Tunnel of Night (39 page)
Authors: John Philpin
“Cut me out of here,” Michaels said.
“No time.”
Landry staggered into the doorway, holding his shoulder.
“What do you know about bombs?” I asked him. “Wolf snapped the red wire in place last. That mean anything?”
“That’s the one to clip first,” he said. “You can’t get into the battery housing?”
“It’s sealed.”
I grabbed Wolf’s wire cutters, closed them over the red wire, and snipped. The small wheel in the timer continued to spin.
“Sixty seconds,” I said. “Black and yellow are left.”
Sweat slithered down the back of my neck.
“There’s no way to know,” Landry said. “It doesn’t sound like sophisticated work. It shouldn’t matter.”
Forty-five seconds. What if it did matter? I clipped the yellow wire.
“It’s still going,” I said.
“Jesus Christ,” Michaels yelped.
“There have to be two strands to the last wire, two
separate connections,” Landry said. “Otherwise, it would have stopped.”
With thirty seconds remaining, I examined the end of the black wire and saw the two small fragments of plastic coating where they connected to the timer. “One’s white and one’s green,” I said.
“Clip either one,” Landry said, “but don’t let the metal cutters touch both wires at the same time.”
Twenty seconds.
The tool slipped out of my sweaty hands and dropped to the floor. I wiped my hands on my pants, retrieved the wire cutters, and examined what I had to do. There wasn’t much space to work with. I angled the clippers into the housing area from the side, slipped the pointed ends over the fragment of exposed copper, and squeezed.
The timer stopped. Eight seconds to go.
“That’s it,” I said.
I crouched to cut the tape from Darla Michaels’s ankles with my pocketknife, and help her to her feet. Then I looked at Landry
“Go introduce yourself to John Wolf,” I told him.
“Landry, you sonofabitch,” Michaels yelled. “You nearly got me killed. That fucking maniac called you. He practically told you who he was. You hung up on him.”
“No,” Landry said.
“Roger Curlew?” she challenged.
“A crank. We get those calls all the time.”
The agent moved by us, deeper into the room.
As I walked back through the hall, I could hear Michaels still screaming at Landry. “I
write
about this shit, you asshole. I don’t fucking
live
it.”
I took the elevator up and left the building.
I MADE MY WAY THROUGH NATIONAL AIRPORT
and found the Lear. Lane was standing beside the small jet as I walked up.
“Wolf is dead, isn’t he?”
I nodded.
“I made the calls. Should we wait until the fireworks are over and talk later?”
“I think that’s best,” I said, watching two sedans race across the tarmac toward the plane.
“You must have raised a few eyebrows in the terminal.”
“Why?”
“You’re soaked.”
“Oh. That.”
One car swung across the nose of the aircraft and stopped. The second pulled up where we were standing. Hiram Jackson got out.
“You’re going to have to stay with us awhile,” the agent said. “At least until we get this sorted out.”
As more heavily armed men got out of both cars, I watched the black Lincoln make its way toward our
group. When it stopped beside Jackson’s car, he looked over at it.
Senator Harry Storrs stepped out of his car, nodded toward Lane and me, then spoke to Jackson. “I want this plane in the air, with the Franks aboard, within five minutes.”
“With all due respect, sir, this is an FBI matter,” Jackson said.
“I know what it is.”
Jackson looked at me.
“You set a trap for a wolf and caught one,” I said. “You have the imagination to work out the details. You know that Landry was leaking information to Darla Michaels. That should give you some leverage in controlling the story. Although she’s so pissed at Landry right now, you’ll have to do some serious flak-catching.”
“That’s it?”
“If you want the whole story, come to Michigan.”
Jackson shook his head. “This isn’t going to work.”
“Bullshit,” Storrs said. “Your agency is better at disinformation than the Senate is. I’ve already made some calls. The Bureau will come out of this thing smelling like a rose. Do you think your director would settle for less? He didn’t tell me that.”
I watched as Jackson waved off his troops and moved back toward his car. He hesitated before getting in, turned, and said, “You don’t trust anyone do you?”
“No one.”
Jackson stared, nodded once, then got into his car and drove back across the tarmac.
BY THE TIME WE WERE IN THE AIR, I HAD
changed my clothes—dry jeans and a warm sweatshirt.
The plane banked in a slow arc around the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, then headed northwest. The view was impressive. Cities always look aseptic from a few thousand feet.
“I thought that this would be appropriate,” Lane said, sitting across from me and handing me a bottle of ale. “It’s from the Magic Hat Brewery in Burlington, Vermont.”
I sniffed, then sipped. “Excellent. There are some things that they do well in the mountains.”
“I looked through Wolf’s box, Pop.”
“At the story of my life?”
“He was always out there.”
“His mistake,” I said.
JOHN PHILPIN
is a nationally renowned forensic psychologist—a profiler. His advice and opinions on violence and its aftermath have been sought by police, newspaper writers, TV producers, mental health professionals, private investigators, attorneys, and polygraph experts throughout the country. He is the author of
Beyond Murder,
the story of the Gainesville student killings, published by NAL/Dutton in 1994, and
Stalemate,
which tells the true crime story of a series of child abductions, sexual assaults, and murders in the San Francisco Bay Area. Along with Patricia Sierra, he is the author of
The Prettiest Feathers,
the prequel to
Tunnel of Night.
He lives in New England.
PATRICIA SIERRA
is
an award-winning writer whose short fiction and poetry have been published in several small literary magazines. She has written three young adult novels as well, all of which were published by Avon Books. Her interest in crime and law enforcement led to a brief career as a private investigator. An avid lifelong fan of true crime books and mysteries, Sierra lives in Toledo, Ohio.
TUNNEL OF NIGHT
A Bantam Book/January 1999
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1999 by John Philpin and The Patricia Sierra Living Trust
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information address: Bantam Books.
eISBN: 978-0-307-42475-4
Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.
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