“No, the driver hasn’t reported in, and they can’t raise him on the radio.”
“Then you don’t know she came here.”
“No, I don’t, but I suspect she may have been intending to meet someone here. If so, she’ll have to show up or call off the meeting. Either way, we’ve prevented her from handing over the material.”
He tossed the locator to Romax. “Is she in there or not?”
Romax flicked the tracker on and watched the display. A few seconds later, he pointed it toward the front door. “That way.”
“All right, she must be in there. Get a couple more units down here. I want to make sure she doesn’t get away. As soon as they’re here, we’ll take her.”
“How about her contact?” Wesson asked.
“If there’s anyone with her we’ll take them too. Otherwise, I’ll settle for getting her before she can pass anything on.”
***
Caitlin saw Romax raise his hand. He held something. Her stomach spasmed as he pointed it directly at her. She couldn’t take anymore. Ducking behind the side of the building, she ran.
A block later, Caitlin stared back over her shoulder as she crossed the street. She expected Holdren and his people to come around the side of Alliotto’s at any second. She made it to the next corner without any sign of them and headed west toward Victorian Park. The Powell-Hyde trolley turned around there. She didn’t know if they ran this late, but it was the quickest path away from Fisherman’s Wharf without calling a taxi. They would be watching for her to summon a taxi.
For the first time tonight, she was in luck. A trolley was turning around as she reached it. Caitlin climbed on with three couples, and the trolley began to move almost immediately. Caitlin held onto the brass rail by her seat and stared back down the hill. No one ran after her and gradually, her pulse subsided to near normal levels.
Were the government women working with Romax and Holdren or were they looking for her for some other reason? But what? What had she done that would have government agents and killers after her? She thought back over all the projects she’d worked on in the last year but could think of nothing with a connection to the government.
How had they tracked her to the restaurant? When she’d flagged down Lucas Griffin’s taxi, did she mention Alliotto’s? She couldn’t recall for sure. But from the argument they’d had, the government women hadn’t been with Holdren. Then what had brought them? She knew the technology existed to track her on the Web, but she had scrupulously avoided using her normal log-on and had called up an incognito window in the search engine. Even if they had found her on the Web, they couldn’t have located her IP-address that quickly. Cell phones could be traced. That implied not only scanning towers but also knowing the code for her personal telephone. If that was how they found her, then they were certainly going to a lot of effort.
She needed to access John’s file and see where he wanted to meet.
The trolley ride would take a little time, but she wanted to be ready to run if Holdren or his people spotted her. Caitlin leaned back against the seat and watched the streets. In five or six minutes, they reached Powell Avenue, and she signaled the driver that she wanted to get off.
When the trolley stopped, Caitlin climbed off and walked up Powell until she reached a set of steps up to an old building. She went up into the portico. It smelled of stale urine. Opening her purse, Caitlin set her computer on the top step and opened it.
She called up John’s file and activated the decryption program. “All right, John, how tricky were you? Let’s try Grand Canyon.”
The screen displayed “password accepted” and a few seconds later a single line of text appeared. “The Gleaning Cube, 1242 Battery Street.”
“Well, that was easy enough. Now where’s Battery Street?”
Caitlin switched over to the main menu and called up a street map of San Francisco. She entered the address, and a moment later, a small red dot glowed on the southeast side of town, near the waterfront. After reading the address on a building across the street, Caitlin typed it in and clicked on directions.
A faint green line stretched east on Powell, cut over a few blocks, east again, then ran south to stop at the blue dot.
The readout said 2.3 miles.
“Hell.”
Her watch indicated she had fifteen minutes before their appointment. She couldn’t walk it in time. Three blocks farther down Powell, she could see the marquee for a hotel. She closed the computer, put it in her purse, and left the portico.
Paranoia took over as she neared the hotel. She stepped into the shadows of another doorway and spent a couple of minutes watching the hotel’s entrance. A few people came and went. One couple looked like they had just returned from the opera. When the man helped his date from the taxi, he swept her into his arms and kissed her passionately. Caitlin felt a twinge of envy at the sight of their happiness.
No one sat in a parked car like in the movies when the police staked out a scene. In fact, everything appeared normal.
She slipped her hand into her purse and closed her fingers around the small gun she’d taken from the cab. She took one deep breath and then walked the rest of the way. The doorman watched her approach, and when she motioned to him, he raised a white-gloved hand and summoned a waiting cab. It pulled forward and stopped at the curb. The doorman held the door for her, and Caitlin slipped a bill into his hand as she carefully studied the cab. The back seat was empty.
She slipped quickly in and waited until the door shut.
“Where to?”
“Nowhere in particular. How about just letting me look around?”
“It’s your money.” The cabby flicked the meter down and pulled out into the street.
Caitlin turned to look out the rear window. No other cars pulled out to follow them, and the doorman had forgotten her as soon as he’d shut the door.
“Any particular area you want to see?”
Caitlin hesitated, she didn’t want to come right out and give the address on the chance that somehow those after her could hear. She realized she was a little too paranoid, but being shot at did that to her. “Take me through downtown and then maybe we’ll turn south and drive along the waterfront.”
“Sure thing.”
“I guess I sound a little oddball,” Caitlin said as she leaned forward to examine the cabby’s ID. It appeared genuine, and the photo seemed to match what she could see of him.
“Nah, not oddball. I’ve seen them all. Wackos, dope heads, homicidal maniacs, you name it. You seem pretty normal compared to them guys.”
She relaxed a little and released her grip on the gun. “Really? How could you tell?”
Her gaze met his in the rearview mirror. He raised a finger and touched his eyes.
“Are you kidding? It’s in the eyes.” He pointed to the mirror.
“Lady, I’ve seen them looking at me right there. I tell ya, some of the things I’ve seen would make your blood go cold.”
They stopped at a traffic light on Market Street and two young couples sporting facial tattoos and various body piercings crossed in front of them.
“Case in point.” He motioned toward them.
“And yet you continue to drive a cab.”
“I’m one of them people watchers. I like watching people and listening to them. You know people will talk about stuff in a cab that they wouldn’t tell a priest.”
The light changed. Caitlin’s thoughts wandered as they crossed Market and went a couple of blocks before turning east again. “You can tell a lot by watching people, take you for instance.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. You’ve got that dark, mysterious look that’s big in the movies these days, but I can tell right off that you’re not in that line of work.”
“Oh? What gives it away?”
“Your clothes. Movie people dress one of two ways. They’re either dolled up, which usually implies they’re going somewhere they want to be recognized, or else they
dress down in a kind of nouveau trash. You’ve seen the type. They’ll wear old sneakers that they paid two hundred dollars for and maybe some faded jeans that they bought that way. They won’t do anything with their face and hair, like brushing their hair or shaving is beneath them unless they’re doing a part.”
“And you can tell they’re not just someone with Salvation Army clothes who can’t afford to look any better?”
“Damn straight. You see, no matter how down they dress, they still have a couple of things that sets them apart.”
“And that is?” Caitlin asked. She found herself smiling, enjoying their conversation.
“Expensive jewelry, like a necklace or perhaps a twenty thousand dollar Rolex.”
“Yes, I imagine that would be a dead giveaway, but you said two things.”
He grinned. “You’re sharp. I like that. The other thing is health, like clear skin and perfect teeth. You see someone who’s down on their luck, and their skin shows it. If they’ve been down long enough you can see it in their teeth and gums, but the movie people, well, they have all their teeth straightened or capped, whitened to the point of glowing in the dark, and their skin is perfect.”
Caitlin nodded. His theory was logical enough.
The cab turned right along the waterfront. “Now take you.”
“Uh huh?”
“Yeah, like I said, you’ve got that dark, mysterious look, although since you’ve smiled some of it is gone. Something’s bothering you tonight, can’t say what it might be, but it’s serious.”
“How perceptive. What else can you tell me about myself?” Their conversation had become a game.
“My first impression is that you’re in town on business.”
“That’s good. What gave me away?” Caitlin asked. She looked out the left window as the bay appeared between rows of dockside warehouses.
“You don’t have the local accent, and you aren’t too familiar with the city, so you’re from out of town. You’re dressed more formally than most tourists, but not like you were out on the town if you know what I mean?”
Caitlin caught his gaze in the mirror and nodded.
“You also have a notebook computer in that purse.”
Surprised, Caitlin checked to see if her purse was open. It wasn’t. “Okay, that’s good, but how did you know?”
“Lady, I get five or six women a day who have a purse just like that one. Occasionally they take out their computers to do work while I’m taking them to the airport or wherever. It’s almost become a uniform for business women.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“Now then, second impressions, you’re from the southwest or maybe Colorado originally. You’ve got a parent or grandparent who’s a native, Cherokee perhaps. I thought Navajo at first, but that was because your accent threw me off. You don’t have the rounded facial features of a Navajo.”
Caitlin had to sit back in her seat and stare at his reflected eyes. “I don’t get it. How could you possibly know I had Cherokee blood?”
“A combination of things. The straight black hair, the eyes, and the tan.”
“Tan? I don’t have a tan and my eyes are blue.”
“The blue wasn’t what I was talking about. It’s the way they’re set in your face, and the tan, it’s not from the sun, I knew that right away. None of your computer carrying businesswomen go in for tanning salons or even lying out on the beach. That would be as bad as smoking.”
“Really?”
“Sure thing, so the tan is hereditary. That puts you either in the Native American group or perhaps the Indian subcontinent, but I ruled them out. Their tan is a more subdued brown.”
A sign caught Caitlin’s attention. It was a cube outlined in neon with the words, The Gleaning Cube.
“I hate to break off this fascinating conversation, but I need to get out.”
Silently for once, the cabby pulled to the curb, just past and across the street from the Cube.
Caitlin looked at the meter and then pulled a bill from her purse. She held it out. The driver turned in his seat and took it.
“Thanks for an interesting ride. Tell me, what did you do before you became a cabby?”
“Me? I’ve always been a cabby. It gives me a chance to study.”
“What are you studying?”
He smiled warmly. “People.”
Caitlin got out and then waited in the cold fog until the taxi had turned the corner and disappeared from view. The night air smelled of brine and diesel fuel. She walked north along the street until she faced the bar from the opposite side of the street. It appeared to be a wharfside bar. Faded gray paint over cement block made up the facade. Large windows set to either side of the door. In one window, she could see an illuminated Heineken sign. The few cars parked in front varied from a late model Lexus to a ratty old Ford F150 pickup that would have been more at home in her native Colorado than on the San Francisco waterfront.
Caitlin checked her watch. Thirty-two minutes had passed since John’s message to meet him here. She took a deep breath and let it out. The taxi ride and the conversation with the cabby had relaxed her, but not to the point of making her feel safe.
She stepped off the curb and walked across the wide street. When she reached the front door, Caitlin stopped and turned her head quickly to each side hoping to catch anyone watching her. She saw nothing unusual. Opening the door, she went inside.
***
Holdren and Romax stood outside Alliotto’s as the two NCIX agents drove away.
“I don’t understand how it could have happened. The locator placed her in the restaurant.” Romax tugged on his earlobe.
Holdren stared at him and then shook his head. Why did he always have to explain the basics to Romax? “Think about it. The readout tells you what?”
Romax stared at the instrument’s display. “Distance and bearing.”
“And how accurate is it?”
“I’m not positive. Range, maybe fifty feet, bearing, maybe a couple of degrees.”
“That is a model 4D12.”
“Yes.”
“The 4D12 is accurate to within fifty feet in distance, but for bearing it’s only within five degrees. How far from the restaurant were we when you took the reading?” Holdren asked.
“About where we are now, maybe thirty feet from the door.”
“And the reading was?”
“Directly toward the restaurant, at a range of eighty feet.”
“So, she could have been as much as 130 feet away at up to 5 degrees to either side. That means she could have been behind the restaurant or on either side of it when you checked. By the time we discovered she wasn’t in the restaurant she was out of range.”
“Yeah, I guess it could have happened that way.”
“You guess? Damn you Romax–” The buzz of Holdren’s cell phone interrupted what he wanted to say about Romax’s competence. He took it out and noticed the scrambled signal indicator. The phone automatically went secure when queried by a similar device. He raised it to his ear. “Holdren.”
“This is Kirby; we have a blip on the frequency of your locator.”
“What’s your location?”
“Embarcadero, near the Bay Bridge.”
“What direction is the signal coming from?”
“It’s hard to tell, but it’s somewhere south of here. It appears to be moving, but in the downtown area, it’s almost impossible to get a direct feed. There are just too many reflections.”
“That’s all right, I understand. Contact the other units and sweep the area, sooner or later you’ll have to get a straight shot at it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Holdren closed his cell phone and glowered at Romax. “You heard?”
“Enough.”
“Then get the car. I don’t want her slipping away again.”
***
The Gleaning Cube’s interior was dimly lit, as most late hour bars seem to be. A dozen or so tables were scattered around a r
oom that could easily hold twice as many. A wide bar blocked most of her view of the rear, but she could see more tables back there. The Gleaning Cube was perhaps a third full. Three people sat on bar stools, none of them next to each other. On the nearest barstool sat an older woman who Caitlin had pegged as a street person until a closer look showed that her clothing while old was clean and well maintained. A pair of young couples talked at a nearby table; from their neat hair and expensive attire, Caitlin guessed they belonged to the Lexus.
The bar seemed to have two sets of clientele. The locals who sat either at the bar or away from the door and the young professionals who grouped near the front. Most of them were like the Lexus couples.
Caitlin quickly checked out each of the patrons who were within view of the door. She recognized no one. Trying to appear casual, she went to the bar and motioned to the bartender. He was a younger man, dressed comfortably in loose-fitting jeans and a flannel shirt. A gold stud decorated his left ear, and a bar towel hung over his shoulder.
“Good evening. What’ll you have?”
“I’m looking for a man.”
“Anyone in particular or will I do?”
Caitlin gave him a tired stare. “His name is John Blalock.”
The bartender’s lips pursed, and he appeared to think about it. “The name sounds familiar.”
He turned part way around and looked over the nearer tables.
Caitlin had already looked over those tables, and no one looked anything like John. Yet, when the bartender turned back, he nodded. “He’s expecting you.”
“Really?”
“Yes. You’ll find him against the back wall.”
Caitlin looked past the bartender and spotted a table where a lone man sat facing her. A weathered hat blocked most of his features.
“Are you sure?”
“Who can ever be sure of anything? I understand that’s a name he goes by.”
Caitlin gave the man another look and then thanked the bartender. She walked around the bar and moved slowly toward the back.
Three feet from the table she stopped.
Something was wrong here. John had been a computer nerd. They’d only met the one time, in the canyon. He’d been big, as big as this man, she remembered him saying something about wrestling in high school. His skin had been smooth and unblemished, and she would have bet that the cabby would have spotted him as a computer nerd immediately. He’d had long hair, tied in a ponytail and wore shorts over those thick thighs. His height and weight looked about the same as she remembered. His hair was the right color, nearly as dark as hers but was cut much shorter and trimmed as neatly as his fingernails. His lightweight trench coat hung open to reveal a simple khaki shirt. His face didn’t fit what she remembered. For the brief time she’d known him, it had always been cheerful, boyishly cheerful. His lips had always hidden a laugh, one that just waited for an excuse to erupt. A mustache hid most of his upper lip now. His face had lost all signs of boyishness and was now weathered, tight, and scarred.
The Phoenix Egg Page 6