11

GREG’S LAST NAME WAS BASS. He was a lieutenant in the Los Angeles Police Department. Coltrane had met him two years earlier when the L.A. Times Sunday Magazine had asked him to do a photo essay on the police department’s Threat Management Unit, the only law-enforcement squad in the United States devoted exclusively to stalkers. What had attracted the L.A. Times was that, because of the clandestine nature of their harassment, stalkers were sometimes described as “invisible criminals.” The idea was that a photographer as inventive and accomplished as Coltrane could perhaps make some stalkers very visible.

Coltrane’s liaison at the Threat Management Unit had turned out to be Greg, and over the course of the assignment, they had developed a friendship, Coltrane earning Greg’s respect by being of considerable help to one of the many terrified women the Threat Management Unit was trying to protect. By lying in the bushes outside the woman’s home several nights in a row, Coltrane had managed to capture a picture of the woman’s heretofore-unknown harasser – a man she had dated twice five years earlier – as he dumped gasoline on the woman’s lawn at three in the morning. The stalker had gone to prison for eighteen months. Since then, Coltrane had helped Greg on three other cases.

They sat facing each other in the back booth of a tavern. Both of them sipped Budweiser, neither of them speaking, while Greg finished assessing the last photograph, thought about them, stacked them, and put them back into the box.

“So basically you’re telling me that this guy thinks it’s cool to tie people’s hands behind their back with baling wire, line them up facing a pit, and shoot them in the back of the head so they topple forward into the pit and nobody has to move the bodies to bury them. Sounds like he and Hitler would have been pals.”

“Except that Hitler was a Nazi. Ilkovic came out of the Communist system when Bosnia was part of Yugoslavia, so Stalin would probably be closer to his ideal.”

“Politics as an excuse for mass murder.” Greg shook his head.

“Ilkovic worked his way up through the Communist system, learned English, and was trained to be a diplomat. For a time, he was stationed at the Yugoslavian consulate in London. As thugs go, he’s very sophisticated. Not to mention calculating. As soon as the Soviet system collapsed, he went back to what is now Bosnia and took advantage of the civil war. He gained his power base by urging the Serbs not to just win the war but to exterminate the enemy. I suppose he figured that after the Serbs killed all the Muslims, he could get them to eradicate the other ethnic group in the region, the Croats. Then the Serbs would control all of Bosnia, and since he controlled the Serbs… Meanwhile, Bosnia became his private killing field.”

“I bet he loved every minute of it. Dragan Ilkovic. Quite a mouthful. And you’ve got this bastard after you because you took pictures that linked him to war crimes and ruined his chances of controlling Bosnia’s government.”

“It’s kind of hard to rule a country when you’re in prison because of crimes against humanity,” Coltrane said.

“Except he isn’t in prison,” Greg said. “He’s here in Los Angeles, looking to pay you back.”

12

AMBULANCE ATTENDANTS HURRIED TO PUSH A YOUNG MAN ON a gurney into the emergency ward. The young man had an oxygen mask over his face. His chest, which wasn’t moving, was covered with blood.

Coltrane got out of their way, then followed through electronically controlled glass doors that hissed shut behind him. Two nurses and a physician rushed to the young man on the gurney, guiding him into a cubicle, tugging a curtain shut, casting urgent shadows as other nurses and physicians worked on other patients in other cubicles and more patients huddled on benches along the walls.

“Can I help you, sir?”

Coltrane turned toward a weary-looking bespectacled woman who wore a green hospital top and held a clipboard.

“Are you hurt? Do you need…” Her voice dropped as she studied him and couldn’t see anything obviously wrong.

“I’m looking for Dr. Gibson.”

At that moment, Daniel – his red hair emphasized by the greens he wore – came out of a cubicle and walked quickly toward a counter in the middle of the area.

“There. I have to see him for a moment.”

“Sir, you’ll have to wait your turn. There are patients ahead of you who-”

“Daniel.”

Hearing his name, Daniel turned. “Mitch?” Frowning, he came over. “What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you.”

Daniel’s frown deepened with puzzlement. “I just finished with a patient.” He cocked his head toward the approaching wail of an ambulance outside. “Typically busy Saturday night. This’ll have to be quick.”

Daniel guided him through a door and into a stairwell. The door banged shut, echoing.

“I won’t be home for the next couple of days. Maybe weeks,” Coltrane said. “I wanted you to know so you wouldn’t worry.”

“A photo shoot?” Daniel sounded hopeful.

“No, the guy who broke into my apartment while we were out this afternoon.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

“I just got finished talking to a friend who’s with the LAPD antistalking unit. He says if this guy could plant a bug in my living room, what’s to stop him from planting a bomb? I’m not supposed to go home – not until this creep is caught.”

“But who knows how long… Where will you go?”

“I’m not sure. If I need to reach you, I’ll leave a message for you here at the hospital. The reason I didn’t leave a message this time, Daniel, is that my friend also had some advice for you. I wanted to give it to you in person.”

Daniel looked uneasy.

“I don’t think you should go back to your apartment,” Coltrane said. “This guy can as easily break into your place as mine. He might decide to pay you a visit and find out where I’ve gone.”

“But you haven’t told me where you’re going.”

“He doesn’t know that. Tell the hospital you need some time off. Take a lot of streets at random and watch for any headlights following you. When you’re sure you’re safe, get out of town. Maybe in a couple of days my friend will have caught him, and you can come back. But Daniel, listen to me. No matter how much you’re tempted, don’t stay with a friend.”

Daniel paled as he understood the implications.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Coltrane said. “But I can’t tell you how sorry I am that I put you at risk.”

The stairwell door banged open. “Doctor, we need-”

“Yes.” Daniel hurried back to the din of the emergency ward. “Jennifer.” He looked back. “What about-”

“I’m on my way to warn her.”

13

WHEN THE HEADLIGHTS OF A CAR VEERED OFF BEVERLY GLEN Boulevard onto Knob Hill Drive, Coltrane watched from where his Blazer was parked among other cars in the darkness at the side of the road. In this secluded residential area of Sherman Oaks, there was almost no traffic at 10:00 P. M., even on a Saturday. This was only the third set of lights in the past fifteen minutes. Identifying Jennifer’s BMW as it slowed on a curve and passed him, Coltrane redirected his attention toward the entrance to this street. One minute became two, then three. After five minutes, Coltrane decided that if Ilkovic had been following her, other headlights would certainly have appeared by now. Picking up his car phone, he pressed the numbers for Jennifer’s car phone, let it ring three times, and broke the connection, the signal to Jennifer that it was safe for her to keep descending into the valley and wait for him at the Sherman Oaks Recreation Center. He didn’t speak on the car phone because Greg had emphasized how easy it was for someone to use an audioscanner to overhear conversations on that type of phone.