“Well, I’m flattered you like them, but the rest of the lady needs your help.”
Their eyes grew wider. The chance to help a gorgeous, sexy female in distress, with unknown rewards on the other side, was impossible to resist. “Sure! What do you need?”
“Well, those men who just embarrassed that couple? Did you see that?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” they said in unison.
“They’re looking for me.”
“Why? What’d you do?” the shorter one asked.
“I couldn’t pay all my federal taxes on our farm down in Ellensberg. Lost my husband last year. I’m gonna pay, but I need more time and they want to arrest me.”
“They can do that?”
“Sure can. Look. All I need is a diversion to give me enough time to get out of here. Think you two could divert their attention without letting anyone know?”
The taller of the two grinned. “Yeah, I guess we could do that.”
“What’s your name, Sugar?”
“Ah, I, ah… Billy Matheson… of Yakima.”
“And you, Babe?”
“I’m Bobby Nash. I’m from Yakima, too.”
“Billy and Bobby from Yakima. Matheson and Nash. Your families listed in the phone book? Can I find you that way to thank you later?”
Two heads nodded enthusiastically.
“Okay,” she said, putting an arm around each of them and walking them farther into the room in a huddle. “Here’s what I need you to do.”
The leader of the group of four checked off one of the names on the printout in his hand and leaned against the interior corridor wall, well aware that time was running out. The assaulted couple in 415 would undoubtedly call the police. Perhaps thirty minutes, maybe an hour, but it would happen.
“Sir?”
He looked up and into the pimply face of a tall teenager. Another teen stood nearby. The tall boy was wide-eyed and upset, his eyes darting back and forth as he looked back at the parking lot.
“The desk clerk? He said you guys were really FBI. Is that right?”
“Why?” the leader asked.
“My — my truck… they stole it… right outside!”
“Son,” he interrupted, “you’ll have to call—” He stopped himself. “Wait a minute. When and where?”
The teen was practically hyperventilating. Lord, the leader thought, he’s going to start crying any second. He glanced at the other boy, who looked scared, but wasn’t saying anything.
“Out… there… we just pulled up in my father’s pickup — it’s a blue Toyota — and… and this man and woman pulled me out of the seat and yelled something about commandeering my truck for the FBI, and took off. I never saw a badge. I don’t think they really were FBI. Were they?”
It was the leader’s turn for raised eyebrows. He glanced at his three men and back at the kid. “What did they look like?”
The teen recited the description he’d been prompted to give of Robert MacCabe, and of Kat Bronsky with chestnut-brown hair and a pantsuit.
“Show me the direction they went!” the leader commanded, and propelled the teens toward the door.
“How many do you see?” Robert asked, as Kat peered through the partially opened curtain.
“Four. All piling into a van of some sort. Young Billy must be doing an Academy Award job.”
“That was grace under fire, Kat.”
“It was sex under fire, helped by raging hormones ignited by this outfit.” She turned back into the room. “Okay. Make the call. We have to make sure there were only four of them.”
Robert phoned the front desk. “Those FBI agents who were here. I need to speak with one of them.”
“They’ve gone, Sir.”
“All four of them?”
“Yes, Sir.”
Robert nodded to Kat, who was already in motion toward the door. “Thanks,” he said, putting the phone in its cradle and following her out.
They slipped out a side door and Robert unlocked the car as Kat spotted the two boys, still standing in the parking lot.
“Thanks, fellows. I owe you one.”
“No problem, Ma’am,” said the taller of the two. “They went down the street that way, southbound.” He pointed to the right. “You’d better get going.”
“You, too. Stay in your rooms tonight.”
She plopped into the driver’s seat and waved good-bye, accelerating onto the main avenue in the opposite direction, passing an oncoming black sedan with U.S. Government tags as it pulled into the drive and headed for the motel office.
When it became apparent that they weren’t going to catch the blue pickup, one of the four men called 911 to report its theft and its license number, identifying himself as FBI and asking for the local radio dispatch frequencies used by the police. With a handheld scanner programmed to the appropriate channels, they headed back to the motel, maintaining a fruitless vigil and almost missing the three cars that had gathered near the office, each of them dark-colored sedans with black sidewalls that screamed government.
“Jeez Louise! We can’t go in there!”
“Turn around. TURN AROUND!”
The driver wheeled back onto the street as a city squad car turned in the drive.
“So now what?”
“Back to the jet while we try to figure their next move,” the leader said, his face a study in frustration and anger.
CHAPTER 41
“I thought it was the cellular call I accidentally answered,” Kat said as they watched the headlights on the road ahead and tried to keep each other awake. “But now I think they traced back the series of numbers we were using for Internet access, and that boggles my mind. That should have taken days, at best.”
“They’re crafty, Kat, but not infallible, or we wouldn’t still be here.”
She shook her head. “This must be Supermob. I’ve never even heard of such technological and logistical capabilities in any known terrorist group, so it’s obvious we’re not dealing with a bunch of rednecks trying to blow up the government.”
“You’re reinforcing my worst fears, Kat — that we’re somehow dealing with an arm of the U.S. government.”
The Centralia city-limit sign appeared in the headlights just before 2 A.M. They had already made the decision to drive straight to the Portland, Oregon, airport and sleep in the minivan. There was a Horizon Airlines departure to Sun Valley, Idaho, around noon, and Kat had made reservations from a pay phone along the way, using purposefully misspelled variations of their real names.
The temperature outside was in the upper forties, somewhat mild for a mid-November night. Sleep without the van’s heater was all but impossible, but keeping the engine on would make them far too visible on an otherwise empty airport parking lot. Robert suggested a truck stop, and before crossing the Columbia River into Oregon, they nestled the car anonymously into a vast parking lot of idling eighteen-wheelers.
“Kat?” Robert asked at one point, when she felt she was just about to drift off.
“Yes?”
“Are you numb?”
“No, I’m warm enough. How about you?”
“I don’t mean temperature. I mean emotionally. I’m approaching the ‘whatever’ zone.”
“You have even more of a right to feel that way, considering the crash and all.”
He took a deep breath. “You think they’re okay up in — where is it?”