The First Rule - Robert Crais Page 0,52
the Jeep, talking to Pike as he watched a dial in the handle.
“You find these fucks?”
“Found the crew. They were dead.”
“No shit. Who bagged them?”
“Their boss.”
“No honor among scumbags. What was the butcher’s bill?”
“Three. Their boss is still up, but these three are down. One more to go.”
Stone paused between the Jeep’s headlights, and studied the dial. After a moment, he continued on around the Jeep, making a full sweep of the vehicle until he returned to the front end. Then he put the pole aside, and wiggled under the engine.
“Here you go.”
He rolled to his feet, and showed Pike a small gray box the size of a pack of cigarettes.
“GPS locator. High-end piece made by Raytheon under an NSA contract. This is top-dollar equipment. Federal?”
“ATF.”
Stone grinned.
“Right now, there’s an agent with a laptop staring at a real-time map overlay. X marks the spot, bro-right here at the car wash on Santa Monica Boulevard.”
He tossed it to Pike.
“Three choices-kill it, toss it, or-my personal favorite-tack it to a FedEx truck and let’m watch it roll all over town.”
Pike didn’t want Walsh to know he found it or had even thought to look for it, but he didn’t want her watching his path. If he put it on another vehicle, she would realize what he had done within a matter of hours. Pike tossed it back.
“Kill it, and I need you to do something else.”
“For Frank?”
“Yes.”
“I’m there.”
Pike told him about the guns-three thousand Chinese AKs stolen from the North Koreans.
Pike said, “Jakovich didn’t steal them. He bought them from someone. See what you can find out.”
Stone hesitated.
“About Frank?”
“About the guns. Frank didn’t have anything to do with this.”
Stone hesitated again, but made a slow nod.
“I know a guy who knows a guy, but I want a piece of the hunt. I’ll help, but I want some trigger time. For Frank.”
“You got it.”
24
PIKE DROVE TO COLE’S HOUSE when he left the car wash, climbing the narrow canyon roads to the top of the hills, then along Woodrow Wil son Drive through a heavily wooded canyon. He decided Walsh had planted the locator on his Jeep the day they stopped him at Runyon Canyon. Maybe that was why they stopped him the way they did, to keep him clear of the Jeep until they finished installing the locator.
Pike wondered now if she bugged him to follow his own investigation, or because she believed Frank was involved with the guns. There would have been no reason for her to believe Pike was involved in an arms deal, but maybe she knew something Pike didn’t yet know.
The sky was deep purple when Pike pulled up in front of Cole’s A-frame and let himself into the kitchen. Pike liked Cole’s home, and had helped Cole maintain it over the years whenever Cole needed a hand painting, roofing, or staining the deck. Perched high in the canyons where it was surrounded by trees, Cole’s rustic A-frame felt removed from the city. Pike took a bottle of water from Cole’s fridge. A dish of cat food sat on the floor beside a small bowl of water. The house smelled of eucalyptus, wild fennel, and the flora that grew on the canyon’s steep slopes.
Cole, Rina, and Yanni were in the living room, watching the news. Rina’s bag was on the floor at her feet, along with a bag that probably belonged to Yanni. They glanced over when Pike entered, and Cole muted the sound. Yanni’s face was purple where Pike hit him.
Rina squinted at Pike as if she were sizing him up for target practice, then waved toward Cole.
“We are not going to stay here. It smells like cats.”
Cole arched his eyebrows, the arch saying, You see what it’s like?
Pike motioned Cole over.
“See you a minute?”
When Cole joined him, Pike lowered his voice.
“You were going to check out her story. What do you think?”
Cole glanced at Rina and Yanni to make sure they couldn’t hear, then shrugged.
“I located one of Ana’s friends, and have a call into another. Everything checked. Rina spent the 90210 years protecting her sister. Kept Ana completely away from this stuff, just like she said.”
Rina stood, then raised her voice.
“I don’t like this whispering. I told you already once. Yanni and I, we are going to go.”
Pike said, “Yanni’s building is being watched by the police. You shouldn’t go back.”
Yanni mumbled something in Serbian, and Rina chattered something back.
She said, “The police don’t care about Yanni. Why would they watch?”
“They followed me earlier today. They