10

AT 10:00 A.M., using a pay phone outside a convenience store in Studio City, Coltrane called the Threat Management Unit. Jennifer stood next to him in the phone booth, her head against his so she could overhear the other end of the conversation. Now that she had showered and forced herself to eat a little, her blue eyes had regained some of their brightness. But not much, Coltrane thought. Not enough.

“Lieutenant Bass or Sergeant Nolan, please,” Coltrane said.

He heard office noises in the background – phones ringing, people talking – then a click and silence as the call was transferred. Outside the phone booth, the rumble of traffic made him press the phone harder against his ear.

“This is Lieutenant Bass,” a sonorous no-nonsense voice said.

Recognizing it, Coltrane almost smiled, pleased to be in touch with someone he trusted. “Greg, it’s Mitch.”

Greg’s voice quickened, its bureaucratic flatness gone. “Thank God. I was hoping this would be you. Are you all right?”

“Shaky.”

“No shit. Listen, I can’t tell you how sorry I am about your friend.”

Coltrane paused, a renewed shock of grief jolting through him. “Ilkovic is going to be even sorrier.”

“That’s the way I want to hear you talk.”

“What about your family? Are they okay?”

“They weren’t hurt, but are they okay? Hell no. They’re scared to death. I’ve moved them out of the house. I sent them to-”

“Stop,” Coltrane said.

“What?”

“Not over the phone.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t trust it. This guy’s too good with microphones.”

“You’re not seriously suggesting Ilkovic could figure out a way to get into the Threat Management office and-”

“There aren’t many people in your office on Sunday. He might have pretended to be a janitor. Are you willing to bet your family’s life that he didn’t?”

Greg didn’t answer.

“When he was in your home Saturday night, he had time to bug that phone, too,” Coltrane said. “Did you use it to make arrangements about where to send your wife and kids?”

For a moment, all Coltrane heard were the background noises in the office.

“Jesus,” Greg said. “Don’t hang up.”

Click. On hold, Coltrane listened to dead silence that stretched on and on and -

Abruptly Greg was back on the line. “I’ve got a team going out there to search for microphones.”

“Your family. If Ilkovic did bug that phone, you have to warn them,” Coltrane said.

“But not on this phone. The son of a… How can I get back to you? If he can hear us, you can’t tell me the number to call.”

“Greg, do you remember when we first met? I helped a woman identify a stalker.”

“Yes, you hid outside her house and photographed him pouring gasoline on her lawn in the middle of the night.”

“Do you remember where she lived?”

“I can look it up.”

“There’s a Pizza Hut two blocks east of her house,” Coltrane said. “Go to its pay phone.”

“Give me an hour.”

Coltrane hung up and left the phone booth.

Jennifer frowned at him.

“Something the matter?”

“Where did you learn about hidden microphones?” she asked.

“A couple of times, when I was on assignment, the CIA and I crossed paths.” Coltrane started with her down the exhaust-hazed street.

“The CIA?” The reference made Jennifer’s eyes widen.

“In Beirut, there was one operative in particular. He showed an awful lot of interest in the photographs I was taking. So I worked out a deal with him. I promised I’d make him a better photographer than the Agency had trained him to be, and in return, he had to teach me some of what he knew.”

“Hold it. This isn’t the way back to the car. Where are we going?”

“Into this sporting-goods store.”

“But what do you need in-”

“A twelve-gauge pump shotgun.”

11

COLTRANE CARRIED THE SHOTGUN, concealed by a leather sleeve, back to where they had parked the Saturn around the corner from the convenience store. In five days, after the federally mandated waiting period, he planned to come back and pick up a Beretta 9-mm semiautomatic pistol that he had also purchased. For now, the shotgun would have to do. He locked it and a box of buckshot in the trunk, then headed toward the next block.

“Now where are we going?” Jennifer asked.

“Down the street. That Pizza Hut.”

“Are you telling me that’s the same…”

“Yep. Greg’s going to show up there in about thirty-five minutes. I need to get the number of its pay phone.”

The phone turned out to be on the wall to the left, just inside the front door. A large window provided a view of the restaurant’s parking area, a crowded intersection, and a Burger King diagonally across the intersection.

“Perfect.”

Five minutes later, when they entered the Burger King, its air thick with the smell of charcoal-cooked meat, Coltrane discovered that the arrangement was even more perfect than he had imagined. Standing at the pay phone, which was near a window next to the front door, he could see across the intersection to the pay phone in the Pizza Hut.

“The next best thing to meeting in person,” Coltrane said. “Now comes the hard part – the waiting.”

“All those times you went away on assignment, you lived like this?”

“Not always. It depends on where I was sent.”

“I’m beginning to think I don’t know you.”

“When the time comes, watch the street. If Ilkovic follows Greg, there’s a chance we can spot him.”

“And?”

“Then maybe we can follow him.” Coltrane glanced toward the menu on the wall behind the counter. “We’re going to need food in front of us so we don’t appear to be loitering.”

They each ordered a burger, fries, and coffee. Carrying their tray of food, Coltrane avoided a booth by the window and instead chose a table one row in – less chance that they’d be seen from the street. He positioned Jennifer so that her back was to the window. That way, facing her, he could appear to be talking to her but would actually be looking past her, concentrating on the Pizza Hut. Eating slowly, which wasn’t difficult, given the state of their appetites, they tried to distract themselves with small talk. It didn’t work.

Twenty minutes dwindled to fifteen, then to ten. With five minutes to go, Coltrane inwardly flinched when a kid with a ring in his nose dumped a tray of crushed wrappers and an empty paper cup into a trash receptacle, then picked up the phone. No!

Five minutes became zero.

Coltrane placed himself next to the kid.

“Hey, do you mind. I’m having an important conversation,” the kid said.

“Here’s five bucks to have it somewhere else.”

“Later,” the kid said into the phone. He hung up, grabbed the money, shook his head as if he thought Coltrane was a fool, and walked out.

Immediately, Coltrane picked up the phone, shoved coins into it, and pressed the numbers that he had written on a notepad.

On the other end, the phone barely had a chance to ring. “Mitch?”

Partially concealed, Coltrane peered across the street toward Greg at the pay phone in the Pizza Hut. “While you’re there, why don’t you order a medium pepperoni and mushroom for me?”

“Yeah, it’s definitely you. That bastard did bug my home. And you were right: My office phone and my desk were bugged, too. If I get my hands on him-”

“You mean when, don’t you?”

Greg didn’t respond for a moment. “Interpol thinks he used a forged passport under the name of Haris Hasanovic to fly out of Bosnia. His route was from Tuzla to Hamburg to London. After that, MI-Six got into the act. They think he changed his name to Radko Hodzic, but there’s no record of anyone with that name applying for a Bosnian passport. The rest of the Slovak countries came up blank, as well. So did Germany. The FBI established that Radko Hodzic arrived in Los Angeles two days after you did. He would have needed IDs for Radko Hodzic to rent a car or a hotel room. The FBI’s checking that.”