“Any sign of my son?”
“Nothing,” Bill said. “Your boy hasn’t communicated with you?”
“He left me a voice message last night,” Valentine said. “He used a code to tell me he was in trouble.”
Bill ran his fingers through his hair. It was a signal that cheaters often used to signal each other there was “heat” and trouble on the horizon. He wondered if Bill recognized the irony in the gesture.
“Why didn’t you tell me last night that the FBI thought this son-of-a-bitch was a terrorist?” he said.
“Because last night, the FBI didn’t know that he was a terrorist,” Bill replied.
“What changed?”
“Sit down, will you? You’re making me nervous.”
Valentine pulled up a chair and sat down. “Feel better?”
“Yes.” Bill’s eyes were watery from lack of sleep, and he rubbed them. “Remember when I told you how the FBI linked two murders in Biloxi to four other gambler suicides?”
“I remember.”
“When the FBI was looking at the information, they saw something else. The cities where the gambler suicides took place were Biloxi, Detroit, New Orleans, Reno, and Atlantic City. These same cities have something else in common.”
“What’s that?”
“In the past two and a half years, caches of high-grade explosives have been found in each one. With the explosives were sophisticated detonators and mercury switches. In each city, the FBI got an anonymous tip that led them to the explosives before they were used. In New Orleans, they found a van with the stuff lining the interior walls.”
Valentine felt another jolt to his nervous system. They were starting to scare the hell out of him. He placed his hand on his chest and felt his ticker. Its beat was slow and steady. His nerves, he decided.
“You okay?”
“I’ll live. When did the FBI link the explosives to the murders?”
“This morning,” Bill said. “There was a shootout yesterday at a gas station outside Henderson. A Mexican died. His partner got pulled over by the highway patrol. A K-Nine dog sniffed vapors in his truck. The partner broke down this morning and admitted selling explosives to a guy matching the suspect’s description.”
“What kind of explosives?”
“Triacetone triperoxide, also called TATP. It’s what that guy Reid had in his basketball shoes when he tried to take down the jet right after 9/11.”
“How much did they sell him?”
“Seventy-five pounds. If it were detonated all together, it would take down an entire city block.”
Valentine closed his eyes, then slowly opened them. “You think he’s planning to hit Las Vegas?”
“That’s the general consensus.”
“I talked to my son last night. I know things about this guy the FBI might not know.”
“Did you tell Fuller?”
“I tried last night. He wouldn’t listen.”
“You want me to call him?”
“Yes.”
He watched Bill dial the phone. He’d wanted to find Gerry before the FBI did, but he knew now that that was no longer the most important thing. The FBI had to find Amin, and they had to do it fast. Even if it meant his son ended up getting hurt.
“Peter, this is Bill Higgins,” Bill said into the phone. “I’ve got someone here who I think can help your investigation.”
42
Longo woke up Sunday morning feeling like he’d slept with his head stuck in a vise. Like an idiot, he’d gone and gotten a six-pack of beer the night before, sat in front of the TV in his motel room, and polished it off. His body ached from the beating he’d taken, so he’d gotten drunk, hoping the alcohol would wash his misery away.
It had worked, and he had slept like a dead man.
But then he’d woken up with the world’s worst headache. Staggering into the bathroom, he’d stared at his reflection in the vanity and groaned. The lumps and bruises on his face were reminiscent of the white boxers on ESPN who couldn’t fight. Throw in the broken nose, and he was the picture of a palooka.
He couldn’t deal with it. Not so early in the morning. So he’d taken a handful of ibuprofens and washed them down with the remains of a beer. Soon his head was spinning. Lying on the lumpy bed, he’d returned to dream world.
At eleven o’clock the phone on the bedside table rang. Only a handful of people knew he was here, all of them cops. Longo raised the receiver expectantly.
“What’s up?”
His caller was an undercover narcotics detective named Hotchkiss.
“I’ve been calling you for an hour,” Hotchkiss said belligerently. “Where the hell have you been?”
Longo sat up in bed. “Out jogging. You got something for me?”
“Yeah, I found your guy.”
Before he’d gone to sleep, Longo had called every cop in Las Vegas who owed him a favor, and asked them to help him track down Valentine.
“Where is he?”
“Right now, he’s on Las Vegas Boulevard, heading back into town.”
“You got a tail on him?”
“No,” Hotchkiss said, “a helicopter.”
Longo smiled. Narcotics had a great way to track suspected dealers. They would put tiny reflectors on the hoods of their cars and watch their movements from the sky. “How did you find his car in the first place?”
“A sheriff saw him driving the Strip this morning. He followed him to the FaceScan building and tagged his car.”
Longo’s smile grew. It made his face hurt, but he didn’t care. He was going to finally give Tony Valentine his due. Nothing in this world could have made him happier.
“Your guy just turned into the Acropolis,” Hotchkiss said.
There was a pause, and Longo guessed Hotchkiss was watching the action through the computer in his office, the helicopter sending him back a live feed.
“What’s he doing?”
“He left the car by the valet and went inside. I heard the place is closing down.”
“How come?”
“Got ripped off by a gang of cheaters.”
Longo slowly rose from the bed. His head felt like a balloon, and his legs were rubbery. He sat back down and said, “Thanks for the information. Thanks a lot.”
Longo ingested another handful of ibuprofens, then tore open a Little Debbie cupcake he’d bought the night before and wolfed it down. This time, the pills didn’t knock him sideways, and he dressed himself in yesterday’s clothes, then got his Glock .45 from the dresser. He slipped it into his shoulder harness, then went into the bathroom and combed his hair. He heard a knock on the door. Raising his voice, he said, “I’ll be out of your way in a few minutes.”
Another knock. This one louder, and more determined. He went to the door and stuck his eye to the peephole. It was his wife, Cindi. He pulled his face away.
There was a curtained window next to the door. Cindi’s face appeared behind the glass. Her eyes peeked through the opening in the curtain, and saw him.
“Pete. Please open up. I want to talk to you.”
His wife. Jesus Christ. He couldn’t let her see him like this.
“Pete? Do you want me to kick this door down?”
She would, too. Cindi was tough as nails. Her father had been a judge, and the genes had been passed down. Longo undid the chain and threw the deadbolt. Then he stepped back, hoping his face would be obscured by the room’s shadows.
Cindi came in, saw him, and did her best not to scream.
“Oh, my God,” she said. “What happened to your face?”
“I walked into a jet engine,” he replied.
They stared at each other for a long minute. Cold air invaded the room, his wife having left the door ajar, as if knowing she might want to escape. Finally, she found it in her to speak, the words coming out slow.