"No," Coates said adamantly. "We would have spooked him for sure. And even if we could have trapped him, you were right when you said he'd kill a lot of my men before we got him. Your plan — give him a target, wait until he exposes himself, then take him out from a long distance — was the only one that would have avoided a bloodbath."
Gray's voice trembled. "Have you figured out how he got Mrs. Orlando?"
"She was last seen a block from your apartment at a laundromat called Sixth Avenue Coin Op. We have no idea how he abducted her."
"So he was onto us all along." Gray's voice was dark with sorrow.
"Looks like it. But we did discover how Trusov set up the shot on the paper passer, Donald Bledsoe. We had wondered how he would know you'd be in the courthouse alley and how he'd have time to set up his hide."
"Yes?"
"We think the Russian was following you, probably waiting for a shot. When you got to the alley to wait for Bledsoe, Trusov climbed a fire escape to the roof of the cafe at the end of the alley, across the street. He wasn't in a building twelve hundred and fifty yards away like he was with the Chinaman, but rather only a hundred yards away. We found his red shell on top of the cafe."
"So he didn't prepare anything, just took an opportunistic shot?"
"We're learning Trusov is a cunning boy."
Anger colored Gray's words. "Have you learned anything else, like why Nikolai Trusov is on my case?"
"That's Adrian Wade's department, and she's taking it seriously. She's in Kabul as we speak."
"Afghanistan?"
"You know any other Kabul? General Kulikov found the name of Trusov's Afghan spotter. And with the name, the U.S. consul in Kabul found the faction he fought for, and still fights for. His clan was aligned with Babrak Karmal and the Soviets during the war, and are now in the mountains. The spotter is from a village named Marjab about ten miles from Kabul. Adrian was on a plane ninety minutes after she got the news. Didn't even go back to her hotel. JFK to Charles De Gaulle to Riyadh and into Kabul."
"Couldn't she telephone him?"
"This fellow is in the hills. She's going to have to drive out to him, probably end up hiking in. But the consul thinks he's been given accurate information about where the spotter is."
"What's she after?"
"Anything that'll explain why Nikolai Trusov is hot for you."
Gray's voice rose. "I've got nothing to do with Afghanistan or the Soviets or with Trusov. Goddamnit, Pete, what's going on?"
"Maybe she'll find out, Owen."
"Yeah, maybe." Gray exhaled slowly. "Your people surrounding the Russian embassy haven't had any luck, I take it."
"Trusov never returned to the embassy to visit his father, and I found out why when I interviewed the old man again. Turns out the son called the father, and the old guy was delighted to tell his boy about all the policemen visiting."
"So Nikolai Trusov never showed up there."
"That's right," Coates replied. "And there's more news, Owen. We found where Trusov has been staying, a place called the Four Leaf Clover Motel in Jersey City. We broke into the place. He's got a box of Owen Gray memorabilia."
"Some of my stuff?"
"In a cardboard box in his motel room closet we found a Hobart High School annual, class of 1967. There's a photo of young Owen Gray wearing a Beatles haircut and a narrow black tie. There's also some recent photos of you — one leaving your Brooklyn apartment leading your son, John, down the steps, another showing you and me carrying gym bags into Sam Owl's place. There's one of you and your girls sitting in the window of a McDonald's. And another of Mrs. Orlando."
"Christ," Gray blurted, "he was following us around."
"And here's something spooky. We also found your bag gloves, the brown Everlasts you thought you had lost."
"So he's been inside Sam Owl's, inside my locker there?"
"Looks like it."
Gray rubbed his forehead. "Damn, Pete, what's going on?"
"This guy isn't going to get out of New York," the detective said. "Trusov's got the mayor and the police commissioner and the FBI director's full attention now. They've flooded this town with people. There isn't a bus station, train depot, airport, or hotel where he can show up and not be spotted. Even the uniforms are carrying his five-by-seven photo on the top of their clipboards. We've released some of the story to the media, and the Russian's photo has been playing big on television and in the newspapers. The whole eastern seaboard and the south and midwest are on the lookout for Trusov. It's just a matter of time."
Gray was hunched over the phone and his neck and shoulders had begun to complain. "The telephone at my place will be restored by tomorrow."
"I'll call with the latest." Coates hesitated, then added, "You weren't kidding me about your promise, were you, Owen? About plunking yourself? You wouldn't go and ruin my whole day, would you?" Coates's lighthearted words were betrayed by his apprehensive tone.
Gray hung up. He returned to the saloon's main floor and waved at Ray Miller on his way out.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Polk County undersheriff Mel Schneider turned his white-and-black off the road and into the Cat's Meow Cafe parking lot in the town of Mentor. He passed a few automobiles and pickups as he slowly headed for a vacant spot in front of the cafe's large glass windows. He glanced at his wristwatch. He was meeting Deputy Mike Dickerson for lunch at the Cat's Meow, and Schneider was hungry. There were two open slots next to a silver Chevrolet Caprice. He pulled in next to the Chevy, set his parking brake, and again brought up his watch. He hoped Dickerson would be on time.
RayAnne Folger owned the Cat's Meow — Schneider could see her startling red hair through the cafe's window, serving three customers sitting at the counter — and she served a fine meatloaf sandwich. Schneider turned the squawk box to low, then rolled down his window to let the breeze in. He'd wait a few moments for Dickerson before going into the cafe.
When Schneider's belly growled with hunger, it did so loudly because it was a big belly, pushing against the steering wheel. Schneider had been on the force almost twenty-five years, and the goddamn squad cars had become less and less comfortable over those years. Now the big man was wedged in between the wheel, the radio and mounted computer to his right, a shotgun on a vertical rack next to the computer, and the safety glass that separated front and back seats. Schneider lifted his hat from the passenger seat, forked his fingers through his hair, and placed the hat on his head. His hair had gone gray in streaks. His eyes were close together and faded blue. His thin, bloodless lips made his rare smile vulpine. Reading glasses were in his shirt pocket. He glanced at his watch. His stomach rumbled again. Damn it, Dickerson, get your lard-ass in gear and get over here.
A silver Caprice. Schneider's head jerked left. Christ in his cups, a silver Caprice. The undersheriff opened the car door, stepped five steps to the rear to read the Chevy's license plate. He quickly returned to his car to punch the license number into the computer. The screen told him to wait. He lifted his handset and without the usual radio rigmarole asked, "Where are you, Mike?"
The radio cackled with "Twenty seconds away. I see your bubble in the parking lot. Your gut must be doing the talking again."
The amber computer screen blinked with the information.
"Aw, goddamnit," the undersheriff whispered as he read the screen.
The Caprice had been stolen in Brainerd, Minnesota, three hours ago. The auto's owner had seen a large man wearing a baseball cap low on his head drive by in the car while the owner was getting a haircut. The Caprice's owner had later identified Nikolai Trusov from a photo shown him by a Brainerd police detective. The goddamn New York police had thought this man would never get out of their jurisdiction, and he was already halfway across the country. The FBI now believed Trusov was stealing a new car every hundred miles or so. Earlier that morning a Mercury Cougar had been found in Brainerd that had been stolen in Anoka, a town just north of Minneapolis. The Russian's fingerprints were all over the vehicle.