Red Right Hand

23.

CAMERON DREW A steeling breath, and released it slowly. It came out shaky. She told herself that was okay-helpful, even.

She took out her Bluetooth earpiece and plucked a second burner phone from the center console. Using its browser, she Googled the number she was looking for and clicked the link to dial.

The phone rang twice; the call connected. “San Francisco tip line.” The syllables tumbled out with neither inflection nor the appropriate stresses, as though the woman who’d picked up had said them so often, they’d ceased to have any meaning.

Cameron couldn’t blame her. This number had been broadcast on every station, local and national, and printed in every story about the blast since Homeland Security had set it up late yesterday. She’d probably been dealing with cranks nonstop since she’d come on shift.

“I-I’m calling to report a crime,” Cameron said, her voice a sharp whisper.

“Ma’am, if you’re the victim or a witness of a crime in progress, you need to hang up and call 911.”

“You don’t understand,” Cameron hissed. “I’m on Baker Street in San Francisco between Greenwich and Lombard. A man outside just dropped a backpack in the street and ran away. He…he looked Muslim.”

Ugh. Just saying those words made Cameron feel dirty. She was preying on prejudice and the looming fear of follow-up attacks. But there was no denying, they had the intended effect.

“Please stay on the line, ma’am,” the operator said, urgency creeping into her tone. “I’d like to put you on the phone with my superior. But first, can you confirm your location for me?”

“Baker Street, San Francisco, between Greenwich and Lombard.”

“And what did this man look like?”

“He, uh, had a long dark beard and was wearing some kind of flowy off-white shirt, I think. Wait-something’s happening. He’s come back. It’s…it’s like he’s looking for something. Oh God, I think he sees me, please hurry!”

Cameron hung up the phone. Then she popped off its back cover and removed the battery. The SIM card too, which she snapped in half.

That done, she replaced her Bluetooth earpiece, raised her binoculars-one of the two pairs she’d purchased at Walmart yesterday-and watched the Homeland Security agents manning the perimeter of the old base. It was hard to make out fine details because her hands were so unsteady, shaking not from fear, but from adrenaline. Still, she saw enough to get the broad strokes.

Both were startled into action when their radios went off. They conferred a moment and then left their posts and sprinted toward Baker Street, one down Greenwich, the other down Lombard.

“You still there?” Cameron asked.

“Yeah,” Hendricks replied in her earpiece.

“They’re on the move.”

“Both of them?”

“Yeah.”

“You must’ve been convincing, then. Good job.”

“Thanks. I’ll admit, it was a hell of a rush,” she replied, grateful he wasn’t here to see her dopey grin or the flush in her cheeks.

“Don’t get used to it,” he admonished. “Okay, I’m going dark. Remember: get clear, and hole up somewhere quiet-”

“-with an open Wi-Fi network,” she finished, because they’d been over the plan a thousand times. “Got it.”

“Good. I’ll call you when I need you.” Hendricks disconnected.

Cameron smiled again and started the car.

As far as she was concerned, his next call couldn’t come soon enough.

Halfway up Greenwich, Hendricks ducked into the recessed entryway of an apartment building and patted his pockets as if looking for his keys. There was no need for the charade, it turned out-the Homeland Security agent who sprinted by didn’t so much as glance his way. Hendricks poked his head out of the entrance alcove and watched the man round the corner onto Baker Street. Then he headed west on Greenwich once more.

When he reached Lyon, he looked both ways and then crossed it at a trot, slowing as he reached the far sidewalk. Rather than heading north toward the Presidio’s Lombard Street gate, Hendricks went south. The gate was too visible for his taste, Lombard Street too well traveled. Plus, half the cops in San Francisco were, at present, within the Presidio’s walls. If they’d bit hard on Cameron’s diversion, Hendricks figured they’d most likely leave via that gate to check it out.

The keening wail of sirens behind him-quiet at first, but building quickly, like a migraine-confirmed Hendricks’s assumption. He didn’t turn around; he just kept walking and watched three SFPD cruisers rocket through the gate, lights flashing, in the distorted reflection of a parked delivery van’s windshield. Then they were swallowed by the neighborhood, their sirens muffled slightly by the buildings.

The backpack he’d dropped contained a pair of road flares and a scissor jack he’d scavenged from the Altima’s trunk and taped to a spare burner phone. It was utterly harmless, but when the Feds X-rayed it, it’d look scary enough to keep them busy for a while.

Hendricks passed behind the delivery van and stopped. It blocked him from view of the row houses to his right. To his left, beyond the low stone wall that marked the edge of the Presidio, was an overgrown rise, shrubs huddled beneath large trees. Hendricks glanced around to be sure there was no one else in sight-and then he vaulted over the wall.

He crouched behind it for a second, listening for any indication he’d been spotted. He heard none, so he scrabbled upslope through the trees until the ground leveled.

When he reached the edge of the tree cover, he untied the windbreaker from around his waist, turned it right-side in, and slipped it on. Emblazoned on the back, both shoulders, and left breast were yellow block letters that read FBI.

On a campus crawling with law enforcement, blending in made more sense than slinking around. The problem was, official uniforms were hard to come by. It always looked so easy in the movies: knock a guy out, drag him into a supply closet, emerge seconds later in his clothes. In reality, it was damn near impossible to put a guy down with one blow, much less strip someone while he was unconscious. Which was what Hendricks had told Cameron when she’d suggested it.

She’d frowned then. Fell silent. Opened the browser on her phone. Then she turned the screen around to face him. On it was an image of an FBI raid jacket. “Is this really what they look like or is that only in the movies too?”

“That’s really what they look like.”

“Then why not just make one?”

Cameron bought a roll of yellow duct tape and an X-Acto knife at a craft store just off the highway. Then they’d hit a uniform-supply place to pick up the jacket. She carved the letters freehand and applied them in the parking lot of a tamale joint that was closed on Sundays, the jacket laid out on the hood of the car. Hendricks had been dubious, but once she was done, he was forced to admit the illusion was convincing. Sure, it fell apart if you put your face right up to it, but if anybody got that close to him, he had bigger problems than the texture of the duct tape showing.

Afterward, since Cameron didn’t need it any longer, he pocketed the X-Acto knife. You never knew when a sharp blade would come in handy.

Hendricks watched from the trees awhile, taking in the scene. He was at the edge of a winding drive. A neighborhood of connected townhomes disappeared into the green off to his left. A pair of low-slung buildings stood to his right. Everything was off-white with red roofs, some of them actually clay tile, the others red shingles meant to convey the impression of clay.

A Park Police cruiser rolled by. Hendricks ducked into the shadows as it passed. Once it was no longer in sight, he stepped out of the woods. The command tent-and, therefore, the cell on wheels-was northwest of his position. He could either head west through the neighborhood or go north toward the commercialized end of the old base.

He chose north. Walked past a tennis court, a social club. A couple of uniformed cops loitered outside the latter, and they eyed Hendricks as he approached.

He nodded at them, heart thudding.

They nodded back, and he continued on his way.