Back Track (31 page)

‘I knew it. Under the skin of every millionaire beats the heart of a piker.’

‘That’s probably why they stay millionaires.’

‘Bingo,’ Raymond said. ‘We got us a hit.’

‘We’re listening,’ said Kate.

‘Well, the company was registered in Nevada on March 11, three years ago. That’s four months before they bought the vans.’ He made a face. ‘And can you believe this? It’s owned by a John Smith.’

Kate chuckled. ‘You know, that
could
be his real name. They do exist.’

‘Sure they do,’ Bishop said. But he didn’t think so in this case. He strolled over to a bare patch of wall and leaned his back against it. He was thinking about human nature, and how often even the smartest people often resorted to sentimentality. Even when it was against their best interests. And you didn’t get any more sentimental than family.

He turned to Kate and said, ‘Is Olander married? Does he have kids?’

‘Yeah. He’s still married to his high school sweetheart. She’s not the nicest person you could ever meet, believe me. Got two kids, I think. Both boys and both grown, of course. One’s a corporate lawyer in Phoenix. I don’t know about the other one.’

‘You know their names?’

‘Um. The lawyer’s Peter. The other one’s Patrick. I think.’

Not what he was after. ‘What about the wife?’

‘What about her?’

‘Would her name be Diana, or Diane? Something like that?’

Kate brought her eyebrows together. ‘No, but you’re close. It’s Dionne.’

‘And her middle name. Is it Stephanie? Or maybe Stella?’

Then Kate’s frown turned to a smile as she got it. ‘Hold on a second. Let me check.’

‘Her maiden name, too, while you’re at it.’

She nodded as she pulled her cell from her bag and pressed a number. Waited. Then she said, ‘Hey, Arnie. Yeah, it’s me. Look, you researched that Olander puff piece we did a few years back, right? You wouldn’t happen to remember the wife’s middle name, would you?’ She looked at Bishop, smiled and said, ‘Okay, and what about her maiden name?’ A moment later, she said, ‘Great. I owe you a beer, Arnie. Thanks.’

Bishop said, ‘Stella.’

‘Stephanie,’ she said. ‘Dionne Stephanie. And her maiden name was Arbor.
Distar
. Pretty cool, Bishop. So Olander sets up another company out of state to remove any annoying trails that might lead back to him. Like the change in ownership of two of Catalyst’s vans. You think he uses these vehicles for his felonious activities?’

Bishop frowned. ‘Possibly. Could be any number of reasons for wanting to hide the ownership.’

Raymond was watching each of them in turn. ‘Okay, which one of you is gonna tell me what the hell’s going on? What felonious activities?’

Kate turned to Bishop with raised eyebrows.

Bishop tapped his head lightly against the wall and tried to think why Kate shouldn’t fill Raymond in. If Neeson knew, why not Raymond? He could be a useful asset in the hours to come if he was kept in the loop.

‘Okay,’ Bishop said, pushing off from the wall. He looked at his watch. 21.34. Getting late. ‘But, Raymond, keep what you hear to yourself, okay? It’s important. Kate will explain why.’

Kate looked at him. ‘You’re going? I thought . . .’ She paused.

‘Sorry, Kate. I have to. I’m up against the clock here.’

‘Well, where are you headed? I can give you a left.’

He walked over to the hallway and shook his head. ‘You stay here and fill Raymond in. It’s only a ten-minute walk back to my car and I need some time to think. I’ll be in touch, though. With both of you.’

Raymond grinned and said, ‘Can’t wait.’

Bishop got back to his Buick and drove out to the Heritage Apartments. He parked in the same lot as before and stayed in his seat, slowly scanning the area, alert to any kind of movement. The occasional vehicle passed by behind him. Each time he noted its progress in the rear-view until it was out of sight. But other than a pedestrian here and there, he saw nothing that gave him pause. Through the rear gates he could make out that old couple again, still sitting outside their ground floor apartment. Still in the same positions. Maybe they slept there. The old guy certainly looked as though he was out for the count.

He stuck the Sig in his waistband under his T-shirt and got out the car. He walked towards the stairs and the woman looked up from her book and smiled.

‘Hello again,’ she said. ‘Nice night.’

‘Sure is,’ he said and stopped. The husband remained asleep in his chair, snoring slightly. ‘You must see most people coming in or out, right?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Anyone come around here today who didn’t belong?’

She pursed her lips. ‘Well, there was Mr Baynard at No. 12, but I’m not sure he belongs on this
planet
. Or did you mean somebody new?’

‘That’s what I meant.’

‘In that case, no. Just the same old faces. Why, are you expecting someone?’

Bishop smiled. ‘No, just checking. Thanks.’ He kept walking, took the stairs, and when he reached No. 40 paused outside the door and listened. He heard nothing. Taking the Sig from his waistband, he quickly unlocked the door and pushed it open.

He could immediately sense he was alone in the apartment, but he checked the rooms anyway. Once he was satisfied, he took a quick shower and put on some clean clothes. Black shirt, black pants, black windbreaker. He also took a Brunton pocket scope from his bag and put it in his pocket. He checked the inner pockets of the bag and smiled when his fingers found the black cotton ski mask and the roll of duct tape. They might come in handy again. Then he picked up his cell and called Vallejo.

She picked up on the fifth ring and said, ‘Hey.’

‘Hey yourself. How you doing?’

‘Not so great. I’m thinking I probably would have been better off staying with you guys and grabbing something to eat. I’m in room No. 17 now, but I’m still looking at the same four walls and thinking of Sam.’

‘In that case,’ Bishop said, ‘I’ve got something that’ll take your mind off her.’

Vallejo let Bishop drive. If something happened, the Buick was definitely the more expendable vehicle. Bishop was tired of it already. However long he kept the windows open, he could never quite get rid of the musty smell. The manual stick shift kept sticking, too.

After stopping off at a fast-food place so Vallejo could get a take-out, he took them out of town and east onto Highway 60 again. Vallejo had finished her food by the time he came to the sign for Gareth Rhodes Business Park. The clock on the dash said it was 22.19. He pulled in, turned off the headlights and cruised slowly along the paved access road, navigating by moonlight.

The main road went on for about five hundred feet before veering off to the right. Then it straightened out again. To their right was just desert. On the left were various large single-storey warehouses, broken up by smaller roads branching off from this one. By the time he’d reached the end of the main road, he’d counted three in all. And none of the warehouses he’d passed looked like the one Kate had described. There was also nobody else around that Bishop could see.

‘It probably wouldn’t be along this main section, anyway,’ Vallejo said, sipping from a large cup of coffee. ‘Too wide open.’

‘I had to check,’ Bishop said and made a U-turn. ‘Let me have some of that.’

She passed him the cup. He took a few swallows, made a face and handed it back. Vallejo’s sweet tooth was too much for him. He then took a right into the first offshoot road. It descended on a slight gradient and Bishop counted four more warehouses. Two on each side. All protected by perfunctory chain-link fencing and steel gates. Again, nobody in sight. At the end of the road, he made another U-turn and came back.

‘These warehouses all look fairly big to me,’ Vallejo said.

‘Too close to each other. Kate said Olander’s got himself a little more privacy.’

They tried the next road, which also sloped down at a slightly deeper gradient. Bishop saw three warehouses on the left, all broken up into smaller units, each with its own shuttered entrance. The first warehouse on the right was a sheet metal manufacturing business. Next to that was another one with a large
For Lease
sign affixed to the side. After that was a large lot, empty except for several parked cars, two abandoned truck trailers and three large dumpsters.

But at the end of the road, at the bottom of the gradient, Bishop also saw another warehouse with no immediate neighbours surrounding it.

‘That looks promising,’ Vallejo said.

‘Just what I was thinking.’

Bishop turned into the vacant lot and saw the parked cars weren’t parked, they were abandoned. There were four of them, all rusted by the looks of it. They either had flat tyres or no tyres at all. Further along, the trailers looked to be in a bad way, too. Clearly, this lot was a designated dumping ground. Which made it a perfect vantage point for Bishop. He parked next to one of the cars facing the end warehouse and turned off the engine.

The moon was approaching its last quarter, so visibility was reasonable. He took the scope from his pocket and pointed it down the hill. The warehouse was at least two storeys and took up a much larger area than the others. A large section of the south wall facing them was made up of a huge door that would have looked more at home on an aircraft hangar. There were also two smaller, windowless buildings to the left and right of the warehouse, with shutters instead of doors. The entire plot took up four or five acres, maybe. There was six-foot high cyclone fencing all round, with razor wire on top. There were no lights anywhere on the premises, not even spotlights. There were about fifteen vehicles parked in an area out front, close to the left-hand building. Bishop didn’t see any guards on patrol.

He took out his cell, called Kate and put it on speakerphone. When she picked up, he said, ‘It’s Bishop. I forgot to ask you what kind of car Olander drives.’

‘Well, he owns two that I know of,’ she said. ‘A BMW and one of those big Jaguars. Olander’s a bit of an Anglophile so he usually prefers the Jag. It goes hand in hand with his fake mid-Atlantic accent.’

Bishop thanked her and ended the call. He adjusted the scope’s magnification to get a better look. One of the vehicles down there definitely looked like a Jag. One of the big XJ models. Probably the only one for hundreds of miles. They weren’t exactly common.

He passed Vallejo the scope and she took a look. ‘Hmm, looks like Olander’s taking care of business personally tonight,’ she said. ‘I don’t see any of those vans, though.’

‘Maybe they keep them inside.’ Just then, he saw a gleam of light in the rear-view and said, ‘Somebody’s coming.’

They both lowered themselves and waited as a car passed by. Bishop then got up and looked through the scope. He watched the car follow the road until it stopped at the fence. A man in a suit got out and walked up to the front gate. Bishop now noticed a small keypad on a pole. The man stood in front of it, blocking Bishop’s vision, and a few seconds later the gate slowly opened. Very slowly. The man impatiently kicked at it, then got back in his car.

So the fence wasn’t electrified. That was puzzling. Bishop had expected more security. Or maybe they thought the razor wire was enough. Surveillance cameras were a possibility, but he couldn’t see how that would work without some kind of exterior lighting. Unless they were using thermal imaging cameras. But it seemed unlikely. Decent T.I. cameras were beyond most people’s budgets and they’d need a lot of them to cover such a large area. And what would be the point? It would be easier and more economical to install some muted lighting and use normal night-time cameras.

Bishop didn’t really know what to think just yet. Not without more information.

Once there was enough space, the driver drove through the gap in the direction of the other parked cars. Bishop kept the scope on the gate and saw it close as slowly as it had opened. He tracked the car again and saw it come to a stop in the parking area. The driver got out. Another man got out the passenger side. Bishop noticed movement to the left of the main warehouse and then another man emerged from the shadows. He was wearing a guard’s uniform and a side holster. He approached the two men and they had a brief conversation. Then they all walked into the shadows of the main warehouse and disappeared from sight.

Bishop lowered the scope. ‘Looks like Saturday night’s a work night,’ he said.

‘No rest for the wicked,’ Vallejo said and glanced in the side mirror. ‘Shit, here comes another one.’

They both ducked down briefly as the vehicle passed. Bishop saw it was a van this time. No way to tell the make from the back, but it looked similar to the one in the footage. The driver, another man, performed the same routine on the gate and drove on through. He parked next to the previous car, and the security guard emerged from the deep shadows again. The driver got out to talk to him, while another man exited the van’s rear door. Bishop saw him motion to somebody inside and then a woman stepped out onto the tarmac. Then another woman, with her arms wrapped tight around her chest, followed by a third man who shut the door. They were too far away for Bishop to make out any features other than gender. Then they all walked towards the main warehouse, the third man closely behind the two women.

Bishop passed the scope to Vallejo, who looked for a few seconds and said, ‘If body language means anything, I’d say those women would very much like to be anywhere but here. What do you think they’ve been doing?’

‘Who knows?’ he said.

Vallejo nodded. ‘Maybe it’s . . .’ she began, and stopped at the muffled, tinny sound of Vivaldi’s
Four Seasons
coming from the glove compartment. ‘That’s not me,’ she said.

‘Me neither.’ Bishop reached over to open the glove compartment and the music filled the car interior. Inside was a hands-free unit for his cell, a new toothbrush he’d bought earlier and Abraham’s iPhone, pulsing with light. He pulled out the phone. There was no number displayed on the screen. Obviously withheld.

He looked at Vallejo, then took the call.