by Stuart Woods
“Your cell’s not working?”
“Off and on where I am. It won’t be reliable.”
“I’ve still got a key to your place. I’m on it.”
“Later.” Stone hung up. Immediately, the phone rang, and he let Corey answer it.
“It’s Lance, for you,” she said, handing him the phone.
“Yes, Lance?”
“I heard Billy Bob’s message on your answering machine. Don’t let him get to you; that was the purpose of the message.”
“I know that; I’m trying not to think about it.”
“Arrington was smart enough not to mention Peter. I don’t think Billy Bob has any idea he was with the two of you. He may check out the Virginia house and find out he’s not there and begin to suspect.”
“Let him suspect; it won’t do him any good. Peter’s well protected by your people.”
“He certainly is. They don’t come any better than McGonigle, and he has a first-rate team, Corey, especially.”
“I figured.”
“I’ve pulled out all the stops on this, Stone; we’re running down every piece of information on Billy Bob and each of the aliases we know about. Something will turn up.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I could get the Bureau in on this, but it would get leaked. You want that?”
Stone thought about it for a moment. “No, I don’t think so. I think it’s better if we keep it tight.”
“Good. If I get to a point where I think it would really help, I’ll call them in.”
“All right.”
“Try to get some rest, and keep Peter entertained. I don’t want you to leave the house, though.”
“Where’s my car?”
“Still in your driveway; you won’t need it until this is over.”
“Right. Thanks, Lance.” He hung up. Peter had come into the kitchen. “Good morning, Peter.”
“Good morning, Stone.”
Corey gave the boy a brilliant smile. “Would you like some breakfast?”
“Yes, please,” Peter replied.
Corey began making bacon and eggs. “How old are you, Peter?”
“Five and a half,” he replied, pulling up a chair.
“Big for your age, aren’t you?”
“No, I don’t think so. Everybody in my kindergarten class is about my size.” He turned toward Stone. “What are we going to do today?”
“Well, I saw some games over there on a shelf,” Stone replied. “There’s Monopoly and Scrabble and a couple of others, and you have your Gameboy.”
“Can’t we go outside?”
“Well, it’s real cold today, and it could rain or snow. Maybe we’d better stay inside, where it’s snug and warm.”
“Okay.”
Stone ate his eggs, counting the minutes until he could call Dino again.
42
STONE CALLED his home number every hour to check for messages. Nothing for the whole morning. Then, at one o’clock: “It’s Dino. I haven’t been able to reach you for a couple of days. Call me when you get this.”
Dino was playing it smart; he knew Lance might be listening in.
Stone started to call him on the landline, then stopped. If Lance were listening on his home number, he might be listening on this line, too. All the agents, except Corey, were out of the house at the moment, and she was playing Parcheesi with Peter. Stone got out his cell phone and began walking around the large apartment, checking for a signal at every window.
Finally, in the back bedroom, he got a one-bar signal. He called Dino.
“Bacchetti.”
“It’s Stone.”
“You’re weak, can you speak up?”
“No, I’m on my cell phone. What’s happening?”
“Sometimes you’re brilliant, Stone. Not all that often, but . . .”
“What is happening, Dino?”
“We got three sets of prints. One of them, as you said, was government blocked. I ran the other two and came up with two names. One is a Martin Block, no record; he was printed in the army twenty years ago. The other is a Rocco Bocca, who got out of Sing-Sing just over a month ago.”
“Did they send Mitteldorfer back to Sing-Sing?”
“Yeah, I checked. I almost had them put him in solitary, but decided against it. He might be able to tip off Billy Bob.”
“Have you found out anything about Bocca?”
“You bet. He was doing five to seven on multiple burglary charges, served five and a half. And get this, he was working as a burglar alarm installer and hitting his clients.”
“He’s our guy. You get an address?”
“I got his parole officer’s name, but the guy is out of the office all day, and I couldn’t get a cell number. I left a message, so if he calls his office, I’ll hear from him.”
“Good news.”
“You want me to pick him up when I find out where he is?”
“No, but if you can put a tail on him, do that. If he meets Billy Bob it might be wherever he’s holding Arrington.”
“Will do.”
“I’ll keep calling my home phone every hour. Leave a message, if you learn anything more.”
“Okay.”
Stone hung up and looked out the window. There was a narrow porch at the rear of the carriage house, with a door leading to it, locked from the inside. That was a way out, but not in daylight, because men were stationed outside. Maybe not at night, either, because two agents slept in this room. He walked around the apartment again, checking windows. The back porch was definitely his best bet.
STONE SPENT the afternoon playing games with Peter and checking his answering machine for messages. Nothing more came in, until close to dark, when Dino called again: “I don’t understand why you’re not returning my calls,” he said. “You out of the country, or something?”
It was completely dark by six o’clock, and agents were coming in for dinner. They were taking turns cooking or bringing in pizzas from the local parlor in Washington Depot. Peter preferred the pizzas.
Stone ate one slice, then clutched his gut. “Jesus,” he said. “Please excuse me for a few minutes.”
He left them sitting around the table and went to a bathroom in the hallway, closing the door, then he got his overcoat from his room, put it on and crept down the hall toward the rear bedroom. There was a roar of laughter from the people at the dining table.
Stone walked quickly across the bedroom, opened the door and stepped out onto the rear porch, closing it quickly behind him. He didn’t want anyone feeling a cold draft in the house. There was a fire ladder at one end of the porch, and he climbed down it, then stood at the bottom, his back to the wall, and listened. Somebody coughed.
He peeked around the corner of the house and saw a cigarette glow in the darkness. One of McGonigle’s team. His house was only fifty or sixty feet away, separated from the mother property by a high hedge. Stone ran along the hedge and around a corner. He was in full view of the Rocks’s driveway, and if anybody drove in, he would be caught in the headlights.
He ran toward the road, looking for a gap in the hedge that had once been a passage between the main house and the gatehouse. It was mostly grown over, but it allowed him to push through the hedge without going to the main road, which might be watched.
He crept across the lawn to the kitchen door of his house and let himself in with his key. From there he ran upstairs in the dark to his bedroom and went to his dressing room. He had to feel for the keypad on the safe, but after a couple of tries, he got it open.
He stuck his small .45 in his pocket and a couple of extra magazines, then he took the box containing the little Keltec .380 that Lance had given him and went back downstairs. He let himself out the kitchen door and walked as quietly around the house as he could, looking for guards. He saw none.
His car was standing where he had left it, and there was no way to keep the interior light from coming on when he opened the door, so he did it and got in as qu
ickly as he could. He put his key into the ignition and turned it to the first position, to disable the ignition lock, then he reached up and turned off the interior light, so it wouldn’t come on when he opened the door.
He got out of the car and, with the door open and his hand near the steering wheel, put his shoulder against the central pillar and began pushing the car backward. There was a slight incline to the street, and he picked up speed, turning the wheel when he had to. Once in the street, he continued pushing the car backward until he was nearly to the church. Then he got into the car, started it and, with the lights off, turned past the church and drove down to the main road. He drove past a number of the Gunnery school buildings and took his first right, before he switched on the headlights. He felt exhilarated, as if he had broken out of prison, but he had only a few minutes before they began knocking on the bathroom door, looking for him.
He couldn’t call Dino yet, because he wouldn’t get cell-phone reception until Bridgewater, if then. He concentrated on driving fast on the curvy country road, much faster than usual. He wanted to get as far away from Washington as he could, as quickly as he could.
Fifteen minutes later he was in Bridgewater, and he switched on his cell phone. The signal was weak, but he finally found a part of the road where it was stronger, where he pulled over and called Dino’s cell phone.
“Bacchetti.”
“It’s Stone.”
“Okay, I finally got hold of the parole officer, at home. Rocco Bocca is living at his sister’s house in Queens, and I’ve got two guys watching it. There are two cars in the driveway, so he might be home.”
“Do this,” Stone said. “Have the detectives knock on the door and ask to see him. Tell him, or whoever’s there, that they’re checking his alibi for a burglary that fits his MO. At least we’ll know whether he’s home.”
“Okay. You on your cell?”
“Yes, I got away from the group.”
“What about Peter?”
“He’ll be fine with them; he likes the female agent.”
“Are you coming back to the city?”
“Yes, but I don’t want to go home; somebody might be watching.”
“My place?”
“No. Are you at home?”
“On the way.”
“Don’t go there. Go to the Carlyle and get a room, under the name of Bocca. I’ll come there.”
“Okay; I’ll go there now.”
Stone hung up the phone, which rang immediately. That would be Lance. They would have missed him by now. He didn’t answer.
He headed toward the city, staying off the interstate. It would take him longer, but he would be harder to spot. He felt better now, though there was not much reason to. At least he was doing something.
43
STONE’S CELL PHONE continued to ring, and finally, he switched it off. He entered the city from the East Side and drove to the Carlyle, parking in their garage. From the lobby, he asked for Mr. Bocca’s room, and called Dino for the room number.
Dino let him into a very nice suite. “The manager is doing me a favor,” he said. “You had dinner?”
“Half a slice of pizza, two hours ago. What’s happening?”
“Bocca is at his sister’s house, and the two detectives are sitting on him. They did the number about his alibi, told him he was clear and left. He’s none the wiser. You may as well order some dinner.”
Stone got the room service menu and ordered a steak and half a bottle of wine, while Dino poured him a bourbon from the wet bar. Then Stone called his home number and checked for messages.
“Hey, Stone,” Billy Bob’s voice said. “I’m ready to meet you now. What we’re going to do is set up an exchange of Arrington for you. She’s a pain in the ass, you know? Yeah, you know. I want to get rid of her, so I’m going to set up something for tomorrow afternoon around three. I’ll call your cell phone number, and you’d better answer it, if you want to see her again. I’ll give you instructions then. You get one shot at getting her back, and one shot only, so you’d better make it work. If you get the cops involved, or your CIA buddies, then people will die, among them Arrington and you. You dream about that tonight, and I’ll call you midafternoon tomorrow.” He erased the message and hung up.
“That was Billy Bob,” he said, and he repeated the message to Dino.
“When we get the instructions, we’ll set something up,” Dino said.
“It’s going to be tough. Lance has probably heard the message, too, and he’ll be all over us, if he finds out where we are.”
“Some of his people were following me; I told him to hold them off, that my guys could take care of it, and I think he did. I made sure I wasn’t followed here.”
Stone’s steak came, and he ate it hungrily, not having had much food for twenty-four hours. Then he stretched out on one of the beds and took a nap.
DINO SHOOK HIM AWAKE. “Bocca’s on the move,” he said.
“What time is it?”
“A little after one A.M. I’m on the cell phone with my guys. He’s headed toward the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge.”
“So Billy Bob is in Manhattan?”
“He may be on his way to New Jersey, for all we know,” Dino said. “Let’s just sit tight until we know more.”
“Let’s sit tight in your car,” Stone said. “We might have to move fast when we learn more.”
Dino spoke into his cell phone. “I’m going to my car. Call me in five minutes and let me know where you are.”
Stone and Dino went downstairs to where Dino’s car was waiting at the Seventy-sixth Street entrance to the hotel. They got into the backseat, and Dino told his driver to start the car. A moment later, Dino’s cell phone rang.
“Yeah?” Dino listened.
“We’ll pick you up at Seventy-sixth and Third,” Dino said, “then we’ll play switch with the two cars.” He hung up and spoke to his driver. “Get us over to Third fast; use the lights to get across Park and Lex, but no siren, and turn off the lights after Lex.”
The driver switched on the lights and moved down Seventy-sixth Street, made his way across Park against the lights, crossed Lex and switched off his flashing light.
Dino got back on his cell phone and pressed the speaker button. “Where are you?”
“We caught a light at Seventy-first, but we’re moving again, crossing Seventy-second,” the detective said.
“What’s our guy driving?”
“A beat-up Ford van, tan in color, New York plates.” They gave him the number. “We’re in a gray Toyota.”
“I’ll pick him up at Seventy-sixth, and you drop back, but keep me in sight. I’m in a black Crown Vic.”
“Gotcha.”
“When the light turns green, turn left on Third and double-park on the right,” Dino said.
The driver followed instructions, and a moment later, the van passed them.
“Now, you’re the tail,” Dino said. “Stay well back, but don’t lose him.” He spoke into the cell phone. “If you see our turn indicator go on, he’s turning in the opposite direction at the next corner, and you pick up the tail.”
“Gotcha.”
They followed the tan van up Third Avenue to Eighty-sixth, where it turned right.
“Give a left-turn signal and make a left,” Dino said, “then make a U-turn in the middle of the block. Don’t use your turn indicator.”
Stone looked back as the gray Toyota turned down Eighty-sixth after the van. A moment later, they made a U-turn and were back on the chase.
“Okay our guys are making a left-turn signal,” Dino said. “The van is turning right on Second; follow him.”
“Right,” the driver replied.
Now the van drove down Second Avenue. There was little traffic, so Dino’s driver stayed well back, and he and the Toyota changed positions frequently.
“What’s he doing?” Stone asked.
“He’s looking for a tail,” Dino’s driver replied, pulling over and double-parking
in front of a news shop, to let the Toyota pass.
“Don’t worry, he’s not going to make us,” Dino said. “This guy’s a burglar; he don’t know from tails.”
The van went down to Twenty-third Street, made a right, went to Madison and made another right.
“This could go on all night,” Stone said.
“We got all night,” Dino replied.
“We’d better think about what we’re going to do when he stops,” Stone said.
“Call in the cavalry?”
“There are five of us; let’s keep it to that. We’re not storming a military installation. And we’re not going in anywhere, unless we have reason to believe Arrington is there.”
“Your call,” Dino said. “Hang on, the guy’s turning right on Thirty-second Street,” Dino said into his cell phone.
They did their trick and switched cars again. Dino’s driver made a U-turn and followed.
“He’s stopping in the middle of the block,” a voice said from the cell phone. “It’s a bar. I’m driving past him. He found a parking place, and he’s going in.”
Dino watched Bocca go into the bar as they passed. They turned a corner and Dino told his driver to stop.
“Okay, on foot, now,” Dino said into the cell phone. “You two guys walk past the place, one on each side of the street. Position yourselves where you can see the entrance, but where you can’t be seen. If he gets back into the van, call me. Look for more than just him leaving; look for a woman.”
“You think we ought to go in?” Stone asked.
“The guy could just be having a drink, you know. We go in, we’re blown.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Wait him out. If he leaves, we follow. If he leaves with a woman, we pounce. If the woman isn’t Arrington, we sweat him.”
“Makes sense to me,” Stone said.
“I’ll take the first nap,” Dino replied. He turned up the collar of his overcoat, rested his head against the back of the seat and immediately seemed to fall asleep.
Stone just sat and waited.