accounted for. There were some deliveries, but all were expected and have been checked.” She sounded frustrated. “I’ve ordered blowups of the sat photos. I want to look at them myself. Maybe all of that cutting-edge technology missed something.”
“Good idea. Are there any new developments?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. You were right about Palmer Westwood. Once we really focused on him, we discovered he had a secret hideaway in the Great Dismal Swamp. The problem was, by the time my people got there, Tice and Westwood were long gone.”
“They’re together now?” She felt her heart rate accelerate. “What happened!”
“Witnesses reported that Westwood was flying Tice away in his pontoon plane when some strangers came out of the swamp and fired volleys at them. It sounded bad. The plane took a lot of hits, and maybe Westwood and Tice did, too. No way to be sure. We’re searching everywhere for the plane. I’ve notified the Coast Guard on down. There was no sign of the shooters by the time we got there.”
“Who are the witnesses?”
“Neighbors along the river. Our people interviewed them, and their stories matched well enough that we have to believe it’s true. Some of them know Westwood, and the descriptions of the other man match Tice. Plus, we identified Tice’s prints in the house’s cellar and on a motorcycle left in the driveway.”
“So, someone else is looking for him, and it sure doesn’t sound as if they’re going for a live capture.” She paused, mulling rapidly. “How could they have found out he escaped?”
Hannah sounded angry. “I wish I knew. No matter how well we buttoned down on this, there’s the prison grapevine, and word could’ve leaked out. We’re staying on top of it, believe me.” She paused. “That was a hell of a good idea to check into Westwood. You have anything else to suggest?”
“I need to think about what I’ve learned first.”
“Okay. Will you drive straight here from Andrews?”
“One stop.” She described the missing section of the
Herald Tribune
. “I thought about checking the newspaper’s Web site, but the same stories and articles don’t necessarily appear in both the online and print versions. Besides, the smart thing is to look at what Tice himself saw.”
“Where will you find the paper?”
“A bookstore-café on Fourteenth Street—the Reading Room. It holds on to old newspapers and magazines as a service to regulars.”
“Be careful, Elaine. The killers chasing Tice have added a complication we don’t need. If you close in on him, they could be there, too. And if they think you’re in their way, you could find yourself at a lethal ground zero.”
She had already thought of that. Still, she was suddenly uneasy. “Thanks. I appreciate the warning.”
As the turbojet’s engines thrummed, they said good-bye, and she turned on her computer. There was an e-mail from Mark Silliphant:
I’ve finished. ForeTell has found, sorted, cross-checked, and analyzed. But the results are in too big a file to send in one attachment. I can e-mail it in small batches, or you can have it all in one piece on a CD when you get back to Whippet.
She replied:
Thanks. I still have a lot of other work to do. Put it on a CD. I found a photo of Tice from the mid ’80s in which he’s wearing a gold triangle-shaped pendant hanging from a neck chain. I’m interested in the pendant. Send a new query through all of your data. Maybe you can locate it.
As she waited for his response, she wrote a reminder to herself to visit Tice’s storage locker. Then she loaded the JAY TICE CD and discovered it contained video clips of speeches at Langley beginning in 1994. She muted the audio so she could concentrate on his physical traits first. She inspected the oval face and refined features of a decade ago, the creases, the cheekbones, the chin—and watched him age. But even in the most recent talks, he rolled off the pads of his feet like
“Good idea. Are there any new developments?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. You were right about Palmer Westwood. Once we really focused on him, we discovered he had a secret hideaway in the Great Dismal Swamp. The problem was, by the time my people got there, Tice and Westwood were long gone.”
“They’re together now?” She felt her heart rate accelerate. “What happened!”
“Witnesses reported that Westwood was flying Tice away in his pontoon plane when some strangers came out of the swamp and fired volleys at them. It sounded bad. The plane took a lot of hits, and maybe Westwood and Tice did, too. No way to be sure. We’re searching everywhere for the plane. I’ve notified the Coast Guard on down. There was no sign of the shooters by the time we got there.”
“Who are the witnesses?”
“Neighbors along the river. Our people interviewed them, and their stories matched well enough that we have to believe it’s true. Some of them know Westwood, and the descriptions of the other man match Tice. Plus, we identified Tice’s prints in the house’s cellar and on a motorcycle left in the driveway.”
“So, someone else is looking for him, and it sure doesn’t sound as if they’re going for a live capture.” She paused, mulling rapidly. “How could they have found out he escaped?”
Hannah sounded angry. “I wish I knew. No matter how well we buttoned down on this, there’s the prison grapevine, and word could’ve leaked out. We’re staying on top of it, believe me.” She paused. “That was a hell of a good idea to check into Westwood. You have anything else to suggest?”
“I need to think about what I’ve learned first.”
“Okay. Will you drive straight here from Andrews?”
“One stop.” She described the missing section of the
Herald Tribune
. “I thought about checking the newspaper’s Web site, but the same stories and articles don’t necessarily appear in both the online and print versions. Besides, the smart thing is to look at what Tice himself saw.”
“Where will you find the paper?”
“A bookstore-café on Fourteenth Street—the Reading Room. It holds on to old newspapers and magazines as a service to regulars.”
“Be careful, Elaine. The killers chasing Tice have added a complication we don’t need. If you close in on him, they could be there, too. And if they think you’re in their way, you could find yourself at a lethal ground zero.”
She had already thought of that. Still, she was suddenly uneasy. “Thanks. I appreciate the warning.”
As the turbojet’s engines thrummed, they said good-bye, and she turned on her computer. There was an e-mail from Mark Silliphant:
I’ve finished. ForeTell has found, sorted, cross-checked, and analyzed. But the results are in too big a file to send in one attachment. I can e-mail it in small batches, or you can have it all in one piece on a CD when you get back to Whippet.
She replied:
Thanks. I still have a lot of other work to do. Put it on a CD. I found a photo of Tice from the mid ’80s in which he’s wearing a gold triangle-shaped pendant hanging from a neck chain. I’m interested in the pendant. Send a new query through all of your data. Maybe you can locate it.
As she waited for his response, she wrote a reminder to herself to visit Tice’s storage locker. Then she loaded the JAY TICE CD and discovered it contained video clips of speeches at Langley beginning in 1994. She muted the audio so she could concentrate on his physical traits first. She inspected the oval face and refined features of a decade ago, the creases, the cheekbones, the chin—and watched him age. But even in the most recent talks, he rolled off the pads of his feet like
Similar Books
