“Why?” she said. “Why the hell does everybody assume everything that
ever happens to me is because of who my damn father is?”
SIXTEEN
MCGRATH BROUGHT BROGAN WITH HIM AND MET MILOSEVIC AT Meigs Field
Airport in Chicago. He brought the four computer-aided mug shots and
the test picture of Holly Johnson. He came expecting total
co-operation from the airport staff. And he got it. Three hyped-up
FBI agents in the grip of fear about a colleague are a difficult
proposition to handle with anything other than total co-operation.
Meigs Field was a small commercial operation, right out in the lake,
water on three sides, just below the 12th Street beach, trying to make
a living in the gigantic shadow of O’Hare. Their record-keeping was
immaculate and their efficiency was first-class. Not so they could be
ready to handle FBI inquiries on the spur of the moment but so they
could keep on operating and keep on getting paid right under the nose
of the world’s toughest competitor. But their records and their
efficiency helped McGrath. Helped him realize within about thirty
seconds that he was heading up a blind alley.
The Meigs Field staff were certain they had never seen Holly Johnson or
any of the four kidnapers at any time. Certainly not on Monday,
certainly not around one o’clock. They were adamant about it. They
weren’t overdoing it. They were just sure about it, with the quiet
certainty of people who spend their working days being quietly sure
about things, like sending small planes up into the busiest air lanes
on the planet.
And there were no suspicious take-offs from Meigs Field, nowhere
between noon and, say, three o’clock. That was clear. The paperwork
was explicit on the subject. The three agents were out of there as
briskly as they had entered. The tower staff nodded to themselves and
forgot all about them before they were even back in their cars in the
small parking lot.
“OK, square one,” McGrath said. “You guys go check out this dentist
situation up in Wilmette. I’ve got things to do. And I’ve got to put
in a call to Webster. They must be climbing the walls down there in
DC.”
Seventeen hundred and two miles from Meigs Field the young man in the
woods wanted instructions. He was a good agent, well trained, but as
far as undercover work was concerned he was new and relatively
inexperienced. Demand for undercover operators was always increasing.
The Bureau was hard put to fill all the slots. So people like him got
assigned. Inexperienced people. He figured as long as he always
remembered he didn’t have all the answers, he’d be OK. He had no ego
problem with it. He was always willing to ask for guidance. He was
careful. And he was realistic. Realistic enough to know he was now in
over his head. Things were turning bad in a way which made him sure
they were about to explode into something much worse. How, he didn’t
know. It was just a feeling. But he trusted his feelings. Trusted
them enough to stop and turn around before he reached his special tree.
He breathed hard and changed his mind and set off strolling back the
way he had come.
Webster had been waiting for McGrath’s call. That was clear. McGrath
got him straightaway, like he’d been sitting there in his big office
suite just waiting for the phone to ring.
“Progress, Mack?” Webster asked.
“Some,” McGrath said. “We know exactly what happened. We got it all
on a security video in a dry-cleaner’s store. She went in there at
twelve-ten. Came out at twelve-fifteen. There were four guys. Three
on the street, one in a car. They grabbed her.”
“Then what?” Webster asked.
They were in a stolen sedan,” McGrath said. “Looks like they killed
the owner to get it. Drove her five miles south, torched the sedan.
Along with the owner in the trunk. They burned him alive. He was a
dentist, name of Rubin. What they did with Holly, we don’t know
yet.”
In Washington, Harland Webster was silent for a long time.
“Is it worth searching the area?” he asked, eventually.