Джеймс Паттерсон - The 18th Abduction

“Throwing stars? Okay, you’ve hooked me now,” said my partner. “Keep talking.”

“It wasn’t mine to tell,” I said. “But you need to know.”

“Speak,” Conklin said.

“A Bosnian war survivor, Anna Sotovina, came to the FBI because she saw Petrović in San Francisco.”

“She can tie him to the victims?”

“No, but she’s convinced he recognized her. Joe thought so, too. Now Anna has been missing for three days. Joe has the case. He’s looking for her and Petrović. As for us, we can wait for Mr. Big to make a mistake, or we can partner up with the FBI.”

Conklin said, “We’ve done it before. They take over and we buy them coffee.”

“Who cares? Let’s nail the Butcher before we find another body hanging from a tree.”

Conklin grabbed his phone and called Jacobi.

I grabbed mine and called Joe.

Chapter 99

Jacobi had worked a small miracle.

This morning he and FBI field office supervisor Craig Steinmetz had shredded the red tape, and a joint task force had been born. Conklin and I, along with Joe and his team, were working together to locate Petrović and bring him in for questioning. Anna’s disappearance was the probable cause we needed.

Petrović wasn’t in his house on Fell. Likewise, the maître d’ at his restaurant said that Tony wouldn’t be in today, that’s all he knew.

At 5:00 p.m., after a fruitless day of hide-and-seek, traffic cameras flagged Petrović’s Jaguar coming across the Bay Bridge. A team of agents tailed him to the Laurel Heights neighborhood and then lost him.

Then a patrol car located Petrović’s car parked on Pine Street in front of a men’s clothier. An undercover went into the shop, looked around, and didn’t see Petrović. When he showed the salespeople a photo, they all said they had not seen him. The cop and his partner canvassed the rest of the block before calling it quits.

It seemed that Petrović had gone underground once more, to our immense and vocal frustration.

It was now twenty past midnight.

Conklin and I waited inside a plain black Honda sedan parked on a pleasant residential block with a good view of the Jaguar. Rich was behind the wheel, and I manned the coms, which were crackling, connecting us to dispatch and to team members stationed at various places in this neighborhood.

Joe’s team was inside a surveillance van stationed on Geary, four blocks away. I’d seen the van. It had a dinged-up chassis, ladders on top, a decal on the side reading KELLY’S HOME REPAIR. Inside, it was like a spaceship equipped with cutting-edge tech: listening devices, a satellite hookup, a periscope, and four agents dressed in workmen’s clothes so that they could easily leave the van without bringing attention to it or themselves.

We had eyes, ears, and boots on the street, but there was nothing to report.

Shops were closed. Traffic was slight. Houses were dark. Six FBI agents, a SWAT team, and Conklin and I were on alert for one man.

It had been a long night.

At that moment Conklin was on the phone with Cindy.

“It can’t be helped, Cin. And no, I can’t tell you about it on the record. I just can’t…I realize that…I understand. Do you understand me? Hold on.”

He said to me, “Will you talk to her?”

I said, “Really?”

I reached for the phone and said, “Cindy, there’s nothing to tell. We’re on a stakeout.”

My attention was drawn to an SUV with a broken headlight that cruised past us, slowed down, and stopped up the block, keeping the motor on.

I grabbed my binoculars and took a good look at the vehicle, a Cadillac Escalade. All I could get off the plate were the last three numbers, and even those numbers were approximate.

Rich took back his phone, saying, “Cindy, we’ve gotta go. Love you.”

He clicked off, and together we watched as the SUV’s passenger-side door opened and a large man got out. Then the car moved off, north on Presidio Avenue.

I turned my eyes back to the large man approaching a white-trimmed gray house across the street and up the block a hundred yards from where we were parked. There was a garage on the street level, and behind some shrubbery a staircase rose from the ground level to the front door on the main floor.

I sharpened my focus on the man with the thick salt-and-pepper hair and a military bearing. He was smoking a cigar.

I recognized him from his pictures. Finally, a break. Slobodan Petrović was in our cross hairs.

I called Joe.

Chapter 100

Joe’s voice was in my ear.

“What’ve you got, Lindsay?”

I told him, “Petrović was just dropped off by a dark-colored Escalade with a broken headlight at a house on Pine, middle of the block. I got three numbers off the plate. Petrović’s going through the front door now.”

I texted Joe a photo of the man and the house, up until now a mystery location to all of us.

Joe told all units to stand by. He assigned three teams to surrounding intersections and ordered SWAT to come in.

I used our car’s computer to look up the owner of the house Petrović had just entered. The title search came up with a name: Marko Vladic, formerly a citizen of Serbia, now a naturalized American. He’d lived in San Francisco for nearly five years and owned a blue Escalade.

I checked the criminal databases, holding my breath as I wondered if Vladic had a police record. If so, Petrović was associating with a known criminal.

I ran Vladic’s name through the FBI database for good measure before saying to Conklin, “He has no record. At least not under the name Marko Vladic.”

Conklin said, “Try an image search.”

As Joe gave orders to the teams and discussed perimeters, potential stumbling blocks, backup plans, I looked for Vladic, Marko in any public record I could think of.

And I found him.

I told Rich, “Active liquor license for a strip club in the Tenderloin called Skin. It’s at 816 Larkin. Is that Petrović’s club? Or do we have this wrong? Is Vladic Mr. Big? Is he the one who had Susan under his thumb?”

“I can’t wait to ask him.”

I looked up to see the SWAT truck stop at the top of the block, positioned to roll up to 3045 Pine. I wanted to look up Skin, their licenses, any violations.

But I didn’t get a chance.

Moments after speaking with him, I saw Joe’s van pull up to the curb a few cars ahead of us.

When Joe and his partner were standing in front of the gray house, Conklin and I got out of our Honda. I zipped my Windbreaker identifying me as SFPD over my Kevlar vest and pulled my nine. Once Conklin and I were in sync, we crossed the street and ran up the exterior stairs behind Joe and Diano.

The front door of 3045 Pine was painted charcoal gray, with a peephole and a brass knocker shaped like a fist. Joe was team leader, but I was the primary because it was under SFPD jurisdiction.

Joe said to me, “After you knock, stand aside.”

When I knocked, were bullets going to come through the door? Was this my last moment on Earth? If not, what about Joe or Conklin? How would I ever bear that?

But there were other lives at stake. If Susan Jones and Anna Sotovina were here, it wasn’t their choice.

I knew the drill.

I stepped up to the door and lifted the knocker.

Chapter 101

I knocked and announced, “SFPD. Open up.”

Conklin and I took positions on opposite sides of the door. I listened for the sounds of footsteps, a voice calling out, “Keep your pants on. I’m coming,” or the real possibility of shots punching through the wooden door.

There was no response.

I lifted the knocker again and put some muscle behind it as I banged it against the strike plate and shouted, “Police! Open the door or we’re coming in.”