Chapter 14

Garcia didn’t bother to answer. He took out his gun.

“Are you going to shoot me first?” she shouted. She guessed she was kidding. She felt relieved he was there and that he was staying, although the situation was entirely futile.

Garcia stood behind her and enfolded her in his arms. She was sure that under the right circumstances the embrace would be pleasant, but just at this moment, she was a little too distracted to respond. He pulled her wrists to the side, exposing the chain between the cuffs. Oh great, he was going to try to shoot the cuffs off her. She was going to get shot in the arm before being burned to a crisp in the fire. How helpful!

He placed the muzzle of the gun against the chain. “Close your eyes,” he yelled and pulled the trigger. The explosion was deafening, even loader than the roaring fire and the rockets going off combined. Her left ear turned itself off defensively.

Powder burns appeared on the insides of her wrists, but the chain pulled apart easily with a tug. Garcia took her hand at once, turned, and yanked at her to follow him. She wasn’t in great shape at this moment, it was true, but she wasn’t quite ready to hang it all up, either. Especially when the possibility of continuing to live loomed a little larger than it had a moment before. She didn’t hesitate in following behind him to the staircase.

But the stairs didn’t look like a comfortable place to be at this juncture. Tongues of flame were devouring their way up the hardwood steps toward them. Garcia and Helen retreated simultaneously and headed toward the windows. Jumping from the second floor, even risking breaking a thing or two, was better than walking down the stairway into the inferno that raged beneath them. Helen spotted her purse on the floor near the windows, picked it up, and slung it over her shoulder.

She and Garcia pushed up on one of the enormous old-fashioned window frames and a breeze blew in, carrying with it fumes from the fire below, mixed with the freshness of the outdoors. Garcia gave Helen a peremptory thump on the back, and she started to climb out the window.

The ledge was fairly wide, so she didn’t have to jump as soon as she exited. She had a moment to stand, gather her wits, and choose a good landing place. The ground didn’t offer much of a choice, however. No soft spots in this part of the world.

Years before, Helen had been instructed in the optimal approach to freefall should she ever have to jump out of a plane without her parachute. But she wasn’t up nearly high enough to practice those interesting-sounding techniques, and then too, at the end of even the most perfectly executed freefall, you had to expect the ground to leap up and give you quite a smack.

Helen threw herself off the ledge, hit the parking lot below and rolled. The asphalt proved a rude awakening. The landing had knocked the breath out of her. She had trouble believing she could hurt in so many places at once. She lay there a while, her eyes searching around for Garcia to see how well he had done.

He had come to rest not too far from her, where he sat upright, testing his limbs for functionality. “Get up,” he ordered. “We have to get away from here.” He stood.

She stumbled to her feet. Although she was in pain from her head to her toes, the entire range of her extremities seemed to be in reasonably good working order. She was alive as well. In fact, she had probably exaggerated the gravity of the situation to a great extent.

Garcia trotted toward the highway and Helen followed, limping at a somewhat slower pace, although her companion’s sense of urgency prodded her forward. They reached the verge where a car was parked. As Garcia was about to open the door for her, she was blasted forward by a gigantic explosion from behind. The air shook forcefully with the shock waves. Garcia threw his body over hers and held her against the vehicle protectively. Helen sighed.

When they sensed that bits and pieces of the Rockerton warehouse were no longer flying about, they turned and stared at the previously sound structure. What little was left of the place was burning. Even as she caught her breath from the run and the shock of the blast, Helen heard sirens blaring down the highway. When she glanced around to see the fire engine, she saw the vehicle was only a sheriff’s office car. This wasn’t New York city. Things took time in the provinces.

Garcia pulled the car door open. “Get in,” he told her, not that she heard the words exactly. She sat, shakily, her feet resting on the grass, as he went over to speak to the deputy. She saw him take out his identification.

In a minute, he was back at the car with an object in his hand that turned out to be a small key. “Let’s try this,” Garcia suggested, bending toward her. She noticed with some surprise that the cuffs still encircled her wrists. Nice of him to think of her in the midst of all this mess.

The key fit. Garcia removed her bonds gently, then set the metal aside carefully on the grass, as a law enforcement officer might do to preserve the evidence. Helen pulled her legs into the car and Garcia closed the door. He went back to the cop car. The deputy seemed to be calling in the incident on his radio.

When Garcia returned a second time, he had a plastic bag with him into which he popped the cuffs. “Fingerprints,” he told her—if she was hearing right.

The Yakima deputy came along behind. “I’d like to ask you a few questions, young lady.” The officer leaned into the car, taking her in for a second. She really must look a sight.

“I’m going to bring her to the hospital now,” Garcia corrected him. “She has some injuries, and she may be in shock.”

Helen felt insulted. Maybe she had a few little burns, bumps, and bruises, but she certainly wasn’t all that far gone. She didn’t say anything though. She didn’t exactly feel like explaining her involvement to local law enforcement here—and probably Garcia didn’t want her to. Garcia drove away. “I don’t want to go to the hospital,” Helen said quickly. “A drugstore will do it. Then take me to a motel.” She felt herself blush. She certainly hadn’t meant anything by that request. She took a comb out of her purse and began to run it through her hair.

Garcia was on top of her, his mouth on hers. She held his naked body tightly to her, glad to be with him. His weight was just right, pinning her down solidly to the bed in a way that felt safe and comfortable. Her tongue met his, seeking him out as her body tensed with desire to have him inside of her. She reached down to pull him in.

Then she realized that something was wrong with this picture. She was engaged to be married to another man. She shouldn’t be doing this. Their lovemaking wasn’t quite right. She pushed at Garcia to get him off and he looked at her in surprise, sadness, and disappointment.

She struggled to get out from under him and in so doing, woke herself up. She was alone in her motel room. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or sorry.

At almost the same moment that she sat up in bed, the phone rang. The caller was Garcia. He was waiting for her in the coffee shop. Where was she? Was she all right? Hadn’t they said they’d meet in forty-five minutes? She realized then that she had fallen asleep after having a hot shower.

Avilla had taken her overnight bag away in his car when he had left her to die. He probably hadn’t thought that she would be needing her things anytime in the near future. Yet here she was, pretty much as she had always been, needing to brush her teeth and moisturize her limbs, as usual.

She had bought a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt in the motel gift shop, and she put them on now as she dressed to meet Garcia. The sweatshirt covered the bandages on her wrists, which helped. She faced herself in the mirror; she actually didn’t look half as bad as she felt.

She walked into the coffee shop, saw John, and sat down across from him. She tried smiling, which was a bit of a chore. “Thanks for saving my life, by the way,” she told him. She tried to offer her appreciation as graciously as possible, although she had begun to feel churlish toward him again.

He waved off the acknowledgment. “You probably would have bitten your way through the handcuffs, if I hadn’t come along.” His face tried to show that he was teasing, but maybe he wasn’t. He thought she was a pretty tough cookie, she guessed. Maybe that was why he hadn’t shown the least little personal interest in her as a woman. She didn’t seem vulnerable and helpless enough.

“What were you doing out this way anyhow?” she asked.

“Are you kidding? We have a tap on Avilla’s line. He called his secretary’s voice mail last night to say he was on his way to Yakima, two weeks ahead of a scheduled visit, so I decided to head out here, too. I got in before he did and rented a car. Since I had found out what flight he was coming in on, I waited for him outside the terminal. He drove to the Rockerton warehouse where he stayed for about an hour before driving back to the airport.”

Garcia looked her probingly in the eyes. “Then I watched both of you get into his car. The meeting struck me as being pre-arranged. Was it?” he asked Helen.

She choked on the water she was drinking, coughed a while, then opened her mouth. “You think I was doing business with Avilla? That’s a very unpleasant accusation, although I’m not even entirely sure what you might be implying.”

Garcia dropped his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Maybe I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. I just thought that you might have made an appointment with him, to learn some more. Or…” his voice trailed off. He glanced at her again and she saw that he wasn’t really feeling nearly as apologetic as he was trying to act.

“If you have his phones tapped, you should know I haven’t spoken to him,” she pointed out.

“Oh, we think he’s having quite a few conversations with the outside world that we aren’t hearing. I wouldn’t doubt that he knows someone’s listening on his home and office phones. On the other hand, we have no proof of anything against him. Or at least we didn’t until today and his attack on you.”

“I hate to admit it,” she interrupted weakly, “but I really didn’t see him knock me out or anything. I assume he hit me, but he could always claim that someone else came along, kidnapped him, chained me to the pipe, and set the fire.”

Garcia looked a tad bit disappointed. “That’s another thing,” he added. “That fire should never have set those rockets off. That isn’t the way these things work. And if it were, they would have all gone off, but they didn’t. A lot of them were never ignited at all, according to the Yakima Fire Department. Someone knew how to make a few go off at a certain time and did. And planned for a major explosion after that. Avilla worked for Rockerton’s artillery division at one time, so it points a big fat finger in his direction.”

“Sounds circumstantial to this member of the jury,” argued Helen.

The waitress came to take their order and Helen curbed her tongue. Trying to rectify the eating habits of a lifetime, she requested a piece of melon. But because she was hungry, she also asked for a hot dog and French fries, anyway.

Garcia ordered the turkey sandwich and a low-calorie soda—as if he needed it. Then he picked up the conversational thread without losing a stitch. “Circumstantial, yes, but I did see Avilla go into the warehouse earlier in the day. Then later, the place blows up. With enough circumstantial evidence, we can hang the guy. I’ve Fedexed the handcuffs to see if we can pick up his fingerprints.”

“Do you have his fingerprints on file?” Helen was curious.

“Well, sure.” Garcia smiled stunningly. “He has top security clearance as a federal contractor for the Department of Energy.” His expression turned grim.

“We should go out to Hanford and ask a few questions,” Helen said, rising.

“Good grief, sit down.” Garcia half rose from his own seat to stop her, causing Helen to drop back down into her chair. “Isn’t nearly getting killed enough for one day? I don’t know about you, but I hurt all over. And I wasn’t hit on the head or practically shot in the arms. How’s your hearing, anyway? Both of my ears are still plugged up. I feel as if I were swimming underwater. I don’t know how long the government will pay for a deaf special agent in the field. I’m not as tough as you and your boyfriend, I can tell you that.”

Helen gazed balefully at Garcia. “I feel terrible, but I’d feel worse if that son of a bitch got away.” She thought it over. “Those sons of bitches,” she corrected herself. “Avilla and his nephew.”

“We can’t learn anything at Hanford,” he assured her. “Don’t you think that DoE inspectors have been crawling all over that place trying to figure out what became of the plutonium that hasn’t been accounted for? You’re not going to walk in there this afternoon and get the solution to a puzzle so deeply convoluted that everyone is sure an answer will never come to light.”

“Why Avilla? What made you think it’s Avilla then?” she asked.

He nodded. “That’s the question you should have asked me last week in Cuba,” he said. “Because we knew that his nephew was running significant arms to Latin revolutionaries, and we thought that Avilla might be in on it. So we watched him with a certain amount of attention. Later, we began hearing through the grapevine that former Eastern Bloc nuclear scientists had showed up in Guatemala and Peru. The rumor was that insurgents in those countries had gotten hold of enough plutonium for small nuclear armaments. Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it, until you think of all the outlaw nations and terrorist organizations that could be funding something of that sort.

“Were the rumors true? We could hardly be certain. But then our agents took photos of Avilla with two people who were later identified as top Soviet nuclear arms experts. And, at another meeting, he was seen with a former administrator at the Department of Energy. Of course, that could have been a purely social or legitimate business occasion. Hard to say because we didn’t have a bug.”

Garcia laughed, but without much enjoyment. “Those photos made some people in Washington very nervous, I do believe.” He leaned forward, as if about to tell her a secret. “You can buy damn near anything in this world for money,” he revealed, exhaling forcefully. “Not any one. Some people can’t be bought—a lot can’t, actually. But if you want to buy some thing, sooner or later you’ll find the person who will sell it to you.” He shrugged in resignation.

“It’s a dangerous world out there, as things stand,” he soon added. “But I don’t like to think what kind of world we might have tomorrow if people like Avilla are selling nuclear materials to be used in weapons of mass destruction.”

Helen stood again. “Well, let’s get going.” She looked around in a wild-eyed manner as if trying to determine a direction in which to start out. Then abruptly, she regained her seat as her meal appeared. The waitress set Helen’s hot dog in front of her, and she picked it up without waiting for another plate to touch the table. They had failed to grill the bun, she noted.

Where was she supposed to go next? That’s what she wasn’t sure of. What the hell was she supposed to do now that the government was handling this business?

Helen promised to fly Garcia back to Washington in the morning, although she wasn’t entirely certain that East was the answer to her quest. She should probably go find some nuclear scientists in Guatemala or something. In the meantime, the two of them had decided to go to the movies that night. Go to the movies! She couldn’t believe it. She didn’t remember the last time she had gone. She and Eric had never gone, just the two of them, although they had seen Dinosaurs with David a few months before.

Going to the movies was such a normal activity, she wasn’t even sure that she was entitled to do it. She also worried that their movie-going would seem like a date.

But first, she called her pal Dennis in Washington. “Did you find out about the pilots’ licenses?” she asked immediately without beating around the bush or telling him that she had nearly been killed earlier.

“Avilla holds a multiengine license,” Dennis told her. “Peno isn’t in the computer, although he could hold a license under another name.”

She grunted. “That makes Avilla our skyjacker,” she guessed.

“That would be too easy,” the FAA investigator disagreed. “I don’t think so.”

“Yeah,” she insisted. “The picture falls into place. He’s the one. I’m going to think of a way to prove it. And to get my jet back from his nephew.”

“Did you learn anything helpful in Yakima?” Dennis asked her.

“Yes. Yakima is no place for a nice little trip.” She debated telling him that Garcia was here and started to say something, but she couldn’t get the words out past her lips. For some obscure reason she felt embarrassed and guilty about it, as if his presence was something she herself had planned for a suspect reason.

They hung up. She put her skirt and blouse back on to go to the movies and added some blusher to her cheeks. Her wrists throbbed and she was still hearing impaired, although the knock on the door five minutes later came through loud and clear.

After checking that the visitor was indeed Garcia, Helen opened the door. She felt unaccountably self-conscious.

They drove to a multiplex in a nearby shopping center. They both liked action they agreed, then laughed because, really, they had gone through enough of that for at least one day. They bought tickets for Mission Impossible 10 or some number like that, anyway. Garcia bought a tub of popcorn on their way in and sat munching it as they waited for the movie to start. He offered her some, but she refused. She was sure the stuff was stale.

“I talked to Dennis Malloy a few minutes ago,” she admitted, as if he had wrung a confession out of her. “He found out that Avilla holds a multiengine pilot certification. I told him that means Avilla is our skyjacker.”

Garcia stopped chewing and swallowed in a gulp. “I’m going to make a phone call,” he told her. “You sit here. I forgot to tell you this, but your friend Dennis’s phone is bugged. We think it’s Avilla’s corporate detectives who are tapping his phone. Don’t worry though. I’ll send Carlis out to babysit him. I don’t want Avilla to get any funny ideas about doing away with anyone who knows he’s in on this or suspects it.” He stopped a minute, the internal wheels grinding away. “Did you tell Dennis that I was here with you?”

She shook her head dumbly.

“That’s good for the ATF because Avilla may not know we’re on to him. But it’s bad for your pal Dennis because Avilla may think if he gets rid of Dennis and you—if he can—no one will connect him with the skyjackings. Don’t worry,” Garcia assured her, making her nervous. “Don’t worry.” He rushed out.

The movie was almost through the socko opening when she felt Garcia resettle himself beside her. She glanced over at him. He appeared distracted. He reached out and squeezed her hand. A peculiar electric sensation traveled down her spine. She took her hand back.

He leaned over, and his breath was warm against her nearly non-hearing ear. “Everything’s taken care of,” he whispered. She heard him. She sat unmoving, watching the screen. Tom Cruise, or was this a different actor, jumped from about half a mile up into a canyon. Anything bad that happened to Dennis would be her fault. That was all that she could think of. If anything bad happened to Dennis, she would be the one to have done it to him.

She came upon a train wreck in the woods and turned over the pieces, looking for her loved ones. The pieces were hot; they burned her arms. Leaning over to move around the twisted bits of metal gave her a backache. Finally, she came to the engine car and saw the engineer slumped against the controls. She pulled at him, trying to see if he was still alive, but he looked at her with open eyes closed to this existence. Although he didn’t appear to be her friend, she knew somehow that the body was that of Dennis Malloy.

“I told you that you should have done something else with your life,” her father said, appearing beside her. “You aren’t like the rest of the family. Having you was a terrible mistake.”

She woke up sweating in the night-cold room. They should have flown out during the evening, she thought. Lying here sleeping when her friend might be in danger was wrong. Anxiety like a thousand gnawing worms ate away at her heart.

She reached for the phone to call John Garcia’s room. She wanted to go there and crawl into bed with him. Just to have him hold her. Her hand hovered over the instrument, then dropped back down to her pillow. She patted the pillow, then picked it up to check.

Yes, her Beretta was still there, exactly where she had put it a couple of hours ago when she had gone to sleep.

She thought about Eric. She thought about John. She preferred to marry Eric, she realized. But at the same time, making love to John seemed like an awfully pleasant possibility.