At all costs

CHAPTER SEVEN

Irene stared at the handset for a long time after resting it back on its cradle. Never in her forty-two years on the planet had anyone ever brutalized her like that on the telephone. Not even counting the two years in college when she’d moonlighted in telephone sales.

Frankel had called initially to praise her for bringing Jake Donovan to justice after so many years. He told her during the jovial first seconds of their conversation that he considered her diligence a personal favor, in light of his impending confirmation hearings.

That initial praise hurt more than any of the curses that followed. That Frankel had been the original case agent was common knowledge throughout the Bureau; that he’d progressed beyond it was nothing short of miraculous. And here, on the eve of his appointment as director, Irene had blown a once-in-a-lifetime chance to encase her career in gold. If only she’d listened to her instincts.

God damn Sherwood and his cronies!

Okay, that wasn’t fair. Despite his smugness and annoying condescension, all Sherwood had done was state his opinion. She could forgive that. Somehow, though, that sense of charity wouldn’t stretch as far as Lucas Banks. At least Sherwood was a cop. Banks, on the other hand, would do well to steer clear of Irene for the next few lifetimes. She made a mental note to speak to the US. Attorney about filing obstruction of justice charges against him just for the hell of it.

Of all the invectives launched by Frankel over the telephone, the one that stung the most was “incompetent.” She’d been around for way too many years to make mistakes like this. Certainly, her career was dead in the water, and with it, her dreams to scale the lofty heights of the pyramid. Dishonor was dealt with slowly and painfully in the Bureau, earning errant agents either a lifetime assignment crashing doors in the world’s worst ghettos or watching grass grow at some distant Indian reservation.

She could always quit, she supposed-but in the longer view, that wasn’t really an option. She had her daughters to think about. Until Pam and Paula were out of college and married, hers was the only paycheck to pay the bills.

When Sherwood failed to return with news of an arrest, she’d figured Donovan was gone. So now the chase was on. As she reached for the door handle leading from Sherwood’s office to the squad room, she paused for a moment, straightening her shoulders and pulling herself together. At least for the time being, she was still in charge of this case, and she was intent on looking the part.

The squad room was deserted. Half-full cups of coffee sat in the middle of incomplete paperwork. Chairs were skewed, and somehow the place looked even rattier than it had before. Obviously, Sherwood had scrambled the whole department to chase Donovan down, and God bless him for the effort.

For the time being, the Phoenix P.D. would be the only eyes and ears she had. The DEA boys from this morning were already on their way back home, and they had no jurisdiction, anyway. That pretty much left her with her thumb up her ass waiting for reinforcements from the Charleston field office, at which point the chase would take on a whole new dimension. Meanwhile, she needed to find Sherwood and his senior staff. She was, after all, their leader.

She found the chief and his three lieutenants holed up in the command center-really little more than a conference room with a dozen phone lines and maps covering three walls. A giant green chalkboard dominated the fourth wall, extending from corner to corner, floor to ceiling. Currently, the board was empty.

That will change soon enough, she thought.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” she said, striding up to the front of the room. Southern born and bred, the four men stood without thinking, but she waved them back into their seats. “You’ve all heard about my little adventure this morning,” she opened, “and I’m sure you’ll have ample opportunity to bust my chops over the next few hours or-God forbid-days.” She figured the best way to regain some semblance of authority was to admit responsibility up front and to move on. “For the time being, though, somebody catch me up with what we know.”

Sherwood took the lead, but not before draining his coffee and adding the cup to the boneyard of dead Styrofoam scattered across the Formica-topped conference table. “I’m afraid you already know what we know, Irene,” he said with a shrug. “He bamboozled us. The officer who was supposed to be ferrying him back to his house got sidetracked by a story about his mother having surgery at the hospital. We’ve got officers there, of course, but I don’t expect to find anything. He’s a clever guy.”

“You’ve got people at his house, I presume,” she offered, drawing a patronizing glare from the chief.

“Of course,” he said, his tolerance a bit frayed. “And at his office, too, though I can’t imagine he’d be stupid enough to go back there.”

She nodded. They were long shots, but criminals were known to make incredibly foolish mistakes. “What about roadblocks?” As she spoke, she leafed through the Wanted posters for the Donovans, trying to reconcile the printed details with the ones she’d memorized.

One of the lieutenants answered for Sherwood. “Unfortunately, we don’t have the manpower to be offensive and defensive at the same time. The state police are willing to help, but they’re just as flat-footed as we are right now. Give me two hours, and I can make this city vaporproof. Until then, we’ve got to hope for mistakes.”

She dropped the posters on the table and looked up. “Well, the Donovans aren’t known for making too many of those,” she said. “Do you people realize who we’re dealing with? These two killed sixteen people back in 1983. People they knew. Friends of theirs. Just mowed them down like so many bowling pins. As I recall, they were environmental lunatics, trying to prove a point about the evils of chemical warfare, so naturally, they blew up a chemical weapons plant and contaminated a couple hundred square miles of Arkansas.”

“They left a note, didn’t they?” Sherwood asked, trying to dislodge the details from his own memory.

She nodded. It was all coming back to her. This had been a case study at the academy for years. “Yes. They called it their manifesto, typed up neatly and left in the hotel room of a coworker who was too sick to go to work that day. In fact, they went all the way back to the motel just to blow his ass away, too. These are some sick, sick puppies, gentlemen.”

With an amazing knack for vaporizing before our eyes. “We don’t even have a decent photo of the guy,” Irene growled. The picture in the Wanted poster bore only a vague, family resemblance to Jake Brighton, and it’d be another half hour before his new mug shot was on the street.

“Look at the bright side,” one of the lieutenants offered. “At least he’s as off balance as we are. I don’t care how careful a planner this asshole is, there’s no way he could have been prepared for what went down this morning.”

“Good point,” she agreed. “So, if we’re gonna get him the easy way, we’re going to have to do it soon. We can’t possibly guess what his escape plan is, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that he left here naked, for all intents and purposes. No car, no money-at least none to speak of. Where is he going to go to get those things?”

“We know he called his wife,” a lieutenant said. “Probably told her to bring them.”

“Do we know it was his wife, or are we assuming it’s his wife?” Sherwood asked.

The lieutenant blushed. “Well, he said it was his wife.”

Everyone laughed, but Irene spoke the words: “And he said his name was Brighton. I don’t suppose you recorded the conversation, did you?”

“What?” Sherwood gasped playfully, bringing both hands to his face. “And violate the Fifth Amendment rights of our visiting felons?”

Shit. “I didn’t think so.”

“Too many lawyers are consulted on that phone,” Sherwood explained, serious once again. “Judge told us ‘no way’ on the recordings.”

“Okay,” Irene said, mentally checking off one more possibility. “What do we know about the lovely Mrs. Donovan?”

“We know she killed a shitload of people,” one of the lieutenants grumbled as a third one-Roper, according to his name tag-answered a ringing phone.

“Why, thank you, Lieutenant. How helpful. Do we know if she stuck with our boy long enough to become Mrs. Brighton?”

“Well, you know what they say,” Sherwood offered with a big grin. “Nothing cements a relationship like a good killing spree.”

“Got something!” Roper announced, dropping the telephone receiver onto its cradle. “We ran the name Brighton through the computer, filtering out everything outside of Phoenix-start small, right? And get bigger. Anyway, we got a single hit. A Travis Brighton is registered in the eighth grade at J. E. B. Stuart Junior High. Same home address as Jake’s-Farm Meadows Mobile Home Park.”

Irene smacked the table with both palms. “That’s it!” she proclaimed. “That’s our best shot. Stake out the kid, capture the parents.”

Sherwood started issuing orders, even as his staff was carrying them out on their own. “Get all units out to the school,” he commanded. “Everybody but the people already committed to Brighton’s house and the body shop. Call the school. Have them put the kid under wraps somehow.” As everyone sprung into action, Sherwood brought it all to a stop with a wolf whistle, freezing people in their tracks. “Remember, everyone! This one requires a bit of diplomacy. We’ve got a known murderer snatching his kid from a school. This one has ‘bloodbath’ written all over it, okay? Tell everybody to be very goddamn careful.”

The image of automatic-weapons fire and bleeding children raced through Irene’s head and gave her a chill. “How long till you have units on the scene, Chief?”

He placed his hands on his hips and took a deep breath as he glanced at the map and ran calculations. “Ten minutes, I’d guess. Maybe twelve. Kinda far off the beaten path.”

She checked her watch and sighed. Somehow it seemed like forever.