Ridley Pearson - The Body of David Hayes

“Do you think I can do anything without half of SPD knowing about it? How many layers did you have to pass through to see me tonight? They’ve built a wall around me. I’m not doing anything, going anywhere, without Lou knowing it. And Lou won’t have it. Even if I wanted to, Danny.” She tried to make it sound as if she did want to, but this was far from the truth. Lou had something going. She knew him well enough to know this. “Damned if I do, damned if I don’t,” she muttered, more to herself than anything.

He checked that Palm Pilot in his lap, slipped a folded piece of paper out of his shirt pocket. His cell phone number, he explained. Hayes was putting this together as they spoke. If he or Hayes contacted her, the account number given would be the government account. If anyone else directed her what to do, she was to call Foreman immediately.

Danny’s offer sounded tempting despite everything Lou had warned her about. Hide the money from the thugs; put everyone in jail. Wasn’t that what Lou wanted?

“Remember to call me,” Foreman said and let himself out.

BOLDT PULLED INTO THE WEDGEof white hash marks separating the northbound lane of I-5 from the NE 45th Street exit ramp leading into the U District, believing whoever was behind this was ingenious for his choice of locations. The highway traffic to his left moved at sixty miles an hour or better, the exit traffic to his right only slightly slower given that it was a multiple-lane ramp. The SPD car following him was forced to drive past, remaining on I-5. By the same token, whoever was behind this could also drive right past, Boldt never the wiser. He thought it more promising that his mystery man was parked with a good view of his position, monitoring him, interpreting the degree to which he was willing to cooperate. If this person wanted him off the highway, he could direct him to exit right. If he wanted him back on the highway, that was possible too.

Boldt waited.

He answered his purring cell phone with a steady voice despite the way he felt inside. Pahwan Riz spoke his rank. “Lieutenant.”

“I’m assuming you lost visual,” Boldt said. “That’s okay, Reece.”

“Affirmative. Give us about three minutes, we’ll have someone break down in the opposite lane.”

“Too obvious.”

“Let me do my job.”

“My terms. That was the agreement.”

“Which is why I’m doing the service of calling you,” Riz explained. A commander, Riz was not used to taking orders.

“You’ll have to do better than a breakdown in the opposing lane, that’s all I’m saying. They’ll spot that in a heartbeat.” His own heart beat somewhat frantically. Boldt longed for a cup of tea. It never failed to settle his nerves.

“We’ve got you on radar,” Riz said, meaning the Global Positioning System. “We’ll stay with that for the moment, circle the wagons, and let you come to us.” Boldt found this acceptable. Riz would establish perimeter surveillance positions and wait for Boldt either to drive past one of his people or to provide the team the color of a car or a description of the individual who showed up to receive the encrypted computer disk.

Boldt’s cell phone beeped in his ear, indicating call waiting-an incoming call. He told Riz to sit tight and answered this second call, placing Riz on hold in the process. The synthesized voice named another location. “I-5 south. The Boeing Access Road exit. Pull into the wedge between the highway and the exit lane and await instructions. You have seven minutes.” The line went dead.

An unreasonably short amount of time. Boldt jerked the wheel right, getting off the exit in order to cross and return in the southbound lanes. Once onto the highway, he’d have to invoke his siren and dashboard bubble flasher if he were to make it on time. He switched the phone call back to Riz. “I’m heading south toward Boeing Field.”

“We’ve got you,” Riz said. Again, Boldt believed he meant they could see him on the GPS system.

“Visual?” Boldt asked.

“Negative. Will have any minute. I’m signing off for now. Hang in there, Lieutenant.” The phone clicked and Riz was gone.

Somewhere, somehow, this man who ran him intended for Boldt to pass the disk or make a drop. But with Riz’s team lurking a short distance away, it seemed unlikely a runner could get very far without becoming a target of the same surveillance. Boldt brought the Crown Vic up to eighty-five miles per hour on his way toward the bridge. Even in light traffic, he’d have to slow somewhat when he reached the narrowing stretch of highway that ran through the city. He wondered how the drop would be engineered, confident in the abilities of Riz’s team.

Boldt understood better than anyone the precarious situation he was in. He had to control Hayes’s software in order to ensure the recovery and transfer of the money, if he were to safeguard his family. He still hadn’t settled on a way to allow Liz to help Svengrad, but no matter what, this software was the key. His inclusion of Special Operations was mandated by the fact that someone wanted him to make that drop in the first place. If Svengrad or Hayes were behind this plan, then why not just have Boldt remove the software from the property room and hand it over to his wife? Why bother with this elaborate and risky scheme? The first answer that came to Boldt was that Svengrad or Hayes had determined a way to get the money out of the bank without Liz’s involvement. He/they needed the software, but not Liz. This didn’t make a lot of sense, since Svengrad had taken an enormous risk by pressuring Boldt for his wife’s involvement. And if not Svengrad or Hayes, then who, and why? Boldt couldn’t make the drop without knowing this, and he couldn’t know this without Special Operations.

The second thought that came to him was this elaborate plan was simply a way for Svengrad to protect Boldt from being seen as cooperating, a way to tangle up the investigation. Handing the software to Liz would signal the endgame, would give investigators a head start on surveillance of every kind. Boldt’s cooperation in that event might be construed as a criminal act. At some point Boldt would answer for that. A shiver ran through him as it occurred to him that Svengrad had wanted to protect him merely because he was a police lieutenant, a Homicide lieutenant at that, and a good cop to have in your pocket. Had this drop been orchestrated merely to make Boldt look less culpable than he really was? This idea hit him hard-that he was now seen as an asset by the Russian mob, a turned cop worth preserving.

He slowed and stopped the car in the triangle of paint that separated the highway from the exit ramp. He wiped his brow with a Starbucks napkin. Raindrops on the windshield grew in size. Boldt switched on the wipers. A semi-truck rolled by, the concussion of its wake rocking Boldt’s car. He pulled ahead a few feet and angled the car slightly, pointing in toward the highway traffic.

His mobile phone rang. The caller-ID read OUT OF AREA. No number to trace. He answered the call, but the reception made it impossible to hear.

“Wait!” he shouted into the phone, afraid he might miss an instruction, his eyes fixed on the flickering small black bars indicating reception. He hurried out of the car, into the rain, running up a slight embankment, his head aimed up, looking hopefully at the phone’s signal indicator as it moved from one bar to two and then three. He clamped it to his ear and said, “Is this any better?”

“Don’t fuck with me,” the eerie electronic voice warned.

“I’m not,” Boldt shouted.

“Webster’s,” the voice said. “It’s a bar just south of northeast Forty-fifth on Brooklyn.”