Monday
As I got back into my car, I tried piecing things together.
If Parks was a spy for the Chinese, why was Hollander trading daily emails with him? As well as a Chinese general? Was she trying to entrap Parks and Gao? Extract proof they were spies? Or was she part of the ring herself? Either way, this did not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling.
Which reminded me. I pulled over to the curb and called Hollander’s office again.
This time a woman answered. “I’m sorry. She’s not here.”
“When do you expect her?”
“I really don’t know.” Her voice was brusque.
“Will she be in today at all?”
“Who did you say you were?” The voice turned suspicious.
“Sorry to bother you.” I hung up. Where was Hollander? Still on a long weekend? I didn’t know, but I wasn’t going to turn over the drive to anyone except her. And I certainly wasn’t going to mail it or messenger it downtown if she wasn’t around.
After meeting with Grizzly, I was on the lookout for a tail whenever I drove, and coming home from the library, I found one. It wasn’t a battered green Toyota, it wasn’t a pickup truck, and it wasn’t an SUV. This time it was a nondescript beige car, the kind of four-door sedan that looks almost institutional. Still, the fact that anyone was shadowing me gave me the creeps and made me intensely aware that any privacy I might be entitled to was a myth. Was this the way covert agents felt? If so, I’d make a lousy one.
I peered into the rear view, which, I realized, was now becoming my only tool to confront the surveillance. A man was driving, and a second person whose gender I couldn’t determine occupied the passenger seat. The driver had a ball cap pulled low, blocking his face, and the other person wore a wool hat, also low across his or her forehead. Friends or foes?
Irritation shot through me. I was tired of being a target, the mouse with whom someone’s cat could toy. I couldn’t live my life in fear. At the next stop sign I considered mustering my courage. I would put my car in park, climb out, and approach the driver’s side door. I could play cop as well as the next guy. I would demand they tell me who the hell they were and why they were following me.
Then I reconsidered. What if they had a weapon lying on the front seat? What if they lowered their window and shot me point-blank? That is the precise reason my attitude toward cops, whom in my younger days I was apt to call “pigs,” had changed. I knew now that cops put their lives in jeopardy every time they made a traffic stop, and I respected their courage. The erstwhile pigs had become “pals,” and I didn’t have their guts.
So I gritted my teeth and tried to get a license plate number. Naturally, there was no plate in front. I accelerated and raced the rest of the way home, hoping my “pals” weren’t out ticketing speeders today. The warmth of the day did nothing to dispel the chill that came over me. Thank God Luke was coming back soon.