39

Massachusetts

The phone buzzed like a rattlesnake nest inside Jason’s jacket pocket. It was almost certainly Carl Barnaby calling him for an update, but if Jason didn’t check, he wasn’t technically avoiding talking with him. And there was no need to speak with Barnaby until he had something to report.

He signaled left to stick close to the brown sedan the women and the tall man and the child had tucked themselves inside of, jabbing the window button to allow the brisk breeze to wash through the car, cleansing him of Salem Wiley’s scent. The woman was a frightened rabbit, eyes wide, shivering. If not for the FBI agent’s interference, he would have slid the knife into her gut and his hand into her pocket to retrieve the document, then stepped to the rack of brochures while Isabel (she was so beautiful up close that he called her Isabel now) rushed to Salem’s side, thinking her friend had fainted.

He would have knelt to help Isabel, puncturing her kidney so cleanly she’d feel only a strange punch before bleeding out. And then he’d stand with a different face, making room for the bystanders rushing to assist the two women, and stroll out the front door, into his car, and fly to San Francisco to celebrate and wait.

Sixty seconds, start to finish.

He opened the cracked windows to their full extent, fresh air collapsing itself around the cinnamon particles still clinging to him and sweeping them out to sea. The gray trees and brown grass matched his mood, the garish shops designed to cash in on the Witch Trials annoying him. It didn’t even make him happy to see that there were no police cars in front of the First Church, either of them.

The sedan turned left on Washington. He did the same. The women had made contact with the man and girl just ahead of his arrival at the strip mall and were fleeing to the airport or the train station. It didn’t matter to him which.

He punched the radio. Whoever had rented the car before him had tuned it to NPR.

“ … her husband, Charles Hayes, nearly negotiated an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal during his tenure as Secretary of State. With local DC news station WLJA posting grainy photos that appear to be Israeli Ambassador to the United States David Meridor and PLO Ambassador to the United States Yousef Ziad ar-Reefy leaving a Washington, DC, office building separately and minutes ahead of Democratic presidential candidate Gina Hayes, pundits are speculating that she intends to finish the job her husband started if elected. This means … ”

He slammed his fist into the console, cracking the plastic. The radio squawked country music before he punched the off button. Concentrating on his pulse, he reminded himself how close he was to his goal. Ahead of him, Salem Wiley was driving, with the strange man in the passenger seat and Isabel Odegaard next to the girl in the back. Wiley surely had the master list stuffed in her front left coat pocket, the one she’d kept patting in the hotel lobby.

The Crucible would be on Alcatraz Island on Monday, November 7,
the day before the presidential election. That gave him six days to catch the women, nab the list, and kill them.

He wouldn’t need six days.

Once their car stopped, he wouldn’t need six minutes.