He was pretty sure that Copeland’s message had nothing at all to do with antiques.
Not even close.
But what, then, did it mean?
Jack spent most of the night trying to find out.
He got on his laptop back at the boat and hit Google and his usual go-to databases, checking news sources, public records, legislative filings, reference materials, freedom of information archives.
All he found was a single notation in the footnotes of an article about World War II, referencing a little-known intelligence operation called Roadshow, in which British spies attempted to infiltrate the German government and take it down from the inside. The operation had been a complete failure.
And so, apparently, was this search.
A couple hours before dawn, Jack looked down at Eddie, who was curled next to him on the bed. “What do you think, fuzzy? Are we being played?”
Eddie cocked an ear and tilted his head as if puzzled by the question, and Jack gave him a pat.
“My thoughts exactly.”
Abandoning his task, Jack closed his laptop and then his eyes. He quickly fell asleep.
Before long, Jack was launched into a dream about Iraqi insurgents trying to steal his Humvee, which had a cache of explosives in back. His dead friend Richard Riley made an appearance-eyes as blank as ever-and so did Agent Forsyth, both of them coming and going as the dream shifted and morphed into a Truth Tellers panel discussion about Islamic fundamentalists and Beat Generation poetry.
He awoke at six A.M. with Eddie’s usual face lick, and found the little guy wiggling around like crazy-which meant only one thing:
Tony Antiniori was in the vicinity.
Jack pulled on some clothes and found his friend topside, sitting at the dining table across from the galley, sipping a cup of coffee and reading the paper. Eddie immediately jumped into Tony’s lap and let him scratch his ears.
“You look like hell,” Tony said to Jack.
“Thanks, pal. You look rested.”
“I had a good workout.” He winked.
“Good thing I’m a gentleman or I’d ask for details.”
Jack rubbed his face, trying to wake himself, then moved to the galley and poured a cup of coffee. Black, no sugar.
“How did things go with Bob Copeland?” Tony asked.
Jack took a long sip of his coffee. “He’s an enigma. I wish for once in his life he’d get to the point instead of circling it. You ever heard of something called Operation Roadshow?”
Tony thought for a moment. “Not that I remember. What is it? Some kind of black op?”
“No idea. And I’m not even sure Copeland knows. But he went to a lot of trouble to put that phrase in my head, so I figure it must mean something.”
“I can check around.”
“Good luck. I tried, and all I found was some obscure World War II reference. Either this is something so far under the radar that it’s out of our reach, or Copeland is playing mind games.”
“Which do you think it is?”
“He may be annoying sometimes, but that’s not usually his style.”
“And you think this has something to do with the cover-up?” Tony asked.
“What I think is that all we’ve got is a hunch, based on speculation and hearsay, and unless we can get some solid information we’re just spinning our wheels.”
“So why not go to the source?” Tony asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Jamal Thomas or his brother. Ask flat out if they’re sure about who was driving that car and whatever else they might remember.”
Jack shook his head. “The brother’s not talking and the cops have Jamal on lockdown. I tried talking to his brother’s public defender a few days ago and got rebuffed. No way I’ll ever get to those kids.”
“Don’t speak too soon,” Tony said, then folded the newspaper over and slid it across the table. “The story’s buried on the second page, but I think you’ll find it interesting.”
Jack put his cup on the counter and crossed to the table, staring down at a single column, headlined CARJACKING SUSPECT TO BE RELEASED.
“Jamal’s bail was set at 200K,” Tony said. “His folks could barely afford the 25K they paid for Leon. His attorney filed a motion to reduce bail and the judge granted it.”
“How much?”
“He’ll be putting up ten percent with the bondsman, twenty thousand dollars. They’re taking him home at the close of business tonight.”
“Hold on,” Jack said. “If his folks-”
“There’s just a mother.”
“Okay. If she was tapped out by Leon’s bail, where’s the twenty grand coming from?”
Tony tapped the tabletop. “Read the article. Says the bond is being put up by an organization called the Juvenile Defense Coalition.”
“Never heard of it,” Jack said.
“Apparently they’re dedicated to keeping troubled teens out of jail because the poor things might actually have to take responsibility for their actions.”
Jack nodded. “Better to have them out on the street where they can sell dope to school kids and break into their neighbors’ houses, right?”
“Or steal cars from potential terrorists,” Tony said.
Jack shook his head in disgust. He had no problem with the juvenile justice system treating kids like kids, but there was a point where you had to draw the line. Sure, some of them came from broken homes and had grown up in terrible environments, but that didn’t really excuse the choices they made. And when it came down to it, the law-abiding citizens of this country were usually the victims of those choices.
Jack had come to believe that some people were just born bad. These kids knew damn well that what they were doing was wrong and couldn’t care less.
So why should anyone else?
Of course, in this case the actions of a bunch of misguided do-gooders might actually work in Jack’s favor. If the kid was due to be released, that meant access, and Jack might finally be able to talk to the punk.
Juvenile court records were routinely kept confidential in California, but Jack had managed to use a back-channel source to get a name and address, and he knew the kid lived with his brother and mother at the Sunnydale projects.
He had tried contacting the mother-Juanita Thomas-shortly after the blast, but her line was a constant busy signal, and he had assumed that he wasn’t the only one looking to do a bedside interview with her son. But now that the focus of the investigation was a bunch of militia wannabes, most of Jack’s colleagues would be centering their attention on the Constitutional Defense Brigade. Which meant, if he was lucky, he might just have the carjacker all to himself.
He looked at Tony. “You interested in a trip to Sunnydale tonight?”
Tony shook his head. “I’m headed to Camp Parks to run a training session. Gotta be up at dawn.”
“So what-you’re leaving me out in the cold?”
“I’d just slow you down anyway. I’m a doddering old man.”
Jack stifled a laugh. “A doddering old man who thinks two hundred knuckle pushups on a hardwood floor are just a warm-up every morning.”
“Sorry, Jack, but duty calls. Besides, if you’re heading into Sunnydale, what you really need is a negotiator. Somebody who knows the area and is a helluva lot easier on the eyes.”
Jack took a moment to process this. “Are you talking about who I think you are?”
Tony grinned. “As a matter of fact, I am.”
9
London, England
“Someone followed me to Sofia,” Haddad said.
He had waited for his imam for over an hour. It had taken some time to reach the decision to tell him about the Turk and the whore, but once Haddad had made up his mind he was anxious to be done with it.
When he first arrived, Imam Zuabi was away from the office and Haddad had grown more and more impatient with each passing minute. He had been to the Muslim Welfare Center and Mosque many times since the day it opened, but events of late were taking their toll on him and he felt little comfort within its walls.