T. Parker - Cold Pursuit

"It's us, Customs, INS, FBI, and Imperial Beach and San Ysidro Police," said Rawlings. "We've got compromised employees in three of the agencies. Everyone's being as silent as they can be, but all we can do is hope this is airtight. If anything leaks to the Axelgaards or to our man next to the chief, we won't see any red truck or any dope tonight."

Rawlings squinted into the cool sunlight. "We'll let the brothers make the run into Tijuana, let them come back out. We'll have four undercover Narcotics people down at Diaz Leather to make sure the pickup looks good. As soon as the Customs brother waves the Mack through, FBI is going to block the road with a transport van, San Ysidro SWAT snipers are going to cover from the overhead catwalks, and we'll make the extraction from the truck. Barbara, Hatter and I will be on the American side in a pickup truck with a camper- detained by Customs in Inspection Area One. When the rig pulls up, keep your faces down and away. If they make us, things could get hot fast. If they make us, draw your weapons, find cover and watch everybody . We don't know what kind of manpower they might have on the Mexico side, and we already know that one U.S. Customs agent and one Imperial Beach cop are in the bag. So watch the tourists, watch the Federales , watch the damned drug dogs."

McMichael saw the anxiety in Rawlings's old face and the worry deep in his pale blue eyes. Hector looked eager, Barbara cool, Hatter unreadable.

"I want radio wires and full body armor on all of you," said Rawlings. "Wear hats, glasses, whatever you can to change your appearance. Be careful with Victor Braga- he's a hostage even though he doesn't know it. McMichael and Hector, you're on Bland- wherever he goes. Let's hope he stays home. As soon as we've got the brothers I'll radio you to serve the warrant. I'll have backup there by the time you get out of the surveillance van. Don't approach the door until the uniforms are with you. Be careful with the old buzzard. We'll have four helos in the air before midnight over Imperial Beach. They'll force the phantom chopper out of the air or blow it out. Questions?"

"Why do I have to miss the fun?" asked Hector.

"You have to keep your partner out of trouble."

McMichael used the afternoon to play catch-up. He called Charley Farrell out at the dealership, who said he'd check his records again and go further back in his search for wine-colored SUVs sold or leased in the last year. Didn't think he'd find anything he didn't find before.

He checked with Barbara Givens, who had taken Anna's hummingbird to a jeweler she knew. He told her that the "jewels" were just glass, eight dollars' worth max, but the workmanship was very good. He had seen similar decorative hummingbirds for sale but couldn't remember where- possibly at the swap meet in Oceanside.

He talked to Johnny for almost half an hour, getting an earful about this new puppy his mother had bought, a chocolate Labrador retriever that he'd named Brownie. McMichael was happy at the joy in his son's voice, sad that he couldn't be there to see his face. It crushed him in some unsupportable way that he wasn't the man who had gotten his own son a dog. But Johnny was happy and McMichael smiled as he pictured his boy with the new puppy, and Dr. Clay Blass sneezing, breaking out in hives, maybe an aneurysm or sudden heart failure.

"You can see him tonight, Dad!"

"I wish I could. But your mother has plans for you."

"Oh."

McMichael let the silence murder him because he thought he deserved it.

He returned Dr. Arnold Stiles's call and learned that Courtney "Angel" Gonzalez had been killed by two.22 caliber bullets shot into her head. Stiles had found star-shaped flesh tears and unburned gunpowder around the entry wounds, which indicated "extremely close range." One bullet had entered her left temple and exited her right. One had gone in above her left ear, traveled down at a sharp angle and lodged near the cortex. The exit wound on the right temple had some very small fragments of safety glass imbedded around it.

Stiles put the time of death between December twenty-fifth and January fifth, which lined up with Penny's last sighting of Angel on Thursday, January second.

"Sorry I couldn't get more for you," said Stiles. McMichael pictured him in his blood-splattered glasses and washable necktie. "But she had at least two weeks out in that desert, Detective."

"Did she put up a fight?"

"No signs of that, but the flies, beetles, ants, coyotes and vultures worked her over pretty good. No contusions to the skull, none of her bones or teeth were broken. No ligature marks that I could make out."

"Safety glass around the wound?" asked McMichael. "Shower glass?"

"Maybe," said Stiles. "Or maybe she was sitting in a car, passenger's side. The driver just reaches out and bap, bap. The bullet went through the soft part of her head and through the window. Thus the glass frags. Drive and dump. I doubt you got tire tracks with all the storms."

McMichael imagined the wine-colored SUV. He thanked the ME and hung up.

One contemplative minute later he got a call from Barbara Givens: Dylan Feder had been arrested for public drunkenness in Palm Springs. Palm Springs PD ran a warrant check and when it came up hot, they called Dade County. Feder's P.O. had thought of Feder's connection in San Diego.

One less creep to worry about here, thought McMichael. He thought of Sally Rainwater sitting in jail.

An hour before his shift was to end, he drove down to the waterfront and walked along the Embarcadero, trying to clear his mind of sleeplessness, feelings of having failed Johnny, and a steady hum of doubt about the coming night. He'd seen the same doubt in Rawlings's eyes.

He walked past the cafes and tour boats, past the Berkeley and the Star of India , glancing up at a darkening sky that refused to allow optimism. Another storm front was coming in and McMichael thought he could feel a barometric drop in his own body, this sense that things were about to change.

He checked the postcards in the tour boat shop, wondered who might like a note and a picture of San Diego Harbor. He bought one for Johnny, slid it into his pocket.

At a stand offering ocean-themed T-shirts he looked at the whales and dolphins pictured on the cotton, wondered why artists had to make their faces look human. He pictured the living Angel Gonzalez- a pretty girl of seemingly average intelligence with no meanness in her that he had ever seen.

A jewelry maker had set up a small card table to show off his wares. There were necklaces made of coral and shells, matching bracelets. And jewelry boxes, too, covered with faux gemstones in red and green and amber.

Dangling by monofilament from a small branch of driftwood was a flock of hummingbirds, turning absently in the breeze, their detailed glass feathers catching the last of the afternoon light. McMichael touched one.

"I've got tabletop hummingbirds, too," said the craftsman, bringing up a bag from his side of the table. He was short and gray-haired, with an enormous mustache and hoops in his left ear. "Here."

He pulled a small cardboard box from the bag, opened it and set the bird on the table.

"Anna's hummingbird," said McMichael.

"I've got some ruby-throats and some hybrids, too."

The bird on the table looked, to McMichael, almost identical to the one they'd found in Sally Rainwater's house.

You don't know quality when you see it.

"May I?"

"Go for it."

He picked it up and set it in his palm. Just like Pete's, he thought: head up, tail fanned, little wings extended. The crown was a shroud of pale violet made of tiny glass drops. The eyes were black and the body a metallic silver. And when you set it on a flat surface, which he did, it balanced just barely on two small, flattened feet.