Mortal Fear

the wall, sometimes risking everything on single trades. I’d have a stroke if I tried that now. I’m a system trader-I cover every conceivable angle before I make a move. But back then I was high on rage. Everything I’d ever learned had somehow been recalled and slaved to my anger. I was like Mr. Spock possessed by a pissed-off Captain Kirk. A fucking superman.”

My pulse races just remembering that rush.

“The market was different then too. Especially the S amp;P index. You could leverage your position to an unbelievable point. It was like showing up at the Indy 500 with a Ford Pinto, handing them your keys, and them saying, ‘Son, these Pinto keys qualify you to drive a Maserati for the duration of the race. Of course, if you wreck the car, you’ll have to pay for it, but we’ll worry about that when it happens. Please try not to kill yourself.’ And then they let you drive out onto the track.”

“And you won the race?”

“I kicked ass, Doctor. After five months, I resigned from the firm, and a twelve-hour train ride later I was back in the Delta. I went straight to the bank and asked to see Crump. I must have looked like shit on a stick after that train ride, but he didn’t bat an eye. He was past seventy by then.

“I told him I wanted to buy back our farm. Crump said the land wasn’t for sale. I told him I’d give him a good price. He told me not to let the door hit my ass on the way out. I knew what fair market value was, so I named a figure double that-four times what he’d paid for it. Crump said no sale. I was starting to lose my temper, but I didn’t show it. I told him he ought to be sensible, that everything had a price. He told me that wasn’t always the case.

“That stumped me. I’d been relying on his greed, and he’d made a statement that indicated I might have misjudged him. He was staring at me the way a hunter looks at a treed coon, and I decided then that my only chance was to go for broke. I told that son of a bitch I’d pay him four times market value for the farm-an eight hundred percent profit — but that the offer was good for only sixty minutes. I said I’d be back in one hour and if he wanted the money he’d better have the papers ready. I walked out to a cafe, had three slow cups of coffee, took a leak, and walked back to the bank.”

“And?”

“And Crump had his lawyer and two witnesses and the contract sitting there waiting for my signature. After I signed the papers, he told me I was the dumbest egg sucker that ever walked through his door. I said maybe I was, but that I had ten thousand bucks left and I’d have given him that and the shirt off my back for that land, and I hoped he died a damned lonely death.”

Lenz has turned his head to me. He is staring with new eyes. “Is that story true? It sounds like something from It’s a Wonderful Life.”

“An R-rated version, maybe. It’s true all right. Life doesn’t give you many chances like that.”

He nods. “Life didn’t give you that, Cole. You took it.”

“A barber drove me out to the farmhouse. Mom was in the kitchen, smoking a cigarette and drinking a cold cup of coffee. When I laid that deed down on the table in front of her, she stared at it for nearly a minute. Then she looked up and asked me if it was real. If it was real. When I told her it was, she broke into pieces. She just… it was too much. She was shaking and crying and trying to hug me, and right then… goddamn it, I knew what it felt like to be a man. You know? I finally understood that being a man means taking care of the people you love, no matter how you do it. Even if you have to die to do it.”

“How did your father take the news?”

“I guess relief was the main thing. For four years he’d lived knowing he’d failed my mother and would never be able to make it right. My getting back the land changed things for the better, but a lot of damage had already been done. Dad had spent four years thinking he was worth more dead than alive to the people he loved. Business-wise, his life insurance policy was about the only thing he’d done right. He figured dying was the only way he could take care of his own. He’d started drinking heavily. It wasn’t a perfect happy ending or anything.”

Lenz raises a finger and points to a turn in the road at the limit of his high beams. “But the best ending possible under the circumstances, in my view. You have my respect, Cole.”

The Mercedes takes the curve with the grace of a racing hound and glides toward a lighted gatehouse in the distance. “A lot of men go through life the way your father did.”

“Silent desperation, right?”

“Thoreau knew a thing or two.”

“Actually that’s James Taylor. Thoreau said quiet desperation.”

Lenz snorts. “My mistake.”

The Mercedes stops at the gate long enough for a uniformed marine to come to the window, check Lenz’s pass, and wave us through. Before we’ve driven fifty yards the rattle of gunfire rolls out of the darkness. I feel as though we’re moving through a ghostly skirmish in these historic Virginia woods, but it must be marines on night maneuvers. After we pass a second gate, a complex of lighted buildings much like a college campus appears. Lenz picks up his cellular and hits a speed-dial code, mutters into the phone, then hangs up and makes a sharp turn off the main drive.

“Hostage Rescue touches down in Dallas in twenty minutes,” he says. “They’ll be at the apartment in thirty- five, maximum. Strobekker’s still on-line.”

I shudder with the sudden exhilaration of impending action. “This is unbelievable.”

Lenz nods. “And we’re going to have a front-row seat.”

“What do you mean?”

“Wait.” He stops the Mercedes near the rear of a parked semitruck and looks at me. I hear a heavy metallic ching, then watch in amazement as the rear panel of the semitrailer rises into the roof and dim red light bleeds out around the silhouette of a man. I have only seen him once in my life, but every fiber of my instinct tells me that black shadow belongs to Daniel Baxter, chief of the Investigative Support Unit.

“We drove all this way to get to a truck?”

Lenz chuckles softly. “Don’t say that word anywhere near the people you’re about to meet. They call this vehicle Doctor Cop. For MDCP-Mobile Digital Command Post. You’re about to see interactive media like you never imagined, Cole. As close as the FBI ever gets to Hollywood.”

CHAPTER 18

The silhouette at the back of the truck does belong to Daniel Baxter. After shaking hands with me, he leads us into the strangest environment I have ever entered. The interior of Dr. Cop-the Mobile Digital Command Post- feels like a mobile home from some world’s fair exhibition fifty years in the future. It is long and narrow and stuffed to the ceiling with rack-mounted shock-cushioned computers, CRTs, satellite receivers, surveillance gear, and pale technicians with bona fide nerd packs in the pockets of their short-sleeve poly-cotton shirts.

A constant thrumming vibrates the floor of the command post. Soft radio chatter emanates from several sets of speakers, none of it in sync. I assume the nerds are somehow following all of this. Baxter leads us along a cramped walk space to a curved bank of video screens. Most are blank, but two show black-and-white views of what appears to be a detached apartment building much like the ones I lived in during college.

“Is that it?” Lenz asks.

Baxter nods. “Two apartments per unit. Strobekker is six seventy-two. Six seventy-three is empty, thank God.”

“Is that a live feed?” I ask.

He nods.

“The resolution’s unbelievable.”

“Digital video. We’re getting it encrypted over a secure channel.” Baxter points at a screen. “Notice the windows of the apartment? Covered with aluminum foil on the inside.”

“Bad sign,” says Lenz. “How long until HRT gets there?”

“Touchdown in five minutes at Love Field. Another ten, give or take, to get on site. The complex is about halfway between Love and Dallas-Fort Worth International, just one in a sea of complexes. Anonymous as you can get.”