Michael Prescott: Next Victim

This was likely to be true. The recitation of the Miranda warnings was a tricky business that had to be approached with care. Handle it wrong, and the suspect would insist on seeing his lawyer, ending the interview before it began. The trick was to lead up casually to the warnings, then deliver them in a perfunctory tone that minimized the importance of the ritual. If the suspect thought the reading was a formality, he would usually waive his rights.

"I still wish you’d waited," she said irritably.

"Point taken and duly noted."

"Who is he? What’s his name?"

"The AD will tell you everything you need to know."

"Right." You officious little prick. "How long has Andrus been here?"

He looked at her, a thin, ambiguous smile riding on his lips. "Little while now."

She didn’t see what was so funny. She continued the walk in silence.

With its carpeted floors, fluorescent lighting fixtures, and utilitarian furnishings, suite 1700 could have passed for the headquarters of any bland corporate enterprise, and in fact much of the work done here was decidedly white-collar-investigations of check-fraud rings, telemarketing scams, Ponzi schemes, and assorted nonviolent activities. That was the more genteel part of the operation. Then there was the stuff that made the news-bank robberies, star stalkings, drug busts, an occasional high-profile abduction, and terrorism, the bureau’s new focus, the crime of the new millennium.

The LA field division was one of the bureau’s largest, employing six hundred agents and covering a vast metropolitan sprawl. For these reasons, and because LA was a nexus of media coverage, the office was run by an assistant director, rather than a special agent in charge. Andrus had been on the job for two years, and no doubt would be promoted before long to a stint at bureau headquarters in DC. Unlike Tess, the AD’s instinct for career advancement had never been in need of any honing.

She and Larkin reached a corner of the suite, where the media office and the office of the assistant director were arranged catercorner in evident acknowledgment of the importance of public relations in the AD’s job profile.

Andrus’s voice-thin, reedy, with carefully cultivated enunciation-was audible through his open door.

"What do you mean, deteriorated?"

A beat of silence as an answer was given. Andrus was on the phone.

"Hard target? You mean she’s on to you, for Christ’s sake?…Damn it, Tennant, you can’t afford to screw this up."

Tennant. The name was familiar to Tess, but she couldn’t place it.

"All right, all right. Let me know as soon as you’ve got them in custody."

The conversation was over. Tess wondered what it had been about. But she dismissed the question. It didn’t matter.

Whoever Tennant was and whatever he was involved in, it had nothing to do with her.

Amanda Pierce had hoped to lose her pursuers nearly six hours ago, when she had driven through Sacramento.

She’d left Interstate 5 at the outskirts of the city limits, then had taken the surface streets through the center of town. The time had been four P.M., the start of rush hour on a Friday afternoon, and traffic had been heavy.

At first, watching her rearview mirror, she had seen no one obviously tailing her. She’d allowed herself to believe that she was safe. She’d been misinformed. Her contact was paranoid, probably, like most of the people in his line of work. The ones who were still alive, anyway.

Pierce was still congratulating herself on her good fortune when she glimpsed a white van behind her. There were two occupants, and both appeared to be Caucasian males, a not uncommon profile for employees of the FBI. The van was sticking close, as was necessary for clandestine pursuit in dense urban traffic.

Damn, damn, damn.

It could be just an ordinary van, but she knew better. She’d seen it on I-5, a hundred miles north of Sacramento. The same two men inside.

So her contact wasn’t crazy, after all. The fucking feds really were on to her.

Briefly she considered aborting the mission. But of course it was too late. If they knew enough to shadow her, they knew enough to put her in a federal prison. And she could expect no leniency from any judge or jury-not when they learned what she was carrying in the suitcase on her Sunbird’s backseat.

They would put her away forever. Maximum security. Lesbian guards, dangerous showers, broom-handle rapes-shit, her life would be a goddamn made-for-cable movie.

The chilly feeling at the back of her neck was dread. She honestly hadn’t expected to be caught. She’d thought she was playing the game so adroitly, staying three steps ahead of any possible threat.

Now the threat was right behind her, in the form of a white van with two pale white men inside.

The van was the command vehicle, the one in direct visual contact with the target-the target, in this case, being Pierce herself. There would be other vehicles, most likely a total of four or five, all weaving a loose, flexible net around her, a formation known in mobile surveillance work as a "floating box." She had to identify them if she was to know what she was up against.

She guided the Sunbird through the grid of city streets. The second vehicle was easy to pinpoint. It was a station wagon puttering along ahead of her, the driver using his brakes too often. Standard surveillance technique-distract the target with intentionally poor driving. Anyway, she was fairly certain she had seen the station wagon on the interstate also.

She looked back, careful to use only the rearview mirror-the first rule in this game was never to look over one’s shoulder-and saw that the van was gone. An amateur would have taken comfort in that fact. Pierce knew it was only a standard signature shift, the characteristic leapfrogging pursuit of an A-B surveillance protocol.

The vehicle now in visual contact with her was a taxicab. It had changed places with the van to make the detection of either automobile less likely.

Three of them so far. There might be one or two more. Outriders on her left and right.

To find out, she executed a quick left turn at the next intersection, not using her turn signal. The taxi continued straight through, but a coupe in the left lane peeled off and followed her.

Now the coupe was in the command position, and the other vehicles were pacing her on parallel streets. If she could ditch the coupe, she might break out of the box altogether.

She eased into the right lane, behind a slow-moving bus, forcing the coupe to motor past her to avoid being conspicuous. When it was safely ahead, she checked her rearview mirror. Still no sign of the van, the taxi, or the station wagon.

Taking advantage of a momentary break in the traffic, she flipped a U-turn, cutting off a motorcyclist in the opposite lane, who threatened her with a gloved fist.

She ignored her rearview mirror now. The driver of the coupe would not be so foolish as to attempt a high-profile maneuver like a U-turn directly behind her. Instead she watched the oncoming traffic in the other lane.

There. A panel truck was making a left turn onto a side street. As she passed the street, the truck pulled out behind her.

This was the fifth vehicle, now in the command position.

She might yet have a chance to break out. Ahead of her, a stoplight was cycling from green to yellow. She gunned the Sunbird’s motor and flashed through the intersection just as the light turned red. The panel truck was stuck idling at the light. Redboarded.

Gotcha, Pierce thought with savage satisfaction.

Wait.

Ahead of her, parked at the curb-the white van. It pulled out in front of her.

And here came the taxi, cruising at her rear.

There was no way out of the box. The feds were all around her, hemming her in. And after her recent exhibition of evasive driving tactics, they now knew she was on to them. It would be harder than ever to break free.