LaMoia turned the wipers to high. Couldn’t see a damn thing.
CHAPTER
LaMoia and Hale followed the Taurus in tandem, Hale in the lead in a dark green Jeep Cherokee. The rainstorm remained so strong that LaMoia wouldn’t have recognized his own mother crossing the street, forcing bumper-to-bumper traffic. For LaMoia, the slower the better—both the Jeep and the Taurus stayed close.
Based on nothing concrete, he decided Hale had not noticed him, assuming he would be consumed with following the Taurus and paying little attention to other traffic.
He tried the cell phone again, its red NO SERVICE light pulsing in warning. His attention fixed on the Taurus through a series of turns and one red light he was forced to run, LaMoia tried to figure Hale.
There seemed to him at least two explanations for Hale’s behavior. Either Broole had alerted Hale to SPD’s presence, or Hale had made the same connection to Vincent Chevalier. Unaware of the Pied Piper’s identity, Hale had attached himself to Chevalier like a tic. In turn, he had stumbled onto Crowley.
LaMoia tried the cellular again. The network remained down.
The highway signs suggested Lisa Crowley’s destination was the airport. If Hale so much as attempted an arrest, he would blow Sarah’s chances.
He considered his options and made a difficult decision. Crowley would be alert for anyone entering the airport terminal behind her, but if he arrived ahead of her, he might stay with her.
He asked himself, When the hell have I ever been wrong? He pulled out of his lane and passed both Hale and Crowley. The international airport was the next exit.
CHAPTER
Boldt drove to the airport, wife and child in the car, exactly as the Brehmers had planned. His eyes remained divided between the rearview mirror and the traffic in front of them, believing it a good possibility they were being followed. They would make the flight to Houston together for the sake of appearance. From Houston, it was on to Seattle for Daphne and Trudy Kittridge. Boldt intended to return to New Orleans to assist LaMoia in the surveillance of Lisa Crowley, the only link to his daughter.
The recovery of Trudy Kittridge filled him with hope.
Daphne said from the backseat where she held a bottle of formula for the child, “Those injuries are severe, Lou.”
“I know.”
“You hear Chevalier trying to get her to see a doctor? He saw it too. That eye …”
“I know.”
“We need her healthy. If she’s going to lead you back to Sarah—”
“She’ll survive. It’s Hale I’m worried about. A couple phone calls from Hale and we’re either talking a federal invasion led by Flemming, or the Crowleys blowing to Singapore.”
Daphne considered this. “Are you saying Hale’s working for them?” she called out loudly from the backseat, sending the baby into a volley of cries. She settled her down.
“It would explain him playing this solo. It doesn’t fit with Bureau policy, Daffy. He has carried this too far. It has to be explained. If he’s not down here to investigate these people, he’s down here to protect them.”
“He came onto Flemming’s team late in the game.”
“The two have known each other for a long time, have worked together before. Hale could have easily monitored Flemming’s progress in each city and told the Crowleys when to bail out. It would explain their perfect timing.”
Daphne played along. “She gets involved in an injury car accident. That changes things. Flemming is warming to her. I see what you’re saying: At that point either the Crowleys or Chevalier could demand protection. Hale would respond.”
“Which explains his being down here alone. He tells Flemming he’s chasing leads. Flemming buys into it, it’s how he runs things. Flemming’s not sending in the troops before he’s absolutely sure they have the collar.”
“The tattoo shop?” she asked him.
“Hale removes that evidence ahead of us. They go ahead with the Kittridge adoption, thinking they’re okay. That’s the best sign of all as far as Sarah’s concerned: They haven’t pulled the plug.”
“But Hale?” She sounded incredulous.
“He knows better than anyone Flemming’s determination and his resources. He knows what’s coming. Lisa Crowley is injured. Their credit card identities have been made. For all they know, Spitting Image as well. It’s coming apart on them.”
“So they blow off Seattle.”
“So they blow,” Boldt agreed. “And poor Sarah is suddenly a liability.”
CHAPTER
LaMoia pulled into short-term parking and snagged an automated ticket.
He stowed the handgun and cuffs under the front seat but kept the stun stick wedged between his calf and his right boot. It would have to be removed before he passed through security, but the idea of going naked was beyond him—he’d spent fifteen years with some form of self-defense pressed against his skin. The loading areas outside the terminal were crowded with travelers avoiding the storm. LaMoia shoved his way through the crowd and rode an escalator to obtain a view of the entrance ramps, crowded with cabs, vehicles and buses. He could just make out the entrances to the short- and long-term parking lots.
The combination of rain and traffic limited his chance of identifying Crowley’s Taurus. He waited there for less than a minute, abandoned the effort and headed inside.
LaMoia snagged an abandoned USA Today—McPaper—and took a seat with a view of the ticket counters, a set of escalators and the terminal’s central security station. He expected Boldt and Daphne, who had left ahead of him, to be checking in for their flight to Houston, but he didn’t see them, which meant they were probably already at their gate.
According to the video monitors, the next flight to Houston didn’t leave for an hour and a half—gate 14. Flights to Dallas– Fort Worth, a hub for several major carriers, left regularly. He suspected Crowley would ticket one of those flights, knowing firsthand that American flew several nonstops between Dallas and Seattle.
Five minutes lapsed. LaMoia nervously checked his watch and then tried the cell phone. NO SERVICE. Hovering on the edge of panic, he took up position, the paper held as a prop as he scanned the terminal. Two bus groups crowded the Delta ticket line, filling the area with chatter and too much luggage.
A moment later, a woman arrived in the terminal via the baggage claim escalator. Outwardly, this was not the same woman he had watched climb into the Taurus, but he took a mental snapshot of her just the same. She wore a blue skirt, not khakis, as Crowley had; a white cotton T-shirt, small black boots that laced up over her ankles and a French beret pulled down on her head. She carried herself in a fluid feminine walk that shared nothing with the woman outside Chevalier’s office. But the dark wraparound sunglasses were the same, as was the general shape and size of the overnight bag slung from her shoulder. That bag caught LaMoia’s eye.
He lowered his head back into the sports pages, the presence of that bag suggesting she was there not to observe the Brehmers but, indeed, for a flight of her own. The change in disguise, accomplished in the rental’s front seat or in a baggage claim washroom, contributed to her confidence. She walked with her back straight, her chin held high, and yet she failed to disguise the pain that each step cost her. He could sense her measuring the remaining distance to the security check, like an exhausted boxer heading to his corner.
The sunglasses not only obscured her injuries but prevented others from knowing where she was looking. For this reason, LaMoia remained slouched in his seat, his long legs crossed straight in front of him, his casual attention alternately divided between the terminal and the newspaper. He sized up every skirt that passed by. In character, he told himself. Some things came easily.
Hale appeared in the center of the ticket terminal, wet and bedraggled. LaMoia, distracted by Crowley, had missed his entrance, though he had expected him. Looking like a businessman in a hurry, Hale checked the departure monitors, his wristwatch, and then the monitors a second time. L
aMoia looked left to Crowley, right to Hale, encouraging Crowley to get through the security check.
When Hale made for a bank of pay phones across the terminal, LaMoia knew instinctively the man had to be stopped, knew what had to be done.
Boldt, Daphne and Trudy Kittridge waited amid a clutter of people and carry-on luggage, their flight more than an hour away. The public address announced a white courtesy phone call for “Scott Hamilton.”
“That’s for me,” Boldt informed her.
“You know how many Scott Hamiltons there are?” she asked.
“The cell phones are out. How else is LaMoia going to reach me? He can’t page me by my name.”
“And what if it’s Hale?” she asked, stunning him. “What if Hale recognized us?”
“Not in that rain.”
“What if he did? He probably knows everything about you, including your love of jazz, even Scott Hamilton. What if all he wants is to flush us?”
Boldt stood, eyes searching for the nearest white phone. “Then I guess I let the caller speak first,” he said.
“Don’t do this. It’s what he wants. He’s a federal agent. He can arrest us for kidnapping, don’t forget—we haven’t reported this to anyone. If he’s part of this, if he’s trying to buy time, that’s exactly what he’ll do. Don’t play into that.” She added, “For Sarah’s sake, please don’t play into that.”
Boldt hesitated. Daphne was right more often than not. He met eyes with her—the public address repeated the page—and he hurried toward the white phone on the far wall.
LaMoia’s talk with Boldt lasted all of twenty seconds, at which time he hung up and hurried toward Hale, whose back was to him as he approached the pay phones.
Panic stole through him as he realized he had spent too much time trying to contact Boldt. Hale could not be allowed to reach Flemming! LaMoia, midstride, stopped abruptly, as if to adjust his pant leg, and slipped the stun stick out of his boot and up into his shirt sleeve.
One didn’t step lightly into assaulting an FBI agent. It wasn’t the best career move. LaMoia reached up his right sleeve and twisted the round cap on the butt end of the stun stick, two clicks to LO.
Hale reached the phones, picked up the receiver and dialed.
He might have been calling Roger Crowley, Chevalier, Judge Adams, Flemming or Kalidja—it didn’t matter; he had to be stopped.
LaMoia rarely submitted to panic; he had been given the gift of cool. As situations became more frantic, John LaMoia became more relaxed. There was no wasted effort, no wasted time in his movements. No regrets or indecision. Hale was talking into the phone—he could not turn back the clock, he could only take action.
Over a few beers, cops talked about time standing still, of an eerie slow motion that overcame their situation. LaMoia experienced no such distortions. Time neither slowed nor sped up as he crossed the terminal. He glanced back to see Boldt approaching at a jog.
Hale was apparently focused on his conversation, the receiver held to his ear.
LaMoia took in his surroundings, aware of two couples and a family walking through the terminal to his left; a teenager at the next kiosk of phones, with her back to him; a newsstand agent, a woman, twenty yards ahead, manning a cash register with a view of the pay phones. LaMoia slipped the stun stick from his sleeve and reversed it, aiming it at Hale’s spine. At that same moment, Hale sensed someone approaching and glanced back in time to identify LaMoia’s face. His startled eyes went white with surprise.
LaMoia needed a clean shot with the stun stick. He bought himself a diversion with a left-handed palm slap to the phone receiver, crushing the agent’s ear and focusing the man’s attention on that pain. With his right hand, he jabbed forward strongly to insure the stun stick’s probes made contact. It fired off its jolt of voltage, but Hale remained unfazed and standing—LaMoia had hit the leather strap of the man’s shoulder holster.
The stun stick required fifteen seconds to reset its charge. LaMoia thumped the outside of the man’s knee with his own, staggering him; rabbit-punched him low under the rib cage with his left, bending him; and threw his right elbow into the base of the agent’s skull, numbing him. LaMoia caught the man as he slumped, wrenched Hale’s arm behind his back as the phone’s receiver dangled and swung like the pendulum.
… twelve … thirteen … fourteen … he counted silently in his head.
He released the agent at the count of fifteen and Hale grabbed for support, latching onto the phone box. Without looking behind him, LaMoia warned Boldt, “Clear!” swinging his left arm out like a gate and stopping Boldt. He delivered the stun stick again, this time finding the man’s skin through his clothes. The pulse of high voltage caused the phone to ring despite the receiver being off-hook—one long peal of bells echoing into the terminal. Hale stiffened with the initial jolt, tight as steel. LaMoia pulled back the stick, and he and Boldt caught the man as he sagged.
“You certainly have a knack for timing,” LaMoia told Boldt, who, looking around, replied calmly, “His wallet.” LaMoia slipped the billfold out of Hale’s rear pocket and into his own.
Boldt found the man’s FBI ID wallet, opened it and then kept it in his left hand.
LaMoia asked, “What now?”
“Security,” Boldt said.
“You fucking nuts?”
“By now they’re already on their way,” Boldt advised him.
“Cameras,” LaMoia realized aloud.
“Exactly.”
“But—”
“For once, let me do the talking. And stay with the game, damn it all.”
“Me?”
“Here they come,” he said, indicating two men in gray pants and blue blazers.
Boldt held Hale’s ID wallet open from a distance, his thumb conveniently curled around the wallet and covering Hale’s photo. He knew the psychology of rent-a-cops: overly self-important but with an urge to play with the big boys. Daphne would have played to that urge, and so Boldt did. “FBI!” He snapped the wallet shut with a flip of his wrist and stuffed it into his inside breast pocket alongside his SPD ID. “This bozo’s involved in a kidnapping. Been posing as one of us,” he said in a low voice, because the sagging Hale was already drawing the attention of the curious like moths to a light. “No ID on him, but he’s carrying.” Boldt slipped the man’s sport coat open just enough to reveal the holstered semiautomatic. “Take that for me, would you?” Daphne would have fed their egos by giving them responsibility immediately, making certain they felt included.
“Son of a bitch,” the one who looked like a surfer gasped. He stepped forward and slipped the weapon out of the shoulder holster.
“You mind cuffing him and giving him a hand?” Boldt said. “We’re gonna need a little privacy here.”
LaMoia asked, “You got four walls and a door?”
The two glanced at each other. “Conference room?” Surfer asked. “It isn’t very big,” he apologized. “It’s upstairs.”
Boldt said, “Where this guy’s going, the rooms are a hell of a lot smaller, I guarantee you that.”
The two security guards cuffed Hale and took him under both arms. The man was not unconscious, but severely dazed and incapable of walking or speaking.
He tried to get words out, but gibberish and a trickle of drool took their place. His feet dragged heavily. Boldt and LaMoia followed the two security guards to an elevator and up one floor.
Hale was assisted down the long hallway to an unmarked door that Surfer’s assistant keyed open. “This okay, sir?” he asked Boldt.
“Do just fine.” Hale was deposited into a chair. Boldt eyed both men. “Now listen,” he said. “News like this travels fast, and that’s exactly what we don’t need. A little girl’s life is at stake here. You understand that? A human life,” he said, choking on the expression. “It’s imperative that we do this quick and dirty. After that, we turn him over to you. Your story is this: You saw the piece, you asked for ID, he didn’t have any. You took him in.”
>
LaMoia said, “He’ll blow smoke up your skirt about being a Fed. That’s his cover.”
Boldt added, “This girl has a chance if you lose him for a day or so until he gets his phone call. Someplace no one can find him, you know? That way, no news leaks, no inside information, and this little girl has a fighting chance. If this guy surfaces within the system—”
Surfer said, “We got a drunk and disorderly tank right here on airport. It’s run by NOPD, but we know all those boys.”
“Thanks,” LaMoia said.
The two men insisted on shaking hands all around, as if the four of them had just won a touch football game. They left the room and pulled the door shut securely. LaMoia locked it. Looking at Hale, Boldt said, “Time to have a little chat.”
CHAPTER
Hale’s level of awareness and responsiveness reminded Boldt of a man with a bad hangover. “Jesus!” the man choked out, coughing. His eyes floated in his head like an ice cube in a glass of milk. Discovering his hands cuffed, he struggled briefly to get free, then peered out like a man half blinded.
“It’s Boldt and LaMoia,” Boldt informed him.
“Shit.”
LaMoia patted him on the shoulder from behind, leaned in close to his ear and said, “Welcome to New Orleans.”
“What the hell?” He struggled again and protested, “Do you realize what you’re getting yourself into here? You want to think about this a minute?”
“We have thought about it,” Boldt said frankly. “We’ve wondered what a federal agent would be doing down here solo.”
“The field office doesn’t even know you’re here,” LaMoia said. “Are you aware of that? Is that standard operating procedure, Hale?”
“You’re outta your minds.”
LaMoia told him, “You’ve been watching Chevalier.”
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