“How do you know that?”

“Actually, Radek told me when he called with the ransom demand.”

“Why would he tell you that?”

“He couldn’t help himself. He was rubbing it in my face how smart he was. Also because, at the time, he knew I couldn’t tell anyone. And he planned to kill me before I had the chance. Which brings me to the second thing, something he was even more proud of. Pendaran is innocent,” Vail lied. “They set him up as a fall guy in case someone saw through their Bertok ruse. Go to Pendaran’s lawyer and offer him an immediate walk if he passes the polygraph. I suspect you’ll have better luck with him than you did with me.”

Vail smiled enigmatically, almost as if to himself. He had bluffed them out of his taking a polygraph because he knew he couldn’t have passed it regarding the whereabouts of the money.

EVERYONE WAS GONE from Vail’s room when he got back. There really wasn’t much they could disrupt. The bed linens had been removed and were piled on a chair. A copy of the search warrant lay in the middle of the mattress. He checked the return: nothing had been taken as evidence.

He pulled a sheet off the chair and arranged it across the bed. He considered sleeping for a couple of hours, but knew he wouldn’t be able to. It was true what Kaulcrick had said, that he would have little success finding the money without the Bureau’s resources, but he had something none of them did. There was a good chance that the answer to everything was in his pocket. He pulled out the ring of keys he had taken off Radek’s body. “That’s the sound of freedom,” he had told Tye. Since the handcuff key was not among them, it had to be his freedom he was referring to—the money. And an assistant director of the FBI had told Vail that if he found it, he could keep it. Had he done three million dollars’ worth of work for the FBI? Everything considered—he just may have.

One of the keys, cut on a manufacturer’s blank, was for a car. There was only one place Radek’s car could be.

AS VAIL PULLED UP to the Lindbergh Hotel, he let what had happened there the night before replay itself. All the little details that still didn’t make sense kept forcing their way into his thoughts.

He still had the bartender’s master key, which no one had thought to ask for. He let himself into the building and found the door to 3C sealed with plastic ribbon and an FBI document affixed to it warning that the premises were officially under the jurisdiction of the FBI and any entry would constitute a federal offense punishable by five years in prison and/or a twenty-five-thousand-dollar fine. He smiled. If he found the money, he decided he would FedEx the twenty-five thousand dollars to Kaulcrick in the original, recorded hundred-dollar notes. A South American postmark would be the crowning touch.

Vail peered through one of the shotgun holes in the door and then took out Radek’s key ring and compared each to the manager’s master. One of them appeared to be a match. He slid it in the lock and turned the cylinder partially before it seized up as it had the night before. He took a step back and kicked the door open.

A copy of the search warrant had been left on the couch in the small living room, listing everything that was taken. There were more than forty items. He quickly read them, looking for anything that might give a hint as to where Radek’s car might be. “Miscellaneous documents” were listed without any specifics, and inexplicably the handcuff key hadn’t been located. Maybe Radek never had one, which could mean only one thing: he was going to dump Tye’s body still cuffed. Most of the items taken were clothing from the bedroom closet. No forensic reason existed to confiscate them, but experienced investigators had all sooner or later had a case where, staring at crime-scene photos after the fact, they wished that one small, seemingly insignificant item at the time had been collected. So they took almost everything, whether they could see its potential or not. After all, they knew that Radek wouldn’t be demanding their return. The area rug that Radek had died on had been taken. His handgun, and even Vail’s Bureau shotgun, had been tagged and removed.

The chain and handcuffs were listed, reminding Vail of their purpose. He went into the bedroom and stared at the radiator that Tye had been anchored to. Looking out the window, Vail recognized the downward angle to the building with the extended window casings. It was something he hadn’t taken the time to do the night before, and it now gave him a sense of order. Then he quickly stepped back. Something had unknowingly caught his eye when he came into the room but was just now registering.

It was the radiator. He stepped back another couple of feet and examined its symmetry. Squatting down, he looked at it from a more direct angle. The small domed cap that housed the steam valve had been painted many times over the years. At the cylindrical valve’s base, Vail could see a couple of brass threads. The cap had been put back on crookedly and twisted, cross-threading it.

Vail wrenched it off. When he saw what was inside, he collapsed onto the bed. His thoughts raced backward through the entire investigation, through every turn and dead end, ticking off every little inconsistency that, unknown to him, his mind had been collecting.

Everything now made sense.

As he walked back down the stairs, Vail checked his watch. It was almost noon and there was moderate foot traffic along the street. Because of the limited parking in the neighborhood, he had parked illegally directly in front of the hotel. He examined the car key on the ring he had taken from Radek’s pocket. It was for a Chrysler product, the older type key without lock and trunk buttons.

Since the car had been used to transport a kidnap victim to the hotel, logically it wouldn’t be parked far away. For the next half hour he searched the surrounding blocks. He found only one older Chrysler. As discreetly as possible he tried the key in the door lock but it didn’t fit. A closer inspection of the key revealed that none of the plating had been worn away, indicating it was new. As deceptive as Radek had been, Vail wondered if he hadn’t had another manufacturer’s key duplicated onto a Chrysler blank. If so, it most likely would still have been for an older car.

He started back toward the hotel looking for any vehicle that the key might fit. At the end of the block was an overnight parking zone. As Vail approached it, he spotted an older Chevy sedan. On the windshield was a parking ticket suggesting it might have been parked there since the night before. To avoid suspicion, he stabbed the key into the lock as if he had done it countless times before. It turned in the lock. Pulling the ticket from under the windshield wiper, Vail got in. The interior had the odor of air freshener, the kind sprayed at a full-service car wash. It smelled the same as Radek’s stolen Honda had, minus the gasoline odor.

He didn’t think Radek would chance leaving three million dollars in the trunk of a car parked on the street, but stranger things had happened. As much as Vail wanted to look in the trunk, he knew that this was not the place. He was unarmed and had no idea who might be around. He put the key in the ignition and started the car. The glove compartment was empty. Between the two front seats was a deep console storage compartment. The only object it contained was a garage door opener. Feeling around inside, he found some kind of matting covering the bottom, but it was cut a little too large and bunched at the edges, suggesting the manufacturer had not put it there. He pulled it back and underneath was a California driver’s license in the name of Terry A. Frost. The address listed was in Inglewood.

The man in the photo was Victor Radek.