Michael McGarrity - Under the color of law

Each is fully equipped. The sheriff's department will handle all your radio traffic, utilizing the tri-county drug task force channel. I'm betting the feds aren't going to be expecting us to look outside the department for help."

"Speaking of that," Sloan said, "who set up the electronic surveillance?

It wasn't any of our people, that's for sure."

"Chief Baca," Kerney answered.

"His criminal intelligence people will monitor and stay in touch with you through the sheriff's dispatch. This will be a straight forty-eight-hour assignment. You'll sleep in the cars, eat in the cars.

No breaks, no relief."

"This scheme could bring a lot of good cops down," Molina said.

"Which is why I'm asking for your help, not ordering."

"Jesus, Sal, let's do it," Bobby said, who like Kerney had pulled a tour in Nam.

"This country isn't a fucking police state. At least, not yet."

The consequences scared Molina, but he had to decide. Either he took the risk or he bailed out on his chief. He shored himself up.

"Okay.

Forty-eight hours."

"I'm apprehensive too, Lieutenant," Kerney said, reading Molina's expression.

Breath whooshed out of Molina.

"Yeah."

Charlie Perry raged while Applewhite sat at the hotel-room desk punching up the vehicle tracking records for Kerney and the other key investigative personnel in his department on her laptop.

The lead detectives assigned to the homicides were off duty and at home, and Kerney, after making a stop at the state police headquarters, was parked at the county jail, where he'd been for a very long time.

"I thought Kerney had canceled all his appointments for the day,"

Applewhite said.

"Why did he go to state police headquarters and then the county jail?"

"Are you even fucking listening to me?" Perry snapped.

"Yes, the Red River marshal is treating Stewart's death as a homicide,"

Applewhite said blithely. She wished she could garrote the son of a bitch.

"I heard you."

Perry put both hands on the table and stuck his face in Apple white's.

"Who sanctioned the hit?"

"That's a pretty cheeky question to be asking me, Charlie," Applewhite said, closing the laptop cover.

"Neither of us knows the who, what, or the why of the matter."

"Look, if I have to cover your ass, I want to know now."

"All you have to do right now is throw your weight around a little, Charlie.

Scoop up Stewart's body and make sure only a trusted forensic pathologist does the autopsy."

"What trustworthy doctor do you have in mind?"

Applewhite wrote out a name and number and waved the slip of paper under Charlie's nose.

"Call this number in Albuquerque. The man who answers the phone will be a doctor who holds a Q clearance. Get the body to him."

Perry snatched the paper.

"What about Kerney? He's got to know by now that we've been feeding him pure bullshit."

"But can he prove anything?" Applewhite said.

"I doubt it. If it becomes necessary, Chief Kerney will be dealt with."

"How?"

Applewhite knew it wouldn't be her call to make, but she loved thinking about the possibilities if a sanction removal was authorized. The anticipation of it made her smile.

"Firmly but gently, Charlie," she said, getting to her feet. She steered Perry out the door, returned to the desk, and dialed a Washington number.

With the phone cradled against his ear, Hamilton Lowell Terrell made notes while listening to Applewhite's report. She finished speaking and he lapsed into a long silence.

"Your instructions, sir?" Applewhite finally asked, unable to repress her apprehension. If she was due for a butt-chewing, she wanted it over and done with.

Terrell let the silence grind deeper into Applewhite, then said, "This isn't the containment we had in mind."

"I'm aware of that, sir."

"I've heard nothing about your plans to help our third friend reach his destination."

"I've got the itinerary finalized, Ambassador."

"Make sure his trip is uneventful," Terrell said, consulting his notes.

"Are you quite sure that the local police chief has nothing more than suppositions to go on?"

"At this point, yes. But that could change."

"Do you have reason to believe it will change?"

"He's much more resourceful than I was led to believe."

"Did the materials he reviewed give him an advantage?"

"Not really, but they did provide a connection we were hoping to avoid."

"If we manage the situation correctly from here on out, that shouldn't be a problem. Since truth, in this instance, is heavily mingled with falsehood, I doubt he'll be able to probe too deeply."

"Take no action?" Applewhite inquired.

"Let me see what I can learn about him that might be useful for future planning, if the situation warrants."

"And Agent Perry?"

"I know you wish to be rid of him, and you have my sympathy. But ask yourself this question: Where would you like the burden of guilt to fall if all does not go well?"

"I understand, sir."

"Henceforth, there are to be no more contingencies," Terrell said.

"Do I make myself clear?"

"Perfectly, sir."

Terrell disconnected and dialed a DOD number.

The phone rang once and a voice said, "Yes, Ambassador."

"Santa Fe, New Mexico, Police Chief Kevin Kerney. Best-case scenario for sanctioned removal. All particulars to me, eyes only, by twenty-three hundred hours."

"Under DOD regulations pertaining to the National Security Act, I am required to inform you that contemplated sanctioned removals require concurrence from the national security advisor, CIA, and the commanding general of the Defense Intelligence Agency."

"Particulars to me by twenty-three hundred," Terrell repeated.

"Aye-aye, sir."

Kerney left the county jail and did some shopping. He stopped at a discount chain store, bought cellular phones, and paid the activation fees. At a video store he bought a stack of used movies. He topped off his shopping spree at an electronics super store, where he purchased a small TV with a built-in VCR, a tape recorder, two privacy earphones, and a radio wave frequency detector.

He drove home, dressed to go running, and slipped a night vision scope in the pocket of his lightweight pullover parka. Outside he did a few stretching exercises and took off down the driveway past his landlord's house. Once he turned the corner of the block, he pulled up, and walked down the utility easement that ran behind his cottage. He climbed a lot wall and used an electric meter box as a stepping-stone to get to the roof of an old garage. He flattened out in a prone position and scanned with the scope looking for any evidence of a surveillance video camera.

He spotted it at the base of a TV satellite dish mounted on the porch roof of a neighboring house, angled to get a clear view of the front of his cottage. He looked around for more and found none.

He wondered if the uplink to the watchers and listeners was local or remote. He scrambled down, completed a circle around the block, and stopped in front of the house with the TV dish. No lights were on inside. He gauged the distance between the top of the porch railing and the roof line. If he stood tiptoe on the railing he could probably disable the camera. But why tell the watchers that he knew he was being watched?

At the cottage Kerney punched the playback on his answering machine, and carted in the Mitchell evidence he'd sneaked onto the back patio before parking in the driveway. He caught snatches of messages left by Sara, each one sounding a little more terse, as he brought in his new TV VCR and the other purchases. He dumped it all in the bedroom, stuck a movie in the living-room VCR, turned up the volume, and closed the bedroom door.

John Wayne kicked butt chasing Indians while Kerney hunted bugs in his bedroom and bath. On his first visual sweep he found three, one in a lamp, one in a wall outlet, and one in the bedroom telephone. He swept again, taking apart everything he could think of, searching every surface-bed frame, mattress, dresser, pictures, walls, ceiling. He found a third inside a doorknob, a fourth behind the toilet tank, and a fifth on the underside of a floor heating duct.