Run into Trouble (21 page)

They turned onto it, thankful for the
firmness of the asphalt and the knowledge that they knew where they
were and took a quick glance to the right before they ran to the
left.

Melody said, “I don’t see anyone.”

“Since we didn’t spend that much time on the
shortcut, I think we can safely assume that we’ve taken the
lead.”

***

They still had the lead when they passed
Diablo Canyon where the nuclear power plant was under construction.
They ran across a cow pasture to connect with a road that went
through Montana de Oro State Park.

Melody watched the placid animals watch them
and tried to look for cow pies at the same time. “We’ve seen seals,
birds, crabs, and cows today. I’m assuming that all but the cows
are native to this area.”

Drake laughed. “It’s not the cows you have
to worry about, it’s the bulls. Although I suspect you won’t find a
bull in the same pasture with cows.” He shifted his gaze to the
blue water beyond the cliff. “If I’m not mistaken, that rock is
called Lion Rock.”

Melody looked at the large rock that did
indeed resemble a lion.

“What’s that in the water next to it?”

“It’s a boat of some sort.”

They detoured closer to the cliff but kept
running. Something didn’t look right to Drake.

“That’s a bad place for a boat. It appears
to be a very rocky area.”

“The way it’s tilted, I suspect it’s come
upon hard times. It’s a strange looking boat. I’ve never seen a
boat that looked like that.”

“It looks like a small submarine.”

Drake flashed back to the day on the beach
at Malibu. He vaguely remembered seeing a shape in the water that
rapidly disappeared after the shells were fired. At least he
thought he had seen a shape. Maybe it was his imagination filling
in details. The Navy and Coast Guard still hadn’t found anything.
This place was remote enough that there was a good chance nobody
else had spotted the boat if it hadn’t been there long.

“I’m going to report this to Blade.”

“Maybe there’s a pay phone in the park.”

“I’m not in any hurry to start World War
Three. Let’s wait until we finish the run. Especially since we’ve
got an excellent chance of gaining on everybody.”

Melody looked behind them. The closest
runners were specks in the distance. “Anything you say, guv.”

She had seen enough violence in her life to
echo Drake’s sentiment. She hoped that the boat would not turn out
to be sinister. They angled over to the park road and continued
their fast pace, determined to put more distance between themselves
and the other runners.

***

Drake and Melody ate dinner in a Cayucos
restaurant with several of the other runners. Nobody mentioned
seeing the boat at Lion Rock, so the two didn’t bring it up. Either
the others didn’t go close enough to the cliff to see it, or they
didn’t think it remarkable. Regardless, Drake and Melody didn’t
want to be the ones to start rumors.

They had moved into fifth place during the
day’s run. Although they had gained on the two leading teams, they
were still far behind them in elapsed time.

Tom invited the two to join a card game in
one of the rooms of the motel. Melody, who had lost her roommate
and needed to take her mind off Grace, said she would sit in for a
while. Drake was still following his nightly routine of bathing,
stretching, and going to bed early. He excused himself.

The message light on Drake’s telephone was
flashing when he returned to his room. The message was to call a
number collect. No name. Drake recognized the number as one
belonging to Blade. He had talked to Blade earlier. Blade must be
working late. Drake placed the call. Blade answered, repeating the
number. The operator asked him if he would accept the charge from
Oliver Drake.

Blade said, “Yes, ma’am.”

The operator said, “Go ahead,” and clicked
off the line.

“Well, you old son of a bitch, you may be on
to something.”

“Always glad to be of service to my
country.”

“We haven’t yet landed personnel on the
objective, but we’ve got choppers doing flyovers and taking
pictures. It looks like the real thing.”

Blade was taking precautions in case
somebody was listening in, so it must be important. How important,
Drake wondered? “Is this going to start the big one?”

“Too soon to tell. Curious things going on.
This place is remote, but not
that
remote. We think that
it’s only been there a short time, probably since last night.”

“It was abandoned and drifted onto the
rocks?”

“Unlikely, considering its location. Also,
strange coincidence. You were present at the original incident. Now
you’re the one who makes this discovery.”

“The other runners were present in Malibu.
And any one of them could have made this discovery.”

“True. But you’ve all got the same employer.
I’m sending Slick up there. He’ll meet you tomorrow.”

“Not during the run. We can’t afford to
stop.”

“You’re really into this thing, aren’t you?
I fear for your energetic lifestyle. When I get the urge to
exercise, I lie down until it passes. All right, Slick will meet
you tomorrow evening.”

“I’m not sure where we’re going to
stay—”

“Don’t worry your pretty head about that. I
think we can probably find you. Don’t underestimate us.”

“I’d never do that.”

CHAPTER 25

Today’s run goes from Cayucos to San Simeon
(Hearst Castle) by way of Cambria, a lovely tourist trap. If you’re
up to it, we’ll take a tour of Hearst Castle this afternoon. Stay
on Route 1 the whole way, but be very careful. In some places there
isn’t any shoulder. Run single file on the left side of the road
along the narrow stretches and keep a sharp eye out for cars. The
good news is that the road is fairly flat. The altitude never gets
much above 200 feet. Because it’s Saturday, there will be weekend
traffic.

***

What they didn’t expect to see were
hitchhiking hippies, off to commune with nature in the Big Sur
where their troubles would vanish in a puff of smoke. The girls,
ranging from twenty-something to teenage, wore long hair and long
skirts with loose blouses covering bare skin and lugged bedrolls or
backpacks. The boys had equally long hair, and except for their
dress, it was sometimes difficult to tell one sex from the other
from behind.

Most were headed north; they stationed
themselves on the right side of the road, trying to grab rides with
weekenders who had carloads of children. When a Volkswagen camper
with flowers painted on the sides that wasn’t already packed came
along, it was like manna from heaven to them.

The runners and the hippies stared at each
other as the former flashed by. They came from two different
worlds, separated by a narrow strip of asphalt. Drake saw good
looking girls and wondered what would happen to them if they were
picked up by the wrong man. That made him speculate about free
love. Which made him wonder when some of them had last washed, as
he got a closer look at straggly hair and dirty clothes.

Melody interrupted his reverie. “If I were
the mother of those girls, I’d lock them up until they were
thirty-five.”

“You’re too young to be their mother. You’re
not even thirty-five, yourself.”

“I’d lock myself up, too. I’m thinking
ahead. I might get married some day, you know.”

Married. Drake pictured himself being
married once in a while, but never seriously. However, it did have
its attractions, abundant sex being one of them. He decided to
change the subject before Melody guessed his thoughts. “It looks
like we’re going to be running in a posse all day. No chance to
excel on this road. We’ll be on it for a long time.”

“There will be other opportunities. We’ve
moved up to fifth place. Who would have guessed that when we
started out? At least we shouldn’t lose ground to anyone.”

In fact, several of the teams were lagging
behind the group with various ailments affecting feet and
knees.

Melody spoke again. “What do you think
Blade’s up to? Isn’t this a job for the U.S. Army, Navy, and
Marines?” She sang, “From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of
Lion Rock.”

“Blade sees a conspiracy based on the fact
that we were present at Malibu and also the ones who found the
sub.”

“So we’re working for the Russkies?”

“Not us. Somebody at Giganticorp.”

“Meaning Casey. He’s the top dog. Why would
he do that?”

“Who knows? Maybe he’s an idealist.”

“Idealists are fine as long as they don’t
actually try to do anything. You said that Slick is going to meet
us at our motel, which I understand is in Cambria. At least he’s
not going to show up in his Porsche around the bend somewhere.”

“I nixed that idea. This isn’t like the
first time when we were so far behind that stopping for a few
minutes to chat with Slick didn’t matter.”

They were passing a house on the ocean side
of the road with a sign that read, “This place dangerous to dogs,
children, and reasonable people.” The yard was strewn with
junk.

Drake smiled. At least they were warned.

***

Drake and Melody were amazed at the
magnificent buildings and the Olympian style swimming pool on the
barren hillside above the sea. They were even more surprised at
what they saw within the buildings.

Melody read the information brochure. “It
says that Hearst collected items in hundreds of different
categories. Including ceilings. I say, who in their right mind
collects ceilings?”

They were gazing up at one of those ceilings
at the moment, brought over in pieces from some medieval castle in
Europe and reassembled in its current habitat.

“The man thought big. You can’t deny
that.”

Drake and Melody jerked their heads down to
the horizontal. There was no mistaking that resonant voice. Slick
smiled easily at them from behind his dark glasses. They helped him
take on the coloring of a tourist, along with a garish sport shirt
and white sneakers. Only his powerful-looking arms and flat stomach
gave away the fact that he probably wasn’t driving one of those
campers with the wide outside mirrors that the runners had to dodge
all day, like a matador evading the horns of the bull.

Drake said, “I’m glad to see that you enjoy
the finer things in life.”

“Thought I’d absorb a little culture while I
was up here. Let’s stroll over to the pool.”

They could talk outdoors without being
overheard. There wasn’t anything unusual about tourists chatting
with each other. Among the Greco-Roman columns that surrounded the
pool, they felt as if they had been carried back to an ancient
age.

Melody couldn’t resist asking about the
topic that had occupied her thinking all day. “What did they find
out about the boat?”

“Ah yes, you’ve been out of touch in your
own little world. Well, it’s going to hit the six o’clock news.
What is being published is that it is indeed a miniature submarine,
equipped to lob shells of the sort that destroyed the homes in
Malibu. It appears that several such shells were fired by it.”

Slick paused, prompting Drake to ask, “What
isn’t being published?”

“All of the written material in the boat is
in Russian, including the signs that say, ‘Watch your head.’”

“Why is that being suppressed?”

“The president doesn’t feel that we have
enough information to make it public. There’s no sign of a crew, no
sign of any enemy ship that might have come in to pick one up. The
Navy and Coast Guard have the coast blanketed. The boat has
suffered very little structural damage, and wasn’t in danger of
sinking. Too many things don’t make sense.”

“You mean the president doesn’t want to
start World War Three? That’s novel. I was young at the time, but
as I recall, Roosevelt was aching for an excuse to get into WW
Two.”

“Don’t knock it. Wars hot and cold keep
folks like you and me in beer and Porsches. Vietnam’s not going to
last forever. I know a little bit about your employment history.
Both of you had top secret clearances. Which is why Blade
authorized me to tell you this stuff. That and he needs your
help.”

Melody looked at the columns being reflected
off Slick’s dark glasses and wondered, not for the first time, what
color his eyes were. “What does he want us to do?”

“You have access to Casey without arousing
suspicion. He’s the fair-haired child of the military, because he’s
got lots of brass on his board. Also, to give him credit, he’s
delivered weapons’ systems on time, within budget, something not
all our suppliers do. Of course, he’s always looking for new
markets. One thing he’s developing is a mini sub, similar to the
one we found.

“For several reasons, including the
coincidence of you being present at both Malibu and Lion Rock, we
think he’s got a dog in this hunt, but we don’t know what his game
is. Anything you can find out would be appreciated.”

Drake had a thought. “Any idea where the sub
was manufactured?”

“It was built using the metric system, but
the whole world uses metric except us. That’s something we want to
find out. Casey’s giving a campaign speech on network television
tonight at eight. Give it a listen. Maybe you’ll get some
clues.”

Melody said, “We only see Casey when he
decides to drop by, and we never know when that will be. He was
just here because of Grace’s murder.”

“He likes Running California, and he likes
you guys. He’ll show up oftener than you think.”

“Where did they take the sub?”

“It’s being towed to Monterey, even as we
speak.”

Drake, newly money conscious, said, “You
mentioned beer and Porsches. Is any of that going to filter down to
us?”

“To be honest with you, since you’re off the
books, you may wind up with Green Stamps.”