No Immunity (30 page)

“Jeez, Adcock, don’t you think the navy would come up with that? Whadya think, you’re the only one with a noggin?” With a louder snort the Weasel burrowed back down.

Kiernan nodded. “That’s the first place they’d have checked. It’s also downwind of their experiments. Not a place to go without a full bodysuit.”

“I don’t give a shit about the danger—”

“You want to end up with your skin turned inside out?”

Adcock kept the truck moving toward the highway. At the speed he was going, the three of them could have been any local family heading to the Doll’s House for an early-morning breakfast before moseying on down to Las Vegas. But they weren’t going somewhere as much as just moving, while Adcock made up his mind.

“Fine, fine. But if they’re not here, where are they? I need to get them back before …”—he shrugged— “something happens to them.”

“Let me think,” Kiernan said. Adcock still assumed the boys were seismic aides. Did he think they knew where Grady’s find was? Did he figure they could tell him? Was he planning on getting an interpreter to tell them to lead him to the oil?

She glanced at Adcock’s face. Cured by the years in the sun, set-jaw lines etched deep, eyes that didn’t waste time looking around—everything about him screamed impatience and a real small tolerance for dissent. She could see him stalking into Grady’s room demanding the oil-exploration data. It was his right, after all. Grady Hummacher tells Adcock to go to hell. Adcock pulls a gun. A couple of escalations and Grady’s dead. Adcock figures the boys will take him back to Grady’s oil.

But Adcock didn’t have the boys. So they were gone before he got there. The question was, where were they now?

“Hey, O’Shaughnessy, I didn’t hire you so I could take you for a ride in the country.”

“You didn’t hire me at all. I’m only doing this as a favor.”

“You expect me to thank you?”

“I’m doing this as a favor to Tchernak. Has he reported to you about Grady’s midweek flight to Panama?”

“You mean after the Friday he flew in here?”

“Right. He came in on Friday, picked up the boys and a woman named Irene, and drove up here to a park—the one you spotted—Saturday. Monday he flew to Panama and returned to Vegas on Wednesday.”

Adcock’s jaw was clenched, but he held his silence. She remembered that about him, his ability to focus totally on the problem. “What’d he go for?”

“That’s not the interesting part, Adcock. Both flights were on charters.”

Adcock stared straight ahead, though she wouldn’t have put money on his watching the road. The Weasel’s body tensed, and Kiernan had the sense that he, too, was considering all the angles. But Adcock wouldn’t have given him all the pieces those angles came off of. Adcock revealed nothing he didn’t have to, and he played his cards so close to the vest that when she’d worked for him, only very fast talking had kept her out of jail. “Chartered to who?”

“Nihonco Oil.”

He slammed the wheel; the truck jolted. “The bastard flew down with Nihonco? He double-crossed me? He sold me out? Is that what he did?”

“I only know he flew with them. He took the boys and Irene back to—”

“Irene? Irene Hernandez?”

“Who is she?”

“Head of subsidiaries for Nihonco.”

Kiernan sank against the seat back. Somehow it seemed more horrible that Irene Hernandez’s last day had been an extended business meeting. Maybe she liked the idea of a daylong trip to the tropical park, but chances were she’d have been happy signing the papers with Grady in the office. She’d have figured one more day was worth the millions Grady Hummacher’s strike would bring Nihonco. She’d have been picturing a promotion, greater stock options, a bigger office, whatever fills executives’ dreams. At thirty, maybe thirty-five, years old she had been a key executive with an international oil company, and once she died, Fox and the powers that be had taken a look at her Hispanic features and assumed she’d been merely a disease-carrying immigrant.

It was an odd relief, Kiernan felt, knowing that Irene Hernandez was no longer a nameless corpse with a distorted face. She was not so dispensable no one missed her. In her job sudden business trips would be the norm. No one would worry for another week or two.

Just as no one would worry about a private investigator gone from La Jolla.

“So, O’Shaughnessy, how do I get those boys?”

Over my dead body.
“We’ve got a problem. Fox and the navy are looking for them. Fox let me escape. He’s watching me. When we get to Ninety-three, he’ll be there, or he’ll have someone keeping an eye on us.”

“It’s not like we coulda turned off,” the Weasel said.

Without bothering to brake, Adcock hung a U. Kiernan’s shoulder hit the door. Her feet didn’t reach all the way under the dash. To keep from being battered, she had to brace one foot awkwardly against the side panel and try to ram the other against the floor hard enough to get a purchase. Even the Weasel had stiffened his legs. Adcock’s hands were tight on the wheel, his eyes were straight ahead.

“Adcock, that maneuver sums you up completely,” she said, giving the Weasel a shove.

“Huh?”

“Where are you going?”

“There’s a parallel road back this way. I took it to the cafe.” He stepped on the gas. The old truck coughed and clattered.

Kiernan shifted her weight but kept her legs braced. “What does Louisa Larson look like? Like me?”

It was the Weasel who laughed. “Lady, she’s twice your size and blond. The only thing you two got in common is your sex.”

“You were thinking of her as a decoy, O’Shaughnessy?”

“I was. That won’t work. You’ll have to be the decoy.”

“Hey, I’m the one paying you. I’m going with you to those boys.”

“You know where they are?” the Weasel asked as Adcock struggled to keep the truck from stalling.

“If I knew that, we’d all be back in Vegas. I have some leads, but I can’t do anything till I shake off Fox. For that I’m going to need Louisa Larson. You have any idea where we can find her?”

She’d directed the question to Adcock, but it was the Weasel who nodded. “Gattozzi. That’s where she was headed.”

T
HE FIRST THING
K
IERNAN
spotted in Gattozzi was the sheriff’s car in front of the station. “Empty,” she said to Adcock and the Weasel, “but it didn’t get here by itself. Get down out of sight, Weasel.”

“It’s McGuire, if you don’t mind,” he said as he slid down between the others on the old Chevy’s bench. “Hey, my back’s going into spasm. How long do you expect me to stay down here like a sack of groceries?”

Ignoring him, Adcock demanded, “How’s this getting us to those boys, O’Shaughnessy?”

The one commercial block in town was more crowded than at any other time she had seen it. At nine A.M. Sunday morning cars were lined up in front of the whimsically-named 47th Street Deli between Jeff Tremaine’s office and the mortuary. Gattozzians sat around the red-checked tablecloths, some solo behind a protective shield or newspaper, most clumped in animated discussion. Kiernan checked for Connie, Jeff, Fox, Milo—any familiar face. None.

The road to Connie’s mine was so isolated, any vehicle would stand out. The only vehicular advantage would be a good engine and four-wheel drive. It would be ideal to be making the trip at dusk in Tchernak’s big new top-of-the-line Jeep. But there was no way she could stay out of sight till then. And Tchernak’s Jeep was miles away at the motel.

“Hey, I’m dyin’ down here.”

“There! That blue BMW. Is that Louisa Larson’s?”

“Weasel?” Adcock elbowed him, and McGuire poked his head up, nodded, and sank back down.

“She’s the blonde at the window table.”

The question in Kiernan’s mind was—how to lure Louisa Larson out of the cafe and to a rendezvous.

But Larson seemed to be solving that problem. Her jaw dropped when she spotted Adcock’s truck. She made for the door so abruptly, her napkin went flying. She had her keys out before she reached the car.

“What’s with you guys and Louisa Larson?”

“The Weasel worked her over a bit,” Adcock said matter-of-factly.

“Worked her over? How?” When the Weasel didn’t answer, Kiernan rammed her elbow into his shoulder.

“Hey, whatcha doin’? Jeez, it’s bad enough I’m ridin’ on the floorboards—”

“What did you do to her?”

“Just a nick, just to draw a little blood. Nothin’ a tea bag next to the eye wouldn’t take care of.”

She jabbed him again, harder.

“What’s that for?”

“So you think twice before you cut a woman.” To Adcock she said, “Make a left. Up hill. See that old bucket house at the top of the hill?” She pointed to the spot where she’d won Jesse’s truck. “Head for that. As soon as you turn, hit the gas. That’ll give us an extra half minute before Fox starts tailing. He’ll be after us, but he won’t want to be obvious about it.”

Larson was behind them, closing the gap. Farther back an old truck meandered up the street and paused in front of the cafe.

“McGuire, when I’m gone, sit up just high enough so that your hair is visible.”

“And you figure that’ll fool the sheriff?”

“Only from a distance. It’s the best we can do.”

Kiernan looked down at First Street. The hillside road was more exposed than she had realized. What had protected Connie, Jesse, and the group last night was not the spot itself but the dark. “Slow down at that flat stretch up there. Don’t stop. After I jump, pick up speed slowly.”

“What about—”

She opened the door, braced her feet on the sill, jumped, and rolled. The ground wasn’t as flat as it looked, and definitely not soft. Even after bracing for the fall, she hit her head on a rock. Sharp branches scratched her face and snagged her turtleneck. She pushed herself up in time to flag down Louisa Larson.

“Make a right,” she said as she jumped in the BMW.

“Who are you? How did that little thug get you?” Louisa Larson’s hand went to her face. She had straight blond hair and the kind of soft, even features that suggested concern. She would have been pretty had it not been for the ragged wound a fraction of an inch from her eye.

“He did that? McGuire? The Weasel?”

“Yeah, the little bastard. Took me by surprise. But go on about you.”

Louisa Larson, the doctor who had provided the only consistent care for the boys, should be the one person to trust. But she didn’t trust her enough to let on about her own medical background. “I’m Kiernan O’Shaughnessy, private investigator.”

Louisa shook her head. “What is this? You and the big guy in the Jeep and the Weasel, you guys having a convention out here? Or are you working for him?” She nodded at Adcock’s truck. Her voice was raw, her face lined with anger and exhaustion. She clutched the wheel too tightly and overcompensated on a curve. The woman was in over her head and too far gone to realize it.

“Tchernak, the Jeep guy, works for me. The Weasel”— mimicking Larson’s tone—“I never heard of before I climbed into the truck. But you and I are both concerned about the boys. If we don’t get to them now, they could disappear forever.” With no trace of irony she added, “Trust me.”

Between twists in the road Louisa Larson glanced over at her, automatically accompanying the movement with a social smile. “Tchernak I trusted. So I’m trusting you. I’m a doctor. I’ve got to find those boys before they’re beyond help. Where are they?”

“Cut back to First Street. Make a right at the second corner past the sheriff’s department. I’ve got to keep out of sight.”

“Where are we going? The Weasel’s still here, right? I’ve got a gun.” No social smile here. “I followed that little thug as far as that miserable motel. I thought Grady and the boys would be there. I thought he might be sick by now but that he’d just be in the beginning stages. I was going to scoop up the three of them and drive like hell back to Las Vegas.” She swallowed, her hands shaking so hard on the wheel, the car shimmied. “I never dreamed Grady would be dead. Or that someone would have kidnapped the boys. I mean, why, for heaven’s sake? I took care of those kids. They’re sweet, sad, wonderful, but let me tell you, they are one ton of work. They’re like having puppies with hands. Whoever took them didn’t know what they were getting into.”

“They are deaf and mute? No sign language, right?”

“Backroom kids, that’s what Grady called them. They may have had skills in their tribe, but it’s all useless outside a rain forest, and, you know, we don’t have much in the way of big leaves and humidity here in the Silver State.”

“So even if they were healthy, instead of being so sick they’re throwing up blood, they’d still be useless, right?”

“Like I said, puppies with hands.”

“Could you communicate with them? Get them to lead you somewhere?”

Louisa shook her head. “I don’t know, or care. The bottom line is they’re going to die without help, and it looks like I’m the only one who gives a damn. Well, you and me.”

The BMW swung right onto the top of First Street. Kiernan slipped down onto the floor pad, feeling more vulnerable there where she could see nothing but Louisa Larson’s inadequate shoes. If there was an “overland” to be done, Larson would not be the one doing it. “Are we past the sheriff’s office yet? Any movement there?”

“No one coming out.”

“How about standing inside the window, casually reading a map or talking or—”

“Oh, yeah. Big guy, drinking a cup of coffee.”

“See if he comes out and gets in his car.”

“Nope. This is the turn. Right, you said?”

“Right. The street looks like it dead-ends. Go all the way, the sharp right uphill. It’s a road you’d never take unless you were headed for back country. Keep checking the rearview mirror.”

“Are you on the run from everyone?”

“So it seems, huh?” She waited till she felt the vehicle turn and start uphill before pushing up onto the seat. “Louisa, you’re a doctor. You’ve come all this way to save the boys. When you find them, what is it you’re going to do for them? I saw Grady. He had already started bleeding out. What virus do they have? Is there any treatment?”

Louisa gave a little cry, and when she spoke, it was so softly, Kiernan almost missed her words. “Poor kids. I can’t believe after all they’ve been through they can just die now. I was treating them, and their fevers were lowering.”