Ark Storm (40 page)

She headed for the bathroom, turned on the shower. No hot water. After two minutes standing in a stream of freezing cold water, she felt half human again.

She pulled on her jeans and, reluctantly, Dan’s cashmere jersey. It smelled of him.

“Damn him” she muttered, “and the surfboard he rocked up on.”

She found Dwayne in the kitchen making coffee. He turned, smiled at her.

“You look surprisingly alive.”

“Miracle of plumbing,” she mumbled. “Cold water cure.”

“Yeah. New boiler comes next week.”

“Hey, softie, who needs hot water anyway?”

“This one,” replied Dwayne gruffly, handing Gwen a steaming mug.

Dwayne scraped out a can of tuna and sweet corn for Leo. The dog gave the man a grateful look and fell to eating with slobbery enthusiasm.

Gwen sipped her coffee. “Two of these and I should be fit to drive.”

Dwayne took the cup from her, held her arm. “About that…”

“Hey, don’t fuss me! I’ll be fine.”

“Sure you will, Boudy. Always are. Car’s gone.”

“What?” Her voice had shot up an octave. “What the hell d’you mean?”

She pulled free, rushed outside into the slanting rain, let loose a tirade of swear words Dwayne hadn’t heard since he was in the SEALs.

Gwen turned, hand on hips, wild eyed, water streaming down her face and body. “Whichever fucker took my car is gonna have a short life. I swear to God!”

“Call it in,” said Dwayne, squinting through the rain.

“Yeah, call it in. My parent’s car,” she said, her voice breaking. Tears burned her eyes. She blinked them away furiously. Dwayne came, took her in his arms, and walked her indoors. He kicked the door closed behind them and stood with her, both of them dripping onto the bare linoleum. He said nothing. Just held her.

“I’ll put the word out. Get it back. You call it in. I’ll call in some favors. Street and cops. We’ll get it back.”

109

Gwen and Dwayne sat on packing crates in the empty den, making their calls. Gwen used Dwayne’s landline, he used his cell phone. She missed her cell, felt ridiculously incomplete without it. It took Gwen five minutes to discover that her car was trashed. A burnt-out shell found on Via Malpaso.

She turned to Dwayne, fists clenched.

“Joy fuckin’ riders. Trashed it. I swear to God if they were in this room I would kill the fuckers.”

Dwayne gave her a gentle pat. “Real good thing they are long gone then, Boudy. Not worth doing time for.”

“You know what that car meant.…” She felt the tears threaten again.

“I know. Nothing can replace it. No amount of money.”

She nodded. Swallowed. She drank another coffee, mind seesawing through emotions and plans. Dwayne left her. He started work upstairs. Over the wind and rain she could hear him working with a power saw. It was a curiously reassuring sound. Life went on. Good things happened.

Where to now? Gwen pondered. She didn’t want to go home. Dan might be there waiting. The fuckers surveilling him might be there waiting. She didn’t want to hand it over to the police either, not that there was anything concrete to hand over. Now she wanted a measure of personal vengeance. She wanted to go to Falcon. She wanted to confront Messenger, to bring this whole fucking charade to an end. She wanted to tell him what she knew, throw it in his face, read him for the truth or for the lies, the cover-up she thought would follow. She wanted to smash something, to right the wrongs, today’s, yesterday’s. She’d heard tell of the red haze, the killing haze of fury. She felt it now. Contained, but burning. She was a danger, she knew it. To herself as much as to anyone else.

She used Dwayne’s phone again, called a cab. It came ten minutes later. Standing in the open doorway, rain sweeping in, Dwayne saw Gwen off with a hug and a loan of a fifty. All her cash was in the pocketbook she’d idiotically forgotten at Dan’s.

“See you later?” Dwayne asked.

“Yeah. Got some business to see to first, but if it’s OK I’d really like to crash here for another day or two.”

“Mi Casa,” said Dwayne with an extravagant sweep of his arms.

Gwen grinned, reached up, kissed his cheek.

“
Hasta Luego,
Buddy.”

“Where to, lady?” asked the driver, eyeing Leo with a frown. Afghani by the look of it. Good looking, educated. Probably had a doctorate, like her. Christ the world was fucked up.

“Carmel Valley Road,” she said. “Ten dollars extra for my dog.”

The man smiled, nodded to his backseat.

Gwen and Leo got in. Gwen strapped herself in, rolled down her window. Leo hunched at her feet. The cab pulled out of Dwayne’s side street onto the main drag. It lurched as the wind pummeled it, making the driver swear in some low, guttural language. Gwen leaned against the door, looked up at the sky. All she could see was rain.

110

THE LAB TUESDAY, 9:30 A.M.

Gwen swung shut the taxi door and strode to the entrance of Falcon Capital. Leo ran with her, head down, tail down, a picture of misery. The wind whipped at Gwen’s hair, lashing her face. She paused outside the building. Her pass was in the pocketbook she’d left at Dan’s house. Sooner or later she’d have to get it back, but not yet. She reached out to ring the bell, paused as Atalanta rushed up behind her, braids flying.

“I’m late! I’m late!” she cried. “Hey, Dog!” she said, glancing at Leo.

“Not the end of the world,” replied Gwen, making way for Atalanta and her card with relief.

“Feels like!” cried Atalanta, fumbling for her card. “It’s
wild
out here.”

Gwen rubbed her arms, nodded.

Atalanta swiped her pass, the door clicked open, and they both found themselves propelled inside by a huge gust. Leo stepped inside, looked around cautiously at the unfamiliar place. Gwen leaned back against the door, forcing it closed. She pushed her hair from her face, saw Atalanta observing her with a frown of concern.

“What’s with bringing your dog in?”

“Long story,” murmured Gwen.

“You OK?”

Gwen waited a beat. “No, honey. Not really.”

“Anything I can help with?”

Gwen saw the sincerity, wished she could say
yes,
that a solution were so easy to grab.

“I don’t think so, but if you can, I
will
let you know.” Atalanta’s kindness cut through her anger. Below the rage, she felt raw, exposed. It wasn’t just the theft of her parents’ car, it wasn’t just Dan’s betrayal. It was the sense of threat that dogged her, had all her instincts firing.

Atalanta laid a hand on Gwen’s arm. “
Do
that.”

Gwen nodded, cut through the atrium to her office, Leo trailing her. She half expected to see Messenger there, invading her space, but there was no one. She glanced around, almost as if seeing it for the first or last time.

She watched Leo examine her office, sniffing the corners, before he circled three times then sank down onto the floor in the corner, nose on his paws, lugubrious.

Gwen reached down, ruffled his neck. “Hang on in there, boy.”

She switched on her desktop, logged on, and checked the satellite images of the approaching storm. The atmospheric river showed up as a green swath cutting across the Pacific. She wondered when it was due to make landfall. Couldn’t be long. She didn’t have much time.

She walked from her office, closing Leo in behind her. She glimpsed Kevin Barclay in his office. He seemed to be packing up, removing things from his desk drawers, placing them in a large briefcase. Running from the storm, thought Gwen.

She strode up to Mandy, eyed Messenger’s empty office.

“Where is he?”

“Well
Good Morning
to you too, honey,” responded Mandy archly.

Gwen paused a beat. She wanted to chew up Mandy. Fought it down. It would be like savaging a sheep.

“What happened to you?” went on Mandy. “Look a tad wild this morning, if I may say.”

“You may not say, Mandy,” said Gwen, bracing her fisted knuckles on Mandy’s desk. The other woman shrank back.

“Where’s Dr. M.?” repeated Gwen.

Mandy’s forehead creased. “Didn’t come in. Not answering his phone. If you gotta know, I’m kinda worried.”

Gwen straightened. “Don’t be. I’m sure Dr. M. can take care of himself. Look, I forgot my desk keys at home. Is there a master key? I need to get the laptop that Dr. M. gave me to work on.” Get it and take it to the cops, she decided.

Mandy eyed her with a look bordering on suspicion. Then she seemed to relent.

“I have the masters. Wait in your office.”

Mandy appeared a few minutes later.

“Holy Hell, what’s that?” she cried, eyeing Leo.

“He’s friendly, don’t stress,” replied Gwen, moving between her dog and Mandy as if to protect one from the other, unsure who needed protection more.

“Taking liberties, Gwen.”

“Unavoidable. The key?” she asked crisply, nodding at the jailor’s selection Mandy brandished.

Mandy rifled through the bunch, selected a key, unlocked Gwen’s desk drawer. Gwen pulled it open.

“Shit!”

“What’s up?”

“The laptop’s gone. I locked it in here yesterday.”

Mandy crossed her arms below her large bosom. “Maybe you gave it back to Dr. Messenger and forgot. Bite my head off, but you don’t look yourself,” she added truculently.

Gwen eyed Mandy. Her heart was thudding in her chest. She felt sure that Mandy must be able to hear it. She forced a smile.

“Yeah, that must be it. Thanks M.”

The other woman nodded, withdrew, a thoughtful look on her face.

Gwen sank into her chair before the empty drawer. She just sat there, staring into space, wondering. Someone had removed the model. It had to have been Messenger or Mandy.

She heard the whistling before she saw Peter Weiss. “Everybody Hurts” again. Didn’t he get sick of it, Gwen wondered? Everyone else did, silently putting up with it through gritted teeth.

Weiss ceased whistling. He stuck his head theatrically round her door.

“Whassup, Weather Girl? Hey, you got a dog!” Weiss reached down, stroked Leo. “Sweet!”

“He is.”

“Why’s he here?”

“Long story,” Gwen said for the second time. “Whassup with you?”

Weiss angled in, perched on her desk. “Same old, same old.”

“Know where Dr. M. is?” Gwen asked.

Weiss frowned. “Why should I know?”

Gwen shrugged. “’cause you know him. You’re one of his ‘intimates,’ the inner core. That’s why.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“And?”

“Maybe he’s scared of the storm. It’s a biggie already,” declared Weiss, nodding portentously, as if at an adversary’s accomplishments.

“It is.”

“You reckon it could be the one?”

“As in ARk Storm 1000?” asked Gwen, leaning back in her chair. A pulse of pain flashed across her temples. The hangover’s last stand.

“It
is
slated to be an atmospheric river storm,” acknowledged Gwen. “That much we already know. Several of those hit every year. We’ve just had one. The National Weather Service has a Warning issued—‘dangerous storm’ and all that—but the Hazard people haven’t said anything about this being the Big One.”

“They know everything?”

Gwen gave a bitter laugh. “Who does?” She got up, brushed past him, headed for the coffee machine. She wanted another caffeine hit. When she got back to her office, Weiss was gone and only the rich, sweet scent of tobacco lingered.

111

THE LAB, 9:40 A.M.

Gwen drank her coffee. It roiled through her stomach. Caffeine was the last thing she needed. She was jittery enough. She had that sense of acceleration, of events moving beyond her, way out of control. She was reacting, desperately trying for a control that she had long since lost, and she knew it. Half of her wanted to run. The other half wanted to finish this thing, whatever the fuck it was, to see all the hidden, missing parts, dig them out, almost whatever the cost.

She got up, closed her office door, something she rarely did. She didn’t care if she looked instantly suspicious. It was way too late to care. She picked up her phone, put in the call.

Riley’s assistant, Art, answered. “Hey Gwen. She’s kinda busy at the mo. They’re all looking real close at this storm. She and Hendricks are having a real donnybrook. Kicked the rest of us out of their meeting. Shoot, sorry, shouldn’t have told ya that.”

“Art, listen, please go and get her. Drag her out if you have to. Tell her it’s me and tell her it’s urgent.”

She could feel Art conjuring a flip response but something in her voice must have stopped him.

“Sure Gwen. I’m gone.”

The roar of wind and rain blended with another, lower throb. A helicopter was flying in. Gwen angled out of her chair. She peered through the window but she could see neither the copter nor whoever was arriving or leaving. Maybe it was Messenger, showing up at last. She wanted to get up and check, but forced herself to wait for Riley.

Her friend came on the line two minutes later.

“Gwen! Thank God. I’ve been trying to get hold of you. This storm’s looking ugly. I’m trying to upgrade the warnings. Fuckwit Hendrix is blocking me. I want you off Hurricane Point. Over the hills and far away.”

“You ’n’ me both, Riley.”

“Now what’s up with you? Art got all serious. Demanded I talk to you.”

“Get those warnings upgraded all the way, Riley. And listen up. Don’t interrupt, however far-fetched this is gonna sound.” Gwen took a breath, glanced round the office. No one in sight. It seemed oddly quiet.

“This storm,” she said in a low voice. “People I know have the technology to ramp it up. You guys’re probably debating whether the AR will produce rain when it makes landfall.…”

“Got it in one!”

“Well, these people can
make
it produce rain. Via ionizers. I’ve seen it Riley. I’ve seen them make it rain and God help me I’ve helped them fine-tune the model so that they can increase their rain yield. They’re gonna ramp up a storm sooner or later, trying to make a monster, and I have a horrible feeling it’s sooner.”