Distant Memory (32 page)

The police would never find him. Not even the sheriff’s helicopter - could peer through these walls. The satellite relay station on Sulphur Mountain was owned and operated by Moyer Communications. Massey had immediately thought of it when it was clear that the woman had made her escape.
Luck
, he thought.
She is the luckiest person alive. She should have been dead several times over
. But she wasn’t dead. Instead she was once again out of danger, probably under police protection in some hospital. And here he was sitting in the stale air of a windowless room, surrounded by sophisticated electronics that received signals from satellites high above and relayed them to other satellites.

The journey had been one of determination and trial. Fleeing deeper into the orchard, Massey had used the trees as cover from the sheriff who would soon be hot on his trail. Not being able to see him, they would burn precious minutes wondering if he was playing the role of sniper, ready to kill anyone who approached the orchard. He knew that they would cordon off the street to protect passing motorists and then wait for additional officers. Only then would they attempt entry into the
orchard. One man, hidden from view, could hold off an army. But he had no intention of fighting the police. He was a man of singular purpose, and his purpose was to finish his mission. First, however, he had to escape and to survive.

Running in zigzag fashion, Massey had sprinted between the rows of orange trees. Overhead the helicopter’s rotor beat an unending thrum. A second helicopter had joined the pursuit since Massey had successfully shot out the searchlight of the first craft. The second chopper’s artificial sun beamed a high intensity ray into the trees, filtering through the leaves to give the orchard an eerie, surrealistic glow, but the overhead canopy of leaves kept Massey hidden.

Treading through the loose earth and splashing in the irrigation ditches, Massey plowed ahead. He had run, by his estimation, a half-mile before he saw what he was hoping to find: a rancher’s home. An outcropping of buildings sat in a small clearing. One was a large, sprawling, stucco house. Warm white light shone from the windows. Another building was a tall and wide wood structure that could only be a barn. Massey made his way to that structure.

He was in luck. A nearly new Ford pickup was parked by the barn’s large doors. Inside Massey saw the keys dangling from the ignition. At first he thought the owner stupid and careless, but then he realized that there was no pressing reason not to leave the keys. The ranch was far from the city and a good distance from the road. Not many car thieves would travel this far out of the way to steal a truck.

Slipping into the driver’s seat, Massey quietly closed the door and waited to see if he had been discovered. He heard and saw nothing.
The family is probably seated around the television watching a late-night sitcom
, Massey reasoned. He eyed his surroundings. He needed to know which way to drive out. Starting the truck could draw attention. If he was heard, the rancher would call the police and give a description of the missing truck. That would be counterproductive. It was a risk he had to take.

A dirt road stretched past the barn and into a grove of trees. That had to be the exit. The engine turned over the moment Massey turned the key. The truck purred, and Massey was thankful that he hadn’t stumbled across an old noisy clunker. He eyed the house again, but nothing had changed. But Massey wasn’t clear yet. He still had to drop the truck into drive and pull away. Being careful not to step on the brake pedal, which would cause the rear lights to glow bright red, Massey shifted the automatic transmission into drive and let the idling engine push the truck forward.

An eternity of seconds passed as he directed the slow-moving truck along the dirt road. The tires made a soft grinding noise on the gravel bed. Only after the truck had crept several hundred yards did he put his foot to the accelerator.

The dirt road led to a paved one that connected with the two-lane highway he had left sometime earlier. The intersection was a quarter-mile past where the police had set up their station. From there, Massey had driven along as if nothing had happened. The tracking station in which he now sat was four and a half miles up a winding road. Massey knew its location because he had overseen the project that placed six such stations in California. Once there, he had parked the truck under a nearby oak tree, walked to the building, forced the door open, and entered the room of automated equipment.

Massey continued to clean his shoes, scraping off the drying mud with the screwdriver, but his mind was elsewhere. Things were more difficult now. Driving back the way he had come from the Ojai motel would be too risky. He couldn’t endanger his mission. To do so would mean the doom of Moyer Communications. Massey would not let that happen. Not as long as he had breath in his lungs.

What to do now? Massey tossed down the screwdriver, returned to the truck, rummaged through the glove compartment, and found a road map. Returning to the room, he unfolded the large paper and studied the colored lines. He found good news.

Highway 150 turned south, not far from where he had pulled from the road. It traveled to Santa Paula. From there, he could follow a loop of highways that would bring him back to Ojai without having to pass by the police cordon to the west. He figured it was a thirty-five-mile trip. Counting the time it would take to drive back down the mountain and then make his way to Ojai, the long way around would take him close to an hour.
Not ideal, but not bad
, he said to himself.

His biggest concern was not time, but place. Although he had moved deeper into the orchard when the helicopter arrived overhead, he had paused just long enough to see the ambulance arrive, load Blanchard and Keller in the back, pull a U-turn, and head west. Studying the map again, he saw that the closest hospital west of the shooting was in Ojai. The next closest would be in Ventura. Massey made Ojai his first choice. He could always backtrack from there.

He reached for his phone and found it missing. Puzzlement was replaced by anger when he realized that he had set it on the dashboard of the car a moment or two before Lisa Keller attacked him. He was now out of touch with Moyer. “No matter,” he said to himself. “My next call will be to tell Moyer that his problems are all over.”

Lisa watched as a uniformed Ventura County sheriff’s deputy looked into her room and motioned for Hobbs to join him in the corridor. Hobbs complied and returned a few minutes later. He looked grim.

“Not good news, I take it,” Lisa said.

“He escaped,” Hobbs said sourly.

Nick looked up at Hobbs with astonishment. “Escaped? How does a man escape from an orchard?”

“It was because he was in the orchard that he got away. There was no way to surround the place.”

“So he’s still on the loose,” Lisa said. The words seemed to catch in her throat.

“I’m afraid that’s right,” Hobbs said. “But you’ll be safe here. He’d have to be out of his mind to attack you in a hospital.”

“As I said before, he’s not crazy. Dangerous, yes, but crazy, no.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Nick said angrily. “That guy is as slippery as an eel, just like his boss.”

“How do you know all this?” Hobbs asked.

“I told you in the car, Detective.”

“Actually you didn’t. As I recall, you told me about the truck and Ms. Keller’s car and next to nothing about yourself.”

“There’s not much more that I’m allowed to tell you,” Nick said.

“National security, is that it?” Hobbs said. He sounded unconvinced.

“That’s correct.” Nick shifted in his chair.

“You can tell him what you told me in the motel room when the man broke in,” Lisa said.

“I suppose so,” Nick said reluctantly. “As I said earlier, this man’s name is Raymond Massey. At least that is his present name.”

“Present name?” Hobbs said.

“He has a false identity. He’s former CIA, black ops. He did the stuff so secret that only a handful of people know about it. And before you ask, I don’t know any details.”

“Go on,” Hobbs prompted.

“Now he works for Moyer Communications. He’s Gregory Moyer’s right-hand man. The NSA has been watching him for a long time. You won’t catch him now, Detective.”

“I’m not that quick to give up,” Hobbs said.

“Why won’t he catch him?” Lisa asked. “How far could he get?”

“His resources are nearly unlimited. He’s no crook. Not a typical crook, that is. This guy has an IQ a third higher than anyone you’ve ever met. He’s also as dedicated and loyal as they come.”

“Anyone can make mistakes,” Hobbs said.

“True, but don’t expect that in this case.” Nick looked nervous to Lisa. He shifted in his chair again. “If I were you, I’d put some guards around this place.”

“We found a dead man near your house, Mr. Blanchard.”

“I know,” Lisa said. “Massey told me. A man attacked us in Nick’s house. We saw him run from the house, and someone in a car picked him up.”

“Massey,” Nick said. “That would be just like him. Hire a man to do the job and kill him when he fails.”

“Do you have a gun, Ms. Keller?” Hobbs asked. His eyes were fixed firmly on her.

“No, not that I know of.”

“What about you, Mr. Blanchard?”

“No.”

Hobbs shook his head slowly. “This has been the most bizarre case I’ve ever seen. I don’t know what to believe.”

“I know the feeling,” Lisa said.

Greg Moyer looked out his office window into the dark night. The blackness on the other side of the window seemed to creep in through the glass and into the marrow of his bones. He had no doubts that things had gone all wrong. Massey should have called by now. The problem should have been resolved. But it wasn’t, and there was nothing he could do but wait to hear from his man.

The seconds slipped by sluggishly. Each minute took on a weight, and with every passing minute, another weight was added to the load on his shoulders. He was not a man who believed in premonitions. He was a businessman and an engineer, not a psychic. Yet he knew deep within him that something was terribly wrong. It was time for him to act.

T
he sleepy town of Ojai was sleepier still. The streets were nearly deserted. Only the occasional car plied the streets, followed by late-night trucks delivering dairy products, bread, and other commodities to the local food stores. Massey drove his stolen truck past the hospital, carefully eyeing the parking lot. Only one police car was visible, but he knew that there could be a back lot or that the local detectives might be using unmarked vehicles. He had to assume that there was a police presence.

The logistics of entering the hospital were formidable. After turning the truck around in the local high school parking lot a short distance down the street from the medical center, Massey returned to the area of the hospital. Across the boulevard from the facility was a strip mall. Massey pulled in and parked the truck facing the hospital.

His mind was sharp, unaffected by the lateness of the hour. Focus was the key to genius. Focus and experience, and he had both. If there was any weakness in him now, it was impatience. This job should have been finished long ago. Even now, he should be headed back to San Francisco, to his well-appointed condominium on the bay. In the morning he would report to his boss, receive his praise and a substantial bonus, and maybe even take a few days off. The Bahamas would be nice.
That, however, was secondary. What mattered now,
all
that mattered now, was finding and killing Robin Lisa Keller before her memory could return. He would not fail now.

The ideal had given way to reality, and that reality rested in the hospital across the street. At least he thought so. There was still the possibility that they had taken the woman to a different hospital, but that was unlikely. This was the closest facility, and her injuries were not so serious as to require the specialties of a larger medical center. Still, he would have to confirm her presence. That would be step one.