Vail, Dixon, and Burden shared a glance: not Friedberg.
As the Zodiac ventured closer to the island, the vapor got denser, to the point where they appeared to be whipping through an undulating opaque curtain.
With visibility so poor, the officer slowed the craft and motored in blindly, as if approaching by braille. Finally, he called out, “There we go. Up ahead.”
Vail craned her neck and saw what appeared to be a lighthouse in the front of the island, slinging its beacon around at regular intervals.
He brought the craft alongside the dock, behind a larger boat. He tied off the Zodiac, and then the three of them climbed up onto the dock. Vail looked over the area: multiple amber-lit buildings, some shedding their coats of paint and others burned out hulks, shells of what they used to represent.
And then, as they approached what appeared to be a windowed National Park Service booth, her eyes locked on the silhouette of two men: a National Park Police officer and a man she had not seen in years, dressed in a leather jacket and slacks: Special Agent Mike Hartman.
Vail couldn’t make her way over to him fast enough. “Mike! I’ve been trying to reach you.”
He turned to face her, but the brightness behind him prevented her from seeing his face. “Just landed in Oakland. ASAC told me to double-time it over here.”
“Nice to see you answered your ASAC’s call. You’ve been ignoring mine.”
“Yeah, well, fuck you, Karen.”
Vail jutted her chin back. That’s usually my line. “You can’t still be pissed.”
“Don’t you dare tell me what I can and can’t be feeling.” Hartman rubbernecked his head; the whites of his eyes seemed to settle on Dixon, before shifting to Burden. “This isn’t the time. Or the place. We’ve got a DB and I’m goddamn tired.” He turned to the Park Police officer. “Where’s the body?”
“Hold it,” Vail said, stepping forward. “I really need to talk with you. In private.”
Dixon and Burden shared a look. “Can’t that wait?” Burden said. “That DB may help us locate Robert.”
“Actually,” Vail said, “No. I need to find out-”
“We’ll talk later,” Hartman said. “Maybe.” He turned back to the officer. “Where’s the body?”
“This way.”
“Inspector!” The Zodiac officer was approaching on the run. “Dispatch wants an ETA on my return. You three need me to hang around?”
Vail remembered seeing a boat at the far end of the dock. She looked over and saw it was a Coast Guard cutter, with a uniformed man on deck. “I don’t think we need him hanging around. Who knows how long we’ll be here. We’ll find a way home.”
“Agreed.” Burden shooed him away with a hand. “Go on back, but stay on alert.”
Vail, Burden, and Dixon turned-and saw Hartman heading up the inclined roadway in a red, two-seater Toro flat-bed vehicle.
“Gotta be kidding me,” Vail said, her hands on her hips. “What an asshole.”
“Just an observation,” Burden said, starting up the hill. “He doesn’t like you.”
“No guessing required. Back in New York, after he was reassigned and given a new partner, I was involved in a bank shooting. He responded to my call for backup, his partner was killed, and Mike took some lead. Had nothing to do with me or anything I did, but I was a convenient scapegoat for him because I made the call. Anyway, he was laid up for months and thinks he got passed over for promotion because of it. Of course, none of this was an issue till I got the BAU gig. Then one day he goes off on me. Haven’t seen or heard from him since.”
As they trudged along the sharply inclined roadway at a quick pace, Dixon said, “You think the offender knows we’re here? We’re bumping up against the deadline.”
“Depends on how he’s tracking our movements. Out here, in the middle of the Bay, in a fog-socked night, I doubt he’s watching from the mainland.”
“Unless he’s monitoring the radio band,” Dixon said.
Burden swung his head over. “I’m him, that’s what I’d do. No way for us to track that. But if that’s the case, he knows we’re here.”
“It’s possible he’s here, too. On the island,” Dixon said.
“Anything’s possible,” Burden said. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with, then we’ll have a better idea as to when he killed this vic. I doubt he’d stick around, on an island. His getaway options’d be limited if the place was suddenly swarming with cops.”
Sodium vapor lights provided barely adequate illumination along the roadway, which was steep and took a good few minutes of uphill hiking. “Now I know why you stair climb at the gym,” Vail said between huffs. “So when you’re trudging up the hills at Alcatraz in search of an UNSUB, you’re able to do it without losing your breath.”
“Exactly,” Dixon called back, ten paces ahead of Burden and Vail. “Because I come here so often tracking serial killers.”
Ahead, the small vehicle that had transported Hartman was parked outside the Alcatraz cellhouse, an imposing, and aging, prison structure.
When they arrived at the top of the hill, they hung a right and entered the building through the main entrance, where an arched, three-dimensional sign over the door read, Administration Building. An eagle protruded from above, perched atop a rendition of the American flag-though the vertical red stripes were modified to read, FREE.
“Someone has a sense of humor,” Burden said.
They entered the facility where, ahead of them, a man in a suit held out a hand. Vail immediately pegged him as FBI.
“ID?”
Burden, Vail, and Dixon displayed their badges.
“This is federal jurisdiction,” the agent said, his gaze dwelling on Burden’s and Dixon’s state credentials.
“They’re with me,” Vail said. “We’ve got reason to believe this vic was done by the same offender we’re tracking in the city.”
The man waved them through.
They entered the large cellhouse. Ahead on a flesh-toned wall, a tourist-friendly sign read B BLOCK. The interior was in decent condition, the ceilings bright white and the cell bars wellworn but intact.
Off to the left, voices. They moved in that direction following another modern-era sign that read, Broadway. Down the main corridor, which featured cells on either side, stood a sharply dressed black man, US Park Police Detective Peter Carondolet, who was huddled with a suited Asian man. Mike Hartman was talking with a woman holding a camera-Sherri Price, the FBI forensic technician they had previously met at Inspiration Point.
Burden reached into his pocket and handed out paper booties.
“There’s your buddy,” Dixon said to Vail as she slipped a set over her shoes.
After heading down Broadway toward the knot of law enforcement personnel, they made introductions: the man they had not previously met was FBI Special Agent Ignatius Yeung, a field office colleague of Hartman’s.
“Who’s the vic?” Vail asked.