Blood Money (26 page)

“You mind lighting one up for me to get the
string started?” the man said.

“Not at all.”

Kelton waited until the man had opened the
pack and put a cigarette in his mouth, then moved the lighter
forward and set the flame to the tip of the smoke.

A long puff, followed by a cough, and then
the man said, “Thanks brother. May you live a full life.”

“Amen to that,” Kelton said. “You have a
good one.”

“You too,” said the man. He walked past
them, heading deeper into the tunnel.

They went the opposite way, towards
freedom.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

A little less than an hour after they’d fled
the Cleopatra Hotel, Kelton and Jessica exited the tunnel through a
large, hinged, iron grate, coming out of a culvert more than four
miles from where they had entered the drainage system.

The sun had dipped further into the sky, and
it was nearing dusk, but it felt like the middle of the day after
the darkness they experienced in the drains. They took a moment to
enjoy the fresh air, then headed across the street, towards a
shopping center that had seen better days.

Kelton gave Jessica $140 in twenties and
asked her to buy a new set of clothes for both of them, including
socks, shoes and Tidy Wipes. The clothes they were wearing were
still damp from the sprinkler outburst at the casino earlier in the
evening and they both smelled like the tunnels.

He waited until Jessica entered the store,
then headed towards the pay phones on the far side of the building.
He picked up the receiver but hesitated before dialing Walter’s
cell.

Although Nicholas had indicated that the NDC
could not, in fact, get anything off Walter’s phone, Kelton was
still skeptical. He had no idea whether or not Nicholas had been
telling the truth. But he knew there was no other viable
alternative if he wanted to get hold of Walter. So, after a deep
breath to help clear his mind, he recalled a calling card number
from his mental rolodex, and called Walter.

The old man picked up the line during the
first ring and immediately said, “Hello, my friend. How are you
doing?”

“Better than you, old man.”

“Oh, I doubt that.”

“Doubt all you want,” Kelton said. “It won’t
change anything.”

“Glad to see everything worked out,” Walter
said.

“Thanks to you. That was quite a trick you
pulled back there at the casino.”

“I thought you’d like that.”

“Loved it,” Kelton said. “How did you manage
to pull it off?”

“A friend of mine is quite good at that sort
of thing,” Walter said.

“Well, tell your friend that I’m much
obliged.”

“I already have,” Walter said. “I’m just
glad you were able to tip me off that something was going on.”

“Yeah, I was hoping you’d pick up on
that.”

“But of course. I may be old, but I’m not
senile. Yet.”

Kelton offered an obligatory chuckle.

“By the way, I still don’t have any clue
what’s going on,” Walter said. “You’ll have to fill me in after
this is all over.”

“I’d be glad to,” Kelton said. “Right now I
just want to get this thing over with while we’re still on our
own.”

“Fair enough,” Walter said. “But let me ask
you one thing. Who was running this operation? Surely not the
FBI.”

“No, not the Feds. It was some group called
the National Defense Commission, or so I was told.”

“The Commission was behind it?”

“You’ve heard of them?”

“Whispers and intimations, here and there,”
Walter said. “I haven’t been able to crack their security yet. I
wonder how they got wind of me?”

“From what I understand, they’ve been
tracking government breaches for a while now,” Kelton said.
“Apparently they’ve come across a pattern that links a bunch of
them together.”

“I’ll have to keep that in mind.”

Kelton tried to get a read on the old man
but it was impossible; his tone was the same as it always was. Not
that it mattered anyway. Kelton had cast his lot, the only thing to
do now was to play out the string and hope he had chosen
correctly.

“So what happens now?” he said.

“We meet up,” Walter replied.

“Good. I assume you’re in town
somewhere?”

“I am.”

“And I’m guessing you have a place in mind
where we can get together?”

“I do,” Walter said. “First of all, you need
to take a—”

“Hold on a second,” Kelton said. “Are you
sure you don’t want to switch phones before you tell me? The NDC
was listening in the last couple of times we talked, maybe they
found a way to trace your phone.”

“How many times do I have to explain to you
that my phone is safe,” Walter said. “It cannot be traced, or
tracked, or hacked into, or anything else.”

“All right, all right. I was just making
sure.”

“And I appreciate that, but the phone is
safe, just as it’s always been.”

“Then go ahead and tell me,” Kelton
said.

“The first thing you need to do is take a
cab to the South Coast Resort,” Walter said. “There is a pickup
truck waiting for you in the garage, on level two, in the middle of
the row, license plate 3EDK899. The keys are in the glove
compartment, along with a set of directions, telling you where we
will meet.”

They found the truck without any problem. It
was a black Ford Ranger with a silver panel along the side and
stickers clinging to every square inch of the rear window. Although
it looked to be at least twenty years old, the engine started up on
the first try and the air-conditioning worked, so Kelton had no
problem with it.

Just as Walter had promised, there was a
sheet of paper with directions written on in the glove compartment,
along with the keys.

“So where are we going?” Kelton said.

Jessica unfurled the paper and looked at it.
“I-15 North to I-95 South,” she said. “Then a right on Ironwoods
Drive and a left on Frobisher Court.”

“Is there an address written down?”

“No,” Jessica said. “It just says to drive
until the road ends, then stop.”

Sighing, Kelton shook his head. “One of
these days, I swear, the games are going to be over.”

“I’ll believe that only after it happens,”
Jessica said.

Traffic was light on I-15, and they reached
I-95 at right around 7:15. The sun was low on the horizon, burning
red and looking weary.

Kelton was feeling good, but had to force
himself not to feel too content; although the job was almost
finished, he knew better than to start relaxing too soon. His four
years as a closer in college had taught him many things, and among
the most important was to not let up until the final out was
recorded.

“Kelton?” Jessica said.

“What?”

“I said, are you okay, Kelton?”

“Oh. Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”

“You disappeared there for a second,”
Jessica said.

“Sorry. Just zoning out I guess.”

“Well, don’t let it happen again,” Jessica
said. “I don’t want to end up getting away from the NDC just to get
killed in a car accident outside of Vegas.”

“Telling me how to drive already, eh?”
Kelton said. “I thought that didn’t start until
after
we
started living together.”

“Yeah, well I like to get a head start on
things.”

“I kind of got that feeling.”

Jessica smiled absently, shifted her gaze
towards her feet, and said, “Do you mind if I ask you
something?”

“Not at all,” Kelton said.

She looked up at him. “How long have you
been planning on betraying the NDC? From the moment we turned
ourselves in?”

“Actually, no,” he said. “I went into the
situation with a completely open mind.”

“Then when did you decide?”

“After our initial conversation with
Nicholas, when he told us about Walter.”

“I take it you didn’t believe his
story?”

“It wasn’t that. In the end, I came to the
conclusion that Nick’s story was just as plausible as Walter’s. I
really wasn’t sure who to believe. I’m still not, actually.”

“Then why did you decide to stick with
Walter?” Jessica said. “Is it part of your personal code not to
leave a job unfinished, no matter what the cost, or some crap like
that?”

“Not at all. In fact, it’s quite the
opposite.”

She gave him a funny look.

“I told you before, I’m not some mercenary
who does things just for the money,” Kelton said. “Don’t get me
wrong, there has to be a damn good reason for me not to do what I’m
paid to do, but if someone lies to me, or misrepresents what I’m
doing for them, I feel no obligation to finish the job. If I’m
uncomfortable with something, I’m going to do what makes me
comfortable. Regardless of what I was hired to do. End of
story.”

“And what you’re doing for Walter doesn’t
make you uncomfortable?”

“Not at all.”

“But he could be a traitor,” Jessica said.
“He could be stealing things from the government to make money. He
could be responsible for the deaths of American operatives for
God’s sake.”

“He could be,” Kelton said. “Or that might
be completely overblown. I told you earlier, I still don’t know who
to believe in this case.”

“Then what led to your decision to betray
the NDC?”

Kelton took a moment to put words to his
thoughts. “Think of it this way,” he said eventually. “Suppose
Nicholas was telling the truth, and Walter is stealing secrets from
the government simply to make money. Is this despicable? Yes. Will
I be upset that I fell for his act? Absolutely. But would I be able
to sleep at night knowing that I helped him? I’m pretty sure I
would.

“But suppose
Walter
is telling the
truth, and your AIDS vaccine really does work, and he wants to help
you produce it and get it to the masses. If we help the government
catch him, then that will never happen. Your vaccine will never see
the light of day.”

Kelton let this sink in before continuing.
“In the end, it was a pretty simple decision,” he said. “If we help
the NDC, then all we really do is keep someone from making money
off the government’s secrets. But if we help Walter, we could
possibly help rid the world of the AIDS virus. And I don’t know
about you, but in my mind, with all other things being equal, I
have to err on the side of helping the world. If I’m wrong, I’m
wrong, but at least I’ll be able to sleep at night knowing that I
tried to do the right thing, for the right reasons.”

“There’s nothing else?” Jessica said. “No
professional pride in finishing the job assigned to you, or
anything like that?”

“Not really,” Kelton said. “Sure, I may have
given Walter the benefit of the doubt because I’ve worked with him
before, but that wasn’t the deciding factor. I just want to do
what’s right. I wanted to potentially help all those poor souls
with AIDS and nothing to combat it with. The way I see it, I owe it
to them to put myself on the line in order to try and get them
help. It’s the right thing to do, plain and simple.”

Jessica didn’t say anything, so Kelton
glanced over, saw her staring at him with what he would have sworn
to be admiration. He flashed her a confused smile. “What?”

She shook her head, chuckled to herself.
“Deep down beneath all that grit and bluster, you really are a Boy
Scout, aren’t you?”

“You sound surprised.”

Jessica shrugged and her gaze dropped to the
ground. “I am surprised. A little bit, at least. All that talk
about your own moral code, about just doing what’s right, I was
never really convinced that you meant it. I always figured there
was a certain measure of bullshit mixed in, stuff to help justify
to yourself what it is you do for a living, help you live in your
own skin.”

“Well, now you know,” Kelton said. “It’s all
legit.”

“What about starting over together? Was that
legit too?”

“Absolutely,” Kelton said. “I’m hoping we
can still give it a shot. After you help Walter produce your
vaccine, he’ll set us up with new identities. We can go wherever we
want.”

“But we’ll still have the NDC looking for
us.”

“Yes we will.”

“And we’ll be easier to find if we’re
together.”

“That’s true,” Kelton said. “But they’ll
probably find us eventually, whether we’re together or not. We
might as well enjoy our time left on this earth—as limited as it
may be—together, don’t you think?”

Jessica’s laugh sounded more like a resigned
sigh.

“Besides, I wouldn’t worry too much about
the NDC,” Kelton said. “It’s a big country. And an even bigger
world. Even if they do go after us, I think we could get lost
pretty easily, maybe even make it such a nuisance to catch us that
they’ll just give up the chase.”

Her laugh softened and she shook her head.
“Somehow, I doubt that.”

Kelton smiled. “Yeah, you’re probably right.
But it sure would be fun to try.”

“Maybe,” Jessica said. “I’d have to think
about it though. After that little stunt you pulled back at the
casino, I don’t know how much I really trust you.”

Kelton held his hand over his heart in an
effort to mock the real pain he felt. “Ouch. That hurts.”

“Well? It’s true. You didn’t tell me
anything about what was going down.”

“They had us wired the whole time,” Kelton
said, trying not to sound like he was defending his actions. “It
would have been too big a risk.”

“Still,” Jessica said. “You could have
tried.”

“And take the chance of the whole thing
blowing up in our face?” Kelton said. “No way. Besides, I knew
you’d find out eventually.”

“But I wanted to know beforehand,” Jessica
said, a pouty whine in her voice he’d never heard before. “Remember
the deal we made back at Disneyland?”

Kelton opened his mouth but before he could
say anything he glanced over and saw the look on her face. Even in
the fading light, he could see one corner of her mouth turned up in
a smirk and her eyes glowing with mischief.