Deadly Pursuit

13

Delta flight 627 out of Atlanta touched down at Miami International at 9:57 a.m. Lovejoy and Moore hustled their carry-on bags out of the overhead bins and got off fast.

An Airphone call to the Miami office shortly before landing had established that no one would be meeting them at the gate. The field office’s resources were entirely consumed by the hunt for Mister Twister.

“At least there isn’t any shortage of cabs in this town,” Lovejoy said as he and Moore hurried down the concourse. “But before we leave the airport, it might be advisable to pay a call on security.”

William Proster had been chief of security at Miami International for seventeen years. He offered his visitors a donut (declined) and a seat (accepted). The radio chatter of patrol units crackled and buzzed over the squawkbox on his desk.

“I understand you’re still not a hundred percent sure your boy actually deplaned here,” Proster said, dunking a cruller in a mug of coffee. “So I came in early today and watched some TV.”

He chewed the donut, waiting for the obvious question. Moore obliged. “TV?”

“Well, nothing that’ll give Phil and Oprah a run for their money.” Proster chuckled at his own wit. “We’ve got dozens of video cameras set up in strategic locations. Any arriving passenger would have to walk right past some of them to exit the terminal. This morning I screened the sections of the tapes recorded in the relevant time frame.”

“Did you see him?” Lovejoy asked.

“I can’t say for a certainty.” The soggy cruller vanished in two last bites. “But maybe yes. At least, there’s one fellow who’s dressed right-jeans, casual shirt, knapsack. ’Course, a million joes dress like that. The face…” Proster sighed. “To me it’s a blur. Why don’t you take a look-see for yourselves?”

He escorted them to the video surveillance center, where rows of color monitors lined the walls from floor to ceiling, showing overhead views of the concourses and baggage-claim areas. Flocks of miniaturized travelers hurried past in real time, exiting from one monitor only to enter another a moment later. Two security guards nursed coffees and watched the screens.

The tape from last night was already cued up on a video deck in the corner. “This camera is stationed on the American Airlines concourse,” Proster said, “near the security checkpoint.” He punched Play, and a hazy image of what might have been Jack Dance passed across the upper right-hand corner of the picture tube. A digital display in a corner of the frame marked the time at 10:04 p.m.

“Again,” Lovejoy said.

Proster rewound the tape a couple of feet and replayed it.

Lovejoy shook his head. “I’m not sure.” He looked at Moore. “You?”

“I think it’s Jack. But I can’t be positive. The image is too hard to read.”

“We picked up the same man on a couple of other cameras, but in those instances he’s pretty much lost in the crowd or in shadow. This is the best look at him we got.”

“It’s not enough to confirm his arrival,” Moore said.

Proster nodded. “True enough. However, I’d bet my winnings from a good night of five-hand stud that this fellow”-he tapped the picture tube, where the frozen image lay like a painting behind glass-“is your boy, and here’s why. Two cars were stolen from long-term parking yesterday. Now admittedly this is Miami, where grand theft auto is not exactly unheard of, but even so…”

Lovejoy was taking notes. “What kind of cars?”

“One was a ’93 Dodge Dynasty LE sedan, silver exterior, gray interior. Owner went off on a day trip, got back at eleven p.m. and discovered it missing. With the other car we got a little bit lucky. The owner expected to be away till Sunday night, but his seminar got canceled, so he came back from Houston only a few hours after he left. His car was gone. Must’ve disappeared between four and midnight.”

“Make and model?”

“Pontiac Sunbird. Four-door hardtop. 1992. White exterior, blue interior.”

“Plates?”

Proster rattled off both license numbers without consulting any notes.

“Miami P.D. put out APB’s?”

“You betcha. Statewide. But I wouldn’t hold my breath. Lots of cars go to the chop shop in the Sunshine State.”

Lovejoy was still looking at the fuzzed image on the monitor. “Would it be possible for us to borrow that tape?”

“Think if you ogle it long enough, you can convince yourself it’s him?”

“Not exactly. There might be a whole new way of seeing it.”

Moore asked him what he’d meant once they were back in the concourse.

“From what I understand, certain computer programs can do video enhancements of single frames. Improve the resolution, bring out more detail.”

“Good thought. We can messenger the tape up to D. C Have the Headquarters lab take care of it.”

Lovejoy pursed his lips. “That’s one possible approach. But we might have to wait awhile for the results.”

“What’s the alternative?”

“Local talent.” Lovejoy stopped by a bank of pay phones, found the Yellow Pages, and flipped to a section marked Television Production Services. “One of these outfits may be able to digitize and enhance the image while we wait.”

A couple of quick phone calls, and they had an appointment at a video-production house called Sorcerer’s Apprentice on Flagler Street in downtown Miami.

A revolving door ejected them into the scorching dragon’s breath of the day. The air was humid and thick, the heat stifling. Lovejoy sneezed twice before climbing into the first taxi in the queue.

“I hate this climate,” he said as he dabbed his nose. His standard complaint.

“You hate all climates.” Her standard response.

Lovejoy gave the video firm’s address to the driver.

As the cab pulled away, Moore said thoughtfully, “You know, taking this tape to an outside agency for analysis isn’t exactly going by the rules and regs.”

“Well, sometimes it may be necessary to… slightly… bend the rules.”

She had never expected to hear Peter Lovejoy say that.

Sorcerer’s Apprentice was an unprepossessing warren of offices in a rundown brownstone. The receptionist introduced them to a technician named Davis, a youngish man, bearded and pony-tailed and

amazingly pale for south Florida. He wore a loose T-shirt that growled HATE THE STATE.

The slogan led Moore to expect a hostile reaction when she and Lovejoy identified themselves as federal agents, but Davis merely nodded, listened patiently to their request, and said, “Okay. Come on.”

He led them down the hall to a narrow room cluttered with electronic gear. Lovejoy surrendered the tape, and Davis popped it into a camcorder plugged into a connection box at the back of a Quadra 950 computer, then ran the video in a full-motion display.

“Huh,” he said, sitting comfortably at the console. “Pretty bleary, all right.”

“Can you enhance it?” Lovejoy asked.

“You can always tweak an image. But in this case, maybe not enough. Let me grab a frame and see.”

He ran the video in slow motion, then frame by frame, till he found the most promising image. A double click on the mouse made a dialog box appear; he selected “Capture to RAM” in response to a prompt.

“You want just his face?”

Lovejoy said yes.

Davis cropped and resized the frame, enlarging the man’s face to fill most of the screen. He activated a pull-down menu, clicked on one of the options, and increased the contrast.

“Looking a little better already. Now let’s sharpen it up, improve the edge definition.”

He clicked on another menu option, then went on clicking as the blurred picture came into progressively crisper focus in a rapid series of adjustments.

“That’s as clear as I can get it,” he said finally.

“Quite possibly clear enough,” Lovejoy muttered. “Personally, I think we’ve got a match.”

Moore thought so, too, but wanted to be sure. From her briefcase she removed a copy of Jack Dance’s mug shots, modified by a sketch artist to incorporate his disguise. She compared the profile view with the face on the monitor.

Same hair. Same glasses. Same nose and jaw.

“It’s him,” she said. “We’ve confirmed him in Miami.”

Davis leaned back in his swivel chair. “Want a hard copy of this frame?”

Lovejoy nodded. “If possible.” Half a minute later a laser printout was in his hand. “Thanks. You’ve been a considerable help. What do we owe you?”

“No charge. Glad to be of service to the authorities.” He saw Moore’s raised eyebrow and added, “Oh, don’t mind the T-shirt. A holdover from my Murray Rothbard phase. I used to think anarchy was cool.”

“What happened?” she asked, amused.

“I got mugged.” Davis pivoted in his chair and tapped the screen. “This is the serial killer, isn’t it? Saw his picture in this morning’s Herald.”

Lovejoy coughed into his fist. “The Bureau is involved in a large number of manhunt operations at any given point in time, only a few of which make the headlines. It’s hardly prudent to jump to conclusions concerning any particular-”

“It’s the same man,” Moore cut in, impatient with her partner’s evasions. “But we’d appreciate it if you didn’t spread the story around. We don’t want this to get on the news. It’s best if he doesn’t know how close we are.”

“How close are you?”

“Well… we know he’s in Florida.”

Davis grunted. “Florida’s a big place.”

“He’s correct, you know,” Lovejoy said as he and Moore pulled away in a second cab. “Florida is a big place.”

“We need another break, that’s all.”

“In my estimation, we’ve already gotten more breaks than we had any right to expect.”

Moore had no answer to that. They were silent during the rest of the ride to the field office.