Harry Mars tried one more number and had no luck reaching Mallory, but then she never answered to anyone.
Christine Nahlman turned her head to look at the passengers in the back seat. The children were sleeping in Joe Finn’s arms. The boxer’s e yes were also closed, but she had seen him go from deep sleep to full alert. Was he only dozing?
Ah, snoring, a sign that Joe Finn was finally beginning to trust her.
Agent Barry Allen drove with his eyes on the road, but his mind was obviously elsewhere. After the incident with the trooper’s radio, he was probably questioning everything he had ever been told from kindergarten on. When he did look her way, Nahlman saw the face of a puppy that had made a mess on the carpet.
Finally, she had won his soul back from Dale Berman.
Riker hunkered down by the agents’ campfire. In the manner of a parent on a school night, he turned off their portable television set. Five pairs of very young eyes turned to him.
“I’m making a run to the airport.” The detective handed a slip of paper to the oldest agent, the only one who was sporting a day’s growth of beard. “That’s my cell. You got any trouble, call me right away.” “I can’t,” said the agent. “No cell-phone contact.” Riker smiled at the boy for a moment, not quite believing what he was hearing. “What? Are you nuts?”
“Dale Berman’s orders, sir. No incoming or outgoing calls.” Riker held out his hand, palm up. “Give me your cell phone.” The rookie agent, so accustomed to following orders without question, handed it over. The detective turned it on, then pressed the menu buttons and held the phone to his ear. After listening a moment, he said, “You’re stacking up voice mail from Assistant Director Harry Mars.” He returned the phone to the startled agent. “Does that make you nervous, kid? It should.” And now they were all turning on their phones. As he walked away from them, he heard the beeps of their incoming calls.
It took three seconds for the import to settle in-Dale, that son of a bitch-and Riker traveled from a mosey to a dead run across the campground. Opening the door of the waiting Mercedes, he told his friend to move over. “No, offense, Charles, but I need some speed.” The siren was wailing, wheels churning up dust, and they were off.
Nahlman fixed the layout in her mind as Allen pulled up to the walkway and cut the engine. This was the long parking lot of an ersatz comfort stop for interstate travelers. Two outlying buildings of cinderblock housed toilets, and the center structure was an open arcade of maps and locked vending machines. A separate lot for trucks and motor homes held three big rigs, but there was no sign of the drivers; they were probably napping in the back of their cabs. In the slots reserved for smaller vehicles, a tow truck was parked a few spaces away from an SUV. On the far side of the picnic tables was another parking lot for cars. A man in workman’s coveralls and a bright orange vest was pulling bags from the large trash receptacles.
Government vehicles rolled into the slots on either side of her car. Doors slammed and flashlights came out though the lot was well lit.
In the back seat, Peter was wide awake and antsy, ready for another toilet call. Joe Finn roused his daughter and asked if she wanted to use the little girls’ room. It was a revelation to Nahlman when the child responded to her father’s voice with a nod. And now came a moment when the girl’s eyes fluttered open and the vacant look was gone. She seemed so normal in that second, fully cognizant of her surroundings. Was the girl truly insane or very sanely hiding out from the greater adult world? Nahlman’s last thought was that she was merely tired and reading too much into the simple nod of a little girl. But suspicion was a lingering thing. Perhaps Dodie Finn could teach her father something about the extremes of distrust.
Nahlman had one hand on the door when she said to her partner, “Wait till another agent clears the men’s room. And before you go in, make sure you’ve got somebody watching your back.”
Allen nodded, taking no offense that she repeated these simple rules to him for the second time in one night. He was looking about him, utterly focused, remembering what she had taught him about burning the landscape into his brain. At last, she was confident that he would not be taken by surprise, not tonight.
“There you are,” said Dale Berman, upon finding one of his rookies entering the ladies’ room. “Start checking those rigs in the parking lot.”
“I’ve haven’t cleared the restroom, sir.”
“I’m on it,” he said with a smile for his prettiest and greenest agent. He entered the ladies’ room with his gun drawn and checked all the stalls. When he came out again, he was met by a park attendant in coveralls and an orange vest. The man was carrying a green plastic trash receptacle on one shoulder.
“Make it fast,” said Dale Berman, standing to one side so the man could pass into the ladies’ room. And now he saw another rookie standing around with his hands in his pockets. What the hell was this idiot called? Ah, he had it now. He clapped a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Hey, Bobby. I need you to help the trooper.” He pointed to the parking lot on the other side of the building. “He’s checking the perimeter.”
“Who the hell is Agent Cadwaller?” Harry Mars broke off this phone conversation with one of the field agents left behind at the campsite. He was watching the action beyond the lineup of waiting cabs. He recognized the detective, though he had never seen the man move so fast in the old days. Riker sprinted across the lanes of moving traffic. Brakes squealed. Horns honked. And now the New York cop came to a dead stop at the glass doors where Kronewald was standing, and he grabbed the older man by one arm.
Oh, what fresh crap is this?
With a new sense of urgency, Harry Mars turned back to his conversation with a rookie agent. He cut short the youngster’s report on the mysterious and now unaccounted for Agent Cadwaller. “Get on the fucking road, all of you! The troopers can guard the parents.” And they would probably do a better job of it. “I don’t give a shit about Dale Berman’s orders, and I don’t c are about the speed limit, either. Get moving! ”
He turned to see Detective Kronewald piling into the back seat of a Mercedes. A portable siren was slapped on the roof of the car, and now it was screaming through the airport complex.
The boy read the sign for the ladies’ room and shook his head. No, he was not going in there. Though Peter was doing that little dance of legs pressed together, he was determined to pee standing up beside his father in the men’s room. Joe Finn was loath to let go of his daughter until the last moment. Still distrustful, he gave up Dodie’s small hand to Agent Nahlman.
Dale Berman sauntered over to the opening in the wall and the short corridor that led to the ladies’ room. “Get on with it, Nahlman. The kid’s gotta go.” Dale smiled at the father in apology for his agent’s slowness, and Joe Finn did not knock the man cold, though both his hands were tight fists.
Dubious, Nahlman turned to the opening. “The room is clear?”
“You had to ask?” Berman shrugged in Agent Allen’s direction, code to say, You see what I have to put up with? “Yes! I checked it myself.” In fact, he had checked it twice, unable to account for the park attendant’s departure. And now he was certain. “It’s clear.”
Barry Allen turned around, moving stiffly as he led Joe Finn and his son toward the men’s room on the other side of the building. The agent was only a few steps away when he heard Dale Berman say, “What are you waiting for, Nahlman? I got your back.”