“For the Capitol Group, very bad.”
“Your source is telling you other things?”
Mia shrugged and rearranged some papers on her crowded desk. The answer was yes.
“What’s your source’s motive? You can tell me that.”
“Truth, justice, the American way. Do the right thing. I know what a rare and unbelievable motive that is these days, and in this city, but that’s it.”
Nicky played with his tie a moment. He’d never had an agent pull something like this. It pissed him off, confused him, made him want to stab a finger in her face and demand answers, but frankly he wasn’t sure how to handle it. “Mia, an order from the director taking you off this case is a serious step. If you’re caught dabbling in what is now an official investigation, I can’t protect you.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
“It’s a promise.”
“I’m a big girl, Nicky. I know the rules.”
“You better be sure you do. This can get real ugly.”
“I’m terrified. Send me back to a half-million-a-year job in any of a dozen firms that would take me in a heartbeat. Throw some more threats at me, Nicky.”
By noon, the day after the Capitol Group’s spokesman offered five million bucks to anyone who helped find Jack Wiley or Perry Arvan, CG’s corporate website had received thirty million hits. The announcement was like the shot that started the land rush, a reasonable analogy in this case. Three hours after the promise was issued, so many users logged on, the site crashed. It took a team of programmers two hours, working furiously in the middle of the night, to get it back up, before the flood of hits resumed.
Several big newspapers glommed onto the story and, free of charge, printed pictures of Jack and Perry along with a speculative, fascinating synopsis of CG’s claims and the ensuing manhunt. By nine that morning, cable news rushed into the act and began flashing the pictures and discussing the big bounty. The faces of Jack and Perry were studied and memorized by countless more millions of citizens interested in snatching a cool five million.
O’Neal, by then, had a large call center set up, employing twenty of TFAC’s people and a large, shifting clutch of executives bused over from CG. The calls went to CG’s switch and were smoothly rerouted to TFAC’s call center.
By noon it was a disaster center. O’Neal had never tried this before, and it showed. He was thoroughly ill-prepared to handle the unceasing bombardment of information pouring in. Neither his own people nor CG’s hapless execs were trained for this sport. They lacked the expertise to filter the good from the bad, the plainly false tips from the seemingly accurate, the fruitcakes and loonies from the moderately sane.
Jack was spotted in too many places to count. He was seen seated on the rear deck of a big yacht in Miami, knocking back mai tais, surrounded by big-breasted girls in string bikinis. Thirty seconds later, he was huddled in an igloo in Alaska munching on whale meat. At the same instant he was spotted in a movie theater in Akron, partying on the slopes at Aspen, sleeping in a gutter in Seattle, and robbing a bank in Atlanta.
Perry, also, was everywhere and nowhere.
Each call station had a large stack of tip sheets to fill out. It seemed so easy, so organized, so infallible. In theory, it was. Every time a call arrived the information was jotted on a tip sheet, then deposited inside the in-box of one of three former Fibbies who would scrutinize the material and decide upon the action to be taken. By ten that morning, all three had found the time to curse at O’Neal and tell him what an ill-conceived crock this whole plan was. Their in-boxes had overflowed hours before. Every time Fox News or CNN or MSNBC flashed up pictures of Jack and Perry, a fresh deluge arrived and the chaos grew.
Martie made the rounds, pacing, barking, exhorting, trying to keep morale up and his system functioning. It was hopeless and he knew it. The only prayer of finding Jack or Perry was the Department of Defense. It had the full and remorseless resources of the federal government to pursue Jack wherever he led them.
No matter how smart Jack was, it was just a matter of time. He would be found.
Jack, at that moment, was running hard and fast. Sweat was dripping off his head. His shirt was soaked, his breath coming out in heavy gusts. Ten minutes before he had kicked up the treadmill to seven miles per hour, a final sprint before he finished his habitual morning exercise.
He had entered the apartment in the early hours of the morning, before CG’s manhunt gained traction. The day he’d ditched TFAC’s watchers, he took the train to New York, then jumped in the rental car and headed south, right back to D.C. Using a false name and paying with a fistful of cash, he had checked into a Best Western on the city outskirts, watched the news, slept off and on, and waited.
At three that morning, he ditched the rental at a local vendor and dropped the keys in a night box. Nobody saw him. He walked two blocks to a dark street corner where he was met by a friend who drove him here. The tall apartment complex was directly across the street from CG’s headquarters, and the apartment was located on the twelfth floor with a commanding view of everything that happened street side. It had been rented under a false name almost a year before. The day before Jack made his dash for freedom, a friend had restocked it with enough fresh food and supplies to last a month, if need be.
The apartment was large, with three bedrooms, two of which now were filled with stacked boxes, all carefully labeled and organized.
Jack switched off the treadmill and, grabbing a towel to wipe off his sweat, walked to the big console by the window. The curtains and shades were drawn tight. All lights in the living room had been disconnected months before to minimize any chance of a silhouette in the window. He sat at the big console and played with the dials for a few minutes before he found something interesting to listen to.
A team of four men under Jack’s employ had manned this console around the clock for over seven months now. They sat, eating, smoking countless cigarettes, sipping coffee by the gallon, listening, recording, filtering, and discarding the rubbish. They preserved only what was worth listening to. Not only the bedrooms, but a storage container three blocks away were loaded with tapes, the plentiful fruits of this long and exhausting effort.
Jack turned up the volume and listened attentively to the distinctive voice of Mitch Walters conversing with Phil Jackson. They were chatting in Mitch’s office, according to the console light. Walters had a hard, deep voice, but it sounded hoarse and raspy, the result of little sleep and too much yelling and hollering at his beleaguered employees. Jackson’s voice was unchanged, flat, insinuating, condescending. The feed was crystal clear; Jack could have been seated in the office. He closed his eyes and could almost picture them-Walters behind his big desk with his feet up, perhaps hefting a paperweight in his beefy hand, Jackson lounging in a chair, studying the CEO with his mean, slitty eyes.
“Sufficient evidence is still the problem,” Jackson was saying, not nicely.
“How many times are you gonna tell me that? I’m working on it.”
“Then work faster. Wiley could be found at any minute. You better have something good and legally compelling when he turns up.”
“You said yourself Wiley won’t be a problem. His old pal Wallerman will bury his credibility. He ripped off an old lady, then murdered her. Anything he says will be neutralized by his ugly past.” A brief pause, then, “He was a crook then, he’s still a rotten crook. Nobody believes a murderer.”
“You’re not listening, idiot.”
Jack could picture Walters’s face flushing with anger. His fists would be clenched, his shoulders bunched, his broad, pugnacious face puckered and red.