She was convinced they were now.
Besides the notes, they had something else to go on. Mileage. The gags and blindfolds had been removed from Juanita and Estela moments before they were pushed from the car on a lonely suburban road. By contrived clumsiness and luck, Juanita had managed to catch a second glimpse of the odometer. 25738.5. They had traveled 23.7 miles. But was it a consistent direction, or had the car donbled back, making the journey seem longer than it was, merely to confuse? Even with Juanita's summary, it was impossible to be certain.
They did the best they could, working painstakingly backwards, estimating that the car might have come this way or that, turned here or there, traveled thus far on this road.
Everyone, though, knew how inexact it was since speeds could only be guessed at and Juanita's senses while she was blindfolded might have deceived her so that error could be piled on error, making their present exercise futile, a waste of time.
But there was a chance they could trace the route back to where she had been captive, or come close. And, significantly, a general consistency existed between the various possibilities worked out so far. It was Secret Service Agent Jordan who made an assessment for them all.
On an area map he drew a series of lines representing the most likely directions in which the car carrying Juanita and Estela would have traveled.
Then, around the origins of the lines, he drew a circle. 'In there.' He prodded with a finger. 'Somewhere in there.'
In the ensuing silence, Wainwright heard Jordan's stomach rumble, as on all the occasions they had met before.
Wainwright wondered how Jordan made out on assignments where he had to stay concealed and silent. Or did his noisy stomach preclude him from that kind of work?
'That area,' Dalrymple pointed out, 'is at least five square miles.' 'Then let's comb it,' Jordan answered. 'In teams, in cars.
Our shop and yours, and we'll ask help from the city police.' Lieutenant Pazackerly, who had joined them asked, '
And what will we all be looking for, gentlemen?' 'If you want the truth,' Jordan said, 'damned if I know.'
Juanita rode in an FBI car with Innes and Wainwright.
Wainwright drove, leaving Innes free to work two radios a portable unit, one of five supplied by the FBI, which could communicate directly with the other cars, and a regular transmitter-receiver linked directly to FBI Headquarters.
Beforehand, under the city police lieutenant's direction, they had sectored the area and five cars were now crisscrossing it. Two were FBI, one Secret Service, and two from the city.
The personnel had split up. Jordan and Dalrymple were each riding with a city detective, filling in details for the newcomers as they drove. If necessary, other patrols of the city force would be called for backup. One thing they were all sure of:
Where Juanita had been held was the counterfeit center. Her general description and some details she had noticed made it close to a certainty.
Therefore, instructions to all special units were the same: Look for, and report, any unusual activity which might relate to an organized crime center specializing in counterfeiting. All concerned conceded the instructions were vague, but no one had been able to come up with anything more specific. As Innes put it:
'What else have we got?' Juanita sat in the rear seat of the FBI car.
It was almost two hours since she and lasted had been set down abruptly, ordered to face away, and the dark green Ford had sped off with a screech of burned rubber.
Since then Juanita had refused treatment other than immediate first aid for her badly bruised and cut face, and the cuts and lacerations on her legs.
She was aware that she looked a mess, her clothing stained and torn, but knew too that if Miles was to be reached in time to save him, everything else must wait, even her own attention to Estela, who had been taken to a hospital for treatment of her burn and for observation.
While Juanita did what she had to, Margot Bracken who arrived at the precinct home shortly after Wainwright and the FBI was comforting Estela. It was now midafternoon. Earlier, getting the sequence of her journey down on paper, clearing her mind as if purging an overburdened message center, had exhausted Juanita.
Yet, afterward, she had responded to what seemed endless questioning by the FBI and Secret Service men who kept on probing for the smallest details of her experience in the hope that some unconsidered fragment might bring them closer to what they wanted most a specific locale.
So far nothing had. But it was not details Juanita thought about now, seated behind Wainwright and Innes, but Miles as she had last seen him.
The picture remained etched with guilt and anguish sharply on her mind. She doubted it would ever wholly disappear. The question haunted her: If the counterfeit center were discovered, would it be too late to save Miles?
Was it already too late? The area within the circle Agent Jordan had drawn located near the city's eastern edge was mixed in character. In part, it was commercial, with some factories, warehouses, and a large industrial tract devoted to light industry. This last, the most likely area, was the segment to which the patrolling forces were paying most attention.
There were several shopping areas. The rest was residential, running the gamut from regiments of box bungalows to a clutch of sizable mansion-type dwellings.
To the eyes of the dozen roving searchers, who cam, municated frequently through the portable radios, activity everywhere was average and routine. Even a few out-ofthe-ordinary happenings had commonplace overtones.
In one of the shopping districts a man buying a painter's safety harness had tripped over it and broken a leg. Not far away a car with a stuck accelerator had crashed into an empty theater lobby.
'Maybe someone thought it was a drive-in movie,' Innes said, but no one laughed. In the industrial tract the fire department responded to a small plant blaze and quickly put it out.
The plant was making waterbeds; one of the city detectives inspected it to be sure. At a residential mansion a charity tea was beginning.
At another, an Alliance Van Lines tractor-trailer was loading household furniture. Over amid the bungalows a repair crew was coping with a leaky water main.
Two neighbors had quarreled and were fistfighting on the sidewallc. Secret Service Agent Jordan got out and separated them. And so on.
For an hour. At the end of it, they were no further ahead than when they started. 'I've a funny feeling,' Wainwright said.
'A feeling I used to get in police work sometimes when I'd missed something.' Innes glanced sideways. 'I know what you mean.
You get to believe there's something right under your nose if you could only see it.' 'Juanita,' Wainwright said over his shoulder, 'is there anything, any little thing you haven't told usI' She said firmly, 'I told you everything.' 'Then let's go over it again.' After a while Wainwright said, 'Around the time Eastin stopped crying out, and while you were still bound, you told us something about there being a lot of noise.' She corrected him, 'No, una conmocion. Noise and acttivity. I could hear people moving, things being shifted, drawers opening and dosing, that sort of thing.'
'Maybe they were searching for something,' Innes suggested. 'But what?' 'When you were on the way out,' Wainwright asked, 'did you get any idea what the activity was about?' 'for ultima vez, yo no se.' Juanita shook her head.
'I told you I was too shocked at seeing Miles to see anything else.' She hesitated. 'Well, there were those men in the garage moving that funny furniture.'
'Yes,' Innes said. 'You told us about that. It's odd, all right, but we haven't thought of an explanation for it.' 'Wait a minutel Maybe there is one.'
Innes and Juanita looked at Wainwright. He was frowning. He appeared to be concentrating, working something out. 'That activity Juanita heard…
