The Kline file lay on the seat between them, Roberts’s Gatorade on top of it. She picked up the Gatorade, wiping at the ring the bottle had left, as though somehow the file was sacred to him and she was worried he’d be upset. Earlier, he’d asked her to take a look at it, but so far she’d only thumbed through it as a curiosity. She tapped it now.
“How come there aren’t better photos?”
“The FBI has better photos.”
That got her more interested. The FBI added another level of credibility for her and he knew from talking to Roberts that she’d once considered an FBI career. She’d told him about being younger and imagining she’d be like Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs.
“What’s the closest you got to him?”
“There were a couple of times. Once, in Mexico, when I was still DEA, we were up in a mountain pueblo-this was a joint task force with the Mexicans where we’d set up surveillance ahead of a wedding. A man invited to the wedding was the Mexican equivalent of a district attorney. He’d made a name for himself prosecuting drug traffickers and we’d heard the Juarez cartels were either going to buy him off or shut him down. We had our own reasons for wanting him to survive and keep doing his job, so we were trying to help the Mexicans protect him until he prosecuted a couple of cases we were very interested in. Two days prior, we’d been tipped that the cartels had hired Kline to take him out. The DA had come to this wedding with his daughter, a beautiful girl, maybe twelve or thirteen.”
The last sentence came out like it felt, a stand-alone truth, a side fact until you knew what had happened and he paused, drew a slow breath, having never really gotten over this one. There were times driving along a freeway or a road anywhere, times when his mind drifted to her and for reasons in himself he didn’t understand he’d calculate how old she’d be if she was alive still. He pictured her face easily as he talked to Roberts.
“The DA went to the ceremony at the church, then made a bee-line with his daughter for their car. He’d made his appearance and was avoiding the party. We’d asked him to avoid the party, and he was okay with it.” Marquez glanced over. “I’m talking about a small church, crowded, old wood doors, stone steps, everybody spilling out after the ceremony. I was well up the slope on one side of town and I could see them walking across the plaza. It was a high desert kind of cold with a wind blowing and kicking up dust. A man came out of a side street and at first he seemed to be headed away from them, then turned back and raised his hand to get their attention. He called to them. Not in a hurried way, but I focused on him, and his face was hidden to me. I started down as soon as the DA took a step backwards, looked like he was trying to shield his daughter. Then it went fast. We think the man asked the DA a question, got the wrong answer and shot the girl through the forehead while her father had an arm around her. There was a delay, maybe fifteen seconds, time enough for more questions, and we got a shot off.”
“You?”
“No, I was running down and Kline drove past me. Another agent shot at him but missed. Kline didn’t kill the Mexican prose-cutor and the man didn’t quit his job, but he lost his guts to pursue the traffickers. I heard there were other threats against his family and he folded up after that.”
“Resigned?”
“Yeah.”
“Who wouldn’t?” Marquez didn’t answer and she returned to Kline. “It’s not like we have much to go on. Not like there’s much proof about him being here, Lieutenant. What does the FBI say about him being in California?”
“I made one call and so far I haven’t had a call back from the Feds.”
She turned quiet and he didn’t begrudge her skepticism. In fact, he respected it. He wanted SOU wardens who were skeptics. His theory of Kline being here could turn out to be a fantasy. He hoped it was. Roberts was young, unafraid, and strong. She was an expert markswoman, had a black belt, ran marathons, and had been scuba diving since she was ten. She had the shoulders of a swimmer and grew up in a generation where the young women pumped iron the same as the men. What she hadn’t tested herself against was the absence of morality and he’d wanted to communi-cate Kline to her without overdramatizing, but felt like he’d failed. It was better left alone now.
At 10:27, the Condor passed under the Golden Gate Bridge and angled toward the north bay. It berthed in Sausalito as Bailey had said it would and Marquez got set up with the local police and the rest of the SOU. Roberts went for food while he talked to the Sausalito police, letting them know they were on location and as far as he knew the bust would still be early morning.
When Roberts got back, they ate, then moved down to a position on a docked boat. They’d trade off every four hours through the night, and she was asleep now, her head on a coil of rope, a blue plastic tarp hiding her body like a blanket. Sodium lights strung along the dock hummed and swung in the wind and the shapes of Bailey and Heinemann flickered through the pale light of their rear cabin window. Across the bay, the skyline of San Francisco glowed with a hazy brilliance and as the night deepened and quieted he listened to the water lapping at the dock and faint strains of music carrying from the Condor. He watched Bailey come out, pee off the boat into the water and he was near to waking Roberts to change shifts when a light came on in the boat berthed next to the Condor.
Earlier, he’d scanned the boat, the Emily Jane, hadn’t seen anyone on board and had decided it was a fishing vessel. He lifted the camcorder and with the infrared hooked in he easily read the heat image of a man, then picked up a second individual and swung back toward the Condor, saw both Bailey and the diver out on the deck, the cabin door ajar, a shaft of light falling across the stern. A winch engine coughed and started and Marquez reached and shook Roberts’s shoulder.
“We’re on.”
She came awake quickly, asking, “What time is it?”
“3:30.”
“Bailey lied.”
Marquez punched in the numbers for the Sausalito police and then Alvarez’s cell phone. It would take Alvarez and Petersen at least twenty minutes to get here from the motel in Corte Madera and urchin baskets were already moving. They weren’t going to get here in time and the Sausalito police said their first car wouldn’t get there for ten minutes because they had officers assisting the CHP on a vehicle pursuit. He watched Bailey as the dispatcher told him the suspect car had crossed northbound on the bridge then dropped into Sausalito on Alexander Drive. It had since sideswiped three cars and the driver was on foot now with officers in pursuit. Sounded exciting, but it wasn’t going to help them here.
Marquez repeated their situation and counted three men on the Emily Jane, then got off the line with the dispatcher. He had no problem taking down both boats with Roberts, but it would be safer with backup. He decided to give Sausalito as long as possible to get here.
“They’ve almost got it,” Roberts said.
They heard the Emily Jane’s engines kick on and diesel smoke wafted across the dock as Marquez tried the Marlin, but as he feared, they were between shifts and docked at the Berkeley marina. He talked to a sleepy warden, asked him to find Hansen.
“Okay, we have to go,” he said. “Get yourself ready.” He slipped his tactical jacket on. STATE GAME OFFICER was written in large green and yellow letters, but he didn’t think there’d be any confusion either way. He picked up his flashlight and looked at Roberts crouched near the railing, her eyes shiny and alert. “I’ll walk down, identify myself and order the Emily Jane to shut its engines down. They’re going to pick up on me right away and as soon as they do, click your light on. Then get out on the dock. Let’s look like as many people as we can while they’re trying to make a decision. Bailey knows to do whatever we tell him, so he should be easy. We’ll board the Condor, confirm it’s abalone, then ask Heinemann to step down on the dock. I’ll hold the other two in place and back you up on Heinemann. We’re going to want to handcuff him before we move on the others, and in the meantime hope the Sausalito police get here. When they get here or after we have Heinemann under control we’ll board the second boat. Not before. We clear on that?”