me.'
'Tight situation.'
'I just knew I couldn’t get on the plane. Do that, and I’m dead. I put up enough resistance so one of them tries to push me on board. That gives me an excuse to stumble and fall, and when I hit the tarmac I draw the nine-millimeter and roll under the plane and empty the clip at them.'
'A regular Jane Wayne,' Dodge said.
Tess wasn’t sure she appreciated the comment. 'It was just instinct. And I can’t honestly say I knew what I was shooting at. I found out later they were all wearing vests, but I was low enough to catch them where they were vulnerable-knees, groins.'
'Ouch.'
'The driver and pilot went down wounded and basically gave up. Black Tiger had more fight in him. He has his piece out, and he’s trying to cap me under the plane, and I really think only the landing gear saved me-deflected the rounds or messed up his aim. Anyway, I…I got him with my last cartridge.'
'A kill shot?'
'In the neck. Not intentional-I couldn’t even see the bastard. It was luck or divine providence or something.'
'You believe in that? Divine providence?'
She shut her eyes, remembering Paul. 'I think I used to.'
'Well, that’s a hell of a war story, Special Agent. I’m surprised the feebs-pardon me, I’m surprised the feds haven’t made you their poster child for recruitment.'
'They sort of did. For a while, at least. I’ve heard they still teach the case at the academy.'
He seemed to catch her tone of voice. 'And you’re unhappy about that?'
'It’s just…It all happened really fast. It was ten seconds, probably less. It shouldn’t be such a big thing. It shouldn’t-Hey, wait a minute.'
She had found something.
It was a small metal object, rectangular, its exterior badly oxidized by the heat of the fire and the subsequent dousing of the flames. When she turned it over, she saw a row of small buttons.
'Could be part of the computer gear,' Dodge said. 'Zip drive or CD burner or something.'
'No. It’s a tape recorder.'
'Maybe the vic was listening to some tunes.'
'Probably.' She opened the compartment containing the tape and saw a cassette inside. 'But I’d like to be sure.'
The cassette appeared to be intact. The player’s metal casing had protected it from damage. There was no label on the cassette. It seemed to be a blank tape that the owner had recorded himself. She wanted a closer look. Maybe something was written on the other side.
The eject button wouldn’t work. Without touching the cassette, she pried it loose with a ballpoint pen from her purse, then held it by the corners. No label on side two, no indication of the tape’s contents. This struck Tess as odd. Normally when people dubbed a CD or a batch of MP3 downloads onto a cassette, they would label the tape so they knew what they had.
The cassette was made of clear plastic, the spools of tape visible inside. She peered at it closely.
'It wasn’t Scott Maple who brought this here,' she whispered. 'It was Mobius.'
Dodge frowned. 'Where’d you get that idea?'
'Look at the tape. See how it’s twisted? A single twist in the ribbon.'
'Tapes get snarled sometimes.'
'This was done deliberately. The twist was put in to make the double-sided tape into a continuous loop.' She looked at him. 'A Mobius strip. That’s what it’s called.'
There was nothing else in the lab, or at least nothing they could find. They emerged blinking into the daylight of late afternoon.
'What now?' Dodge asked.
'I call my AD about this.' Tess tapped the two plastic evidence bags into which she’d inserted the tape player and cassette.
'You’re not even slightly curious about what’s on the tape.'
'I’m curious. But I don’t carry a Sony Walkman around with me, and the machine we recovered is inoperable.'
'There’s a cassette player in my car.'
Tess hesitated only a moment. She knew it was a violation of procedure to play the tape before the forensics technicians had a look at it. She also knew that the sun would set soon, that Mobius might well be planning to strike tonight, and that time was of the essence.
'Let’s do it,' she said.
Dodge slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine, and Tess sat on the passenger side and carefully removed the tape from its bag. With a gloved hand she inserted it into the dashboard tape deck. The tape began to play automatically in the middle of a song.
No lyrics. Just guitar chords, drums. A fast, hectic beat.
'Recognize it?' Tess asked.
'No. Maybe. It’s almost familiar.'
The song ended, then began again-an endless repetition courtesy of the Mobius strip. At the start of the song there was a peal of tittering laughter and a falsetto voice simpering, 'Wipe out.'
'I know it now,' Dodge said. 'Shit, that goddamn song always did creep me out.'
'It’s called ‘Wipe Out,’ I assume?'
He nodded as the song played on. 'Surf music from the early sixties. Some Beach Boys wannabes, as I recall. I don’t remember the name of the group. Why the hell would Mobius be carrying this around?'
'I guess it’s his theme song.'
'But what’s it mean?'
'That,' Tess said, 'is the million-dollar question.'
They sat in the car as the song played again and again over the dashboard speakers.
Standing next to Dodge’s car, Tess used her cell phone to call the AD. Andrus answered on the fourth ring. She told him what she’d found.
'All right,' he said. 'We’ll have to see if the tape is playable-'
'It is.'
'You listened to it? Without letting the lab have a look at it first? What if there was a fingerprint on the play button and you destroyed it?'
'The exterior of the player is oxidized. No fingerprints. Anyway, Detective Dodge and I-'
'Who?'
'LAPD homicide detective. He’s assisting me. We played the tape, and it’s a song-'
'Right, fine. We’ll talk about it, but not over the phone. I’m dispatching Larkin to pick up the evidence. He’ll deliver it to me, and I’ll hand carry it to the lab. I’m also sending a crime-scene squad to the campus. I want you to stay there and watch the site until they arrive.'
'I can get a security guard to do that.'
'I want you to do it. That’s an order.'
'Gotcha.' She was a little peeved to have to waste time hanging around, but there was no point in arguing.
'And, Tess?' he added. 'Don’t touch that tape player again.'
Andrus clicked off. Tess stuck the phone back into her purse, fuming.
'You look unhappy,' Dodge observed with a smile.
'My boss is an asshole sometimes.'
'Whose boss isn’t?' The smile lingered, incongruous on his hard, cynical face. 'So after we’re done here, you want to get together, go over what we’ve learned?'
She didn’t quite understand. 'Go over it?'
'At my place, say. I’ve got a house in the Hollywood Hills. Great view of the city.'
