Phantom Instinct (9780698157132) (14 page)

B
eneath a sky fading to deep blue, Harper sat on a wall outside the Santa Barbara Police Department. The Spanish-style building glowed white under spotlights. A dying redwood stood sentry behind her. She crossed her arms against the chill.

When the station's doors opened, she was relieved to see three men emerge: Aiden; his brother, Kieran; and the lawyer Kieran had called.

She stood up. The men approached slowly, talking in low tones.

The night felt dead. The palms hung limp. The tall antennas above the building faded into the night. The street was empty. Only a meter maid's electric cart was parked at the curb. The flashing lights and noise and dismay from the downtown sidewalk had ebbed but lingered around her like a sickly scent.

The man Aiden had tackled was named Derek Wong. He was a sophomore at UC Santa Barbara. He'd been waiting outside the restaurant for a table, there to celebrate his fraternity brother's birthday, when Aiden plowed into their party and steer-wrestled him to the ground. Wong had bruises and abrasions from hitting the pavement. The police were an unhappy bunch, perplexed and wary about Aiden.

“He's a killer.”
Aiden had shouted the words at Wong as the cops shoved him, handcuffed, into the back of the patrol car. “You're letting him escape.”

Wong just pointed at him. “Dude is crazy.”

Now, winding his way down the ramp in front of the police station, he looked drawn. The lawyer talked. Kieran looked around, hawkish, seemingly for threats, or targets Aiden might attack next. Harper felt desolate. And afraid.

She hung back when the men reached the sidewalk. The lawyer raised his hands in a calming gesture. He was a young guy wearing a button-down shirt and jeans, after-hours clothes. He was in a wheelchair. He had a matter-of-fact manner that couldn't disguise the misery of the situation.

“Lay low. Stay calm,” he said. “I'll talk to you tomorrow.”

They shook hands. The lawyer said good-bye to Kieran and headed up the sidewalk toward the parking garage.

Aiden watched him go. When he was out of earshot, he said, “You sure about him? He's a kid.”

“I've known him since he was sixteen. He worked on my boat one summer in high school. He's smart, and tough as a cast iron skillet.” He crossed his arms. “Plus, you're standing on the sidewalk, instead of in a cell or on a psychiatric hold.”

Aiden raised his hands. “Noted.”

Kieran squeezed Aiden's shoulder. Kieran's expression spoke of loss and futility. Then he glanced at Harper. He seemed unsure why she was still there, and maybe whether he should trust her and Aiden on their own.

She approached. “Glad to see you both.”

Aiden put his hands in his jeans pockets.

Kieran said, “I'm sorry I wasn't there when it happened.” He cut a glance at his brother. “Not that I could have kept an episode from—”

“Kieran, you couldn't have,” Aiden said. “Let it go.”

Reluctantly, seemingly at frayed ends, Kieran nodded. “I'll give you a ride back to your truck.”

“My weapon,” Aiden said.

Kieran looked almost theatrically at the police station. “When we get to your pickup, man.”

The drive back to the parking garage was silent. So was the ride in Aiden's F-150 back to his house on Foothill Road. In the dark cab, Harper watched the headlights scroll along the white lines on the road. Aiden's face was lit eerily by the dashboard lights, edged red. When they pulled into his driveway, she was struck by the heaviness of the foliage, the oaks leaning over the roof, the manzanita and hibiscus overgrown under the eaves. As if the house were hiding, pulling a cloak over itself. In this hilly neighborhood, where the winds scoured the ground, and the fire station posted signs warning that the fire danger was high, he had let it grow like kindling.

He turned off the engine. She got out before the moment could stretch. In the chilly air, she found her car keys. He climbed out. His door closed. She waited, but he said nothing. He stood by the truck, staring into the darkness.

She felt a draining sensation, as though a plug had been pulled. She couldn't get into her car without saying good-bye. She felt vulnerable and frightened and knew he couldn't help her the way she had wished for.

She told herself:
Straighten up and fly right.

She walked around the pickup toward him. “You gonna be okay tonight?”

“I'm not going to get drunk, if that's what you mean. Celebrate my first arrest with tequila shooters and a piñata.”

She was more concerned that Kieran had handed back Aiden's SIG Sauer. She stopped six feet from him.

He stood under the wind. The oaks dipped and hissed, and the manzanita scraped against the walls of the house. In the backyard, Cobey barked.

Aiden said, “I'm sorry you saw it.”

“You don't have to explain.”

He spread his hands. “This is where I am. This is it.”

“It's okay, Aiden.”

It wasn't. He knew that. He smiled, and it was a look as unhappy and cutting as anything she'd ever seen.

She didn't know if he wanted her to come in, or stay, or whether he was testing her, waiting to see which way she jumped. She didn't like the uncertainty. She knew that was a fault of hers, and right then, in the dark, on an empty road with a man carrying a gun, she didn't want to find out.

“I'll call you in the morning,” she said. “It's a long drive home, and I have class at nine.”

“Sure.”

She stepped toward him and he raised a hand. “It's all right. We'll talk.”

She reached for his hand, but he gave her a thumbs-up and walked toward the house. The door shut behind him with a hard click.

Aiden stood in the darkened kitchen, leaning on the counter. He heard her engine start, and then the headlights of her car swiped across the walls of his living room. She gunned the MINI into the night. Cobey barked again to be let in.

He opened the cabinet and took out the prescription bottles. He popped the lids and tipped pills into his palm and swallowed them with lukewarm water from the tap.

Don't blame her.

He stood there, lights off, moonlight floating through the windows, the trees brushing against the roof.

Two days off his meds. He'd been sloppy. He'd been arrogant. Feeling strong, feeling seduced. Feeling too much pride to let a woman see him downing the chemicals that kept his half-broken brain from frying a circuit.

He'd been so sure.

The guy he tackled, he'd been positive. This time especially. The hoodie, the jeans, the way he laughed and looked at him, eyes cold.

He shook himself. At least he hadn't blacked out with a seizure.

Even now, he could rely only on the word of the police, and his brother, and the can't-get-away-fast-enough Harper Flynn. He'd been one hundred percent convinced.

He still was, somehow. Logically, he knew the evidence was against it. But his heart and his throbbing, craptastic mind told him: Zero had tailed them. And he had disguised himself with a look that nobody would doubt—younger, Asian, laughing at Aiden and Harper all along.

But Derek Wong was not Eddie Azerov. Aiden had to believe that for now. That attorney—he found the guy's card, Jesse Blackburn—had been direct with the cops, and ready to go, and didn't look at him funny, not even for a moment. Guy with his own issues in the way people perceived him, Aiden was sure. Experienced, Kieran said. Blackburn was ready to defend him but didn't believe for a second that Derek Wong was Zero. Aiden had no chance of convincing any of them.

But if Azerov wasn't in Santa Barbara, where was he?

Cobey barked.

And Harper. Angry and confused and he saw her eyes, the way she'd looked at him, trying to pull him off the man. A look brimming with raw knowledge and fear. Harper was gone.

He opened the back door, and Cobey bounded in. Aiden dropped onto the sofa. Cobey whined and set his head on his knee.

“Christ, what a fuckup I am,” Aiden said.

E
ven with his headphones on, Oscar Sierra heard barking. He was listening to a TED talk online, but the stereo speakers were also booming out Taking Back Sunday, and the TV was running a
Doctor Who
marathon. The barking was sharp, demanding, and close. He paused the TED, stopped the music, muted the TV, and slipped off the headphones. The wind brushed against the trailer. The dog barked again.

He stood up, wary. He didn't have a dog.

He padded to the window and peeked through the curtains. Outside, things were dark—no headlights on the dirt road. His closest neighbor lived two miles away. Distant scattered dwellings were just twinkles on hilltops, like fireflies in the desert night.

He couldn't see a car parked outside, or a motorbike, or even a freakin' mule.

More barking. Definite, like a summons. This didn't sound like a stray ready to get into the garbage.

None of his business.

Except, who knew? An ashtray sat on the burnt-orange shag carpeting, full of roaches. He should probably throw them away. But his gaze strayed across his rig, the computers stacked across two tables and the desk in a corner of the living room. Four hard drives, two monitors, a laptop, and the stolen Cray, connected by cables that spread like the tentacles of the kraken. And beneath the table, the card encoders and the cardboard boxes that contained five thousand blank plastic magnetic stripe cards.

Another bark. Could be a police dog, some kind of drug sniffer or electronics sniffer or ninja German shepherd with frickin' laser beams attached to its head.

He couldn't make his rig disappear, but he could dump the roaches. Unless opening the door would mean exposing himself to police spotlights and the night scopes of fifteen DEA agents lurking outside in the cactus.

Shit, dude, you're getting paranoid.

The dog barked again.

Gingerly, Oscar opened the door. The sky was steaming with stars. Sand hissed against the rusting walls of the trailer. Ten feet from the foot of the steps stood a busted-face fighting dog, rippling brown and black, piggy-eyed, posing there like a sleek fur statue.

Whoa, he was really baked.

He inched back, and the dog growled.

“Gonna ask him in?”

The voice came from behind him in the hallway. Oscar jumped and turned, hand on the doorknob.

“Whatever. Sure.” Oscar wiped his hand under his nose. “Kind of a crap practical joke, man.”

Dude walked out of the back hallway into the living room. He must have climbed in a bedroom window. Hadn't knocked, hadn't been invited in. Oscar would have remembered inviting Eddie Azerov in. Oscar didn't think he was
that
baked.

Azerov slid around the room, eyeing the TV and computers, sniffing the air. He glanced at Oscar, flicking his head around locustlike.

“Skunky weed, Oscar.”

Another growl rolled from the darkness at the foot of the steps. “What is that?”

Azerov whistled. “Eagle, come.”

The dog bounded up the steps into the trailer and trotted to Azerov's side. It moved like silken, weighty meat. Its jowls sagged, teeth visible, gleaming with drool.

Oscar stepped back. “He have a saddle, or you ride bareback?”

“Close the door,” Azerov said.

Oscar did as he was told. He was mightily surprised. China Lake was a solid two-and-a-half-hour drive from L.A. and not a spot you dropped into on a whim. It was off almost every highway, a deliberate twenty-mile detour into the desert any way you came at it.

“Something going on?” Oscar said.

Eddie Azerov strolled to the kitchen and opened the fridge. He pulled out a bottle of Stoli. Found a clean glass in the cupboard. He came back to the living room, dropped into the Naugahyde chair, and poured himself three fingers of vodka.

He pointed at Oscar with the bottle. “Sit down.”

Oscar looked at his furniture. The sofa now sported the dog, sitting upright and alert on the center cushion, eyeing him. He took the desk chair.

“Things are cool,” he said. “I breached the firm in Hyderabad. It's the one that processes debit card transactions for Samaalbank in the United Arab Emirates. Got the account data. I already eliminated withdrawal limits.”

Eddie set the vodka bottle between his legs, propped against his crotch.

“We got the blank cards sourced,” Oscar went on, pointing at the box under the desk. “Target gift cards. I just need to program 'em with the Samaalbank data. We're solid.” Still no response. “So, once you get the cashing crews organized, you're ready to rock.”

He wiped his nose.

Azerov said, “Yeah. I know. That's not why I'm here.”

“Then what?”

“That thing last year.”

Oscar squinted to focus. “Which one?”

“Xenon.”

“Okay.”

“Your work—you know.”

Oscar leaned on his knees, trying to keep Azerov's face sharp in his vision. It was distracting, having the dog right there, jowls drooping, showing its teeth. It licked its chops, so loudly that it seemed to be speaking to him.

“I know. My work was spot-on,” Oscar said.

Zero smiled, a quick flash that reminded Oscar of good times. He got up from the recliner, holding the vodka bottle by the neck.

“I love you, Oscar. Never lived outside the Indian Wells Valley and you talk like an Englishman.” He crossed the room and affectionately patted Oscar's cheek. “You're my own little Doctor Who.”

Oscar rubbed his cheek. The dog opened its mouth. Its breathing was noisy.

“Why is he so insistent?” Oscar said.

Zero set the bottle on the desk and leaned over the computer. “Who?”

“The dog. He keeps talking to me.”

Zero was absently playing with the keyboard. He half turned.

“Careful, man, I got some stuff running,” Oscar said.

Zero raised his hands, like
no harm, no foul.
“What's Eagle telling you?”

Oscar looked at the dog. Its tongue lolled from its jowls. Its eyes were unequivocal.

“He's telling me to jump off the Rock Creek Bridge or he'll eat my heart out.”

Zero tilted his head. Sharp, like a click. “Oscar, what was in the last joint you smoked?”

Oscar shrugged. “What's got you and Eagle so twisted up that you had to come out here in the middle of the night?”

“Remember that card you mocked up last year?”

Oscar nodded. “Which one?”

“The employee swipe card from Xenon.”

“Right. Man, that turned into something surreal. I saw the news. It was . . .” What was it? The dog's breathing grew louder in his ears. “What about the swipe card?”

Zero said, “The information I gave you, to encode. You deleted it?”

“Harper Flynn? Her employee ID number, that?”

Zero turned all the way. “You remember the name?”

“Not that common. And it reminded me of, you know . . .” He shrugged. “Flynn. That last name.”

Zero nodded. Oscar got a weird feeling, like a bee stinging him at the base of his skull. The dog hadn't moved, but its eyes were talking to him again. Oscar blinked and rubbed the heel of his palm over his own eyes.

“Sierra,” Zero said. “Did you delete all the data?”

“From my machines? Absolutely, man.” He smiled, thinking:
But not from my brain.

The dog stirred. Oscar felt the stinging deeper this time.
Uh-oh.

Zero stared at him, seeming to calculate something.

Oscar's mouth went dry. “It's gone from my rig, my rack, from the cloud, poof, obliterated. Sayonara. I'm on to the next big thing, Zero. Hyderabad, Samaalbank. Want some pizza?”

His tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth. The dog said,
Think you're tougher than him?

No. Not hardly.

He pointed at the kitchen. “Meat lovers' paradise, delivered from Papa John's at lunchtime, it's still fresh. I'm gonna heat it up.”

He walked himself to the kitchen. His back itched. He could hear the dog breathing and thinking, and Zero watching him. The watching, he could hear it like a crackling in the air.

He said, over his shoulder, “Check my in-box. It's afternoon in India. Maybe Dev's had some luck. But if he's online, don't chat with him.”

“How come?” Zero said.

Oscar rounded the corner into the kitchen. “He's skittish. Won't talk to anybody but me.”

His entire body itched, a psychic itch, with a sound like teeth grinding against each other in a dog's mouth. He clattered a plate out of the cupboard and slid two curled slices of pizza onto it and slammed it into the microwave and turned the thing on, giving it two minutes at high power. It hummed like a lawn mower. He tiptoed to the door.

He called out, “There's cake. A whole sheet cake from the supermarket bakery; they were going to throw it away.”

“Stop dicking around,” Zero said.

His voice came from the desk chair. Hand trembling, Oscar turned the knob and opened the flimsy door wide enough to slide through. He twitched down the wooden steps, eased the door shut, and tried to widen his eyes to gulp down the vast black night. The light from the windows dribbled in a pool about thirty feet ahead of him. Ducking low, he speed-walked into the desert. Thinking:
Quiet, feet. Quiet. Quiet.

Twenty yards from the trailer, he gave up and ran. He ran to get out of the light, away from the dog's words, away from Zero's gaze. His legs seemed like caramel, soft and wobbly, and he knew Zero was coming before he heard the kitchen door flip open and hit the wall of the trailer and heard Zero pound down the stairs, before he heard his own breath and the sound of panting in the air and paws tearing through the sand. He ran.