Mortal Faults

by Michael Prescott

  These last words were aimed at Tess. She knew Michaelson meant it.

  The door opened and closed, and then she was alone with the assistant director. He settled down behind his desk again and steepled his hands. His ferret eyes and hawk nose loomed over his tented fingers.

  “Start talking,” he said.

  42

  Abby waited until she was on the outskirts of San Fernando, cruising down Foothill Boulevard, before calling Andrea again. This time Andrea answered on the first ring. The hissing noise in the background indicated that she was in the bathroom again.

  “It’s go time,” Abby said. “Get in your car and head southeast on Glenoaks Boulevard. You’re wearing the wig, right?”

  “Yes.” There was a tremor in Andrea’s voice.

  “Steady now. No need for any opening-night jitters. I’ve done this kind of thing before.”

  “You have?”

  “More times than I can count.” This would have been true only if she couldn’t count to zero. Normally she was the hunter, not the quarry. She’d never actually had to break free of surveillance. But how hard could it be?

  She supposed she was about to find out.

  “Keep the phone on,” she added. “Let me know once you’ve gotten onto Glenoaks. Oh, and remember rule number one of countersurveillance. No looking over your shoulder. That’s what the rearview mirror is for. If you start looking around in an obvious way, they’ll know you’re onto them.”

  “I wouldn’t even know what to look for.”

  “That’s fine. Just assume they’re tracking you. They may be behind or ahead or on parallel streets—probably all of the above.”

  “Behind and ahead?”

  “Most likely. They’ll be bookending you. Standard procedure, if they have enough vehicles.”

  “Then how can I possibly get away?”

  “Piece of cake. Just do as I say. I’ve got it all worked out.”

  A few minutes passed. Abby spent the time navigating to Glenoaks Boulevard, where she parked at the curb and watched the traffic stream by. Andrea’s voice came over the phone again.

  “Okay, I’m driving southeast on Glenoaks.”

  “Tell me the next cross street you pass.”

  “I’m coming up to it now. Corcoran Street.”

  That was approximately a half mile northwest of where Abby was parked. “Call out each cross street as you pass it. I’m going to pull in somewhere behind you as you pass Filmore Street. Remember, don’t look for me.”

  “God, I hope I don’t screw this up.”

  “You’re handling the assignment like a pro.” This was true. Andrea was doing better than Abby had expected.

  She waited as Andrea announced each new street in turn: Vaughn, Eustace, Paxton, Montford. As she said Filmore, the Chevy Malibu swept past Abby in the slow lane. She let a few more cars drive by before pulling away from the curb. Ahead, she could see the Chevy.

  “Got you in sight. Everything’s hunky-dory. Just keep going for a while.”

  “What do I do then?”

  “Don’t worry about the future. Be in the moment. Countersurveillance is a Zen thing.”

  The next few blocks went smoothly enough. Abby almost got caught at a stoplight at Van Nuys Boulevard but blew through it as the signal cycled from yellow to red. Last thing she needed was to be redboarded right now.

  She knew that the undercover Bureau cars must be all around her, keeping Andrea in a surveillance net. She made no effort to identify them. For undercover work the Bureau could use anything from an ambulance to a VW bug. The agents could be alone or in pairs, and could be of any description. She wouldn’t catch them talking into their radios, because the microphone would be hidden in the windshield visor or held below the dash.

  Though she liked to talk down the feebies, the truth was that they were good at shadowing a moving target. Even so, they didn’t scare her. Not much, anyhow. They might be good, but she was better. She was always better. Better than everybody. This was her philosophy, and it had kept her alive so far.

  Up ahead she saw the landmark she was looking for. “See that car wash? It’s one of those drive-through deals. Turn in there and get on line. I’ll be right behind you.”

  “We’re getting our cars washed?”

  “Yes, we are. I hope you brought some money. It costs seven ninety-five. And don’t get the hot wax, please.”

  “Why not?”

  “Trust me on this. You’ll thank me later.”

  “What are we doing, Abby? This doesn’t make sense.”

  “All will become clear, Grasshopper.”

  The Chevy turned obediently into the parking lot and joined a short line of drivers waiting to pay their money and take a ride through the car wash. Abby pulled in behind Andrea’s car. She checked her rearview.

  The only possible hitch in her otherwise flawless plan would be if one of the surveillance vehicles decided to join the line also. She was betting that none would; following Andrea into the car wash would be too conspicuous.

  Since no one pulled in behind Abby, it seemed her gamble had paid off. She inched forward as the line advanced. Ahead, she saw Andrea roll down her window and pay. Her car was guided forward onto the rails and towed into the tunnel, veiled by a mist of spray.

  Abby paid next, then put her car in neutral as the towline engaged. She eased along the rails, the Chevy a blurred white shape two yards ahead.

  She spoke into the cell phone again. “Okay, take off your wig and leave it on the seat. Get out and switch cars with me.”

  “Switch cars?”

  “That’s the plan. Ingenious in its simplicity, don’t you think?”

  “We’ll get soaked.”

  “Small price to pay for freedom. Let’s go. And hold on to your phone.”

  Abby didn’t wait for an answer. She threw open her car door and stepped out. The car continued to crawl forward through the artificial downpour.

  For a moment, in the windowless darkness, battered by rain, she flashed back to the Rain Man case—the storm drains under the city, where she and Tess had nearly drowned. But the memory was gone almost before it registered.

  She ran toward the Chevy and met Andrea halfway. “Aren’t you glad we didn’t get the hot wax?” Abby shouted over the roar. She hoped she saw Andrea smile, but in the gloom she couldn’t be sure.

  Ahead, large foaming brushes were descending to wipe the Chevy. Abby ducked into the driver’s seat and slammed the door before the nearest brush could swab her.

  In the few seconds she had spent in the spray, she’d been thoroughly drenched. She cranked up the Chevy’s heater to full blast.

  Looking back, she saw the dim outline of her Mazda. Movement in the front seat. Andrea was behind the wheel.

  “When you leave the car wash, Abby said into her phone, “head east on the surface streets. I’ll tell you where to meet me once I shake off my pursuit.”

  “You sure this’ll work?” Andrea asked.

  “Abso-tively. These FBI people aren’t as smart as they like to pretend.”

  She hoped this was true.

  As the Chevy advanced into the hot air blowers, Abby stuck the blond wig on her head and patted it down. Water from her sopping hair dribbled out from under the wig and tickled her neck.

  There was really no reason why the plan should fail. The interior of the car wash was dark and misty and obscured by moving equipment. No one would have a clear view of the inside from any likely vantage point, nor would the feds be looking inside anyway. They would be waiting until the Chevy emerged. When it did, driven by a woman in a blond wig, they would take up the chase again. They would never even notice the red Mazda.

  The blowers receded into the background, the towline uncoupled, and Abby shifted the Chevy into drive and started forward, not hurrying. She waited at the curb for a break in the traffic, then turned right and blended with the stream of vehicles on Glenoaks.

  By now the trigger—the surveillance operati
ve with the best view of the car wash—would have radioed the rest of his squad, who would be executing a follow. Standard procedure in FBI vehicular surveillance was a floating box formation, a constantly shifting arrangement of vehicles arrayed behind, in front of, and parallel to the target.

  Only one vehicle at a time, known as the command vehicle, would maintain direct visual contact. The others would assume command periodically as the target executed turns. If Abby made a left turn, an outrider vehicle somewhere on her left would follow and take point in the pursuit. If she turned right, a right-side outrider would do the same. Should she flip a U, one of the vehicles behind her would turn onto a side street, make a quick K-urn, and fall in behind her as she passed by. Take a side street, and her surveillance would pace her on parallel streets.

  The idea was for the feds to keep the target contained without giving themselves away. Five or six cars would be sufficient to pull it off, though there could be ten or more.

  It wasn’t easy to break containment, but it could be done. What was required was a series of maneuvers that would shake off her pursuers one or two at a time, carried out quickly enough that they had no time to regroup.

  The assignment would have been easier at night, with darkness as cover, but on these long summer days the sun didn’t sent before eight p.m.. She would have to make the best of it.

  She took a few moments to adjust to the Chevy’s handling. Every car had its own feel. This one rode pretty solid, with no rattles or squeaks. Tight suspension, decent traction, smooth steering.

  When she was comfortable behind the wheel, she decided to make her move.

  She cut right on Tuxford Street and took the on-ramp to the Golden State Freeway westbound, easing into the fast lane. The chase cars were behind her, she had no doubt. She sped west for two miles, gradually upping her speed, then abruptly cut across multiple lanes and shot down an off-ramp onto Osbourne Street. A slick maneuver, which might have lost the command vehicle, at least.

  But she had to assume that other surveillance cars had managed to follow her or had been paralleling the freeway on surface streets. She hooked southeast onto Laurel Canyon Boulevard, a major thoroughfare, and accelerated, weaving through traffic and running yellow lights. As she flashed through the intersection of Laurel Canyon and Saticoy, she spun the steering wheel and whirled around in a screaming skid, then slammed on the emergency brake and floored the gas. The car nearly flipped over from centrifugal force but somehow stayed upright, now facing north. She popped the emergency brake, and the Chevy tore forward, racing north while outraged drivers blasted their horns.

  She didn’t know what they were so upset about. It was a standard bootleg turn. Moonshiners did it all the time.

  The tactic must have shaken off a few more of the pursuit vehicles. Any cars ahead of her would never be able to turn around fast enough to catch up. Any cars following too closely behind her would have been all the way through the intersection before they could react. By the time they found a way to turn around, she would be far gone.

  The only danger was that one or two cars might have been farther behind her. If so, they could have been warned in time to stay on her tail. It was doubtful, but she was taking no chances.

  She sped north for a half mile, then cut onto a side street lined with bungalows and slammed the Chevy left at the first intersection, then right, right again, left, cutting down street after street in the gridwork of residential blocks, until even she didn’t know where she was.

  Finally she pulled into an alley walled in by a double row of houses and parked behind a Dumpster, where the car wouldn’t easily be seen from the street. She let her head fall back on the headrest.

  No way the feds could have followed her this far. Even if one of the chase cars had stayed with her after the bootleg turn, her subsequent maneuvers would have shaken it off.

  Though she was out of pocket for the moment, she wasn’t home free. Already the surveillance team would be initiating a lost command drill, retreating to the perimeter of the area where she was last seen in an effort to pick her up again when she started moving. But that was okay, because it was the Chevy Malibu they were looking for, and the Chevy wasn’t going anywhere.

  She took off the wig and left it on the seat. Carefully she wiped the steering wheel, dashboard controls, and door handle to remove any prints. Then she left the car and took her cell phone out of her purse. She had never ended her call to Andrea.

  “Still there?” she asked.

  “I’m here.”

  “I lost our friends and ditched the car.”

  “Ditched the—”

  “Not to worry. You’ll pick it up later. Right now, though, I need you to pick me up.”

  “Where?”

  She glanced at the nearest street signs and told Andrea the intersection. “You know where that is?”

  “Not really.”

  “There’s a Thomas Brothers map book in the Mazda’s glove compartment. I’ll be loitering on the street corner like a hooker, only better dressed.”

  “What’s the plan, Abby? What are we doing?”

  “It’ll all be clear soon enough. You’ve trusted me this far. Okay?”

  There was a beat of hesitation. “Okay.”

  “Don’t sweat it. You’re in good hands. The hard part is over.” She ended the call and hoped Andrea believed her.

  There was no reason why she should. It was a lie, after all.

  The hard part hadn’t even begun.

  43

  Tess was finishing off the recitation of her misdeeds, and enjoying it considerably less than her last visit to confession, when Michaelson’s secretary interrupted to say that Hauser was on the line. Michaelson took the call on the speakerphone.

  “We’ve got a problem,” Hauser said. “One of my surveillance agents just called. Lowry has broken out of containment.” Michaelson uttered an expletive, which Hauser ignored. “She couldn’t have done it alone,” he went on. “She had to have help.”

  Michaelson shot Tess a cold glance. “Your friend again?”

  Tess frowned. “Stop calling her my friend.”

  Michaelson asked Hauser where he was now. “At Sinclair’s condo in Westwood. She’s not here. Her Mazda Miata’s not in its assigned space.”

  “She’s hooked up with Lowry,” Michaelson said. “For all we know, the two of them could be conspiring to kill Reynolds together. Or maybe Sinclair’s working with Reynolds to get Lowry.”

  “Abby wouldn’t do anything like that,” Tess protested.

  “How the hell do you know? She’s already killed Garrick. Now she’s pulled Lowry away from surveillance. The goddamned situation is out of control.”

  Hauser’s voice crackled over the speaker. “McCallum, you’ve been in contact with her. You know her cell phone number?”

  Tess recited it from memory.

  “We can track her by her cell,” Hauser said. “She doesn’t even need to be using it. As long as the phone is turned on, it’ll send out periodic transmissions to check for signal availability.”

  “We’ll need the cooperation of her cellular provider,” Michaelson said.

  “Those outfits usually offer assistance to law enforcement voluntarily. We can use her number to find out which provider she subscribes to. Hopefully we can obtain whatever real-time info they’re getting.”

  “How accurately can we track her?”

  “Depends on the phone and the carrier. Mainly the phone. Most cell phones have GPS chips built in. With GPS we can pinpoint her to within five feet.”

  “And if her phone doesn’t have a chip?”

  “Then its position can be triangulated from the signals received by the three nearest cell towers. It’s just as fast, but not as precise. We can narrow down her location to a city block, maybe.”

  Michaelson nodded at the speakerphone as if he were addressing Hauser face to face. “All right, get going on this.” The call ended, and Michaelson turned to Tess. “Looks like we’r
e done for now. You can go.”

  “I want to stay. I want to be part of the takedown.”

  “You have to be joking.”

  “I know Abby. I can be helpful.”

  “Yes, you’ve been nothing but helpful so far. Get lost, McCallum.”

  “Richard, you can have me shitcanned later. Right now the only priority is to get Abby in lockup.”

  “And how is keeping her best friend on the case going to facilitate that outcome?”

  Tess stood. “God damn it. I’m not her best friend. If I were, would I be here now? I’m trying to fix things.”

  “Too late.”

  “I’m the only one who has any experience in dealing with Abby. I’ve already supplied her cell phone number, which you can bet is unlisted. You may need my help again.”

  “The day I need your help, McCallum, is the day I give up my post. Now get out.”

  Tess bit back a reply. She was moving for the door when Michaelson got another call from Hauser, again on speakerphone.

  “We’ve ID’d her provider. They’re cooperating. Bad news is, her cell isn’t GPS-equipped. Good news is, they’ve got a signal, and they’re feeding us her location on a real-time basis.”

  “Where is she?” Michaelson snapped.

  “The 101 Freeway. Moving southeast out of the Valley into downtown L.A.”

  “And they can locate her to within a city block?”

  “One or two blocks, yes. Hold on. They say she’s off the freeway now, going southwest on a surface street. Could be on Flower or Grand.”

  “What the hell’s she doing downtown?”

  “No clue.”

  With extreme reluctance Michaelson looked at Tess. “Any idea why she’d be going there?”

  Tess wished she had something brilliant to contribute, but all she could say was “No.”

  “She have an office there, maybe?”

  “As far as I know, she works out of her home. She’s not exactly the nine-to-five type.”

  Michaelson asked Hauser if a search of the condo had turned up anything relating to a downtown address. Hauser said the search was ongoing. So far nothing of value had been found.