“Okay, sorry. I have Brent.”
“He’s only a driver.”
“A driver with a gun!”
“No, I mean he’s only around when you are working.” Janice untangled from him and spun around, sitting up and locking her eyes into his. “Get a protection detail. Tell Mitchell I want you to have one. He likes me and I’m sure he doesn’t want to see me as a widow.”
Bill rolled over, pulled the pillow over his head, and spoke into the muffling mattress. “I was feeling so good five minutes ago. Thanks for the buzz kill, kid.”
She pulled the pillow off him and leaned into his face. “I love you. I don’t want anything happening to you because of fucking Time magazine. Promise me.”
“Janice…”
“Bill, promise me you’ll talk to Mitchell — tomorrow, or that was your last blow job!”
“You play dirty.”
“I like to think of it as, ‘below the belt.’”
Rodney left the Lock and Store at 10:30 headed for the New York City Mayor’s Office for Motion Picture and Television. His mission today was to secure three film permits for what would ostensibly be the first two days of shooting the New York exteriors for the Iranian/American co-production of “Byline of Death.” He was instructed to get two shooting permits and one rigging prep permit. One was for filming on Park Avenue at 45th street across from the Waldorf Astoria hotel. He was to get the second one for that same day, a build/prep permit for the parking lot at Citi Field in Queens. The baseball team that played there was scheduled to be out of town those days. The second shooting permit was for filming at the Citi Field location the next day, ostensibly to film what was prepped the day before.
Leaving Jersey, he made the big, sweeping turn that screwed down from the elevated roadway of the Route 3/Tunnel approach to the toll plaza below. All of New York City was backlit by the rising sun from the east out his window. He looked south to the hole in the lower Manhattan skyline.
“No flat tire this time, Allah be praised.”
He lowered the prayer tape playing in the AM/FM/CD cassette radio in the car as he neared the Port Authority tollbooths of the Lincoln Tunnel.
“Sonia Hansen,” Joey said in Bill’s office. “Died in Vienna on Dec third last year. She was shot on the street. No motive, no priors, no killer. It’s in the books as open case. Crosschecking Ensiling’s travel itinerary, it would put him in Austria on that same day.”
“Okay. That could just only mean what we already know — that this woman was killed the same time Ensiling was there. We need to put them together to see if Peter was right. Wait a minute, John said something that seemed to make it like Peter was there too. Can you check with State and see if they come up with a visa from the Viennese, er… Austrians?”
“I am having Interpol check any street surveillance or traffic camera to see who was around the woman at the time she was gunned down. Maybe we’ll catch a glimpse of the professor and Peter.”
“Also Joey, this is just a hunch, but have them check ATM machines and any hotel cameras where the professor was staying. That might tell us what he was wearing and what to look for.”
“Good thought. You sure you don’t want my job?”
“Nah, it’s easy to think up stuff when that’s all you have to do. It’s harder to actually do it.”
“Duh,” Joey said as he left Bill’s office.
Bill focused on the pile on his desk. Next on his agenda was to get the legitimacy of Peter’s book confirmed or denied. He had Kronos scan it then used a scan-to-text converter to make it all one big word-processing file. He then put it up on the SCIAD network. After a day or two, he expected to hear something back.
With his commitment to “Johnny No” in the works, to investigate the book that got his brother killed, he was now free to focus on the suitcase nuke and how he and his team might possibly prevent any detonation.
Or so he thought.
“Mr. Hiccock, would you come with me into the Oval?”
“Agent Renko, when you put it like that…” Bill stood from his desk and immediately followed him to the Oval Office.
“Ah, Bill, you know Williams, head of the Secret Service Presidential detail?” the President said.
Bill extended his hand. “Sure. How are you, Mr. Williams?”
“Fine, Mr. Hiccock.”
“Bill, Williams gets paid to think of this stuff, and today he thinks it would be a good idea if you had some protection.”
“Is this about the article?”
“Exactly.” Mitchell flipped through the magazine. “It’s made you very visible and since you hold NCA ranking, are the head of an investigation, and the lead agency on the loose nuke, you have become a high valued target.”
“Well, this will make my wife happy, just last…”
“She will also be afforded a small detail,” Williams said. “And we’ll need your permission to install some security and communications equipment in your home.”
“Well, maybe she won’t be that happy.”
“Bill, don’t even think of saying no.” Mitchell ordered as President of the United States.
In the Mayor’s Office for Film and Television, Rodney filled in the columns on the Citi Field permit. Under “describe shot,” he copied the text from scrupulously written notes: “Bita Asayesh, ace reporter, exits news helicopter, into boyfriend’s arms. Crane up — End credits.” The other permit, for the day before, was to rig the helicopter and set lights. It was to be done by an advance unit of carpenters and riggers. Under props went the notation, “One Helicopter.”
It stopped Hiccock dead in his tracks. “Say that again?”
“You had a call on your private number,” Cheryl reported. “The caller asked for ‘Billy the Kid.’ When I said I’d take a message he hung up.”
“That’s impossible.”
“How’s it impossible?”
“Because I buried that guy last week. Get me Joey quick.”
Bill closed the door to his office, a rare occurrence, and plopped into his chair. Who else called me that?
Four minutes later, Joey knocked and entered. “What’s up?”
Bill pointed to the single-line phone on the return of his desk. “Can you trace where the last call on that phone came from?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Do it. Five minutes ago.”
“What happened?”
“Do you remember anyone else who ever called me ‘Billy the Kid?’”
“Anybody else? I never heard anybody call you that!” Joey said as he picked up Bill’s office phone. “Signals, please. Yes, Sergeant Anders, I need you to pull the luds on Science Advisor Hiccock’s personal line.” He held the phone away from his mouth. “Bill, what’s the terminal I.D. on the wall socket there?”
Bill bent over to where the phone was jacked to the wall. “WW-143-04.” From down there, he saw one of his business cards, which had fallen behind the credenza. He reached over.
“Okay, I’ll need a location as soon as you know.” Joey hung up and saw Bill pensively flipping the card in his fingers.
“Where do you keep your wallet?”
“I keep it in my pants.”
“That’s a good practice for a married man… and an American.”
“Where do Europeans keep their wallets?”
“I guess you aren’t looking for ‘pants’ as an answer.”
“Not if they are wearing jackets!”
“What?”
“You know, it’s very continental to have a billfold in the breast pocket of your jacket,” Bill said sliding his hand into his inside sport jacket pocket.