Carol O’Connell - Find Me

The driver kept silent. Perhaps the boy had a contrary theory of his own, or maybe he objected to child-size bait.

In Dale Berman’s view, it was bad for morale when the kids did their own thinking. “Now, our guy was getting reckless even before I put the pressure on.” He had allowed all of his agents to assume that transporting the Finns tonight had been his own idea and not the direct order of Harry Mars. “The perp’s really frantic now.” As if Dodie Finn could ever give him away. Crazy Dodie. Dale closed his eyes, saying to his driver, “Wake me the second we pick up another car on our tail.”

Special Agent Berman feigned the sleep that angst would not allow. It was an all-or-nothing kind of night.

Assistant Director Harry Mars had taken to making his futile phone calls outside of Kronewald’s hearing. And now he connected to yet another field agent’s voice mail. In his last hope for a rational explanation, he turned to the man beside him, the liaison from the New Mexico State Police. “Is there any chance that my people could be driving through a zone where their cells won’t work?”

“No, sir, not between the campsite and the airport. This ain’t the Bermuda Triangle.” The New Mexico man pulled out his own cell phone. “We got a trooper riding point. I can ask his barracks commander to raise him on the radio if you like. It’s your call, sir. Me, I wouldn’t w ant to broadcast anything covert on that frequency. To o public.”

A few yards away, the detective from Chicago was taking a call of his own, raising his voice to be heard above the static of airport traffic. “Riker!” yelled Kronewald. “My plane landed twenty minutes ago. Where’s the feds and the Finns?” Apparently, Riker’s answer was unsatisfactory. Kronewald jammed his phone in his coat pocket.

Harry Mars tried one more number and had no luck reaching Mallory, but then she never answered to anyone.

Christine Nahlman turned her head to look at the passengers in the back seat. The children were sleeping in Joe Finn’s arms. The boxer’s e yes were also closed, but she had seen him go from deep sleep to full alert. Was he only dozing?

Ah, snoring, a sign that Joe Finn was finally beginning to trust her.

Agent Barry Allen drove with his eyes on the road, but his mind was obviously elsewhere. After the incident with the trooper’s radio, he was probably questioning everything he had ever been told from kindergarten on. When he did look her way, Nahlman saw the face of a puppy that had made a mess on the carpet.

Finally, she had won his soul back from Dale Berman.

Riker hunkered down by the agents’ campfire. In the manner of a parent on a school night, he turned off their portable television set. Five pairs of very young eyes turned to him.

“I’m making a run to the airport.” The detective handed a slip of paper to the oldest agent, the only one who was sporting a day’s growth of beard. “That’s my cell. You got any trouble, call me right away.” “I can’t,” said the agent. “No cell-phone contact.” Riker smiled at the boy for a moment, not quite believing what he was hearing. “What? Are you nuts?”

“Dale Berman’s orders, sir. No incoming or outgoing calls.” Riker held out his hand, palm up. “Give me your cell phone.” The rookie agent, so accustomed to following orders without question, handed it over. The detective turned it on, then pressed the menu buttons and held the phone to his ear. After listening a moment, he said, “You’re stacking up voice mail from Assistant Director Harry Mars.” He returned the phone to the startled agent. “Does that make you nervous, kid? It should.” And now they were all turning on their phones. As he walked away from them, he heard the beeps of their incoming calls.

It took three seconds for the import to settle in-Dale, that son of a bitch-and Riker traveled from a mosey to a dead run across the campground. Opening the door of the waiting Mercedes, he told his friend to move over. “No, offense, Charles, but I need some speed.” The siren was wailing, wheels churning up dust, and they were off.

Nahlman fixed the layout in her mind as Allen pulled up to the walkway and cut the engine. This was the long parking lot of an ersatz comfort stop for interstate travelers. Two outlying buildings of cinderblock housed toilets, and the center structure was an open arcade of maps and locked vending machines. A separate lot for trucks and motor homes held three big rigs, but there was no sign of the drivers; they were probably napping in the back of their cabs. In the slots reserved for smaller vehicles, a tow truck was parked a few spaces away from an SUV. On the far side of the picnic tables was another parking lot for cars. A man in workman’s coveralls and a bright orange vest was pulling bags from the large trash receptacles.

Government vehicles rolled into the slots on either side of her car. Doors slammed and flashlights came out though the lot was well lit.

In the back seat, Peter was wide awake and antsy, ready for another toilet call. Joe Finn roused his daughter and asked if she wanted to use the little girls’ room. It was a revelation to Nahlman when the child responded to her father’s voice with a nod. And now came a moment when the girl’s eyes fluttered open and the vacant look was gone. She seemed so normal in that second, fully cognizant of her surroundings. Was the girl truly insane or very sanely hiding out from the greater adult world? Nahlman’s last thought was that she was merely tired and reading too much into the simple nod of a little girl. But suspicion was a lingering thing. Perhaps Dodie Finn could teach her father something about the extremes of distrust.

Nahlman had one hand on the door when she said to her partner, “Wait till another agent clears the men’s room. And before you go in, make sure you’ve got somebody watching your back.”

Allen nodded, taking no offense that she repeated these simple rules to him for the second time in one night. He was looking about him, utterly focused, remembering what she had taught him about burning the landscape into his brain. At last, she was confident that he would not be taken by surprise, not tonight.

“There you are,” said Dale Berman, upon finding one of his rookies entering the ladies’ room. “Start checking those rigs in the parking lot.”

“I’ve haven’t cleared the restroom, sir.”

“I’m on it,” he said with a smile for his prettiest and greenest agent. He entered the ladies’ room with his gun drawn and checked all the stalls. When he came out again, he was met by a park attendant in coveralls and an orange vest. The man was carrying a green plastic trash receptacle on one shoulder.

“Make it fast,” said Dale Berman, standing to one side so the man could pass into the ladies’ room. And now he saw another rookie standing around with his hands in his pockets. What the hell was this idiot called? Ah, he had it now. He clapped a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Hey, Bobby. I need you to help the trooper.” He pointed to the parking lot on the other side of the building. “He’s checking the perimeter.”

“Who the hell is Agent Cadwaller?” Harry Mars broke off this phone conversation with one of the field agents left behind at the campsite. He was watching the action beyond the lineup of waiting cabs. He recognized the detective, though he had never seen the man move so fast in the old days. Riker sprinted across the lanes of moving traffic. Brakes squealed. Horns honked. And now the New York cop came to a dead stop at the glass doors where Kronewald was standing, and he grabbed the older man by one arm.