“I hear you.”
Stay on the line, stay on the line. Maybe the trace will go through-
“I’m going to give you four phone numbers. Write them down.”
Radar got out a pen. “Whose numbers are they?”
“Cable news networks. Once you’re in the bank, I want you to call them and tell them where you are and that they need to be there, filming by four twenty-five. I want them recording it live when it happens. I’ll call you again when you’re at the bank.”
The man hung up.
Calvin cancelled his lecture for this afternoon so he could help us, a gesture that, as much as I appreciated it, definitely took me by surprise. I’d left him alone a few minutes ago so he could focus on his algorithms and now, as I headed to my desk, I saw Radar lowering his phone’s receiver. He was breathing heavily, staring at a shoebox on his lap. He looked shaken.
“Hey, you alright?”
He looked my way. “Sure.”
But he didn’t look sure. “Something up?”
He shook his head, then covered the box carefully with the lid. Stood. “Just Gayle. I need to step out for a bit. If I get any calls, take a message and have the dispatcher pass it along to me.”
“So everything’s okay?”
He nodded. “Yeah, it’s just, something came up with one of the kids. Tod.”
“Get sick at school?”
Radar looked distracted.
“I mean school’s not out yet. Did he get sick? I just didn’t know if-”
“Yeah, no. He’s at home. He’s safe.”
He picked up his keys. “I’ll be on the radio, okay? Call me if anything comes up.”
“Okay.”
He started for the hall.
“Hey, Radar.”
He turned and looked at me.
“Why did you put it that way?”
“What way?”
“You said, ‘He’s safe.’ Why didn’t you just say, ‘He’s okay’?”
“He is,” he assured me. “He’s okay. I’ll talk to you in a minute.”
And then, with the box tucked under his arm, he left for the stairs.
86
Ralph came tromping up to my desk. “Where’s Radar?”
“He stepped out a minute ago.” I could already feel a rising tide of sharp concern. “What’s up?”
“He stepped out?”
“Yeah. What’s going on?”
“He wanted me to trace a call he just got, but we couldn’t get a line on it. Where did he go?”
I stood. “He said his wife called, that something was going on with his son.”
Ralph looked confused. “Why would he ask me to trace a call if it was his wife on the other end of the line?”
I was already on my way to the elevator bay. “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”
Radar had flown down the stairs, made it to the parking garage, and left the building as quickly as he could.
He could tell that Pat knew something was up, that much was obvious. Even though he’d wanted to wait until he heard from Ralph about the trace, he’d thought that if he hung around the station, there would’ve been all sorts of questions and it would have eaten up time-and that would have gotten in the way of what needed to happen right now: protecting Tod by following his abductor’s instructions.
Still, once Radar was on the road, he radioed dispatch to relay the message to Ralph to get a car out if he’d been able to trace the call.
Then he turned off his radio and headed toward Wales.
I didn’t catch Radar.
I tried radioing him.
He didn’t answer.
A dark thought plagued me, something I didn’t want to admit could possibly be true.
But then I had to admit it very well might be.
He’d told me that his son was home, that he was “safe,” not that he was “okay.”
That was easy enough to check on.
Back at my desk, I called Radar’s house. No one picked up. I tried radioing him again, but he didn’t answer.
Okay, so call the school where his kids attend.
The principal answered and told me the secretary had gone to the central office. “Before she left she mentioned that a man had come to speak with the Walker children regarding a car accident their father had been in.”
“Who was he? The man who came by?”
“If he was the fellow I saw at the reception desk, I’ve never seen him before. Hang on.” A moment passed, then she said, “Mrs. Unger didn’t write down his name.”
“So, he left through the front doors again?”
“I haven’t seen anyone walk past my office.”
“When? When did he come in?”
“About one thirty, I think.”
That was too long ago, way too long. “Page Tod Walker and have someone check his classroom for him. Also, see if you can reach Mrs. Unger. We need to know who that man was.”
I handed the phone to Ralph. “Find out what you can. See if you can get a description of the guy. Something’s happened to Radar’s son. I think someone took him.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to find Radar.”
Joshua wanted to see if his wife could record the news for him this afternoon. He tried the home number, but she wasn’t there. He gave her a ring at the real estate office. They told him she’d stepped out earlier, but that they were expecting her back any time and would give her the message.
Okay, if she didn’t get back to him, watching it live would have to be enough.
He drove the boy, who was safely tucked in the back of the moving truck, toward the bank in Wales.
87
3:25 p.m.
1 hour until the gloaming
I went to grab my things. Ralph called over to me and told me that neither Tod’s teacher nor the principal could give us anything on the man except that he was “big and white.” No one had been able to locate Mrs. Unger.
I tried Radar on the radio one last time.
Still nothing.
Tod was missing and all I could think of was that box Radar had been holding, and of the finger the kidnapper had left behind in Carl Kowalski’s refrigerator and what he’d done to Colleen and Adele.
He abducts. He makes demands. He mutilates his captives. And he’s escalating.
What? What would he have asked Radar to do?
Honestly, I had no clue.
When Radar left, he’d implied that he was going to his house, so I decided to try there first. From here I could get there just as quickly as if we dispatched a car. And he was my partner. I wanted to be the one there if something bad really was going down. I asked Ralph to stay on top of things here and to call me if we heard from Radar.
Calvin saw me getting ready to go and when I mentioned vaguely that I was following up on a lead, he surprised me and offered to come with me.
“I can’t do that.”
“Actually, my boy, you can, as long as I’m not in the front seat.”
I wished he didn’t know so much about law enforcement.
“I’m sorry, I-”
“You drive,” he said, as if that were a choice. “I’ll bring my computer. With the information your team pulled up on Basque’s activity nodes, I’m close to formulating a crude model of his cognitive map.”
“You can work on that here.”
“But you can’t get my results in real time.”
“Can you find him? Can you predict where he might’ve gone?”
“No. But I might be able to find his anchor point.”
I rubbed my head and tried to think things through.
It was possible that Basque had something to do with what was going on with Radar and Tod. I wasn’t sure how, but I was willing to do whatever it took to find them, especially if, as I feared, something bad had happened to Tod.
This was way unorthodox, but Calvin would be safe in the back of the car and I could pick his brain as we drove.
“Don’t tell anyone I’m doing this.”
He closed up his laptop and headed with me for the elevators. “Mum’s the word.”
88