this business about reporting every hour was about as sensible as hiring a chaperone for your twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, Clive thought, especially considering that chatter about the vanishing blue Sable had crossed every secure police channel in Southern California. But he dutifully kept the State Department updated. No need to get the Saudis all whacked out of shape. He understood as well as anyone that, despite the House of Saud’s poor record on human rights, the alternatives to its leadership in the region could prove disastrous. A successful coup led by fundamentalists would be a nightmare. Hilal might be a snake, but he was a snake in the service of a government the United States knew how to handle.
Clive thought the man was probably after Miriam for personal reasons and was lucky enough to have information from the State Department to close in. Well, there was nothing to close in on now, was there? Seth had vanished.
Clive angled the Lincoln Continental into a Diamond Shamrock truck stop on the outskirts of San Bernardino and parked behind a row of purring rigs. A band of teenagers crossed the graveled lot, headed for the store. Gangbangers. Probably headed to some joint to fry their brains. The collective mind of America was headed down the toilet. At some point during the last twenty years, someone decided that intelligence wasn’t such a hot commodity after all, and the rest of the country licked up that nonsense as though it were a melting vanilla cone on a hot summer day.
The mind he was after, though—there was an exception if ever one existed. He’d met with Seth four times over the past two years, and each time he walked away knowing that he couldn’t give up his pursuit of this one. Seth possessed all the qualities for greatness in the world of intelligence. Brains were one thing, but genius plus a thirst for danger was exceedingly uncommon. He’d never imagined that his pursuit of Seth would take on a physical nature.
Without looking, Clive retrieved the round walnut from his coin tray. Over a period of years, he had rubbed the nutshell smooth by turning it slowly in his hand, as he did now. The mind was like this walnut, he often thought, smooth on the outside and wrinkled on the inside. His task was to figure out what was happening on the inside, where wrinkles made the task more difficult.
His arrangement with the NSA was unusual, but he had come to them with an unusual list of accomplishments that granted him unique negotiating power. He was a throwback to the old days, when trackers sniffed out criminals with keen noses rather than with fast-flying fingers on a keyboard. More like a bounty hunter in the Wild West than the agents churned out of today’s high-tech schools. Not that he had any dislike for his peers who preferred the road of high science; they were an exceptional lot in their own right. He just preferred the hunt one-on-one, hand-to-hand, mind against mind. May the best man win, and may the loser hang until dead. Figuratively speaking.
Clive depressed the toggle on his radio. “Five into one, you have any new information?”
A short hiss and then the voice of Sergeant Lawhead, the clearinghouse for all the uniforms on this one, crackled. “Several blue Sables, but not the right one.”
Clive picked up a map he’d folded to frame the Los Angeles basin. He’d highlighted in yellow the five primary exits out of the region. Checkpoints stood along each one, far enough out that Seth couldn’t have slipped by before they were set up. If the couple had passed through, they weren’t driving a blue Sable.
He scanned the street to his right. A Ford Taurus drove by, followed by another, blue instead of yellow. Would Seth have traded cars?
Minds like his didn’t overlook details; in fact, they tended to consume vast quantities of minutiae. One of those particulars was that in this computer age, the police could track down a car purchase in a matter of minutes. If Seth bought a used car in some remote lot under his own driver’s license, he would trip the wire. And Seth hadn’t come into this chase with a fake ID. For all Clive could ascertain, he’d stumbled into it without a clue.
Short of buying a car, Seth would have to steal if he wanted to swap vehicles. He’d done it once and he could do it again, and in fact twelve cars had been reported stolen in the last six hours. But none of them was Seth—too far out of the zone.
He looked at the map again. Of the five exits out of the city, one headed south to San Diego—out. Seth wouldn’t head home for the simple reason that all stupid criminals headed home. He would suspect a ring of cruisers around his house already. Two exits headed north, the Pacific Coast Highway and I-5—both out. You don’t head back into the pursuit unless you know exactly what you’re doing, which Seth didn’t. He was no seasoned criminal.
That left two exits east. One toward Palm Springs and one toward Las Vegas. Both passed through San Bernardino. Clive toggled the radio. “Any word from the Nevada authorities?”
“Checkpoints on all the state crossings, but nothing yet.” A pause. “How about south across the border?”
“No. Border’s too tight. He’s headed east—Arizona or Nevada.”
The radio remained silent. Clive set the receiver down and studied the map. Where are you, my friend? Hmm? Where have you gone?
He ran his right index finger over the routes slowly, caressing the paper, tracing every road and judging for the hundredth time its viability as an escape route.
Which road does a twenty-six-year-old surfer-turned-Einstein in the company of a Muslim woman take?
Hilal’s assessment came back to him. Clairvoyant? Now that would be a challenge, staying on the trail of a man who could see the future. To have escaped Hilal, Seth must be crafty enough, but clairvoyant?
Clive took out his pencil and shaded a red line on the map, highlighting a road that headed straight north off 15. Two miles this side of the observation post. It ran all the way north through Johannesburg and dumped into Death Valley. No cover. That would be almost as dumb as heading home. Unless . . .
Clive shifted his attention from the small highway and returned to alternative routes southeast, toward Twentynine Palms and Parker. Maybe. He lifted the walnut to his upper lip and absently drew it across the skin under his nose, and then over his right cheek. What are you thinking, Seth Border? Tell me your secrets.
To have a mind like Seth’s would be like playing God among the mortals, leading a lonely existence in which only you have the unique view of reality.
Well, I’ve got a secret of my own, Seth boy. I have a unique view of reality too. Maybe I don’t see what you see, but I know enough to follow your lead.
Clive lifted the mike. “Sergeant, I want some heat on 395 headed north through Johannesburg. What do you have up there?”
It took a moment for Lawhead to answer. “Small local force. I could send a couple of cars up.”
“Couple won’t do. I want a roadblock north of Johannesburg, and I want every parking lot this side of Ridgecrest methodically searched.”
Static. “That’ll take some doing. You want to ease some assets from other observations?”
“Move your people up from 5 if you have to. He’s not headed south.”
“You know something we don’t, sir?”
“Nope. Let me know when you have the roadblock up.”
He set the mike down and took up the walnut again. You may tell the world how to travel faster than light one day, my man. But for now you’ll have to settle for trying to outrun me.
Omar slouched in the back of the BMW, watching the black American landscape drift by, invisible. A luminescent clock on the dash read 2:24 a.m. The police had taken their search north of San Bernardino; no doubt Hilal had followed them. As far as he could tell from the radio traffic, there was no particular reason why the authorities believed that the fugitives were here, to the north, and they could just as easily be driving away from Miriam as toward her. The thought clawed at Omar’s mind like a demon. Still, he had no other leads to follow.
He closed his eyes. Once they found Miriam, he would take matters into his own hands. The suitcase in the trunk contained enough firepower to assure that much.
He replayed his right of revenge, loitering with each detail. She would not die quickly. If possible, she would not die at all. First he would take her to a safe place. Alone. A hotel room. An expensive hotel room with proper insulation in the walls—he didn’t intend to gag her.
She was beautiful; that was all he knew about her appearance. His mind had already sculpted her face a hundred times. He saw her as fair skinned, with high cheekbones and pouting lips. Her eyes were a light brown, like sand, and her eyebrows arched in velvet black. Her nose was small and her nostrils would flare with each breath, as much from desire as from fear. Women with spirit walked a fine line between fear and desire. In his arms she would discover both. If she was any less beautiful than the image now firmly in his mind, he might have to fix that.
And the American? The more he thought about it, the more he realized that Seth Border would have to die. The man had defiled his wife. He had taken a woman betrothed to another. Seth had earned his sentence as a matter of principle and morality.
The scanner hissed to life. “One-oh-two to one. We’ve got a blue Sable with a matching license plate.”
Omar’s eyes snapped open.
“Come again. You have the Sable in question?”
“That’s affirmative. We’re in Johannesburg, behind the Super 8 on Main. Unlit parking lot.”
“Copy. Stand by.”
Omar sat up. “How far is Johannesburg?”
Assir was already studying the map. “Ninety miles.”
“Go.”
The scanner burped. “One-oh-two, could you give me that tag number?”
The officer read the plate number.
“No sign of activity?”
“The place is dark. We haven’t spoken to the manager yet.” There was a pause.
“Okay. We’re sending three more units your way. Clive Masters from the NSA will give you your orders on the ground. He’s an hour out—wait for him. And don’t let the car out of your sight.”
“Roger that.”
“Move!” Omar screamed.