I immediately saw why she thought it was our arsonist. “Fits the pattern.”
“Si.”
I traced my finger along the blueprint. “Just like the first fourteen fires, he used vents and airflow to direct the blaze.”
Aina picked up on my train of thought. “The building’s main air-conditioning vents blew directly on the fire, feeding it a steady stream of air, here-”
“Creating a giant blowtorch that shot the fire through the building’s air ducts. Building B-14 didn’t have a chance.”
“You think like an arsonist,” she said.
“No,” I said, turning to face the fire. “If I did, I’d know why he chose this building.”
Creighton Melice grabbed the new cell phone he’d bought half an hour ago. Time to leave the warehouse and meet with Hunter to make the exchange.
Well, to be more accurate: to get the device. There wasn’t going to be any exchange. There was only going to be a dead ex-SEAL.
He didn’t want to worry about Cassandra somehow escaping, so he double-checked the security of the cotter pins that locked the metal bars in place at the top of the tank. The pipes passed through holes drilled into the glass, and since the cotter pins that secured the pipes were outside the glass, there was no way for her to get out, even if she were able to break the chain.
“See you soon, Cassandra,” he called. “I hope I make it back in time to say good-bye.”
The water was up to her chest. Cassandra shouted at him, a muted, hollow cry, and spit at the glass. Creighton waited a moment to watch the saliva slide into the water, and then he left her, locked the warehouse door behind him, and stepped into the cool San Diego night.
While Lien-hua went to speak to some base personnel about the nature of the bomb threat used to clear the building, I met with Aina and Ralph to try and narrow down where Hunter might be hiding.
“He could be in the crowd,” Ralph said.
“We thought of that,” said Aina. “We’re checking on everyone who’s here.”
“No,” I said. “Not this guy. He leaves. Remember? The trolley system. He likes to disappear fast, and he knows how to do it.
He’s not going to stick around. Besides, he needs to get to shore.
He wants to save Cassandra.”
I tried to figure out what the best entrance and exit routes would be. How would I get off Coronado Island?
Obvious choice: drive. Either the Coronado Bridge or the Silver Strand, the narrow strip of land that leads from the island to Impe-rial Beach. Aina seemed to read my mind. “The military is treating this as domestic terrorism,” she said. “They’re stopping all traffic leaving the island.”
“Boats?” I asked her.
“Already on it. We took a few people in for questioning. It doesn’t look like anything though.”
I heard the sound of a chopper and noticed a news helicopter hovering above the shore of the mainland. Hmm. It was possible.
“See if there’s been any base air traffic in the last hour. Choppers especially.”
“You serious, Pat?” said Ralph. “You think he flew out?”
“Just trying to eliminate the possibility.”
Aina spoke into her walkie-talkie. “No air traffic,” she said.
“Not in the last two hours.”
“Then there’s only one option left,” I said.
“What’s that?” she asked.
I pointed to the dark ocean. “He swam.”
Austin Hunter threw his arm out of the water and grabbed the edge of the dock. It had taken him longer than he expected to get to shore, but he knew there would be too much attention drawn to this fire to get off the island any other way.
After he’d hoisted himself onto the dock, he slipped out of his swim fins and then yanked off his face mask and snorkel. Normally he would have used a scuba tank and a rebreather to eliminate bubbles, but tonight he’d needed to pull something with him.
In his black hybrid wet suit he doubted anyone passing by could see him, but he needed to make sure. He gave the area a quick visual.
OK.
Clear.
Austin glanced at his waterproof watch: 1839 hours.
He needed to hurry; he was supposed to have checked in nine minutes ago.
The rope that was tied around his waist tugged at him, telling him that the five-foot-long inflatable sack containing the device was floating past him toward shore. Before it could bump into any of the dock’s pilings, he pulled the floating waterproof bag toward him, and carefully lifted it onto the dock.
49
I spent a minute studying the water, gauging the wind. The currents.
“Ralph, how far do you think it is to shore?”
He surveyed the distance. “I’d say about a mile, mile and a half.”
“You were in the special forces; how long would it take a Navy SEAL to swim that far?”
“A SEAL, with this wind… maybe thirty-five, forty minutes.”
As I stepped toward Aina I heard him mumble, “Take a Ranger twenty-five.” I took a moment to compare the swim time with the time of the fire’s origination.
“He’s on the mainland,” I said. “Aina, we need to send out an APB, have officers start sweeping the shore. Get some. Wait-” As I stared at the shoreline I saw the news helicopter again. This time I could read the writing on the side: Channel 11. “They’re filming this. Ralph, see if you can get us a feed. Pull some strings if you have to. I want to see if they’ve caught our guy on camera.” I saw Lien-hua coming toward us, picking her way through the crowd.
“Maybe we could have the helicopter crew help look for him,”
Aina suggested.
“No good,” I said. “I don’t trust the media, and the more control they have, the worse off we are. We need to get in the air ourselves.”
Lien-hua arrived, and while Aina and Ralph made the calls, I ran with her toward the amphib base’s landing pad.
The man on the phone had been very clear that if the device was not intact they would kill Cassandra. So, before delivering it, Austin decided to take a quick look and make sure it hadn’t been damaged during his swim across the bay.
He bypassed the zipper and instead tore open the waterproof bag and pulled out the black duffel bag inside. He didn’t rip this open, though, but unzipped it carefully. The device was enclosed in a protective foam wrap, which he gently unfolded.
The device looked a bit like a video camera supported on an extendable tripod base. The unit’s body had a laser focus and a satellite dish the size of Austin’s hand. An eight-inch video screen was mounted in the front, and a large removable battery pack with radioactive warning labels hung from its belly. If he didn’t know better, he’d say it was some kind of laser tracking unit or remote listening device, or maybe a high-tech thermal imager. But he did know better; he’d seen those two men use it the previous night.
Austin thought this thing might have something to do with the research Cassandra was doing, but he couldn’t be certain. One time she’d mentioned a project she was working on for the government, but he hadn’t pried. After fourteen years as a SEAL, he knew that keeping secrets meant keeping your job. Now, he wished he’d asked her
