The Lion's Game (74 page)

I went quickly back downstairs to the ICC, aware that I could be trapped here by a phone call, or an FBI boss. I went directly to Kate’s desk and said, “Let’s go.” I took her arm.

“Where?”

“California.”

“Really? Now?”

“Right now.”

She stood. “Do I need—?”

“Nothing. Just your gun and shield.”

“Badge. We say badge.”

“I say walk faster.”

She kept up with me as I walked toward the elevators. She asked, “Who authorized—?”

“Stein.”

“Okay.”

She thought a moment, then said, “Maybe we should go to Colorado Springs.”

Maybe we should. But I didn’t want an argument from my lady boss, so I said, “Stein only authorized California.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I think he wants me as far away as possible.”

The elevator came, we got on, and rode down to the lobby, then walked out to Broadway. I hailed a taxi, and we both got in. I said to the driver, “JFK.”

We pulled out into heavy downtown traffic.

I said to Kate, “What’s the news from Ventura?”

“Well, our Ventura office got Wiggins’ unlisted phone number, and they called Wiggins’ house while I was on the phone. They got his answering machine, but didn’t leave a detailed message. They just told him to call them the minute he got the message. Then, they sent some agents to his house, which they tell me is near the beach. Then they called for reinforcements from L.A.” She added, “There are only a few people in the Ventura office.”

“I hope they don’t find him home and dead. What do they plan to do? Surround the house with tanks?”

“We are not as stupid as you think, John.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“They’ll check his house, interview neighbors, and, of course, lay a trap for Khalil.”

I tried to picture a bunch of guys in blue suits running around a beachside neighborhood, knocking on doors and flashing Fed creds. That should cause a stampede of illegal aliens heading south. Meanwhile, if Asad Khalil was staking out the neighborhood, he might get a little suspicious. But to be fair, I wasn’t sure how I’d handle this either.

I said to Kate, “Call Ventura again.”

She took her cell phone and hit the buttons. The taxi was approaching the Brooklyn Bridge. I looked at my watch. It was just 3:00 P.M., noon in California. Or was it the other way around? I know it changes west of Eleventh Avenue.

Kate said into the cell phone, “This is Mayfield. Anything new?”

She listened awhile and said, “Okay, I’m flying to LAX. I’ll call back later with my flight info. Meet me with a car at Arrivals and get me to the police helipad. Meet me with a car wherever you intend to land me in Ventura. Right. I’m authorizing it. Don’t worry about it unless you don’t do it. Then you have something to worry about.” She hung up and looked at me. “See? I can be an arrogant asshole like you.”

I smiled, then asked her, “So what’s new in Ventura?”

“Well, the three available Ventura agents got to Wiggins’ house, and they broke in on the possibility that he was dead inside. But he’s not home. So, they’re in the house, and they’re using his phone book to call people where he might be or who might know where he is. If he’s dead, he’s not dead at home.”

“Okay. He could be on a long flight.”

“Could be. He flies for a living. Could be his day off. He could be at the beach.”

“How’s the weather in Ventura?”

“It’s always the same. Sunny and seventy-two.” She added, “I put in two years with the L.A. office about three years ago.”

“How’d you like it?”

“It was okay. Not as interesting as New York.”

We both smiled. I asked her, “Where the hell is Ventura?”

She told me, but I didn’t quite understand the geography, or all the Spanish names she was throwing around.

We were over the Brooklyn Bridge, and the cabbie got on the southbound BQE, which is the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, and may have once moved cars in an expresslike fashion, but I’ve never seen that, except at 3:00 A.M. I flashed the Fed creds and said to the driver, “Step on it.” I always say that even when I’m not late and I don’t know where I’m going.

I asked the cabbie where he was from, and he told me he was from Jordan. That was a new one. Pakistan is way ahead, but Macedonia is starting to catch up. I said to Kate, “Stein said to congratulate you.”

She didn’t reply.

I said, “There’s an outside chance I can get back on the job—on the police force.”

Again, no reply, so I changed the subject and asked her, “Where do you think Khalil is?”

“California, Colorado Springs, or in transit.”

“Maybe. But maybe he only worked the East Coast where he has some assets, then he got out, maybe with the help of some Mideast embassy. California and Colorado are a long way off.”

“John, this guy didn’t come halfway across the world to ...” She glanced at the taxi driver and said, “... to eat part of a meal. You know that.”

“Right. But I’m wondering how he’s getting to L.A. The airports are dangerous for him.”

“The big ones are. I once had a fugitive who went from L.A. to Miami via small airports. He could have walked it faster, but he managed to give us the slip until we caught up with him in Miami.”

“Right.”

“And don’t forget a private charter. I had a drug king once who chartered a private jet. A lot of them do that. No security points, no records of their flight, and they can go anywhere they can land.”

“Maybe we should alert the local airports in the Ventura area.”

“I suggested that to the Ventura office. They reminded me that there are dozens of small airports in the area, dozens more close by, and a private aircraft can land twenty-four hours a day at most of them. You’d need an army to watch every General Aviation facility, not to mention abandoned or unmanned landing fields.”

“I guess.” Kate seemed to know this stuff better than I did. I do cabs and subways. Half of my fugitives wind up going to their mother’s house or their girlfriend’s apartment or hanging around their favorite saloon. Most criminals, especially murderers, are really stupid. I like the smart ones better. They give me a little challenge and a lot of entertainment. I said to Kate, “Khalil pulled this off because of speed. Like a purse snatcher. He’s no idiot, and he knows that we’d be on to his game within three, maybe four days.”

“That’s optimistic.”

“Well, we got on to him in less than four days. Right?”

“Okay. And?”

“And ... I don’t know. Wiggins is either dead already, or he’s someplace else. Like maybe he flew cargo to the East Coast, and Khalil knew this and nailed him already. Those agents in his house might be there for a long time waiting for Wiggins or Khalil to show up.”

“Possible. You have any other ideas? You want to stay here in New York? You can go to that five o’clock meeting and listen to everyone tell you how brilliant you are.”

“That’s a cheap shot.”

“And you don’t want to miss the eight o’clock meeting tonight with Jack when he returns from Frankfurt.”

I didn’t reply.

“What do you want to do, John?”

“I don’t know ... this guy has me a little baffled. I’m trying to put myself in his head.”

“Do you want my opinion?”

“Sure.”

“I say we go to California.”

“You said go to Frankfurt.”

“I never said that. What do you want to do?”

“Call Ventura again.”

“They have my cell phone number. They’ll call me if anything develops.”

“Call Denver.”

“Why don’t you buy your own cell phone?” She dialed the Denver FBI office and asked for an update. She listened, thanked them, and hung up. She said to me, “The Callums have been taken to housing at the Air Force Academy. We have agents staking out their off-post residence and waiting inside. Same as Ventura.”

“Okay.” We were on the Belt Parkway now, heading for Kennedy Airport. I was trying not to second-guess myself, trying to stay on the roll I was on, without blowing it at the end.

It’s not easy being the man of the hour. Normally, I wouldn’t confide all these doubts to anyone, but Kate and I were more than partners now. I said to her, “Call the L.A. office, and tell them to put a watch on consulate offices of countries that might help Khalil effect an escape. Also, make sure they’re watching Wiggins’ former Burbank house in case Khalil has old information and shows up there.”

“I did that while you were talking to Stein. They informed me they already knew what to do. Get a little respect for the FBI, John. You’re not the only genius in law enforcement.”

I thought I was. But I guess I’m not alone. Still, there was something bothering me about how this was playing out. I was missing something, and I knew that I knew what it was, but I couldn’t think of what it was. I ran the whole thing through my mind from Saturday to now, but whatever it was kept slipping away into a dark corner in my mind, not unlike how Asad Khalil kept slipping away.

Kate was on her cell phone to the woman at Fed Plaza who makes travel arrangements and was saying we needed info on first available non-stop flights to LAX and to Denver. She listened, glanced at her watch, then said, “Hold on.” She said to me, “Where would you like to go?”

“Where Khalil is going.”

“Where is he going?”

“L.A.”

She got back on the phone and said, “Okay, Doris, can you book the American flight? No, I don’t have an authorization number.” She looked at me, and I pulled out my credit card. Kate took it and said to Doris, “We’ll pay and put in for reimbursement.” She gave Doris my credit card info, and added, “Make it First Class. And please call the L.A. office and advise them of our arrival. Thanks.” She handed me my card. “For you, John, they’ll pick up First Class.”

“That may be true today, but by tomorrow they may not even pick up this cab ride.”

“The government loves you.”

“Where have I failed?”

Anyway, we got to JFK, and the driver said, “Which terminal?”

This is where I came in, on Saturday, with the same question. But this time I wasn’t going to the Conquistador Club.

Kate said to the driver, “Terminal Nine.”

We got to the American Airlines terminal, got out, I paid the cab, and we went inside to the ticket counter, where we got two First Class tickets in exchange for my available credit. We ID’ed ourselves and filled out Form SS-113 that identified our carry-on luggage as two Glock .40 caliber automatic pistols.

We had fifteen minutes to catch the flight, and I suggested a quick drink, but Kate looked at the departure board and said, “They’re boarding now. We’ll get a drink on board.”

“We’re carrying.”

“Trust me. I’ve done this before.”

Indeed, there was another side to Polly Perfect, which hadn’t been revealed to me heretofore.

So, we flashed the creds and the Firearm Boarding Pass at the security point and got to the gate with minutes to spare.

The First Class flight attendant was in her late seventies or thereabouts, and she put her dentures in her mouth and welcomed us aboard. I asked her, “Is this a local or an express train?”

She seemed confused, and I recalled that seniority sometimes equaled senility.

Anyway, I was out of airline jokes, so we gave her our Firearm Boarding passes, and she looked at me as though wondering how I’d been licensed to carry. Kate gave her a reassuring smile. But perhaps this was all my imagination.

The flight attendant checked her manifest to assure herself of our identity, then went into the cockpit with the boarding passes, as per regulations, to inform the captain that two armed law enforcement people were on board, a nice lady and a weirdo, traveling together in First Class.

We found our seats, two bulkhead seats on the port side. First Class was half full, mostly people who looked like Angelenos going home, where they belonged.

Well, we weren’t tarmacked too long, considering this was JFK, and we took off only fifteen minutes late, which the captain said we’d make up in the air, which is better, I guess, than making it up on the ground at LAX by taxiing to the gate at six hundred miles an hour while deploying the emergency chutes.

So, off we went, into the wild blue yonder, armed, motivated, and hopeful.

I said to Kate, “I forgot to buy clean underwear.”

“I was about to mention that.”

Ms. Mayfield was in a rare mood.

Another First Class flight attendant came around with newspapers, and I asked for the Long Island
Newsday
. I looked for and found a story about the Cradle of Aviation murders, which I read with interest. I noticed that this major Long Island story had no byline, which is sometimes a tip-off that the authorities were managing the story a little. In fact, there was no mention of Asad Khalil, and the motive for the murders was described as a possible robbery. Right. Standard armed robbery of a museum. I wondered if anyone was buying the museum robbery-homicide story. Specifically, I was wondering if Khalil would buy it if he saw it and believed that we were clueless. Worth a try, I guess.

I showed the story to Kate, who read it and said, “Khalil left a very clear message in that museum. That means he may be finished and heading home, or he has tremendous arrogance and contempt for the authorities, and he’s saying, ‘You won’t figure this out until it’s too late. Catch me if you can.’” She thought a moment, then said, “I hope it’s the latter, and I hope he’s going where we’re going.”

“If he is, he’s probably there already. I just hope he’s waiting until dark to make his next move.”

She nodded.

Well, I needed a little drink or two, so I asked Kate to sweet-talk the grandma flight attendant into alcoholic beverages.

Kate informed me, “She won’t serve us. We’re armed.”