The 19th Christmas - James Patterson Page 0,63

was telling us the truth.

“This job we were doing,” said Wallace, “was supposed to be a whatchamacallit… a head fake.”

The little hairs on the back of my neck stood up. A head fake was a ruse. A diversion. A diversion from what?

“How so?” Conklin asked.

“There wasn’t supposed to be any trouble. It was supposed to be cut-and-dried, a robbery at the cargo terminal and then out. Loman was doing a different job. I think so, anyway. And it was all going as planned until Leonard went rogue.”

What had Wallace said?

Was Loman’s big heist still in play?

Wallace took off on a little side road then, talking about how he should have just kept to his lame job, minded his own business, not listened to his dopey brother.

I picked up my water bottle and pounded it once on the table to get his attention. “You said ‘head fake,’ Ben. That you thought Loman was ‘doing a different job.’ Dig deep. Tell us about that.”

“I don’t know,” Wallace whined. “I told you five times already, we were just supposed to go to the cargo terminal, open the box, take the bags, and get to the parking lot. Look. Everything that went wrong was Leonard’s fault.”

“Leonard was the red-haired one,” I said. He was the fake cop whose brains were spattered inside the shuttle train.

“Johnny Leonard. I’d just met him, but I knew he was nuts,” said Wallace. “He saw cops on routine patrol in the terminal, and he thought he saw someone looking at him wrong, like an undercover, and he snapped.

“Next thing you know, he’s shooting and cops are shooting back. And our easy-breezy plan just blew up. It was shoot or be shot. Once Leonard started firing, I knew I was a dead man.”

Conklin said, “If you can’t tell us about Loman, you’ve given us nothing.”

Said Wallace, “I don’t know anything else.”

I slapped the table and said, “Okay, then. We’re done. Good-bye and good luck.”

I meant it.

Chapter 80

“Don’t say it like that!” Wallace shouted. “I’m going to be killed. Loman is going to have me killed, understand? Oh God.”

Conklin said, “If I’m God, I’m pissed off, buddy. Your crew put a lot of innocent people in danger today, and maybe a US Marine, a passenger on his way to Cincinnati, is going to die. You should pray that he lives.”

Wallace nodded and my partner went on.

“You want us to help you? Or do you and your pacemaker want to take your chances with the FBI and DHS?”

Wallace started to sob and shake his head no.

Conklin put his hand on Wallace’s shoulder, and I could see something shift inside the young man.

Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

He knew that he was done.

Conklin said, “Hey, Ben. We’re the good guys. San Francisco police. In about three minutes the Feds are going to come through the door. They outrank us. The federal government trumps local PD. We won’t be able to help you, my friend, and that’s the truth.”

Wallace shook his head some more, choosing between a rock and a hard place. He looked up and said to Conklin, “Loman’s going to hit a computer company. That’s the real job.”

My adrenaline spiked again.

Jacobi had been working on a tip about a hit on a computer company. Had that tip now been confirmed?

I asked, “Where did you get that?”

“Leonard told me.”

The dead guy. I said, “What computer company? Give us a name.”

Wallace was panting now, sweating profusely, lips trembling. I found him believable. Then again, I’d been wrong before. I cautioned myself not to interrupt Wallace as he went on.

“If I tell you, that’s worth something, right? That’s worth a cell out of state, where I can get protection?”

Conklin said, “You’re going to have to give us the name of the computer company.”

“Black Stone,” said Wallace. “No. That’s not right. Black something. BlackStar.”

Conklin put his card in Wallace’s breast pocket seconds before two DHS agents came in and took our crying, pleading subject out of the room.

I pulled my phone from my pocket and called Brady.

Chapter 81

I relayed Brady’s orders to Conklin as we edged and fought our way through the panicky crowd exiting the terminal en masse.

“Brady says he’s rolling out a heavy emergency-response team at BlackStar,” I told him. “Jacobi is in command on scene.”

The lanes around the airport were packed with patrol cars, taxis, buses, and passenger cars. Travelers on the sidewalk yelled at baggage handlers and anyone in uniform, shouted about flights they absolutely had to be on, about missing connections,