by Thomas Perry
Barraclough judged that his silence had served its purpose. “Mr. Farrell has probably told you a little about me, but we should know each other better. Let me begin by telling you what I’m not. I’m not your friend.”
A few eyes that had been hovering in his general direction shot to his face but found no comfort or reassurance there. “If you bring me what I want, I will give you what you want. Simple as that. Mr. Farrell is not your Boy Scout leader. I haven’t been spending money on training to make men out of you, as though I gave a shit if you lived or died. I don’t. I’m giving you the knowledge and experience to be useful to me. If you want to make something out of yourself, keep your eyes and ears open and you probably can.”
A few of the young men seemed to mine some hint of hope from the notion that they could make something of themselves. He appeared to want to oblige them. “I’ll even tell you how the business works. If you win, you get to have the prizes—the girls, the big house, the cars, people calling you ‘sir’ for the rest of your life. If you lose, you’re dead. You may still walk around for a while before one of the winners happens to notice you, but that’s just a technicality. Whatever you have is his. You’re a failure, a victim, a corpse.”
Barraclough looked at them with his empty, unreadable eyes for a moment, then spoke again. “I know at least some of you must have noticed that a couple of guys didn’t come back after this last trip. I’m here to tell you what happened to them. They’re dead. Mr. Farrell and I left them to guard an unarmed, incapacitated prisoner, and they let the woman you saw on the tape sneak in and poison their breakfast.” He shook his head in amazement and chuckled. “If she hadn’t used enough poison, I would have had to kill them myself.”
A few of the trainees exchanged nervous grins, but Barraclough’s smile dissolved. “That’s the other part of our deal: I will always tell you the truth. If you’re stupid, you’re a liability. You won’t just hurt yourself, you’ll hurt me. I am not going to let that happen. Not for them, not for you.”
He glanced at Farrell, who was standing near the door. “Mr. Farrell is going to give you specific assignments over the next day or two. But here’s the short version. That woman is all I want right now. When I get her, I want her breathing.” He nodded to Farrell, picked up his coat, and slipped it on as he walked out the door.
Barraclough went down the back stairs and across the parking lot to the next street, where he had left his car, and began the long drive to the Intercontinental Security building in Irvine. He could not keep his mind off that Jane woman. He wanted to tear her head off with his hands. She had blundered into his way when he was at the edge of a triumph, and the collision had obliterated years of small, painfully won successes: years on the police force, always working harder than the others, taking more risks, gradually building a reputation; more years at Intercontinental Security, always working tirelessly, always looking for a way up.
After he had come to Intercontinental, Barraclough had focused his attention on each of the divisions in turn: Home Security, Retail Security, Detectives. Slowly he had brought each of them up to modern standards, and the management team in Chicago had responded by making him Director of Western Regional Operations. But Barraclough had not been working for a promotion. He had always lived by his ability to see farther down the path than anyone else, and he had already moved ahead of Intercontinental’s management. All of his efforts to revitalize the old security company were mere sideshows—preparations for what was to happen in the little Van Nuys office of the separate corporation he had formed called Enterprise Development.
Barraclough had designed Enterprise Development to fit inside the skin of Intercontinental Security. Its costs were hidden within the giant company’s overhead, its personnel culled from Intercontinental’s applicant pool. When Enterprise Development conducted its business, a pretext was constructed so that the employees and equipment of Intercontinental’s offices in twenty-six cities could be set to work identifying fingerprints, searching for cars, analyzing traces, performing surveillance.
Enterprise Development had been invented to specialize in exploiting a small and neglected group of criminals: the successful ones who had gotten away with large amounts of money. Some were already wanted by the authorities in the United States or elsewhere but were not actively hunted; others had not yet been discovered or were merely suspected. Some had been convicted and served sentences but had not made restitution. Barraclough used Enterprise Development to identify them, hunt them down, and turn them into cash.
In his first seven years of hunting, Barraclough had recovered over seventy-five million dollars. This had not been nearly enough, because the purpose of Enterprise Development was not merely to make its owner rich; it was a device for accumulating enough capital to buy control of Intercontinental Security.
Barraclough had made the next eighty million on only one find, the Timothy Phillips trust fund. Seven years ago he had decided that Intercontinental Security should obtain the Hoffen-Bayne account so that Enterprise Development could have a look at what was going on inside. He had not known about Timothy Phillips; he had simply realized that a company handling the personal fortunes of so many people was a good place to hunt. He had offered Intercontinental’s services for a price that competitors could never match because the bid left no margin for a profit.
When he had placed security devices in the Hoffen-Bayne offices and the partners’ homes, the customers had been interested in color and design, but circuitry had been beneath their notice. It had never occurred to people like Alan Turner that a little electronic box with glowing lights might be just about anything. It had never even crossed Turner’s mind that if his security system had a little microphone he could talk into during an emergency, the microphone could also pick up what he said when there was no emergency. He had sat all day under security cameras and thought he was alone.
Once Barraclough had discovered the account Turner was stealing from, the money belonged to Barraclough. The man had been robbing clients for years, and all of the people who took salaries for catching thieves had missed him. Turner had been there for anyone to take, but only Barraclough had found him.
Barraclough had worked Mary Perkins with the same patience. Anybody could have read about her trial in the newspapers, as he had, but he had waited until the feds had taken their crack at her, and then he had taken his. The feds had come up empty, and Barraclough had walked away with fifty-two million.
His rage deepened. To have a woman like this Jane take it all away from him was more than an insult; it was a violation of the laws of the universe.
At ten o’clock in the evening, Farrell made his way across the polished marble lobby of the Intercontinental Security Services building, thinking about fate. Ten years ago, when he had been a cop for almost ten years and a detective for two, the captain had suddenly assigned him a new partner, a kid named Barraclough. After Farrell had watched him work for a few days, he had seen the future.
If Farrell kept on the way he was going, the best he could hope for was twenty years with the police department and a pension that wouldn’t be enough to convince him that his life had been worth the effort. But ten years ago it was already apparent that Barraclough wasn’t going to end up like that, and if Farrell stuck with him, he wasn’t either. At thirty, Barraclough was entering his prime, and what he represented was a world that had no limits.
But tonight, as Farrell walked toward the elevator that would take him up to Barraclough’s office, he was a little nervous. He had not been able to think of a way that this Jane woman could have found Mary Perkins except by following him to the farm. If he had figured this out, then Barraclough had too. No, he thought. He was not a little nervous. He knew Barraclough better than anyone alive, and he was deeply, agonizingly afraid. When he raised his hand to the elevator button, he saw it start to shake.
Farrell wasn’t even sure what made him most afraid. A bullet in the back of the head had its attractions. It
was quicker and kinder than most of the ways that lives ended. Slowly he identified what he feared most. He feared Barraclough’s displeasure: not the bullet, but Barraclough’s impulse to fire it, whether or not the trigger got pulled. This one lapse might have convinced Barraclough that Farrell wasn’t like Barraclough—that he was just one of the others, a loser. After all these years, first teaching Barraclough and then following him, Farrell would be lost, abandoned and exiled from the light. He would be denied a share in Barraclough’s future.
He stepped out of the elevator, walked to the big wooden door of Barraclough’s office, and knocked quietly. No, that had been too quiet. Barraclough might think he was weak and used up, maybe even afraid. Fear disgusted Barraclough. Farrell gave a hard rap with his knuckles, then heard Barraclough call “Come in.”
Farrell found him sitting behind the big desk. He only looked up long enough to verify who had come in the door, then went back to signing papers. He muttered, “The fucking home office is waiting on these reports. That’s what they do. They sit in that building in Chicago and read quarterly reports. Talk to me.”
“The lines are all in the water,” said Farrell. “I finally got the last of the boys on their planes. With the ones we had out already, we should have two-man teams in fifty-six airports by morning.”
“Are you sure they’ll recognize her if they see her?”
“The ones who have seen her in person will. The tape from the freeway should help the others, but it’s mostly on you.” Farrell felt a chill. He had given in to some subconscious need to remind Barraclough that Farrell was not the only one who made mistakes. He tried to talk quickly, to get past it before the sour taste of it turned Barraclough against him. “But I’ve got people working on finding a decent picture of her from surveillance footage in the places we know she’s been—stores, hotels, and so on.”
Barraclough kept signing papers, then moving each one to a pile at the corner of his desk. He seemed to be listening, so Farrell went on. “I’ve got a couple of technicians traveling around with the teams trying to find her fingerprints where she touched something that might not have gotten wiped off: hotel bathrooms get scoured with cleanser, but prints might survive on a telephone receiver or on anything that was inside a drawer. Rental cars sometimes sit on the lot for a few days before they go out again. Fingerprints are still the best way to find out who you’re really dealing with.”
Barraclough frowned as he scrutinized a sheet that appeared to be covered with numbers, then wrote something on it and set it beside the pile of papers. He looked up, so Farrell said, “The credit checks on her fake credit cards come in once a day. So far she hasn’t used any of them. I figure she’s gone under somewhere to wait until Mary Perkins is healthy enough to travel again.”
Barraclough looked down at his papers again. Something he was reading caused a look of weariness and impatience. “Is that it?”
Farrell said, “Just about. Of course I’m trying a couple of long shots. We know she met Mary Perkins in the L. A. County Jail. I hired a hooker to get herself inside and ask questions of the other prisoners, to get us a lead on where she lives.”
“You said a couple. What else?”
Farrell gave an apologetic shrug. “Do you remember that guy who kept calling up bank tellers and saying he had their kid, so they’d leave money in a bag somewhere?”
“Sure,” said Barraclough. “Ronny Prindle. That must be nine or ten years ago. What about him?”
“Well, there was something I tried that time that didn’t pan out. I took one of the telephone tapes to a linguistics professor and asked him for an opinion of the accent. We caught Ronny Prindle before the report came back, but I remembered being surprised when I read it because the professor got it right. Prindle was from the east coast of Maryland. So I cleaned up the tape we had from Jane and sent it to the same guy. He thinks I’m still a cop.”
Barraclough smiled at the paper he was signing, and Farrell thought he heard a chuckle. “Every time I can’t imagine why I’m dragging your dead ass around with me, you surprise me, and I remember. Let me know as soon as you hear from him.”
Farrell’s hands stopped shaking. He had bought himself more time.
Two days later Farrell hurried across the same lobby, pushed the elevator button, and walked into the same office. Barraclough looked up at him expectantly.
“She’s started using the credit cards,” Farrell said. “We got a Katherine Webster at a hotel in Saint Louis, a Denise Hollinger renting a car in Cleveland, a Catherine Snowdon in Erie, Pennsylvania—”
“She’s heading northeast,” said Barraclough. “Start moving people into her path.”
Farrell’s eyes twinkled. “It’s done. Everybody we’ve got is either up there already or on a plane to northern Pennsylvania or upstate New York. I’ve got some strung out in rest stops along the big highways, some checking the parking lots of hotels, restaurants, and malls for the car she rented, others waiting at rental offices for her to turn it in. I’ve got some more—”
Barraclough interrupted. “Can you tell from the reports what she’s doing?”
Farrell scanned the credit reports in his hands. “Pretty much what Mary Perkins told us she does. She alternates identities, so the same person never turns up two places in a row. She’s paying the single-room rate, and the meal charges don’t seem to be enough for two, so she’s probably traveling alone.”
“But what’s she trying to accomplish?” Barraclough snapped. “Where’s she going?”
Farrell smiled. “Well, let me tell you what the professor says.” He moved another sheet of paper to the top and stared at it. “She’s got a little peculiarity. Her lips don’t quite touch when she says m, b, or p. He thinks that means she grew up speaking two languages, but it’s not enough to tell him what the other one is.” He moved his finger down the paper. “Oh, here’s the part I was looking for. Her accent has what he calls an ‘intrusive schwa.’ It’s a marker that places her in a narrow linguistic belt that stretches from Chicago east as far as Syracuse, New York.” He shrugged. “If I had to make a bet, I’d say she’s had enough and is going home.”
It was only twenty hours later that Farrell returned to Barraclough’s office, looking exuberant. “She’s been spotted.”
“Where?”
“She turned in the rented car at the Buffalo airport, went to the long-term lot, got into a parked car, and drove off. We had two guys there.”
Barraclough glowered, his eyes narrowing. “They let her get away?”
“No,” Farrell answered quickly. “They followed her to a house in a little town on the Niagara River between Buffalo and Niagara Falls.”
“And?” Barraclough asked impatiently.
“She put the car in the garage and opened the door with a key,” said Farrell. “It must be her house.”
Barraclough and Farrell arrived in the Buffalo airport after midnight in the beginning of a snowstorm. The Nissan Pathfinder four-wheel-drive vehicle with tinted windows that Barraclough had specified was waiting at the curb with one of Farrell’s trainees behind the wheel, but Barraclough stepped into the street to the driver’s side and said, “Get in the back.”
Barraclough drove the Pathfinder out to the slush-covered gray street and watched the wiper sweep across the windshield to compress the snowflakes into a thin, ruler-straight bar, then slide back for more while the defroster melted the bar away.
Farrell inspected and loaded the two pistols his trainee had brought for them, attached the laser sights, and tested the night-vision spotter scope he had brought with him from California. “Where is she?”
“You get on the Thruway up here and take it west. Get off at the Delaware exit and head north.”
Farrell glanced at Barraclough to be sure he had heard, then back at his trainee. “What’s the place like?”
“It’s a two-story house. We didn’t see any sign of anybody else. She went to bed just before I left for the airport.”
“You mean her lights went out,” Farrell corrected. “Who’s watching the house?”
“Mike. Mike Harris.”
“From where?”
“He’s in a black Dodge. He’s parked down the street, facing away, where he can see in the mirror the front door and the door that goes to the driveway.”
Farrell felt a slight, pleasurable warmth in his chest. The boys weren’t much to begin with—just oversized balls and a mean streak—but by the time he was through with them they knew how the game was played.
When they arrived at the street, Barraclough stopped the Pathfinder a distance from the Dodge. Farrell took out the radios and handed one to the trainee. “You remember how to use one of these, right?”
“Press the button to talk, keep the volume low when anybody might hear it.”
“Good,” said Farrell. “We’re Unit One, you’re Unit Two. Anybody picks up the signal, he thinks we’re cops. No chitchat over the air.”
Barraclough picked up the night scope and turned it on, then swept it slowly up and down the street. Houses, trees, shrubs seemed to burn with a bright green phosphorescence, but there were no signs of movement. He aimed it through the rear window of the Pathfinder. “Is that the house back there on the left?”
“Yeah.”
“You been around the other side to check for other exits?”
“Sure.”
“Did you check the houses around it?”
“Yeah. Couples with kids on one side and the back, an old guy on the other. Curtains were open long enough so we saw people watching TV.”
“Okay. Here’s how it’s going to be,” said Barraclough. “Give Mike one of the radios and tell him to sit tight and watch. Then come back here and get ready to drive this vehicle. Farrell and I are going in. When we come out with her, pull up to the curb quick and pick us up. I want the burlap sack lying where I can reach it so we can get it over her head as soon as she’s in the back.”