“I know it’s tough.”

“Yeah,” she sighed. “I know you do. Well, looks like I’m a bachelorette for a while.” Her voice lightened, in a brave attempt to sound coquettish. “Guess I’ll go out trolling the bars.”

He tried to think of some bit of banter to return, but came up empty.

“I won’t be long,” he said. “I’ve got to get off now, I’m getting into some bad curves. I’ll call you soon.”

The part about the curves was true, especially in the fog. He put the phone back on the seat and gripped the wheel at ten and three. The gas gauge read just over half-full, and the Bronco had an auxiliary twenty gallon tank that he kept topped off. That would get him easily to Sacramento, with another few hundred miles to spare. There was the issue of his bladder, but he always carried a couple of plastic containers of water. He could empty one out the window and use it as a trucker’s jug if he had to.

He returned his mind to searching for a way to lure Freeboot into view without exposing Mandrake. That was one thing about spending twenty-five years in the ER-he had learned to clamp down on his emotions and deal with the business at hand.

31

Mercifully, the fog lifted as he got inland. When it was bad, it could blanket the Central Valley in blindness, causing pileups of dozens, even hundreds, of vehicles on the freeways. Traffic thickened as he approached Sacramento, the drivers fast and aggressive and sure of where they were going, or at least acting like they were. He picked his way through them with tense caution, along with his unseen escorts-probably Freeboot’s men, and definitely FBI agents. It was eerie, sitting alone in the dark, rumbling Bronco, knowing that others were nearby, watching-that he was a minnow, being followed by piranhas, with alligators hunting for them.

There was still no sign of Freeboot, and neither Monks nor the FBI agents had come up with a better plan.

Sacramento was a big spread-out city, with grids of lights stretching as far as he could see, cut by the dark, winding paths of the rivers. The freeway interchanges were bewildering to an outsider. But he remembered how to find Coulter Hospital. It was a fairly straight shot, off I-880 near McClellan Air Force Base.

He was within three miles of there when his cell phone rang.

“It looks like a go,” Baskett said. “Any questions?”

“Not right now. I’ll think of plenty when it’s too late.”

“You came out on top last time, Dr. Monks. Hang in there, we’re with you.”

Monks muttered thanks, distantly aware that it was the first positive thing that Baskett had ever said to him. Maybe impending disaster brought out the agent’s inner child.

Monks knew that by now the hospital was under intense FBI surveillance, with agents inside disguised as personnel. Mandrake had been sedated. Then, in a macabre twist, he had been injected with a microtransmitter the size of a grain of sand, just under his skin. If Freeboot managed to get away with him, the agents would have a means of tracking him. Monks knew that it made sense, but using a four-year-old as bait was evil enough, without treating him like a piece of meat besides.

He saw the green freeway sign for his exit, Plumas Road, along with a blue HOSPITAL sign, and moved over into the far right lane. A stream of other vehicles took the same exit, lining up at the stoplight at the ramp’s end. Plumas was a busy four-lane strip, lined with stores, mini-malls, and gas stations. He turned left onto it and drove another mile and a half north, where the area changed to small office buildings and apartment complexes. He turned left again into the hospital’s parking lot. This time, no other vehicles followed him.

The players here, he knew, were already in place.

Sacramento ’s Coulter Hospital was a relatively new sprawling complex, three stories, and spread out like the city itself. The juvenile-diabetes ward was around the back, on the first floor of the northwest wing. The maintenance department where the laundry cart was waiting was in the basement at the east end, next to the receiving area where the hospital took in its supplies. A driveway led down to loading docks there. It was a busy area, with maintenance, repair, delivery, and other personnel coming and going at all hours. No one would pay attention to a man who looked like he knew what he was doing.

At night, this far from the hospital’s main entrance, the parking lot was almost empty. Monks picked a spot away from the argon lights. He rummaged through the gear in the back of the Bronco for jeans and a work shirt, then peeled off his dressier clothes and changed clumsily in the tight space of the front seat. He exchanged his loafers for running shoes. He took his keys from the ignition and hung them on his belt. It was not the multikeyed ring on a lanyard that maintenance men favored, but it gave that impression. He put on the Giants baseball cap he used on occasions when he didn’t want to be seen clearly, and pulled the brim low over his face.

Freeboot almost certainly had his own surveillance going. It was critical that Monks make this look real.

He got out and walked to the loading dock’s steel man door, trying to affect the look of a worker on his way to a job he didn’t particularly want to do. Inside, he met the familiar sultry warmth of the hospital’s physical plant, the sharp smells of disinfectant and cleaning fluids, and the less definable scent of human bodies, some decaying and some on the mend. The room was large and open, with concrete walls and floor. There was no one else around. He kept walking toward an area where several janitorial carts were lined up against a wall. One of them was piled with freshly folded bedding.

A sleeping little boy would easily fit in the bottom bin, draped with pillowcases and sheets.

He gripped the cart’s tubular steel handle and pushed it out into the hallway, keeping his head down and shielding his face with the cap’s brim.

A large black man came walking down the hall toward him, wearing a gray uniform with a name patch sewn on. He had the competent look of someone who belonged here, and would know who else did and didn’t. Monks tensed, fearing that this was a slip-up and he would be challenged.

But the man only raised a big hand in greeting as he passed, saying, “What’s happening, baby?”

Monks muttered, “How’s it going,” and walked on, feeling a little better-suspecting that he had just seen his first FBI agent of the night.

He took a service elevator to the first floor and trundled the cart toward Mandrake’s ward, passing several more people with a glance or nod, classifying them automatically-hospital attendants, a harried intern, a phlebotomist pushing a cart of blood samples, a middle-aged woman in a dress who might have been a visitor or an administrator. At least that was who they seemed to be.

When he got to the ward, the charge nurse was at her desk, making notes on charts. She gave him a smile and murmured “Hi,” then bent back to her work. Probably she was an agent, too.

The hallway from there on was empty, as it usually would be this time of evening. He knew from Baskett that he was looking for room 163. Still, he played his role, pushing doors open and glancing inside as if he was checking the laundry situation. When he got to 163, he glanced furtively up and down the hall, then pushed the cart inside. Mandrake was asleep on his belly, mouth slightly open-the picture of helpless innocence.

Monks’s hands shook and his teeth almost chattered as he lifted the limp, warm weight out of bed. Staged though this was, the guilt and shame of abducting a child burned through his veins with his hammering pulse.

This time, the charge nurse did not look up as he pushed the cart past her.