Blood Money Page 20

  “That’s right.”

  “Then how the hell did you plan this little adventure without them finding out?”

  “I didn’t plan anything,” Kelton said. “It was all Walter. I just went with the flow.”

  “So you didn’t know what was going to happen?”

  “I knew Walter would do something that would give us a chance to lose the NDC, but I didn’t know what.”

  “But how did he know that we were still being watched?” Jessica said. “I thought you told him that we had lost our tail, that we were alone?”

  “I did,” Kelton said, a small grin forming on his lips. “But I didn’t use the magic words.”

  Jessica glared at him, obviously not amused. “Now is not a good time for your smart-ass routine. Just tell me what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “I didn’t complete our all-clear phrase correctly,” Kelton said. “You see, before we started this operation, Walter and I agreed to say a certain thing when we first started our phone conversations; four lines, said the same way every time. This little exchange, if done properly, would tell the other person that the line was safe, that nobody was listening in to the phone call or forcing the call to be made.”

  “But when you called him from Baker, you greeted Walter differently, which told him that you had been compromised.”

  “Exactly,” Kelton said. “So when I told him we were alone, he knew we really weren’t. And then, when I called him from Vegas to set up a meeting, he knew he’d have to either give up on the operation—”

  “Or find a way to get us away from our observers,” Jessica said.

  Kelton nodded.

  “So he set up the meeting at a place that you were familiar with, knowing that when he pulled his little trick, we’d be able to get away clean.”

  “That’s right,” Kelton said.

  “So you knew those sprinklers were coming on?”

  “Actually, that was all Walter. I was just as surprised as you were when they started up.”

  Jessica smiled, shook her head. “I have to admit, you guys are pretty clever.”

  “I told you before, we’re not clever, just well-prepared.”

  “Don’t be so modest,” Jessica said. “Loki has got nothing on you.”

  Kelton smiled and shook his head, but didn’t disagree with her. The light from the drain had faded enough that he was forced to again pull out the lighter to help them negotiate the way.

  “How much longer do we have in here,” Jessica said.

  “Ten, fifteen minutes, tops,” Kelton said.

  “You said that half an hour ago.”

  He shot her a sheepish grin. “What can I say, it was longer than I remember.”

  “Yeah, right. You just lied to me to get me moving.”

  “I had to do something, the way you were—”

  He stopped suddenly, held out his hand to halt her progress, then brought his index finger to his lips.

  “What is it?” Jessica whispered.

  He leaned in close to her ear. “I heard something. You stay here while I check it out.”

  “No freaking way,” she said. “I’m coming with you.”

  “Fine. But stay behind me at all times, no matter what. And whatever you do, don’t take off without me.”

  “Got it.”

  Kelton shifted the lighter to his left hand and pulled the gun from his waistband with his right. He crept forward with the lighter in front of him and the gun hidden behind his back. A few steps later, the outer bubble of light revealed a withered, grungy-looking man standing near the wall, his shoulders slumped in a non-aggressive posture.

  “I don’t want no trouble,” the man said, shifting his head so that he wasn’t looking into the light. His voice was wet and phlegmy, as though he’d spent way too much time

  in these tunnels.

  “Don’t worry,” Kelton said, slipping the pistol back into his waistband without revealing its presence. “Neither do we.”

  The man raised his eyes, spent a couple seconds sizing them up, and apparently liking what he saw, smiled a toothless grin. “Visiting the parts of Vegas you don’t see on the Travel Channel, eh?”

  “That’s one way to put it,” Kelton said. “Now, if you’ll excuse us . . .”

  “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have a smoke on you,” the man said as they started to move past him.

  Kelton chuckled. “Actually, you’re in luck. I’ve got a whole pack.”

  “Cool,” the man said.

  Kelton pulled the pack of smokes from his pocket, walked forward, and held them out to the man.

  A gray, mottled hand snuck out from beneath the ratty cuff of the jacket, palm up. Kelton dropped the pack into it.

  “You mind lighting one up for me to get the string started?” the man said.

  “Not at all.”

  Kelton waited until the man had opened the pack and put a cigarette in his mouth, then moved the lighter forward and set the flame to the tip of the smoke.

  A long puff, followed by a cough, and then the man said, “Thanks brother. May you live a full life.”

  “Amen to that,” Kelton said. “You have a good one.”

  “You too,” said the man. He walked past them, heading deeper into the tunnel.

  They went the opposite way, towards freedom.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  A little less than an hour after they’d fled the Cleopatra Hotel, Kelton and Jessica exited the tunnel through a large, hinged, iron grate, coming out of a culvert more than four miles from where they had entered the drainage system.

  The sun had dipped further into the sky, and it was nearing dusk, but it felt like the middle of the day after the darkness they experienced in the drains. They took a moment to enjoy the fresh air, then headed across the street, towards a shopping center that had seen better days.

  Kelton gave Jessica $140 in twenties and asked her to buy a new set of clothes for both of them, including socks, shoes and Tidy Wipes. The clothes they were wearing were still damp from the sprinkler outburst at the casino earlier in the evening and they both smelled like the tunnels.

  He waited until Jessica entered the store, then headed towards the pay phones on the far side of the building. He picked up the receiver but hesitated before dialing Walter’s cell.

  Although Nicholas had indicated that the NDC could not, in fact, get anything off Walter’s phone, Kelton was still skeptical. He had no idea whether or not Nicholas had been telling the truth. But he knew there was no other viable alternative if he wanted to get hold of Walter. So, after a deep breath to help clear his mind, he recalled a calling card number from his mental rolodex, and called Walter.

  The old man picked up the line during the first ring and immediately said, “Hello, my friend. How are you doing?”

  “Better than you, old man.”

  “Oh, I doubt that.”

  “Doubt all you want,” Kelton said. “It won’t change anything.”

  “Glad to see everything worked out,” Walter said.

  “Thanks to you. That was quite a trick you pulled back there at the casino.”

  “I thought you’d like that.”

  “Loved it,” Kelton said. “How did you manage to pull it off?”

  “A friend of mine is quite good at that sort of thing,” Walter said.

  “Well, tell your friend that I’m much obliged.”

  “I already have,” Walter said. “I’m just glad you were able to tip me off that something was going on.”

  “Yeah, I was hoping you’d pick up on that.”

  “But of course. I may be old, but I’m not senile. Yet.”

  Kelton offered an obligatory chuckle.

  “By the way, I still don’t have any clue what’s going on,” Walter said. “You’ll have to fill me in after this is all over.”

  “I’d be glad to,” Kelton said. “Right now I just want to get this thing over with while we’re still on our own.”

  �
�Fair enough,” Walter said. “But let me ask you one thing. Who was running this operation? Surely not the FBI.”

  “No, not the Feds. It was some group called the National Defense Commission, or so I was told.”

  “The Commission was behind it?”

  “You’ve heard of them?”

  “Whispers and intimations, here and there,” Walter said. “I haven’t been able to crack their security yet. I wonder how they got wind of me?”

  “From what I understand, they’ve been tracking government breaches for a while now,” Kelton said. “Apparently they’ve come across a pattern that links a bunch of them together.”

  “I’ll have to keep that in mind.”

  Kelton tried to get a read on the old man but it was impossible; his tone was the same as it always was. Not that it mattered anyway. Kelton had cast his lot, the only thing to do now was to play out the string and hope he had chosen correctly.

  “So what happens now?” he said.

  “We meet up,” Walter replied.

  “Good. I assume you’re in town somewhere?”

  “I am.”

  “And I’m guessing you have a place in mind where we can get together?”

  “I do,” Walter said. “First of all, you need to take a—”

  “Hold on a second,” Kelton said. “Are you sure you don’t want to switch phones before you tell me? The NDC was listening in the last couple of times we talked, maybe they found a way to trace your phone.”

  “How many times do I have to explain to you that my phone is safe,” Walter said. “It cannot be traced, or tracked, or hacked into, or anything else.”

  “All right, all right. I was just making sure.”

  “And I appreciate that, but the phone is safe, just as it’s always been.”

  “Then go ahead and tell me,” Kelton said.

  “The first thing you need to do is take a cab to the South Coast Resort,” Walter said. “There is a pickup truck waiting for you in the garage, on level two, in the middle of the row, license plate 3EDK899. The keys are in the glove compartment, along with a set of directions, telling you where we will meet.”

  They found the truck without any problem. It was a black Ford Ranger with a silver panel along the side and stickers clinging to every square inch of the rear window. Although it looked to be at least twenty years old, the engine started up on the first try and the air-conditioning worked, so Kelton had no problem with it.

  Just as Walter had promised, there was a sheet of paper with directions written on in the glove compartment, along with the keys.

  “So where are we going?” Kelton said.

  Jessica unfurled the paper and looked at it. “I-15 North to I-95 South,” she said. “Then a right on Ironwoods Drive and a left on Frobisher Court.”

  “Is there an address written down?”

  “No,” Jessica said. “It just says to drive until the road ends, then stop.”

  Sighing, Kelton shook his head. “One of these days, I swear, the games are going to be over.”

  “I’ll believe that only after it happens,” Jessica said.

  Traffic was light on I-15, and they reached I-95 at right around 7:15. The sun was low on the horizon, burning red and looking weary.

  Kelton was feeling good, but had to force himself not to feel too content; although the job was almost finished, he knew better than to start relaxing too soon. His four years as a closer in college had taught him many things, and among the most important was to not let up until the final out was recorded.

  “Kelton?” Jessica said.

  “What?”

  “I said, are you okay, Kelton?”

  “Oh. Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”

  “You disappeared there for a second,” Jessica said.

  “Sorry. Just zoning out I guess.”

  “Well, don’t let it happen again,” Jessica said. “I don’t want to end up getting away from the NDC just to get killed in a car accident outside of Vegas.”

  “Telling me how to drive already, eh?” Kelton said. “I thought that didn’t start until after we started living together.”

  “Yeah, well I like to get a head start on things.”

  “I kind of got that feeling.”

  Jessica smiled absently, shifted her gaze towards her feet, and said, “Do you mind if I ask you something?”

  “Not at all,” Kelton said.

  She looked up at him. “How long have you been planning on betraying the NDC? From the moment we turned ourselves in?”

  “Actually, no,” he said. “I went into the situation with a completely open mind.”

  “Then when did you decide?”

  “After our initial conversation with Nicholas, when he told us about Walter.”

  “I take it you didn’t believe his story?”

  “It wasn’t that. In the end, I came to the conclusion that Nick’s story was just as plausible as Walter’s. I really wasn’t sure who to believe. I’m still not, actually.”

  “Then why did you decide to stick with Walter?” Jessica said. “Is it part of your personal code not to leave a job unfinished, no matter what the cost, or some crap like that?”

  “Not at all. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.”

  She gave him a funny look.

  “I told you before, I’m not some mercenary who does things just for the money,” Kelton said. “Don’t get me wrong, there has to be a damn good reason for me not to do what I’m paid to do, but if someone lies to me, or misrepresents what I’m doing for them, I feel no obligation to finish the job. If I’m uncomfortable with something, I’m going to do what makes me comfortable. Regardless of what I was hired to do. End of story.”

  “And what you’re doing for Walter doesn’t make you uncomfortable?”

  “Not at all.”

  “But he could be a traitor,” Jessica said. “He could be stealing things from the government to make money. He could be responsible for the deaths of American operatives for God’s sake.”

  “He could be,” Kelton said. “Or that might be completely overblown. I told you earlier, I still don’t know who to believe in this case.”

  “Then what led to your decision to betray the NDC?”

  Kelton took a moment to put words to his thoughts. “Think of it this way,” he said eventually. “Suppose Nicholas was telling the truth, and Walter is stealing secrets from the government simply to make money. Is this despicable? Yes. Will I be upset that I fell for his act? Absolutely. But would I be able to sleep at night knowing that I helped him? I’m pretty sure I would.

  “But suppose Walter is telling the truth, and your AIDS vaccine really does work, and he wants to help you produce it and get it to the masses. If we help the government catch him, then that will never happen. Your vaccine will never see the light of day.”

  Kelton let this sink in before continuing. “In the end, it was a pretty simple decision,” he said. “If we help the NDC, then all we really do is keep someone from making money off the government’s secrets. But if we help Walter, we could possibly help rid the world of the AIDS virus. And I don’t know about you, but in my mind, with all other things being equal, I have to err on the side of helping the world. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, but at least I’ll be able to sleep at night knowing that I tried to do the right thing, for the right reasons.”

  “There’s nothing else?” Jessica said. “No professional pride in finishing the job assigned to you, or anything like that?”

  “Not really,” Kelton said. “Sure, I may have given Walter the benefit of the doubt because I’ve worked with him before, but that wasn’t the deciding factor. I just want to do what’s right. I wanted to potentially help all those poor souls with AIDS and nothing to combat it with. The way I see it, I owe it to them to put myself on the line in order to try and get them help. It’s the right thing to do, plain and simple.”

  Jessica didn’t say anything, so Kelton glanced over, saw her staring at him with what he would have s
worn to be admiration. He flashed her a confused smile. “What?”

  She shook her head, chuckled to herself. “Deep down beneath all that grit and bluster, you really are a Boy Scout, aren’t you?”

  “You sound surprised.”

  Jessica shrugged and her gaze dropped to the ground. “I am surprised. A little bit, at least. All that talk about your own moral code, about just doing what’s right, I was never really convinced that you meant it. I always figured there was a certain measure of bullshit mixed in, stuff to help justify to yourself what it is you do for a living, help you live in your own skin.”

  “Well, now you know,” Kelton said. “It’s all legit.”

  “What about starting over together? Was that legit too?”

  “Absolutely,” Kelton said. “I’m hoping we can still give it a shot. After you help Walter produce your vaccine, he’ll set us up with new identities. We can go wherever we want.”

  “But we’ll still have the NDC looking for us.”

  “Yes we will.”

  “And we’ll be easier to find if we’re together.”

  “That’s true,” Kelton said. “But they’ll probably find us eventually, whether we’re together or not. We might as well enjoy our time left on this earth—as limited as it may be—together, don’t you think?”

  Jessica’s laugh sounded more like a resigned sigh.

  “Besides, I wouldn’t worry too much about the NDC,” Kelton said. “It’s a big country. And an even bigger world. Even if they do go after us, I think we could get lost pretty easily, maybe even make it such a nuisance to catch us that they’ll just give up the chase.”

  Her laugh softened and she shook her head. “Somehow, I doubt that.”

  Kelton smiled. “Yeah, you’re probably right. But it sure would be fun to try.”

  “Maybe,” Jessica said. “I’d have to think about it though. After that little stunt you pulled back at the casino, I don’t know how much I really trust you.”

  Kelton held his hand over his heart in an effort to mock the real pain he felt. “Ouch. That hurts.”

  “Well? It’s true. You didn’t tell me anything about what was going down.”