16th Seduction Read online

  I watched everyone and worked on my own box as well.

  I was scraping the bottom of my third box when a name that I had seen before jumped out at me.

  I shouted, “Yuki, there’s a paper here on litigation written by a Samuel Marx, U. of Miami. I found law books in Grant’s place with bookplates saying they belonged to Sam Marx.”

  Yuki said, “Looking up Samuel Marx now.”

  She tapped on her laptop, then said, “He was a lawyer in Skokie, died about ten years ago in a house fire.”

  I said, “If you type Sam Marx plus Connor Grant, what do you get?”

  She shook her head. Nothing. Had Grant known Marx? Had he bought Marx’s books at a tag sale? It was a connection between Grant and the law, but it added up to nothing. Yet.

  CHAPTER 88

  WE WORKED FROM six until ten, when Claire said, “Let’s air out our brains, okay?”

  She cued up one of her husband Edmund’s orchestra pieces, the Double Bass Concerto in D Major, by Vanhal. The music absolutely lightened our moods. Coffee cups were topped up and we polished off the tin of oatmeal cookies, including the crumbs. Cindy, Claire, and Yuki texted their significant others and I called Mrs. Rose, telling her that I’d be home in a couple of hours. “I hope so, anyway.”

  But unopened boxes were calling. After the break we began sifting and sorting again.

  Mainly, we had found photocopies of newspaper clippings about explosions, randomly interspersed between tests on astronomy, paleontology, and basic chemistry, papers we’d set aside for further discussion.

  When all boxes had been searched, we talked back and forth about our findings. For instance, I had something in my hand that was pretty shocking.

  It was a copy of a Wisconsin newspaper article about a house fire thirty years ago in which a family had died. According to the story, a backyard grass fire had lit up a propane tank, destroying a suburban home, flattening it to rubble. Four people had lived in that house, and they were so burned up, the bodies couldn’t be identified.

  It seemed significant, so I opened it up to the floor.

  “Is this the beginning of Connor Grant’s story? Did this gas explosion get him thinking about the power and the glory of bombs? Why else would he save it?”

  Claire said, “He may have known the family?”

  She googled the name of the town and Connor Grant’s name, then said, “I got zippo.”

  We took a few more spins around the internet, and the search for Connor Grant science teacher produced small-time science fair pieces on Grant going back a dozen years.

  “They could be real stories, or they could be planted,” Cindy said. “It’s not too hard to post something about yourself in a chat room or on a blog, start a website, write an article for a small-town paper. Then it gets picked up by other publications, not fact-checked, and then it shows up multiple times on Google.”

  “Listen to this,” Claire said. She read from the article. “William Tilley officiated at a memorial service for his friend Connor Grant, a climate scientist who was killed in a plane crash.”

  Claire looked up. She said, “This Connor Grant’s body was never recovered from the burned wreckage.”

  “Is there a picture?” Cindy asked.

  There was. But the dead-in-a-plane-crash scientist Connor Grant didn’t look like anything like our Connor Grant. I stared at the photo of the chief mourner, William Tilley. He wasn’t Connor Grant’s twin, but I thought he looked more like our Connor Grant than the dead man.

  I googled Tilley’s name and four thousand William Willy Bill Billy Tilleys popped up.

  So where were we? We had a collection of articles citing the violent, fiery deaths of several people who didn’t actually link up. What did these people mean to Connor Grant?

  Why did he collect stories of this type of tragedy?

  Were they his victims?

  We weren’t going to be able to chase down all these deaths tonight. After six hours of dedicated hard work, we’d crossed off every last box, found semi-intriguing tidbits that added up to not much of anything and certainly not a dirty bomb to drop on my enemy.

  “Thanks for the really good try,” I said.

  The girls said that they were sorry, and we hugged all around before cleaning up and leaving for home.

  I thought about Grant on the drive back to Lake Street. Had we been looking for something that didn’t exist? Was Connor Grant exactly who he said he was—a high school teacher with a deep and far-reaching mind? If so, why did I persist in feeling that he had scammed all of us by getting away with mass murder? Was Grant a mystery that would never be solved?

  He still had me in the stocks with his IAB complaint, but as for what I had on him?

  I still didn’t have even a clue.

  CHAPTER 89

  THE MAN WHO was spending his last twenty-four hours as Connor Grant counted out his cash. He had forty-five dollars in fives, eight singles, and some loose change. He wanted to use all of it before he got on the plane.

  He had been staying inside his suite at the middle-of-theroad businessmen’s Travelers’ Inn for the last two days. No one knew where he was—not his lawyer, not the cops, not the school. He had wanted this little cushion of alone time in order to rest up before his big farewell to the City by the Bay.

  He had spent the time well, lying in the middle of the big bed, listening to his playlist of favorites on his iPhone. Room service on demand. Memories on demand, too.

  He took his time and reviewed the five years he’d spent in San Francisco. He thought about the kids in his classes at Saint Brendan, and by count, he remembered every one of them.

  He remembered meals with ocean views, cable car and ferry rides, books he’d read by the fire in his little house. He thought of women he had slept with and their stories, and he didn’t skip over the conversations or the good-byes.

  He sipped his Scotch and played his music, unspooled the images in his mind. He wanted to save the best for last, and then it was there. He remembered building the compression bomb with a fire extinguisher, filling it with gas, adding the perchlorate, leaving the bomb under the skirts of the space travel exhibit, which was a few yards from the spiral staircase that went up to the dome.

  He remembered packing the fistful of C-4 with a timer into the cyborg exhibit at the front of the Welcome Gallery, so that the doors would blow twenty-five minutes after the big compression bomb detonated.

  And he thought about that girl he’d paid for a couple of hours earlier that day. Irish, he thought. Reserved. Modest, even. She’d needed the money and he had needed her. Win-win.

  While the sunset came on outside his windows, “Grant” let the rest of that evening play unedited through his mind. He remembered with crystal clarity that he had been standing on the Embarcadero not far from Pier 15 as the timer set off the compression bomb. The size and scope of the blast had been beyond his expectations. The shower of glass seemed to turn the air to ice, freeze it so that it reflected the light and the roaring magnificence as the building fell to its knees.

  Images overlapped: the destruction still unfurling, overlaid with the screaming of fire engines and of the crowds, so many people. That explosion was one of the pinnacles of his life.

  The two months in jail had passed quickly as he prepared for the trial. He had relished in the planning of it, and it had exceeded his dreams in the execution. It had been so easy, and even hilarious to watch the faces of the prosecution as he turned the jury into his best friends.

  Too bad he wouldn’t be here for Lindsay Boxer to get the boot from the SFPD. The humiliation would devastate her, but for him, the complaint had just been a distraction while he planned his next move.

  Grant finished his Scotch and looked at the room service menu. He ordered, and while he waited, there was one thing he wanted to do before checking out tomorrow. He wanted to thank his friend Dylan Mitchell, the great Haight himself. He picked up his burner phone and composed an e-mail.

&nb
sp; Haight, I’m a leavin’, on a jet plane. Thank you for your guidance, inspiration, encouragement. Couldn’t have made glass rain under a setting sun without you.

  Grant

  He sent the message, and it was answered immediately.

  Grant, you’ve left your mark on the movement. I am glad to have helped you birth your vision. Thanks for the gift of your notebook. Burn your phone. AN

  AN, “Apocalypse Now.”

  Grant, sighed happily. No more souvenirs. He took the chip out of the phone and flushed it down the toilet. Then he opened the door all the way for the room service waiter and his double cheeseburger.

  CHAPTER 90

  I WAS WORKING late at my desk, moments from shutting off the computer, when Jacobi appeared in front of me.

  “Glad I caught you.”

  “Only good news, please, Jacobi.”

  “Task force needs you.”

  “No, no, no, they don’t. I’m wiped. I’m done.”

  Jacobi continued talking as if he hadn’t heard me, and I was quite sure there was nothing wrong with his hearing.

  “Do you know of a Dylan Mitchell, goes by the name of Haight?”

  “Hate?” I said. “What’s that? Some kind of tag?”

  Jacobi said, “H-a-i-g-h-t. Like the street.”

  I shut down my computer. Drank down the dregs of my coffee, threw the container into the trash.

  “Don’t think so. What about him?” I asked.

  “He’s a big player in the terrorist underground. He grew up on the flower-power down-with-the-government revolution and has turned into a cheerleader for the new suicide bomb generation.”

  “I’m not sure I’m following.”

  Jacobi laughed. “My fault. See if you follow this. This guy Haight is a pot stirrer. He disseminates videos on the so-called inevitable breakdown of the system. His motto is ‘Power to the people by any means,’ especially violent means. He’s shrewd. Has a quick delivery. But we know where this leads. Bloody hell. Problem is, he just informs and rants but doesn’t dictate or advise. So technically what he’s doing is not illegal.”

  “I’m waiting for the punch line.”

  “Patience, Boxer. I’m briefing you on your assignment.”

  “If I choose to accept it.”

  He ignored me. “DHS went through J.’s computer, which he attempted to scrub and left behind in that tenement in the Tenderloin. Also, DHS went through Yang’s computer. Ingleside. They found a connection between those two and Haight.”

  Now I was interested. Very.

  Said Jacobi, “J.’s computer and Yang’s have something in common, what the gearheads call hash code. Like a fingerprint, showing contact with Haight’s computer, which the Feds have been hacking forever.”

  “But is it a crime that these three were in contact?”

  Cops all around me were leaving for home. I said good night to Chi. Waved at Cappy. Samuels said, “Do you need help here, Boxer?”

  “I’m okay.”

  Jacobi sat on the corner of my desk.

  “Boxer.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Good. Because this is where I get to the point. This really is going somewhere. Haight is in the spotlight because two known terrorists contacted him. Now DHS just got a hit on Haight’s computer. Connor Grant e-mailed Haight and he wrote back.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” said Jacobi. “This is the key fact. Grant thanked Haight for his support. Guessing that the support was for Grant’s attack on Sci-Tron. Grant says to Haight that he’s leaving town. Didn’t say when, and we don’t know where Grant is, but DHS wants to pick up Mr. Flower Power and question him. He could be a co-conspirator in a terrorist act that killed twenty-five citizens of our city.”

  I was stunned. I’d just about given up on Grant, and now it sounded like he had finally left a virtual fingerprint on the Sci-Tron disaster and had implicated an even bigger catch.

  Jacobi said, “SWAT is out front waiting for you. Conklin is on the way. I wish I could go,” said Jacobi. “Now get out of here.”

  CHAPTER 91

  HAIGHT WAS IN his studio watching the sky go cobalt blue beyond the reinforced glass. After his brief exchange with Connor Grant, creator of the Sci-Tron bomb, Haight changed his IP address. It had been a mistake to write to Grant, the first time he’d ever written back, but he had to say good-bye to his prize pupil. He’d always enjoyed Grant’s clearheaded intelligence, his scientific mind.

  He finished cleaning up his hard drive and he planned his evening. He was baking root vegetables, and while they cooked, he would post a podcast. Some audacious lone-wolf bombings had taken place this week in New York and several cities in Europe.

  It was very important that he cheer on the loyal soldiers everywhere. It was important to send out a message to motivate others.

  He was making his notes, gathering his thoughts for his podcast, when he saw a line of cars coming down Twentieth Street toward his factory.

  Oh. Shit.

  Haight heard the chopper blades as cars filled the parking area below. He ran upstairs to the roof and put up his hands, yelling ineffectually, “Don’t shoot.”

  Goddamnit. Of course he’d been hacked. No surprise but one little mistake, 122 characters, immediately deleted and cleaned to death.

  And still the fucking net had closed.

  “Don’t shoot.”

  CHAPTER 92

  I WAS RIDING shotgun in the lead car with tactical force commander William Niles as we bumped over the broken asphalt in the industrial section of Dogpatch. Choppers were lending air support, and Niles was on the radio, instructing his team.

  As bright lights from the helicopters lit up an old factory, our assault vehicles pulled into a line, blocking the roadway and providing cover.

  A man was standing on the roof of his factory home with his hands up, but when the blinding lights hit him, he ran back into the building.

  Niles was out of the car and on the bullhorn.

  “Come out, Mr. Mitchell. You’re surrounded.”

  Conklin and I got out of the vehicle.

  What was Haight going to do? On Niles’s go, the tac team ran forward and took positions on all exits, and two men rammed in the front door.

  Flashbangs lit up the windows.

  And a moment later the spear tip of our counterterrorism task force went in. I found a stunned Dylan Mitchell, a.k.a. Haight, sprawled out on his bed, barely conscious.

  Niles filled a pot with water and splashed it on the man who was stirring up crazy anarchists in America and the rest of the world, then yanked him awake and into a sitting position.

  “What?” the man asked.

  “We’re arresting you for conspiracy in recent bombings and other acts of terrorism. I have federal warrants to search your premises and to confiscate your electronic devices, including your phone and your computer. Your ass belongs to the DHS until further notice.”

  “I haven’t done anything. I posted a blog.”

  “Okay, well, we say you conspired with Connor Grant in the bombing of Sci-Tron and are implicated in the deaths of twenty-five people. That’s for starters.”

  “I don’t know any Connor Grant. And that’s the truth.”

  Conklin was looking at something that was all but hidden under the bed on wheels. He reached under and with a gloved hand pulled out a fat notebook that looked to be handwritten and dog-eared.

  I knew what it was. In fact, Conklin had found this notebook or one just like it in Grant’s garage laboratory.

  He read the title out loud. “‘How to Make a Bomb: For Twenty-Five Dollars in Twenty-Five Minutes, by Connor A. Grant.’ Bedtime reading, Mr. Mitchell?”

  Looked like Haight swallowed the ordinary and stupid protest I don’t know what that is or how it got there, but he wore the hangdog expression of defeat.

  A man in black relieved Conklin of the notebook and bagged it. Niles turned to me.

  “Sergeant Boxer? Will you d
o the honors?”

  Conklin was right there with me when I spoke to the man sitting on his bed.

  “Dylan Mitchell?”

  He looked into my face and broke out into a smile.

  “Oh, my God,” he said. “I lived long enough to actually see lipstick on a pig.”

  I said, “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Conklin walked behind him and cuffed him tightly.

  “Mr. Mitchell, you have the right to remain silent, understand?”

  I read him every one of his rights and stepped aside as he was dragged to his feet and out the door to an assault vehicle.

  He was yelling now.

  “You’ll never get away with this. I guarantee it.”

  “Tell it to your lawyer,” I shouted back. “I’ve had a long day.”

  CHAPTER 93

  I SLEPT WELL that night, and the next day was shaping up beautifully.

  Haight—guru to the kill, torture, and explode movement, a man who had reinvented Haight speech and who hid behind the name GAR—had spent the night in federal custody. One could only hope and pray that taking him out of circulation, eliminating the incendiary posts he sent out to the four corners of the planet, would have some slowing effect on homegrown terror everywhere.

  In other news, there was a letter on my desk when I got to work that morning.

  Conklin said, grinning sheepishly, “I read it. I couldn’t help myself. I’m a detective, you know.”

  I said, “All right, all right. I love you anyway, you snoop.”

  The letter was from Lietuenant William Hoyt, IAB, formally dismissing the complaint against me on the grounds that there was “no reason for further investigation.” Hoyt wrote, “You did your job by the book and went above and beyond. We’re lucky to have an officer like you on the force.”

  Parisi stopped by with cupcakes and gave me a hug. When Parisi hugged me, I knew I’d been thoroughly hugged.