“It settles the coffee grounds,” said Riker, handing a steaming cup to their guest from the state police. “It’s called cowboy coffee. Ever tasted it?”
“You bet I have. Finest kind,” said the New Mexico investigator with a smile of appreciation for this campfire brew. The two of them alternately sipped hot liquid and picked coffee grounds from their teeth. Charles and Mallory abstained.
And now their guest informed them that Paul Magritte had never regained consciousness after surgery. “Sorry, folks. He’s dead,” said the local man. “But it was good of the doctor to mark that bastard for us.” He turned to Mallory as he traced a line on his neck. “That’s how the old man described the cut?”
“Yeah,” said Riker, answering for his partner.
Mallory was distracted and perhaps tired of repeating herself in interviews with state and local police. Her face was lifted to the sky. Charles doubted that she was stargazing, for heaven could not compete with the surrounding illumination of fires and flashlights, lanterns and scores of glowing television screens. Their own campfire was bright enough to light up Magritte’s blood on Mallory’s blue jeans and her shoes, but more alarming than that, one of the laces on her running shoes had come undone and gone unnoticed. And there were other breaks with her compulsive neatness. She was wearing yesterday’s clothes, and some of her fingernails were broken and ragged.
For a short time, Charles had forgotten that he loved her, and he saw her with a clinical eye. She caught him in the act of taking mental notes, and he turned his eyes elsewhere to keep her from reading his every thought-his fears. He stared at her untied shoelace.
The state’s investigator was leafing through his notebook, and now he found a page he liked. “We got the make of the vehicle from the tire treads at the crime scene. So you can leave the rest to us. We’ll get him.” He looked out over the great circle of television screens. “At least he won’t be picking off any more of these folks.”
“Don’t count on him keeping that jeep for long,” said Riker, surprising the man who had not shared the vehicle model. “He’s an experienced car thief.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.” And it was clear by the tone of voice that this investigator did not care to hear any more helpful tips from the New York contingent of the law. “Our boy made a real good choice for off-road driving, so I expect he’ll keep it awhile, and we won’t find him on the interstate. You should get some rest tonight. A manhunt’s best left to people who know the terrain.”
The two detectives, manhunters extraordinaire, appeared to be too tired to find any humor in this.
Done with his coffee, the New Mexico man bid a hasty good night and left them.
A cell phone beeped, and Riker said, “It’s not mine.”
“It’s Magritte’s.” Mallory went digging in her knapsack.
Charles could not recall any mention of her pocketing the doctor’s cell phone, not while the state investigator was making note of all her other details. Until this moment, he had no idea that Paul Magritte had owned one of these devices.
Mallory pulled out a phone that was so large, even Charles could recognize it as an antique by the standards of modern technology. “Analog,” she said with distaste. Extending an antenna, more proof of antiquity, she said, “Hello?” After listening for a moment, she lowered the antenna. “Another hang up.”
“No caller ID?” asked Riker.
“Nothing that fancy.” She turned the phone over in her hand, examining it as if it were an interesting artifact from an old-world culture. “No voice mail either. I’m surprised it works at all.”
Charles stared at her chipped red nail polish, regarding each fingernail as an independent wound. “The calls might be from Dr. Magritte’s patients. They hear a woman’s voice and think it’s a wrong number.”
“Maybe.” Mallory returned the phone to her knapsack. “I’ve got Kronewald’s people working the cell-phone records.” She picked up her knapsack, rose to her feet and walked away from them.
“Wait!” Charles called out to her, making long strides to catch up with her, because Mallory waited for nobody. Circling round the young detective, he blocked her way and held her by the shoulders, forcing her to stand still. And now he released her to kneel down in the dirt at her feet. He tied her loose shoelace, so afraid that she might trip and fall. It was the sort of service one did for a child, yet she allowed it.
He was still kneeling there, head bowed, when she moved on.
“Very classy.” Riker appeared at his side, leaning to down to offer a hand up. “I gotta remember that move.”
On his feet again, Charles watched Mallory drive away. “Where could she be going at this hour?”
“My guess? A five-star hotel,” said the detective. “Camping really isn’t her style.”
Nearby, the few remaining FBI agents and the two disgraced moles were seated around a single portable television set. They were all so young.
“So who’s in charge here?”
Riker clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder, saying, “Me and thee.”
Agent Christine Nahlman passed the first sign for the Albuquerque International Airport. Before she could use the turn signal, another agent’s car swung into the lane alongside her, matching her speed. She was going to miss the exit for the airport road. Hand signals were useless, and the agent in the other car would not respond to her horn. Mannequinlike, he stared at the road ahead. And now they rolled past the exit and continued west on Interstate 40.
What in hell was going on?
Calling the SAC for an explanation was not an option. Dale Berman had forbidden cell-phone contact, no incoming or outgoing calls. And that troubled her, too. She could think of no scenario where that made any sense, but she had long ago ceased to hunt for logic in command decisions.
She turned to her partner. Barry Allen’s face was placid, though he must have seen her boxed into this lane; the boy was green but not blind. Damn him. He had known that they would miss the airport road. That was the plan. Her partner, a good little soldier, had yet to question a single order from Dale Berman. However, this was hardly a good time to accuse Agent Allen of conspiring against her.
Nahlman watched Joe Finn’s reflection in her rearview mirror. Apparently, the boxer had seen nothing amiss. He was wholly concentrated on his children-reading to them from a book of fairy tales that they were much too old for. Yet they listened to his every word, loving this attention from him. Dodie seemed like any normal child, like Peter, enraptured by the sound of her father’s voice, eyes on the big man’s face, unable to get enough of him.
The construction zone ahead was a divided highway. Opposing traffic was separated by high retaining walls. Two lanes of westbound vehicles moved through the narrow canyon of concrete, and Nahlman was reminded of a cattle chute in a slaughterhouse. It went on for miles before she could see ahead to a break in the wall. And then she heard the words that she had been waiting for, counting on.
“I have to pee,” said the little boy in the back seat. “Dodie does, too. See? She’s squirmy. Can we stop?”
“Yes, we can,” said Nahlman. The timing was perfect. She had already spotted the sign for the next gas station, and it carried a warning: the turnoff beyond the construction zone would be a sharp one.
“Call in the toilet stop.”
“We’re not supposed to use the cells,” Agent Allen reminded her. “Dale said-”
“Agent-Barry, you know you can’t use the car radio. To o many private police scanners on the road. So use your cell phone and blame it on me.” Her eyes were on the car driving alongside her, herding her, locking her into a lane with no turns. The exit sign was in view when she leaned toward her partner and raised her voice. “That’s an order !”