“Between us, okay?” he said.

The tech nodded.

They went back inside and said one final good-bye to Robert Graham as he sat down behind his big desk, looked at his watch, and scooped up the phone.

The crew carted the last of the equipment out the door, and Jake walked beside Dora.

“Another happy customer,” she said as they left Graham’s office. “Hey, what was the dummy routine all about?”

Jake raised his eyebrows and pointed to himself.

“I thought you didn’t like this guy,” Dora said, lowering her voice to a whisper as they passed the receptionist’s desk.

“Dazzled by his personality,” Jake said, getting into the elevator, “and all the money.”

“You wouldn’t know it looking at him,” Dora said, “the money, I mean.”

“Part of the charm. Oh, he’s special,” Jake said, stepping out of the elevator and into the small entryway. “A humble soul.”

“You feeling okay?” Dora asked, tilting her head.

“Sure,” Jake said, holding open the door.

“Can I ride with you to the airport?” Dora asked.

Jake said, “Sorry, I’m not going, Dora. Can you ride with the crew?”

Dora’s face fell. “We’ve got everything we need and more.”

“Actually,” Jake said, loosening his tie and giving her a wink as he strode toward his rental car, “there’s a lot more.”

18

JAKE RACED OUT of the parking lot and took a left, away from the airport. He checked his rearview mirror before taking a sharp right into the shopping center across the street and circling through the parking lot until he sat up on a rise facing Graham’s office building from across the street. He jumped out and retrieved the audio pack from the trunk. Back in the front seat, he positioned the headphones on his ears and flicked on the power button that would let him hear the broadcast of the little microphone he’d left in Graham’s office.

“-because people don’t talk to me like that, that’s why!”

Jake’s eyes lost their focus as he concentrated hard on Robert Graham’s voice. Its tone was indignant but also tainted by a dash of fear.

“I understand the position we’re all in,” Graham said, quieting to almost a whine. “I’m in it, too, and I’m working on it as we speak.”

There was a pause.

“You think I don’t know that?” Graham said. “I’m more exposed than anyone, you know that.”

Jake heard what sounded like papers being stuffed into a briefcase.

“What?” Graham said. “It has nothing to do with that. Listen, Massimo, if they’d taken care of her when I asked, the way I asked, we wouldn’t be ‘fucking around with this charade,’ as you call it, but I was told to fix it and if anyone has a better idea how, you just let me know.”

Another pause.

“No, Massimo. I’m not talking to you like that,” Graham said, “but do I really have to? I mean, can’t he just pick up the phone? We’re in the twenty-first century.

“I’m just saying,” Graham said, his voice lowering so that Jake could barely hear it. “Yes, I’ll be there. Let me finish this first and I’ll leave right away. No, I don’t have an attitude, Massimo. I’m sorry. Yes. Good-bye.”

Jake waited and watched the building, expecting Graham any second. Nothing happened. Finally, to ease the tension by sharing the excitement, he dialed Casey’s cell phone.

“Everything okay?” he asked her, wriggling out of his suit coat.

She told him how it went with the judge, sounding pleased.

“Good,” Jake said, his eyes still glued to the front door of Graham’s offices. “Sounds like you put the judge’s cojones in a vise.”

“That’s not what you meant, is it? When you asked if everything was okay,” Casey said. “You meant something else.”

Jake told her about the conversation he overheard Graham having on the phone without telling her how he heard it, then said, “When he talked about a charade I was thinking maybe this whole thing with your killer and the Freedom Project-I don’t know. It was as much the tone of Graham’s voice as the things he said. The man sounded scared, and when he said ‘if they’d taken care of her when I asked, the way I asked,’ I could only think of you.”

“It could be anyone, though,” Casey said thoughtfully.

“Right, me just being paranoid,” Jake said, nodding to himself. “I hope that’s true, but I like to play things safe, so in the meantime, I want you to watch your back.”

“And you?”

“I’m going to see if I can follow him,” Jake said. “Obviously, he’s being summoned by someone who makes him pee down his leg, and I’m going to find out who.”

“Be careful,” Casey said.

“Touching,” Jake said, allowing himself a smile. “I didn’t know you cared.”

“I care,” Casey said. “Don’t act like an idiot.”

“It’s tough,” Jake said, “but I’ll try.”

Jake hung up and waited. It was almost three when the billionaire came out of the offices and got into a silver Range Rover. Jake started his engine and followed. As they headed west on the Thruway, Jake figured Graham was heading for the airport. He called a contact at the FAA in Washington and used a favor to track down the location and flight plan of Graham’s private jet.

“Victor Tango seven-seven-nine,” his man said, “owned by Robert Graham. Landed in Rochester at oh-six oh-seven this morning. Let’s see… scheduled to depart from Rochester to PLS at fifteen hundred.”

“That’s-”

“In three minutes,” his man said.

“He can’t make it,” Jake said.

“Maybe he’s not going.”

“Maybe they’ll take off late?”

“Could be.”

“What’s PLS, anyway?” Jake asked.

“Ah, I think one of those islands in the Caribbean, you want me to tell you which one?”

“Just call me if it takes off, will you?”

“Sure.”

Jake hung up and gripped the wheel, knowing the track would go cold if he couldn’t follow Graham and wondering how he could get permission from his executive producer to do it, anyway. His next call went to Don Wall, an old friend in the FBI, who answered his cell phone in a whisper.

“Bad time?” Jake asked.

“Stakeout,” Wall said. “Bored out of my mind, but there’s an old lady upstairs who’s got nothing better to do than listen at the air vent, so I got to keep it down. What’s up?”

“How up are you on your organized crime trading cards?” Jake asked, wrinkling his brow as Graham’s Range Rover kept going west on the Thruway, past the exit he should have taken north to the airport.

“Colombian, Russian, Vietnamese, Albanian, or Italian?” Wall asked, the sound of some kind of shell cracking in the background before he began to crunch into the phone.

“Italian, for sure,” Jake said. “Guy named Massimo.”

“To the max,” Wall said. “That’s what it means.”

“Heard of anyone?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean so much,” Wall said. “I’ve been on this fucking Al Qaeda thing for the last nine months and all I’ve seen is some douche bag from Iowa growing a beard. Let me make a call. My old partner is in Philly working some heroin angle and I swear the only reason he’s on it is because the shit is coming in from Afghanistan. I got to tell you, it’s got to be good to be an American criminal these days. You ought to do a story on that.”

“Maybe I am,” Jake said, weaving in and out of the traffic to avoid being boxed in by a tractor trailer as Graham picked up his speed. “Meantime, would you see if you can get anything on an Italian gangster from Buffalo whose name is Massimo?”

“I’ll get back to you.”

Jake thanked him and clicked over to another incoming call.

“It’s up,” his FAA man said.

“Thanks,” Jake said. “You don’t know when it’s coming back, do you?”

“No return flight plan filed yet.”

Jake thanked him again, hung up, and settled in, pleased that whoever Graham was going to meet, he wasn’t flying to get there.

“Buffalo,” Jake said to himself as they passed the only exit Graham would have taken if he was going south to Pennsylvania. “Lots of Italians there. No sense in flying.”