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“Hello, Phil. Put on weight.”
Cooke found his voice. “How—?”
The pistol twitched. “One of the advantages of owning a jet and a private airstrip: no security. My pilot thinks I’m here to make an offer for theStar-Ledgerand KABC-TV.” He moved the gun Mapes’s way. “Drop the piece, holster and all.”
A second crawled past on its belly. They were alone in the lot at that hour. The only sound was the hum of traffic coming from the interstate.
Mapes reached toward the weapon clipped to his belt.
“Uh-uh!” Plevin barked. “It hasn’t been so long I forgot you’re a lefty.”
The agent switched hands, freed the holster gingerly, using the thumb and forefinger of his right, and let it fall. To Cooke’s ears, the thud might have belonged to a steel girder smashing to the pavement.
Mapes said, “What are you going to do, shoot us where we stand?”
“No need. All you have to do is fork over the butt.” An empty palm slid out of the darkness, alongside the gun in his other hand.
“You’re crazy!” Cooke said. “Don’t you know this place has security cameras?”
“Not tonight. Your accomplice lost his nerve, Anne. After you pulled your disappearing act, I got suspicious. I figured there was only one reason you abandoned your car: you knew you were being tracked. At first I thought Cooke had tipped you off, but he wouldn’t have the guts. The only reason these honest-to-a-fault guys are the way they are is because they don’t have the nerve to step over the line.”
Cooke flushed; but he couldn’t have stirred to protest even if he weren’t terrified of being shot. It was just possible the man was right.
“So it had to be the guy who developed the device in the first place,” Plevin went on. “Figuring out the rest was easy. I told him I’d press charges against him for industrial espionage. Sharing trade secrets with outsiders is a twenty-year felony. He got off easy, though. All he had to do was disable the security system of the entire Hilton chain; did it all sitting on his can in front of a keyboard. They’ll get it worked out by morning. Meanwhile, with the whole shebang off the grid nationally, no one’s going to look too hard at this one.”
“But you couldn’t have him arrested without exposing yourself,” Mapes said.
“He folded before he got that far in his thinking.” Plevin tilted his empty hand in a gesture Cooke remembered; it was a signal of a man whose bluff was successful. “He’s almost as gutless as Cooke. Not like you, Phil. I had to sell the idea of criminal prosecution hard to break through that thick skin of yours. It’s no wonder you went into politics.”
“I’m a federal agent, not a politician.”
“You’re all birds of a feather inside the Beltway. You looked good in that puff piece on the New Super Technology in Quantico; I googled you. Caught in your own net, you pinball wizard, you.” The hand tilted the other direction. “The butt, darling wife.”
“Choke on it, you son of a bitch!” She threw it at him.
Mapes started forward; a movement instantly aborted. Plevin had deftly caught the slim device with his free hand.
Then he stepped into the light. He was dressed casually as before, in a Bulls warmup jacket over a striped V-neck jersey and artfully wrinkled corduroys, pricey running shoes on his feet. The overhead lights made his eyes glow green. The effect was of a wild animal crouching to pounce. Cooke knew him then, this boy wonder of the electronics age, for a madman.
“You’ve got what you want,” Mapes said. “Now go back to Chicago.”
“Uh-uh. I can’t run a business looking back over my shoulder all the time.” Plevin put the flash drive in a slash pocket of the jacket, brought something out, and tossed it at him. Mapes caught it in both hands against his chest. It was a large roll of silver duct tape.
“Do Cooke first,” Plevin said, “then Anne. Wrists and ankles. Make it good or when it comes my turn I’ll tape you up so tight your hands and feet will turn black and fall off.”
“Where are you going to put us?” said Anne.
“The others inside the car. You get the trunk.”
Her face went white under the lights. Had Plevin guessed she’d spent most of the morning in a trunk?
“Step it up, Phil. Nights are getting shorter.” What he said next froze Cooke to the bone. “Where we go next, we go in the dark.”
Mapes started Cooke’s way, tearing loose a strip of tape with a nasty sound. Cooke, broken, put out his hands.
“Go Cougars!”
A chorus of shrill voices.
