The Traveler

23

Hollis drove the blue delivery van and Vicki sat in the passenger seat. Maya crouched in back, away from the window. As they cut through Beverly Hills, she saw scattered images of the city. Some of the homes were built in the Spanish style with red tile roofs and courtyards. Others looked like modern versions of Tuscan villas. Several of the houses were simply big, lacking any identifiable style; they had elaborate porticos over the front door and fake Romeo-and-Juliet balconies. It was strange to see so many buildings that were both grandiose and bland.

Hollis crossed Sunset Boulevard and began to drive up Coldwater Canyon. “Okay,” he said. “We’re getting close.”

“They may be watching the place. Slow down and park before we get there.”

Hollis pulled over a few minutes later and Maya came forward to peer through the windshield. They were parked on a hillside residential street where the homes were built close to the curb. A Department of Water and Power truck had stopped a few feet away from Maggie Resnick’s house. A man in an orange jumpsuit was climbing a power pole while two other workers watched him from below.

“Seems okay,” Hollis said.

Vicki shook her head. “They’re looking for the Corrigan brothers. A truck just like that has been outside my house for the last two days.”

Crouched on the floor of the van, Maya took the combat shotgun out of its case and loaded it with shells. The shotgun had a metal stock and she folded it down so that the weapon resembled a large pistol. When she returned to the front seat area, an SUV had parked behind the phone truck. Shepherd got out, nodded to the fake repairmen, and climbed the wooden steps that led to the entrance of the two-story house. He rang the bell and waited until a woman came to the door.

“Start the van,” Maya said. “And drive up to the house.”

Hollis didn’t obey her. “Who’s the guy with the blond hair?”

“He’s a former Harlequin named Shepherd.”

“What about the other two men?”

“Tabula mercs.”

“How do you want to handle this?” Hollis asked.

Maya didn’t say anything. It took a few seconds for the others to realize that she was going to destroy Shepherd and the mercs. Vicki looked horrified, and the Harlequin saw herself in the young woman’s eyes.

“You’re not killing anybody,” Hollis said quietly.

“I hired you, Hollis. You’re a mercenary.”

“I gave you my conditions. I’ll help you and protect you, but I won’t let you walk up to some stranger and blow him away.”

“Shepherd is a traitor,” Maya said. “He’s working for…”

Before she could finish her explanation, the garage door rolled open and a man came out riding a motorcycle. As he bumped over the curb, one of the telephone repairmen spoke into a handheld radio.

Maya touched Vicki’s shoulder. “That’s Gabriel Corrigan,” she said. “Linden said that he rides a motorcycle.”

Gabriel turned right onto Coldwater Canyon Drive and headed up the hill toward Mulholland. A few seconds later, three motorcycle riders wearing black helmets shot past the van and chased after him.

“Looks like some other people were waiting for him.” Hollis started the engine and slammed his foot on the accelerator. Fishtailing on its worn tires, the delivery van headed up the canyon. A few minutes later, they were turning onto Mulholland Drive, the two-lane road that followed the ridge of the Hollywood hills. If you looked to the left you could see a brown haze covering a valley filled with homes, light-blue swimming pools, and office buildings.

Maya traded places with Vicki and sat by the passenger window with her shotgun. The four motorcycles were already well ahead of them and they lost sight of the pack for a few seconds when the van went into a curve. The road straightened out again. Maya watched one of the riders pull out a weapon that looked like a flare gun. He approached Gabriel, fired the weapon at the motorcycle, and missed. The bullet hit the thin asphalt near the edge of the road and the pavement exploded.

“What the hell was that?” Hollis shouted.

“He’s shooting a Hatton round,” Maya said. “The slug is a mixture of wax and metal powder. They’re trying to take out the back tire.”

Immediately the Tabula rider fell behind while his two companions continued the chase. A pickup truck came from the opposite direction. The terrified driver honked his horn and waved his hands, trying to warn Hollis about what he had just seen.

“Don’t kill him!” shouted Vicki as they approached the first rider.

Staying near the edge of the road, the Tabula loaded another shell into his flare gun. Maya stuck the barrel of her shotgun out of the open window and fired, blowing away the motorcycle’s front tire. The bike jerked to the right, slammed into a concrete retaining wall, and the rider was thrown sideways.

Maya pumped a new round into the shotgun’s firing chamber. “Keep going!” she shouted. “We don’t want to lose them!”

The delivery van was shuddering like it couldn’t go any faster, but Hollis pressed the gas pedal to the floor. They heard a booming sound, and when they came around the next curve, they saw that a second rider had fallen back to load a new shell into his flare gun. He snapped the barrel shut and turned onto the road before they could reach him.

“Faster!” Maya shouted.

Hollis gripped the steering wheel as they skidded into another turn. “I can’t. One of these tires is going to break apart.”

“Faster!”

The second rider was holding the flare gun in his right hand while he gripped the handlebar with his left. He hit a pothole and almost lost control of his bike. When the rider slowed down, the van caught up with him. Hollis cut around to the left. Maya shot out the bike’s back tire and the rider was flung over the handlebars. The van kept moving and hit another turn. A large green sedan came toward them, honking its horn and swerving. Turn back, the driver gestured, turn back.

They passed the turn to Laurel Canyon, honking and swerving around other cars as they ran through a red light. Maya heard a third booming sound, but she couldn’t see Gabriel and the third rider. Then they came out of a curve and looked down the narrow road. Gabriel’s back tire had been hit, but the bike continued moving. Smoke rose up from the shredded tire and there was a raspy sound of steel grinding on asphalt.

“Here we go!” shouted Hollis. He steered the van into the middle of the road and came up on the left of the rider.

Maya leaned out the window, the butt of her shotgun pressed against the van’s door, and squeezed the trigger. Shotgun pellets hit the motorcycle’s fuel tank and it exploded like a gasoline bomb. The Tabula was thrown into a ditch.

Five hundred yards up the road, Gabriel turned into a driveway. He stopped his motorcycle, jumped off, and began running. Hollis turned into the driveway and Maya leaped out of the van. She was too far from Gabriel. He was going to get away. But she sprinted after him and shouted the first thing that passed through her mind. “My father knew your father!”

Gabriel stopped on the edge of the hillside. In a few steps, he would be falling down a steep slope of chaparral.

“He was a Harlequin!” Maya shouted. “His name was Thorn!”

And those words-her father’s name-reached Gabriel. He looked startled and desperate to know. Ignoring the shotgun in Maya’s hands, he took one step toward her.

“Who am I?”