outside, letting the door shut against the can, and hurried down the street.
He caught Vicky up before she reached the corner and walked around it with her before stopping her with a gentle pressure on her arm. ‘You keep walking up this street and catch the first taxi you see. Please don’t ask me anything now. I’ll call you at the centre tomorrow, okay?’
She studied him for a moment, not afraid any more but deeply concerned. She glanced at the bundle under his arm, then looked into his eyes again. ‘Okay,’ she finally said. ‘You’ll call me tomorrow?’
‘First thing,’ he said.
Vicky looked very disappointed as she lowered her gaze and walked away from him up the street.
Stratton watched her get twenty yards ahead before following. As she crossed the road she hailed a taxi and he turned the corner towards Santa Monica Boulevard. He looked back to see her climb in and as it pulled away he broke into a jog.
Less than a minute later Stratton was standing on the corner at the end of the alleyway, looking at the back of the sedan parked twenty yards away. Pedestrians walked past him on the busy boulevard, no one taking any notice of him. He uncovered the box and attached the wire he had disconnected. He looked up to check that the man on the roof was not visible, then moved quickly at the crouch into the darkened alley along the wall, dropping to his knees as he reached the car. He quickly pushed the bundle underneath it, scurried back to the busy boulevard and broke into a run, back around the block the way he had come. He slowed to a fast walk as he approached the emergency exit of the apartment building. He stepped inside, kicked away the beer can and ran up the stairs, not stopping until he reached his door.
Stratton stepped inside, paused to take a few deep breaths and turned on the light.
He removed his jacket, dropped it onto the back of a chair and went into his bedroom. He turned on the light and drew the curtains.
The cellphone on the seat beside the man in the back of the saloon rang and he picked it up, listened a moment then lowered it as he cut off the caller. He dialled a number. ‘About time,’ he said. ‘Hope he’s gettin’ laid. Nothin’ like going out with a bang is what I always say.’ He punched in the last number then hit the call button.
The explosion rattled Stratton’s windows. He looked round the side of the bedroom curtain to see the car in flames, its rear end practically destroyed by the detonating fuel tank.
Stratton dug his pack out of the wardrobe, crammed all his clothes into it, hurried into the bathroom to collect his washing stuff and went back into the living room. He pulled on his jacket, took the CIA explosives pack out of one of the kitchen cabinets and jammed it into his bag, which he now zipped up. Then he left the apartment. He hurried along the corridor back to the emergency stairwell, took the stairs several at a time and stepped out onto the street.
Stratton walked past the entrance to the alleyway where a crowd had gathered to stare at the burning car, and along Second Street where he searched for a taxi. His plan was to find a cheap hotel in another part of town, wait for Josh’s release and then get the hell out of the country. But one thing was worrying him. Whoever had tried to hit him might know about Josh and possibly about Vicky too. That was a major cause of concern and one for which he had no immediate solution. One possibility was to kidnap Josh from the centre but that option was a minefield. Another was to go to Vicky, except that he did not know where she lived and had no home or cellphone number for her.
A cab pulled over. As Stratton climbed in he had a terrible feeling that things might be falling apart for him.
22
Stratton awoke the following morning in a seedy hotel that had been recommended by the taxi driver. It was in Mar Vista, midway between west and central LA. The area appeared to have more Hispanics and blacks than whites in it, judging by the characters on the street. When Stratton had asked the driver about going further east the man had said that he wouldn’t like to speculate on Stratton’s survival prospects, seeing as he was way too white to be going any further east in that part of town.
The hotel room, which smelled of tobacco smoke, was basic to say the least. It had a TV, en-suite shower, a cigarette-burned carpet with matching sideboard and the added feature of a vibrating bed – five minutes per quarter, according to the slot machine bolted to the wall above the side table. Stratton slept fitfully and awoke early. After taking a shower he checked the local news station on the TV and heard a report of the exploding car in Santa Monica. It was described as possibly a gang-related fuel-tank sabo -tage but the report gave no other details.
Stratton had planned to be at the child-protection centre for eight-thirty a.m. but could not find a taxi until he had walked a mile towards the beach. As the cab approached the centre he leaned forward in the back seat to look through the windscreen at a street that was unusually busy. Several of the vehicles were police cars.
The cab stopped on the corner and Stratton jumped out, paid the driver and hurried to the entrance. But as he was about to open the gate a police officer stopped him.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ the officer said, barring his way. ‘Do you have business here?’
‘Not exactly,’ Stratton said, playing it cautious while at the same time growing increasingly concerned.
‘Then you’ll have wait back over there,’ the officer said, pointing down the sidewalk.
‘What’s happened?’ Stratton asked.
‘I can’t say, sir. Now you’ll have to step back, please.’
Stratton looked towards the building entrance to see Vicky walking out of the building while talking to a police officer. He moved along the fence, hoping to catch her eye, willing her to look his way. She stopped at the top of the steps and as the officer wrote something in his notebook she looked up and froze as her gaze met Stratton’s. The officer asked her another question and she had to look away from Stratton while she answered. Then she stared back at him, this time with a strange look in her eyes. The officer said something else to her to which she nodded. Then he walked away.
Vicky paused uncertainly before heading along the narrow path towards the gate, past the officer on guard and down the sidewalk towards Stratton. As she approached he started to speak. But she cut him off, her voice quiet yet harsh. ‘I need to talk to you,’ she said, moving ahead of him and around the corner before stopping and turning to face him. She looked fraught and strung out, her gaze roving everywhere before settling on him.
‘Just tell me one thing first,’ Stratton said, grabbing her shoulder. ‘Is Josh okay?’
Vicky brusquely shook his hands away, an expression of horror and suspicion on her face. ‘This morning as Dorothy was arriving two men walked in behind her and asked to see him,’ she said, keeping her voice low. ‘They said they were police officers and wanted to ask him some questions. They showed her their badges. I wasn’t here yet, nor was Myers. Dorothy should have waited for one of us but she went and got Josh anyway and they grabbed him.’
Shortly after she had begun speaking Stratton’s hands had gone to the sides of his head. He closed his eyes, knowing what was coming.
‘They punched Dorothy to the floor when she tried to stop them and then they left. The security guard was just arriving and they beat him up on the porch and took his gun. No one saw the car they got into or where they went.’
Stratton could not quite control himself yet. He walked past Vicky, his fists clenched tightly. When his eyes opened they looked wild but he could say nothing, his mind in turmoil.
‘The police asked me to tell them everything about Josh,’ Vicky went on. ‘I told them about you. I … I thought you might have had something to do with it. After last night – I didn’t know what to think. I saw the news this morning – the car that exploded outside your apartment building. It happened just after I left. You had something to do with that, didn’t you? Don’t lie to me, John. I know you did.’
Stratton didn’t react to her, as if she was no longer there, his mind already focusing on other things: formulating, calculating, planning, seething, hating.
