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produced her helmet from another. "Where would you like to eat?" "Any place, as long as it's with you." It earned him the slight Mona Lisa smile. The phone rang and she picked it up. "Agent Zheng." She listened and then glanced up at Ukiah. "Actually, he's right here." She listened a moment longer. "I don't think that makes him an expert, but I can bring him over." She hung up the phone. "The police would like you to come look over a Pack member for them." He was slightly startled. "They caught one of the Pack? Who?" "They didn't say." *** Nor did Ukiah recognize the Pack member when they arrived and were shown the two-way mirror with a view into an interrogation room. The member was a tall lanky man, grizzled long hair, and dark eyes, like so many of the Pack. He was clad in a worn pair of leather pants, high biker boots, and a leather jacket with a stylized running wolf. Ukiah shook his head, watching the man pace back and forth in the small dim room. "I don't recognize him." "We'd be surprised if you did," the police captain that met them explained. "We believe he's a West Coast member, of the Wild Wolves. He won't admit it, won't tell us his name, and has no ID. We were hoping you could verify if he was a Pack member or not." Ukiah looked in surprise at the captain. "How would I know?" "You're the only person in this building that's actually dealt with the Pack. We're going off mug shots and old reports. So, what do you think? Is he a Pack member?" Indigo was silent and unreadable. Ukiah shrugged and walked up to the glass. As if he knew Ukiah was watching, the man came to stand before the mirror, his lip curling back almost in a snarl. Ukiah studied him, looking for any clue yes or no. "He looks like Pack," he finally admitted. "But he isn't. I don't know why. There's some gut reaction missing. He's not Pack." "Are you sure?" "Almost. I've only dealt with the Pack once. But I'm almost positive he's not." The captain turned to a plainclothes detective standing beside him. "Bring him in." The detective walked into the interrogation room, caught the fake Pack member, and brought him snarling out. The fake Pack member glared at Ukiah as the detective parked the man in front of him. "Take a good look," the captain said. "Are you sure he's not Pack?" The man glanced at the captain, then sneered down at Ukiah. "Who the hell are you?" Page 72 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html Ukiah gazed at the man. Why was he so sure that this man wasn't Pack? He thought back to Rennie, Hellena, and Bear. There had been something about them, something he had never felt in the presence of other people, something that had gone unnoticed till now. He shook his head as he tried to place it. "No. I'm positive now. This man isn't Pack." The fake gave him a Pack-like glare for a moment longer. Then the look vanished. It was like watching an actor take off his mask. "How the hell can you tell?" Ukiah shook his head, still unable to pinpoint it. "You just know the difference." "This is Detective Robert Cecil." The captain perched on the corner of the table. "He's one of our best undercover agents. He's spent weeks researching the Pack. We wanted to run one last test before he tried to infiltrate the Pack." "They would eat him alive," Ukiah murmured. "Are you sure?" the captain prodded. "I've heard about you, that you can be downright creepy the way you can spot things. Are you sure that you're spotting something that would slip past the Pack?" Ukiah considered the question. He certainly could tell things that other people couldn't. But what about the Pack? He remembered the way he could tell what had been on Coyote's mind, the clarity of the thoughts as if they had been his own. He shuddered and remembered too the test, the way Hellena seemed to flip through his memories, how he felt the Pack watching, experiencing it with him. He didn't believe in telepathy, but there was no other way to explain the phenomenon. It was the very reason he never even questioned if the Pack had identified him rightly. The very reason, most likely, they had been so dead sure of who he was. There was a knowing down to the core of one's being. You couldn't deny it. Pack knew Pack. He looked at the waiting policemen. If he didn't convince them without sounding crazy, they would send this man to his death. "They would know." He wet his mouth, searching for something to add, and found it. "When Rennie Shaw first saw me in Schenley Park, he didn't come any nearer to me than fifteen feet. It was night. There were no lights. It was raining. I was laying facedown in the mud. And he had never seen me in his life. But he recognized me as a Pack member's son." There was still doubt in their eyes and the way they held themselves. He found another nail and drove it home. "Everything you've heard about me holds true for the Pack." They looked at each other, doubt still there, but no longer of what he was saying. Behind Ukiah, the door flew open. A uniformed policeman in his early twenties stood in the doorway, his eyes wide with excitement. "They've brought in a Dog Warrior! They stopped him for speeding and found one of the missing FBI agents in his trunk! It took about five officers to get him in the wagon, and they've got him in booking right now." *** Ukiah was carried along with the flood downstairs. The rookie cop ran most of the trip down backward, explaining details of the arrest. The Pack member had been driving a late-model sedan and gone forty through a twenty-five mile per hour speed trap. There had been two marked cars, a motorcycle policeman, and an unmarked car manning the speed trap. One of the officers had noticed a bloody handprint on the trunk, and they wrestled the Pack member out of the car, handcuffed him securely, and then searched the trunk. Wil Trace was in the trunk, recently dead, covered with vomit. Needle marks covered his Page 73 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html forearms. Cans of gel fuel were tucked in around his body, and the speed trap had been mere blocks from row of abandoned houses. a "The coroner's office already picked up the body, and they're requesting police protection." The captain grabbed another uniform as they hurried through the halls. "You two go to the coroner's office and make sure nothing happens this time." They came into booking. Two officers had a tall lean man between them, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
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