Conklin took over. “Fumble a little, Mr. Jansing, but don’t overdo it. Get the time and address of the drop and Sergeant Boxer and I will take it from there.”
Everyone took seats and settled in for a wait. The silence was thick and then thicker. I can’t speak for what was going on in the minds of those around me, but I knew how much could go wrong.
If the guy called from his cell phone, we’d own him, but would he call? Would he direct us to the drop, or was he the kind of sadist who could race Jansing around from place to place until he was sure that his pigeon had flown alone. Then take the money and split.
And by the way, while Stanford had worded her question indelicately, she was on the right track. What was the killer’s beef? What did he have against Jansing? What did he have against Chuck’s Prime? Or was planting explosives in hamburger meat a crime of opportunity?
Jansing’s office was as quiet as a morgue during a blackout. We’d exhausted our Q and A the last two times we visited Jansing, and he was silent and tense and had no further questions of us. We drank coffee and watched Jansing rock in his executive chair for forty-seven excruciating minutes.
And then a phone rang. Jansing grabbed at his breast pocket. He took out his cell and showed the caller ID number to Stanford.
She tapped the number into a cell phone attached to her computer, and her tracking software almost instantly pinpointed the base station the bomber was calling from.
Stanford said, “He’s in Emeryville.”
She disconnected the line, then, redialing the caller’s number, nabbed the exact location. By then Jansing’s phone had rung four times.
“He’s going to hang up,” I said.
“Go ahead and answer it,” Stanford said to Jansing.
CHAPTER 40
JANSING PUT HIS phone on speaker and said his name.
The voice that came back over the phone was electronically modulated, giving the speaker a high-pitched robotic quality that was sick, chilling, and crazy.
“How you doing, Jansing? I hoped I’d catch you in.”
Therese Stanford was at her computer keyboard, typing in the phone number of the no-name phone. Her screen showed the location of cell towers in Emeryville and environs. With luck, she’d be able to ping the bomber’s phone.
“I don’t understand what you want from me,” Jansing said. “I gave you the money.”
“The first payment doesn’t count because you brought in the cops. Now my fee has doubled.”
“The cops came to me,” Jansing protested.
“I warned you about cops,” the killer said in his eerie, uninflected voice. “You really should’ve listened to me. There are serious consequences, you know, like ka-boom.”
Jansing looked at me helplessly.
I mouthed words at him, and he spoke them into the phone.
“I understand.”
“I want a hundred grand. Small bills. No tracking devices.”
“I-I-I have to go to the bank. I need some time.”
“I’ll call you in a half hour,” said Robo-bomber.
“Wait. Where am I supposed to go after that?”
“I said, I’ll call you.”
The line went dead.
I said to Jansing, “Where is your bank?”
Jansing got up, walked six yards to the far side of the room, and, lifting a framed poster of Chuck’s iconic snorting bull off the hook in the wall, revealed a wall safe. He punched numbers into the lock and pulled down on the handle. The door swung open and Jansing took out four stacks of hundred-dollar bills, each with a wrapper reading $25,000.
As Jansing returned the poster to its original position, I called Jacobi and requested cars be stationed at intervals off the main streets in Emeryville—Hollis and 65th in particular—and prepared to follow Jansing’s car at a distance.
Stanford said, “The phone is on the move, traveling west to east over the bridge, crossing now to Oakland.”
I relayed that information to Jacobi, and as we continued to track the bomber’s phone while waiting for him to call back, Jansing’s phone rang. Again I listened in as the killer told Chuck’s sweating CEO to get into his car and turn left on 65th, then right on San Pablo, and to keep his phone line open for further instructions.
“Don’t screw it up,” said the bomber’s mechanical voice, “or I will kill again. You can’t imagine what a good time I’m having.”
And then he laughed.
I conferred with Conklin and we made a spot decision.
He and CSI Stanford would follow Jansing in his BMW. I would take the unmarked Ford to Oakland and await the address of the drop.
As I left the building by the back door, I thought of my daughter, as I did every hour of every day.