Unlucky 13 - James Patterson Page 0,51

the people on the ship, and she was asking God to forgive the pirates for what they had done.

Yuki didn’t understand how she could pray for the men who had just gunned down innocent people.

Now that it was so quiet on the deck, Yuki could hear the water lapping against the sides of the ship, Brady’s breathing, and Susannah talking to God under her breath.

A pirate was standing by the rail, maybe fifteen feet away from them. This is the one Yuki thought of as Bigfoot because of the way he walked, with long, heavy footsteps. He lowered his head and cupped his hands to light a cigarette.

Beside her, Brady was watching Bigfoot, too. Watching him puff on his cigarette, then pull his radio phone out of his shirt pocket and speak into the microphone at his mouth. Yuki saw her husband check his watch, then turn his head to the right.

She followed Brady’s gaze and saw him make eye contact with another passenger who also seemed aware of the pirate’s movements.

She remembered the man’s name. Brett Lazaroff. She and Brady had met him at the breakfast buffet line the first morning, which seemed like forever ago.

Lazaroff had dark hair that was going gray and was about sixty and very fit. He and Brady had gotten into a conversation in front of the scrambled eggs tray.

She’d said hello and taken her plate to the table, where she learned that Lazaroff was widowed with adult kids and owned an auto supply store in Anacortes. He might have said that he’d been in the military.

Now she saw Lazaroff lift his jaw toward Bigfoot and she saw Brady nod. Yuki thought it might be the almost telepathic communication of two men who had been trained to shoot first.

A little bud of hope blossomed in her mind.

Brady and Lazaroff were working on a plan.

CHAPTER 65

THE CALL CAME in before 7:00 a.m. as I was snoozing deeply, my head on a new pillow that had been billed correctly as “better than goose down.”

I looked at my chirping phone and said, “No way.”

But I couldn’t ignore the call from Michael Jansing.

“Boxer,” I harrumphed into the mouthpiece.

“Sergeant Boxer, sorry to call you this early, but I just got a text from the bomber. I told him I couldn’t speak to him in private until I got to the office, that I was surrounded by my family.”

“You told him when you’d get to work?”

“I said I’d be there at eight.”

“Come to the Hall,” I told Jansing. “I’ll meet you.”

I found FBI special agent Jay Beskin’s card in my blazer pocket and called him at once, and thank you, God, he picked up.

“Jay, the belly bomber has reached out to Jansing and is calling him at around eight. Can you meet us at the Hall pronto?”

My next twenty minutes were a flurry of dressing and looking for car keys, punctuated by gulps of scalding coffee and the protests of my screaming baby.

“I’ll be home tonight, baby girl. I will.”

I called Conklin from the road and told his voice mail that the bomber was stirring, and that I’d be in the squad room shortly. I called Jacobi and left the same message.

I reached the Hall and parked with ten minutes to spare and met Beskin on the steps to the main entrance. Up to a point, he was central casting’s idea of an FBI agent: six-one, square-shouldered and square-jawed, with a government-issue haircut and a good gray suit. And then there were his bright-red-and-silver running shoes.

He saw me looking at them.

“What?” he said. “The fastest way to get here was to run.”

Agent Beskin and I exchanged nervous chitchat as we waited for Jansing to arrive. Pulling up minutes later, he parked his Beemer illegally but he was on time.

I asked Chuck’s sandy-haired CEO, “Did he call?”

“Not yet.”

We entered the Hall through the heavy steel-and-glass front doors. I badged Jansing and Beskin through security and we arrived upstairs before the clock struck eight.

Our electronics tech from the radio room, Kelli Pearson, was waiting in Brady’s empty office with her bag of tricks open and ready. I knew her to be smart and thorough, and I introduced her as such to Jansing and Beskin. Then we all took seats in the glass-walled hundred square feet that felt almost roomy without Brady’s bulk behind the desk.

Jansing said, “The bomber keeps saying no police. And yet, here we are.”

I said, “It was either come here and trace the call or go to your office