Dantes' Inferno Read Free Page B

Nodding toward the scene of the destruction, he reached down to scoop up a handful of sandy soil. “He wants everyone to know it.”
    He gazed past Detective Church to see a young woman staring back at him. She wore a stricken expression, and she looked frail as a crushed honeysuckle blossom. His belly hollowed. His breath disappeared, his mind went blank as slate. It took him several seconds to put a name to her face. Molly Redding. His own niece. She was holding a child’s tennis shoe, clutching it against her breasts, swaying on her feet. A thin, keening wail escaped her lips.
    A child and his teacher had died in the first blast . .  .
    The air stopped. Nothing entered Sweetheart’s lungs, and nothing left. For however many seconds in time thetragedy registered, Sweetheart stopped breathing, poised between life and death.
    Hakkeyoi —he commanded himself— move!—get going!
    The dam holding back his emotions broke suddenly, and all his rage and pain washed through the canyons of his complex psyche. As denial gave way, information flooded the synapses of his brain: the dead child was Jason Redding, his own grandnephew. Molly Redding was Jason’s mother.
    Sweetheart’s honeyed skin blanched white. The dirt in his hand ran through his fingers until only dust remained.
    Jikan desu . Time is up.
    His burning gaze settled on the detective’s face. He said, “Let’s bring in John Dantes, or I swear I’ll track him down and kill him myself.”

Utopia in the classic sense defies humanness in its necessary and constant striving for homeostasis. City, the built environment, with all its flaws, its dust and grime, its chaos of lies and secrets, must stand in for any dream of perfection. I’m a grown man crazy in love with LA and all her beauty, all her faults.
    John Dantes, Dantes’ Inferno (Athena Press, 1999), excerpt published in the LA Times , November 7, 2001
    April 16, 2001—Monday—7:59 A.M. One Year Later A ziggurat rose above the shimmering sands of downtown Los Angeles.
    Sylvia Strange slid ebony-framed sunglasses over her pronounced cheekbones and brown eyes. Seen through Polaroid glass, the morning glare of rush hour traffic retreated, the desert sands coalesced into a mishmash of urban high-rises fading from a half century’s wear and tear; nomadic caravans were transformed into commuter lanes on the Harbor northbound; the ziggurat redefined itself as the terraced pyramidal tower atop City Hall.
    The twenty-eight-story structure was just a stone’s throw from her destination: Metropolitan Detention Center—aka MDC—home of the mad and the bad.
    So much for visions of the Holy Land.
    Still, it was hot enough to be the Negev desert. Even with air-conditioning, sweat dampened Sylvia’s neck and trickled between her breasts. She punched up climate control settings and aimed arctic air at her throat. Almost instantly her skin raised goose bumps. No such thing as a happy medium this Monday morning.
    Nudging unruly shoulder-length auburn strands away from her face, she took a deep breath, checking her reflection in the mirror. Olive skin a little wan, lips chapped and bare of lipstick, pupils dilated behind dark glasses. She knew she needed more than blush, eyeliner, and a jolt of chutzpah to pass for a member of the psychological-profiling elite. Welcome to the majors, Strange. You hit the big league, the chance to contribute to the biggest forensic profiling study of bombers—ever. The chance to tag along while the FBI and ATF, LAPD and UCLA—all under the elitist and watchful eye of Rand Corporation—take an up-close-and-personal look at members of the Notorious Bombers’ Club: McVeigh, Ramzi Yousef, Richard Johnson, Theodore K .
    And John Freeman Dantes .
    Reaching automatically into the pocket of her briefcase, she pulled out a cigarette, squeezing it gently between plain fingers, sliding the filter between her