be someone else.”
She noticed his cheek for the first time. “Are you all right?”
“Other than being short one assistant United States attorney and some hundred-dollar bills, I’m fine.” Vail’s cell rang. It was Kate. “Hello.”
“Steve, where are you?” she asked in a tone edged with panic.
“Sounds like something is wrong.”
“Somebody took the three million dollars from my safe.”
Radek still had Tye. He had told Vail that no one could know about it, and he wasn’t sure that just because the money had been delivered, he could tell anyone. Maybe Radek wanted to hold on to her until he got away completely. “I’m sorry, Kate,” Vail said, and hung up, turning off his phone.
“Something wrong?” the woman asked.
“Let’s get out of here.” He led the woman up the stairs. On the second floor, he walked over to a window that was marked as a fire route and opened it. He helped her out onto the fire escape and followed her.
Once they were in his car, Vail said, “I’m going to take you to the nearest police station. I want you to tell them what happened.” He wrote down the address of the factory and Radek’s full name and handed her the paper. “Tell them there’s a large bomb at the front door that’s been disarmed, but they should still go in through the second-floor window we came out of just in case.”
“Aren’t you going with me?”
“I’m going to be straight with you. There’s another woman’s life at stake, and it’s better that no one know about her or me until I can find her. So if you don’t give them a good description of me or tell them I’m an FBI agent, it would buy me some time.”
“Are you really with the FBI?”
“Yes.” He showed her his credentials. “But not for much longer.”
“THAT’S IT, he’s sorry,” Kaulcrick said. “I guess we don’t have to look any further.”
They were in Kate’s office. “There’s got to be a reason,” she offered.
“Yes, there is. He wanted three million dollars.”
“You know he’d never do that.”
“Then why didn’t he give you an explanation?”
Mark Hildebrand recognized the charged tone and knocked on the door frame as a formality before entering. “Don, the United States attorney just called me. He’s been trying to get ahold of Tye Delson since that article came out, and they can’t locate her.”
Kaulcrick looked at Kate angrily. “Maybe we just found his motive. Quite a coincidence, the two of them and the three million all disappearing at the same time. Mark, get the entire office on this. We need to find both of them. Two separate investigations. Call the USA back and get a warrant for Vail. Theft of government property. See if he can’t find a way to get one for Delson too. Go!”
THIRTY-ONE
AFTER WALKING THE WOMAN INTO THE STATION AND POINTING OUT the desk sergeant, Vail turned to leave. She started to thank him, but he held a finger up to his lips, and she understood the only thanks he needed was her promise to keep him as anonymous as possible.
There was only one thing that mattered for Vail now—finding Tye Delson. Back in the car, he started driving. There was one unexplored possibility. And it was a long shot. When Vail had asked Radek who had been killed in the elevator, he had said “Benny,” from prison. And they had all been at Benny’s apartment before he sent his crew to kill Vail and Kate. Maybe that’s where he was holed up. It wasn’t likely Radek would give away any information that would help, but then he expected Vail to be dead by now.
When Kate and he had identified Radek through prison records, there was a report being assembled on his associates from the Bureau of Prisons. It was supposed to be e-mailed to him and Kate. But he never checked, because they had identified Radek and immediately began focusing on finding him.
The problem was that Vail’s laptop was still in his room at the hotel, and by now it was likely that the entire Los Angeles division of the FBI was hunting him. That meant, in all probability, there were agents waiting for him in his room. But he had no choice. Making a U-turn, he headed for the hotel.
When he arrived there, he drove around the block at a normal speed looking for Bureau undercover cars. He couldn’t see anything that indicated any type of outside surveillance, probably because they were afraid he would spot it. Ahead, across