18th Abduction (Women's Murder Club) by James Patterson Page A

Steinmetz had joined the FBI to head up an antiterrorism division for a dozen years at Quantico, where Joe had met him. Then he’d led the San Francisco branch for the last five years.
    Steinmetz was unlikely to cut Joe a break for old times’ sake, and Joe had prepared himself for the possibility that he could get jammed up for conducting an unauthorized surveillance, which he’d done. Without an open case or a preliminary inquiry, he’d probably get time on the beach without pay.
    Putting that possibility aside, Joe looked across at his supervisor and laid his weak cards on the table, knowing the conversation had to be recorded.
    “A nationalized American, Anna Sotovina, originally from Bosnia, was riding her bike on Fell Street last Wednesday afternoon and sees a war criminal, Slobodan Petrović, coming down the steps of his house and getting into his car. She’s sure it’s him, and she follows him. On her bike. Several blocks later she gets sideswiped by a car. Walks the bike a couple of miles to us.
    “I saw her sitting outside the building. She was banged up, and her bike …” Joe threw up his hands and then continued. “She wanted to make a report, but our security turned her away. She was hysterical, looked like she’d been in a fight or was living rough, and maybe she seemed irrational. Anyway, I asked her name and what was wrong. She told me she’d seen this war criminal from her past life. I drove her home, and while in the car, she told me that she had lived in Djoba and survived Petrović’s massacre.”
    Steinmetz said, “Can you hang on a minute?”
    He stepped outside his office, asked his assistant to postpone his next meeting, then returned to his desk.
    He said, “I know what happened in Djoba. I’m listening.”

CHAPTER 40
    Joe picked up where he’d left off.
    “Anna is sure the man she saw that morning was Petrović. She seemed credible, but I couldn’t know. Was she right? Or having flashbacks because of a man who resembled Petrović? I decided to vet her story and see if we should look into it.”
    Steinmetz looked at his watch, then told Joe to keep going.
    Joe said, “Almost done. Day after running into Sotovina, I met with her near the place where she’d seen this man. He appeared, coming down his front steps. I took his photo, but it was in profile, and his hand and phone obscured much of his face. He looked like the pictures I’ve seen of Petrović, but I couldn’t be sure.
    “I reached out to Nguyen in Virginia to make the shot usable, and then I got a match. The man Sotovina saw is, in fact, Slobodan Petrović, now using the name Antonije Branko.”
    Steinmetz’s eyes widened. Joe guessed he was alarmedthat Joe had gotten Nguyen involved without having a case number. Or maybe he was reacting to the frankly shocking news that Petrović’s ID and fake ID had been confirmed.
    One thing seemed sure. Steinmetz couldn’t be happy that Joe had begun running an operation without clearance.
    The branch supervisor shook his head, ran his hands through his hair, and swiveled his chair right to left and back again, settling in Joe’s direction.
    He said, “I get the feeling there’s more.”
    “Well, yes. Yesterday I followed Petrović into a steak house on California. I ordered lunch. Ten minutes later he comes out of the kitchen, and he’s clearly the boss. It gets worse. He made me from when I took his picture. And he connected me to Sotovina.”
    “Oh, that’s just great,” Steinmetz said. “And after you choked on your steak, what did you do?”
    Joe apologized. He couldn’t remember ever having to do such a thing professionally, but he knew making contact with Petrović had been a serious error in judgment.
    “What I know now is that Petrović was tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity at the ICC and released. Now he’s living high and he opened this restaurant. According to police records, he’s been questioned twice in the last two years for