Stuart Woods - Reckless Abandon

“Yes?”

“I have a warrant for the arrest of Trini Rodriguez,” Holly said.

“There’s nobody here,” the woman replied.

“How about the guest house?”

“No, I just cleaned it. The three men staying there went to the airport.”

“How long ago?” Holly asked.

“Maybe ten, fifteen minutes.”

“How do I get to the airport?”

“You go back to Tano Road, then turn right at the intersection, then right again on the four-lane highway. That takes you straight there.”

They ran for the car and sped back toward Tano Road, then found the divided highway. Stone was shortly doing a hundred miles an hour.

Holly sat grimly in the passenger seat, clutching her warrant. “I wish we had a siren,” she said.

“I don’t think this thing would go any faster if we had a siren.”

They followed the signs to the airport, left the car, and ran into the Santa Fe Jet Center, straight through the building and out onto the ramp. The jet they had followed from Teterboro was taxiing away, and Holly started to run after it.

“No, no!” Stone yelled after her, and she stopped. “He’s going to be doing twenty or thirty miles an hour on the ground.” He pointed at the tower. “That’s where we need to go.”

They ran the short distance to the main terminal building and up the stairway to the control tower. At the top they found a locked door and an intercom. Stone rang the bell.

“Yes?”

“This is the police. We have to stop an airplane from taking off.”

The door buzzed open, and the single occupant of the tower stood up. “Let’s see some ID,” he said.

Stone and Holly flashed their badges. “It’s the jet that’s taxiing now,” Stone said. He ran to the window and pointed. The jet was just taxiing onto the runway.

“I just got their IFR release and cleared them for takeoff.”

Stone grabbed a microphone and called the airplane.

“Yes, tower?”

“This is the police. We have a warrant for one of your passengers, Rodriguez. Enter a left downwind for two zero and return to the airport.”

“Stand by, Santa Fe.” There was half a minute’s silence, then the pilot came back. “Sorry, Santa Fe, the FBI has given me orders to continue my flight. Good day.”

“Shit!” Stone said.

“What can we do?” Holly asked.

The tower controller spoke up. “I can call Albuquerque Center on a land line. That’s their handoff controller.”

“It wouldn’t do any good,” Stone said. “They’d get the same answer we did.”

“So we’re screwed?” Holly asked.

“That’s about it,” Stone replied. “Thanks for your help,” Stone said to the controller.

“Don’t mention it.”

“Can you check their flight plan for their destination?”

The controller picked up a tape and consulted it. “Teterboro, New Jersey. Time en route is three hours and fifty minutes.”

“Thanks very much.”

They left the tower and walked back to the car. “So we go back to Teterboro?”

“Yes, but they’re going to be hours ahead of us. Our flight time back is going to be about seven hours, including a fuel stop.”

“So we’ve lost him again.”

“Maybe not completely.” Stone got out his cell phone and called Dino.

“Bacchetti.”

“Dino, it’s Stone.”

“You still in Santa Fe?”

“Yes, but we’ll be heading back today. I wanted to ask a favor.”

“So what else is new?”

“A jet just left Santa Fe with Trini Rodriguez aboard.” He gave Dino the tail number.

“You want me to shoot it down?”

“Not quite. It’s going to be landing in Teterboro in about three and a half hours, stopping at Millionaire. Can you get somebody to meet the jet and follow the occupants to wherever they’re going?”

“I certainly can’t send a cop to New Jersey to do that, but I guess I can do it myself.”

“I’m going to owe you for this one.”

“You sure are. The next four dinners at Elaine’s are yours.”

“Done. You can reach me on my cell phone.” He hung up and started the car. “Dino’s going to meet the flight and see where they take Trini.”

“That’s great news.”

“Let’s go back to Ed’s house and get our clothes, then we’ll follow.”

They drove back to Ed Eagle’s, went into the house, and started packing.

Holly lay down on the bed. “I’m exhausted,” she said. “Can we take a nap first?”

Stone lay down beside her. “So am I.”

They were still sound asleep when Ed Eagle walked in and woke them up. “How’d it go?”

“We both fell asleep,” Stone said.

“You’ve got altitude sickness,” Ed said. “Everybody feels lousy for the first twenty-four hours in Santa Fe. The city is at seven thousand feet of elevation, and my house is at a little over eight thousand. Come have some dinner.”

“We’ve got to get back,” Stone said, trying to clear his head.

“I’m not letting you fly out of here in your condition,” Ed said. “You wouldn’t get there until dawn, anyway.”

Stone’s cell phone vibrated. “Hello?”

“They’re on the ground,” Dino said. “I’m on it.”

THEY DEPARTED SANTA Fe Airport early the following morning, feeling better but still tired, having thanked Ed Eagle profusely for his help. They followed the same route back, but stopped at Terre Haute, Indiana, to refuel, and it was starting to get dark when they set down at Teterboro. A car service took them back to the city, and they met Dino at Elaine’s for dinner.

“So where did you follow them to?” Stone asked, when they had ordered a drink.

“To an apartment a couple of blocks from here, on Eighty-eighth Street.”

Holly groaned. “Not again. We’ve traveled, what, a couple of thousand miles, and we’re back where we started?”

“So, why don’t you go over there and get him?” Dino asked.

“We tried that before, and we were met by three or four FBI agents with drawn guns.”

“Oh, yeah, Lance mentioned that.”

“Stone,” Holly said, “why can’t we do in New York what we did in Santa Fe?”

“You mean go to a federal judge?”

“Yes. It worked once, didn’t it?”

“To tell you the truth, I was astonished that it worked.”

Dino spoke up. “You mean you got a federal judge to sign off on your warrant?”

“That’s right,” Stone said.

“I’m astonished, too.”

“I think what we would have to do is to force the FBI to show cause why they shouldn’t release him to you. Then there’d be a hearing, where the U.S. Attorney in New York or his staff would argue the motion, and they’d probably win. I think it would be a waste of your time and mine, and speaking of my time, I’ve got to go back to working for a living, instead of chasing Trini Rodriguez all over the country.”

“So you want me to go back to Orchid Beach with my tail between my legs?” Holly asked.

“I wasn’t suggesting a position for your tail, but I think you might have better luck with a federal judge in your own jurisdiction.”

“I think I like Lance’s suggestion better.”

“What, kill Trini?”

“I didn’t hear that,” Dino said.

“I’d love to, really I would,” Holly said brightly.

“Maybe Lance’s other suggestion would be more effective, without getting you put in jail.”

“The New York Times?”

“Right.”

“You said that could make trouble for me and my department.”

“And you said you were tired of it anyway. Want to go out in a burst of glory?”

“Or down in flames?”

“Same thing.”

Dino spoke up again. “Could I just remind you both that the last time you annoyed Trini there were very serious attempts on both your lives? Talk about going down in flames!”