Michael Prescott - Next Victim

Tennant shook his head. "Doesn’t sound like our suspect. She wouldn’t have been checking out of the hotel. She just got into town tonight."

"No, man, you don’t get it. I was, you know, checking her out…" He put a lascivious emphasis on the last word.

"Oh. I see." Tennant felt old and stupid. "Where’d you spot her?"

"Sitting at the bar."

"Alone?"

"Some dude perched next to her after a little while. They got to talking."

Her contact, possibly. "Was the woman carrying a suitcase?"

"Sorry, didn’t notice."

"But you’re sure she’s the one in the photo?"

"Pretty sure. I mean, I looked right at her."

"Is she a guest at the hotel?"

"Could be, if she checked in before I came on duty."

"When was that?"

"Eleven."

Pierce hadn’t even left LAX until 11:45. She wasn’t staying at the hotel. Unless…

"Did you see her leave?"

"No, I don’t know what happened to her. I took a break around one-thirty, and when I came back, she was gone."

"The man, too?"

"Man?"

"The…dude on the next bar stool."

"Yeah, he was gone. I remember thinking maybe he got lucky."

"He a hotel guest?"

"Could be, but I didn’t recognize him."

"The bartender would know whether they left together."

"I guess. Chris went home hours ago."

"What’s his home number?"

"Hey, it’s three A.M. You’re gonna call him now?"

"Yes, I am."

Tennant got the number and hung up, then called the bartender. Twenty rings. No answer.

"He could be spending the night with somebody else," Wilkins suggested.

"Maybe." Tennant frowned. "Or he may have just turned off the ringer on his phone. Get his address out of the reverse directory."

Twenty minutes later, Tennant was banging on Christopher Albright’s apartment door. "Mr. Albright, open up! Open up now!"

He was rewarded by the sleepy shuffling of feet. Albright answered the door wearing only a terry-cloth robe. He was a thin, sallow guy with a stubble of fuzz on his cheeks. "What the hell…?"

"FBI." Tennant produced his creds. "You the bartender at the MiraMist Hotel?"

"Uh…yeah."

"We’re looking for a woman who may have been at the bar earlier tonight. This woman." Tennant showed him the photo. "Recognize her?"

"I think so. Yeah, I do. She got there a little after midnight. No liquor, just ginger ale."

"Was a man with her?"

"A guy joined her." By now Albright had led Tennant, accompanied by Jarvis and Bickerstaff, into the mess that was his living room. Evidently he had fallen asleep on the sofa. The TV was still on, flickering in a corner, the volume low. "He was trying to pick her up."

"And did he?"

"They left together."

"And went where?"

"Didn’t see, but I’d guess it was his room."

"So he’s staying at the hotel?"

"Definitely. Charged the drinks to his room tab."

"Which room?"

"Hell if I remember."

"What was his name?"

"Shit…" Albright ran a hand through the loopy tangles of his hair. "I’m sorry, I don’t know."

Bickerstaff asked, "What was he drinking?"

"Gin and tonic, twist of lime," Albright said immediately. He smiled. "Occupational hazard. I never forget a drink."

"So if we check the bar tab…?" Tennant asked.

"You’ll find him that way. Sure. He was there for maybe forty-five minutes. Sucked down two, maybe three gin and tonics."

"Okay. Thanks. You’ve been very helpful."

"What’s this all about, anyway? What’d this woman do?"

"Parking tickets," Jarvis said. "A whole lot of ’em."

Tennant told Wilkins and Dante, waiting at the hotel, to review the bar tab. By the time he arrived with J amp;B, the hotel guest had been identified as Donald Stevenson in room 1625.

"Description?" Tennant asked Bickerstaff.

"According to his Illinois DL, he’s Caucasian, blond and blue."

"Got to be a fake ID."

"Unless he’s just a businessman looking to get laid, and Pierce decided to use him for cover."

"It’s possible." Tennant looked at Jarvis. "His credit card number’s on file from the check-in, right?"

"Sure."

"Run it. See when it was issued."

Tennant turned the office behind the registration desk into a makeshift command center. On one of the newly installed phones, he called the Santa Monica Police Department and got through to the commanding officer of the OSE, the Office of Special Enforcement, waking him at home. He summarized the situation: armed and dangerous fugitive traced to a local hotel.

"We need SWAT," Tennant said. "Yours and ours."

The captain insisted that the department squad be first in the door, with the FBI team on hand only as backup. Tennant didn’t argue the point.

"SET will roll in fifteen minutes," the captain promised.

"SET?"

"Special Entry Team. That’s what we call our SWAT guys. They’re good, Agent Tennant. Regularly win statewide SWAT competitions. We’re not a big department, but we’re not yokels either."

"I believe you. Look, Captain, we need to keep this off the radio in case the suspect is monitoring."

"SMPD communications are all digital and encrypted. Scanners can’t access the signals."

"It’s possible she could have a stolen transceiver." Tennant wanted to cover every angle.

"Wouldn’t do her any good. We assign each radio to a specific user. If it’s lost or stolen, we disable it remotely. Relax, Agent Tennant. You’re in good hands."

Tennant got off the phone with the SMPD captain and phoned the FBI office to arrange a SWAT callout. Then he checked with Jarvis.

"Credit card is new," Jarvis reported. "Donald Stevenson obtained it only a month ago."

"Interesting."

"There’s more. I had the credit card people give me his SSN. Ran it through the database. It belongs to Donald Stevenson, all right-but he died in 1989."

Tennant felt a kick of adrenaline. "He’s our guy. No question."

"So they’re in the room together. Fucking like bunnies, I guess."

"That’s not the way these transactions usually end." Tennant frowned. "Maybe the room’s empty, and they both snuck out during the night."

"We can ring room 1625 and see if anyone answers."

"No. We can’t risk alerting them that anything’s up. With any luck, they’re both still there."

And the suitcase is with them, he added silently. And everybody lives happily ever after.

A half hour later Tennant was sitting in an undercover mobile command post parked on a side street near the hotel, conferring with Lieutenant Garzarelli, commander of the Santa Monica PD Special Entry Team.

Garzarelli’s men were stationed in a stairwell on the MiraMist’s sixteenth floor. Members of the FBI SWAT squad were also inside the building, occupying less forward positions in deference to the locals. An engine company stood by, ready to dispatch paramedics to the scene if something went wrong.

"Evacuation’s complete," Garzarelli said. "Floors fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen have been cleared of guests and staff." The lieutenant peered up at the white tower of the hotel. "You mind telling me what the hell we’re dealing with?"

"You already know. Female fugitive, armed-"

"Don’t give me the boilerplate. You don’t pass out gas masks and oxygen canisters to the primary assault squad for a routine arrest."

Tennant met his stare. "Think of her as a courier."

"What’s she carrying?"

"Let’s say it’s something that could do a lot of damage if she or her friend has a chance to release it."

Garzarelli was quiet for a long moment. Then he said softly, "Ebola?"

"What?"

"Is it the Ebola virus?"

Tennant almost laughed. Ebola. This guy was watching too much TV. "No, Lieutenant. It’s not Ebola. It’s not a virus at all, or any kind of germ. But just to play it safe, let’s treat it like it is Ebola, and maybe no one will get hurt."