I knew there was a chance that McIntyre would break the chain at that point. Skip the follow-up altogether, or find another medic to carry it out. And if he did summon Dr. Rollins, he could send a cab to fetch him. Or a car, with a professional driver. Neither of which would be the end of the world. They would just make it harder for me to follow without being spotted. But in the end, after two and a half hours—just before eleven o’clock—I saw the nose of the silver BMW edging out of the clinic’s garage. The doctor was at the wheel. Alone. He turned left, heading east, toward the lake. I let two other cars move between us, then eased out into the traffic behind him.
Rollins drove smoothly, making no late turns or unexpected maneuvers. He was making no attempt to disguise where he was heading, which made me think he didn’t know where his final destination would be. He was probably going to collect instructions from McIntyre along the way. Most likely several times. That’s the way I’d have done it in McIntyre’s shoes—injured, gone to ground, with no backup, in a strange city.
We continued down Illinois Street, followed underneath Michigan Avenue, swung right onto Columbus, and eventually merged with Lake Shore Drive. We passed the Field Museum and Soldier Field on our left. Then through the centre of McCormick Place, pale on the right, dark and mysterious on the left. Rollins cruised sedately in the middle lane. I stayed with him—sometimes two cars behind, sometimes three—until I was sure where he was headed. Midway Airport. Satisfied, I dropped back another six car lengths. Rollins was an amateur. There was nothing to suggest he was even looking for a tail, but it never hurts to be careful.
The main reason for McIntyre to send Rollins to an airport would be to neutralize any aerial surveillance the Chicago police might have put up. Even police helicopters aren’t allowed to operate near major commercial flight paths. But there were two other possibilities. One was to give Rollins a safe place to make his first call for directions. There were plenty of pay phones in the large, public concourses. McIntyre would know he couldn’t risk letting Rollins use a cell phone. Or even to e-mail from a BlackBerry. Anyone doing that is just asking to be tracked. I’d give a pound to a penny that Rollins had been told to leave them locked in his office, in case the temptation proved too much. The other explanation was to give him the chance to change cars. With time to prepare, McIntyre would have left a replacement vehicle, keys hidden nearby, in one of the parking lots. In these circumstances, though, he’d have to rely on a rental car. I knew from the notices I’d seen yesterday when I was passing through that eight rental companies operate from Midway. All have their collection points in the same parking garage. And that was the garage I saw Rollins pull into, twenty-one minutes after leaving the clinic.
The garage exit is relatively wide. There are seven tollbooths. Four were out of service that morning, so I found a spot behind a group of maintenance vehicles where I could keep an eye on the other three. One hundred and ninety-eight cars emerged during the next thirty-three minutes. Seven were silver BMWs. Four were the right age and model. But none belonged to Rollins. His must have been left inside. Because he had switched cars. To a white Ford Taurus. I saw him sneaking out through the center booth, crouched low in his seat, the light reflecting off his bulbous Rolex as he showed the rental company exit pass to the parking attendant.
Rollins stopped at four pay phones on his way back from the airport. One was at a gas station. One outside a McDonald’s. One near a Starbucks. And one inside a tattoo parlor, which clearly made him uncomfortable. After each phone call we looped back on ourselves, re-covering old ground and switching direction apparently on a whim. And each time he got back behind the wheel, his driving became a little jerkier and more erratic. He was clearly getting nervous, jumping a light on Clybourn and nearly colliding with a minivan at a weird six-way junction between Halsted, Fullerton, and Lincoln. Then finally, after we’d covered just short of forty-eight apparently aimless miles, Rollins slowed down. He took a right from Orchard onto Arlington Place. There was a gap in a line of cars parked outside an old, stone-fronted apartment building. Rollins spotted it late and swung the Taurus wildly into the space, stopping abruptly with his front wheel jammed up against the curb and the car rocking drunkenly on its springs. I dumped the Crown Vic half a block farther down and made my way back along the opposite side of the street, on foot. Rollins stayed in his car for exactly ten minutes. He was sitting bolt upright, his eyes alternating anxiously between his watch and his rearview mirror. I guessed he was following instructions. Probably McIntyre’s idea of Anti-Surveillance 101.
They both should have saved their time.
Rollins took one last anxious look behind him, then shuffled out awkwardly onto the sidewalk, dragging a battered black leather medical bag after him. He started walking slowly, almost inviting me to come after him. I watched him stroll halfway back to Orchard Street, then suddenly turn on his heel and head back quickly toward his car, blatantly staring at everyone who approached him. I smiled, and stayed in the lee of a UPS van until he was well past me, almost to the junction with Geneva Terrace. Then I followed. He turned right, still hurrying, spending so much time looking backward that he almost got run over by a blond woman in a white Toyota who was pulling out of a narrow driveway. He waved apologetically and immediately crossed the street, still heading for Fullerton. But before he got to the intersection he turned left, into an alleyway. It was clean. Straight. About five hundred feet long. I could see the service entrance for a modern apartment building at the far end. And the alley was broad. There was enough space for two cars to pass, if they took it easy. Which made it wider than the streets in some cities I’d been to. Many of the houses it served had garages or spaces to park. But one thing it didn’t have was house numbers. Rollins slowed down, appearing to count the gates. He stopped outside the tenth from the end, took a moment to gather himself, then disappeared from sight.
I reached the gate in time to see Rollins standing at the side of a large building. It was built of red brick. Three stories high, with ornate stone set all around the deep bay windows that overlooked the rear yard. Originally a single residence I’d guess, but now converted into apartments, judging by the iron fire escape that ran its full height, filling the gap between it and its neighbor. Apartments that were now vacant, judging by the weeds that filled the yard and the empty rooms I could see through the grimy rear windows.
It was perfect. McIntyre was lucky to have found it.
The side door opened, and Rollins stepped inside. He moved stiffly, as if he were reluctant to enter. I waited a moment to make sure he didn’t reappear. Promising as things looked, there was always a chance he was only there to pick up more instructions. But the door stayed closed, so I called Fothergill and brought him up to date. I hadn’t given him a situation report all day. After my last conversation with Tanya in New York I was feeling pretty disinclined to use the phone, and he did nothing to encourage me to communicate more. He’d turned into a typical desk jockey, all questions and queries and worries and second guesses, so I fobbed him off with the bare minimum of information and got back to work. I switched my phone to vibrate. Then I slipped through next-door’s gate and made my way silently toward the buildings, hugging the fence for cover.
I’d guess that this house had also been divided into apartments, based on the size of the two Dumpsters that were lined up against its rear wall. The left-hand one was only a foot away from the fence so I tested its lid, then climbed on top. From there I could reach across the boundary and get a grip on the lowest horizontal platform of McIntyre’s fire escape. The fence looked too flimsy to take my weight so I braced one foot against the wall and vaulted over to the other side. I hung by my hands for a moment then dropped to the ground, making sure to avoid the lowest metal step. I didn’t know where in the building McIntyre would be holed up, so I couldn’t afford to make any sound.