The Golden City

40

As a child, Maya had been taught to plan, but never anticipate. There was an important distinction between these two ways of thinking. When fighting with a kendo sword, she tried to be ready for anything and never assume that her opponent would behave in a certain way.

That might be possible in combat, but it was hard to extend the lesson to the rest of her life. Ever since her father’s death, she had wondered what would happen when she finally tracked down Nathan Boone. In these fantasies, Boone was usually weak or wounded. He would admit his various crimes and beg for mercy.

Now the real Nathan Boone was standing in the middle of a hotel suite next to a glass coffee table and a flower arrangement. The Head of Security for the Evergreen Foundation didn’t appear weak or frightened. Ignoring the two Harlequins, he answered Gabriel’s questions.

“So you found this man, Doyle, in Thailand, and brought him back to America?”

“That’s correct.”

“And he murdered fourteen children?”

“No – the children are still alive. I ordered two members of my team to take them out to the Mojave Desert. We leased an abandoned gold mine near the town of Rosamond.”

“But you were going to kill them eventually,” Priest said.

“I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. This is an unusual situation for me.”

“You sure as hell weren’t going to let them go.” Priest glanced at Gabriel as if to say-let me kill this bastard-but the Traveler concentrated on Boone’s eyes.

“I understand why you couldn’t do it,” Gabriel said. “You didn’t want those children to die like your daughter.”

“Who told you about that?”

“The story was in all the newspapers. The estranged husband of your daughter’s teacher came to the school and shot his wife. Then he murdered several of the children standing beside her.”

Boone was breathing hard. “He hated his wife, but why did he kill the children? My daughter was innocent.”

“A year after the incident, you joined the Evergreen Foundation,” Gabriel said. “You either found them or they found you.”

“I got a call from Kennard Nash, and they flew me to New York. They had my file from the army and they knew about my intelligence background. Nash showed me this model of the Panopticon and explained the system. He said that my daughter would still be alive if everything was controlled and monitored. The General told me what to do and I started working. You need to understand something, I’ve always obeyed orders.” Boone spoke as this last statement was the catechism of his faith.

“Your daughter was killed,” Maya said, “so you hired this man, Martin Doyle, to kill more children?”

“That’s why you have to let me go. I think Doyle is driving out to the desert to finish the job.”

Gabriel turned to Maya. “Go out to Rosamond with Boone. See if you can save the children.”

“Maybe he’s lying, Gabriel. We don’t even know if Martin Doyle exists.”

“We’ll go over to the Culver Hotel. If the story checks out, I’ll call you on your mobile phone. You’ll know in the next twenty minutes if Boone is telling the truth.” Gabriel turned to Priest. “You’re going to help me find my brother and deal with his bodyguards.”

Maya went into the bedroom, pulled the blanket off the bed and wrapped it around her shotgun. For a moment, she thought about calling Gabriel into the room and telling him her secret, but she quickly discarded the idea. She was going on a journey with the man who killed her father.

Boone and Maya walked out to the hotel parking lot and stood beside the rental car. “I’ll drive,” he said. “You can sit behind me so you can shoot me whenever you wish. The best moment will be when we reach the entrance to the mining site.”

Maya waited until Boone got behind the steering wheel, then slid into the back and placed her shotgun on the seat. She drew Boone’s automatic and clicked off the safety. It annoyed her that he was right-the best time to kill him was when the car stopped at the mine. But she could also make up an excuse and tell him pull to turn off the road when they were close to their destination. She would have to make her decision in an hour or so.

By now, she was used to the Los Angeles landscape-so unlike London or Rome. Its freeways were massive rivers that flowed though parks and neighborhoods. Signs for car washes and smog testing centers were everywhere. In the Vast Machine, both cars and humans were moveable objects that could be tracked.

Her mobile phone rang and she heard Priest’s voice. “Where are you?”

“On the freeway, heading east.”

“The man you’re traveling with told us the truth. We just found three dead rats.”

“Get out of there and help our friend find his brother. I’ll call you when I get more information.”

When she switched off the phone, Boone glanced over his shoulder. “What did Hollis Wilson say?”

“There were three bodies in the hotel room.”

“Doyle is clever. It’s not going to be easy to kill him.”

“Keep driving,” Maya said. “I’ll think up a plan when we get there.”

They turned onto State Highway 14, a four-lane road that climbed a range of eroded hills covered with dry vegetation. Every ten miles or so, a commuter town appeared with the same chain restaurants placed between a Starbucks and a McDonalds. Maya studied each new road sign, but her eyes always returned to the man driving the car. The best moment will be when we reach the entrance to the mining site.

“You killed my father.”

“That is correct. I tried to get his cooperation, but it didn’t work. Thorn was a very stubborn man.”

“You would have killed him anyway.”

“Correct. There was no logical reason to keep him locked up somewhere.”

Boone glanced in the rearview view and changed lanes. His calm voice, his lack of emotion, reminded her of one particular person-her father.

“I am planning to kill you,” she said. “But in some ways you’re already dead. You’re a cardboard box with nothing inside. You don’t care about anyone, and no one cares about you.”

“I cared about my daughter.” For the first time, Boone’s voice was hesitant and filled with pain. “I would have died for her that day, but I lived. I don’t know why I lived.”

They came over the hills and saw the shops and street lights of the two adjacent communities of Palmdale and Lancaster. This was the farthest extension of the suburban sprawl-a daily commute from downtown Los Angeles to single family house with a hungry mortgage. But the moment they passed through this area, the Mojave Desert surrounded them. The only bright features in this region were illuminated billboards for Indian casinos and plastic surgeons. Change Your Looks! Change Your Life! shouted one of the signs, and a photograph of a surgeon named Dr. Patmore grinned like a smooth-skinned idol of perfection.

Rosemond was a desert community for the pilots and military personnel who worked at Edwards Air Force Base. The population was so mobile, so impermanent, that they passed a lot where pre-built houses had been placed on trailers. They turned off the freeway, glided past a shopping center, and took a right turn near the local high school. Twisted Joshua trees lined the road and a mountain with three peaks was visible in the distance. The mountain was separate from everything else, so deliberate that it looked as if the earth had rejected something malignant and thrust it upward toward the sky.

Boone turned off the paved road and stopped at a cattle gate with a large sign. Private Property! Trespassers will be prosecuted.

“This road goes up the mountain to the mining site.”

“How far away is it?”

“Three or four miles.”

“Switch off the headlights and go slowly.”

Boone opened the gate, got back in the car, and drove up a dirt road that led to the mountain. Light came from the stars and moon, but the road was overgrown with weeds; it would be easy to get lost. After the first half mile, Maya rolled down a side window. She could hear cicadas and the crunch of their tires on patches of gravel.

Boone stopped at the entrance to the abandoned gold mine halfway up the mountain. A cyclone fence topped with strands of razor wire surrounded the mining claim and no “trespassing signs” were everywhere. Someone else had arrived earlier; a red sedan was parked in front of gates held together with a lock and chain.

They both got out of the car. Now that Boone had guided her to the gold mine, there was no longer any need for his existence. The shotgun was a noisy weapon. She should draw one of her knives and slit his throat.

“He’s here,” Boone said. “This is one of the rental cars driven by my employees. Doyle took the car after he killed the men at the hotel.”

Maya stepped away from the gate and looked up the slope. Outdoor lights marked a winding pathway to the top of the mountain.

“Who’s guarding the children?”

“I left two employees here. They’ll be suspicious if Doyle shows up alone.”

Boone returned to the red sedan, opened the door and inspected the garbage Doyle had left on the passenger seat. Maya touched the outline of the stiletto hidden beneath her jacket, but she hesitated and left the knife in its sheath.

Let fate decide, she thought, and pulled out the random number calculator hanging from her neck. An even number would cause his death; an odd number would postpone the decision. She pushed the button. 3224 flashed on the screen. The random number indicated death, but it caused a counter-reaction that was immediate and certain. This isn’t what I want, she thought. This isn’t who I am. She concealed the device before Boone emerged from the car. “I found some sterile bandages and gauze.”

“Do you think one of your men wounded him?”

“I doubt it. Doyle probably bought a knife and cut out the tracer beads inserted beneath his skin.”

Maya reached into her waistband and pulled out Boone’s automatic. He stood calmly-as if he expected to be executed-but she reversed the weapon and handed it to him. “Don’t make any noise as we walk up the hill. We’ll become an easy target the moment we step into the light.”

Priest had supplied her with a sawed-off shotgun that had a leather carrying strap. It reminded her of the lupara that men carried in Sicily. She slipped the strap over her shoulder, jumped onto the chain, and slipped through the gap between the two gates. Boone followed, and they headed up the hill to the mine. The air was cold and clear and smelled like sage. The only noise came from the mine’s power generator; it sounded like a puttering lawn mower that some confused citizen had left in the middle of the desert.

The first building was a clapboard house with a sheet metal roof. Light glowed through the old newspapers taped to the windows. “What’s inside?” Maya asked.

“This where the two guards sleep and cook their meals.” A wooden plank creaked when they stepped onto the porch. Maya tried to peer through the windows, but the newspapers completely covered the glass. She raised the shotgun and whispered to Boone. “Open the door and step away.”

He turned the knob slowly, then pushed the door open. Maya charged inside. The house was one long room filled with a refrigerator, a propane stove and a kitchen table. A dead man lay on the floor next to an overturned chair. A blotch of dark blood was the middle of his white T-shirt and there was a second wound below his belt buckle.

“You know him?”

“He’s a former Austrian policeman named Voss.”

“Where are the children?”

“We put some cots in the building where they refined the ore.”

They returned to the darkness and continued up the hill past the stamping machinery used to crush the rocks. After the ore was reduced to gravel, it was sent through filtering screens and metal troughs, then loaded into handcarts and pushed over to the refinery shed.

Lights burned inside the shed, and Maya could hear cheerful music coming from a television. She pressed the shotgun stock against her shoulder, then yanked open the door. Folding cots were in the middle of the room. A television placed on a table played a video of dancing animals. Another dead man lay a few feet away from the television with his mouth and eyes open.

“Only two people worked here?”

Boone nodded. “Maybe Doyle took the kids out to the desert.”

“I don’t think so. It’s dark. He couldn’t find them if they ran away. Let’s go to the mine.”

They left the shed and followed the narrow railway track that once guided the handcarts. Near the top of the mountain, a framework of steel struts had been built over the mine shaft. An electric motor powered a winch that raised and lowered a steel cage. When the mine was active, the handcarts were filled underground, rolled into the cage, and raised to the surface.

“This works like a freight elevator?”

“That’s right,” Boone said. “If he’s got the children down in the mine shaft, they can’t run away and we can’t save them.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Doyle will hear the winch moving when we raise the cage up to the surface. He’ll kill everyone before we reach them.”

Maya left the area near the mine shaft and began to search the site. “Did you ever read Sparrow’s book, The Way of the Sword?”

Boone nodded.

“There’s a chapter about evaluating your opponent. The weakest opponent is the one who expects a victory.”

“And you think Martin Doyle is in that category?”

Maya picked up an old towel covered with grease. “He’s waiting to hear the elevator, but that’s not going to happen.”

She ripped the towel in half, slipped the shotgun strap around her neck, and climbed onto the elevator struts. Wrapping the towel around the cable, she swung out into the middle of the shaft.

“I’m going to follow you,” Boone said.

“That’s not necessary.”

“This is my responsibility.”

Slide down a few yards. Stop. Slide down a little farther. Stop. A year ago, she had met her father in Prague and stabbed a man in an alleyway. Since then, her life had been shaped by what was hidden from view. Maya felt as if she were descending into a secret world. Somewhere beneath the surface, the innocent were about to be destroyed.

The cable swung to one side, and she almost lost her grip. Looking upward, she saw that Boone was about thirty feet above her, swaying back and forth as he followed her down. Maya tried to move a little faster, pressing her feet against the cable to control her descent.

Finally, she reached the top of the elevator cage and stopped, waiting for Doyle’s attack. When nothing happened, she climbed down into the mine’s main tunnel. Light came from dust-covered bulbs attached to an orange power cable. The tunnel went off in two directions, but she could hear voices coming from the left. Children were singing a frightened, wavering chorus.

“If you’re happy and you know it,

Clap your hands…”

With the shotgun close to her chest, she followed the tunnel into the heart of the mountain. Small hands clapping. Voices singing. Then she heard a man’s voice echoing off the stone walls. “Louder, everyone! Louder!”

As she came around the bend of the tunnel, she saw the captive children. A man stood in front of them like a choir director who wasn’t satisfied with their performance. The children watched him-obedient, terrified-as the big man swung his hand to beat out the time.

“If you’re happy and you know it

And you’re not afraid to show it-”

“You’re not clapping,” Maya said. Drawing a handgun, Doyle spun around to face her, and she fired the shotgun. The pellets knocked him backward and he collapsed on the floor of the mine. His body convulsed, and then relaxed. The malevolent power that had propelled him through the world melted away, leaving nothing but a dead body.

Maya was frozen in that moment of destruction until the children started crying. Their tears and frightened faces changed everything. She slung the shotgun on her back so they couldn’t see it, then stepped forward and spoke with a soothing voice.

“Don’t worry. No one’s going to hurt you.”

She took a little girl’s hand and guided her and others back down the tunnel. “You’re safe. The bad man is gone,” Maya said. “We’re going to take you back to your families.”

Boone was waiting for them at the base of the mine shaft. The elevator gate made a shrieking metallic sound as he forced it open. The children scurried into the cage like baby chicks trying to hide from a hawk, but instead of following them inside, Boone shut the gate and turned to Maya. He looked as if they had just lost the battle.

“There was another child.”

“What?”

“Another child’s body is at the end of the terminal. She wasn’t on the list.”

Maya felt sick to her stomach. They had entered the mountain and destroyed this demon-and failed. Without thinking, she touched her belly. All her caution disappeared as she followed Boone down the tunnel to a T-intersection. She was prepared for a dead body, but found only gravel and dust. Suddenly, Boone pulled the automatic from his waistband and faced her. There was no way she could defend herself.

Boone stared at her for what felt like a long time. She could see his sadness and pain.

“Forgive me.”

Maya nodded. Yes. I forgive you.

Boone raised the gun with one quick motion and shot himself in the head.