Sweet Dreams (20 page)

Mark looked at the kid who should have died in the blast and raised his voice in frustration. "Who are they?! I want names!"

"I don't know! I swear! They just call me on a cell phone that they shipped to my house," He pointed to his jacket pocket, and Mark reached in, pulling out a red cell phone.

"How do you get a hold of them?" Mark growled.

"They told me to sit on a park bench at First and Holly whenever I want to talk, or if I want to do a job. It has to be at nine a.m. on a Tuesday, if I'm there, they call me an hour later!" Pat was blubbering and his eyes puffed up making his scarred face look even more hideous in the dim moonlight.

"Well, it's your lucky day, it's almost Tuesday, and that means I still need you! Now, you're coming with me, and if you try anything, I mean anything, I'll shoot you faster then you can kiss your butt goodbye!"

Pat nodded, and Mark got out and pulled Pat around to the front of the car. Shoving him inside, he went around to the trunk and opened it up, pulling out three large zip ties. Mark got in the driver's side, told Pat to put his hands together, and slipped the zip ties around his wrists until they were tight then bound them together with the third. Mark searched him looking for any weapons but only found an
I-pod
and a small bag of pot.

Starting the car, he pulled out of the parking lot holding the shotgun across his lap pointed toward the frightened collage student's midsection. He knew if it came down to it he would kill him, this was now officially out of control, but Mark was determined to go through with it.

________________________________________

GEOFF SAT IN THE warm coffee shop typing on his laptop. It was already getting to be late in the afternoon and it seemed like the day was speeding by with or without them. He turned to Kirk and gave the thumbs-up, signaling that he was online and good to transmit. Kirk was on the phone with someone named Mooch, and from the sound of it, Kirk had something over him.

Kirk asked for the IP address of his laptop, which Geoff wrote down on a napkin and handed him. He hoped this was going to work, it was always hard to revive a dead case..., and Kirk was a bit of a pessimist.

"Okay. You should be getting something," Kirk said.

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"Looks like a video feed from a satellite," Geoff saw a run-down building with a truck pulling in and parking behind it, just out of sight. "The picture is kind of choppy, like it's in stills."

"It is, but it's all we've got, Mooch, come on, give me something new," Kirk grumbled into the phone. "This is old; I've already seen this stuff!"

Geoff could hear the voice on the other end saying something about how Kirk would like this next shot, and then the screen changed to a single photo of a different truck. It looked like it used to be an armored transport vehicle of some kind; it was painted white with the words
Food Services
on the side. Kirk took a sip of dark coffee and winked at the redheaded waitress when she walked by his table. "What's this? Is this the other truck?" The picture zoomed in closer and soon you could make out the shape of the driver. It was fuzzy at first but cleared up as Mooch worked on the other end. It looked like a woman with dark hair and sunglasses.

"Can you get closer, Mooch?" The screen zoomed in once more, and after it cleared up, you could see plainly, what the woman looked like. Kirk was excited, and this was a new thing for him, Geoff gathered that it did not happen very often.

"Great job, Mooch, I'll check you later," Kirk hung up the phone and asked Geoff if he could save the image.

"Sure, I have my printer docked if you want to print it."

"Yeah! That would be great!"

Geoff hit the print button and waited until the photo came out; he handed it to Kirk, and asked, "So who's the woman?"

"This friend, is our hard evidence; she's the only person who I know is connected to the WJA group and now we have a photo to prove that I'm not crazy."

Geoff looked at the picture; the woman looked to be in her late twenties maybe early thirties and had jet-black hair. "She is beautiful, in a dangerous sort of way,"

"Yeah, well, now we need to pay our friend Cassy Meyers a little visit and see if she can find out who this woman is,"

Kirk waved the redhead down for a refill in a to go cup. "Let's pack up and get going, I think we can catch her before she is finished for the day."

"Sure thing. But I got one question for you,"

"What's that?"

"Can we get a rental car? I'll buy!"

Kirk laughed. "Sure...no worries," he mocked.

Chapter Thirteen

small park on the corner of First and Holly. Mark sat sipping on a steaming cup of coffee that he had purchased from a street vendor a block down. The air was sharp and cold but not bitter like it was last night. The wind stopped and now the sun was out, making the snow almost blinding to look at. The long night was almost over for the scared captive who sat in the passenger side of Mark's car. He would just get his hands to stop shaking, but they would start up again every time Mark moved in his seat, which, in turn, moved the loaded shotgun.

"Calm down, it'll be over soon, as long as you play along. You're lucky I don't just kill you now, do you even know how many people you killed in that blast?"

Pat looked up at Mark with anger in his eyes. "They told 180 AARON

me it was just to scare them, I didn't know they were going to blow it up!"

"That, I don't believe. You knew it was a bomb, for all I know, you built it." Mark didn't believe a word that came out of his mouth, but with each passing hour he started to doubt his initial reaction. Maybe he was telling the truth, maybe this kid just made a bad judgment call and got in over his head.

"They tried to kill me, too, they're the ones who had the remote, I just activated it."

"Well, now it's your turn to pay them back for using you. You help me, and I'll let you live; you try to run or try anything, I'll take you out. You got it?"

Pat nodded and turned to look at his watch, eight a.m. Only one more hour, and then he would be rid of this mess. Mark thought about what Pat said about the remote detonator, which meant they were within a certain distance to the bombing. They paid this numb skull to set the bomb and activate it and tried to get rid of the evidence all at the same time. Mark reached for the radio dial to check out the news.

"Gas prices are on the rise again, bringing the price at the pump to an all-time high, and with the dollar weakening against the Euro they don't expect it to go down any time soon,"

"Man, what a bunch of junk, they could just pull it all from Alaska or Texas and drop the prices, but
no
; we've got to get it from overseas," Pat rambled on about the government and how they were forcing the prices up and how it was a big conspiracy.

"Shut up and just sit there!" Mark Growled. He was not in the mood for Pat's take on life or government. He glared at

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him, trying to see if this kid had any brains. It was beyond him how he could kill hundreds of people and go on as if it did not matter. He could have gone to the police and turned himself in or at least tried to make it right.

Mark sipped his coffee and looked out the window. He had to think.
How am I going to find these guys?
He needed a plan. He was going to send Pat out to sit on a bench under a tall oak tree, and then he was going to stroll through the park to see if he could spot anyone or anything out of the ordinary. If the bombers lived close by then he might see them or if they sent a goon out to the park every Tuesday, which he doubted, they would see Pat, and hopefully call him. It was a long shot but at the moment it was the only shot he had. Mark reached in the backseat and pulled out Pat's backpack, and started to go through it. He could see Pat start to interject, but then a look from Mark made him turn back toward the window in silence. Finding a wallet, he pulled out a driver's license and credit cards and anything else he could spot that could be useful to find Pat, in case he decided to make a run for it.

"Okay, here's the deal: I'm keeping your license and credit cards, so if you think of running, I'll find you and report you to the police. There is a video of you setting the bomb, and soon there will be a warrant out for your arrest, but if you run, you better pray that the cops find you before I do." Mark lied about the video, it was real but his copy was no longer working. Pat did not know that and he didn't think Pat was smart enough to ask to see proof.

"I won't run, besides I wouldn't mind giving them a little piece of my mind after they tried to kill me and all!" Pat ran 182 AARON

his fingers over the deep scars that covered his face. "Not like I can hide, anyway, everyone stares at me like I'm a freak with these scars."

"It's almost nine, you go sit on the bench, and I'm going to keep an eye on you from that bench across the way there,"

Mark pointed to a bench that sat about one hundred yards from the one Pat would be sitting on. "How long do you have to wait?"

"About ten minutes and then I would leave, and they would call about an hour later."

"You better be right, if we don't get a call, then I'll know you are a lying coward." Mark opened the car door and went around to Pat's side. After he got out, Mark cut the zip ties, freeing his hands. Pat rubbed them, started across the street, and sat down on the snow-covered bench.

Mark walked around on the sidewalk to the crosswalk, taking the long way to the other side of the park. The park was a whole block long with slides and swings in the center of a playground. The old oak trees and trimmed shrubs made a beautiful picture with the fresh blanket of snow covering the ground, but Mark was not in the mood to enjoy the scenery. After Mark made his way to the other side of the park, he sat down on a bench and looked across the park to keep an eye on Pat. Mark grabbed a newspaper on his way across the street and began to flip through it as if he were reading. He glanced at his watch and noticed it was two minutes to nine. Looking around, he noticed through the trees a four-story apartment building that faced First Street, and also looked down on the park bench. The windows had small balconies with wrought iron rails. Mark inspected each window for

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movement; he glanced up from his paper trying to check out each one in-between reading.

When he got to the third floor, he spotted something. His heart raced as he watched a man open the window and light up a cigarette. He was wearing a wool sweater and had unkempt hair that stuck up in weird places and was smashed down in others. He looked around as he drew in the nicotine and blew out a ring of smoke. His eyes scanned the park and spotted Pat sitting, shivering in the cold. Mark could tell that this upset the man as he quickly went back into the apartment.
Could this be one of the killers?
Mark tried to keep calm; he needed to be sure. The man came back to the window, but this time he had a cell phone to his ear. Mark looked at Pat to see if he was on the phone too. Mark's heart skipped a beat as he looked at Pat.

He wasn't.

He must be on the phone with someone else; Pat just sat there hunched over, shivering with his coat pulled up around him. The window closed, and the stranger disappeared. Another five minutes went by and nothing more happened. Mark got up, rolled the paper up under his arm, and headed back to the car. When Pat saw him across the street, he got up and came toward him.

"Get in,"

Pat opened up the passenger side door and got in, and then shut the door behind him. Mark started up the engine and turned the heater on high; it was waiting time. Pat didn't say anything, he just sat there shivering and holding his hands over the heater vent.

Pulling out into the street, Mark turned left down one block and pulled into the alley right behind the apartment 184 AARON

building. The car stopped behind a large dumpster that sat off to the side of the alleyway. The green dumpster had thick brown grime on the lip and running down the sides. The back of the building had a covered patio where tenants could park their cars, and there were about ten vehicles parked in a row all the way down the alley.

Mark could see steam coming from the back of a grey pickup truck down the row about fifty feet from where Mark and Pat sat. He could not explain it but Mark knew that the truck belonged to the man in the window. He was going somewhere.

Then the truck backed out and started down the alley away from them, heading for the street. Mark could tell from his viewpoint that it was the same man who stood in the window. His hair stuck up on one side, and smoke trailed out from the cracked window of the truck.

Mark tailed him through the city and onto the expressway. They made their way toward the Rockefeller State Park where many hikers would spend the summer to get away from the city. The drive took two hours and forty-five minutes, until trees filled the sides of the road and up along the mountains.

"Ring-ring."
Pat's phone rang making both of them jump. Mark handed the phone to Pat and glared at him with a look that said what Pat already knew,
'Be cool, and don't set them
off.
' Pat opened the phone and answered.

"Hello,"

"What do you want?" The gruff voice filled the car as Pat turned on the speakerphone.

"I need my money."

"What money do you think you're getting?"

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"You said to set the bomb and I would get paid fifty grand and now I want my money! Or we can just talk to the police to see what they think about it." Mark looked at Pat, halfimpressed at his boldness when just a short time ago he was cowering and snotting all over the leather seats.

"Well, we thought you were dead, with a year going by and not hearing from you," The man sounded confused as to how Pat could have made it through the blast.