Unlucky 13(50)

Our electronics tech from the radio room, Kelli Pearson, was waiting in Brady’s empty office with her bag of tricks open and ready. I knew her to be smart and thorough, and I introduced her as such to Jansing and Beskin. Then we all took seats in the glass-walled hundred square feet that felt almost roomy without Brady’s bulk behind the desk.

Jansing said, “The bomber keeps saying no police. And yet, here we are.”

I said, “It was either come here and trace the call or go to your office and miss an opportunity to catch this guy.”

The call came to Jansing’s phone at ten after the hour. Pearson got the number and tapped it from the phone plugged into her laptop. The software chased the number to the cell phone tower that routed the bomber’s call but didn’t ring the bomber’s phone.

On my signal, Jansing said into his phone, “This is Jansing.”

I leaned in so that Jansing’s ear and mine bracketed his cell phone. I heard the chilling electronically modulated voice say, “Listen up. Five million is the price. If you don’t have it ready for drop-off by tomorrow morning at eight on the nose, bombs will go off. Multiple.”

“Wait,” Jansing said.

Pearson turned the laptop so we could see the blinking dot that represented the bomber’s car moving east on Carroll Avenue. This was an industrial area, dense with warehouses, trucking companies, heavy-equipment lots, and commercial truck traffic.

“No waiting,” said the robo-bomber. His voice was so freaking mechanical, I wondered if there was really a person speaking into a phone.

“Money for lives, Jansing,” said the hollow voice. “I don’t mind blowing up people. Why should I?”

“How can you go from asking a hundred thousand to demanding five million? I can’t get that much—”

“Once I have the money, I’ll stop. Otherwise…”

The phone went dead.

Pearson tapped her keyboard—but there was no blinking dot on the map of the Bayview area of San Francisco.

“That shitbird took the battery out of his phone,” Agent Beskin said. “For God’s sake! I keep waiting for him to do something stupid.”

I called Dispatch from Brady’s desk phone.

“I need all cars in the vicinity of Carroll and Third Street in the Bayview neighborhood to report any suspicious vehicular activity.”

“What type of vehicle, Sergeant?”

“Damned if I know,” I snapped. “Sorry. Anything suspicious, that’s all.”

Once again, our belly bomber was driving the action. We wouldn’t have time to set up a trap because we wouldn’t know the drop point until he made his next call to Jansing.

Beskin said to Jansing, “We’ll stick with you, Mr. Jansing, as many agents as it takes to keep you safe and to get this guy when he calls again. We’ll be ready for him. He won’t get away from us the next time.”

I couldn’t think of a reason in the world for Jansing to believe him.





CHAPTER 66


AT JUST BEFORE noon, a refrigerated transport van with the distinctive checked aqua trim and Chuck’s Prime logo of a snorting bull on a hill pulled into the loading area behind a Chuck’s Prime in Larkspur.

Chuck’s was one of many shops and restaurants in a busy outdoor mall called Marin Country Mart. With a yoga studio, a French bakery, a sushi joint, and a brewing company, the whole area was designed to look like a quaint country-style town offering views of Mount Tamalpais and the terminal for the ferry that took people from Marin to San Francisco.

The driver, a wiry, well-built man with dark hair and a two-day-old beard, stepped down from the van and closed the door.

He squinted at the sun, then walked around stacks of pallets and a Dumpster and rounded the corner to the front of the store, where the buff college boys and cute cowgirls were setting up tables under an olive tree. They were busy, earnestly unfurling market umbrellas, spraying Windex on the front window, polishing the chrome trim.

He shouted, “Howdy y’all.”

“Oh, hey, Walt,” one of the boys said. “I’ll get the door.”

“Thanks, Tony. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Walt unzipped his leather jacket, pulled up his hood, and went inside and ordered a Coco-Primo shake to go.

The counter guy, Arturo, turned down his offer to pay, saying, “C’mon, man, it’s on the house.”

The two men exchanged sad commentary about the fumble at the goal line last night, and then Walt took his shake out the front door. He sucked on his sweet, thick shake for a minute, taking in the sun on the water, and then continued around the stucco wall of the restaurant to the back.

He opened the cab of the van, placed his drink in the cup holder, and then walked toward the cargo doors. He set his hand truck down on the asphalt and began loading twenty-pound cartons of frozen beef patties onto the dolly.