The Footprints of God

CHAPTER 15

Geli Bauer stood alone in David Tennant's kitchen, alone with the corpse of her lover. The carpet-cleaning-service truck was still parked outside, its vacuum equipment run¬ning loudly. By any operational standard, she should have moved Ritter's corpse long ago. But she couldn't. She wanted to understand what had happened here. From the wound in Ritter's head and the way his body was lying, it seemed he had been shot from the front or slightly to the side. She couldn't imagine an untrained man winning a shootout with a former member of Germany 's most elite counterterror unit. That left two options.

One: Tennant had somehow surprised Ritter and fired very accurately as Ritter whirled to shoot him.

Two: Tennant was not what he seemed.

He had been raised in the rural area around Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which might make him proficient with a hunting rifle, but not with a handgun. And where had he learned to sweep rooms for microphones? Had Fielding taught him that, or had he learned it elsewhere?

His escape from the crime scene raised more questions. The team in the carpet van had arrived to find Rachel Weiss's Saab parked out front but Tennant's garage empty. A second team had combed the neighborhood and discovered Tennant's Acura parked behind some hedges at a vacant house. It had taken a half hour of police liaison to learn that a silver Audi A8 had been stolen from the house down the street.

Without the voiceprint analysis that had turned up Fielding's covert call from a convenience store, Tennant and Weiss might have slipped through her net. But four days ago, Fielding had reserved a cabin at Nags Head on the Outer Banks in the name of Mr. Lewis Carroll. This, combined with Tennant's having received a FedEx letter from Fielding yesterday, had been enough for Geli to put air assets over Highway 64, the route to Nags Head. And that had put Tennant back into her hands.

As she looked down at Ritter's shattered skull and blood-matted hair, her cell phone rang. "Bauer," she said.

"This is Air-One. They know we're following them."

"How high are you flying?"

"Ten thousand feet. There's no way they could have made us from looking at the sky. They had to see the beam."

"That's impossible without special equipment."

"They must have some."

"What are they doing now?"

A crackle of static. "They ran off the road like they saw the beam and panicked. They ducked under the dash for a while, then got back on the highway. They're doing about ninety now, still headed east."

"What are they saying?"

"Nothing about a destination."

"Where are our ground units?" Geli asked.

"Closest is fifteen minutes away, give or take two."

"I'll call you back." She speed-dialed Skow's scram¬bled cell phone. He answered after eight rings.

"What is it, Geli?"

"Tennant detected our airborne surveillance. He's taking evasive action."

"You must be joking. Have your people lost him?"

"The plane has the Audi now, but they could lose it."

"I suppose you want to terminate them now?"

Geli sensed Skow's finger on the chicken switch. "That's my standing order from you."

"The situation has changed."

"The geography has changed. Not the situation."

"I don't like it. How will it play?"

The bureaucrat's mantra, Geli thought scornfully. "Tennant went psychotic. He killed his Trinity guard and kidnapped his psychiatrist. We're attempting a res¬cue."

There was a long silence. Then Skow said, "Peter was right to hire you. Good luck with that rescue."

"Fuck you very much," Geli muttered, and hung up. She opened her connection to the plane and her ground units.

"Air-One, do you still have the Audi in sight?"

"Affirmative. And they definitely know we're here. Tennant leaned out and looked up at us."

"Ground units, when you get there, wait for low traf¬fic, then box in the car and take them."

"Take them out?" asked a voice with the eerie calm of a fighter pilot on a mission.

Geli looked down at Ritter's corpse, remembering last night. He was still alive inside her. "Tennant may have kidnapped his psychiatrist. We're not sure. We do know that he's highly unstable, armed, and he's already killed one of ours. Ritter Bock, which should tell you something. Nobody take any chances. Protect your own lives first."

There was a chorus of "Affirmative."

"Am I understood?"

The responding silence said more than the subse¬quent acknowledgments. This was why she hired former soldiers.

"Ah, that's a rog," said a cold male voice.

"Call it play by play for me, Air-One."

"Will do."

Geli smiled. Tennant and Weiss wouldn't live to see nightfall.