Night Talk (36 page)

Greg had cut him off from the show—was that what Ethan meant when he said Greg killed him? That Greg had cut him off from the protection he thought he'd get from Greg after cracking open the God Project?

The money was transferred from his account right after that. Ethan may have deluded himself into thinking it was okay because he needed proof to the Aarons that he was legit and working with Greg in order to have a source to put it out to the world. And he would need money to get out of Dodge.

Working his way through Ethan's mind, he was sure Ethan was naive enough to believe that all would be forgiven in the end because he was giving Greg something sensational.

Was it sensational? Ethan's mind was often polluted with drugs but he had enough sense to cleverly hide the file and even more shrewdly get the information to Greg. If Ethan had that much of a grip on reality, Greg was sure the hacker wouldn't have sent him something benign or even stupid.

But how was he going to open the file? He needed a computer with access to the Internet. He could buy a computer and take the risk of being captured soon after his credit card was scanned. It was too late anyway—malls and electronics stores were closed.

Internet cafés were still in existence even though most people now used their cell phones for access. He went to the scarred desk in the room and found a phone book in the top drawer.

He sat back down on the bed to leaf through the book and glanced back at the desk as he thought about driving to an Internet café.

The car keys weren't there.

He made a quick search of the room and bathroom.
Nada.
She had taken the keys. Why? To strand him. So he could be caught? No, he didn't think she would do that. Didn't want to think that she would do that. More likely she took the keys so he wouldn't be able to pursue them to get the flier back. That had to be it. He could understand her taking access to the file out of her own sense of justice in terms of what information to release, but he refused to believe that she had deliberately stranded him to make it easier for the killer or the government to find him.

He also needed to make a decision about which newsperson to contact. He needed someone with guts and enough pull to get the entire news organization behind him. He knew several news media people from rubbing shoulders with them at events but not on a personal basis.

He heard a noise at the room door and looked over. Someone was trying the door handle. He got to his feet as the door crashed open.

 

73

The man in a utility company uniform stood in the doorway with his “meter reader” in hand. God's warrior had arrived, with fire, brimstone and a sardonic grin.

“Gas leak?” Leon asked.

As Greg froze in surprise the self-appointed avenging angel pushed the trigger on the weapon.

A green laser beam traveling at the speed of light flashed across the room and exploded in Greg's eyes, sending a shockwave through his brain. He staggered back, blinded and disoriented. It felt like acid had just been thrown into his eyes.

He dropped to his knees, his hands clawing at his eyes as if he was trying to pull the pain from them.

The weapon Leon used was not a stun gun, though it also had the effect of stunning the person—it was a dazzler, a laser weapon developed for the military to temporarily disable a person with a blow to the eyes.

The handheld one he carried walloped and disoriented a person with a blast of directed radiated energy that temporarily caused blindness.

In Iraq and other war zones, dazzlers larger than Leon's handheld weapon were mounted on rifles used to disorient drivers who didn't heed warnings to reduce their speed as they approached military checkpoints. Larger versions of dazzlers were mounted on warships and battle tanks.

The stunning, blinding effect lasted only a few minutes. Greg's vision was blurred by a changing array of movement and colors melting into each other in kaleidoscopic patterns.

Leon entered the room and closed the door behind him.

Greg knew the man was coming for him but he only saw a hazy dark figure. He struggled to his feet to meet an attack.

Leon sidestepped Greg and whacked him on the side of the head with the weapon, sending Greg back down to his knees.

“You caused me a lot of trouble,” Leon said. “God wasn't happy that you got off that mountain.”

He kicked Greg in the ribs, knocking him sideways to the floor.

“Before that you got my balls kicked because you made me try to run you down on the street.”

He walked around Greg and kicked him in the face.

“You destroyed my perfect record. That caused me a lot of pain.”

He reached down and grabbed a handful of Greg's hair and jerked his head back. “You took something from my master and he wants it back.” He let go of Greg's hair and slipped the laser gun into a leather holster strapped to his hip.

He checked the two outside pockets to Greg's coat. Not finding what he was looking for, he jerked the coat open and checked an inside breast pocket and pulled Greg's wallet out. He went through the wallet, took out the money and tossed the billfold aside. He knew he shouldn't take the money, but this time he wouldn't let the Voice know he had it.

Greg's eyes poured tears but he had enough vision to see the man's form. He reared back and threw a punch but he was still disoriented and clumsy. Leon easily blocked the blow and punched him in the face.

“I'm not supposed to cut your throat but if you do that again I'll take the pain for disobeying an order just for the pleasure of seeing you bleed out like a pig in a slaughterhouse.”

Greg knew not getting his throat cut wasn't an act of mercy—his death would be a clean kill, another suicide.

Leon straightened up and started pacing, his anger rising from his frustration. He pulled out a knife hidden inside his shirt. “Where is it?” As he was losing his control from rising rage, he suddenly felt a jolt of medication. He quivered for a moment and then stood very still, feeling warmth and a calm as his violent impulse faded. Erasing rage didn't make him a nicer person—it simply kept him on the straight-and-narrow murderous track he had been put on.

Leon put away the knife and began to move around the room, muttering to himself, “Computer stuff, that's what it would be. On a computer, a tablet or one of those little gadgets no bigger than a finger.”

Greg concentrated, trying to get control of his own body. His vision was no longer kaleidoscopic but it was still too blurred to see detail. He tried to form in his mind's eye what his eyes couldn't make out. The man was not much bigger than him. Heavier, but some of that was blubber. They were about the same height. The man had stunned him with a blast of light, probably a laser that hit him in the eyes. He had felt the weapon on the man's hip when they brushed against each other, but wouldn't know how to operate it even if he got his hands on it.

The killer also had a knife. Greg thought the man had put away the knife but didn't see where.

“No, I can't find any computer thing,” Leon said. “If I can't find it, he doesn't have it on him, that's what I was told. So to the next step.”

Greg heard his name called and he turned to the sound, his eyes half open. As he came around he saw the dazzler in the man's hand and he shut his eyes, blocking some of the force of the laser but still getting enough of a dose to increase his blindness. He cried out and covered his face with his hands, staying on his knees as he rubbed his eyes.

Leon holstered the weapon. He raised Greg's right arm with one hand and reached under Greg's shoulder with the other, pulling Greg to his feet. “Let's go, dude, there's one more thing you have to do so you can close your eyes for good.” He laughed at his own humor.

Greg was wobbly; his knees started to fold and the killer jerked him upright and supported him as they moved toward the door.

“Good thing about this light gizmo,” Leon said, talking to himself, “it makes them real submissive but doesn't leave any marks. 'Course, they get banged up all to hell anyway.”

Greg was oriented enough to see that they were heading for the door. Beyond the door was the exterior corridor. Over the railing headfirst was a long enough drop to splatter his brains on the concrete below.

Leon leaned him against the wall by the door and held him steady with one hand and used the other hand to open the door.

Greg felt the weapon on the man's hip brush against him again. How had the man triggered the blast? He didn't think the weapon was fired like a pistol because he didn't see a trigger. The killer had held the weapon with his whole hand wrapped around it, more like holding a flashlight than a gun. There was probably a button that he had pressed but Greg didn't know if it was activated by squeezing the cylinder or pressed with thumb or finger.

Greg knew the man wasn't opening the door to take him down to the van. The killer staged suicides. The man would push him over the railing headfirst. He wasn't going without a fight. The bastard had attacked his eyes and he went for the killer's eyes, blindly clawing at the man's face.

Leon knocked the hands away from his face and punched him. Greg banged his forehead into the killer's face. He missed the man's nose but Greg lurched forward, hitting him with his shoulder with all the strength his anger-driven adrenaline could muster.

The killer stumbled backward and Greg went off balance and staggered, slamming into the desk and falling to the floor. As he hit the floor on his back he felt something underneath him, a round cylinder. Ali's wasp spray.

Greg twisted onto his stomach and reached out, groping blindly for the canister. He felt it against the tips of his fingers but didn't have a grip on it as the killer bent down and jerked Greg's head back by his hair, then got an arm around his neck in a chokehold.

As Greg pulled at the arm to keep it from choking the life out of him he felt something else that had been knocked off the desk—the hotel pen he had used to write the fake information on the pizza menu he gave Ali. He got a grip on it and stabbed the killer's arm around his neck. He kept stabbing until the man released his grip and began to wildly punch at Greg in a rage.

Greg dropped forward onto his stomach and reached out, getting a handhold on the wasp spray. As Greg twisted around, Leon turned his head and held up his arm to block the spray.

Some of the mist got to Leon because he let out a shriek of pain and rage. Greg fired the spray again but Leon went under the spray, knocking into Greg and driving him back. The killer struck Greg's wrist, sending the canister flying.

Leon punched him on the head and face. “You son of a bitch, you're dead—dead! I'll rip out your heart and eat it.”

He got Greg to his feet and used both hands to get a firm grip to propel Greg out the door. Greg knew he was finished if he got close enough to the railing to be pushed over. He clutched at the door frame, trying to hold himself back, and the man broke the hold by hitting his arms.

Leon pushed him and Greg let his knees fold, dropping down to the floor. No longer able to push Greg, Leon moved around him, cursing as he did so, and bent down to use both hands to pull Greg up.

Greg went along, half rising, as Leon pulled him until the killer had his own back to the rail.

Greg dropped lower again, his face almost touching the laser weapon, but his vision wasn't good enough to make out any detail except the fact that it had a tubular shape.

Cursing him, Leon bent down and grabbed him by the collar with both hands to pull him up. As the killer pulled, Greg's right arm went behind the killer's knees. Greg reared up, lifting the man off his feet and pushing him back against the rail.

Leon hit the railing with his butt. He let go of Greg's collar with one hand to grab for his weapon. The move created a sudden release of the tension holding Greg back. Greg gave him a shove with his shoulder and grabbed onto the rail as the man slipped backward.

The killer shouted and clutched desperately at Greg as he went over, falling backward, wildly flailing his arms and legs as he dropped headfirst to the concrete below.

Greg leaned over the rail and stared down, out of breath and with too much adrenaline to feel all the pain he would soon be feeling from the beating he had taken. With blurred vision he saw a body on the concrete. Lying still.

Greg staggered back inside, not bothering to close the door behind him.

 

74

He stumbled into the bathroom and splashed water on his face. Water wouldn't wash away the effect of the dazzler but the cool wetness made him feel better and his eyes cleared enough so he could see his blurred reflection in the mirror. His eyes were still watering. He didn't get much of the wasp spray in his eyes but could taste it in his throat.

In the bedroom he grabbed the flier and shoved it into his coat pocket. He started to leave without his wallet and looked around until he spotted it on the floor. He bent down and picked the wallet up and pocketed it.

He left the room, stepping out into the exterior corridor. He heard voices from below and didn't bother focusing enough to understand what was being said, though he caught the drift that someone thought the man on the ground had been a drunk who fell off the railing.

He went to the end of the corridor farthest from where the killer had gone off. It was too dark and his eyes too blurred for him to see the steps and he stumbled on them, shuffling down the stairs and using the handrail for support. When he reached the bottom, he moved off in the opposite direction from where the people had gathered around the body.

Greg got to a wide boulevard, eight or ten lanes with traffic flowing in both directions. It was a major artery out into the San Fernando Valley from the hills that Ventura Boulevard shouldered.

He was in a hurry but couldn't move fast. His head hurt, his face was raw and bruised, he had weak knees and blurred vision and he was on foot in a city that sprawled for miles in every direction, one of the most pedestrian-unfriendly cities in the world. Taxis had to be called, not waved down on the street. A few subways existed somewhere in the city but at the moment he had no idea where they were located and had no money for the fare. He couldn't even get on a bus. Where would he go even if he could beg money and find public transportation?