Gabriel put on the backpack and returned to the open window. “Let’s go. We can jump to the other building.”
“I can’t do that,” Michael said. “I’ll screw up and miss.”
“You have to try. If we stay here, we’ll get killed.”
“I’ll talk to them, Gabe. I can talk to anybody.”
“Forget it. They don’t want to make a deal.”
Gabriel climbed out of the window and stood on the molding with his left hand holding on to the window frame. There was enough light from the street to see the roof, but the alleyway between the two buildings was a patch of darkness. He counted to three, then pushed off and fell through the air to the tar-paper surface of the roof. Scrambling to his feet, he looked up at the factory building.
“Hurry up!”
Michael hesitated, made a move like he was going to climb out the window, and then pulled away.
“You can do it!” Gabriel realized that he should have stayed with his brother and helped him go first. “Remember what you’ve always said. We’ve got to stick together. It’s the only way.”
A helicopter with a mounted spotlight roared across the sky. The beam cut through the darkness, briefly touched the open window, and continued across the top of the factory.
“Come on, Michael!”
“I can’t! I’m going to find someplace to hide.”
Michael reached into his coat pocket, took something out, and threw it to his brother. When the object fell onto the roof Gabriel saw that it was a gold money clip holding a credit card and a wad of twenty-dollar bills.
“I’ll meet you at Wilshire Boulevard and Bundy at noon,” Michael said. “If I’m not there, wait twenty-four hours and try again.”
“They’re going to kill you.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be all right.”
Michael disappeared into the darkness and Gabriel stood alone. The helicopter flew back over the building and hovered in the air, its engine roaring, the big propeller stirring up dust and bits of trash. A spotlight beam hit Gabriel’s eyes; it was like staring at the sun. Half blinded from the glare, he stumbled across the roof to a fire escape, grabbed a steel ladder, and let gravity pull him down.
Maya stripped off her blood-splattered clothes and stuffed them into a plastic garbage bag. The two dead bodies were only a few feet away and she tried not to think about what had happened. Stay in the present, she told herself. Concentrate on each action. Scholars and poets had written about the past-admired it, longed for it, regretted it-but Thorn had taught his daughter to avoid these distractions. The sword blade itself was the proper model as it flashed through the air.
Shepherd had left to meet someone named Prichett, but he could return at any moment. Although Maya wanted to stay and kill the traitor, her first objective was to track down Gabriel and Michael Corrigan. Perhaps they’ve already been captured, she thought. Or maybe they didn’t have the power to become Travelers. There was only one way to answer those questions: she had to find the brothers as quickly as possible.
Maya got some spare clothes out of her suitcase and pulled on jeans, a T-shirt, and a blue cotton sweater. She wrapped her hands with strips of plastic bags, sorted through Bobby Jay’s handguns, and picked out a small German-made automatic with an ankle holster. A combat shotgun with a pistol grip and a folding stock was in the long metal suitcase and she decided to take it along with her. When she was ready to go she tossed an old newspaper on the bloody floor and stood on it while she searched the brothers’ pockets. Tate was carrying forty dollars and three plastic vials filled with rock cocaine. Bobby Jay had more than nine hundred dollars in cash rolled up with a rubber band. Maya took the money and left the drugs beside Tate’s body.
Carrying the shotgun case and her other equipment, she left through the emergency door, walked a few blocks west, and tossed the bloody clothes into a dumpster. Now she was standing on Lincoln Boulevard, a four-lane street lined with furniture stores and fast-food restaurants. It was hot and she felt as if the splattered blood was still sticking to her skin.
Maya had only one backup contact. Several years ago, Linden had visited America to obtain false passports and credit cards. He had set up a mail drop with a man named Thomas who lived in Hermosa Beach.
She used a pay phone to call a taxi. The driver was an elderly Syrian man who barely spoke English. He opened a map book, examined it for a long time, and then said he could take her to the address.
Hermosa Beach was a small town south of the Los Angeles airport. There was a central tourist area with restaurants and bars, but most of the buildings were little one-story cottages a few blocks from the ocean. The taxi driver got lost twice. He stopped, flipped through his map book again, and finally managed to find the house on Sea Breeze Lane. Maya paid the driver and watched the cab disappear down the street. Perhaps the Tabula were already there, waiting inside the house.
