Pied Piper

CHAPTER 74

As passengers disembarked from gate 11 Boldt stood at a bank of pay phones, reminded of Dunkin Hale. Holding the phone’s receiver, his eyes trained not on the gate but on the person in front of him, Boldt listened to the commentary through his earpiece. Bravo Five, a plainclothes Narco cop, sat facing gate 11, a hot dog in one hand, the sports page open on his lap like a giant napkin. Atop the sports page was a Camcorder aimed directly toward gate 11. A well-hidden wire ran from the Camcorder into a small duffel bag in the adjacent chair. The duffel bag contained a transmitter. In the control van, Mulwright had a view of the gate.

A husband-and-wife team cheered as camera flashes strobed blindingly into the mix of arriving passengers-Flemming’s people, without a doubt.

Behind him the two agents from the newsstand stood waiting for phones by the bathrooms, their attention divided between Boldt and the arriving passengers. Flemming’s presence was formidable. Boldt had expected nothing less.

BRAVO 5: “The Toyota is just leaving.” Teibold was the Toyota.

COMMAND: “Command copies.”

BRAVO 5: “Toyota is heading toward Bravo One.”

Boldt reported in with a single click.

BRAVO 5: “I’ve got a vehicle approaching the Toyota.”

Bravo Five believed an undercover FBI agent had taken the bait and was focusing his or her attention onto Teibold instead of Crowley. Another of SPD’s team reported, “Two more vehicles.”

BRAVO 5: “Okay. I’m looking right into the headlights of the truck.” The truck was Crowley.

BRAVO 7: “I copy that. I’ve got the taillights.”

Bravo Seven, a woman police officer in plainclothes, was in the throng directly behind Crowley.

COMMAND: “Toyota and the truck have hit the street. All report.”

The frequency sparked with two dozen quick clicks. All of the SPD team knew that Teibold and Crowley had left the jetway and that at least a few of Flemming’s people had picked up the wrong scent.

Anger filled Boldt-how dare he be put into a position to protect this woman who had kidnapped his child! His stomach twisted.

BRAVO 5: “Toyota is rolling.”

Teibold, wearing a brown scarf and sunglasses, passed within a few feet of Boldt.

COMMAND: “Bravo Five: rotate left please.” (Pause.) “Your other left.”

From within the Special Ops command van, Mulwright and the others watched the video shot from Bravo Five’s lap. The camera’s images were SPD’s only look at the situation, unlike Flemming, who had all the airport’s security cameras at his disposal.

BRAVO 5: “I’ve got the truck’s taillights.”

Boldt spotted Crowley then: She wore a wig of short blonde hair, a bandanna around her forehead covering her wound, a brightly colored African skullcap on top. She had used eye shadow to blacken both eyes, giving her a haunting, brooding look-urban sheik mixed with biker girl. The blue bag doubled as a backpack, and she wore it as such. A different woman.

Boldt feigned annoyance with the caller in front of him-all an act for Flemming’s cameras. He turned and glanced down the hall following Crowley, who kept pace with other passengers.

Teibold dropped her purse, bent to retrieve it, and stepped out of the surging pedestrian traffic. She dealt with a shoelace as she appraised her surroundings, doing a convincing job of playing a paranoid person looking for tails.

The male agent from the newsstand, halfway down the concourse, took notice of Teibold and entered the men’s room, out of sight. Boldt marveled at the professionalism of the FBI undercover unit. He had spotted the couple with the flash camera, now headed toward baggage claim. But other than those two, and the two agents from the newsstand, he couldn’t identify any others. Flemming was probably relying on the security cameras for gate area surveillance and saving his manpower for the street.

Pros in every regard. Boldt worried Flemming’s people would not sucker onto Teibold for long.

His cell phone vibrated in his pocket. Kramer whispered in his smoker’s voice, “Our friends are following the Toyota. You copy that?”

“Got it.” They were following Teibold, just as Boldt had hoped. “How many on foot?” Boldt asked.

“At least seven near you.”

Boldt had missed three or more of Flemming’s agents.

“That truck’s working a flat tire,” Kramer said, referring to Teibold’s toying with her shoes.

“Affirmative.”

“Back at you in a minute.” The line went dead. Warm sweat drizzled down his ribs. Above all, in case he was being watched, he had to avoid looking at Crowley-his full attention on Teibold. Only the radio kept him in touch with Crowley’s movements, and his one human link to his little girl.

Daphne, on her way to Houston with the child, and eventually to Seattle, had spoken to Boldt twice since their separation and had correctly predicted Crowley’s change of disguise on the plane. She had also suggested that Crowley would head directly to the women’s room upon arrival for another change. “She will take a stall. Close herself in, sit down and settle herself. She won’t take her pants down, even if she might have to pee, because you can’t run with your pants down and she is in a defensive mode. She’s been here before. Every con artist has been in a bad situation. They survive by staying cool, and this is one cool woman. She will change her looks again. It’ll be a fast change. Something simple but effective. We won’t know until we see it. Something unexpected. Who knows? If she’s really good, she crawls between stalls, leaving hers closed. All I know for certain is that she’ll enter one woman, and leave another.”

For this reason, the housecleaner polishing the mirror in the women’s washroom, concourse B, was a Sex Crimes detective by the name of Morgan Blakely. Her call sign was Bravo Three.

Crowley was reported entering the women’s room, as Officer Blakely removed her earpiece so that it would not show. In doing so, she isolated herself.

COMMAND: “No vehicles seen entering the car wash. Only the truck.”

The resulting radio silence filled Boldt with anticipation. If no FBI agent followed Crowley into the washroom, then using Teibold as bait had worked. On the other hand, Flemming might have thought to cover the lavatories with someone inside, just as Boldt had. Time crawled. Women came and went from the lavatory’s open entrance. With no signal from Blakely, Boldt assumed Crowley remained inside.

Within a few seconds of this thought, chaos broke out at the bathroom’s entrance. Women poured out into the terminal-several in the midst of zipping and buttoning themselves. A waft of gray smoke appeared. Officer Morgan Blakely appeared in the cluster, looked frantically in all directions, caught sight of Boldt, and vehemently shook her head no.

They had lost the suspect.