Fisk decided against it and went back to hugging himself with both arms and sucking air, hating eyes glaring out of an anguished face.
Jack said, “Not so much fun when the other guy
isn’t handcuffed, is it?”
Hardin said, “Here now, what’s all this?”
Taggart, elaborately nonchalant, said, “I didn’t see
anything, Lieutenant.”
Hardin got a knowing look on his face. He said to Jack, “Okay, that evens things up. You happy now?”
Jack said, “Happier.”
Hardin said, “Fisk, if you’re going to be sick, you’d by God better not do it out here.”
The station’s front door opened and two people walked in, CTU’s Anne Armstrong and Ernie Sandoval. Jack nodded to them, said, “I’ll be right with you, there’s just one more detail I need to get straightened out.”
He crossed to Taggart at the front desk. Taggart eyed him warily. Jack held out a hand and said, “My gun.”
Taggart opened a drawer in the desk, reached in, and pulled out Jack’s pistol and a magazine clip, setting them both down on the desktop. He said, “It’s not loaded.”
Jack picked up the pistol, examining it, making sure the chamber was empty. It was. He fitted the clip into the slot on the gun butt, slapping it with the heel of his palm to send it on home.
He didn’t bother jacking a round into the chamber. He’d already made his point. He fitted the gun into the shoulder holster, letting the flap of his jacket fall to cover it.
He faced the two CTU agents and said, “Let’s go.”
Anne Armstrong had a primly disapproving look on her face, like a schoolteacher who stepped out into the hall for a minute and found on her return that the pupils were acting up.
Ernie Sandoval indicated Fisk, who stood bent double with one arm extended, clutching the wall for support. He said, “What happened to him?”
Jack said, “Too much coffee.”
5. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 7 A.M. AND 8 A.M. MOUNTAIN DAYLIGHT TIME
It was a beautiful morning, and that was part of the problem as far as Jack was concerned. All that bright sunshine pouring out of a cloudless blue sky up here in the heights was dazzling and made his head hurt. He put on a pair of sunglasses. That cut down on the glare, but the pressure of the sunglasses on the bruised left side of his face added to his discomfort.
He sat in the front passenger seat of a car being driven by Anne Armstrong. She was tall, lean, with short blond hair and a long, narrow, highcheekboned face. She wore a tan blazer, light blue blouse, sand-colored skirt, and brown low-heeled loafers. She also wore a snouty, short-barreled semiautomatic pistol in a clip-on holster attached to her belt over her right hip.
She drove north on Rimrock Road, leaving behind the Mountain Lake substation. Their destination was Sky Mount. Ernie Sandoval had taken the Toyota pickup truck, driving it to the CTU command post at nearby Pike’s Ford.
Anne Armstrong said, “Our people found the bodies of Frank Neal and a civilian who fit your description of Lobo at Red Notch, but no dead shooter.”
Jack said, “Damn, they work fast.”
“Who?”
“The other side, whoever that is.”
“The Zealots?”
“I wonder.”
Armstrong thought that over for a minute. “No results on finding the Subaru you were chasing.”
Jack said, “I’m not surprised. There must be thousands of places to hide a car in these mountains.”
“No car of that description has been reported stolen. And with no license plate number…”
“Those killers were pros. They wouldn’t use their own car. The license plates were probably lifted from another car to further muddy up their tracks.”
A mile went by. Anne Armstrong said with a touch of frostiness, “What was the purpose of that macho display at the station?”
Jack said, “Equilibrium.”
Her face tightened, a network of fine lines showing around her eyes. “I don’t follow.”
He said, “Hardin’s boy pistol-whipped me when I was handcuffed. Can’t let him get away with that kind of thing. This is an aggressive business with a lot of high-testosterone characters who’re always testing the limits to see what they can get away with — and that’s just the ones who’re supposed to be on our side. You don’t want the word to get around that a CTU agent can be roughed up without any consequences. Otherwise our guys lose respect with the other agencies we have to work with. It’s bad for morale. By paying that thug cop back in kind, proper balance is restored. The word gets out that our guys can’t be pushed around without some kind of comeback.”
Her pursed lips parted to speak. “I see. So it was all for the benefit of CTU. There wasn’t any personal animosity involved.” She didn’t bother to mask the disbelief in her tone.
Jack said, “Personal feelings aside, I did it for the good of the service.”
Anne Armstrong said a dirty word. “You’ll be going back to Los Angeles in a few days but the rest of us will be staying here. Try to remember that we have to work with the local authorities.”
“Hardin will get the message. I used to be on the LAPD. I know how cops think because I used to be one myself. By the way, what’s the story on the MRT?”
“Bryce Hardin is a power in state law enforcement circles. He’s a highly decorated officer with numerous commendations for valor and high- profile busts. He’s got a lot of pull with the governor’s office at the capital. The MRT is his and the governor’s way of injecting themselves in Sky Mount doings and increasing their profile and political prestige.”
The cliff wall on the west ended, opening into a box canyon whose centerpiece was a lens-shaped lake. The lake was the color of the sky. The picturesque landscape had a gravel parking lot and was dotted with picnic tables scattered among the trees surrounding the lake.
A metal signpost identified the area: mountain lake state park. A chain barred the entrance. A printed cardboard sign fixed to it said, temporarily closed.
Jack said, “So that’s Mountain Lake. I was wondering where they were hiding it.”
Armstrong said, “It’s closed for the duration of the Round Table. The authorities don’t want a lot of unauthorized civilians up here during the conference. It’s one less variable for them to have to deal with.”
They drove past the space and the cliff walls returned. Jack said, “Something else has been bothering me, something that might be a possible lead. It’s a long shot but it could be worth following up. The compound at Red Notch should be checked for traces of chemical weapons.”
Armstrong’s cool demeanor gave way to outright surprise. “Chemical weapons? Where do you get that?”
“Something Lobo said about the compound being covered by a green cloud. It could have been some kind of CW, a toxic gas attack. Or maybe only a smoke bomb.”
“Or the demented ravings of a half-mad homeless drunk.”
“Somebody was worried about Lobo enough to have him killed by a team of assassins. Cultists and CW isn’t so much of a stretch, either. Look at the Aum Shunrikyo doomsday cult that set off sarin nerve gas bombs in the Tokyo subways some years ago.”
Anne Armstrong looked worried. “The Zealots and chemical weapons — the idea alone could set off a panic.”
