“Aside from putting out an alert,” Haviland said, “there are no means of tracing him unless he uses one of Jon’s credit cards.”
“We can’t put out an alert,” Waller said. “We still don’t know who leaked the information about Harper’s amnesia. If it gets out that we lost our witness, every TV station would drag us through the stables until we had horseshit coming out of every orifice.”
“Let alone what Scarponi’s attorney will do with it,” Haviland added.
Knox stopped pacing. “He’s not going to use a credit card. It’d give us an immediate electronic trace on his location. He knows that. We’re not dealing with some dumb fugitive here.” There was silence for a moment while Knox stared at his meticulously neat desk. “Okay. Contact Metro PD. Tell them we’ve got a be-on-the-lookout for one of our own, Special Agent Richard Thompson. Tell them we suspect mental instability, and to use extreme caution. We don’t want him harmed. Then have Lindsey put out the same BOLO.” Knox shook his head. “Best we can hope for. Above all else, we need to find him.”
“Since we don’t know who the leak is,” Waller said, “I don’t know how long we can keep a lid on things.”
“I don’t either. But you two have left me no choice. That is, unless you find him fast.”
“We’ll do our best.”
“Make sure that’s good enough. I’m giving you forty-eight hours. If we don’t have him by then, you two are suspended indefinitely without pay.”
Waller and Haviland rose from their chairs and turned to leave.
“Forty-eight hours,” Knox called after them as they made their way to the door.
49
Payne was sitting in a cab, his head resting against the cold window. After leaving Waller cuffed to the subway car, he had boarded another train headed in the opposite direction. He then switched to the Red Line, took it into Maryland, and called a taxi service. He directed the driver to drop him at a small independent motel near Bethesda he had located in the yellow pages.
As the cab glided along the George Washington Memorial Parkway, he closed his eyes for a moment and saw the face of a woman in her midthirties, large brown eyes, and brunet hair. Full lips. “Lauren,” he said, opening his eyes. “That’s Lauren.”
The driver glanced at him in the rearview mirror. “You talking to me?”
Payne sat up straight. “No, no. I just… I just remembered something.” He tried to lock on the memory and suddenly saw himself surrounded by snow-covered mountains with a group of men. They were wearing backpacks and skis… and then the image was gone. The harder he tried to concentrate, the more distant the memory became.
After leaving the interstate, the cab hung a few turns and pulled into a pothole-infested parking lot. The driver called out over his shoulder, “Hey, buddy, this is it. Presidential Motor Lodge.” He paused a moment, taking in the state of the motel. “You sure you don’t want something a little nicer? There’s a Best Western a couple miles up the road—”
Payne craned his neck and squinted out the dirty front windshield at the run-down structure. “No, this is perfect, thanks.” He pulled a roll of bills from his pocket and paid the man, courtesy of Jonathan Waller. “Remember, I want a cab here at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”
“Boss already knows. Someone’ll be here.”
After the cab drove away, Payne waited outside the office door, pressing a buzzer and peering at the front desk through the cracked window. It was a small room, perhaps ten by twelve, crammed with tourist brochures and guides, a well-worn brown Formica counter, and a small black-and-white television propped in the corner, its antenna a twisted wire coat hanger.
An unshaven man with a torn white undershirt stretched across his large belly appeared from behind the counter. He stepped as close as he could get to the door. “Yeah?”
“I called forty-five minutes ago, about a room for tonight.”
The man nodded, then waddled over toward the counter and pressed a button connected to a buzzer. Payne pushed on the door and entered the office.
“Payment due up front,” the man said as he slapped a clipboard and registration form on the counter.
Payne filled in the blanks with completely false information. He produced his credentials and flashed them, hoping the man wouldn’t take the time to read the name. “I’m a federal agent,” he said, closing the case and shoving it back in his suit jacket pocket. “I’ll give you my credit card number, but I don’t want you putting it through till I’m ready to check out, is that clear?”
The man nodded.
“I’m doing surveillance on a suspect who’s staying in your motel. But he’s very clever and has an electronic linkup to the credit card companies. If you put this through, they’ll alert him within seconds that I’m here.”
The man nodded again. “It’s that guy in eighteen, isn’t it?”
Payne looked around. “I can’t divulge that information, sir. But you seem like a pretty sharp guy.”
The man nodded, a half smile breaking through his unshaven face. “So I guess you want either seventeen or nineteen.”
Payne reasoned that in a dive like this, both rooms were probably open. “I’d prefer nineteen. Better angle.” The more detailed the lie, the more believable it was.
“I got ya.” The night manager turned to a board with keys dangling from bent nails. He chose a set and handed it to Payne. “Charge won’t go through till mornin’.”
Payne thanked the man and walked around to room 19. As the door swung open, the strong odor of mildew flared his nostrils. “Great,” he said, flicking on a light. He hung his torn suit on the lone wire hanger in the closet, cleaned his oozing thigh wound, washed his abraded hands and face, and sank down into the soft mattress.
Within minutes he was asleep, again dreaming of the brunet woman he knew only as Lauren Chambers.
50
A chilling drizzle misted the air along the path that rimmed the Tidal Basin, but Hector DeSantos did not mind it. The way he saw it, the thick air made it more difficult for someone to electronically eavesdrop on his conversation. Sometimes all it took to defeat high technology was good old-fashioned Mother Nature.
DeSantos’s legs had a spring to them this morning, giving him the impression he could run twenty miles if he wanted to. He sucked in a mouthful of moist air and blew it out, enjoying the solitude of the moment. As it currently stood, life wasn’t too bad for him.
He increased his pace and streaked past the Jefferson Memorial, where another runner joined in stride beside him. It was Brian Archer, dressed in gray sweats and a Redskins ball cap pulled down low over his brow.
“So what’s the urgency?” Archer asked. “And why here?”
“Thought we’d go for a run, spend some quality time together. We haven’t done this in months.”
“I could’ve slept another hour, Hector. This better be good.”
“Good isn’t the word, bro.”
Archer waited a few strides, then said, “Well, you gonna share the news or did you invite me out here to play games?”
“You’re uptight this a.m., my man! Loosen up!”
“You’re in too good a mood, Hector. You had some bizarre session with Maggie this morning, didn’t you?” Archer puffed. “I can tell.”
“I got some answers on that document.”
Archer kept his gaze straight ahead. “Oh yeah? That con came through?”
DeSantos’s eyes quickly danced over at his partner. “This is amazing shit, Brian. Kind of stuff we’re usually smack in the middle of, not shut out of.”
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Archer looked over at DeSantos, whose long, lean legs had slipped into a rhythmic stride with gazelle like grace.