Disclaimer 'n stuff in the prologue.
oooooooooooooo
Chapter 3
June 3, 2006
11:41 P.M.
Desert Studies Center
"And all the vampires, walkin' through the valley, move west down Ventura Boulevard…"
The CD player clicked into silence as the Jeep came to a halt outside the dormitory, but Charlie kept humming along to Tom Petty in his head. Next to him, Larry was loosening his death grip on the roll bar and unpeeling himself from the vehicle's vinyl seats. The sun had been beating down on them for several hours, and he was more than ready to take a rest.
So far, things were going okay, at least on the desert front. He and Larry had spent the morning getting up to speed on the situation with the Mars rover, which basically entailed introductions to the rest of the team and a detailed description of how the Mojave Desert was and wasn't like the terrain of Mars.
They also heard exactly what the problem was up on the Red Planet: how the rover known as Spirit was stuck between a rock and a soft place, as Larry's friend Harold had put it. A relatively large boulder prevented it from moving forward, but a soft patch of sand that it had just barely managed to traverse lay right behind it. And sand from that patch appeared to have gotten somewhere in the mechanism that enabled the rover to turn sideways, so turning left or right to get out wasn't going to work, either.
Now Charlie's mind was spinning with ideas about how to model the rover's situation. He had been peppering the scientists with questions about friction, particle size, traction, and other variables that would affect Spirit's ability to move, and now he was ready to sit down in front of his laptop and get to work. He already had thought of a couple of avenues that might work, so it was just a matter of running the equations and seeing if they really were feasible.
He'd almost forgotten the presence of a third person in their dormitory room, although his thoughts had flickered to Dominic Koristet once or twice throughout the morning, wondering if he had been able to keep himself hidden as well as he had yesterday. He didn't think Wilson or anyone else came in to clean the rooms, but he hadn't thought to ask.
As he slammed the door of the Jeep shut, he heard his name being called. He turned to see Wilson crossing the dirt courtyard, and he swallowed. Had their guest been discovered? And if so, only by Wilson, or by someone more nefarious?
"Charlie!" The older man reached out a hand to pat his shoulder as he neared him. "I'm sorry I didn't get this to you yesterday, but it slipped my mind. You had a message from your brother."
He blinked. "Don called back yesterday?" All this time he'd been wondering what had been holding him up, wondering if maybe he should have made the message more urgent, or at least more specific. And now it turned out he was a victim of faulty memory.
"Yes, he did, but it was just before the mail arrived, and I got into a conversation with the mailman, and by the time he left, I had forgotten the message. I hope it wasn't terribly important."
Charlie bit back a grimace. "What did he have to say?" he asked instead.
Wilson handed over a small slip of paper. "Here it is. Let me know if you want to give him a call back."
"Will do," Charlie muttered, taking the piece of paper and turning away. "Thanks," he threw over his shoulder as he hurriedly read the message. There wasn't much to it, just Don saying that of course he could help Charlie out with whatever it was that he was worried about, and to give him a call back with more details.
Larry had reached the room before him, but waited until Charlie was there as well to open the door. They slipped in, Charlie biting back the urge to furtively glance around him before entering the room. They could always say Dominic was a student of one of theirs who had come along to help but wasn't feeling well enough to go out in the heat. They'd considered using that as an open excuse and taking him along with them in the field, but then decided that it was too risky. So Charlie had lent him a set of clothes—their height difference didn't matter so much with shorts and a t-shirt—and Larry had a spare pair of flip-flops he had brought to wear around the dormitory.
Dominic was sitting at one of the desks, reading the newspaper. "Hello," he said when they entered, opening the paper to a page and pointing to it. "Apparently I have made the paper, if only indirectly."
They crossed the room and read the three-paragraph story over his shoulder. "You were going 160?" Charlie exclaimed. "My God, you're lucky to be alive."
The young man nodded. "It was a good car. I'm sad it had to sacrifice its life for mine." He gave a quick smile. "It was brand new, too. Today was the first day I drove it." Then a shadow fell across his face. "That was where they took me from."
"It was a carjacking?" Larry asked, lowering himself onto the empty bed next to the desk.
Dominic nodded again. "My father likes to collect cars, and this one had just been delivered to our house. I thought I would, what do you say, take it for a spin? I drove around town for about an hour, and when I turned back onto my street, there was a car by the side of the road with a flat tire. This beautiful woman was standing by it, looking so helpless." He shook his head. "I pulled over and asked if I could help. Then she pointed a gun on me."
"That must have been terrifying," Larry said softly.
Dominic nodded and went on, "She told me she didn't want to hurt me, but she would if I didn't do what she said. She made me get back in the car and start driving."
"What did she want you to do?" Charlie asked quietly. At this point, he really needed to call Don, but the more information he had to tell him, the more productive the phone call would be.
"She just wanted me to drive. Told me to get on the freeway to Los Angeles and not stop until she told me." He paused and stared down at the photograph of the wrecked vehicle. "She made me drive faster and faster and said if I went at least 120, the police would not be able to catch us. So I did. Then I tried to take the gun from her, and we crashed."
Charlie wondered if police cars really were limited to 120, but instead he asked, "What do you think she wanted?"
"I don't know." Dominic hesitated, then shook his head. "I don't know."
Charlie exchanged a glance over the young man's head with Larry. Their guest clearly had something he wasn't telling them, but it would be the FBI's job to find out what it was. "All right," he said, laying a friendly hand on Dominic's shoulder. "I'm going to get a hold of my brother, and he'll take care of everything. Okay?" Dominic nodded, and Charlie gave his shoulder a pat before turning around and heading for the door.
He crossed the courtyard quickly, checking his cell phone out of curiosity. This time, he was surprised to find a faint signal. He walked around for a few minutes, trying to find the strongest signal he could in a spot that was shaded; the midday sun was terrible. Finally, he settled on a location behind the main building, in the shelter of some scrubby-looking trees. He dialed Don's number and waited.
"Hey, Charlie. Where are you?"
"Out in the middle of nowhere. How about you?" He shifted his cross-legged seat on the dusty ground.
"Oh, right, this is the week you're working on that Mars thing. How's that going?"
Charlie could hear a few voices in the background that sounded familiar. "So far, so good. Don, are you at your office?"
"Yeah, we got a case that's kind of bizarre and definitely high priority. I don't suppose you heard about that car crash on the 15?"
"Well, yeah, it's right up the road, and I saw it in the paper this morning." Wow, they were already on it. Well, that was a good thing. "So, did you catch the guy?" Dominic would be relieved to know they had, if that was the case.
"Not yet. Listen, I can't really say anything else, but just watch yourself up there, okay? There's a guy on the loose who's already kidnapped one woman, and we don't know what he might be capable of."
"Kidnapped a woman?" Charlie was glad he was already sitting down. "From where?" This couldn't be the same case, not with Dominic inside their dorm terrified of a woman who had taken him at gunpoint.
"From Vegas, that's why the FBI is involved. You know, it might be best if you cleared out of there until we find him. Just how close are you to Zzyzx Road, anyway?"
He looked across the compound at the dusty trail stretching away to the north. Closer than you want to know, big brother. "What does your suspect look like? I mean, there's only a handful of people out here, so anyone would stand out, but we should still know what he looks like, right?"
"Yeah, okay. He's 5'10", short dark hair, well-built, or so says our victim. Name is Dominic Koristet."
Charlie's heart thudded against his chest. "What did your victim say happened?" Normally Don wouldn't give away so many details about a case, but since his little brother happened to be in the vicinity, maybe he'd be a little more open.
"She said this cute guy with a hot sports car flagged her down by the side of the road, asking to borrow her cell phone. Then he pulled a gun and made her ride with him. They crashed when she tried to take the gun away from him."
"Wow." His mind started racing, thinking of ways to warn Larry without alerting Dominic to what he'd learned. He opened his mouth to say, "Don, you'd better get out here right now." But then he thought of the expression on Dominic's face when they had first encountered him. It wasn't the expression of a kidnapper. It was the look of someone in fear of his life. Charlie had seen enough criminals and victims in the short time he'd been helping Don out to be able to tell the difference. At least he would like to think so.
But he was sure Don was far better at making that distinction than he was. So what did that say about the woman who had told her story to the FBI? And about the young man they were sheltering here?
"Yeah, uh, we'll keep an eye out," Charlie finally said. "Are you coming out this way to investigate?"
"Well, Colby and I were out there last night, but we'll probably be by again, yeah. I'll let you know when; we can meet up somewhere."
"Sure, Don. So, good luck."
"Thanks. Hey, what was it that you had to talk to me about anyway? Something to do with a case?"
He swallowed and thought rapidly. "No, uh, it was about the house. Dad's gone down to San Diego for the weekend, he left before me, and I couldn't remember if I had turned the a/c down or not. It's no big deal, but if you're in the neighborhood…"
"Yeah, I'll try to swing by. Take care, Charlie."
"You too." He pressed the "end" button on the phone and took a deep breath. What was he doing? He had just lied to an FBI agent about a criminal investigation. No, worse than that, he had just lied to his brother about a case. He wiped his sweaty palms on his shorts. And he seemed to have gotten away with it, too.
He scrambled to his feet and strode back towards the dorm, trying to figure out what to do next. The best thing to do was to call Don back, tell him they'd run across the suspect, and let the FBI take over.
But when he suggested that to Dominic after telling him the whole story, the Czech shook his head firmly. "No," he said, rising to his feet. "If that's what you want to do, I will leave now. If they are on her side, not only will they not believe me, but I will not be safe in their custody. I am better off on my own."
"Here now, hold on," Larry said, standing up as well. "You can't go out in the middle of the day like this. And where are you going to go, anyway? If you return to the vicinity of the freeway, you're bound to run into people you don't wish to encounter, of one type or another. We can give you a ride in the evening, at least past the site of the crash."
Dominic had crossed the room to the pile of the clothing he had been wearing when he arrived, which had been neatly folded underneath his bed since he'd accepted Charlie's offer of more comfortable clothes. "No," he said again. "I can't believe they haven't come here to look already. I need to go in the other direction."
"There's nothing out there but desert!" Charlie exclaimed. "There's nowhere to go."
"That is why I need your car." The Czech sat down on the bed reached beneath it, lifting up the pair of pants as though he was looking for something in the pockets.
Charlie exchanged a stunned look with Larry. The older man spoke first. "Listen, we're certainly willing to offer assistance as necessary and feasible, but we can't simply strand ourselves here by giving away our vehicle."
"I am sorry. I am taking terrible advantage of your hospitality." Dominic looked up at them, holding something in his hand. "But I need your car."
Charlie felt his stomach drop. The young man they had taken in, that he had just lied to his brother about and swore to himself was the innocent victim in all of this, was holding a small pistol. Pointed right at him. He swallowed and tried to keep an angry expression on his face, rather than show his rapidly rising fear.
Dominic must have read the look on his face, for he went on, "I am not who you think I am. But I can not sit here and wait for them to find me. I'm sorry, but this is the only way I can escape."
"Here," Charlie said quietly. He slowly dug into his shorts pocket and pulled out the car keys. "Take it, do whatever you want. Just let us go."
"I will not hurt you." He looked at the gun he held for a moment, and then lowered it towards the floor. Then he stood up and reached out to take the keys, saying, "I know you will call your brother as soon as I leave. Please tell him that all I wanted to do was to get away."
Charlie stepped back to allow him access to the door. "I'll tell him what happened," he said quietly, a hint of steel in his voice. "I'll tell him everything." His eyes flickered down to the gun, but he didn't say anything else.
Dominic shifted the bundle of clothes under one arm, and Charlie flinched. "Please give me a head start, at least." He walked towards the door, turning as he did so to keep his attention directed at Charlie, although he didn't raise the gun from his side. "I really am sorry, both of you." Then he opened the door and was gone.
Weak-kneed, Charlie sank onto the bed. Across the room, Larry had raised a hand to his mouth, but seemed to regain his composure quickly. "Are you all right, Charles?" he asked quietly.
Charlie gave a slow nod. "How could I have been so stupid?" he asked. "So damn trusting. I'm every bit as naïve as Don claims I am."
"I'm not so certain about that." Larry pulled the desk chair over and sat the wrong way on it, his arms folded across the back. "If he was the kidnapper, wouldn't he have taken our vehicle yesterday, at the first opportunity? He should have wanted to get away from the vicinity of his crime as quickly as possible."
"Maybe he thought he could talk us into giving it to him," Charlie muttered.
Larry was slowly shaking his head. "He had that weapon the entire time, and he only showed it out of fear of his own life."
"You're defending him?" Charlie flung himself to his feet and stared at his friend. "He just held us at gunpoint, stole our car, and you're defending him?"
Outside, the roar of the car's engine made them both look up. Charlie crossed the room and flung open the door, watching as Koristet pulled away, past the main building and on a dirt road headed east, away from the direct route to the interstate. Well, he had their topographic maps of the area that had been sitting on the front seat, so he should be able to find his way to the highway.
For a moment, Charlie viciously hoped he would get lost anyway.
"I'm going to call Don," he said over his shoulder. "Save your sympathetic analysis for him." Then he stalked off, wondering what in the world he was going to say to his brother about the mess he'd made of things.
