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Delgado’s face showed nothing, but he shook his head. “I need to,” he said.
“Why, Frank?” Macklin said. “Or, more to the point, why now?”
“I know where he is now,” Delgado said.
Macklin blinked. “Where?” he said.
“New York,” Delgado said straight-faced.
Macklin waited, but there was no more. “You got something more specific?”
Delgado gave one short shake of his head. “No,” he said.
Macklin stared at him. “Just that? He’s in New York? As in New York City. You know he’s there, with nine million other people.”
“That’s right.”
“For God’s sake, Frank—seriously? You don’t even know what he looks like. And you think you can find him? In New York?”
“Yes.”
Macklin studied the semi-maverick agent. Delgado was known for saying little and showing less, and that was tolerated to a point. But if he wanted to take off solo on something that would probably turn into another wild-goose chase, Macklin, as his supervisor, needed a few details.
And of course, Delgado offered none. “Did you have a tip, Frank?” he asked at last. “Somebody saw him in Times Square? Or on a Greyhound headed to Port Authority? He posted on Facebook? Anything like that?”
“No,” Delgado said.
Macklin sighed. “Okay, I’ll bite. How do you know he’s in New York?”
“He has to be,” Delgado said.
“Sure, that works. He has to be there. And you can find him, pick him out of the nine million other people in New York,” Macklin said, letting a little sarcasm color his voice. “Because you are part basset hound and part Sherlock Holmes?”
Delgado ignored the mockery. “I can find him,” he said, “because I know what he’s after.”
“You know what he’s after,” Macklin said, disbelief clear in his tone.
“Yes.”
Macklin sighed. “Okay. What?”
“The Crown Jewels of Iran,” Delgado said. “At the Eberhardt Museum.”
“Jesus Christ,” Macklin blurted, shocked in spite of himself. If anything at all happened to threaten the crown jewels while they were in the US, the international complications would be enormous, and mostly disastrous. And if Riley Wolfe was after them, it certainly rated sending someone to stop him. “And you know this how?”
“I know Riley Wolfe,” Delgado said.
Macklin again waited for more, and again there was none. He spread his hands in disbelief. “That’s it? You think he’s going to try because you know him?”
“Yes,” Delgado said.
Macklin looked at Delgado; then he sighed again and leaned back in his chair, lacing his hands behind his head. “Frank,” he said. “Even if you’re right—and I don’t believe you are, not without some kind of proof—but if you are right . . . why do you think you can catch him this time?”
Delgado sighed, the most emotion Macklin had ever seen from him. “I failed before because I didn’t know him well enough,” he said.
“You just told me you know him.”
Delgado shook his head once. “Not well enough,” he said. “Or I would have caught him.”
