"Yeah." He walked into the study and shut the door, then turned on the radio. He'd swept the room for bugs yesterday, but one couldn't be too careful.
"Um, well, they ain't coming in. Looks like trouble at the slaughterhouse. union issues of some kind, you know?"
His heart raced. "What kind of trouble?"
"Can't say specifically. You'll have to call the foreman."
"I'll do that."
Emile Frank hung up the cell phone and put it in his pocket. He picked up the desk-phone receiver and dialed a string of numbers, activating the day's cipher. He heard a series of clicks as the encryption algorithm kicked in, then a dial tone. He dialed another number.
"How bad is it?" he asked.
"Geoff's down, shot several times, unknown assailant. We're en route to the hospital."
"Can he talk?"
"A little. Looks like a collapsed lung, but we're getting him stabilized, and he'll probably pull through."
"Great." I don't give a fuck about his health, you moron. "Who shot him?"
"Caucasian male, thirties, gave the name Paul Renner. Was asking about the Martha's Vineyard job."
"Did he learn anything?"
The ensuing pause was far too long for comfort. "He's not sure. He knows the guy got a look at his cell phone. Called 911 after he shot him."
"Anything in the cell?"
"We're not sure. The caller ID was wiped, but Geoff isn't sure if he'd done it himself or if the guy did it."
"Can you find the assailant?" Frank asked.
"Not sure. We got a picture from the security feed out front of MacUther's place."
"Send it to me, and stand by."
"You got it."
"Watch his hospital room. Let me know if anyone comes to see him."
He hung up the phone, picked it back up, and called yet another number, this one local.
A feminine voice answered, smothered in Southern twang. "Department of Homeland Security, Bioterrorism. How may I direct your call?"
He didn't bother to give his name. "Jeannie, put me through to my office, now."
"Yes, sir!"
Chapter 22
February 2nd, 4:23 PM PST; Highway 280, northbound; San Bruno, California.
Three thousand miles away, Gene, Doug, and Carl screamed north up Interstate 280, lights flashing and siren blaring as they blew past the traffic.
The GPS was leading them to the Daly City home of Geoffrey MacUther, just south of San Francisco. The money trail was circumstantial, but the forensic accounting team had led them to a California-based startup called SoFiaK. They'd all slept on the plane, and they looked it. The car reeked of body odor.
Sam's voice erupted from both the speakerphone and his COM ear-bead with an odd reverberation effect. "I have a Geoffrey MacUther, admitted a half hour ago under John Doe to the emergency room at Kaiser Permanente, 395 Hickey Boulevard, Daly City, with multiple gunshot wounds. They ran his prints on DigiLink, and the database flagged it for me." Doug slammed on the brakes. Onlookers gaped as the unmarked SUV skidded to a stop in the middle of the fast lane.
"How do we get there, Sam?" Carl looked down at the GPS and started punching in Hospital. He didn't have a clue how to spell "Kaiser Permanente."
"Hold on, I'm routing it to your GPS now."
Directions for MacUther's house disappeared. Directions for the hospital appeared. Doug hit the gas.
Ten minutes later Gene stalked through the Emergency Department entrance and up to the triage desk, flanked by Doug and Carl. It looked like the Boston hospital where Marty was recovering, only five times smaller and ten times cleaner.
Gene flashed his badge at the receptionist. Doug and Carl wore theirs. Other than the official identification, they looked and smelled like homeless men in wrinkled suits. "Gene Palomini, FBI. What room is the gunshot John Doe in?" Doug and Carl barged past her and started looking in windows.
"You gentlemen got here fast." The woman looked at the badge with mild suspicion and pecked at her keyboard. "One moment." She typed a little more. "4A, down on the right."
Carl hollered, "Got it!"
As they walked down the hall the nurse called to them, "He's scheduled for surgery in ten minutes!"
They ignored her and walked in together.
Uniformed policemen stood on either side of the bed. Their eyes widened as they saw the FBI badges. "Both of you, out." Gene was in no mood to argue.
"Sorry, Agent…." The younger-looking cop leaned forward to read the name off his badge. "Palomini, but we've got orders to watch this man. Standard procedure for a gunshot victim."
Carl looked at the man's badge. "Bullshit, Officer Mulroney. If this were a black man from the projects, he'd be in here by himself while you were out eating doughnuts and flirting with the receptionist. What you meant to say was that this is standard procedure for a rich white gunshot victim."