“What’s up there?’ Lyman pressed quietly, his lips barely moving. I’m familiar with the area. I could make a phone call or two.”
“The Muellers have land up there,” Rock answered, turning his back. The FBI men at the other end of the room had started looking down toward the conversation. “Mac and Lich can’t get back in time, so they’re going to check it out, that’s all.”
“It’s a long shot,” Riles whispered, unwrapping a piece of Big Red gum and shoving it into his mouth. “But you know Mac,” he added.
The chief nodded. If Mac had a hunch, good luck getting him off it until he was satisfied, no matter what anyone else said.
Burton broke away from the group and walked down to the men from St. Paul. “We’re set here,” he said, and then looked to Riley. “Where’s McRyan and his partner?”
“They’re in the neighborhood,” Riley answered neutrally. “He tends to draw attention when he’s around, so he wants to be on the street when the call comes in.”
Burton nodded and then looked at his watch. “Should be any minute now.”
“Tracking in the bags?” Rock asked Burton.
“Sewn into the fabric. Very small, Can’t be seen or felt. Where it goes, we’ll be able to follow.”
Rock walked over to the window, moved the drapes back, and noted the mass of media coalescing out front. There might have been two hundred people milling about. “How do we get out of here without the media being all over this?” Rock asked. “They’re hovering like flies out there. Riles and I were practically strip searched on the way in and it seems like more people are coming by the minute.”
Duffy nodded. “We’ve got three sets of plain white vehicles ready to go in the parking ramp, which the media can’t get to. When the call comes, and we have to leave, three sets leave. If, after we leave, the main vehicle still picks up a tail, we’ll take care of it before we get to wherever we’re going.”
“Any idea where we’re going?” Riley asked.
“No,” Duffy replied, taking a sip from his Styrofoam coffee cup.
Dean pulled into the parking lot of a small beige-and-brown-brick strip mall along Highway 95 in Lakeland, one of many small towns that dotted the Minnesota side of the St. Croix River, south of Interstate 94. The strip mall held a hair salon, an insurance agency, an accounting office, a law practice, and a pay phone. A flat canopy hung over the sidewalk in front of the businesses. Given the holiday, the parking lot was empty. There were no surveillance cameras, sparse traffic on the highway, and zero foot traffic. The nearest houses were on the other side of the highway, at least a couple hundred yards away.
Dressed in flip-flops and a ball cap, Dean looked like any of a thousand men on a warm holiday. The only unusual part of his ensemble was a red nylon shoulder bag, out of which he pulled a pair of black leather gloves. Taking a quick glance around, he slid on the gloves and pulled out the portable voice changer and two quarters. He also took out a three-by-five-inch index card. Dropping the quarters into the phone, Dean looked down at the card and dialed.
The conference room was silent, other than the sound of pacing shoes scuffing against the carpet. Burton and Duffy leaned over the phone, both hands on the table. The call would be recorded, and they would trace it, although nobody expected the kidnappers to stay on the line for any appreciable length of time. Everyone’s eyes were on the second hand on the wall clock. When the red hand hit twelve, the phone rang. The chief picked up on the second ring.
“Flanagan.”
“You and Hisle at the corner of Washington and West Fifth in ten minutes. With the ransom. No police. We’ll be watching.”
“What about… the… girls,” the chief’s voice trailed off. The kidnapper had already hung up.
Burton moved immediately. “Let’s hustle,” he said, leading everyone out of the conference room. “We’ll wire these two in the truck.” As the group approached the elevators, Peters pulled Rock and Riley aside.
“This is no good,” Riles said through gritted teeth. “They’re going to wire the chief and Lyman in the truck? This smells. Mac’s right, this isn’t a simple money drop. They’re going to put the chief and Hisle on the move.”
Peters nodded. “I want you two mobile. Keep a perimeter and stay on this radio frequency. We know who’s behind this, so if you see this Brown or the Muellers, move on them,” their captain ordered.
Riles’s cell phone rang.
Heather Foxx noted the three separate convoys of trucks pulling out and immediately recognized what she was seeing. “They’re running different groups out of here so we don’t follow,” she said to her cameraman as the trucks and cars streaked out in different directions. She looked back to the side entrance she’d seen McRyan and his friends use in recent days. Detectives Riley and Rockford burst through the doors and ran down the steps. Heather took a look at the news truck and her rental car. “Jump in the rental car,” she told the cameraman, fishing out the keys.
“We’re supposed to stay here,” the cameraman said.
Foxx’s instincts told her to get on the move. “Trust me. There’s nothing to do here but wait for the police to feed us a statement, and everyone gets the same thing. On the other hand,” the reporter said, gesturing toward the detectives, “Riles and Rockford, those are two of the chief’s boys. If we follow them, we might actually see something worth reporting.”
“Less than ten minutes?” Mac yelled into the phone as he accelerated down the county road to meet up with the Washington County sheriff. “Where?”
“Where?” Lich demanded, doubling up. “Where are they going to?”
Mac put his hand over the phone. “Corner of Washington and West Fifth, that’s the northwest corner of Rice Park,” and then to Riley, “What then?… Nothing? They just wait? You know what they’re going to do? They’re going to run the chief and Lyman around, Riles. They’re going to try and lose you… yeah… sounds like you’re on it? Good. Yeah, I’ll have the phone with me.” Mac hung up. “I knew it,” Mac railed to Lich. “It’s not a simple ransom drop. They’re going to put the chief and Lyman on the run.” He felt no satisfaction at being right.
“FBI will have assets all over the place, Mac,” Lich said. “They’ll be tough to shake. Especially in the middle of downtown.”
“On a normal day, yeah,” Mac replied. “But it’s the Fourth of fuckin’ July, and it’s hotter than hell. Downtown is a graveyard. There’ll be nobody, and I mean nobody, around Rice Park at that time of day. If we’ve got people following closely, they’ll stick out like 50-Cent at a Faith Hill concert.”
“Fine,” Lich replied, “but it’ll also be hard to lose them, with so few people around. There isn’t anyone for them to blend with.”
“Maybe, but they’ve been ready for everything thus far. They’ll be ready for that. Mac sighed. Dick’s point was valid, but he didn’t agree. The sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach told him all he needed to know. The whole thing felt wrong. “The chief and Lyman are the real target, the money’s just so they can get away in style.”
The Explorer’s speedometer read eighty-five, and the flasher pushed cars off to the shoulder as Mac burned south on the county road.
“They should be up just around the bend,” Lich said.
As Mac slowed to sixty-five and drove around a small bend in the road, two Washington County Suburbans came into view, waiting on the right shoulder a half mile ahead. Mac pulled in behind them. A paunchy man with a bushy black mustache was already out, walking up to Lich on the passenger side.
“I’m George Head, sheriff out here. The Russell place is up on the left side, another two miles.”
“Anyone do a drive-by?”
Head nodded. “I had a couple of my guys drive by five minutes ago. The said it looked awfully quiet.”
“Just the same,” Mac said. “We need to go check it out.”
“You’re sure they’re the guys?”
“They’re behind it,” Lich answered. “No question at this point.”