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.He pissed on a black-trunked almond tree and then doubled over.His belly felt tight and sick.His gut gave him a wrenching pain that couldn’t be relieved by urination alone.Without hesitating, he shoved a filthy finger down his throat and gagged.The foamy contents of his stomach splattered the dirt.“Oh shit,” he slurred and fell back against the van.He panted for a time, then felt better.It was time to get moving.He struggled back into the driver’s seat and fired up the engine.At least the bitch still started properly.In fact, if it wasn’t for the billowing white smoke he might have tried to beat it to death all the way to San Francisco.But he knew a cop would have gotten him before he made it as far as Fairfield.So, the van had to go.Seen from the edge the hole was incredibly deep.He had tried to dig a ramp down into it, but that had taken more time, and in the heat of the night and he had skimped.All he had wanted last night was to get to those three bottles of amber bliss.Now, as he drove the shaking machine to the brink, he was daunted.“Holy shit, we’re in for a ride, kid,” he said aloud.On impulse, he threw open the curtains that divided the front seats from the cargo section.He looked over his shoulder and leered at the kid in the cage.He noted the kid’s big, hungry eyes and the fingers which gripped the bars.Those fingers should not be loose.The kid had untied himself.“So, you little fuck, you got loose last night, eh?” shouted Spurlock.“Well, you won’t find it so easy to slip out of this one!”With that, he eased the van into drive and they rumbled, shook and dipped over the edge.“Next stop, Hell’s Kitchen!” roared Spurlock.The black earth of the orchard swallowed the van whole.Only a foul cloud of exhaust was left behind.It lay in a spreading mass on the floor of the orchard like the devil’s own stinking breath.Inside his tiny cage, Justin began to scream.34 Hours and Counting.“Damn,” said Agent Vasquez.That was all she could think to say.“I know, I didn’t want to think it was all him, either,” said Johansen.Vasquez glanced up at him then turned back to the murder scene.She frowned.She knew Johansen was lying for her sake, he had always counted Vance as the sole perpetrator.Still, she couldn’t find it in herself to be angry with him for patronizing her a bit.When faced with death, in all its ignominy, she always found it difficult to be angry with anyone who was on her side.Usually, she felt closer to them.Somehow, the working relationship with a partner helped to reassure her that she was still alive, that death wasn’t close at hand.She felt, rather than saw, Johansen raise his big hand up.It hovered for perhaps two seconds over her shoulder.He wasn’t sure, she knew, if he should comfort her or not.She tensed up, but tried not to show that she knew the hand was there.She herself wasn’t even sure how she would react if he did touch her.It wasn’t something they normally did.But then, they didn’t normally work cases like this.The best thing about working the clean stuff, like electronic crimes, was that you didn’t have to face blood and death.Usually, the worst one saw of humanity was something like Nog’s apartment.Johansen withdrew his hand.She breathed deeply, realizing only then that she had been holding her breath.The spell was broken.“Vance has just put himself on the Most Wanted list,” said Vasquez.She stepped over the corpse and away from her partner.She moved about the scene, looking, but not disturbing things.“I’m putting him down as our number one suspect for the virus, his son’s disappearance and the murder of Brenda Hastings.What’s more, he’s now to be considered armed and dangerous.Do you agree?”Johansen nodded.He flipped out his cell phone and made the call.Soon every squad car in Northern California would be getting the message.Vasquez moved over to the terminal with the bloodstained keyboard.She checked the message on the screen.Santa?Frosty?She made sure her notes had every detail down, then shook her head.She would check it out, of course, but it seemed like the work of someone delusional, someone looking for clues that would erase the unthinkable truth.“I guess Sarah Vance was right,” said Vasquez.“This case is all related.”Johansen finished his call and nodded.“Just not the way she hoped it was.”.33 Hours and Counting.It had taken Ray more than an hour to get from the campus to Brenda’s place.She lived on the outskirts of town, in one of the more recently developed areas of Davis.In Davis, that meant that the houses had been built in the sixties and seventies.Unlike most California towns, Davis carefully controlled and restricted its growth.The University and the kind of people who liked to live near it didn’t want the run-away strip-malls and cracker box land development that personified most of the Valley.Instead, the city council doled out building permits like scotsmen with rusty purses.Under normal circumstances, Ray would have enjoyed the walk.The sky was clear, the delta breezes had returned, and it seemed like a perfect Spring day.As it was, his head rang and his legs felt like rubber crutches.Brenda’s dead eyes haunted his thoughts.The sights and sounds of Spring were lost on him.Brenda’s car he had left in the parking lot.Driving her car around, he figured, wouldn’t be a very good idea anyway.It couldn’t but make his case harder if he was apprehended while driving the car of the woman he was accused of murdering.It was bad enough that he had the murder weapon shoved into the front pocket of his faded jeans.His only precaution had been to pull out his plaid shirt so that the tails hung down over the gun butt.He reached Bovine and took a left turn onto Starling Lane.Overhead, the sun tried to hurt him.The morning sun had that blue glare to it, not the softer yellows and oranges of the late afternoon that he would have greatly preferred.Like a thousand hung-over people that day, he swore the sun was brighter and crueler first thing in the morning than any other time of the day.For him, of course, it wasn’t a hang-over but a concussion that tortured his skull.All in all, he thought he would have preferred the hang-over.He had decided to go by Brenda’s on the way to Ingle’s place, which was out in the country beyond the city limits to the north.He wanted to go by Brenda’s on a hunch.Sure, the police might be there, but he doubted they would stay too long.At least, he hoped they wouldn’t.What he hoped to do was beat the police and run into Ingle’s.He was fairly sure that the bastard would try to plant something to further implicate him, the way he had planted disks related to the virus at his home.Maybe, just maybe, Ingle’s would be too smart for his own good this time.Maybe he would try a little too much finesse.Ray had always believed that the simplest plans were the best plans, and he was about to try and make the theory pay.Besides his reasoning, he just didn’t know what else to do.He had identified the virus’ author and the man pulling the strings, but still had no clue as to Justin’s whereabouts.Except for one thing: Ingle’s knew the truth
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