'Maybe this time he slipped up.'
'Fat chance. He’s not making any mistakes, Gerry. Just the opposite. You heard what he wrote. He knows we’re running undercover ops. He’s not falling for it.'
'You got all that out of two sentences?'
'Yeah, I did. That’s what he means by being stupidly predictable. He’s saying he knows we’re trying to bait him by laying traps on Melrose. And he’s not going back there. He’ll strike somewhere else next time.'
'You could be right.' She heard the creak of mattress springs as Andrus shifted his position in bed. 'Wait a second. You said the card went to your home address.'
'Right.' She had moved after Paul’s death. She had thought Mobius couldn’t find her again. 'How the hell could he track me down?'
'We both know an unlisted address doesn’t mean anything these days. Anybody can obtain that info on the Web. There’s no privacy anymore. No safety-for anyone.' Andrus was silent for a moment, then added, 'You can’t go back there.'
'Yes, I can.'
'Not if he knows- '
'You don’t understand, Gerry. I can go back-because when I do, Mobius will be in prison.'
Or dead, she added to herself.
Andrus sighed. 'I take your point. You know, he may also be aware that you’re in LA. He might even be watching the Federal Building. He could have seen you come and go.'
'We have anybody scoping out the street?'
'We will, as of tomorrow. In the meantime, you’d better change motels as a precaution.'
'Let’s not get paranoid.'
'If he was scoping out the Federal Building and saw you leave, he could have followed you to your motel.'
'I hope so. I hope he tries something. I really do, Gerry.'
'I don’t want you being a cowboy on this thing, Tess. Cowgirl. Whatever.'
'Hey, I’m just your average civil servant doing her job. And if I happen to get the opportunity to blow this bastard’s head off-well, that’s one of the perks of federal employment.'
'We’ll talk about it in the morning. The courier will be there in twenty minutes. Once you’ve handed over the document, try to get some rest.'
She couldn’t argue with that advice. She told him good night and heard the click on the other end of the line.
Then she was alone in the room, without the illusion of companionship Andrus’s voice had provided.
Really alone.
Do you think about me at night, Agent McCallum? Mobius had written.
'Yes,' she whispered. 'I think of you. And you think of me, don’t you, you son of a bitch?'
16
Amanda Pierce had vanished, but Jack Tennant was not giving up. He intended to find the bitch.
His only lead was the words recorded in Pierce’s phone conversation-'meet you at the hotel.' He had to assume the meeting would take place somewhere in LA. But LA was a big town, with lots of hotels.
'So what do we do?' Dante had asked after the debacle at the Century Plaza. 'Visit every hotel in the city? There’s not enough shoe leather in the world for that detail.'
'We don’t need shoe leather,' Tennant had said. 'We need a fax machine.'
He set up shop in a squad room at the Westwood field office, nearly deserted at this hour. The squad blast- faxed Pierce’s driver’s-license photo to every hotel in town, along with a bulletin alerting the recipients that the woman was armed and dangerous.
'With luck, somebody will have noticed her,' Tennant said.
'We haven’t been lucky so far,' Bickerstaff observed with a sigh.
'That’s why we’re due for a break.'
At three A.M. they got a call from a desk clerk at the MiraMist Hotel in Santa Monica. 'Yeah, I saw her. Gets kinda boring on the night shift. I remember checking her out.'
Tennant shook his head. 'Doesn’t sound like our suspect. She wouldn’t have been checking out of the hotel. She just got into town tonight.'
'No, man, you don’t get it. I was, you know, checking her out…' He put a lascivious emphasis on the last word.
'Oh. I see.' Tennant felt old and stupid. 'Where’d you spot her?'
'Sitting at the bar.'
'Alone?'
'Some dude perched next to her after a little while. They got to talking.'
Her contact, possibly. 'Was the woman carrying a suitcase?'
'Sorry, didn’t notice.'
'But you’re sure she’s the one in the photo?'
'Pretty sure. I mean, I looked right at her.'
'Is she a guest at the hotel?'
'Could be, if she checked in before I came on duty.'
'When was that?'
'Eleven.'
Pierce hadn’t even left LAX until 11:45. She wasn’t staying at the hotel. Unless…
'Did you see her leave?'
'No, I don’t know what happened to her. I took a break around one-thirty, and when I came back, she was gone.'
'The man, too?'
'Man?'
'The…dude on the next bar stool.'
'Yeah, he was gone. I remember thinking maybe he got lucky.'
'He a hotel guest?'
'Could be, but I didn’t recognize him.'
'The bartender would know whether they left together.'
'I guess. Chris went home hours ago.'
'What’s his home number?'
'Hey, it’s three A.M. You’re gonna call him now?'
'Yes, I am.'
Tennant got the number and hung up, then called the bartender. Twenty rings. No answer.
'He could be spending the night with somebody else,' Wilkins suggested.
'Maybe.' Tennant frowned. 'Or he may have just turned off the ringer on his phone. Get his address out of the reverse directory.'
Twenty minutes later, Tennant was banging on Christopher Albright’s apartment door. 'Mr. Albright, open up! Open up now!'
He was rewarded by the sleepy shuffling of feet. Albright answered the door wearing only a terry-cloth robe. He was a thin, sallow guy with a stubble of fuzz on his cheeks. 'What the hell…?'
'FBI.' Tennant produced his creds. 'You the bartender at the MiraMist Hotel?'
'Uh…yeah.'
'We’re looking for a woman who may have been at the bar earlier tonight. This woman.' Tennant showed him the photo. 'Recognize her?'
'I think so. Yeah, I do. She got there a little after midnight. No liquor, just ginger ale.'
