2:30 p.m.
1 hour until kickoff
All clear.
No one in the house.
Eleven minutes average response time, I kept telling myself, but we were close enough to police headquarters that I figured we could cut that at least in half and, based on the sirens I heard coming this direction, it seemed like that was the case.
Still, Mason had slipped away and Basque was on the move. Richard wanted revenge and I couldn’t see him stopping until he’d seen things through to the end. He’d told me that he had more information about Mason’s plan. He’d also mentioned three thirty, which gave us just shy of one hour to work with.
And Mason was planning to make a statement.
Basque had mentioned that too.
All part of his story.
Why did Richard enter the house? Why didn’t he chase Mason with you?
I wasn’t sure, but I did know one thing: Until we could find Mason, Basque was our best bet for stopping whatever he had planned.
And we could track Basque’s precise location with the help of those nanobots.
I checked the sensor again to see where he was, then I mentally overlaid a map of the area with what I remembered from driving around the city with Guido yesterday morning.
From what I could tell, Basque’s movement stopped at the Charlotte Regional Medical Center, the place I’d gotten my stitches yesterday.
A hospital? Why would he go there?
A blood transfusion to get rid of the nanobots?
No, I’d asked O’Brien about that and he’d told me it wouldn’t work. Besides, it would take way too long, even if Basque somehow had a doctor waiting for him.
For drugs to try to mask the nanobots’ signal?
That was possible. If so, I wondered how Basque would even be able to guess which ones to use.
I would’ve called the hospital but I had no phone. Officers were en route. I’d update them in a minute.
A few minutes ago, when I was searching Mason’s house, I’d discovered a laptop in the first-floor bedroom. The computer had been smashed in with a decorative stone bookend. Our lab would probably be able to recover data, but that would take time that we did not have.
Did Basque destroy it or did Mason do it before he fled?
Earlier, when I first got here and was standing on the front porch, I hadn’t heard any sounds from inside the house, but that wasn’t definitive. Mason could have still been the one to destroy it.
Sirens outside.
Okay, deal with the computer in a minute.
I hurried to the street so I could meet up with the officers as they arrived, and a moment later I saw the flashing lights as one of the cruisers rounded the corner and raced my way.
After identifying myself, I told them where Basque was, then I informed them about the house Davenport had been using and the laptop, and explained that we needed to get the Field Office’s Cyber experts and ERT here right away. “Check any cars leaving this neighborhood for Mason.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m going to need your cell phone.”
He handed it to me.
This was getting to be a habit.
“And one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Your car.”
+ + + +
Glenn waited while Louis finished inspecting the manifest. Then, when he said they were ready to roll, he throttled forward on the route through Charlotte that he’d taken so many times over the years.
+ + + +
As I drove toward the hospital, I checked the scanner and saw that the nanobot signal had stopped transmitting.
I tapped at the sensor’s screen; no change.
What’s going on?
I tried it again.
Nothing.
No signal.
That doesn’t make any sense.
Using my newly acquired cell phone, I called O’Brien to see if there was a setting I needed to adjust or recalibrate.
He didn’t pick up.
I left a message for him to check Basque’s location by using the unit he had on campus; however, I realized it would take precious time for him to get to his equipment.
Time we didn’t have.
I ended by telling O’Brien to call me immediately at this number, then I phoned the hospital’s security office to make sure they’d gotten word from dispatch to look for Basque.
While I had them on the line, I asked about the young man Basque had envenomated and found out his name was Andy Mitzner and that he was being treated and was currently unconscious but was in stable condition.
Then a thought: What if that’s why Basque went to the hospital? To finish the job he started?
Does Mitzner know something? Could they have been working together?
Was he a victim here or a partner?
“Get some officers to Mitzner’s room,” I told the chief of hospital security, who was on the line with me, a guy named Housman.
“We have an officer stationed there, sir.”
“This is Richard Basque we’re talking about. One’s not going to be enough.”
+ + + +
Kurt Mason had barely managed to get out of the neighborhood before the officers arrived.
So, Richard and Patrick were working together. Well, he hadn’t seen that one coming.
He’d had just enough time to destroy the laptop back at the house.
The Bureau’s computer forensics techs would be able to retrieve data from it eventually, but it would be far too late to stop the dominoes from falling.
Everything was in play. The clock was ticking.
The car he’d been using was still back at the house.
At least he had his phone and could track M343’s movement through his cell’s Internet connection.
But before anything else, he needed a vehicle.
And then he needed to get out of the city before the authorities tried to evacuate Uptown, or he was going to get stuck in traffic, and that was the last thing he could afford.
+ + + +
A CMPD officer met me at the hospital’s front entrance. Housman was with her. The officer was a stout, stern-looking woman; the security chief was wire-thin and had quick, intelligent eyes.
“What do we know?” I asked them.
“Come on.” Housman signaled for me to follow him. “It happened in the room where they do MRIs.”