froze the image. “Oh, yeah,” Lucas said. “Marion Beauchamps. That’ll look good on the nightly news.”
He also looked at the paperwork on the rental. He’d never heard of the renter’s name, Harold Weeks, but it was Beauchamps for sure.
“The license is valid and so was the Visa card he used,” the manager said. He’d printed out all the rental information and gave a copy of it to Lucas.
Outside again, Lucas called Russell Forte in Washington and asked him to chase down the driver’s license number and the Visa card.
Mallow called, said somebody in his office had talked to the FBI and the FBI had called the traffic controllers at the airport tower. The night before the gang had sold the Loloma jewelry, the planes had been taking off to the west. “There’s one main east-west runway. There’s a mix of residential housing out there under the flight path—apartments, town houses, single family homes. They’ll be in there somewhere.”
“We’re getting close,” Lucas told him. “We may want to work something out with your SWAT squad. These guys are hard-core.”
“I’ll talk to the sheriff,” Mallow said.
* * *
—
RAE CALLED. All prescriptions were computerized and those issued by the hospital had been filled at a Walmart pharmacy. “Does that help?”
Lucas spotted the Walmart on his iPad: it was located off a stretch of the Beltway due west of the airport’s east-west runway. “Yes. Everything points to the same neighborhood,” Lucas said. “We need to get back to the hotel and figure out what to do next. I was planning to go to the TV stations and put Beauchamps’s face on the news, but, now that I think about it, that might not be a good idea. If they run, we’d just have to track them again, but for now we sort of know where they are.”
“See you at the hotel,” Rae said.
Lucas had worked his way out to Paradise Road, on his way back to the hotel, when Sandro Tremanty called from New Orleans. “Hey, Dad.”
“What’s up?”
“I heard you’re in Las Vegas,” the FBI agent said.
“Yeah. We’ve followed them this far, crossed their trail a couple of times. We’re starting to pin them down. Can’t promise anything.”
“You remember Dick? Ricardo Santos, the guy you met at Rog Smith’s house?”
“The guy with the degree in chemistry,” Lucas said.
“That’s the guy. We’ve put a light tag on both Smith and Santos. I found out a few minutes ago that Santos jumped on a cut-rate airline at eight o’clock this morning, going to Vegas. He ought to be arriving there in about an hour.”
“Oh-oh. Text me the details. I’m in a car; I just left the Hertz place by the airport. I’ll turn around and go back. I’ll get Bob and Rae headed this way.”
“Do that. I’m trying to find a flight, but everything has a stop somewhere, they’re all six hours or more,” Tremanty said. “I can’t get there until tonight. But if you’re close to Deese, I’d like to be there.”
“Jump right in,” Lucas said.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
They had to hurry. Lucas did an illegal U-turn and headed back south, called the Hertz manager, spoke for a moment, got Bob and Rae on the phone. They’d been driving east toward I-15, on the way to the hotel, and were only ten minutes behind him.
“Unless he’s got his own car, he’ll have to rent one or take a cab,” Lucas said, fast. “I was talking to the manager at Hertz. We’re like old friends now. I want you to drive right up there like you’re returning a car. He’s expecting you and he’ll turn your car around. Take a shuttle back to the airport; the manager says it only takes a few minutes. I’ll talk to the airport cops and keep my car outside. Santos knows me but not you. I’ll spot him coming off the plane and then you guys follow him to wherever he’s going. If he rents a car, you should be able to jump on a shuttle and follow him right out of the place. If he’s got a limo or gets a cab, I’ll follow him.”
“On the way,” Bob said. “We should talk to our SOG guys here in Vegas in case we need them.”
“I’ll let you and Rae do that, you know them,” Lucas said. “But get your asses out to Hertz now.”
Lucas drove up the departures ramp at the airport, saw a cop, identified himself, and was pointed to a place where he could park his car. As he was getting