of the long-since abandoned.
I let the sports car roll to a stop and watched from a distance. Nothing moved. The moon lent its gray light to the emptiness, but only showed each hulking, shadowed building as darker and more vacant than the next. I sat for a moment, measuring out likely places for danger to come from, extrapolating probable threats. Snipers? Possible, though they didn’t have many vantage points here; the lines of sight danced through my senses and crossed at poor angles. Mines in the road, as the motorcycle gang had tried? A bomb that would obliterate the entire town, one already set to detonate, one I would never even see before it went off?