Chapter 15
“Rebecca, I have to ask: why didn’t you shoot back?”
Hatch’s question didn’t faze her at all. “Because the bad guys don’t have any rules, but I do. I didn’t want to hit the wrong car by mistake. And if I shot some random motorist, the cops aren’t going to care who was in that pickup – they’d still arrest me.”
They were parked behind an inn near the airport.
“So what’s the plan, Rick?” Hatch wondered.
“I'm thinking we need to let Rebecca check in with her office. They’re going to be wondering where the heck she’s been.”
“Don’t worry about me, Rick. I called the boss last night. You just keep this rig out of sight for awhile.”
* * * * *
After some discussion, they left the SUV behind the Peak Inn, and walked west to the café where Rick & Rebecca had lunch together. She and Hatch were conversing about something-or-other, but Rick’s attention was on traffic. He was scanning the streets and parking areas around them, looking for the pickup or the Ng’s little sedan.
He kept checking his holster nervously, pushing it up from the bottom, and making slight adjustments to his belt every few minutes.
“Leave it alone, Rick. If anyone’s watching, they’ll know you’re carrying.”
“I'm just not used to the weight.”
“You’re just not used to carrying it with you, Outside boy,” she said with a smile. “You flatlanders get used to having in your console or briefcase, but on-body carry is different. Leave it alone, and after awhile you won’t even realize you have it on.”
“If you say so. So how much farther is it to the café?”
“Just a couple of –”
Rick cut her off. “There’s that truck! Take the next doorway and get inside someplace.”
They watched the pickup roll slowly down Alaska Street. The occupants were barely visible through the darkly-tinted windows, but the two inside were looking around. As the truck rolled past the shop they were in, Rick pulled a ballcap out of his briefcase & tugged it low over his eyes. He waited until the black truck was out of sight, then slipped quickly out the door and down the street to the corner where it had just turned.
Hatch and Rebecca went on to the café and took a booth in the rear, away from the windows. Hatch immediately pulled a book-sized console out of his bag and began playing with the controls.
“Any indication that their car is in the neighborhood?”
“Yeah,” he said. “They’re not far away, but not moving, either. They either know where we are, and are waiting for us, or maybe they’re just parked. You know what they say: ‘Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.’”
Rebecca smiled. “And maybe you’re right, but I'm not taking my eyes off the front door.”
“So what’s Rick up to? Did he say anything to you?”
She nodded. “I'm starting to know how his mind works, and I’d bet he’s going after tires.”
* * * * *
Rick had seen the pickup pull into a parking lot about two blocks from the café. He hung back, window-shopping casually along the sidewalk. He glanced at the truck once, to be sure it was still there, and then strolled slowly in that direction without looking at the lot.
One of the bookstores had an angled entry-way, and he saw in the reflection that two males exited the truck and walked away, in the other direction. Rick moved toward the lot. Ducking behind it, on the side away from the street, he dug in his pocket. Pulling out a small chromed tool the size of his fingernail, he quickly unscrewed the air valves on both wheels of the passenger side
He glanced around and saw no one nearby, and slowly strolled away, hands in pockets, like any tourist.
* * * * *
Rick sat down in the booth as the waitress brought three plates. His was reindeer sausage, buttermilk pancakes and birch syrup. Rebecca jabbed him with an elbow and said, “Just the way you liked it, last time.”
“True enough,” he said. “Hatch, are we in the clear yet?”
“Nope. The car is still parked nearby. I was telling Rebecca they’re either waiting for us, or they are just parked and don’t have a clue. So are you going to let us in on your little secret jaunt?”
Rick grinned at his companions. “Let’s just say that truck won’t be going anywhere too quickly, without a fresh supply of air.”
“See?” Rebecca said to Hatch. “I told you he’d go after their tires.”
Hatch shook his head. “Rick was always that way – maximum interruption to the enemy, with a minimum of fuss on our part. Me? I’d have slashed the tires.”
Rick held out his hand, showing them the two air valves. “Not me. I just removed the valves, and then screwed the caps back on the stems. Almost all the way, too.”
“So … they’ll go flat slowly?” Rebecca asked.
“Yeah. Unless the guys came back in the next few minutes, both tires should be just about flat by now. And without valves, they can’t be refilled. Won’t cost ‘em as much as new tires, but no permanent damage, either.”
“Guys?” Hatch said. “The car’s moving away. I guess we have time to eat, now.”
They dug in, and Rick and Rebecca traded smiles when they saw Hatch’s eyes light up at his first taste of the Alaskan breakfast.
They were just finishing when Rebecca’s phone rang again. Bobby had called to say that Jamie reported seeing activity at the site Placer Creek where the little mall had burned down. She couldn’t tell who was there, from the air, but she thought they’d want to know.
They did.
* * * * *
While they drove out toward Wasilla again, Rick called his office.
“Hi, Dawn. What’s up?”
“Rick! Oh, I was hoping you’d call. Mr. Patterson’s all excited about something, and asked me if I’d heard from you lately. He got a package yesterday, and won’t tell me what’s in it, but he wants to talk to you about it.”
Patterson came on the line within moments. “Rick, you won’t believe what I got, yesterday.”
“Try me,” Rick said. “We’ve had quite a few surprises up here, too.” He filled William in on the events since they’d last spoken.
“Rick, are you sure about all this?” Patterson asked. “I’d hate it if you wound up with any additional holes in you.”
“It wouldn’t exactly make me happy, either,” Rick said. “But I think we’re okay. For now.”
Patterson told him about the package he found on his desk, yesterday. “There are letters to and from this Ricky Ng of yours, and specs for some wireless detonators. And the best part: they’re even labeled ‘detonator for remote incendiary package’.”
“I love it when things start coming together,” Rick replied. “Just get those copies to me. My contact at Anchorage PD – and probably Alaska’s bomb-and-arson guys – will want to see them.”
“I’ll have Dawn scan and e-mail them to you this afternoon. Anything else I can do for you?”
“No, William, I think those papers will be just what I needed. Now I’ve got to go see what’s up with some folks near here.”
* * * * *
Rick parked a couple of blocks from the arson site. Hatch announced that the Ng’s car was up ahead, but not moving. “Okay,” Rick said, “then we’re walking the rest of the way.”
Sure enough, the little blue sedan was parked just up the street. There was a group of people standing around the old mall’s foundation slab, and Ricky Ng himself was there, gesturing and pointing at things.
Hatch reached into his bag and pulled out a small direction mic with a folding parabolic dish, and plugged a small bud into his ear. “There’s an old man telling what he wants to build. It sounds like a pre-construction meeting … wait.”
He listened for a few moments, then continued, “The old guy is telling them where he wants things added. He’s going on and on … and on.”
Yeah, he does that, Rick thought. That old man talks a LOT.
Rick’s cell phone chirped twice. When he saw the others looking at him, he explained, “That means I’ve got an e-mail. Hopefully, the letters from Patterson I told you about.”
Rebecca spoke up. “Rick, I forgot to tell you something. Jamie told me that Bobby’s up there … somewhere … watching the area from above. If that truck starts coming this way, he’ll let us know.”
“At least they can’t sneak up on us again,” Rick answered. “That helps. Anything else important going on, Hatch?”
Hatch shook his head. “Ng is still talking about the ‘big future’ he sees for this place. Apparently he’s got it all mapped out, in his head. And he’s giving them a bunch of grief for not having his vision.”
“Yeah. He spends a lot of time telling other folks how dumb they are, and how smart he is.”
Rick opened his e-mail from Patterson and scrolled through the scanned letters, then looked at Rebecca. “Are we inside the city limits of Palmer or Wasilla?”
“Just inside Wasilla. Why?” she asked.
“I think we’ve got enough circumstantial evidence here to tie the whole Ng family to the arson that follows their business deals. In fact, I'm going to call Lt. Christakos at APD, too.”
Hatch pointed. “Guys? The group is leaving.”
Rick, Hatch and Rebecca stayed behind the adjoining building, to avoid being seen as the Ng group left the site. When the cars had all gone, they walked back to the truck. Hatch was busy checking his hand-held console, but Rebecca was quiet.
“Hey, what’s going on in that head?”
She looked at Rick blankly for a second, then her eyes cleared. “Oh, sorry. Lost in thought, I guess. I was just thinking about what you said about those letters. Do you really think it will be that easy? To get the police to connect Ng and the fires, I mean?”
Rick shook his head. “It’s only a start, but it should give them sufficient cause to reopen that line of investigation again. And I figure anything we can do to hassle the Ngs is a good thing.”
To be continued ...
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