In his first seven years of hunting, Barraclough had recovered over seventy-five million dollars. This had not been nearly enough, because the purpose of Enterprise Development was not merely to make its owner rich; it was a device for accumulating enough capital to buy control of Intercontinental Security.
Barraclough had made the next eighty million on only one find, the Timothy Phillips trust fund. Seven years ago he had decided that Intercontinental Security should obtain the Hoffen-Bayne account so that Enterprise Development could have a look at what was going on inside. He had not known about Timothy Phillips; he had simply realized that a company handling the personal fortunes of so many people was a good place to hunt. He had offered Intercontinental's services for a price that competitors could never match because the bid left no margin for a profit.
When he had placed security devices in the Hoffen-Bayne offices and the partners' homes, the customers had been interested in color and design, but circuitry had been beneath their notice. It had never occurred to people like Alan Turner that a little electronic box with glowing lights might be just about anything. It had never even crossed Turner's mind that if his security system had a little microphone he could talk into during an emergency, the microphone could also pick up what he said when there was no emergency. He had sat all day under security cameras and thought he was alone.
Once Barraclough had discovered the account Turner was stealing from, the money belonged to Barraclough. The man had been robbing clients for years, and all of the people who took salaries for catching thieves had missed him. Turner had been there for anyone to take, but only Barraclough had found him.
Barraclough had worked Mary Perkins with the same patience. Anybody could have read about her trial in the newspapers, as he had, but he had waited until the feds had taken their crack at her, and then he had taken his. The feds had come up empty, and Barraclough had walked away with fifty-two million.
His rage deepened. To have a woman like this Jane take it all away from him was more than an insult; it was a violation of the laws of the universe.
At ten o'clock in the evening, Farrell made his way across the polished marble lobby of the Intercontinental Security Services building, thinking about fate. Ten years ago, when he had been a cop for almost ten years and a detective for two, the captain had suddenly assigned him a new partner, a kid named Barraclough. After Farrell had watched him work for a few days, he had seen the future.
If Farrell kept on the way he was going, the best he could hope for was twenty years with the police department and a pension that wouldn't be enough to convince him that his life had been worth the effort. But ten years ago it was already apparent that Barraclough wasn't going to end up like that, and if Farrell stuck with him, he wasn't either. At thirty, Barraclough was entering his prime, and what he represented was a world that had no limits.
But tonight, as Farrell walked toward the elevator that would take him up to Barraclough's office, he was a little nervous. He had not been able to think of a way that this Jane woman could have found Mary Perkins except by following him to the farm. If he had figured this out, then Barraclough had too. No, he thought. He was not a little nervous. He knew Barraclough better than anyone alive, and he was deeply, agonizingly afraid. When he raised his hand to the elevator button, he saw it start to shake.
Farrell wasn't even sure what made him most afraid. A bullet in the back of the head had its attractions. It was quicker and kinder than most of the ways that lives ended. Slowly he identified what he feared most. He feared Barraclough's displeasure: not the bullet, but Barraclough's impulse to fire it, whether or not the trigger got pulled. This one lapse might have convinced Barraclough that Farrell wasn't like Barraclough - that he was just one of the others, a loser. After all these years, first teaching Barraclough and then following him, Farrell would be lost, abandoned and exiled from the light. He would be denied a share in Barraclough's future.
He stepped out of the elevator, walked to the big wooden door of Barraclough's office, and knocked quietly. No, that had been too quiet. Barraclough might think he was weak and used up, maybe even afraid. Fear disgusted Barraclough. Farrell gave a hard rap with his knuckles, then heard Barraclough call 'Come in.'
Farrell found him sitting behind the big desk. He only looked up long enough to verify who had come in the door, then went back to signing papers. He muttered, 'The fucking home office is waiting on these reports. That's what they do. They sit in that building in Chicago and read quarterly reports. Talk to me.'
'The lines are all in the water,' said Farrell. 'I finally got the last of the boys on their planes. With the ones we had out already, we should have two-man teams in fifty-six airports by morning.'
'Are you sure they'll recognize her if they see her?'
'The ones who have seen her in person will. The tape from the freeway should help the others, but it's mostly on you.' Farrell felt a chill. He had given in to some subconscious need to remind Barraclough that Farrell was not the only one who made mistakes. He tried to talk quickly, to get past it before the sour taste of it turned Barraclough against him. 'But I've got people working on finding a decent picture of her from surveillance footage in the places we know she's been - stores, hotels, and so on.'
Barraclough kept signing papers, then moving each one to a pile at the corner of his desk. He seemed to be listening, so Farrell went on. 'I've got a couple of technicians traveling around with the teams trying to find her fingerprints where she touched something that might not have gotten wiped off: hotel bathrooms get scoured with cleanser, but prints might survive on a telephone receiver or on anything that was inside a drawer. Rental cars sometimes sit on the lot for a few days before they go out again. Fingerprints are still the best way to find out who you're really dealing with.'
Barraclough frowned as he scrutinized a sheet that appeared to be covered with numbers, then wrote something on it and set it beside the pile of papers. He looked up, so Farrell said, 'The credit checks on her fake credit cards come in once a day. So far she hasn't used any of them. I figure she's gone under somewhere to wait until Mary Perkins is healthy enough to travel again.'
Barraclough looked down at his papers again. Something he was reading caused a look of weariness and impatience. 'Is that it?'
Farrell said, 'Just about. Of course I'm trying a couple of long shots. We know she met Mary Perkins in the L.A. County Jail. I hired a hooker to get herself inside and ask questions of the other prisoners, to get us a lead on where she lives.'
'You said a couple. What else?'
Farrell gave an apologetic shrug. 'Do you remember that guy who kept calling up bank tellers and saying he had their kid, so they'd leave money in a bag somewhere?'
'Sure,' said Barraclough. 'Ronny Prindle. That must be nine or ten years ago. What about him?'
'Well, there was something I tried that time that didn't pan out. I took one of the telephone tapes to a linguistics professor and asked him for an opinion of the accent. We caught Ronny Prindle before the report came back, but I remembered being surprised when I read it because the professor got it right. Prindle was from the east coast of Maryland. So I cleaned up the tape we had from Jane and sent it to the same guy. He thinks I'm still a cop.'
Barraclough smiled at the paper he was signing, and Farrell thought he heard a chuckle. 'Every time I can't imagine why I'm dragging your dead ass around with me, you surprise me, and I remember. Let me know as soon as you hear from him.'
Farrell's hands stopped shaking. He had bought himself more time.
Two days later Farrell hurried across the same lobby, pushed the elevator button, and walked into the same office. Barraclough looked up at him expectantly.
'She's started using the credit cards,' Farrell said. 'We got a Katherine Webster at a hotel in Saint Louis, a Denise Hollinger renting a car in Cleveland, a Catherine Snowdon in Erie, Pennsylvania - '
'She's heading northeast,' said Barraclough. 'Start moving people into her path.'
Farrell's eyes twinkled. 'It's done. Everybody we've got is either up there already or on a plane to northern Pennsylvania or upstate New York. I've got some strung out in rest stops along the big highways, some checking the parking lots of hotels, restaurants, and malls for the car she rented, others waiting at rental offices for her to turn it in. I've got some more - '
Barraclough interrupted. 'Can you tell from the reports what she's doing?'
Farrell scanned the credit reports in his hands. 'Pretty much what Mary Perkins told us she does. She alternates identities, so the same person never turns up two places in a row. She's paying the single-room rate, and the meal charges don't seem to be enough for two, so she's probably traveling alone.'
'But what's she trying to accomplish?' Barraclough snapped. 'Where's she going?'
