The Blue Nowhere Part 39

Wyatt Gillette was in the pa.s.senger seat of the Crown Victoria, beside Bishop. Shelton sat silently in the back, staring at a palm tree waving in the wet breeze. In the car beside them were Linda Sanchez and Tony Mott. Bishop seemed to have given up trying to rein in the aspiring Eliot Ness and Mott now hurried from the car to join a cl.u.s.ter of tactical and uniformed police who were suiting up in body armor. The head of the tactical team, Alonso Johnson, was back again. He stood by himself, head down, nodding as he listened to his radio.

Department of Defense agent Arthur Backle had trailed Bishop's car here and he was now standing beside it, under an umbrella, leaning against the car, picking at the bandage on his head.

Nearby, Stonecrest was being scoured by a number of troopers - the social-engineered fund-raisers, brandishing yellow buckets and flashing pictures of Jon Holloway.

The moments pa.s.sed, however, and no one reported any success. Doubts crept in: Maybe Phate was in a different development. Maybe Mobile America's a.n.a.lysis of the phone numbers was wrong. Maybe the numbers had been his but after the run-in with Gillette he'd fled the state.

Then Bishop's cell phone buzzed and he answered. He nodded and smiled, then said to Shelton and Gillette, "Positive ID. A neighbor recognized him. He's at 34004 Alta Vista Drive."

"Yes!" Shelton said, making a joyous fist with his hand. He climbed out of the car. "I'll tell Alonso." The burly cop disappeared into the crowd of troopers.

Bishop called Garvy Hobbes and gave him the address. In his Jeep the security man had a Cellscope hooked up -a combination computer and radio direction finder. He would drive past Phate's house, scanning for Mobile America cell phone frequencies, and see if the man was transmitting.

A moment later he called Bishop back and reported, "He's inside on a mobile phone. It's a data transmission, not voice."

"He's online," Gillette said.

Bishop and Gillette climbed out of the car, found Shelton and Alonso Johnson and gave them this news.

Johnson sent a surveillance van, disguised as a courier truck, to the street in front of Phate's house. The officer reported that the blinds were down and the garage door was open. A beat-up Ford was in the driveway. There were no interior lights visible from outside. A second surveillance team, perched near a thick jacaranda, gave a second, similar report.

Both teams added that all exits and windows were covered; even if Phate happened to see the police he wouldn't be able to escape.

Johnson then opened a detailed map, encased in plastic, of the streets in Stonecrest. He circled Phate's house with a grease pencil and then examined a catalogue of model homes in the development. He looked up and said, "The house he's in is a Troubadour model." He flipped to the floor plan of this model in the catalogue and showed it to his second in command, a young crew-cut trooper with a humorless, military att.i.tude.

Wyatt Gillette glanced at the catalogue and saw an advertising slogan printed beneath the diagram. Troubadour... The dream house that you and your family will enjoy for years to come...

Johnson's a.s.sistant summarized, "Okay, sir, we've got front and back doors at ground level. Another door opens onto a deck in back. No stairs but it's only ten feet high. He could jump it. No side entrance. The garage has two doors, one leading inside, to the kitchen, the other leading to the backyard. I'd say we go with a three-team dynamic entry."

Linda Sanchez said, "Separate him from his computer immediately. Don't let him type anything. He could destroy the contents of the disk in seconds. We'll need to look at it and see if he's targeted any other vies."

"Roger that," the a.s.sistant said.

Johnson said, "Team Able goes through the front, Baker in the back, Charlie through the garage. Hold back two from Charlie team and post them near the deck in case he goes for a dive." He looked up and tugged the gold earring in his left lobe. "All right. Let's go catch ourselves a beast."

Gillette, Shelton, Bishop and Sanchez jogged back to one of the Crown Victorias and drove into the development itself, parking just out of sight of Phate's house, next to the tactical vans. Their shadow, Agent Backle, followed. They all watched the troops deploy quickly, crouching low and moving under cover behind bushes.

Bishop turned to Gillette and surprised the hacker by reaching forward formally and shaking his hand. "Whatever happens, Wyatt, we couldn't've gotten this far without you. Not many people would've taken the risks you have and worked as hard as this."

"Yeah," Linda Sanchez said. "He's a keeper, boss." She turned her wide brown eyes on Gillette. "Hey, you want a job when you get out maybe you oughta apply to CCU."

Gillette tried to think of something to say by way of acknowledging this. He was embarra.s.sed, though, and unable to think of anything. He nodded.

For once Bob Shelton seemed on the verge of echoing their sentiments but then he climbed out of the car and disappeared into a cl.u.s.ter of plainclothes troopers he seemed to know.

Alonso Johnson walked up to them. Bishop rolled down the window. "Surveillance still can't see inside and the subject's got his air conditioner on full tilt so the infrared scanners aren't picking up a thing. Is he still on his computer?"

Bishop called Garvy Hobbes and asked the question. "Yep," was the cowboy's response. "The Cellscope is still picking up his transmission."

"Good," Johnson said. "We want him nice and distracted when we come a-calling." He then spoke into his microphone. "Clear the street."

Officers turned back several cars driving along Alta Vista. They flagged down one of Phate's neighbors, a white-haired woman pulling out of her garage, and directed her Ford Explorer down the street, away from the killer's house. Three young boys were ignoring the rain and happily doing acrobatics on noisy skateboards. Two troopers disguised in shorts and Izod shirts casually walked up to them and ushered them out of sight.

The pleasant suburban street was clear.

"Looks good," Johnson said, then ran in a crouch toward the house.

"It all comes down to this..." Bishop muttered.

Linda Sanchez overheard him and said, "Ain't that the truth, boss." Then she gave a thumbs-up to Tony Mott, who was kneeling, along with a half-dozen tactical troopers, behind a hedge bordering Phate's property. He nodded at her and turned back to Phate's house. She said in a soft voice, "That boy better not hurt himself."

Bob Shelton returned and dropped heavily into the seat of the Crown Victoria.

Gillette didn't hear any commands given but all at once the SWAT troopers emerged from their hiding places and raced toward the house.

Suddenly there were three loud bangs. Gillette jumped.

Bishop explained, "Special shotgun sh.e.l.ls. They're shooting the locks out of the doors."

Gillette, his palms sweating, found himself holding his breath, waiting for gunshots, explosions, screaming, sirens...

Bishop remained motionless, keen eyes on the house. If he was tense he didn't show it.

"Come on, come on," Linda Sanchez muttered. "What's happening?"

Long, long moments of silence, except for the hollow tapping of the rain on the car's roof.

When the car's radio cackled to life the sound was so abrupt that everyone jumped.

"Alpha team leader to Bishop. You there?"

Bishop grabbed the microphone. "Go ahead, Alonso."

"Frank," the voice reported. "He's not here."

"What?" the detective asked in dismay.

"We're scouring the place now but it looks like he's gone. Just like at the motel."

"f.u.c.king h.e.l.l," Shelton snapped.

Johnson continued. "I'm in the dining room - it's his office. There's a can of Mountain Dew that's still cold. And the body-heat detector shows he was in the chair in front of the computer as of five to ten minutes ago."

In a desperate voice Bishop said, "He's in there, Al. He's got to be. He's got a hidey-hole somewhere. Check in the closets. Check under the bed."

"Frank, the infrareds aren't picking up anything except his ghost in the chair."

"But he can't've gotten outside," Sanchez said.

"We'll keep at it."

Bishop's body sagged against the door as despair eased into his hawklike face.

Ten minutes later the tactical commander came back on the radio.

"The whole house is secure, Frank," Johnson said. "He's not here. If you want to run the scene, you can."

CHAPTER 00100101 / THIRTY-SEVEN.

Inside, the house was immaculate. Completely different from what Gillette had expected. Most hacker lairs were filthy, impacted with computer parts, wires, books, tech manuals, tools, floppy disks, encrusted food containers, dirty gla.s.ses, books and just plain junk.

The living room of Phate's house looked as if Martha Stewart had just finished decorating. The CCU team looked around them. Gillette wondered at first if they had the wrong house but then he noticed the framed pictures and saw Holloway's face in many of them.

"Look," Linda Sanchez said, pointing at one framed snapshot. "That woman must be Shawn." Then she glanced at another. "And they've got kids?"

Shelton said, "We can send the pictures to the feds and--"

But Bishop shook his head.

"What's the matter?" Alonso Johnson asked.

"They're fake, aren't they?" Bishop glanced at Gillette with a raised eyebrow.

The hacker picked up one frame and slipped a picture out. They weren't on photo lab glossy paper but had been printed out on a color computer printer. "He downloaded 'em from the Net or scanned them from a magazine and added his face."

On the mantel, next to a picture of the happy couple sitting in beach chairs beside a pool, was an old-fashioned grandmother clock, showing the hour as 2:15. The loud ticking was a reminder that Phate's next victim, or victims, at the university might die at any minute.

Gillette looked over the room, which smacked of affluent suburban living.

Troubadour... The dream house that you and your family will enjoy for years to come...

Huerto Ramirez and Tim Morgan had canva.s.sed the neighbors but n.o.body offered anything that suggested any leads to other locations he might have a connection to. Ramirez said, "According to the neighbor across the street, he was going by the name Warren Gregg and telling people that his family'd be moving out here to join him after his kids were out of school."

Bishop said to Alonso, "We know his next target's probably a student at Northern California University but we don't know who exactly. Make sure your people look for anything that might give us a clue about who he's going to hit."

Johnson shook his head and said, "But now we busted his hidey-hole don't you think he'll go to ground and forget about other victims for the time being?"

Bishop looked at Gillette and said, "That's not my take on him."

The hacker agreed. "Phate wants a win here. One way or another he's going to kill somebody today."

"I'll give them the word," the SWAT cop said and went off to do so.

The team examined the other rooms but found them virtually empty, hidden from the outside by drawn blinds. The bathroom contained minimal products - generic-brand razors and shaving cream, shampoo and soap. They also found a large box of pumice stones.

Bishop picked one up, frowning with curiosity.

"His fingers," Gillette reminded. "He uses the stones to sand down the callus so he can key better."

They walked into the dining room, where Phate's laptop was set up.

Gillette glanced at the screen, shook his head in disgust. "Look."

Bishop and Shelton read the words: INSTANT MESSAGE FROM: SHAWN CODE 10-87 ISSUED FOR 34004 ALTA VISTA DRIVE "That's the tactical a.s.sault code - a ten eighty-seven. If he hadn't gotten that message we would've collared him," Bishop said. "We were that close."

"f.u.c.king Shawn," Shelton snapped.

A trooper called from the bas.e.m.e.nt. "I've got the escape route. It's down here."

Gillette went downstairs with the others. But on the last step he paused, recognizing the scene from the picture of Lara Gibson. The clumsy tiling job, the unpainted Sheetrock. And the swirls of blood on the floor. The sight was wrenching.

He joined Alonso Johnson, Frank Bishop and the other troopers who were examining a small door in the side wall. It opened into a three-foot-wide pipe, like a large storm drain. One of the troopers shone his flashlight into the pipe. "It leads to the house next door."

Gillette and Bishop stared at each other. The detective said, "No! The woman with the white hair - in the Explorer! The one who pulled out of the garage. It was him."

Johnson grabbed his radio and ordered troopers into the house. He then sent out an emergency vehicle locator for the four-by-four.

A moment later a trooper called in. "The house next door is completely empty. No furniture. Nothing."

"He owned both houses."

"G.o.d d.a.m.n social engineering," Bishop snapped, uttering the first-cuss word Gillette had heard leave the detective's mouth.

In five minutes the report came back that the Explorer had been found in a shopping center parking lot not a quarter of a mile away. A white wig and dress were in the backseat. n.o.body canva.s.sed at the shopping center had seen anyone swap the Ford for another vehicle.

The state police crime scene unit went through both houses thoroughly but found very little that was helpful. It turned out that Phate - as Warren Gregg - had actually bought both of these houses, using cash. They called the Realtor who'd sold them to him. She hadn't thought it strange that he'd paid cash for two houses; in the Valley of the Heart's Delight wealthy young computer executives often bought one house to live in and one for investment. She added, though, that there appeared to be one odd thing about this particular transaction: when she'd looked up the credit reports and application a few moments ago at the police's request all the records of sale were gone. "Isn't that curious? They were accidentally erased."

"Yeah, curious," Bishop said wryly.

"Yeah, accidentally," Gillette added.

Bishop then said to the hacker, "Let's get his machine back to CCU. If we're lucky there might be some reference to his victim at the college. Let's move on this fast."

Johnson and Bishop released the scene, then Linda Sanchez filled out the chain of custody cards and she bundled up Phate's computer and disks.

The team returned to their cars and sped back to CCU headquarters.

Gillette broke the news to Patricia Nolan that the arrest had been unsuccessful.

"Shawn tipped him off again?" she asked angrily.

Sanchez handed Phate's laptap to Gillette and Nolan and then took a phone call.