The Golden City Page 30

  Boone passed through the hotel lobby and took an elevator up to the two suites he had reserved on the eighth floor. No one answered when he knocked. Had his team already taken Doyle to the hospital? Why hadn’t someone called him?

  The rooms had been paid for with a credit card from a shell corporation registered in the Cayman Islands. Boone returned to the lobby and presented the credit card to the young desk clerk. He received two key cards, returned to the eighth floor and entered the first suite.

  Myron Riles, a former police officer from Texas, lay dead on the floor surrounded by a patch of blood. The second member of the team, Anthony Cannero, was sprawled on the couch with a bullet hole in the center of his forehead. The wall behind him looked as if someone had splattered red ink on the white plaster.

  Boone drew his gun, approached the bedroom door and pushed it open. Carlos Ramirez was lying beside the bed with his head thrown back and a startled look on his face. Somehow Doyle had managed to grab the smaller man and keep him quiet while he broke his neck.

  Then what? Boone returned to the suite’s living room and noticed that chunks of foam rubber and shreds of linen were scattered across the floor. Doyle had taken Ramirez’s gun and thrust it into a bed pillow: the pillow had muffled the shots when he entered the room. And now he noticed the other details: two wallets left on the rug and an empty money belt on the couch. Both mercenaries had been wearing jeans and their pants were dark with blood. Crouching down, Boone examined their wounds. After they were dead, Doyle had shot both men in the groin.

  So where had he gone? The desert? That was the logical choice. Boone remembered the expression on Doyle’s face during the conversation that morning. I created a story for you. But the story needs an ending.

  The suite seemed unusually quiet—a kingdom of the dead. Boone considered calling the police, then rejected the idea. His image had been captured by the hotel surveillance cameras, and he had spoken to two—no, it was three—hotel employees. The police would immediately decide that Boone was the prime suspect. As for Doyle, there was no longer any evidence that he even existed: during the last few weeks, the Evergreen Foundation computer team had systematically removed Doyle’s presence from the databanks in a half-dozen countries.

  The killer had become a modern ghost, a creature that floated through the world like a phantom in a haunted house.

  Boone retrieved the three wallets with their fake IDs, placed Do Not Disturb signs on both doors, and used the emergency staircase to leave the hotel. Driving north on residential streets, he passed a two-bedroom house that looked like a miniature castle and a cottage with a six-foot high crucifix planted in the front lawn. On Lincoln Boulevard, cars were lining up at a drive-through restaurant with a giant chicken standing on the roof. Stay calm, he told himself. What is the immediate objective? He needed the packets of money left in his room at the Shangri La Hotel. Doyle would be a few hours ahead of him, heading east to the Mojave Desert.

  He called Lars Reichhardt, the director of the Berlin computer center. “I’m calling from Los Angeles. Do you recognize my voice?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Our three contract employees are no longer able to work for us in any capacity. The fourth employee, the one from Thailand, is no longer in contact with a supervisor.”

  There was a long pause as Reichhardt dealt with the implications of that statement. “I understand, sir.”

  “Our group has been using credit cards issued to a corporation registered in the Cayman Islands. I want you to cancel these cards immediately and erase any data regarding this company.”

  “That will take some work, sir. We’ll need to enter a bank database.”

  “Then get on this right away. We have only a few hours until these personnel issues become public knowledge.”

  He tossed his phone onto the passenger seat and slowed down for a light. There was about $20,000 in his hotel room. After he found Doyle—and killed him—he would try to step off the grid.

  Boone hadn’t designed the Panopticon, but he knew every room of the invisible prison. If he truly wanted to hide, he could no longer use a registered cell phone or have a conventional email account. He would have to pay cash in all situations and avoid airports and government offices. Cameras tracked him as he entered the hotel parking structure, got out of the car and hurried down the hallway to his room. Boone entered the suite and stopped. Something was wrong. The door to the kitchen was partially open, as was the door to the bedroom. Had he left them that way?

  As he drew his gun, the kitchen door swung open and a black man with dreadlocks stepped out carrying an assault rifle. It took Boone a second to recognize Hollis Wilson.

  “Put the gun on the floor, Boone. Go ahead. Nice and slow. Now take two steps back.

  “Whatever you say, Hollis.”

  “Nowadays, I’m called ‘Priest.’ But you shouldn’t worry about that. Put your hands behind your back and lock your fingers together. Good. That’s good.”

  The bedroom door opened and Maya came out carrying a shotgun. Boone remembered when he saw in her Prague striding down the cobblestone streets. Only a year had passed, but she looked much older. And now he was going to die for causing her father’s death.

  The Harlequin picked up his automatic and thrust it into her waistband. “Did you search him?” she asked Hollis.

  “Not yet.”

  Maya placed the shotgun on the couch and a stiletto appeared in her right hand. She approached him quickly and Boone waited for the shock of the blade sliding between his ribs. Instead, she used the knife like an extension of her hand, pushing open his jacket and finding his holster. The point of the blade glided down his outside leg and jabbed at his ankles, making sure he didn’t have a weapon there. When Maya was done, she stepped back and studied his face.

  “We thought that you’d be walking in with a few mercenaries. What’s the problem, Boone? Is the Evergreen Foundation cutting back on staff?”

  “Three of my men are dead,” Boone said. “This is an emergency. I need to speak to Gabriel Corrigan. Can you contact him?”

  The two Harlequins glanced at each other as Gabriel stepped through the bedroom doorway.

  “That can be arranged.”

  40

  A s a child, Maya had been taught to plan, but never anticipate. There was an important distinction between these two ways of thinking. When fighting with a kendo sword, she tried to be ready for anything and never assume that her opponent would behave in a certain way.

  That might be possible in combat, but it was hard to extend the lesson to the rest of her life. Ever since her father’s death, she had wondered what would happen when she finally tracked down Nathan Boone. In these fantasies, Boone was usually weak or wounded. He would admit his various crimes and beg for mercy.

  Now the real Nathan Boone was standing in the middle of a hotel suite next to a glass coffee table and a flower arrangement. The Head of Security for the Evergreen Foundation didn’t appear weak or frightened. Ignoring the two Harlequins, he answered Gabriel’s questions.

  “So you found this man, Doyle, in Thailand, and brought him back to America?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And he murdered fourteen children?”

  “No — the children are still alive. I ordered two members of my team to take them out to the Mojave Desert. We leased an abandoned gold mine near the town of Rosamond.”

  “But you were going to kill them eventually,” Priest said.

  “I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. This is an unusual situation for me.”

  “You sure as hell weren’t going to let them go.” Priest glanced at Gabriel as if to say—let me kill this bastard—but the Traveler concentrated on Boone’s eyes.

  “I understand why you couldn’t do it,” Gabriel said. “You didn’t want those children to die like your daughter.”

  “Who told you about that?”

  “The story was in all the newspapers. The estranged husband of your daughter’s teacher came to the school and shot his wife. Then he murdered sever
al of the children standing beside her.”

  Boone was breathing hard. “He hated his wife, but why did he kill the children? My daughter was innocent.”

  “A year after the incident, you joined the Evergreen Foundation,” Gabriel said. “You either found them or they found you.”

  “I got a call from Kennard Nash, and they flew me to New York. They had my file from the army and they knew about my intelligence background. Nash showed me this model of the Panopticon and explained the system. He said that my daughter would still be alive if everything was controlled and monitored. The General told me what to do and I started working. You need to understand something, I’ve always obeyed orders.” Boone spoke as this last statement was the catechism of his faith.

  “Your daughter was killed,” Maya said, “so you hired this man, Martin Doyle, to kill more children?”

  “That’s why you have to let me go. I think Doyle is driving out to the desert to finish the job.”

  Gabriel turned to Maya. “Go out to Rosamond with Boone. See if you can save the children.”

  “Maybe he’s lying, Gabriel. We don’t even know if Martin Doyle exists.”

  “We’ll go over to the Culver Hotel. If the story checks out, I’ll call you on your mobile phone. You’ll know in the next twenty minutes if Boone is telling the truth.” Gabriel turned to Priest. “You’re going to help me find my brother and deal with his bodyguards.”

  Maya went into the bedroom, pulled the blanket off the bed and wrapped it around her shotgun. For a moment, she thought about calling Gabriel into the room and telling him her secret, but she quickly discarded the idea. She was going on a journey with the man who killed her father.

  * * *

  Boone and Maya walked out to the hotel parking lot and stood beside the rental car. “I’ll drive,” he said. “You can sit behind me so you can shoot me whenever you wish. The best moment will be when we reach the entrance to the mining site.”

  Maya waited until Boone got behind the steering wheel, then slid into the back and placed her shotgun on the seat. She drew Boone’s automatic and clicked off the safety. It annoyed her that he was right—the best time to kill him was when the car stopped at the mine. But she could also make up an excuse and tell him pull to turn off the road when they were close to their destination. She would have to make her decision in an hour or so.

  By now, she was used to the Los Angeles landscape—so unlike London or Rome. Its freeways were massive rivers that flowed though parks and neighborhoods. Signs for car washes and smog testing centers were everywhere. In the Vast Machine, both cars and humans were moveable objects that could be tracked.

  Her mobile phone rang and she heard Priest’s voice. “Where are you?”

  “On the freeway, heading east.”

  “The man you’re traveling with told us the truth. We just found three dead rats.”

  “Get out of there and help our friend find his brother. I’ll call you when I get more information.”

  When she switched off the phone, Boone glanced over his shoulder. “What did Hollis Wilson say?”

  “There were three bodies in the hotel room.”

  “Doyle is clever. It’s not going to be easy to kill him.”

  “Keep driving,” Maya said. “I’ll think up a plan when we get there.”

  They turned onto State Highway 14, a four-lane road that climbed a range of eroded hills covered with dry vegetation. Every ten miles or so, a commuter town appeared with the same chain restaurants placed between a Starbucks and a McDonalds. Maya studied each new road sign, but her eyes always returned to the man driving the car. The best moment will be when we reach the entrance to the mining site.

  “You killed my father.”

  “That is correct. I tried to get his cooperation, but it didn’t work. Thorn was a very stubborn man.”

  “You would have killed him anyway.”

  “Correct. There was no logical reason to keep him locked up somewhere.”

  Boone glanced in the rearview view and changed lanes. His calm voice, his lack of emotion, reminded her of one particular person—her father.

  “I am planning to kill you,” she said. “But in some ways you’re already dead. You’re a cardboard box with nothing inside. You don’t care about anyone, and no one cares about you.”

  “I cared about my daughter.” For the first time, Boone’s voice was hesitant and filled with pain. “I would have died for her that day, but I lived. I don’t know why I lived.”

  They came over the hills and saw the shops and street lights of the two adjacent communities of Palmdale and Lancaster. This was the farthest extension of the suburban sprawl—a daily commute from downtown Los Angeles to single family house with a hungry mortgage. But the moment they passed through this area, the Mojave Desert surrounded them. The only bright features in this region were illuminated billboards for Indian casinos and plastic surgeons. Change Your Looks! Change Your Life! shouted one of the signs, and a photograph of a surgeon named Dr. Patmore grinned like a smooth-skinned idol of perfection.

  Rosemond was a desert community for the pilots and military personnel who worked at Edwards Air Force Base. The population was so mobile, so impermanent, that they passed a lot where pre-built houses had been placed on trailers. They turned off the freeway, glided past a shopping center, and took a right turn near the local high school. Twisted Joshua trees lined the road and a mountain with three peaks was visible in the distance. The mountain was separate from everything else, so deliberate that it looked as if the earth had rejected something malignant and thrust it upward toward the sky.

  Boone turned off the paved road and stopped at a cattle gate with a large sign. Private Property! Trespassers will be prosecuted.

  “This road goes up the mountain to the mining site.”

  “How far away is it?”

  “Three or four miles.”

  “Switch off the headlights and go slowly.”

  Boone opened the gate, got back in the car, and drove up a dirt road that led to the mountain. Light came from the stars and moon, but the road was overgrown with weeds; it would be easy to get lost. After the first half mile, Maya rolled down a side window. She could hear cicadas and the crunch of their tires on patches of gravel.

  Boone stopped at the entrance to the abandoned gold mine halfway up the mountain. A cyclone fence topped with strands of razor wire surrounded the mining claim and no “trespassing signs” were everywhere. Someone else had arrived earlier; a red sedan was parked in front of gates held together with a lock and chain.

  They both got out of the car. Now that Boone had guided her to the gold mine, there was no longer any need for his existence. The shotgun was a noisy weapon. She should draw one of her knives and slit his throat.

  “He’s here,” Boone said. “This is one of the rental cars driven by my employees. Doyle took the car after he killed the men at the hotel.”

  Maya stepped away from the gate and looked up the slope. Outdoor lights marked a winding pathway to the top of the mountain.

  “Who’s guarding the children?”

  “I left two employees here. They’ll be suspicious if Doyle shows up alone.”

  Boone returned to the red sedan, opened the door and inspected the garbage Doyle had left on the passenger seat. Maya touched the outline of the stiletto hidden beneath her jacket, but she hesitated and left the knife in its sheath.

  Let fate decide, she thought, and pulled out the random number calculator hanging from her neck. An even number would cause his death; an odd number would postpone the decision. She pushed the button. 3224 flashed on the screen. The random number indicated death, but it caused a counter-reaction that was immediate and certain. This isn’t what I want, she thought. This isn’t who I am. She concealed the device before Boone emerged from the car. “I found some sterile bandages and gauze.”

  “Do you think one of your men wounded him?”

  “I doubt it. Doyle probably bought a knife and cut out the tracer beads inserted beneath his skin.”

  Maya reached into her waistband and pulled out
Boone’s automatic. He stood calmly—as if he expected to be executed—but she reversed the weapon and handed it to him. “Don’t make any noise as we walk up the hill. We’ll become an easy target the moment we step into the light.”

  Priest had supplied her with a sawed-off shotgun that had a leather carrying strap. It reminded her of the lupara that men carried in Sicily. She slipped the strap over her shoulder, jumped onto the chain, and slipped through the gap between the two gates. Boone followed, and they headed up the hill to the mine. The air was cold and clear and smelled like sage. The only noise came from the mine’s power generator; it sounded like a puttering lawn mower that some confused citizen had left in the middle of the desert.

  The first building was a clapboard house with a sheet metal roof. Light glowed through the old newspapers taped to the windows. “What’s inside?” Maya asked.

  “This where the two guards sleep and cook their meals.” A wooden plank creaked when they stepped onto the porch. Maya tried to peer through the windows, but the newspapers completely covered the glass. She raised the shotgun and whispered to Boone. “Open the door and step away.”

  He turned the knob slowly, then pushed the door open. Maya charged inside. The house was one long room filled with a refrigerator, a propane stove and a kitchen table. A dead man lay on the floor next to an overturned chair. A blotch of dark blood was the middle of his white T-shirt and there was a second wound below his belt buckle.

  “You know him?”

  “He’s a former Austrian policeman named Voss.”

  “Where are the children?”

  “We put some cots in the building where they refined the ore.”

  They returned to the darkness and continued up the hill past the stamping machinery used to crush the rocks. After the ore was reduced to gravel, it was sent through filtering screens and metal troughs, then loaded into handcarts and pushed over to the refinery shed.