“And Albany, too, since we’re assuming the guy’s right here,” Lieutenant Roth said. “The Division of Criminal Justice, Fingerprints Section. So if he’s arrested and printed anywhere in the state, we’ve got him. I say it’s worth the time to send prints on to every state to search for a match, and retain them if they’re willing to. New York will, but a lot of states won’t.”
“So what do you want us to do with prints if we get any?” asked one of the street agents, Dennis Stewart, whose specialty was organized crime.
“We’ve got some basic equipment set up here,” she replied. “A RAMCAM, the little fingerprint reader that makes a thermal picture of the print, and the CRIMCON, which is hooked up to a video monitor. Lieutenant Roth is the man to see if you have a print-he’ll be in charge of all that.”
Later, as the group dispersed, Pappas approached her and spoke quietly. “Listen, Sarah, with all this sophisticated technology, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that all the fancy computers in the world aren’t going to make up for some good solid shoeleather.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m just afraid that the clock’s ticking and we’re being sidetracked by all these toys.”
“Alex, we ignore the new technology at our own peril.”
“You remember when the Reagan administration spent seventeen million bucks on a computer system they called TRAP/TARGIT that was supposed to predict terrorist incidents based on early signals? It was a complete bust. Never worked. A huge joke. I’m just wondering whether we shouldn’t be doing some more basic, old-fashioned brainstorming. What are you doing tonight?”
“I’m picking up Jared from camp. Between six and seven at Penn Station.”
“You two doing something, going out for dinner?”
“I didn’t have any plans. I thought I’d see what Jared’s up for.”
“Maybe I could come by later, when Jared’s asleep. No, I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t you ask Jared when he gets in if he feels like having dinner with you and me at a nice Greek place I discovered on First Avenue. You and I can talk, and Jared can put in his two cents. But I don’t want to horn in on your little reunion-”
“Oh, he always loves seeing you, Alex. But I don’t know about Greek. You know how discriminating he is about food.”
“McDonald’s it is. The one at the intersection of Seventy-first, Broadway, and Amsterdam.”
Alex Pappas devoured his Big Mac and fries with as much gusto as he did moussaka or spanakopita. A good portion of his fries, of course, went directly to Jared, who ate ravenously, as if he’d just come not from summer camp but a Soviet hard-labor camp.
In the two weeks since she’d last seen him, Jared seemed to have grown taller and more slender, more a young man than a pudgy little boy. Sarah could at times see him as an adult, a breathtakingly, head-turningly handsome man. And in the next instant he was again the kid in tie-dyed shorts with scuffed knees letting out a fake belch, telling them about all the games he’d learned at camp. “I can’t wait to play in Central Park,” he said.
Sarah shook her head. “Not without supervision, you’re not.”
“Oh, God, I don’t need supervision.”
“You’re not playing in Central Park unless I’m there, Jared. ‘Stranger danger,’ remember?”
Jared pouted. “I’m not a baby, Mom.”
“Central Park can be a dangerous place for kids. That’s the rule. Only with supervision. Now, I’m going to be really, really busy during the days, and I don’t want you staying in the apartment all day and watching TV, so I got you into the summer program at the YMCA near Lincoln Center. It’s on West Sixty-third Street, not too far from here. Sort of a neat building. That’s where you’ll spend your days.”
“YMCA?” Jared said. “I don’t want to swim.”
“It’s not just swimming, it’s arts and crafts and basketball and other games. You’ll have a great time.”
“Oh, God,” Jared wailed.
“Believe me,” Pappas said to him, “when you get to be as old as me, you’d give anything to be able to spend your days at a day camp. Anything!”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
“If Baumann is indeed in New York City,” Pappas said after Jared had gone to sleep, “he has to have entered within the last month, since his escape from Pollsmoor.”
Sarah nodded. “That narrows the time frame, but we don’t know if he entered legally or illegally. He’s a pro, so he might have sneaked in without a trace. Which makes finding him just about impossible.”
“You can’t think that way. You have to think in terms of probabilities. Yes, people can and do enter the U.S. illegally by walking across the border from Canada-so you have the Canadians search their entry records.”
“And if he came in by way of Mexico? We’re screwed if we have to depend on the Mexicans to help us out.”
“Think probabilities. Mexico’s used far less often for illegal entries in cases like this.”
“But what do we ask the Canadians to search for? They’re only going to be able to help if he flew in on his own passport, under his true name. Which isn’t likely.”
“Granted, but it’s still worth a try.”
“And if he flew into the U.S. directly-whatever passport he used-there are lots of international airports. The guy has his choice. Wouldn’t he choose some little, Podunk place like-oh, I don’t know, isn’t there an international airport in Great Falls, Montana, with just one INS inspector?”
“Not at all,” Pappas said. “One inspector means much closer scrutiny, which he wants to avoid. Much better to enter the country at a large, crowded airport that’s got six hundred people waiting to get through Customs and Immigration. All those people, and just one poor, overworked customs inspector for the teeming hordes. That’s what I’d do-JFK or Dulles or Miami, something big like that.”
“Great,” she said bitterly. “So we’re looking for a guy who entered the U.S. sometime in the last month. Under any name whatsoever. Just… a guy. That really narrows it, doesn’t it?”
Pappas shrugged.
“And as if that weren’t bad enough, I’m supposed to have people search entry records in every port of entry in the U.S. Why the hell aren’t they all together in one place, in some kind of centralized data bank?”
“Because they aren’t. Someday they will be, but for now all the searching has got to be done by hand. Could I trouble you for another cup of instant?”
“Sure.” Sarah got up, went to the kitchen, put the kettle on to boil. As she waited, she mentally listed the airports in the United States and Canada. Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Washington (both National and Dulles), LAX… The list went on and on, and she began to lose track. And what if Baumann hadn’t entered the country by air? It was maddening, hopeless.
She returned to the living room and put down a mug of instant coffee and one of Earl Grey tea. “Let’s say he hasn’t arrived in New York yet, hasn’t even arrived in the country. In that case, we should contact Interpol and have them put out an International Red Notice.” A Red Notice is an international lookout for a fugitive based on an outstanding arrest warrant for the purpose of extradition, sort of an all-points bulletin issued by Interpol’s General Secretariat to the border lookout systems of all member countries. “Result, we’ll get nothing and just end up alerting Baumann.”
“Nothing necessarily wrong with that. Maybe that’ll scare him, make him call it off.”
“Not likely.”
“No,” Pappas conceded. “Not likely.”
“I suppose we could blanket the city with a description. Damn, I wish we could find a photo! But even if we could, the word would be out about our existence, and the city’ll go crazy.”