Three minutes later, he heard Dillon say, “Good morning, Joe. Where are you?”
“You know damn good and well where I am,” DeMarco said, “and in two minutes I’m gonna be gone.”
Dillon chuckled. “You’re right, of course. I do know where you are. But really, Joe, you’re safe from us. You are not safe from General Bradford’s people, however. Your life is in danger. So just stay there and someone will be by shortly to pick you up.”
“I don’t think so,” DeMarco said. “Last night you almost got me killed. Anyway, the reason I called is I borrowed a car from a guy I know because I figured you had tracking devices on my car.”
“Yes, we’re aware Mr. Wallace assisted you.”
“Well, that’s why I called. I wanted to tell you that I didn’t tell Wallace anything. He doesn’t know about Bradford or Breed or Hopper or anything else. I just told him I was in trouble and needed a car-and that’s all I told him. So if you guys are holding Wallace and interrogating him, you need to let him go.”
“Joe, who do you think we are, the Gestapo? We spoke to Mr. Wallace early this morning, very politely, and he told us he had loaned you a vehicle. We have no intention of troubling him any further. But you need to let us bring you in, Joe. I wasn’t being melodramatic when I said your life was in danger.”
“I don’t think so,” DeMarco said again. “But that’s the other reason I called. I want you to know I have no intention of talking to the press or anybody else about what happened last night. I did what you wanted by meeting with Hopper and now I’m just gonna lay low and wait for this thing between you and Bradford to blow over.”
Lying to Dillon didn’t bother him at all.
“Claire,” Dillon said into his phone, “DeMarco just called me.”
“Why’d he call?”
“He called to tell me that his friend Mr. Wallace has no idea where he is and to assure me he’s not planning to talk to the press. At any rate, he called from the Hyatt in Crystal City. Find him, Claire. Use a satellite, assuming we have one that’s functioning.”
Dillon let Claire absorb that little barb before he added, “Oh, and Claire, do one other thing. Check the phone he used at the Hyatt. See if he called anyone else.”
DeMarco needed to get to Rosslyn, which was about four miles from the Hyatt. Since Dillon knew he was driving Perry’s ancient pickup, he imagined a flock of NSA geeks were watching traffic cameras so he couldn’t drive to Rosslyn, and the nearest metro stop was at least a mile from where he was. He decided the easiest thing would be to take a cab.
There were four cabs waiting in front of the hotel, and he started to approach the first one in the taxi line-and then realized he didn’t have enough money to take a cab. He’d had about a hundred and twenty bucks when he’d checked into the Day’s Inn last night and now had four bucks left. And he was hungry. He needed money.
He ran back into the Hyatt and used the hotel’s ATM. He knew Dillon’s people would be able to see that he’d used the machine, but he figured that didn’t matter because they already knew where he was because of the phone call he’d made to Dillon. Once he had the money he’d split, and unless the NSA had somehow managed to stick a GPS device up his ass when he wasn’t looking, Dillon’s guys shouldn’t be able to track him.
Two minutes later, he was in a cab and on his way to Rosslyn.
Claire assigned Gilbert to see if DeMarco had called anyone other than Dillon from the phone booth at the Hyatt. She then dispatched Alice and three other agents toward Crystal City. She knew DeMarco wouldn’t still be at the Hyatt but she figured he’d be someplace close by and she wanted Alice headed in that direction so once they located him, Alice would be there to pick him up. And Claire knew she’d locate the bastard shortly-particularly with a satellite at her disposal.
Five minutes later she acquired the satellite she needed, and after that it was a thing of beauty, the way her technicians worked. They took a satellite image of the greater D.C. area at the exact time DeMarco had called Dillon and displayed the image on a screen in the operations room. They zoomed in until the image showed the Crystal City area. They zoomed in again until they were looking at the entrance to the Hyatt. Then they ran time forward and saw, looking down from the stratosphere, DeMarco walking out of the Hyatt and getting into a taxicab. They ran time forward again and watched DeMarco exit the cab in Rosslyn near the metro station and enter a McDonald’s. Two minutes later, Claire was watching DeMarco in real time, looking like a bum in his baggy gray sweat shirt, munching on a breakfast burrito, trudging up Nash Street toward Wilson Boulevard.
Claire sat back and smiled.
The smile lasted about three seconds,
“Claire,” Gilbert said, “right before DeMarco called Dillon a call was made from that same phone booth to an FBI agent named Diane Carlucci.”
“Aw, shit.”
Two seconds later, another technician turned away from his monitor and said, “Claire, DeMarco used an ATM at the Hyatt before he left there.”
“Oh, that idiot!”
“He used an ATM when he was at the Hyatt,” Claire said.
“That’s not good,” Dillon said.
“Yeah, but that’s not the worst news. Right before he called you, it looks like he called an FBI agent named Diane Carlucci.”
Dillon closed his eyes briefly, then opened them and said, “How long was he on the phone with her?”
“Thirty-eight seconds.”
“He couldn’t have told her the whole story in that amount of time. He probably set up a meeting with her. Carlucci must be someone he trusts at the Bureau, maybe someone he’s worked with before.”
“Do you want me to find out?”
“No, we don’t have time for that. Find out what Carlucci knows and stop her from meeting with DeMarco.”
“And how do you propose I do that?” Claire asked.
“Talk to the woman, Claire. Be convincing.”
Walking back into the operations room, Claire said, “Where’s DeMarco now?”
Using a laser pointer, Gilbert placed a red dot on the front entrance of a building that was visible on the wall-mounted screen. The image of the building was coming from the satellite they’d used to follow DeMarco.
“He’s right there,” the tech said, “in that coffee shop.”
“Good. Stay on the bastard,” she said.
Claire went into her office, shut the door, and dialed a phone number.
“This is Agent Carlucci.”
“Agent, my name is Claire Whiting. I work for the National Security Agency.”
“Five minutes ago DeMarco used his ATM card at the Hyatt Regency in Crystal City,” Perkins said.
“Good work, Perkins,” Levy said. He sat for a moment, thinking, and then said, “Fax a photograph of DeMarco to the front desk of the Hyatt. I’ll take it from there.”
Levy waited three minutes and called the Hyatt. “This is Agent Douglas Kirk, United States Secret Service.”
The person at the Hyatt who’d answered the phone inhaled sharply and said, “What?”-the reaction you’d expect from a person who’s just been told he’s talking to the Secret Service.
“This is urgent,” Levy said, “and involves the protection of the president of the United States. You’ve just been faxed a photograph of a man. Do you have the fax?”
“Lemme see,” the man said. Two minutes later he was back on the line, sounding breathless. “Yeah, I’ve got it. What’s this about?”
“Do you recognize the man in the photo?”
“Oh, my God! He was here just a few minutes ago. He used a pay phone.”
“Did he use the ATM?”
“Yeah. How did you know that?”
“Did you see where he went after he used the ATM?”
“He left the hotel.”
“In which direction was he headed?”
“I don’t know. I can’t see outside the hotel from the front desk. But wait a minute. I’ll go ask the parking valet.” A moment later the clerk was back on the phone. “The valet said he caught a cab.”
