“It’s a woman, for sure,” she said, and the focus on the gender was really only about one thing. “Want me to get closer?”
“Yes, but let’s hang on a little longer.”
The dark hair was right, head and shoulders were what he remembered, and Roberts was close to saying something. Up ahead was open country, soggy with the rains, fields brown and stubbled, hills in the gray early light in the distance. Before Chico there were olive groves, dusky blue-green, riding the hills off to his right, and Alvarez had closed in behind Marquez.
They made a quick stop, Marquez handing Alvarez a photo, a snapshot he’d run a copy of, and Alvarez handing him the coffee and pastry he’d picked up when he’d gassed up.
“That’s her face?” Alvarez asked.
“Yeah.”
The hybrid still rode in the right-hand lane, the blue color of the car bright against muted hills of olives, sky white since sunrise.
“I’m coming up alongside her,” Alvarez said. “I’m tailing a pickup, and the pickup just passed her, and here I come.”
Then he was silent, likely not sure yet or not wanting her to see him talking, not that it mattered like it used to, given all the “hands-free” devices.
“Okay, I’m past her.”
“Did you get a look?”
“I got a good one, and I’m just double-checking now. I’ve got her in my mirror.”
He knew Alvarez well enough, knew already from his tone. She’d gone as far as to ask him about what it took to become a Fish and Game warden, asking whether someone with her river experience and time outdoors could become a warden. He’d taken her seriously, told her he’d see what he could do to help. She’d burned him the whole way.
“It’s definitely her,” Alvarez said.
“Are you that sure?”
“It’s her, Lieutenant, and yeah, I’m that sure. I’ll move well ahead now.”
Marquez fell farther back, and, briefly, it was almost as if he lacked the strength to push down the accelerator. He figured he’d seen just about everything in twenty years of undercover work and was surprised how much this affected him. He opened his log and found where he’d stuck Selke’s card.
“Who’s this?”
“John Marquez.”
“I don’t know anything new, and I’m in a meeting. Can I call you back?”
“We’ve just ID’d a female suspect we’re following north on I-5, coming up on Redding.”
“I can only think of one female suspect you’d be calling me about.”
“You’re right. It’s Anna.”
32
It was simple enough, wasn’t it? They sent her in and she burned you. You were too eager for a lead and a break and didn’t check her out enough. They stayed loosely with her now. Anna didn’t push it, kept her speed steady. There was new snow on Mount Shasta and winds on the summit that blew streamers of powder off the cornices. The SOU leapfrogged, pulling off to get gas, use a restroom, then close the gap again. They drove through Yreka and neared the Oregon border, Marquez making the calls as they did to clear them to continue the pursuit. He talked to a sergeant he knew and liked on Oregon’s Special Investigations Unit, told him what they had going on.
Anna’s window was partway down, hair catching in the wind flowing in. Shauf passed and turned to study her, Shauf’s face stolid behind dark glasses as she took her in and then talked to Marquez. He polled the team when they were well into Oregon.
“Alvarez?”
“I’m still good, but I’m hungry.”
“You haven’t slept.”
“Yeah, I have. I slept for an hour or so right around Shasta.”
A few laughs. “Cairo?” Marquez asked.
“I’m doing fine.”
“Roberts?”
“I need gas and a restroom.”
“I’ll take point,” Marquez said. “Go ahead and break off.”
“Shauf?”
“I’d like to wring her neck. That’ll keep me going another thousand miles.”
“We’ll be talking to her soon enough.”
But it was Ehrmann he talked to next. He figured it was the right moment to push for information.
“We found Anna Burdovsky. We’ve followed her from the delta into Oregon. She picked up what we think is caviar in jars being moved in Raburn Orchards boxes. Four boxes were loaded into the back of a Toyota Prius a little after four this morning. She showed up in the delta at a building we had under surveillance. It’s a southern Cal vehicle. Could it tie into what you’ve got going?”
“Read me off the plates.”
Marquez read them off.
“Burdovsky has made deliveries for people working for her ex-husband, the Karsov we’ve told you about. It’s possible this is the overlap we’ve been wondering about, Lieutenant.”
“Is Karsov here?”
“Why are you asking that?”
“You said he travels, and obviously something is up.”
“As a matter of fact he may be in the country. We’ve learned something this morning that suggests he might be. Under no circumstances should you make contact with Burdovsky.”
Marquez knew that was coming. It didn’t surprise him.
“We’re going to join you following her.”
“We don’t want to lose track of what’s she’s carrying.”
“I’m sure you’d like to have a conversation with her also.”
“That can wait.”
He gave Ehrmann their position, then hung up. Two hours later Anna finally pulled over for gas. “She’s got an iron bladder,” Shauf said, and they watched her move through the gas station store. She was in line at the cash register and came out with bottled water, hot chocolate in a white Styrofoam cup, and a sandwich. Her face looked calm. She chatted with the employees. You wouldn’t know looking at her she’d been driving for eight hours. She yawned, talked to the kid who pumped the gas, and then got back in her car.
Marquez was across the street parked in a Burger King lot on the phone with Ehrmann again, answering more questions about how they found her. He was starting to figure out what Ehrmann wasn’t saying.
“When did the FBI lose track of her?”
“A week ago.”
Marquez watched her pull out and then back onto the freeway. They could expect to start spotting Feds any moment now.
“We’ll take over when she gets to her destination,” Ehrmann said.
Anna drove harder as they neared Portland, but when it started raining she slowed and not long afterward exited and drove up to a diner. In the diner it looked warm. The windows were steamed, and outside the rain turned to sleet. Roberts went in and ordered food to go for everyone, including the extra sandwich Marquez asked for and now took down the street to where an FBI agent had nosed his car in between trees. He got the agent to lower his window, but he wouldn’t accept the sandwich, said regulations wouldn’t allow it.
“No one will know,” Marquez said. “How long have you guys been on her?”
“I don’t even know who she is. Maybe you can fill me in.”
“We’re following her on a sturgeon poaching case, but you’re on an organized crime car theft ring.”
“I didn’t even know that. They just gave me a list of vehicles to look for.”
“Which one did you spot?”
He smiled. “Yours.”
The agent was young, clean-cut, hard-eyed, wouldn’t touch the sandwich Marquez had handed him until he was alone and driving. Marquez left him as Anna got up to leave.
It was a thousand miles from the Sacramento/San Joaquin delta to Seattle, but she didn’t go all the way to Seattle proper. She held a cell phone to her ear as she veered from the far left lane over to the Seattle airport exit, then drove to the Southwest gate and pulled over at the curb and got out. Before an airport officer could tell her she couldn’t leave her car alone a man stepped off the curb, took the keys from her, slid onto the driver’s seat, adjusted the seat, and pulled away. The whole exchange took less than a minute. Anna headed into the airport, and Marquez watched the airport doors slide shut behind her.
“What do we do?” Shauf asked.