Chapter 40
After Dr. Travers had unhooked me from the lie detector and departed with it, Stemp leaned back in his chair again and regarded me over steepled fingers.
“Thank you for your patience with the test,” he said. “I’m quite pleased with your anger management. You didn’t even call me a dickhead.”
“Yay, me,” I muttered, still annoyed.
He studied me for a moment longer. “The formal part of this briefing is complete. But… may I ask you a personal question?”
“I can’t stop you,” I said flatly. “Do you want to hook me up to the lie detector again?”
“That won’t be necessary.” His expression eased into something a little closer to human. “And you are under no obligation to answer. I’m simply… curious. Do you really feel guilty over those things?”
“Of course I do. I’m a bookkeeper, for shit’s sake; my life is all about honesty and accuracy. And now I lie and cheat for a living.” I sank my face into my hands. “Never mind that; I lie and cheat to stay alive. I hate this fucking job.” The last sentence choked out past the emotion that suddenly clogged my throat.
I gulped it down and straightened, giving Stemp a defiant glare. “Happy?”
“No,” he said, regret softening his face. “I know the toll this job takes on one’s heart and soul, and I wish it could be otherwise for you.”
“Thanks,” I said quietly, and fled before I could burst into tears.
Damn sympathy.
A brief sojourn in the ladies’ room stiffened both my spine and my resolve, and I hurried into my office to file my reports before striding out to my car. Shivering in the biting wind, I slid into the driver’s seat.
I would nail Riel, dammit. And I would prove that Kane was innocent. And protect Harchman, and incriminate Tawny, and find Dante and Arnie, and save hundreds of innocent civilians…
The weight of it bowed my shoulders, but I fought off despair.
One thing at a time. Call Riel and get invited back to Harchman’s. I pulled out my burner phone.
Its voicemail light was glowing, and when I played back my messages Labelle’s rich voice flowed from the speaker.
“Hello; it’s Frederick Labelle calling. I was sorry to have missed you at brunch this morning. Benoit and I have some business to discuss with you, and we were hoping you could meet us for brunch at ten AM at my home tomorrow morning.” He reeled off the address and finished, “Please call me as soon as possible. Thank you.”
I let out a long breath. Finally, something was going right. At least I didn’t have to cudgel my exhausted brain into creating a plausible excuse for returning to my enemies’ lair.
And he’d called me from his own phone. Maybe our makeshift bug was working again.
With my fingers crossed for luck I dialled his number, but the call went to voicemail. I left a message saying that I’d attend his meeting, then hung up and stared through my windshield into the deepening twilight.
That was too easy. Was I just walking cooperatively into Labelle’s trap? I should be chasing the bad guys down instead of waiting for their invitations. Bearding them in their dens and forcing them to confess…
I blew out a breath. No, that was Holt’s stupid action-hero attitude. Thank God I’d had Kane for a mentor. Undercover work meant long hours of staying meticulously in character and collecting evidence, not charging around antagonizing the suspects.
Dragging my tired body out of the driver’s seat and back up to Stemp’s office, I reported the upcoming meeting with Labelle and Riel, feeling only slightly guilty about my relief at being able to avoid Lawrence Harchman for a few more hours.
Back in my car, I devoured a granola bar from my stash in the glove compartment before leaning my head against the headrest with sigh.
Now that my official mission was back on track, I could use the remainder of the evening to hunt for Dante. A slow chill spread through my belly as I counted back the days since his abduction. James Helmand had been dead since sometime yesterday. So his captives, if any, had been without food or water for at least a day and a half. By the time I got back to Calgary it would be after eight PM and pitch dark. I was exhausted already, and I likely couldn’t search all of the eleven addresses on the list Spider had provided.
And tomorrow morning I’d be occupied with Labelle and Riel.
More than two days. A person could die after three days without water. Especially if they had been tortured; their ravaged bodies succumbing to shock…
“Dammit, dammit, dammit!” I slapped the car into gear and accelerated out of the parking lot.
A few miles out of Silverside, a flash of light focused my attention on my rearview mirror.
A single bright headlight bobbed behind me, closing rapidly. Some hardcore motorcycle rider must be taking advantage of the snow-free highways despite the cold. He or she must be frozen to the bone, especially at that speed.
The bike was only a dark blur as it flashed past. Its taillight had diminished to a dot in the distance when it flared into sudden brightness. The rider was tapping the brakes, rapid flashes in an odd rhythm.
Adrenaline spiked into my veins when I recognized the pattern. Three short, three long, three short. SOS.
I slowed, realizing I was gaining on the biker. As I closed the distance between us, the motorcycle pulled off to the side of the road and stopped, still flashing SOS.
A trap?
Or an earnest call for help?
Holding my breath, I pulled over well behind the bike and drew my Glock.
The rider dismounted and strode back toward me, black leather and full-face helmet blending into the dusk. As he approached, more details appeared in my headlights. Very tall; very broad-shouldered…
My heart leaped as I recognized Kane’s smooth powerful gait, and I holstered my weapon and sprang out of the car to meet him.
As I hurried forward he made a slicing gesture across his throat.
Still bugged. We couldn’t talk.
But he was holding a white object in his hand. A folded piece of paper…
Headlights blazed behind us. Coming fast, then braking hard.
Kane flung the paper at me and ran. A gust of wind whisked the white scrap into the ditch and I dashed after it, not sure whether I was chasing the paper or hiding from whomever Kane was trying to evade.
Holt’s shout came from a few yards back. “Stop or I’ll shoot!”
Kane’s stride altered to an erratic zigzag. A few paces later he jumped astride his motorcycle and kicked it into gear.
Gunshots shattered the country silence, the muzzle flashes from Holt’s pistol splitting the dusk.
“STOP!” The scream tore my throat as I pivoted and sprinted up the embankment toward Holt.
Kane’s big bike snarled and rocketed into the night.
Holt swore and dove back into the driver’s seat. Seconds later he screeched to a halt beside me, bellowing, “Get in!”
Too stunned to argue, I flung myself into the passenger side only to be slammed back in the seat as Holt floored the accelerator. The Audi gave a snarl of its own, and I grabbed for the seatbelt.
“You can’t catch him,” I gasped, sneaking a fearful glance at the speedometer as my seatbelt clicked into place. A hundred and twenty kilometres per hour and accelerating fast. “That’s a BMW K1300R. Major muscle bike. Zero to a hundred in about two seconds; tops out around three hundred.”
“This is an Audi Quattro,” Holt grated. “Zero to a hundred in six-point-two seconds, top speed around two-forty. He only has to make one mistake and I’ll catch him. Especially if he smears himself all over the road. I’ve got four wheels; I don’t have to worry about keeping my balance.”
Drymouthed, I watched the speedometer climb over two hundred kilometres per hour.
“I drive this road all the time,” I quavered over the thumping of my heart. “There are a lot of deer. Especially at dusk…”
“Good.” Holt pushed the car faster. “Maybe he’ll hit one.”
“Or we will.” My voice came out in a squeak, my knuckles glowing phosphorescent white in the dashboard lights. “Slow down! There’s a rise here-aaaaaaAAA!” My words turned into an inarticulate yell as we topped the rise and the car took air.
Holt swore. The highway briefly disappeared, then reappeared in the headlights as the car slammed back to the pavement. A yellow curve sign flashed past. Holt braked hard, throwing me forward against the seatbelt.
“Fucking asshole!” Holt roared. “That asshole…”
Our tires shrieked as the car skidded into a four-wheel drift. Too terrified to even blink, I braced my arms and legs against the interior, my heart battering my ribs.
“Asshole!” Holt snarled. Suddenly we were facing the direction we’d come and Holt hammered on the gas again. “He hid under that rise and backtracked!”
Sure enough, a red taillight was fading into the distance.
“You can’t catch him,” I repeated, trying to hyperventilate and sound authoritative at the same time. “That bike’s ‘way too fast and he knows this road like the back of his hand.”
“So do you,” Holt snapped. “Make yourself useful.”
Up over two hundred kilometres per hour again.
Holt was clearly an excellent driver, but this was far too dangerous. Just one old farmer dawdling along the highway in a pickup truck, and we’d kill an innocent civilian. And ourselves.
Enough of this shit.
I conveniently failed to mention the tiny back road through a ravine that I was pretty sure Kane would take.
Holt continued to push the Audi into the gathering night, but after several miles it was obvious that we’d lost Kane. Holt slowed to a decorous hundred and thirty kilometres per hour.
“Where the fuck is he?” he snapped. “There’s a back road around here, isn’t there? You didn’t tell me!”
“Give it up. You know as well as I do that you can’t catch a bike with a car; and anyway, it’s too dangerous to drive like this. We’ll kill some poor civilian. Slow down, and take me back to my car.”
Holt shot me a murderous glare. “You let him get away! You fucking traitorous bitch! I should shoot you right now!”
Fear and adrenaline blazed into violent rage. “YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!” I slammed both hands into his shoulder, making the car swerve dangerously. “WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR PROBLEM! YOU FUCKING STUPID…” I couldn’t think of a vile enough epithet so I just kept yelling. “He was giving me an update! He dropped a paper, which is now probably somewhere in fucking Saskatchewan thanks to this wind! You blew the whole fucking op! YOU FUCKING MORON!”
Holt slammed on the brakes, catapulting me forward against my seatbelt. A few seconds later the Audi slid to a halt on the gravel shoulder and I was staring into the muzzle of Holt’s gun.