That was odd, but Herbert did not worry about it now. The intelligence chief told McCaskey to remain on the line. He said he would forward any new information immediately.
Through the open line Herbert could hear McCaskey and his wife conferring. The mutual respect he heard in the exchange made him smile. Maria was a tough, swashbuckling, headstrong, old-school law officer. She was the kind of cop who did not knock on doors but kicked them in. She was a perfect counterbalance to the more meticulous McCaskey.
He was happy for them. And he envied them.
Despite receiving data from the new satellite, Herbert felt as if he were back in the technological Stone Age. Before the electromagnetic blast, he would have been sitting in his office looking at the images being forwarded directly from the DSP. He could do that in the Tank, but that would mean hanging with Paul Hood. That was something he did not want to do right now.
Especially when he could still do his work out here and let the mechanized odor of the parking lot transport him to another time and place. To a point in his life when he had the best team a man could have, a wife who was his devoted personal and professional partner.
Maybe that was why Paul Hood did not understand the bad judgment call he had made. He never had an Yvonne in his life. He did not understand the meaning of partnership. Maybe that was why Herbert had judged Hood so harshly. Because he did have that perspective.
And here, in the breezy quiet, where memories took form in the dark shadows beside the buildings, he had her still.
FORTY-NINE
Darrell McCaskey never thought he would be grateful for rush hour.
The highway was clogged in both directions as he picked his way through the slow-moving traffic. Herbert kept him posted on Lucy’s progress. The two cars were converging, albeit slowly. As a precaution, McCaskey called Detective Howell to have someone go to Lucy’s apartment. He wanted to make certain she was not there, that the person in the car was not a decoy. Howell dispatched a squad car without comment. His emotional neutrality was not surprising. It would not have served his cause to challenge the request or to attach it to demands or guarantees. The detective was still a professional.
As McCaskey got onto 95 heading east, he was informed that Lucy’s apartment was empty. She was almost certainly in the car. A minute later, Herbert came back on the line.
“You’re about two klicks shy of her position,” he said. “If I can make a suggestion, she has no more exits between where she is and your current position. You can get out of the car and cross the guardrail north of Springfield—”
“I know the place,” McCaskey said. “I can see it ahead.”
The car was moving a little less than twenty-five miles an hour. He looked into the oncoming traffic as he hooked the phone on his belt. He left the line open.
“Maria, I’m going to intercept Ms. O’Connor and get her to pull over,” McCaskey said. “We’ll wait for you on the shoulder. I need you to get off at the next exit and swing around.”
“You are assuming she’ll stop,” Maria said.
“She will,” her husband said. “If she doesn’t brake willingly, I’ll stop the car in front of her.”
“What if she’s armed?” Maria asked.
“I’ll keep my mouth shut tight,” he replied.
Maria frowned disapprovingly. “With a gun, not a hypodermic.”
“I’ll watch myself,” McCaskey assured her. “Crossing the highway will be the tough part.”
McCaskey did not usually crack wise in situations like this. Something about Maria’s gravity had touched and amused him. This was not like Madrid, where they had been former lovers as well as grumpy and reluctant allies. This was not even like the stakeout for Ed March on Monday morning. This was the first case they had worked together since getting married. Maria was showing concern. He had wanted to try to minimize that.
He kissed her cheek as he put the car in park and opened the door. Maria maneuvered herself over the armrests and took the wheel. McCaskey ran in front of the car and waved an arm as he scooted across two lanes of traffic. Cars braked and horns whined. He swore as he reached the guardrail. The Mustang was about five hundred yards ahead, in the passing lane. He saw the passenger’s side. She was traveling about twenty miles an hour, then suddenly stopped. McCaskey hoped that Lucy had not heard the commotion and saw someone coming toward her. He did not want her trying to get away on foot. She would have a considerable head start.
“Darrell, can you hear me?”
McCaskey snatched the phone. “Yeah, Bob!”
“We’re getting a thermal spike from the DSP,” he said.
“Meaning?” McCaskey asked just as he heard horns in the oncoming lane. Cars around the Mustang were stopping. “Never mind,” he said. “I can see it. She torched the damn thing!”
“What?”
“There’s smoke coming from the closed windows!” McCaskey said. “She must have snuck out when the car stopped. Can you get a visual on her?”
“No,” Herbert said. “We’ve got cloud cover on the natural-light camera.”
“All right. Call 911. I’ve got to find her.”
McCaskey started running. People who could not maneuver away from the Mustang were leaving their cars and hurrying away on foot. A man in a Ram 1500 had pulled off on the shoulder, five car lengths back. He was rushing over with a fire extinguisher. Just then, McCaskey saw red lights flash behind him. He turned and saw Maria standing on the roof of their car. She was tossing road flares, trying to get his attention. His wife must have noticed the smoke and stopped. She was gesturing toward the Ram. Through the smoke McCaskey could just make out someone climbing into the cab. That had to be Lucy. The Ram had a 5.7-liter HEMI Magnum engine. It was a truck with cojónes. The vehicle would take the driver through cars and off road with no trouble.
Flames curled from the tops of the windows of the Mustang. The Ram driver hit it with a blast from the fire extinguisher. As he did, the windshield cracked from the heat, the spiderweb pattern shooting out from the center. A fire started with a cigarette lighter and whatever was lying around should not have gotten so hot so fast. She must have used an accelerant—
She was going to the airport, McCaskey realized. She had sprayed the contents of an aerosol can, hairspray or deodorant, in carry-on luggage.
McCaskey jumped the rail and grabbed the man about the waist and pushed him down just as the can itself exploded. It blew out the fragmented windshield and sent a small fireball rolling across the hood. Pieces of singed black Tumi luggage floated on the smoke like black snow. Former junkies might not be slick, but they knew household chemicals. They also knew how to distract the law.
McCaskey rose from the asphalt. “You all right?” he asked the other man.
“Yeah. Thanks.”
McCaskey was bruised but intact. He jumped around the front of the burning automobile. The Ram was coming toward them, along the shoulder. He tried to get in the back of the pickup as it passed, but he missed it.
Maria did not.
His wife had gotten back into the car and jabbed her way through traffic. When she was just a few yards from the oncoming Ram, she drove the car hard into the guardrail. The metal did not break, but it bulged just enough to clip the fender of the Ram, tearing it free on the passenger’s side. The chrome dug into the spinning front tire. At the same time, Maria accelerated against the guardrail, bending it more and locking the fender into the tire.
The Ram’s 345-horsepower engine screamed as the driver tried to push through the impasse. Before she could succeed, McCaskey was at the driver’s side door. He yanked it open and looked up at the face of desperation. He saw a woman who was crying so hard there was as much sweat along her scalp as there were tears on her cheeks. She was a woman so far over her pay grade that she was trembling all over, everywhere but her hands. Her fingers were bone white and locked around the steering wheel. She looked down at McCaskey.