“Thank you, Judge,” Holly said, beaming at him.

“Of course, your order will apply only to this jurisdiction, Your Honor,” Miller said smoothly.

“Yes,” the judge replied. He stamped Holly’s warrant and signed it. “All right, let’s get my court back into session and continue with our trial.”

Everybody stood up and left the chamber.

Holly walked over to the prosecution table, where Byron Miller was talking on his cell phone. “Mr. Miller, where is Rodriguez now?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know,” Miller said.

“He’s staying at your house. Can I find him there?”

“I’m on the phone here,” Miller replied. “Now if you’ll excuse me.”

The bailiff called the case again, and the court stood for the entrance of the judge.

“Let’s get out of here, Holly,” Stone said.

“What have they done with him?” Holly asked when they were in the hallway.

“I don’t know, but we’d better find him before he leaves the jurisdiction,” Stone replied.

41

STONE AND HOLLY went out to the parking lot and looked for the car that had brought Trini to the courthouse. It was nowhere to be seen.

“Let’s go to Miller’s house,” Holly said. “Now that we have a valid warrant, we can get in.”

“Right,” Stone said. He retraced his route to Tano Road and turned down Tano Norte. “I can’t believe we’ve finally got a legal handle on this guy. You said you brought cuffs?”

“Two pair,” Holly said. “I’ll truss him up like a Thanksgiving turkey.”

They arrived at Miller’s house and found the gates still closed. Stone reached out the window and pressed the button on the intercom.

“Yes?” a woman’s voice responded.

“This is the police. Please open the gates.”

There was a buzzing noise, and the gates swung slowly open. Stone parked the car, and they walked to the front door and rang the bell. A moment later a Hispanic woman came to the door.

“Yes?”

“I have a warrant for the arrest of Trini Rodriguez,” Holly said.

“There’s nobody here,” the woman replied.

“How about the guest house?”

“No, I just cleaned it. The three men staying there went to the airport.”

“How long ago?” Holly asked.

“Maybe ten, fifteen minutes.”

“How do I get to the airport?”

“You go back to Tano Road, then turn right at the intersection, then right again on the four-lane highway. That takes you straight there.”

They ran for the car and sped back toward Tano Road, then found the divided highway. Stone was shortly doing a hundred miles an hour.

Holly sat grimly in the passenger seat, clutching her warrant. “I wish we had a siren,” she said.

“I don’t think this thing would go any faster if we had a siren.”

They followed the signs to the airport, left the car, and ran into the Santa Fe Jet Center, straight through the building and out onto the ramp. The jet they had followed from Teterboro was taxiing away, and Holly started to run after it.

“No, no!” Stone yelled after her, and she stopped. “He’s going to be doing twenty or thirty miles an hour on the ground.” He pointed at the tower. “That’s where we need to go.”

They ran the short distance to the main terminal building and up the stairway to the control tower. At the top they found a locked door and an intercom. Stone rang the bell.

“Yes?”

“This is the police. We have to stop an airplane from taking off.”

The door buzzed open, and the single occupant of the tower stood up. “Let’s see some ID,” he said.

Stone and Holly flashed their badges. “It’s the jet that’s taxiing now,” Stone said. He ran to the window and pointed. The jet was just taxiing onto the runway.

“I just got their IFR release and cleared them for takeoff.”

Stone grabbed a microphone and called the airplane.

“Yes, tower?”

“This is the police. We have a warrant for one of your passengers, Rodriguez. Enter a left downwind for two zero and return to the airport.”

“Stand by, Santa Fe.” There was half a minute’s silence, then the pilot came back. “Sorry, Santa Fe, the FBI has given me orders to continue my flight. Good day.”

“Shit!” Stone said.

“What can we do?” Holly asked.

The tower controller spoke up. “I can call Albuquerque Center on a land line. That’s their handoff controller.”

“It wouldn’t do any good,” Stone said. “They’d get the same answer we did.”

“So we’re screwed?” Holly asked.

“That’s about it,” Stone replied. “Thanks for your help,” Stone said to the controller.

“Don’t mention it.”

“Can you check their flight plan for their destination?”

The controller picked up a tape and consulted it. “Teterboro, New Jersey. Time en route is three hours and fifty minutes.”

“Thanks very much.”

They left the tower and walked back to the car. “So we go back to Teterboro?”

“Yes, but they’re going to be hours ahead of us. Our flight time back is going to be about seven hours, including a fuel stop.”

“So we’ve lost him again.”

“Maybe not completely.” Stone got out his cell phone and called Dino.

“Bacchetti.”

“Dino, it’s Stone.”

“You still in Santa Fe?”

“Yes, but we’ll be heading back today. I wanted to ask a favor.”

“So what else is new?”

“A jet just left Santa Fe with Trini Rodriguez aboard.” He gave Dino the tail number.

“You want me to shoot it down?”

“Not quite. It’s going to be landing in Teterboro in about three and a half hours, stopping at Millionaire. Can you get somebody to meet the jet and follow the occupants to wherever they’re going?”

“I certainly can’t send a cop to New Jersey to do that, but I guess I can do it myself.”

“I’m going to owe you for this one.”

“You sure are. The next four dinners at Elaine’s are yours.”

“Done. You can reach me on my cell phone.” He hung up and started the car. “Dino’s going to meet the flight and see where they take Trini.”

“That’s great news.”

“Let’s go back to Ed’s house and get our clothes, then we’ll follow.”

They drove back to Ed Eagle’s, went into the house, and started packing.

Holly lay down on the bed. “I’m exhausted,” she said. “Can we take a nap first?”

Stone lay down beside her. “So am I.”

They were still sound asleep when Ed Eagle walked in and woke them up. “How’d it go?”

“We both fell asleep,” Stone said.

“You’ve got altitude sickness,” Ed said. “Everybody feels lousy for the first twenty-four hours in Santa Fe. The city is at seven thousand feet of elevation, and my house is at a little over eight thousand. Come have some dinner.”

“We’ve got to get back,” Stone said, trying to clear his head.

“I’m not letting you fly out of here in your condition,” Ed said. “You wouldn’t get there until dawn, anyway.”

Stone’s cell phone vibrated. “Hello?”

“They’re on the ground,” Dino said. “I’m on it.”