86

You picked up Killswitch from your dealer,” said Stevens. “We’re going to need his name.”

Comm stared across the table at him. “You know what they do to snitches in prison?” He shook his head. “Hell no. I’m not talking.”

“You’re already talking,” said Windermere. “You’re already a snitch. The question is whether you’re going to talk enough to convince us to protect you, or clam up until we throw you in a cell with the baddest ese in D block and let him make you his girlfriend.”

Stevens leaned across the table. “Look,” he said, “you lead us to Killswitch, hell, that’s a serial killer you’re helping us catch. Nobody’s going to let you get hurt, Phillip.”

Comm shook his head again. “I’m not talking,” he said. “I gave you all I could give you.”

“What about Spenser Pyatt? What do you know about him?”

Comm stared at Stevens, blank-faced. “I’m supposed to know something?”

“What about Mickey Pyatt?”

“I never heard of the guy.” Comm looked at Windermere. “Look, whatever your boyfriend’s on about, I have no idea. I paid an Internet zombie to kill Cameron Ansbacher. That’s all I got for you. I don’t know shit about anybody named Pyatt.”

Stevens swapped glances with Windermere. Windermere rolled her eyes. It had not been a very productive afternoon. The Department of Defense had categorically refused to allow Stevens and Windermere access to the Killswitch IP address. Then Derek Mathers had called Windermere from Minneapolis, his investigation into Mickey Pyatt both exhaustive and fruitless.

“Nothing,” he told Windermere. “He showed me everything I wanted to see. Bank statements, financial records. For the rest of the family, too. No strange six-figure payments. No extra life insurance policies. I asked him about Killswitch and he just stared at me. He doesn’t know, Carla. I think he’s clean.”

“Damn it.” Windermere sighed. “I was kind of getting that feeling myself.”

Now she followed Stevens out of the tiny interview room. Comm wasn’t talking. Mathers had hit nothing but dead ends. Killswitch was slipping through their fingers.

“What the hell do we do now?” she asked Stevens when they were out in the hall. “How do we find this guy?”

Stevens rubbed his eyes. “We break Comm, we can follow his dealer back to someone who knows Killswitch.”

“We’re not breaking Comm, Stevens. You saw him.”

“So we work around him. Talk to his friends. They give us his dealer, and we move from there.”

Windermere sighed. “That’s a lot of pounding the goddamn pavement.”

“What if we trace the main Killswitch website?” said Stevens. “Not the special projects database. Just the front page.”

Windermere shook her head and looked out the window. “It’s the same IP address,” she said. “The same DoD firewall.”

“What about the credit card? Triple A Industries? O’Brien’s used it for three jobs now. Rented Liberty every time. We follow it backward, find more leads.”

“Mathers had the same idea.” Windermere shrugged. “Liberty has no sign of anyone with a Triple A Industries card before Saint Paul. I figure he’s too smart to use the same card for long. Different shell companies, and all of them leading to the same place.” She paused. “How the hell do we catch up to these guys, Stevens?”

Stevens shook his head. Gestured into the interview room. “I guess we keep working on Comm.”

AS IT TURNED OUT, Comm didn’t provide the answer. Roman Ojeda did. The Miami agent poked his head into the interview room about an hour later, grinning wide.

“Amtrak,” he told the agents, out in the hall. “Figured I’d check out the bus stations, train stations, charter aircraft companies. Maybe our boys ditched the Cadillac somewhere.”

“Amtrak,” said Stevens. “They took the train?”

“Just O’Brien. The kid bought a one-way ticket from Palatka, Florida, to Philadelphia the night of the shooting. Would have made it home the next evening. Guess he didn’t bolt after all.”

Windermere looked at Stevens. “Where the heck is Palatka?”

“Don’t look at me. You used to live in this state.”

“Palatka, Florida,” said Ojeda. “Just south of Jacksonville. Just east of Gainesville. Home of the Florida Azalea Festival.”

Windermere shook her head. “I’m not even going to ask, Roman. It’s a hell of a drive from Miami, isn’t it?”

“Train came in around ten,” said Ojeda. “The kid had time.”

“Drove all that way to climb on a train? They don’t have Amtrak in Miami?”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Stevens. “What matters is he got on that train, and he rode it back home. He’s in Philadelphia, that’s the point.”

Windermere grinned. “Well, shit, Stevens. If O’Brien’s in Philadelphia, I’d say we should be, too.”