BAD DEEDS: A Dylan Hunter Thriller (Dylan Hunter Thrillers) (28 page)

“Bombs away,” he said as he clicked the “Send” button on the doctored message and watched it vanish from the screen.

He had one more task. From the office’s walk-in closet he rolled out a tray table containing a military-grade, full-spectrum radio receiver. He plugged it in, got it running, and adjusted it to scan between several specific frequencies.

One frequency was set for the bug that he had hidden in the thermostat in Sloan’s CarboNot office. Its signal was amplified by a relay transmitter he had attached to a solar panel on their roof.

Another frequency was set for the bug in the radon detector that he had installed unobtrusively in Gavin Lockwood’s office. Its signal was amplified by a relay transmitter hidden in the basement of the building housing Nature Legal Advocacy.

The last frequency was set for the bug inside the bust of John Muir on Jonathan Weaver’s desk at the EPA. Unlike the others, its signal had started up on a timer delay, so that it would pass through security undetected. That signal was amplified by a relay transmitter housed in a nondescript, locked metal container bearing the stenciled words “EPA AIR QUALITY MONITORING,” along with the agency logo. He’d placed it beside some water control meters in a courtyard outside the Ariel Rios Building.

The scanner test showed that all the transmitters and bugs were functioning.

He checked the time. Almost midnight. Nothing much would happen over the weekend.

He turned off the receiver, powered down the laptop. Got up, stretched, and yawned. It would be nice to get a couple nights of uninterrupted sleep. He would need it for what lay ahead.

Now, the only thing left to do was to provoke them to communicate with each other.

He had already planned the provocations.

Dick Wilson peered ahead through the smeared windshield. That, the sleet, and the weak street lights in the business park made it hard to see a damned thing.

“You spot it?”

“Not yet.” Andy Elias sat next to him in the cab of the truck. “I think it must be up past that next building on the right.”

Dick tapped the gas a little more, and the flatbed hauling its heavy, oversized load moved forward. They drifted past the two-story office building to a flat-topped, single-story one. It was obviously new—no grass in front, just lumpy dirt frosted with a few patches of snow. Just beyond it, a driveway curved into a parking lot.

“There he is,” Andy said, pointing. Dick leaned forward and spotted him—a guy standing under a light in the lot, next to an SUV. He hit the turn signal—just habit, nobody out here on a Saturday night—and moved down through the gears, slowing the rig to make the wide turn into the lot. He pulled up beside the guy and rolled down the window.

“Where you want it?” he yelled out over the idling engine.

The guy wore a parka with the fur hood up, half-masking his face against the sleet. “Offload it right over there, near the edge of the lot.” He pointed.

It took Dick a bit of back-and-forth to position the rig. Then he shut it down and set the brakes. He and Andy got out and unhooked the four tie-down chains from their anchors, followed by the tie-downs on the boom and bucket. They lowered the ramps onto the pavement. Andy climbed into the machine on the bed, powered it up, raised and curled up the bucket, then eased it down the ramps while Dick guided him.

The guy walked up, face tilted down against the sleet. “I really appreciate you delivering it all the way out here at this ungodly hour.”

“Hey, you’re paying for our O.T.,” Dick said, laughing.

“Mind if I take a quick peek inside?” the guy asked. “We can do the paperwork in there.”

“Like I said, we’re on your clock.”

They stepped up on the track and Andy opened the door to the operator cab for them. It was a squeeze for them all to fit.

The guy took off his glove and stuck out his hand. “I’m Rob.” He kept the hood on; Dick could only make out his grin in the darkened cab. They went through the introductions.

“Why you need this delivered now?” Andy asked. “You working Sunday?”

Rob laughed. “Crazy, isn’t it?” He nodded toward the building. “We just put up that place. Now they get a big new contract and decide they don’t have enough space. So we gotta start on the new foundation and work 24/7 if we’re gonna get the expansion wing up by late April.”

“They must have money to burn,” Dick said. “What do they do?”

“You know—the usual thievery.”

They all chuckled.

“I got the paperwork here for you to sign,” Dick said, reaching inside his jacket.

“And I gotta pen here,” Rob said, reaching into his shirt pocket.

“You just initial there, and there—that’s the rental liability and damage waivers. Then you sign down there at the bottom … Okay, I see you left them a big deposit. If you keep the digger out here over a week, they’ll take whatever extra you owe out of your refund.”

Rob paused, pen in hand. “I won’t need it that long.” He reached out with the pen and tapped the joystick controls. “These things handle a lot easier than when I was a kid. You shoulda seen what my dad had to work with.”

“He in construction?”

“Yeah. Big Mike—that’s what everyone called him—he ran his own company.”

Rob leaned down again and scrawled his name on the paper.

“There you go. Thanks again. You guys did me a big favor, comin’ out here this late on a Saturday night. Here—let me give you a few bucks extra. Go buy yourselves a beer and thaw out before you go home … Naw, take it—I insist.”

“Well, thanks,” Andy said, smiling and pocketing the twenty. “I sure hope this job is worth your while.”

Dick saw Rob’s teeth flash again in the dark.

“It ain’t work if you enjoy what you do.”

It took a few minutes for them to maneuver the big flatbed out of the lot and down the street. He watched them go. Then he turned to the excavator perched on the pavement. It was similar to an oversized backhoe that ran on tracks, like a bulldozer. From a distance in the dim, misty light, it looked like a mechanical brontosaurus.

He climbed back into the cab, settled into the seat. He hadn’t been at the controls of anything like this since he was a teenager, with his dad, Big Mike, beside him to show him how and to make sure he didn’t screw up. But you could learn almost anything these days from YouTube.

He closed his eyes for a few seconds, recalling the sequence in the video clip he had seen posted. He pushed forward a red handle at his left, freeing the lock. Then turned the ignition switch on the console to his right. A brief high-pitched squeal, and the engine was running.

Tentatively, he pulled back the right-hand joystick. The boom rose smoothly and obediently, lifting the basket from the pavement where Donnie had rested it.

Now to get this beast moving
.

He wanted to go forward, so he put his hands on the twin sticks in front of him—one controlling each of the tracks—and pushed them forward. The excavator began to roll backward.

Damn.

He stopped, remembering the video. Counterintuitively, the controls worked in the opposite direction. He pulled the sticks back, toward himself, and the big machine began to roll forward.

So far, so good …

He released the right-hand stick, pulling the left one only, and it began a slow pivot. When it was facing the back of the parking lot he pulled back on both sticks again, and it lumbered forward. He went off the pavement and across the soil, maneuvering into position behind the building.

He stopped there. It took a few minutes to get the hang of the SAE joysticks, which maneuvered the boom and its bucket. He pulled back the right-hand joystick to raise the boom high, moved it right to open the bucket, then pushed the left-hand joystick forward, extending the boom outward.

Taking another deep breath, he pulled back on the other sticks and the excavator rumbled across the frozen earth toward the back wall of the building. When he was close, he stopped again.

He pushed the right-hand joystick forward, and the bucket came crashing down onto the roof of the offices of Capital Resources Development.

It made a lot of noise. He winced. Even though the business park was a good distance from any residential area, sound carried at night. It wouldn’t be long before somebody wondered who in hell was making such a racket so late on a Saturday night. He’d have to hurry.

Fortunately, ripping a building apart took infinitely less time and expertise than putting one up.

Gavin Lockwood sprawled across his padded wicker sofa in the big glass-enclosed porch of his estate. A half-empty crystal coffee cup rested on a glass-topped table nearby, and the Sunday
Post
lay at his feet in scattered remnants on the polished oak floor. Last night’s wintry mix had pushed off to the east, leaving clear skies. Though it was still frigid outside, the morning sun had warmed the porch enough that he felt quite comfortable lounging out here in his monogrammed green silk bathrobe, a recent birthday present from Selena.

From the house’s perch atop the hill he watched the sun dance on the Severn River below. He loved the water. He much preferred this big Arts and Craft home, just a few miles north of downtown Annapolis, to his two-bedroom apartment at the Watergate, which, though smartly appointed, had a city view and felt claustrophobic. That place was a reluctant necessity; a daily commute into the D.C. office of Nature Legal Advocacy from out here was too inconvenient. But this was his weekend retreat.

The home had been in his family for generations. He’d inherited it along with a formidable trust fund, both fruits of his grandfather’s department-store fortune. His eyes scanned the five acres that sloped down to the river, finding rest on another byproduct of that wealth:
Sundancer
, his 60-foot Bermuda Cutter, tied up at the dock. He couldn’t wait for summer, when he could take her out, put up her sails, and feel the spray in his face.

His gaze moved to the lot next door. It was still undeveloped, and Lockwood was determined that it would stay that way. It had been part of a large estate whose owner had died without a proper will, letting the place fall into ruin during a decade of legal battles among the heirs. A few years ago the house had been torn down, and the land was subdivided and sold off piecemeal. Now, young oaks and maples had taken over the adjacent parcel, providing spectacular fall color against the blue of the river, and a buffer against the intrusive sight of other homes. But three months ago some Wall Street shark had bought the parcel, aiming to put up a summer home.

It incensed him that some rich bastard could just waltz in here, knock down all those trees, stick up some garish McMansion, and mar his commanding southern view of the river. Just one more incremental crime against the environment. So he’d spoken to local conservation groups, the zoning board, and the planning commission. For openers, he demanded a wildlife audit on the property and a study of potential hazards from runoff into the river during the construction. One way or the other, he was determined to raise legal obstacles and regulatory compliance costs to the point where the guy would give up and go away.

He sipped his coffee, finding it had grown cold. He was weighing the wisdom of a third cup when Selena rushed onto the porch, startling him. She wore pink exercise sweats and an alarmed expression.

“It’s Senator Conn,” she whispered, his own cell phone outthrust in her hand. “He sounds
really
upset.”

He sat bolt upright and grabbed the phone.

“Good morning, Senator. I trust that … Well, no. I haven’t watched any …”

His grip tightened on the phone.

“They did
what?”

Ed Cronin sat on his bed tying his sneakers when his cell buzzed. He fished it from his pocket and saw that it was his partner, Erskine. He frowned.
On a Sunday morning?

“Yeah, Paul.”

“You see that new
Inquirer
article yesterday by our old pal Dylan Hunter?”

When Erskine opened a conversation this way, it was never to bring good news.

“About CarboNot—that ‘green energy’ company. Sure. Why?”

“You know how we both thought he might be involved with the vigilantes, until you said you got confidential information that ruled him out?”

Cronin felt a stab of guilt.
No, Paul—I didn’t rule him out. But I was ordered to tell you that.
“What about it?”

“Well, I just heard some news that has me thinking maybe you were too hasty.”

“Paul, I have to take my kid to a basketball game. Don’t tell me another dirtbag just got whacked.”

“No, nobody whacked. But last night, somebody takes a backhoe or something like that, and he, or they, use it to demolish the offices of Capital Resources Development.”

The name rang a faint bell. “What’s that got to do with Hunter?”

“Okay, in his article about CarboNot he also mentions this other company, Capital Resources. Remember? The one he says is involved in private land grabs up in Pennsylvania?”

“I remember now. Well, they must be making a lot of enemies. Maybe somebody wanted to get back at them. Again, what’s that got to do with Hunter, or the vigilantes?”

“How’s this: Remember all the news clips left behind at the vigilante crime scenes, and how a lot of them were written by Hunter?”

Cronin pulled in a slow breath. “You’re about to tell me this latest Hunter article was found at the vandalism scene.”

“Bingo. And not just that. They also leave a sign behind, planted right on top of the rubble. In big red letters: ‘PRIVATE PROPERTY—NO TRESPASSING.’”

Oh shit …

Erskine continued. “So we have this Hunter article. Then somebody demolishes the office of this company he mentions in that article. And they leave a message at the scene, suggesting their motive. Sound familiar?”

“Unfortunately.”

“I mean, if they just wanted simple revenge, they torch the place, right? But this backhoe stuff, and the clipping, and the sign—that’s ritualistic. Symbolic. The same M.O. as before.”

“You’re right … Okay, Paul. I’ll talk to him.”