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.“Come on, Luke, let’s have a bite of lunch.”He spied the telephone on the corner table.“Let me call her.”“Dr.Minteer?”“Angie.”Luke steered clear of using his cell phone.Might be traced, he thought.Over the past few days he’d agonized over letting Angie call her mother, back in Massachusetts.How to get a message to Norrie without the freaking FBI tracing it back to where I am? He’d come to the conclusion that he’d have Angie make a CD voice recording, send it by FedEx to Van McAllister in Philadelphia, and have Van forward it to Norrie and Del.Van will do that for me.He can just drop the package in a FedEx depository someplace; that way it won’t be traced back to him.Or me.Tamara picked up the phone in Angie’s room.“How’s she doing?” Luke asked.“Not bad,” came Tamara’s tawny voice.“She’s doing a crossword puzzle.Wait a minute…”Angela’s higher-pitched voice came through.“Hi, Grandpa.”“Hello, Angel.How’re you feeling?”“Okay, sort of.”“Sort of?”“My back hurts.Just a little.”“Maybe you need to walk a bit, get some exercise.”“I guess.”“Is your wrist bothering you?”“No.Tamara says the cast can come off in another two days.”“That’s wonderful,” Luke said.“Put Tamara back on, will you, honey.”Tamara agreed that a little exercise would be helpful.“But not too much.She’s pretty frail, still.”“I know,” said Luke.He had though about sending a DVD to his daughter but immediately realized that one look at Angela’s skeletal condition would send Norrie into convulsions.A CD recording of her voice would be enough, he thought.Angela came back on the line.“Can I go outside, Grandpa?”“It’s pretty chilly out there,” he said.“I’ll dress warm.I’d like to go outside.I’m tired of staying in this room.”“Okay.You ask Tamara about it.She’s your doctor.She knows what’s best for you.”“Uh-huh.”“Love you, Angel.”“Love you, too, Grandpa.”Luke hung up and allowed Shannon to lead him to her private dining room.* * *BEFORE LEAVING THE FBI office to go to the airport, Hightower started calling the private air services in Baton Rouge, looking for a flight Abramson might have chartered.The second company on his alphabetically arranged list was Bayou Air Services.A young woman answered his call.Once Hightower identified himself as an FBI agent, she bucked his call to the office manager.“Sir,” the man asked politely, “no offense, but how do I know you’re really from the FBI?”Hightower sighed inwardly.Can’t blame the guy for being careful.“Call the New Orleans FBI office and ask for Agent Hightower,” he said.Then he hung up and waited.It took nearly ten minutes, but at last his phone rang.The Bayou Air Services manager was on the line.“Hello again,” said Hightower.“I hope you’re convinced now.”The man was very apologetic.Hightower cut to the chase as quickly as he could and, to his delight, learned that Luke Abramson had indeed booked a flight two days earlier.With a very sick-looking little girl and a very good-looking young woman.And paid in cash.Bingo! Hightower exulted silently.“Where’d they fly to?” he asked.“Let’s see … Portland.”“Portland, Maine?”“No.Oregon.”* * *LUKE WENT THROUGH lunch as quickly as he decently could, talking with Shannon mostly about inconsequential matters, old reminiscences, the work of Bartram Laboratories.“The university fired you?” Shannon asked, indignant.“But you have tenure!”“Being accused of kidnapping is enough cause to break tenure, apparently,” he said, a little ruefully.“Without a hearing?”Shrugging, Luke replied, “They didn’t know where to find me.”“Well…,” she said.“You could stay right here.We have all the facilities you need.”“Shannon, you’re harboring a man being hunted by the FBI.”With a wave of her hand, she replied, “Oh, you’ll get that straightened out.” Then she asked, “Won’t you?”“I hope so,” he said.“I really hope so.”Boston FBI HeadquartersHIGHTOWER WAS LOOKING forward to a night’s sleep in his own bed, but once he retrieved his car from the long-term parking lot at Logan Airport, instead of heading for his apartment he drove through the Ted Williams Tunnel and the growling, honking late-afternoon traffic to his office in downtown Boston.No sooner had he slid into his desk chair and turned on his computer than the chief appeared in his doorway, looking his usual elegant self in a charcoal gray three-piece suit.“We have a visitor,” the chief said, before Hightower could even say hello.He looked very serious, almost grave.“A visitor?”“In my office,” said the chief.Hightower got up from his chair and followed him.Can’t be Fisk’s security man, he thought as they made their way along the corridor.I told Fisk I wouldn’t be here in the office until tomorrow morning.Sitting in one of the cushioned chairs in front of the director’s desk was a youngish man with thinning dirty blond hair and probing gray eyes.Thin nose, pointed chin, long slim fingers, like a pianist’s.The gray pinstriped suit he wore told Hightower he was a bureaucrat of some sort.“This is Mr.Rossov,” said the director as he stepped behind his desk and sat down.“He’s from the White House.”Hightower started to extend his hand, but Rossov remained sitting, eying him almost suspiciously.“Mr.Rossov,” Hightower said as he lowered himself into the chair beside the White House official.“Agent Hightower.” Rossov’s voice had a hard edge to it.“Mr.Rossov has an interest in the Abramson case,” said the director.“What’s the White House want with Abramson?”“We want him found and brought in,” Rossov said.“For kidnapping?”“That’s what he’s charged with, isn’t it?”Hightower grunted an affirmative, then went silent.He’d learned over the years that often enough people he was talking with would feel uncomfortable with silence and start talking just to fill in the void.Sometimes they told things they hadn’t meant to.But Rossov merely said, “This case is of interest to the highest levels of government.You can have the full cooperation of the Justice Department and the entire executive branch, anything you need to find Abramson.”The director said, “I think the Bureau has enough firepower to get the job done.”Rossov’s expression was almost a grimace.“The Department of Justice will back you
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