The 19th Christmas - James Patterson Page 0,64

about lost luggage, and about having no place to stay. Lawsuits were threatened and shoving fights broke out, fights that could become brawls.

Cops weren’t charged with keeping airline customers happy. They had only one order, and it was freaking urgent: to get everyone out of the airport.

The sounds of the stalled traffic, the horns honking and sirens blaring, was the very definition of hell on wheels.

Our unmarked squad car was hemmed in at the curb, and we went Code 3 in place, blasting the sirens and the lights, leaning on the horn, until we were free to move.

Conklin drove, and we had just cleared the airport lanes when Jacobi’s voice came over the radio. “I just heard from Brady,” he said over our dedicated channel. “You both okay?”

“Yes. What’s your location?” I asked.

“I’m in the surveillance van in the Truby Street parking lot. It’s right outside the BlackStar VR campus.”

“We’re on our way out to you,” I shouted over the mike to my dear old friend and former partner. “Be careful.”

Conklin took us onto the 280 Freeway north and from there past Colma, where the dead outnumbered the living. Colma contains the cemetery where a lot of people I know are buried. My mother is there. When we drove past Woodlawn Memorial Park, I placed my palm against the window. I miss you, Mom. And then we were speeding through the Sunset District and Golden Gate Park.

I saw other unmarked cars leaving the park from their stakeout of the museum, some heading out to the airport and some, I hoped, to BlackStar’s campus.

Jacobi had sent a map of the BlackStar compound, and as we drove, I told Conklin what we needed to know. He took Veterans Boulevard into the Presidio, then made a series of turns that brought us past the Main Post. Forty-five minutes after we’d left SFO, I could see the BlackStar VR campus on our left.

It looked idyllic, a compound made up of half a dozen brick buildings built in the style of the old army barracks and officers’ quarters, located on twenty green acres fronted by a small lake with a waterfall.

I read out the function of each building.

“Buildings one and two are labs,” I told my partner. “That’s got to be new product development. Could be a Loman target, I’m guessing.”

I consulted the map and went on.

“Buildings three and four are executive offices. Building five is the BlackStar museum, and six is a tourist destination devoted to digital displays, like light shows. It also has a bank, a Starbucks, restrooms, a tourist info center.”

Conklin pulled the car into the main lot, where we could see the attractive red buildings arranged like two loosely cupped hands, and the roads and footpaths leading to them.

It looked calm, but I knew what Brady meant when he said he’d be rolling out a heavy emergency-response team.

Cars in the lot and streets near the campus would be occupied by cops. SWAT would be manning ordinary-looking vans. A couple of ambulances would be in the vicinity, and Brady would have undercover operatives inside and outside the buildings, whatever he could pull together on Christmas.

I got Jacobi on blue channel. He’d seen our car pull in and was on his way over from his post.

Minutes later I saw his hulking form limping across the parking lot. I buzzed down my window and Jacobi stooped so he could see in.

“Brace yourself,” he said.

“I’m braced,” I said.

“That mutt you grilled at the airport. Wallace. We picked up his brother, Sam, who gave up a name. Brady sent this.”

Jacobi fiddled with his phone. His tech skills were not the greatest. He swore a little, then said, “Okay. Here he is.”

He put his phone up to the window so we could see the photo on the screen. It was a candid shot of a balding, middle-aged man carrying a large briefcase, heading into a jewelry store on Post Street.

“Meet William Lomachenko,” said Jacobi, “a.k.a. Willy Loman. He has no record. But we now know everything about his public life.”

Chapter 82

I stared at the photo on Jacobi’s phone.

The picture was low-res, as if it had been taken from security-cam footage shot at the end of the day. I could see the light from the storefront reflecting off the man’s scalp. I noted his double chin, his paunch, his unremarkable clothes. William Lomachenko could be invisible in plain sight.

“This is Loman?”

“So I’ve been told,” said Jacobi.

It was a huge breakthrough. We had a name and a photo ID,