59

 

HURRICANE POINT

Gwen saw off Marilyn, watched her taillights disappear up the dirt track, then she went back up to her own house. She’d left it unlocked, wondered whether the man had come here. Again she checked rooms, heart racing, flashlight aloft. But her house was empty and undisturbed, far as she could tell. Minutes later Dan’s Cougar roared up.

Gwen unbolted, unlocked her door and let him in.

“Just passed your neighbor,” he said. “Nearly sideswiped me. Woman in a hurry.”

“With cause!” exclaimed Gwen.

Dan raised a finger to his lips. He pulled her close, kissed her hard, then whispered in her ear.

“Come outside with me.”

Raising an eyebrow, she followed him out. They stood on the deck, leaning against the wooden rail, gazing into the darkness. The moon was full but the sky was cloudy; stratocumulus scudded across the curve of the sky at great speed switching the moonlight on and off like a lamp. When exposed, the moon was circled by a white corona. It should have been beautiful. Gwen could smell the salt of the ocean and the sweat of her own fear.

“What do—” Dan paused, took hold of Gwen’s arms. “You’re trembling.”

“Something else happened.”

Quickly, Gwen told him about Leo growling, her flight, her collision with the man in the darkness.

“Fuck! You see him?”

Gwen shook her head. “He was big, built. That’s all I know. He grunted when I kicked out so he’ll have a good bruise where I hit.”

“He could have killed you.”

“He didn’t try. I got the feeling he didn’t want to. He ran off quickly enough.”

Dan nodded, face grim. “What about Marilyn?”

“I think he was about to go in there and I disturbed him.” Quickly, she filled him in on what Marilyn had told her about the electrician and his van. He nodded, taking it all in, the crease between his eyebrows deepening, with anger or just concentration Gwen couldn’t tell.

“Nothing stolen?”

“Not a thing. No trace anyone had even been in.”

“A pro then. And he might have been after Marilyn if she ID’d him earlier in the day.”

“Anyway, as you saw, she’s hightailed it out to her sister’s in Sacramento.”

“So now we just have to worry about you. First thing, don’t say anything you wouldn’t want the bad guys to overhear in the house,” said Dan.

“Why?”

“If nothing’s stolen maybe something’s planted.”

“A listening device?” guessed Gwen, voice rising with outrage.

“Exactly. I’ve got a sweeper here.” He pulled out a foot-long rod that looked like a radar gun.

“Called Palladium. We keep it at the Reporter. There’s a lot of people’d like to steal our stories or ID our sources.”

“And you can just walk out with it?”

“My Ed, the truly loathsome but sometimes useful MackStack, has one at home. Tad paranoid but with what he’s seen and heard I can’t blame him. He lives fifteen minutes from me.” Dan shrugged. “He owes me.”

“OK. Sweep away.”

He turned to move. Gwen followed him. He paused.

“Do something for me. Come in with me, put on some music, not too loud, anything.”

Gwen eyed him. “Sure. But why?”

“Can I explain everything later? Sooner we get this done, the better.”

“OK,” replied Gwen, not exactly happy, wanting to know, impatient as always, but she was out of her depth here and Dan seemed to know what he was doing. The crooked smile was gone, replaced by a hard seriousness she had rarely glimpsed in him. He stood there in his jeans and t-shirt, hair tousled. Despite all that was going on, she wanted him, wanted to reach out, kiss his lips, take his hand.…

Instead, she followed him back into her home, put on Jason Mraz, and watched him.

Dan dropped to his knees beside the closed door. He took out what looked like a small medical microscope with a tube and an inner light, put it to his eye, and peered at the lock. After about a minute, he straightened up, put his finger to his lips as Gwen opened her mouth to speak.

Next he pulled out a pair of headphones and, radar-gun-like scanner in hand, began to move around her sitting room. He regularly got down on hands and knees, fingers probing under tables, inside and under lamps, in her desk drawers, behind her TV, under the sofa, under and in almost every object in the room. It was oddly intimate, and utterly thorough, this silent probing. The man clearly knew what he was doing.

After forty minutes, Gwen saw him pause then move toward her desk. Carefully, he picked up her table lamp. He turned to her, pointed to it, and offered her his headphones.

She slipped them on and heard a high-pitched wailing sound. Dan took back the headphones and continued his search for another five minutes. Then he removed his headphones and gestured outside.

He replaced his kit in the briefcase and followed her out onto the deck. They leaned back against the table, a foot apart, looking out to sea. Every so often the moon would emerge, the crests of waves silver, then disappear behind the clouds again, drawing darkness down upon them.

“First off, your lock’s picked,” announced Dan.

“How d’you know?”

“Tiny scratches. The usual key wears deeper scratches into the lock over time. A picker will leave tiny, faint scratches. You’ve got that.”

“Bastards,” hissed Gwen.

“There’s more.”

“Something to do with that wailing banshee sound in the headphones?” asked Gwen, glancing across at Dan.

“Ghost on acid is how I think of it. It screams like that near a bug. The closer it gets, the more it screams. You’re bugged. Light fitting.”

“Shit! Let’s get rid of it!”

“No. We’re safer if we leave it. Whoever’s done this is highly sophisticated. We don’t want to alert them that we’re onto them. Might make them take a more serious step, plus, we can use their bug to plant misinformation.”

“How d’you know they’re sophisticated?”

“Because of the device,” replied Dan. He got up and started to fidget with a loose shard of wood on her deck rail.

“And?”

“It’s a GSM device molded into the base of the light—with dental paste, I reckon. It’s the kind of device that belongs to the Specialist Surveillance Equipment category,” he held up his hand, “which, before you ask, means it is generally only released to governments and law enforcement agencies and those with special connections. In other words, Boudy, it’s a high-tech attack.”

Gwen got up, dragged her hair back into a ponytail. She was too agitated at that point to ask him how he knew so much.

“I hate the thought of someone listening in to me, to everything I do or say in my own home.”

“It stinks. But you’ve no real choice.”

Gwen nodded. “So we leave the bug, so Messenger, assuming it is him, doesn’t know we’re onto him?”

“Yeah. And that way we can plant false leads, cover you, make you continue to seem like the innocent academic.”

“Assuming I want to continue this charade.”

“Do you?”

“Fuck yes! Someone was on his way to attack Marilyn, broke in here, may or may not have killed Al Freidland and Elise, probably did—”

“All good reasons to walk away.”

“Not again. I won’t pretend I’m not frightened, but fear keeps you alive, gives you an edge. I want to catch this fucker. However sophisticated, however scary they are.”

Dan nodded. “You think it is Messenger?”

“Who else?”

Dan nodded. “All points to him. He has the funds to get hold of this stuff and the people to do his dirty work.”

Gwen gave a savage smile. “Hey, seeing as I have to live with a fucking bug, let’s return the favor.”

“What, bug Messenger?”

“Yeah. I’ll get into his office, or wait, even better, there’s a Falcon party he’s hosting at his home this Sunday. I’ll go in, plant something then. He’d probably speak more freely at home too.”

“True. Less likely to run bug sweeps at home as well.”

“Question is,” Gwen asked, giving Dan a long, level look, “is where can we get hold of a bug?”

“I think I can answer that.”

“Thought so. And, for that matter, how d’you know all this stuff? You’re very teched up for a journalist,” she remarked.

“Hey, I’m not the enemy here,” replied Dan, frowning. “Besides, you’d be surprised how much journalists know about this stuff, as you call it.”

Gwen blew out a breath. “Sorry, I’m rattled. I get bitchy. But I’d still like to know how come you do know all this stuff? You looked like a pro in there, Dan. This is clearly not some one-off.”

“I was in the military, Gwen,” replied Dan by way of answer.

“So I recall. But I didn’t think they taught you about bugging.” Gwen pondered as Dan stayed silent. “Unless, of course, you were in Intelligence, or maybe even Black Ops, I think it’s called.”

“If I were I couldn’t tell you anyway.”

“So were you?”

Dan laughed. “As it happens, no. I was just your regular Marine Corps kinda guy. But I’ve been around people who were, picked up a thing or two.”

“But then you’d have to say that, wouldn’t you.”

“So why’d you ask?”

“To see if I could spot a lie.”

“And could you?”

“No. Which either means you’re telling the truth or you’re one smooth bastard.